Israel investigates itself and decides it is innocent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/world/middleeast/ 31mideast.html?_r=1&hp;

How typical!!

From The Independent, UK

Israelis told to fight ‘holy war’ in Gaza

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem

Saturday, 21 March 2009

“Many Israeli troops had the sense of fighting a “religious war” against Gentiles during the 22-day offensive in Gaza, according to a soldier who has highlighted the martial role of military rabbis during the operation.

The soldier testified that the “clear” message of literature distributed to troops by the rabbinate was: “We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the Gentiles who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land.”

The claim comes in the detailed transcript of a post-war discussion by soldiers, publication of which has triggered a military police inquiry into allegations about the use of lethal firepower against unarmed civilians.

The investigation was ordered by the military’s advocate general Avichai Mandleblit on Thursday after the liberal daily newspaper Haaretz published extracts from the transcript describing incidents in which Palestinian civilians were killed and property wantonly damaged.

In the fuller version of the transcript published yesterday, the soldier, a unit commander from the Givati brigade, says: “This was the main message and the whole sense many soldiers had in this operation was of a religious war.” He recalled that his own sergeant was from a hesder yeshiva, a college combining religious study and military service, who led the whole platoon in prayer before going into battle. The commander added that he had sought to talk to the men about Palestinian politics and society and, “about how not everyone in Gaza is Hamas and not every inhabitant wants to vanquish us”.

After the offensive, Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group called for the dismissal of the military’s head chaplain, Rabbi Avichai Rontzki, a brigadier general. It said that he had distributed to troops a booklet saying that it was “terribly immoral” to show mercy to a “cruel enemy” and that the soldiers were fighting “murderers”.

The longer transcript conveys a fuller sense of the debate involving graduates from the Yitzhak Rabin military preparatory course. At one point Danny Zamir, the head of the course, says he would have questioned the killing of 180 traffic policemen during bombing on the first day of the operation. One pilot replies: “Tactically speaking you call them police. In any case they are armed and belong to Hamas ... during better times they take Fatah people and throw them off the roofs and see what happens.”

The latest casualty figures published by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights list the names of 1,434 dead of whom they say 926 were civilians, 236 fighters and 255 police officers.”

Re the elderly Palestinian woman on the road. This is nothing new. The IDF shot a 95 year old Palestinian woman sitting in a taxi in Gaza some years back. Nothing in this report is new. In fact, it doesn’t begin to describe the horror of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians - even the ones who live in Israel and are Israeli citizens. They have no rights and they have their homes bulldozed too. Israel should be called what it is: a fascist state and a police state, as bad as Chile under the generals. One of the dancing Israelis pulled over by the FBI in New York on 9/11 told the FBI, ‘We’re not your problem: the Palestinians are your problem’. I beg to differ.

Yesterday marked the 6th anniversary of the American and gang terrorist attack on Iraq. I was hoping that Truthdig will post a thread related on this topic. However, since the Iraqi Holocaust is an inconvenient truth that criminal America would wish to forget, someone needs to remind us all about all the blood we have on their hands! Most of us, never even cared about keeping a count on the Iraqi victims, but someone did, and here is the account!
==============================
Iraqi Holocaust: 2.3 Million Iraqi Excess Deaths
By Gideon Polya

http://www.countercurrents.org/polya210309.htm

“March 20, 2009 marks the 6th anniversary of the illegal, utterly unjustified, war criminal invasion of Iraq by US, UK and Australian forces. Post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths total 2.3 million and refugees total 6 million in a continuing Iraqi Holocaust and Genocide..”

By Fadel Abdallah, March 21 at 10:39 pm #

As another fascist government in terrorist Israel is being formed, many Palestinians are contemplating a third Intifada. Read below on article on this prospect and the goals it’s intended to achieve!
=================================================
Intifada: A Third Chapter
By Ramzy Baroud

http://www.countercurrents.org/baroud210309.htm

“A third Intifada, in the eyes of many, could accomplish one vital task. It could provide the platform for the Palestinians to reclaim their unity (despite the prevailing factionalism of today) and declare that they will struggle until the day when they finally embrace freedom. If this is all that a third Intifada accomplishes, in the eyes of many Palestinians, then it is certainly a necessary and worthy endeavor…”

I’m with you, Adrianrain, I think Yahvah should Choose somebody else.  Anybody else.

