23 dec 2010
IDF soldier charged with killing Gaza civilian: I was only following orders
Givati soldier who allegedly shot a woman during Operation Cast Lead says his commander called him 'a cold-blooded murderer.'
The day after ground troops entered the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead two years ago, S., a soldier in the Givati Brigade, allegedly shot a woman carrying a white flag in the upper body. About half an hour later, S. subsequently told the Military Police, the company commander arrived and S. was stunned by his response.
"He told me, in front of everyone, 'You're a cold-blooded murderer, you'll go to hell,'" S. said. "When I tried to tell him, 'But those were your orders,' he told me, 'Shut up. You won't remain in my company.'"
"But that was it. From then on, until the end of the fighting, it was if nothing had happened," S. related.
This incident eventually led to the gravest indictment yet filed concerning actions committed during Cast Lead, and one of the gravest ever filed against any Israeli soldier.
The evidence collected in the case, as well as exclusive interviews with S. and other soldiers indicted over Cast Lead, will be broadcast on television tonight on Ilana Dayan's program "Uvda" ("Fact" ), which airs at 9 P.M. on Channel 2.
Based on evidence collected thus far, it seems the incident raises much larger questions than merely who fired and at what.
S. related that, during Cast Lead, after shouting suddenly erupted nearby, his platoon commander ordered him to the lookout post. He saw seven people approaching - "I don't remember a white flag. And then the shooting began," S. said.
"I fired in the air ... But they continued to approach, so then I began firing at their legs ... so that they'd turn away, not to injure their legs. But they still kept coming. And then I fired at the upper bodies and hit one of them. I saw someone fall," S. continued.
"I aimed at the body with intent to wound, because they were continuing to approach and walking very quickly. After one of them fell, all the rest began to run away ... After that, the shooting stopped.
"The battalion commander arrived and asked 'Who fired?' I said, 'I fired,'" S. recalled. "He asked, 'Why did you fire?' and I answered, 'The company commander's orders were to shoot anyone who approaches the fortifications, because he's a terrorist.' He said, 'Very good' and went away."
The police interrogator, saying that only S. had fired with intent to kill, asked him why.
"I don't know why ... I don't know what the others saw or did," S. replied. "Maybe everyone fired but only I hit."
S. said that he never saw the body. "Afterward they told me it was a woman, though I was sure it was a man."
When asked if he ever considered whether those approaching might be innocent civilians, S. replied, "If they were innocent, they wouldn't have kept coming after the first shot was fired in the air."
Was there an explicit order, the interrogator asked, to treat everyone who approached as a potential terrorist who should be killed? "I recall it being said that 'even if they have a white flag with peace written on it, you shoot,'" S. replied.
But he quickly added: "They spoke to us a lot about the judgment we need to use, they spoke to us about the procedure to use in arresting a suspect. This sentence was said in the heat of things, perhaps to stress to the soldiers that this wasn't a joke. I didn't understand from it that I should shoot everyone. That is, I didn't take it as an order. I think all the soldiers understood that it wasn't an order, that we needed to use our judgment - just as they're always telling us."
Because no one examined the woman's body after the incident, S. was charged with a rare crime: "Killing an unknown person."
Equally bizarre is that, despite the company commander's severe rebuke at the time, a subsequent inquiry was buried at the battalion level and never went any farther - a fact which later led the military advocate general to investigate S.'s superiors as well.
But this burial of the internal inquiry may have been due to the fact that the testimony provided there by S.'s commanders differed from what they later told the Military Police, especially with regard to the rules of engagement soldiers were given prior to the incident.
http://bit.ly/gE5hxG
IDF soldier charged with killing Gaza civilian: I was only following orders
Givati soldier who allegedly shot a woman during Operation Cast Lead says his commander called him 'a cold-blooded murderer.'
The day after ground troops entered the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead two years ago, S., a soldier in the Givati Brigade, allegedly shot a woman carrying a white flag in the upper body. About half an hour later, S. subsequently told the Military Police, the company commander arrived and S. was stunned by his response.
"He told me, in front of everyone, 'You're a cold-blooded murderer, you'll go to hell,'" S. said. "When I tried to tell him, 'But those were your orders,' he told me, 'Shut up. You won't remain in my company.'"
"But that was it. From then on, until the end of the fighting, it was if nothing had happened," S. related.
