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TechnoratiIDF Ends Gaza Probe, Says Misconduct Claims Are 'Rumors'
Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit on Monday instructed the Military Police Investigation unit to close the investigation into soldiers' accounts of alleged misconduct and serious violations of the army's rules of engagement during Operation Cast Lead.
![[Israeli soldiers patrol near the Gaza border, January 2009. The Israeli military closed an investigation into soldiers' accounts of the killing of civilians during the war in Gaza, calling the accounts inaccurate and "based on hearsay." (AFP/File/Dmitry Kostyukov)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/soldiers_shadows.jpg "soldiers_shadows.jpg")
In a press release issued Monday the army said that the preliminary Military Police investigation into the testimonies revealed that they "were based on rumors and not first-hand experience."
However, the Military Advocate General's announcement does not address testimonies published by the Associated Press on Friday that corroborate soldiers' accounts with testimonies given by Palestinians.
The probe was launched earlier this month after IDF soldiers were quoted as telling a military cadet academy that combat troops in Gaza fired at unarmed Palestinian civilians and vandalized property during Operation Cast Lead. The army has barred those soldiers from speaking to the press.
The testimonies include a description by an infantry squad leader of an incident where an IDF sharpshooter mistakenly shot a Palestinian mother and her two children. "There was a house with a family inside .... We put them in a room. Later we left the house and another platoon entered it, and a few days after that there was an order to release the family. They had set up positions upstairs. There was a sniper position on the roof," the soldier said.
Another squad leader from the same brigade told of an incident where the company commander ordered that an elderly Palestinian woman be shot and killed; she was walking on a road about 100 meters from a house the company had commandeered.
34 Comments so far
Show AllThese people have no conscience??? Israel is going to need a huge rug under which to sweep all these lies. Why does the world keep looking the other way? Why does it keep quiet? This is guilt by association. Israel is turning into the Nazis of the Middle East and it is time that we recognize this and openly talk about it. And if Israel doesn't like this then it should behave like decent human beings. Can't stand the heat? Get out of the kitchen.
Gaza was nothing. Here comes Mr Slaughter himself, Bibby Netanyahooooooo, the most Old Testa-mental of all the murderers in the history of this ill-fated experiment in sanctmonious US financed apartheid.
Why do they hate us?
http://theaterjblogs.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/first-footage-of-sandra-live-on-stage-at-theater-j/
The investigation is over and the world will do nothing. I posted similar when the attack began in December. Israel has a free hand to do what it wants because it is important economically and Palestine is not. Every word I wrote then came true. The world will consistantly ignore Israel because we all have a hand in their success and they in ours.
Where is Elie Weisel to tell the IDF "never again" ?
So Israel investigated itself and found itself innocent of the crimes it's committed. Again. But that's okay. Everything's gonna get better now that Netanyahu and Avigdor Liebermann are stepping into power. Yup. Everything will be just fine, at least for the funeral business in Gaza and the West Bank.
Is this any way to talk about God's chosen people? After all, the IDF is just trying to secure possession of real estate that was promised by God.
I hope that's sarcasm.
Perhaps we should give Israel all the real estate they and their "christian" allies say they are entitled to; for 90 days. If Jesus/another messiah returns in that time frame, then let's allow biblical prophesy to run its course.
However, if Jesus doesn't make an appearance, then Israel must withdraw to its 1967 borders and the Jewish tribe must acknowledge that its claim to God-given land was BS.
Framing the Murder of 1400 POW's down to a discussion of possible "Misconduct," is as hard a spin as it gets.
The LA Times said today, "New Evidence Reveals NO Misconduct At Dachau!"
If one is true the other is by logic. POV I guess.
How easy was that? Could there have been any other outcome?
These racist slugs are killing real people and doing it on my dime! I want them to stop, please just quit, murder is a sin.......killing is a crime just don't do
it End it immediately, cease & desist.
This just in from Joe Hopeless:
This is unfair to foxes, chickens, and Jews.
What sickens me is the very same behavior that justified the extermination of the Jews in WWII is being carried out by the Israeli government with the tacit approval of the U.S. and other governments. The Israeli Defense Force believes that Palestinians are less than human, hence their atrocities are deserved. I am outraged that his is condoned in my name as a citizen of the U.S. The delusions we Americans
suffer from, will be our undoing. The end of American meddling in the world is in sight.The chickens will come home to roost with a vengeance.
And its good to know that America's new Three Stooges, Obama,Biden,Clinton, will agree with the zionazis report.
Hillary's head will bob yes yes yes yes yes while she smiles her cold blank smile.
Joe
(AP) Chicago 1929:
The Capone mob has completed their investigation and found there is no substance to charges of running a criminal empire complete with exterminations of rivals. Spokesman Frank Nitti said the investigation into bootlegging, loan sharking, prostitution, gambling and mass murder produced no evidence whatsoever to these scurrilous charges. Mr. Nitti also said the Capone Corporation would continue to conduct "business as usual" and put these sordid accusations behind them.
It's always nice to commit war crimes and atrocities for a government that thoroughly investigates them and dismisses them as mere Merry Mixups.
A photo of this report will be found in the dictionary next to the phrase "foregone conclusion".
· Yr Obd't Servant
A new anti-zionist organization has sprung up in France with the idea of getting foreign (zionist)influence out of their government. Are we Americans such pussies that we can't do the same? Our situation is much worse, vis-a-vis zionist agents (like Chuck Schumer)acting as paymaster for the Zionist Organization of America...among others.