For the life of me, I can’t think why I am called upon to support a state based on religious and/or ethnic exclusivity.

Although I was raised ‘Christian’ I would and do object strenuously to the ‘Christian nation’  designation that some on the right would insist on. And although I am of European descent, I would object to the US being called a White nation. Modern democracies are not racially exclusive!

So the insistence that Israel must remain a ‘Jewish state’ should be the first clue to any American, or advocate of modern democracy, that something is amiss. Especially since it is built on land long inhabited by several ethnic groups and even more religious sects - including the oldest Christian community in the world.

If it weren’t for some very painful fairly recent history, most of the world would recognize Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza as racist, fascist, ethnic cleansing.

Fadel’s posting of the barbarism and brutality of the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces is what happens over historical time when colonialist occupation occurs.  The Israeli young are trained to despise and dehumanize the colonized.  Palestinians are there to be killed, mained, raped, looted and terrorized.  Because the Israeli soldier is Tough, the meanist badass in the valley, as was a common tattoo of American soldiers in Vietnam.

How else can they justify what they do?  The assault in Gaza was directed against the civilian population to punish them for supporting Hamas.  UN buildings where they were trying to get themselves and their families away from the bombing were shelled, homes were blown up, women and children killed, destruction of business and public buildings, intentionally acheived to complement the previous destructuion of electic facilities and water purification plants.  Just as the US did, and is still doing, in Iraq.

And is now doing in the AF-Pak war.  The group of 5-8 American soldiers that raped a 13 year old girl, then killed her, her parents and her baby sister, is what occupation soldiers do.  They then went back to the barracks and barbecued fried chicken. 

Social science has demonstrated experimentally that when you put people in oppressive power situations without constraints, they become barbaric.

And this is what happens to Israeli-American soldiers under the delusive War on Terrorism, which is the justification for this barbarism. And this is what Zionists jusify, obfuscate or diverts attention from.  routine barbarity against a whole population of millions of people.  this will be the legacy of the Jewish people if they do not oppose it, and the American people as the War on Terrorism continues under Obama.

Howard,

It is true.  Nice years aerlier, Ben Gurion was quoted as saying he saw nothing wrong with the compulsory transfer i.e. ethnic cleansing, of Arabs.

It is true that the Arabs were opposed to the partition.  Within the borders of Israel in 1948, the arabs owned 50% of the land and dod not want to give it away.  That is only natural.

The Aran League of Nations, all 22 of them, have signed a peace treaty offering to recognize Isrel as per the 1967 borders and the creation of a Palestianian State.  Israel has rejected this offer for 6 years.

You know this Howard.  I’ve reminded you a dozen times, yet you simply ignore it and return to your lies and propaganda.

Israel has always chosen expansion over peace. With expansion comes war and war crimes. It’s that simple.

Read about the glories of the terrorists IDF. It cannot get more fascist than this!
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072466.html

Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009 By Uri Blau
Israel News, IDF, Gaza
The office at the Adiv fabric-printing shop in south Tel Aviv handles a constant stream of customers, many of them soldiers in uniform, who come to order custom clothing featuring their unit’s insignia, usually accompanied by a slogan and drawing of their choosing. Elsewhere on the premises, the sketches are turned into plates used for imprinting the ordered items, mainly T-shirts and baseball caps, but also hoodies, fleece jackets and pants. A young Arab man from Jaffa supervises the workers who imprint the words and pictures, and afterward hands over the finished product.

Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children’s graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques - these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty. The slogans accompanying the drawings are not exactly anemic either: A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription “Better use Durex,” next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him. A sharpshooter’s T-shirt from the Givati Brigade’s Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull’s-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, “1 shot, 2 kills.” A “graduation” shirt for those who have completed another snipers course depicts a Palestinian baby, who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult, with the inscription, “No matter how it begins, we’ll put an end to it.”

There are also plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages. For example, the Lavi battalion produced a shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, “Bet you got raped!” A few of the images underscore actions whose existence the army officially denies - such as “confirming the kill” (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim’s head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants.

In many cases, the content is submitted for approval to one of the unit’s commanders.The latter, however, do not always have control over what gets printed, because the artwork is a private initiative of soldiers that they never hear about. Drawings or slogans previously banned in certain units have been approved for distribution elsewhere. For example, shirts declaring, “We won’t chill ‘til we confirm the kill” were banned in the past (the IDF claims that the practice doesn’t exist), yet the Haruv battalion printed some last year.