This incident eventually led to the gravest indictment yet filed concerning actions committed during Cast Lead, and one of the gravest ever filed against any Israeli soldier.
The evidence collected in the case, as well as exclusive interviews with S. and other soldiers indicted over Cast Lead, will be broadcast on television tonight on Ilana Dayan's program "Uvda" ("Fact" ), which airs at 9 P.M. on Channel 2.
Based on evidence collected thus far, it seems the incident raises much larger questions than merely who fired and at what.
S. related that, during Cast Lead, after shouting suddenly erupted nearby, his platoon commander ordered him to the lookout post. He saw seven people approaching - "I don't remember a white flag. And then the shooting began," S. said.
"I fired in the air ... But they continued to approach, so then I began firing at their legs ... so that they'd turn away, not to injure their legs. But they still kept coming. And then I fired at the upper bodies and hit one of them. I saw someone fall," S. continued.
"I aimed at the body with intent to wound, because they were continuing to approach and walking very quickly. After one of them fell, all the rest began to run away ... After that, the shooting stopped.
"The battalion commander arrived and asked 'Who fired?' I said, 'I fired,'" S. recalled. "He asked, 'Why did you fire?' and I answered, 'The company commander's orders were to shoot anyone who approaches the fortifications, because he's a terrorist.' He said, 'Very good' and went away."
The police interrogator, saying that only S. had fired with intent to kill, asked him why.
"I don't know why ... I don't know what the others saw or did," S. replied. "Maybe everyone fired but only I hit."
S. said that he never saw the body. "Afterward they told me it was a woman, though I was sure it was a man."
When asked if he ever considered whether those approaching might be innocent civilians, S. replied, "If they were innocent, they wouldn't have kept coming after the first shot was fired in the air."
Was there an explicit order, the interrogator asked, to treat everyone who approached as a potential terrorist who should be killed? "I recall it being said that 'even if they have a white flag with peace written on it, you shoot,'" S. replied.
But he quickly added: "They spoke to us a lot about the judgment we need to use, they spoke to us about the procedure to use in arresting a suspect. This sentence was said in the heat of things, perhaps to stress to the soldiers that this wasn't a joke. I didn't understand from it that I should shoot everyone. That is, I didn't take it as an order. I think all the soldiers understood that it wasn't an order, that we needed to use our judgment - just as they're always telling us."
Because no one examined the woman's body after the incident, S. was charged with a rare crime: "Killing an unknown person."
Equally bizarre is that, despite the company commander's severe rebuke at the time, a subsequent inquiry was buried at the battalion level and never went any farther - a fact which later led the military advocate general to investigate S.'s superiors as well.
But this burial of the internal inquiry may have been due to the fact that the testimony provided there by S.'s commanders differed from what they later told the Military Police, especially with regard to the rules of engagement soldiers were given prior to the incident.
http://bit.ly/gE5hxG
15 dec 2010
Sneak Peak: The editors note from The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict
The following is an adapted excerpt of the Editors' Note from The Goldstone Report: http://bit.ly/h46vwp The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict. The book will be available on January 11, and you can pre-order it here.
Reports come and go. This is one of the tragic truths of the literature of human rights violations. Hard-working researchers scour the rubble of war zones for fragments of evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, other violations of life and freedom only to watch their findings sink into the oblivion of forgotten documents.
The Goldstone Report, whose official title is the Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, has thus far managed to defy this fate. Since its publication in September 2009, it has spawned debates, rebuttals, defenses, editorials, resolutions, and protests, both for and against. Few reports have experienced such a thunderous reception. But as time passes, it too is at risk of disappearing. It is our hope that this book will help keep the report alive and its findings relevant.
To this end, we have created a book that seeks to showcase the report by reprinting its central findings followed by eleven essays that capture its ongoing impact. We do not reprint the entire report. That would run over five hundred pages. Instead, we have abridged the report to about half its original length to focus on the story the Mission tells of the Gaza war: the historical context of the blockade and rocket attacks, the rupture of the 2008 ceasefire, and the main events of the December 2008 January 2009 conflict, beginning with Israel's overwhelming air strikes and ending with the destruction of industry.