Maybe the holocaust was just a "rumour" too? It was mostly based on 2nd hand accounts too.....hmmmm
The Zionazis have all the markings of abused child syndrome....most abused children grow up to be abusers themselves. It's really sad. Time to end the cycle of abuse. Send Israel to counciling.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Stop the presses, the Fox has determined that there are no Hens in the Hen House...or so he said after burping up a feather!
It is quite despicable to claim that the most moral army in the world would lie about incidents against the terrorists in the Gaza...Despicable and ....er unhelpful...not to mention offensive. There!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15xbtK7r-SA&mode=related&search=
They are tolerant and loving, just misunderstood...really.
http://theaterjblogs.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/first-footage-of-sandra-live-on-stage-at-theater-j/
Why do they hate us?
The whole world now knows what the US government and Israeli government are really about throughout the world. This is a stunning victory of sorts for Osama bin Laden's strategy of getting the elephant/ donkey led military industrial complex to stampede stupidly and crazily ahead for all to see how vicious it really is!
Before, the torture and violence were hidden in the shadows. Now most of the world can see, that given half a chance it will clearly kill us ALL alongside those faceless peasants it kills in the boondocks and dark shadows of places like Bagram and Guantanamo, and the thousand and one other hidden Hell Holes that the Pentagon runs clandestinely across the Planet.
We are now ALL potential victims of this US government made monster wrongly called the 'Global War on Terrorism'. Just walk into an airport with a 'disrespectful' attitude and see what we mean. Just go to the border and watch the new show. Just go outside your house and see the New World Order. (in my neighborhood when I walk outside, the local pro Zionist synagogue has the Colorado Springs Police Swat Team running continual and repeated training operations one block from my house, and I get to see periodic displays of closed off streets with men dressed in black, lined up pointing guns in line towards the synagogue's storage house next to its place of worship! A sight to see in this elderly dominated neighborhood I can assure you. Zionism is a Swat Team directed racism!)
Good point. This so-called investigation is a clear illustration of how there will be no justice through legal channels. It is a clear illustration that the truth will be buried in bland lies. It is a clear illustration that insult will be added to injury.
Thanks to the Israeli military panel for providing the clinching arguments to any potential terrorists who may have been teetering on the brink, thinking perhaps that legal and peaceful means could bring justice. Osama bin Laden, whether he exists as a person or a concept, thanks this panel, similar Israeli investigations, American news reporting and government statements for assisting in his recruiting drives.
Joe
You know something, I believe you.
Who invented the DOD Inspector General? The DOD.
So, when Pat Tillman was killed by his own men and then had all his writings destroyed.......Who wrote the wonderful eulogy that was spoken at his funeral? It did not matter that it was a fabricated story to cover up his being killed by his own men.
Let' go back further! Who destroyed the information about Able Danger Group and the relation that group had with Mohammed Atta?
Who withheld or destroyed all the video tapes of the Pentagon attack of 9/11?
Who destroyed all the evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib?
Who destroyed all the video tapes of the torture at Guantanamo?
Who was reporting that female soldiers were committing suicide when the reality was that they were being raped and murdered?
Who cares about the returning soldiers who are committing suicide? Not the DOD, they hire Rand Corporation to write a report.
Who knows what happens to soldiers who kill unarmed civilians? Not the DOD, they give them a discharge and cases are closed.
When an agency investigates itself, you can expect nothing but a "Whitewash" of the agency.......MY Lai was a wonderful example of a "Whitewash"
Israel has the Nuclear Weapons (about 200) and the missles to deliver them....Israel has an air force that is second to the United States and The United States has supplied phosphorous bombs and cluster bombs......Palestine has home made rockets and rifles from World War I and II and maybe some new ones smuggled in through tunnels........
Israel has the U.S. backing for everything it does.....including "The Lies".
Those rotten lyin' sacks of shit!
Peace now!
Reports of a functioning democracy in Israel are just rumours...
Well that was easy. Too easy.
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"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.", Albert Einstein.
Ed note: white phosphorous, dense metal super weapons, nuclear stick-up, missile defense, bailouts and propaganda!!
The Israel army could have made a show of a preliminary investigation for a few more weeks until sufficient time passed for the media to forget about the original Israeli vets' allegations. This is amateur hour the the IDF cover-up. They usually have a pretty sophisticated public relations operation, so I am a little disappointed. Perhaps they had no choice but to stop it early, because continued investigation by the professional investigative apparatus would have turned up the dead bodies.
One has to give credit though, because unlike the Iraq Winter Soldier event in the United States a couple of years ago in which dozens of U.S. vets testified about attrocities and conditions in the Iraq war, at least the Israeli vets' revelations a couple of weeks ago were covered by the Israeli media and the world press. The Israeli gov't even had to make a show of being interested, issuing textbook non-denial denials and launching a preliminary investigation. In the U.S., only community and independent media covered Iraq Winter Soldier meeting, and as far as most Americans and most of the world is concered, Winter Soldier and its revelations never happened.
Josh
"Power coceded nothing without demand. It never has and never will." Frederick Douglass
It's not called the IDF (Israeli Death Force) without reason
This just in:
"Foxes Deny Henhouse Slaughter Took Place, Denounce Reports as 'Anti-Foxism."
Foxes are the Chosen Animal Species. They ought to be allowed to do whatever they want to do in the henhouse.
Ernst Zundle sits in a jail for "holocaust Denial" and 1300 dead Palestinians are just a "rumour".
Says Misconduct Claims Are 'Rumors' ...
The preplanned genocidal slaughter of Palestinean civilians is not a 'rumor' it is a fact!
Is anyone surprised?
With IDF standing orders of "Anything that's mobile, that moves in the [security] zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed." (Harper's Magazine, May 2005, page 19), what could possibly be construed as "misconduct"?
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins - Native American proverb.