The slogan “Let every Arab mother know that her son’s fate is in my hands!” had previously been banned for use on another infantry unit’s shirt. A Givati soldier said this week, however, that at the end of last year, his platoon printed up dozens of shirts, fleece jackets and pants bearing this slogan.

NOT true.  Since 1948 pal’s have not wanted what UN partition awarded them.  Was the bigger land total than what Israel was given. 60 years later and pal’s still do not want a nation. Not if Israel is around.
  Pal’s have been misled since ‘48 and show no signs of changing.  Surrounding arab nations do not want Pal’s to have a state.  Would make them look bad. 
  Jordan is 70% palestinian, and some type of federation with them would be a good goal for pals. And Egypt should open their border with them and help them out. They had control of gaza for decades.

Well, people will fight for their land and their homes. Israel has never acknowledged Palestine or the Palestinians. Golda Meir called them ‘ONLY Arabs.’ And the settlers believe that all of Palestine is Israel and they intend to take it. Israel doesn’t say this openly, but they ALWAYS back the settlers - even when the settlers are abusing women and children and old people.  Palestinians can’t get building permits, so their housing is torn down with little notice and no concern. The IDF routinely shoots civilians in the West Bank - including children. And all the while, steadily and unstoppably, Israel continues to confiscate Palestinian land and water with the Wall.

So what would YOU do if that was happening to you? I am guessing you’d put up a fight. Who wouldn’t?

Howard,

Ethnic Cleansing has been written and talked about by Zionists since the 1880’s. The goal was always the establishment of a Jewish state, which would have never been achieved without ethnic cleansing. Israel argument against the right of return of the Arabs has always been that it would threaten Israel’s Jewish majority.

Only Ethnic Cleansing is what is written in the Hamas charter as it proclaims their aim and goal is one of destroying Israel and All its inhabitants.

Israel’s version of Apartheid, however, is aimed at ethnic cleansing.

No one will or can stop them - certainly not the US, which is the one power that might be able to do it.

Some of the settlers believe that the Arabs/Palestinians who won’t leave must be killed - they’ve said it openly.

If Israel implemented a systematic genocide, or rather, speeded it up (since Gaza was an indiscriminate attack on civilians), America would look on as placidly as if they were killing cattle to get rid of hoof and mouth disease.

Who in our government would oppose it?

Howard,

Of course Israel is an apartheid state.  Nelson Mandella and Desmons Tutu, two men who know apartheid intimately said Israel is even more apartheid than South Africa was.

Arabs are 3rd class citizens in Israel and they will always be due to Israel’s laws.  It is certainly not a free and democratic country, not by a long shot.  Israel is the only country where Arabs are limited to whom they are allowed to marry and bring into the country.  It is the only country where Arabs who leave, even to study, are not allowed to return.  It is the only country where homes are routinely bullldozed ad the whim of the government.

Israel also happens to be a terrorist state that boasts of its extra judicial assasination and torture programs.

As a person of Irish descent, I must object! We Irish have it all - music, dance, theater, poetry, beverages, blarney, a poignant history, and now even food. We’re already verging on being way too full of ourselves!

The sense of entitlement that seems to accompany the illusion of having been specially favored by a mythical being (who is oddly credited with creating all of the redundant tribes and peoples, as well), might be ultimately too much for any ethnic group’s integrity.

Let us ‘choose’ all those who choose peace, tolerance and equality.

That’s a great headline, Writer, “Yahweh chooses new people!”  Did you know that Ayn Rand was Dewish?  That alone ought to cost the Jews favored nation status.

I suggest the Irish for the new Chosen People.  They’ve had a hard time historically.

Ain’t religion grand?

For anyone who’s been paying attention, I-told-you-so “news” like this article is completely redundant. Wake me up when we get some real news headlines like “Israeli Prime Minister Indicted On War Crimes” or even better, “Yahweh Chooses New People, Israelis Celebrate”.

And the traditional rabid Zionists on these threads fall silent! They are left speechless in the face of these damning facts!

Or perhaps they were caught by surprise and they need time to consult with their Zionist PROPAGANDA sources to coordinate their reactions and responses!