In more than a dozen places in the report, we have added to it by inserting oral testimonies that the Mission collected while conducting its investigation. Motivated by his experience of the effectiveness of the South African truth and reconciliation process, Justice Richard Goldstone arranged for public hearings in Gaza and Geneva so that victims on both sides might force the other side to reckon with the human toll. We have included excerpts from the testimonies at relevant points, marking them with the title Testimony, along with the speaker's name. The first one, by ninety-one-year-old Moussa al-Silawi, follows this editors note and serves as the introduction to the report.
We completed this book in July 2010, as the charges of the Goldstone Report continued to reverberate throughout Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and the broader international community. At the time, both Israel and Hamas were preparing to submit reports to the United Nations on their actions during Operation Cast Lead, and Israel had just announced indictments of four military personnel for their conduct during the war. Though these indictments did not approach the response the Goldstone Report called for, they were widely seen as vindication of some of the report's most troubling findings, as well as confirmation of its ongoing influence. This influence now extends well beyond the report's publication, and we have tried to capture that quality with the essays in Part II of this book, almost all of which are original.
In The Right to Live in Dignity, Raji Sourani, the head of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, describes the experience of the Gaza war from the standpoint of Gazans themselves and demonstrates the importance of international law as a means of preventing repetition of the carnage.
In International Law and the Goldstone Report, Jules Lobel, a professor of international law, summarizes the legal principles invoked by the Goldstone Report and places them in the framework of post World War II efforts to build global law enforcement mechanisms.
Lobel's interpretation is followed by The Goldstone Illusion, by Israeli philosopher Moshe Halbertal, who describes the report as a terrible document that is based chiefly on Palestinian testimonies and leaves a society with no ability to fight terrorist threats. Halbertal's piece first appeared in the New Republic in November 2009 and is widely considered to be the most thoughtful criticism of the report.
In The Attacks on the Goldstone Report, longtime scholar of Israeli history Jerome Slater takes on the leading criticisms of the report in both Israel and the United States (including Halbertal's). In particular, Slater shows how the recent effort to characterize traditional guerrilla warfare as asymmetrical war, in which a state's army is at a supposed disadvantage, would justify attacks on civilians.
In The U.S. Congress and the Goldstone Report, Brian Baird, a six-term Democratic congressman from Washington State who has visited Gaza more times since the conflict than any other American politician, supports the accuracy of the report and describes its political reception in Washington.
In Palestinian Dispossession and the U.S. Public Sphere, Rashid Khalidi, a professor at Columbia University, describes the rapidly shifting discourse in the United States about the conflict as well as the ways in which Palestinian concerns are at last getting attention.
Henry Siegman, past president of the American Jewish Congress and veteran Middle East expert, explores the controversy over the Goldstone report in Discrediting Goldstone, Delegitimizing Israel and discovers that it reveals more about Israel than about Goldstone.
In Gaza, Goldstone, and the Movement for Israeli Accountability, Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah discusses how Israeli militarism is eroding the country's liberal support in the West, leading to a crisis of legitimacy that some Israelis view as an existential threat, while many Palestinians and others feel it offers hope for a better future.
In Israel's Siege Mentality, Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf tells the story of the often-angry response to the report in Israeli society, and explains what this response has revealed about the country's international image and its siege mentality.
Journalist and peace activist Letty Cottin Pogrebin traces the organized Jewish community's response to the report in The Unholy Assault on Richard Goldstone and finds that, in their rush to condemn, Jewish leaders have violated some of Judaism's most deeply held principles.
And in Messages from Gaza, Laila el-Haddad offers a wrenching account of her family's experience of the Gaza war, and the mix of hope and skepticism with which they greeted the Goldstone Report.
Each of these contributors along with Naomi Klein and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who, respectively, wrote the Introduction and Foreword to this book labored under tight deadlines and with little remuneration to bring new understanding to this tangled subject. Their insights impart nuance to a document that has been too often misunderstood, depth to a conversation that has veered too often toward frenzy. Their dedication inspired us, and the elegance of their essays never ceased to thrill us. We thank them all.
http://bit.ly/flCjMc
Amnesty International challenges British draft law protecting war criminals
Amnesty International is challenging amendments the British government has proposed that shield war criminals who step foot in London. The measures the UK suggested are to limit the courts from issuing arrest warrants against war criminals visiting the country.
