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Israeli Forces 'Can't Clear Themselves'
The IDF's internal investigation found that no Palestinian civilians were harmed intentionally by IDF soldiers during the 23-day offensive, which killed more than 1300 Palestinians and wounded more than 4000.
A Palestinian approaches a flare on a main street in Gaza City, January 2009. Human Rights Watch has said that the Israeli army's investigation of troop conduct during its war on Gaza appeared to be an attempt to cover up "violations of the laws of war.
"(AFP/File/Mahmud Hams) Defence Minister Ehud Barak hailed the report as further proof of the IDF's moral stature.
"The IDF is not afraid to investigate itself and, in that, prove that its operations are ethical," Mr Barak said.
When civilians were killed by IDF fire, the report found that this resulted from operational mistakes that were "bound to happen during intensive fighting".
But a coalition of Israeli human rights groups, which includes B'Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights, Yesh Din, The Public Committee Against Torture and Rabbis for Human Rights, said the only way to truly investigate alleged war crimes was through an independent inquiry.
"Military investigation results published today refer to tens of innocent Palestinian civilians killed by 'rare mishaps' in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead," they said in a joint statement.
"However, data collected by Israeli human rights organisations shows that many civilians were killed in Gaza not due to 'mishaps' but as a direct result of the military's chosen policy implemented throughout the fighting.
"If the military claims that there were no major deficiencies in its conduct in Gaza, it is not clear why Israel refuses to co-operate with the UN investigation team, which requests an investigation of alleged violations of international law by both Israel and Hamas."
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza also called on Israel to co-operate with the UN investigation team.
The IDF inquiry was conducted by officers not involved in Operation Cast Lead and focused on reports of civilians who been targeted intentionally, and also attacks on civilian infrastructure, UN facilities and the use of white phosphorus.
It said the worst example of mistaken fire was an attack on a family home in Gaza City's Zeitoun district, which killed 21 members of the same family.
According to the IDF, their deaths were the result of an equipment malfunction.
- Posted in
30 Comments so far
Show AllA 23-day offensive, 1300 dead and 4000 wounded.
And Mr. Barak thinks that 230 civilian casualties per day were "bound to happen" merely due to mistakes??? I call BS on this analysis and offer my own: either 1) the IDF are severely incompetent, or 2) the IDF intentionally/arrogantly targeted civilians. The use of white phosphorous munitions leads me to believe the latter.
------------------------------------------------
If you don't ask yourself why, you know nothing.
Barak was supposed to be the dove in the Israeli leadership. I guess a more appropriate way to describe that vile, racist prick is calling him a vulture in doves clothing.
He must be on some serious hallucinatory drugs to call the IDF (Israeli DESTRUCTION Force) a moral army. The word moral and army going together is an oxymoron.
Then why do you all keep demanding your brand of morality? If the IDF did not restrain itself due to their morality, what would the conflict have looked like?
Huh? What the fuck are you babbling about? Too many negative news on your 'moral' army?
Free speech and progressiveness.
It is somewhat awkward for a person who swears and lies to self proclaim himself to be on the high moral ground.
So where was the lie ?
Is that somehow " … you little zionist pig, " is wrong because it refers to a little pig, when he's really a very large one ?
Did I miss something, or were you just lying about there being a lie in that short posting ?
Was it the condescending use of a lower case "z" for Zionist, that was a "lie" ?
deleted.
It would have looked like Gaza got hit by a whole lot of bombs that left the body parts of the innocent everywhere. Oh! But that's what it DID look like!
The Israel apologists have presented some insane arguments, but middle road's (the former Joe Hope, I suspect) remark is so mind-boggling arrogant that one doesn't know where to begin answering it.
This writer is effectviely saying that Israel showed moral restraint because thy didn't kill everyone. In this case Hitler showed moral restraint in a lot of situations too. As did Calley in Mai-Lai.
Come to think of it the above statement can also be interpreted as a threat - although one of the characteristics of imperialist, zionist, cowboy arrogance is that it blinds their ability to even recognize when they are threatening another poeple. Like a man-eating corcodile or a komodo dragon, they are just following their vile, primitive, machine-like, repitlian impulses.
In Other news after an investigation of his own activities and role in the Manson Killings, Charles manson has cleared himself of any and all wrongdoing insisting that all reports and evidence directed against him was little more then rumour and speculation.
In investigating and clearing himself Mr manson Stated "The Fact I investigated myself shows clearly I am the most moral man in the world, and my finding no basis at all for the charges that were laid against me demonstrates clearly an Anti_manson bias"
Mr manson said "I am not afraid to investigate myself. This should be a clear sign as to how ethical I am and how innocent I am of the charges against me. Any harm done by my "family" can be atributed to equipment malfunction"
Aw, I was going to do that, except with Cheney.
And don't forget, DA Bugliosi said that it was more important to look forward than backward... so there will be no vengeful prosecution.
NEWSFLASH: NAZI'S INVESTIGATE HOLOCAUST: FIND THAT 6 MILLION JEWS SLIPPED IN SHOWER AND DIED ACCIDENTALLY
"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
haha, but why would the IDF allow a private investigation?
we all know that all israelis and jews are surrounded by "anti-semites" 24/7
we cant have the goyim demonizing innocent occupation soldiers now can we?
Having nuclear weapons means never needing to say you are sorry.
Breaking news....
Scotland today joined Ireland and South Africa when the Scottish Trade Union Congress, representing every Scottish trade union, voted overwhelmingly to commit to boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. This is the third example of a national trade union federation committing to BDS and is a clear indication that, while Israel can kill Palestinians with impunity and Western support, it has lost the battle for world public opinion. It is now seen to be a state born out of ethnic cleansing and still expanding through the violent dispossession of the Palestinian people.