I might add, for the record, that there is one Zionist propagandist, Howard, who has already put a spin on the news by cheering the soldiers who dared to speak and claiming that this a unique phenomenon that could happen only in Israel and not even in the US! By way of response to Howard’s spinning I would like to highlight few points:

1. Three soldiers out of a nation where everyone is a terrorist soldier, three, ten, and even few thousands are the exception that prove the rule.

2. Though those few must be cheered and not underestimated, they must be thought of as isolated individuals who got tired of being slaves and pawns in the hands of an errant fascist political-military establishment, and possibly they reached the point of thinking that this is the only way out, even if they knew for sure that they are going to be field-marshaled and most likely be imprisoned without the world knowing anything about it.

3. Defying wrongs and taking the side of truth is not unique to any nation, national or religious group; its a universal phenomenon. That’s why there are untold thousands of political prisoners in Israel and the sell-out neighboring Arab states, like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Israel is No apartheid state.  Only Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria and Gaza do they abhor and not let Jews live or work in their midst.  Israel has Arab legislators and is recognised as one of the most free and democratic countries in existance.  Continued nonsense and lies that it is apartheid makes for no normal discourse.  Promotes intolerance and continued terrorism by Gazans

Howard,

“3 cheers for the Israeli soldiers who spoke up.”

And exposed what we have always known.  That Israel is a terrorist state who targets civilians.  We could call them wackos, not suicide wackos (having F-16s, Apache Helicopters and Merkava tanks means not having to use suicide attacks to kill civilians), but wacko terrorists nonetheless.

The problem will solved when Israel withdraws from the occupied territories and allows the Palestinians self determination.

“Don’t know of too many democratic outstanding countries, including us here in U.S. who let its soldiers get to the media.”

There are plenty of US soldiers who get to the media, and FYI, Israel is an apartheid theocracy, not a democracy.

Hope that helps Howard.  You’re not the quickest learner.

3 cheers for the Israeli soldiers who spoke up. Now if Hamas suicide wackos and terrorists and leaders who are the cause of it all would step forward maybe some big problems would be solved.  Don’t know of too many democratic outstanding countries, including us here in U.S. who let its soldiers get to the media.

Shawn Danino says “I think that people need to start accepting civilian casualties as an inevitability in a siege.”

I don’t think we need to start accepting civilian casualties EVER OR ANYWHERE!!!  I think people need to start staying put in their own countries and fixing their own d*mn problems before they start in on other people’s cultures.

I THINK we need to start accepting the inevitability of Israel being held to account for their war crimes (no different than Hitlers) against Palestinians.

Shawn Danino, Your viewpoint is not new. It was a scenario many zionists in the U.S. liked to spout during the Gaza War Crime. I heard the exact scenario described only the version the other zionist was using happened at the Canadian/U.S. border. YOU can keep pounding away to justify Israeli aggression and war crimes all you want, but less and less people see you as credible. But many of us already are getting to know your tactics so well. AGAIN.. the katuyshas killed 12 people in about 5 years…AGAIN, Palestine has a right to defend itself….AGAIN, This latest ASSAULT/WAR CRIME was just an extension of earlier assaults started by that ugly man named Ariel Sharon….AGAIN, the Palestinians were being blockaded which made Israel the Aggressor in this latest round and which Israel tried very hard to come off once again as the…...THATS RIGHT, the VICTIMS once again….AND AGAIN, people should not forget that Israel, on the day of U.S. elections, when the U.S. was distracted, went in and killed some people in southern Gaza.

Tired of hearing how poor little Israel is such a victim.

Why is this a surprise?  Israel has been telling this for years.

“The Israeli army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously. The army has never distinguished civilian from military targets, but has purposely attacked civilian targets.”
Ze’ev Shiff (Israeli journalist and military correspondent for Ha’aretz. )

“There was a rational prospect, ultimately fulfilled, that affected populations would exert pressure for the cessation of hostilities, satisfying Israel’s goals.”
Abba Eben (Israeli diplomat and politician)

By Ed Harges, March 19 at 7:49 pm #

re: By Fadel Abdallah, March 19 at 6:56 pm:

You’re absolutely right, Fadel. I apologize.
============================================
Ed Harges,

Thank you, dear, for your gracious understanding of my concern! You have a big heart and an open mind, and may you continue to be blessed with these great gifts!

Israel, it’s the new Nazi Germany!

