|
fightalah favorited a video
(2 weeks ago)
UN WATCH *** Speak Truth to Power: Take Action at www.unwatch.org ***
UN Watch Statement, delivered by Col. Richard Kemp, October 16, 2009, UN Human...
more
UN WATCH *** Speak Truth to Power: Take Action at www.unwatch.org ***
UN Watch Statement, delivered by Col. Richard Kemp, October 16, 2009, UN Human Rights Council Special Session on Goldstone Report
Thank you, Mr. President.
I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Governments Joint Intelligence Committee.
Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.
Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.
The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.
The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.
Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.
More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.
Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets.
And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Thank you, Mr. President.
less
|
|
|
|
fightalah favorited a video
(4 months ago)
Example of Pallywood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRz5Wn...
Example of Hizbollywood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT5gDj...
Initial reporting on...
more
Example of Pallywood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRz5Wn...
Example of Hizbollywood: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT5gDj...
Initial reporting on explosion at Hamas rally: http://info.jpost.com/C005/Supplement...
A website falsely identifying the footage as a 2009 Israeli airstrike: http://muslimtv.magnify.net/video/ISR...
A website admitting that the footage is a hoax: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=50381
Truth behind the supposed Ariel Sharon statement: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_con...
Haaretz article on Italian newspaper piece: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1...
Translation of Italian article (crude translation thanks to Google Translate): http://translate.google.com/translate...
(Notice the statement in the article: "It could be like in Jenin in 2002. Initially we spoke of 1,500 deaths. Then it came out they were only 54, including at least 45 guerrillas who died fighting.")
BBC article on "Jenin Massacre": http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_eas...
(Though this article reveals that there was no massacre, it's certainly not kind to Israel, so don't accuse me of finding biased articles. Notice that the article states "The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, said the report's aim of finding out exactly what happened in Jenin had been blocked by Israel's decision to refuse access to UN investigators." The article makes no mention of the fact that Israel actually demanded inclusion of military experts in the fact-finding mission before investigators would be let in.)
Documentary on Deir Yassin Massacre (relevant part begins at 6:50): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNglLy...
Testimony from Ayish Zeidan (Anton LaGuardia, "War Without End: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Struggle for a Promised Land", St. Martin's Griffin; 23 May 2003, page 195): "There had been no rape. The Arab radio at the time talked of women being killed and raped, but this is not true. I believe that most of those who were killed were among the fighters and the women and children who helped the fighters."
Tesimony from Mohammed Radwan (Middle East Times, 20-April-1998, interview by Paul Homes): "There were no rapes. It's all lies. There were no pregnant women who were slit open. It was propaganda that... Arabs put out so Arab armies would invade... . They ended up expelling people from all of Palestine on the rumor of Deir Yassin."
Article on IDF's accounting of Cast Lead casualties, including IDF account of Gaza school incident: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellit...
UN clarifies that the IDF did not hit the school in Gaza: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1...
Statement by John Holmes, Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator during briefing to the UN Security Council: http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/eed2...
(Holmes states in the third paragraph the following: "According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, whose figures have not been seriously challenged, around 1,300 Palestinians were killed, and more than 5,300 were injured.")
less
|
|
|
|
fightalah favorited a video
(5 months ago)
Israeli Jews, Muslims, Christians and a Darfur refugee refute claims of racism in Israel, demonstrating the tolerance that characterizes the multic...
more
Israeli Jews, Muslims, Christians and a Darfur refugee refute claims of racism in Israel, demonstrating the tolerance that characterizes the multicultural Israeli society.
less
|
|