The House of Commons began Monday discussing proposed measures in a draft law on social responsibility and police reform that make arrest warrants require for the first time approval by the Director of Public Prosecutions in the UK before they are issued.
The principle of universal jurisdiction allows prosecution of those accused of highly dangerous crimes, such as torture, before UK courts even if the offenses occurred outside of the state or by citizens of other countries.
The British government announced that the system of issuing arrest warrants for charges of war crimes was subjected to abuse by political groups citing on their behalf insubstantial evidence. But they did not offer any examples of the courts issuing warrants under such circumstances.
Amnesty International's UK branch director Kate Allen said: British MPs should stand by the victims of war and torture and guarantee to drop these dangerous measures from the new draft law for police reform.
What kind of reform makes people suspected of the worst crimes able to flee from justice? she added.
Adopting the measures would send the wrong signal making the UK appear to be tolerant of crimes related to war and torture, Allen went on to explain.
England's step was kicked off after Israel became outraged over several attempts to issue arrest warrants against Israeli war criminals and UK leaders vowed to amend laws in their favor.
http://bit.ly/hLIlok
Sneak Peak: The editors note from The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict
The following is an adapted excerpt of the Editors' Note from The Goldstone Report: http://bit.ly/h46vwp The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict. The book will be available on January 11, and you can pre-order it here.
Reports come and go. This is one of the tragic truths of the literature of human rights violations. Hard-working researchers scour the rubble of war zones for fragments of evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, other violations of life and freedom only to watch their findings sink into the oblivion of forgotten documents.
The Goldstone Report, whose official title is the Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, has thus far managed to defy this fate. Since its publication in September 2009, it has spawned debates, rebuttals, defenses, editorials, resolutions, and protests, both for and against. Few reports have experienced such a thunderous reception. But as time passes, it too is at risk of disappearing. It is our hope that this book will help keep the report alive and its findings relevant.
To this end, we have created a book that seeks to showcase the report by reprinting its central findings followed by eleven essays that capture its ongoing impact. We do not reprint the entire report. That would run over five hundred pages. Instead, we have abridged the report to about half its original length to focus on the story the Mission tells of the Gaza war: the historical context of the blockade and rocket attacks, the rupture of the 2008 ceasefire, and the main events of the December 2008 January 2009 conflict, beginning with Israel's overwhelming air strikes and ending with the destruction of industry.
In more than a dozen places in the report, we have added to it by inserting oral testimonies that the Mission collected while conducting its investigation. Motivated by his experience of the effectiveness of the South African truth and reconciliation process, Justice Richard Goldstone arranged for public hearings in Gaza and Geneva so that victims on both sides might force the other side to reckon with the human toll. We have included excerpts from the testimonies at relevant points, marking them with the title Testimony, along with the speaker's name. The first one, by ninety-one-year-old Moussa al-Silawi, follows this editors note and serves as the introduction to the report.
We completed this book in July 2010, as the charges of the Goldstone Report continued to reverberate throughout Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and the broader international community. At the time, both Israel and Hamas were preparing to submit reports to the United Nations on their actions during Operation Cast Lead, and Israel had just announced indictments of four military personnel for their conduct during the war. Though these indictments did not approach the response the Goldstone Report called for, they were widely seen as vindication of some of the report's most troubling findings, as well as confirmation of its ongoing influence. This influence now extends well beyond the report's publication, and we have tried to capture that quality with the essays in Part II of this book, almost all of which are original.
In The Right to Live in Dignity, Raji Sourani, the head of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, describes the experience of the Gaza war from the standpoint of Gazans themselves and demonstrates the importance of international law as a means of preventing repetition of the carnage.
In International Law and the Goldstone Report, Jules Lobel, a professor of international law, summarizes the legal principles invoked by the Goldstone Report and places them in the framework of post World War II efforts to build global law enforcement mechanisms.
Lobel's interpretation is followed by The Goldstone Illusion, by Israeli philosopher Moshe Halbertal, who describes the report as a terrible document that is based chiefly on Palestinian testimonies and leaves a society with no ability to fight terrorist threats. Halbertal's piece first appeared in the New Republic in November 2009 and is widely considered to be the most thoughtful criticism of the report.