The military purpose of the Gaza war was to terrorize the Palistinian population to intimidate them from supporting Hamas.  therefore the Israeli military deberately targeted public facilitites, like UN facilites, holding large numbers of civilians trying to flee the bombing and shelling.  Israel delliberately destroyed Palestinian homes and business as well, as well as shooting civilians.  Most of the Palestinians killed and maimed were women and children.

But Israel did this with a conscript army, not professionals or mercenaries.  Some Israeli soldiers still have a sense of decency and were disgusted by the brutality.  So Israel pretends to go trhough the motions of ‘investigation’ etc to assuage domestic and liberal opinion around the world.  But the Palestinian casualties were intentional, to make the Palestians realized, in the words of an Israeli genral, that they are a “defeated people.”

The military effect was precisely opposite to what Israel intended.  Hamas gained stature with the Palestinians, since that is the only defense they have against Israel.  The electoral mandate of Abbas and Fatah, funded by the US,  has run out, but they cannot run in another election because of the general contempt of the Palestinians, who see them for what they are, Israeli puppets.

The point is:  Israel lost this war.  as it did the 2006 war in Lebanon, and the wars before that.  there is such disaffection in the Israeli army that they cannot allow significant casualties.  All they can do is bomb and shell, killing a lot of people.  And making their enemies stronger.  And increasing their isolation from world opnion.

And let’s not forget, on the recent sixth anniversary of Rachel Corrie being killed by an Israeli bulldozer, another American citizen, Tristan Anderson, was shot in the face by Israeli forces.

With each passing day, more people are finally waking to the fact that Zionism is the modern day equivalent of Nazism.

The Zionists are not to be bargained with…

THEY ARE TO BE DEFEATED.

re: By Fadel Abdallah, March 19 at 6:56 pm:

You’re absolutely right, Fadel. I apologize.

I’m speechless!  No amount of words can adequately express the anger that i feel toward both the american and israeli governments for the crimes against humanity of which they’re both guilty.

By Ed Harges, March 19 at 6:25 pm #

What can you expect? As the Israeli soldiers went to war, they were treated to a rabid radio pep talk from a foaming-at-the-mouth rabbi who ranted that it is sinful to show mercy to any Palestinian. They were doing God’s work for their Holy state by inflicting as much cruelty as possible. This was a Jihad.
===========================================
Dear Ed Harges:

Though I know that you and I are on the same boat as worriers for Truth and Justice, I do take exception with your last statement in which you say, “This was a Jihad.” With this statement you’re perpetuating a misconception and a negative stereotype about the true meaning of the word “Jihad.” More than once on these threads I explained the linguistic and theological meaning of the word. If you need to enlighten you on this, I will be happy to repeat my previous explanations!

Beyond that, thank you for your activism on behalf of the aggrieved and oppressed Palestinians!

What can you expect? As the Israeli soldeirs went to war, they were treated to a rabid radio pep talk from a foaming-at-the-mouth rabbi who ranted that it is sinful to show mercy to any Palestinian. They were doing God’s work for their Holy state by inflicting as much cruelty as possible. This was a Jihad.

This is a bitter-sweet piece of information. The sweet part of this is that there are few Jews in the IDF who are decent human beings, willing to speak out the Truth about this state-terrorist institution.

The bitter part is that this terrorist Israeli institution will continue to exist as a tool of ends justify the means of a colonialist-terrorist entity called Israel.

Actually, even hours before TD posted this piece of new revelations, I became aware of it through two articles which appeared on COUNTERCURRENTS.ORG. Here below are the links to see two important informative articles:

Israeli Soldiers Expose Atrocities In Gaza
By Jerrold Kessel & Pierre Klochendler

http://www.countercurrents.org/kessel190309.htm

The report includes the testimony of one NCO: “A company commander with 100 soldiers under his command saw a woman walking down a road some distance away, but close enough that you could’ve gunned down whoever you identified…She was an elderly woman - whether she raised any suspicion, I don’t know. But what the officer did in the end was to put men on the roof and with the snipers bring her down. I felt it was simply murder in cold blood.”

***********************************************
Israel’s War Crimes
By Richard Falk

http://www.countercurrents.org/falk190309.htm

“Lack of international action against Israel’s war on Gaza illustrates the grand hypocrisy of human rights rhetoric. But civilian groups can now use international law to show the ‘legitimacy gap’ of Israeli government tactics in the Palestinian territories, argues Richard Falk..”