Speaker after speaker expressed intense anger at Israel’s butchery of 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza over the New Year, as well as the much longer history of Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The vote followed a visit to Israel/Palestine by an STUC Delegation in March which heard from a wide range of trade union and other bodies and returned with a unanimous recommendation that the parent body adopt BDS
That's the way to do it!
(Mr Punch)
By Israeli standards the Nazis did nothing wrong. Any Jews killed by the Wehrmacht were accidental deaths caused by intensive fighting.
But did anyone expect any different from a bunch of self-righteous arrogant pricks like the Israelis?
Imagining " B O U N D " and " to _ H A P P E N ".
Gnarly bristling barbing wire,
wraps around abductee Gazillions
Crustily dazed weary wounded eyes
covered tightly dull pain's blood
En'wraptured yieldless adamant righteousness
smoothers truth to disembowel innocence
Wrapping up looseness final ends
sweeping shard's inconvenience away
Usurping waylaid skewered righteousness
No bounteous promise, life obscured pales
Cruel barbarous fanged ZION, sink callously
crowning throats tightly, Palestine begs to leaden rage
BOUND calumny betwixt calamitous times
Twas 'to HAPPEN' direly a barrow brimming.
Namaste
"Israel says its army took great care to avoid harming civilians in Gaza, preceding some airstrikes with leaflets or phone calls warning civilians to flee - a contention confirmed by Gaza residents."
ATTENTION GAZANS!
You are walled in, starving, unable to cross any checkpoints. The IDF is going to blow your city to hell and you are warned to leave immediately!
(Ignoring this warning absolves us of all responsibility. - The Israeli Government)
If this was done by mistake, well, then the Israeli Army is by far the stupidest in the world!! LOL...
YAAAAAWWWWWWNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
.
The IDF, and its civilian leaders in the State of Israel have as much "moral stature", as Hitler's SS.........
Israel's actions contradict itself regarding the charges of war crimes committed in Gaza. If Israel has cleared itself of all violations of international law during their December attack upon Gaza then they should be more than willing to cooperate with the U.N. Commission headed by Richard Goldstone investigating said crimes. The fact that the Netanyahu government has literally banned all members of the commission from entering Israel only demonstrates that they have much to hide and are guilty as charged. This is no different than if we had allowed Saddam Hussein to investigate his own government.
Israel's steadfast refusal along with their continued occupation of Palestinian land are the acts of a rogue country. If Americans doubt this all they must do is listen to Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's remarks regarding Israel's need to heed the desires of the Obama government concerning the road map and a two state solution. It is time for Israel to be isolated and brought to account for their violations of international law, apartheid policies and commission of war crimes.
Good way to sum it up.
Since when do we have the criminals investigate themselves in order to determine whether they committed crimes or not?!
Furthermore, and the real purpose of this post, carefully consider what the following article says or describes, and while it's rather wholly to-the-point, etcetera, I'll excerpt the part about Israel's [deliberate] attack on the USS Liberty and thereby on the USA in 1967, an attack the Israeli government bogusly denied having known it was then attacking a U.S. ship; a totally bogus denial!
"Piracy Off The Promised Land
Ramming the Dignity with Clear Lethal Intent",
by Dr. David Halpin
Global Research, April 21, 2009
Information Clearing House
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13290
QUOTE:
An independent commission reported on Capitol Hill in October 2003. Alison Weir reported this in Counterpunch but the US media buried it. (11) These key findings are to be noted:-
* That the attack, by a US ally, was a "deliberate attempt to destroy an American ship and kill her entire crew"
* That the ally committed "acts of murder against American servicemen and an act of war against the United States"
* That the attack involved the machine-gunning of stretcher-bearers and life rafts
* That "the White House deliberately prevented the U.S. Navy from coming to the defense of the [ship] never before in American naval history has a rescue mission been cancelled when an American ship was under attack"
* That surviving crewmembers were later threatened with "court-martial, imprisonment or worse" if they talked to anyone about what had happened to them; and were "abandoned by their own government"
* That due to the influence of the ally's "powerful supporters in the United States, the White House deliberately covered up the facts of this attack from the American people"
* That due to continuing pressure by this lobby, this attack remains "the only serious naval incident that has never been thoroughly investigated by Congress"
* That "there has been an official cover-up without precedent in American naval history"
* That "the truth about Israel's attack and subsequent White House cover-up continues to be officially concealed from the American people to the present day and is a national disgrace"
* That "a danger to the national security exists whenever our elected officials are willing to subordinate American interests to those of any foreign nation" and that this policy "endangers the safety of Americans and the security of the United States"
END QUOTE
The Israeli government evidently has NOT improved in terms of telling truth about its (deliberate) crimes.
That the IDF found nothing wrong with their behavior is not at all surprising. That is SOP for militaries the world over. The Haditha episode in Iraq = Exhibit A. But the fact that they prevented the news media from being present during the invasion or from entering afterwards is worse than what the US army has done in Iraq, and speaks volumes about the lack of integrity of the IDF. Those boys have a lot to hide, and their propaganda machine is breaking down.
This site has turned into a swamp of anti-Semitism. Leave Israel alone.
The IDF entered Gaza-Emaciated bleeding skeletons, ghosts, lurched towards them, in the pits and trenches charred bones spoke. Death everywhere, graves, trenches filled with dead babies, bloodstained gutters, dead children in the barbed wire like little scare-crows.
"These animals, they don't bury their dead."
"Open the gates seargent. They cannot, they go by the wire we shoot them too."
The IDF can report accurately NO war crimes were committed.
Leave Israel alone.
The last message is typical of Zionism, carefully discredit and ignore the truth!