In The Attacks on the Goldstone Report, longtime scholar of Israeli history Jerome Slater takes on the leading criticisms of the report in both Israel and the United States (including Halbertal's). In particular, Slater shows how the recent effort to characterize traditional guerrilla warfare as asymmetrical war, in which a state's army is at a supposed disadvantage, would justify attacks on civilians.
In The U.S. Congress and the Goldstone Report, Brian Baird, a six-term Democratic congressman from Washington State who has visited Gaza more times since the conflict than any other American politician, supports the accuracy of the report and describes its political reception in Washington.
In Palestinian Dispossession and the U.S. Public Sphere, Rashid Khalidi, a professor at Columbia University, describes the rapidly shifting discourse in the United States about the conflict as well as the ways in which Palestinian concerns are at last getting attention.
Henry Siegman, past president of the American Jewish Congress and veteran Middle East expert, explores the controversy over the Goldstone report in Discrediting Goldstone, Delegitimizing Israel and discovers that it reveals more about Israel than about Goldstone.
In Gaza, Goldstone, and the Movement for Israeli Accountability, Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah discusses how Israeli militarism is eroding the country's liberal support in the West, leading to a crisis of legitimacy that some Israelis view as an existential threat, while many Palestinians and others feel it offers hope for a better future.
In Israel's Siege Mentality, Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf tells the story of the often-angry response to the report in Israeli society, and explains what this response has revealed about the country's international image and its siege mentality.
Journalist and peace activist Letty Cottin Pogrebin traces the organized Jewish community's response to the report in The Unholy Assault on Richard Goldstone and finds that, in their rush to condemn, Jewish leaders have violated some of Judaism's most deeply held principles.
And in Messages from Gaza, Laila el-Haddad offers a wrenching account of her family's experience of the Gaza war, and the mix of hope and skepticism with which they greeted the Goldstone Report.
Each of these contributors along with Naomi Klein and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who, respectively, wrote the Introduction and Foreword to this book labored under tight deadlines and with little remuneration to bring new understanding to this tangled subject. Their insights impart nuance to a document that has been too often misunderstood, depth to a conversation that has veered too often toward frenzy. Their dedication inspired us, and the elegance of their essays never ceased to thrill us. We thank them all.
http://bit.ly/flCjMc
Amnesty International challenges British draft law protecting war criminals
Amnesty International is challenging amendments the British government has proposed that shield war criminals who step foot in London. The measures the UK suggested are to limit the courts from issuing arrest warrants against war criminals visiting the country.
The House of Commons began Monday discussing proposed measures in a draft law on social responsibility and police reform that make arrest warrants require for the first time approval by the Director of Public Prosecutions in the UK before they are issued.
The principle of universal jurisdiction allows prosecution of those accused of highly dangerous crimes, such as torture, before UK courts even if the offenses occurred outside of the state or by citizens of other countries.
The British government announced that the system of issuing arrest warrants for charges of war crimes was subjected to abuse by political groups citing on their behalf insubstantial evidence. But they did not offer any examples of the courts issuing warrants under such circumstances.
Amnesty International's UK branch director Kate Allen said: British MPs should stand by the victims of war and torture and guarantee to drop these dangerous measures from the new draft law for police reform.
What kind of reform makes people suspected of the worst crimes able to flee from justice? she added.
Adopting the measures would send the wrong signal making the UK appear to be tolerant of crimes related to war and torture, Allen went on to explain.
England's step was kicked off after Israel became outraged over several attempts to issue arrest warrants against Israeli war criminals and UK leaders vowed to amend laws in their favor.
http://bit.ly/hLIlok
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3 dec 2010
WikiLeaks and Gaza Links
It seems to us that the country which is not mentioned much, especially in the Middle East, or which this development seems to favor is Israel. This is how we see it in a way when we look in the context of who is benefiting and who is being harmed.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, champion for freedom of speech, may be facing investigation in the US as to whether he violated espionage laws is hiding out after being charged by the international public prosecution office with "sex by surprise" for violating an obscure Swedish law against having sex without a condom.
Assange's surreal saga cannot not obscure the thousands of United States diplomatic cables already released that have leveled insults against statesmen and politicians, but Turkey's Interior Minister Besir Atalay nailed it when he said, It seems to us that the country which is not mentioned much, especially in the Middle East, or which this development seems to favor is Israel. This is how we see it in a way when we look in the context of who is benefiting and who is being harmed.[1]
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also expressed doubt about the documents, obtained and published WikiLeaks, saying the US administration "released" the material intentionally.
