OPERATION DEFENSIVE EDGE - Harry Fear Live from Gaza

[Ellirium113]

Its kinda hard to kill hamas leadership just like it was hard to kill the Vietcong leadership.tunnels.

**Knock Knock** Hamas leader...are you in there? no? in that house? no? No matter...



Just to make sure they don't try and shoot back we'll hang on to some of the kids...



http://rt.com/in-vision/israel-gaza-strike-rubble/


Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza—Debunked

Israel has killed almost 800 Palestinians in the past twenty-one days in the Gaza Strip alone; its onslaught continues. The UN estimates that more than 74 percent of those killed are civilians. That is to be expected in a population of 1.8 million where the number of Hamas members is approximately 15,000. Israel does not deny that it killed those Palestinians using modern aerial technology and precise weaponry courtesy of the world's only superpower. In fact, it does not even deny that they are civilians.

Israel's propaganda machine, however, insists that these Palestinians wanted to die ("culture of martyrdom"), staged their own death ("telegenically dead") or were the tragic victims of Hamas's use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes ("human shielding"). In all instances, the military power is blaming the victims for their own deaths, accusing them of devaluing life and attributing this disregard to cultural bankruptcy. In effect, Israel—along with uncritical mainstream media that unquestionably accept this discourse—dehumanizes Palestinians, deprives them even of their victimhood and legitimizes egregious human rights and legal violations.

This is not the first time. The gruesome images of decapitated children's bodies and stolen innocence on Gaza's shores are a dreadful repeat of Israel's assault on Gaza in November 2012 and winter 2008–09. Not only are the military tactics the same but so too are the public relations efforts and the faulty legal arguments that underpin the attacks. Mainstream media news anchors are inexplicably accepting these arguments as fact.

Below I address five of Israel's recurring talking points. I hope this proves useful to newsmakers.

1) Israel is exercising its right to self-defense.

As the occupying power of the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Territories more broadly, Israel has an obligation and a duty to protect the civilians under its occupation. It governs by military and law enforcement authority to maintain order, protect itself and protect the civilian population under its occupation. It cannot simultaneously occupy the territory, thus usurping the self-governing powers that would otherwise belong to Palestinians, and declare war upon them. These contradictory policies (occupying a land and then declaring war on it) make the Palestinian population doubly vulnerable.

The precarious and unstable conditions in the Gaza Strip from which Palestinians suffer are Israel's responsibility. Israel argues that it can invoke the right to self-defense under international law as defined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. The International Court of Justice, however, rejected this faulty legal interpretation in its 2004 Advisory Opinion. The ICJ explained that an armed attack that would trigger Article 51 must be attributable to a sovereign state, but the armed attacks by Palestinians emerge from within Israel's jurisdictional control. Israel does have the right to defend itself against rocket attacks, but it must do so in accordance with occupation law and not other laws of war. Occupation law ensures greater protection for the civilian population. The other laws of war balance military advantage and civilian suffering. The statement that "no country would tolerate rocket fire from a neighboring country" is therefore both a diversion and baseless.

Israel denies Palestinians the right to govern and protect themselves, while simultaneously invoking the right to self-defense. This is a conundrum and a violation of international law, one that Israel deliberately created to evade accountability.

2) Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.

Israel argues that its occupation of the Gaza Strip ended with the unilateral withdrawal of its settler population in 2005. It then declared the Gaza Strip to be "hostile territory" and declared war against its population. Neither the argument nor the statement is tenable. Despite removing 8,000 settlers and the military infrastructure that protected their illegal presence, Israel maintained effective control of the Gaza Strip and thus remains the occupying power as defined by Article 47 of the Hague Regulations. To date, Israel maintains control of the territory's air space, territorial waters, electromagnetic sphere, population registry and the movement of all goods and people.