In reply to a Press TV correspondent President Ahmadinejad said, "The material was not leaked, but rather released in an organized way. The countries in the region are like friends and brothers, and these malicious acts will not affect their relations.[Ibid]
All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed [Izzy Stone] and all WikiLeak's has so far exposed is that this Administration is no different than previous who talked about the equality of all people but in practice failed at what George Washington warned US in his Farewell Address:
Israel's 'Operation Cast Lead'
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils."
Among the US documents released by WikiLeaks, Israel discussed its planned war on Gaza with the Palestinian leadership and Egypt ahead of time. Israel also offered to hand control of the Gaza strip to them.
A Little History:
Israel's illegal chemical white phosphorous burning Gaza's homes
Israel launched its massive offensive, dubbed "Operation Cast Lead," on December 27, 2008 with the stated aim of halting rocket attacks from Gaza.
Over 5,000 Palestinians were injured, 400,000 were left without running water, 4,000 homes were destroyed, rendering tens of thousands who are still homeless because of Israel's targeted attacks upon them, their schools, hospitals, streets, water wells, sewage system, farms, police stations and UN buildings.
The 22 days of Israel's attack on the people of Gaza was enabled by US-supplied weapons and we the people of the US who pay taxes provide over $3 billion annually to Israel although Israel has consistently misused U.S. weapons in violation of America's Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts.
America is the worlds largest arms supplier to Israel and under a Bush negotiated deal with Israel, we the people who pay taxes in America will also provide another $30 billion in military aid to Israel over the next decade.
During the 22 days of Israeli assault on Gaza, "Washington provided F-16 fighter planes, Apache helicopters, tactical missiles, and a wide array of munitions, including white phosphorus and DIME. The weapons required for the Israeli assault was decided upon in June 2008, and the transfer of 1,000 bunker-buster GPS-guided Small Diameter Guided Bomb Units 39 (GBU-39) were approved by Congress in September. The GBU 39 bombs were delivered to Israel in November (prior to any claims of Hamas cease fire violation!) for use in the initial air raids on Gaza. [2]
In a 71-page report released March 25, 2009, by Human Rights Watch, Israel's repeated firing of US-made white phosphorus shells over densely populated areas of Gaza was indiscriminate and is evidence of war crimes.
WikiLeaks and Gaza Links
It seems to us that the country which is not mentioned much, especially in the Middle East, or which this development seems to favor is Israel. This is how we see it in a way when we look in the context of who is benefiting and who is being harmed.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, champion for freedom of speech, may be facing investigation in the US as to whether he violated espionage laws is hiding out after being charged by the international public prosecution office with "sex by surprise" for violating an obscure Swedish law against having sex without a condom.
Assange's surreal saga cannot not obscure the thousands of United States diplomatic cables already released that have leveled insults against statesmen and politicians, but Turkey's Interior Minister Besir Atalay nailed it when he said, It seems to us that the country which is not mentioned much, especially in the Middle East, or which this development seems to favor is Israel. This is how we see it in a way when we look in the context of who is benefiting and who is being harmed.[1]
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also expressed doubt about the documents, obtained and published WikiLeaks, saying the US administration "released" the material intentionally.
In reply to a Press TV correspondent President Ahmadinejad said, "The material was not leaked, but rather released in an organized way. The countries in the region are like friends and brothers, and these malicious acts will not affect their relations.[Ibid]
All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed [Izzy Stone] and all WikiLeak's has so far exposed is that this Administration is no different than previous who talked about the equality of all people but in practice failed at what George Washington warned US in his Farewell Address:
Israel's 'Operation Cast Lead'
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils."
Among the US documents released by WikiLeaks, Israel discussed its planned war on Gaza with the Palestinian leadership and Egypt ahead of time. Israel also offered to hand control of the Gaza strip to them.
A Little History:
Israel's illegal chemical white phosphorous burning Gaza's homes
Israel launched its massive offensive, dubbed "Operation Cast Lead," on December 27, 2008 with the stated aim of halting rocket attacks from Gaza.
Over 5,000 Palestinians were injured, 400,000 were left without running water, 4,000 homes were destroyed, rendering tens of thousands who are still homeless because of Israel's targeted attacks upon them, their schools, hospitals, streets, water wells, sewage system, farms, police stations and UN buildings.
The 22 days of Israel's attack on the people of Gaza was enabled by US-supplied weapons and we the people of the US who pay taxes provide over $3 billion annually to Israel although Israel has consistently misused U.S. weapons in violation of America's Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts.
America is the worlds largest arms supplier to Israel and under a Bush negotiated deal with Israel, we the people who pay taxes in America will also provide another $30 billion in military aid to Israel over the next decade.
During the 22 days of Israeli assault on Gaza, "Washington provided F-16 fighter planes, Apache helicopters, tactical missiles, and a wide array of munitions, including white phosphorus and DIME. The weapons required for the Israeli assault was decided upon in June 2008, and the transfer of 1,000 bunker-buster GPS-guided Small Diameter Guided Bomb Units 39 (GBU-39) were approved by Congress in September. The GBU 39 bombs were delivered to Israel in November (prior to any claims of Hamas cease fire violation!) for use in the initial air raids on Gaza. [2]
In a 71-page report released March 25, 2009, by Human Rights Watch, Israel's repeated firing of US-made white phosphorus shells over densely populated areas of Gaza was indiscriminate and is evidence of war crimes.
|
"Rain of Fire: Israel's Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza," provides eye witness accounts of the devastating effects that white phosphorus munitions had on civilians and civilian property in Gaza.
"Human Rights Watch researchers found spent shells, canister liners, and dozens of burnt felt wedges containing white phosphorus on city streets, apartment roofs, residential courtyards, and at a United Nations school in Gaza immediately after hostilities ended in January. "Militaries officially use white phosphorus to obscure their operations on the ground by creating thick smoke. It has also been used as an incendiary weapon, though such use constitutes a war crime. |
Israel didn't spare UN buildings or schools in its 2009/2010 winter attack on Gaza
In Gaza, the Israeli military didn't just use white phosphorus in open areas as a screen for its troops," said Fred Abrahams, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report. "It fired white phosphorus repeatedly over densely populated areas, even when its troops weren't in the area and safer smoke shells were available. As a result, civilians needlessly suffered and died." [Ibid]
During the 22 days of attack on Gaza, the UN Security Council, Amnesty International, International Red Cross, and global voices of protest rose up and demanded a ceasefire, but both houses of Congress overwhelmingly endorsed resolutions to support a continuation of Israel's so called "self defense."
In a cable exclusively leaked to Al-Masry Al-Youm'a privately-owned Egyptian daily newspaper-it was reported:
The wall, which the Egyptian government says is aimed at curbing smuggling between Egypt and the besieged Gaza Strip, has been shrouded in secrecy until the present. The cable, dated 20 December 2009, was sent from the US Embassy in Cairo to the Secretary of State in Washington DC, and copied to the American Embassy in Tel Aviv, the American Consul in Jerusalem, the US Defense Department, and the White House's National Security Council.
The cable reveals that the wall is being constructed with Egyptian government money, while a tunnel detection system is being funded and built by the United States. In the document, the US Embassy in Cairo recognizes Egypt's efforts to combat smuggling by installing the subterranean steel wall, which began construction in 2009, and resuming installation of a tunnel activity detection system.
The document also reveals the US has provided technical support for the installation of the tunnel detection system, which was due to be finished by the US Army Corps of Engineers and handed over to the Egyptian military in April 2010. According to the document, the US Foreign Military Financing-funded tunnel detection system has been key in detecting two to three tunnels a day.
Smuggling has been on-going in Sinai, especially after the imposition of a coordinated Egypt-Israel blockade on Gaza. Arms smuggling in particular has been on the rise in the area, although several smugglers previously told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the activity is slowing down, especially since Gaza has been flooded with arms from other sources.
There have been leaks of information, warnings, prayers, pleas and links for years, and the following was written in November 2006, by Father Manuel, the parish priest at the Latin Church and school in Gaza:
"Gaza cannot sleep! The people are suffering unbelievably. They are hungry, thirsty, have no electricity or clean water. They are suffering constant bombardments and sonic booms from low flying aircraft. They need food: bread and water. Children and babies are hungry...people have no money to buy food. The price of food has doubled and tripled due to the situation. We cannot drink water from the ground here as it is salty and not hygienic. People must buy water to drink. They have no income, no opportunities to get food and water from outside and no opportunities to secure money inside of Gaza. They have no hope.