Israel argues that the withdrawal from Gaza demonstrates that ending the occupation will not bring peace. Some have gone so far as to say that Palestinians squandered their opportunity to build heaven in order to build a terrorist haven instead. These arguments aim to obfuscate Israel's responsibilities in the Gaza Strip, as well as the West Bank. As Prime Minister Netanyahu once explained, Israel must ensure that it does not "get another Gaza in Judea and Samaria.... I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan."

Palestinians have yet to experience a day of self-governance. Israel immediately imposed a siege upon the Gaza Strip when Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006 and tightened it severely when Hamas routed Fatah in June 2007. The siege has created a "humanitarian catastrophe" in the Gaza Strip. Inhabitants will not be able to access clean water, electricity or tend to even the most urgent medical needs. The World Health Organization explains that the Gaza Strip will be unlivable by 2020. Not only did Israel not end its occupation, it has created a situation in which Palestinians cannot survive in the long-term.

3) This Israeli operation, among others, was caused by rocket fire from Gaza.

Israel claims that its current and past wars against the Palestinian population in Gaza have been in response to rocket fire. Empirical evidence from 2008, 2012 and 2014 refute that claim. First, according to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the greatest reduction of rocket fire came through diplomatic rather than military means. This chart demonstrates the correlation between Israel's military attacks upon the Gaza Strip and Hamas militant activity. Hamas rocket fire increases in response to Israeli military attacks and decreases in direct correlation to them. Cease-fires have brought the greatest security to the region.

During the four months of the Egyptian-negotiated cease-fire in 2008, Palestinian militants reduced the number of rockets to zero or single digits from the Gaza Strip. Despite this relative security and calm, Israel broke the cease-fire to begin the notorious aerial and ground offensive that killed 1,400 Palestinians in twenty-two days. In November 2012, Israel's extrajudicial assassination of Ahmad Jabari, the chief of Hamas's military wing in Gaza, while he was reviewing terms for a diplomatic solution, again broke the cease-fire that precipitated the eight-day aerial offensive that killed 132 Palestinians.

Immediately preceding Israel's most recent operation, Hamas rocket and mortar attacks did not threaten Israel. Israel deliberately provoked this war with Hamas. Without producing a shred of evidence, it accused the political faction of kidnapping and murdering three settlers near Hebron. Four weeks and almost 700 lives later, Israel has yet to produce any evidence demonstrating Hamas's involvement. During ten days of Operation Brother's Keeper in the West Bank, Israel arrested approximately 800 Palestinians without charge or trial, killed nine civilians and raided nearly 1,300 residential, commercial and public buildings. Its military operation targeted Hamas members released during the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011. It's these Israeli provocations that precipitated the Hamas rocket fire to which Israel claims left it with no choice but a gruesome military operation.

4) Israel avoids civilian casualties, but Hamas aims to kill civilians.

Hamas has crude weapons technology that lacks any targeting capability. As such, Hamas rocket attacks ipso facto violate the principle of distinction because all of its attacks are indiscriminate. This is not contested. Israel, however, would not be any more tolerant of Hamas if it strictly targeted military objects, as we have witnessed of late. Israel considers Hamas and any form of its resistance, armed or otherwise, to be illegitimate.

In contrast, Israel has the eleventh most powerful military in the world, certainly the strongest by far in the Middle East, and is a nuclear power that has not ratified the non-proliferation agreement and has precise weapons technology. With the use of drones, F-16s and an arsenal of modern weapon technology, Israel has the ability to target single individuals and therefore to avoid civilian casualties. But rather than avoid them, Israel has repeatedly targeted civilians as part of its military operations.

The Dahiya Doctrine is central to these operations and refers to Israel's indiscriminate attacks on Lebanon in 2006. Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot said that this would be applied elsewhere:

What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. [...] We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases.

Israel has kept true to this promise. The 2009 UN Fact-Finding Mission to the Gaza Conflict, better known as the Goldstone Mission, concluded "from a review of the facts on the ground that it witnessed for itself that what was prescribed as the best strategy [Dahiya Doctrine] appears to have been precisely what was put into practice."

According to the National Lawyers Guild, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, Israel directly targeted civilians or recklessly caused civilian deaths during Operation Cast Lead. Far from avoiding the deaths of civilians, Israel effectively considers them legitimate targets.

5) Hamas hides its weapons in homes, mosques and schools and uses human shields.

This is arguably one of Israel's most insidious claims, because it blames Palestinians for their own death and deprives them of even their victimhood. Israel made the same argument in its war against Lebanon in 2006 and in its war against Palestinians in 2008. Notwithstanding its military cartoon sketches, Israel has yet to prove that Hamas has used civilian infrastructure to store military weapons. The two cases where Hamas indeed stored weapons in UNRWA schools, the schools were empty. UNRWA discovered the rockets and publicly condemned the violation of its sanctity.

International human rights organizations that have investigated these claims have determined that they are not true. It attributed the high death toll in Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon to Israel's indiscriminate attacks. Human Rights Watch notes:


The evidence Human Rights Watch uncovered in its on-the-ground investigations refutes [Israel's] argument...we found strong evidence that Hezbollah stored most of its rockets in bunkers and weapon storage facilities located in uninhabited fields and valleys, that in the vast majority of cases Hezbollah fighters left populated civilian areas as soon as the fighting started, and that Hezbollah fired the vast majority of its rockets from pre-prepared positions outside villages.

In fact, only Israeli soldiers have systematically used Palestinians as human shields. Since Israel's incursion into the West Bank in 2002, it has used Palestinians as human shields by tying young Palestinians onto the hoods of their cars or forcing them to go into a home where a potential militant may be hiding.

Even assuming that Israel's claims were plausible, humanitarian law obligates Israel to avoid civilian casualties that "would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated." A belligerent force must verify whether civilian or civilian infrastructure qualifies as a military objective. In the case of doubt, "whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used."

In the over thee weeks of its military operation, Israel has demolished 3,175 homes, at least a dozen with families inside; destroyed five hospitals and six clinics; partially damaged sixty-four mosques and two churches; partially to completely destroyed eight government ministries; injured 4,620; and killed over 700 Palestinians. At plain sight, these numbers indicate Israel's egregious violations of humanitarian law, ones that amount to war crimes.

Beyond the body count and reference to law, which is a product of power, the question to ask is, What is Israel's end goal? What if Hamas and Islamic Jihad dug tunnels beneath the entirety of the Gaza Strip—they clearly did not, but let us assume they did for the sake of argument. According to Israel's logic, all of Gaza's 1.8 million Palestinians are therefore human shields for being born Palestinian in Gaza. The solution is to destroy the 360-kilometer square strip of land and to expect a watching world to accept this catastrophic loss as incidental. This is possible only by framing and accepting the dehumanization of Palestinian life. Despite the absurdity of this proposal, it is precisely what Israeli society is urging its military leadership to do. Israel cannot bomb Palestinians into submission, and it certainly cannot bomb them into peace.

http://www.thenation.com/article/180783/five-israeli-talking-points-gaza-debunked#

[robomont]

Thank you el for the report

[rdunk]

Does someone want to continue to talk about Israeli  "terrorism" for which there is no real evidence?? Want to talk about the suicidal killing ON PURPOSE of innocent civilians? Well, for the real reality of terrorism, how about this for a start!! There is NOTHING like this to be found about Israel conducting terrorist attacks!!

This information provides very detailed information by year for these Palestinian terroristic suicidal attacks - listed by year, name given the attack, date it happened, where it happened, the death toll for each attack. and which palestinian group "claimed" responsibility.

Wikipedia - List of Palestinian Suicide Attacks"!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hamas_suicide_attacks

Total number of fatalities, by year Year from Palestinian terrorist attacks
1989   16
1993   1
1994   38
1995   39
1996   59
1997   24
1998   3
1999   0
2000   6
2001   85
2002   238
2003   145
2004   98
2005   33
2006   15
2007   3
2008   1
Total   804

[Ellirium113]

Neither Hamas' leaders, nor its "main terrorist fighters," have been killed, Yadlin said in a conference call organized by The Israel Project.