"Without electricity children are afraid. No light at night. No oil or candles...Thirsty children are crying, afraid and desperate...Many children have been violently thrown from their beds at night from the sonic booms. Many arms and legs have been broken. These planes fly low over Gaza and then reach the speed of sound. This shakes the ground and creates shock waves like an earthquake that causes people to be thrown from their bed. I, myself weigh 120 kilos and was almost thrown from my bed due to the shock wave produced by a low flying jet that made a sonic boom.
"Gaza cannot sleep...the cries of hungry children, the sullen faces of broken men and women who are just sitting in their hungry emptiness with no light, no hope, no love. These actions are War Crimes!"
1. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/153615.html
2. http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/9-us-arms-used-for-war-crimes-in-gaza/
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/december032010/wikileks-gaza-ef.php
In Gaza, the Israeli military didn't just use white phosphorus in open areas as a screen for its troops," said Fred Abrahams, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report. "It fired white phosphorus repeatedly over densely populated areas, even when its troops weren't in the area and safer smoke shells were available. As a result, civilians needlessly suffered and died." [Ibid]
During the 22 days of attack on Gaza, the UN Security Council, Amnesty International, International Red Cross, and global voices of protest rose up and demanded a ceasefire, but both houses of Congress overwhelmingly endorsed resolutions to support a continuation of Israel's so called "self defense."
In a cable exclusively leaked to Al-Masry Al-Youm'a privately-owned Egyptian daily newspaper-it was reported:
The wall, which the Egyptian government says is aimed at curbing smuggling between Egypt and the besieged Gaza Strip, has been shrouded in secrecy until the present. The cable, dated 20 December 2009, was sent from the US Embassy in Cairo to the Secretary of State in Washington DC, and copied to the American Embassy in Tel Aviv, the American Consul in Jerusalem, the US Defense Department, and the White House's National Security Council.
The cable reveals that the wall is being constructed with Egyptian government money, while a tunnel detection system is being funded and built by the United States. In the document, the US Embassy in Cairo recognizes Egypt's efforts to combat smuggling by installing the subterranean steel wall, which began construction in 2009, and resuming installation of a tunnel activity detection system.
The document also reveals the US has provided technical support for the installation of the tunnel detection system, which was due to be finished by the US Army Corps of Engineers and handed over to the Egyptian military in April 2010. According to the document, the US Foreign Military Financing-funded tunnel detection system has been key in detecting two to three tunnels a day.
Smuggling has been on-going in Sinai, especially after the imposition of a coordinated Egypt-Israel blockade on Gaza. Arms smuggling in particular has been on the rise in the area, although several smugglers previously told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the activity is slowing down, especially since Gaza has been flooded with arms from other sources.
There have been leaks of information, warnings, prayers, pleas and links for years, and the following was written in November 2006, by Father Manuel, the parish priest at the Latin Church and school in Gaza:
"Gaza cannot sleep! The people are suffering unbelievably. They are hungry, thirsty, have no electricity or clean water. They are suffering constant bombardments and sonic booms from low flying aircraft. They need food: bread and water. Children and babies are hungry...people have no money to buy food. The price of food has doubled and tripled due to the situation. We cannot drink water from the ground here as it is salty and not hygienic. People must buy water to drink. They have no income, no opportunities to get food and water from outside and no opportunities to secure money inside of Gaza. They have no hope.
"Without electricity children are afraid. No light at night. No oil or candles...Thirsty children are crying, afraid and desperate...Many children have been violently thrown from their beds at night from the sonic booms. Many arms and legs have been broken. These planes fly low over Gaza and then reach the speed of sound. This shakes the ground and creates shock waves like an earthquake that causes people to be thrown from their bed. I, myself weigh 120 kilos and was almost thrown from my bed due to the shock wave produced by a low flying jet that made a sonic boom.
"Gaza cannot sleep...the cries of hungry children, the sullen faces of broken men and women who are just sitting in their hungry emptiness with no light, no hope, no love. These actions are War Crimes!"
1. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/153615.html
2. http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/9-us-arms-used-for-war-crimes-in-gaza/
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/december032010/wikileks-gaza-ef.php