The way they are blowing the hell out of everything how could they even know? It sounds like they are hoping sooner or later their "precision" strikes might actually hit a legitimate military target. May karma bite in the buttocks with extreme prejudice.

[robomont]

Well if some outside government took my land and gave it to a bunch of scumbag Jews.I'd do the same thing.why not report the Jewish deaths from those bombs,that way I can get a full release.don't tease us rdunk.

[thorfourwinds]

A demonstrator with face painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag protests outside the Israeli Embassy in London today. Photo: Luke MacGregor/Reuters

Gaza protests across Ireland and the world

Thousands of people took to the street across Ireland today calling for an end to violence in Gaza.

A crowd of about 3000 marched from the Spire in O' Connell Street, Dublin to the Israeli embassy.

Demonstrations were held in more than 16 locations across the country including Derry, Limerick, Cork, and Waterford.

(Photo: Irish Times)

Freda Hughes, spokeswoman for Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign who are hosting the protests, said Ireland's decision to abstsain from a United Nations vote to investigate allegation of Israeli war crimes in Gaza was "shameful".

"People across the globe are disgusted and appalled by what they are witnessing in Gaza," she said.

"It is a war on the whole people of Gaza; men, women, children, hospitals, schools and neighbourhoods."

Similar protests were echoed across Europe with more than 45,000 people showed up to protest against the conflict in London...

[rdunk]

Well if some outside government took my land and gave it to a bunch of scumbag Jews.I'd do the same thing.

LOL - I can find no real facts where the Palestinians have ever had a country of their own. And what Israel has, they fought to get it, by winning over whoever had it at the time. The Israelis are a remarkable people, and have made much of  what was a pretty much barren waste land. They won't give it up, and NOBODY will ever take it from them again. Even when it might look like all is lost for them, it won't be lost in the END.

We are living in exciting times!! I remain to be expecting other countries to start sticking their military noses into this conflict, siding with hamas. That is when it will get really interesting, as blood may/will run very deep!

[Ellirium113]

I don't really think it is about helping Hamas at all...it is the CIVILIAN POPULATION that is the main concern. Everyone knows this is not a war that can be won militarily.

[rdunk]

I don't really think it is about helping Hamas at all...it is the CIVILIAN POPULATION that is the main concern. Everyone knows this is not a war that can be won militarily.

hamas is totally responsible for what is happening, to them and to their civilian body shields - and yes, they will be defeated, either now or in the near future. Terrorists cannot prevail in this world! Radical Islam cannot prevail in this world. If either does, the other 5 billion people (non muslims) will have died trying to prevent it - and I don't expect that to happen!

[robomont]

How does this thread benefit pegasus?

[rdunk]

How does this thread benefit pegasus?

Can't answer your question on this Robo, as I didn't start this discussion. I did earlier start the first thread on this Israel/hamas war here - "Operation Protective Edge" http://www.thelivingmoon.com/forum/index.php?topic=7012.0

I did state in the OP there why I thought it to be an important subject.

Actually I made a reply on this thread above that I meant to be posted there anyway.  I will see if I can delete/move it.

[Sinny]

How does this thread benefit pegasus?

Does it need to benefir Pegasus? 

[WarToad]

Hamas are nothing but terrorist scum.  The Palistinian people would be in a much better place by now if it weren't for Hamas always f-ing up diplomatic talks and purposefully taking pot-shots at civi's.

[Sinny]

Hamas are nothing but terrorist scum.  The Palistinian people would be in a much better place by now if it weren't for Hamas always f-ing up diplomatic talks and purposefully taking pot-shots at civi's.

I heard Israel created Hamas.. Wouldn't surprise me, gives em a scapegoat.. Seems to be working..

[Littleenki]

Any links to tthat info,Sinny? About Israel creating Hamas?

Thanks!