Gaza Ground Attack: Dore Gold on BBC World News

Former UN Ambassador Dr. Dore Gold discusses the Israeli ground operation in Gaza on BBC on 1/4/09. Israel does everything it can in order to prevent civilian losses in Gaza. To view more videos of Dore Gold visit the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs website: http://www.jcpa.org


Did Israel Use "Disproportionate Force" in Gaza?
By Dore Gold

-Israeli population centers in southern Israel have been the target of over 4,000 rockets, as well as thousands of mortar shells, fired by Hamas and other organizations since 2001. Rocket attacks increased by 500 percent after Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. During an informal six-month lull, some 215 rockets were launched at Israel.
-The charge that Israel uses disproportionate force keeps resurfacing whenever it has to defend its citizens from non-state terrorist organizations and the rocket attacks they perpetrate. From a purely legal perspective, Israel's current military actions in Gaza are on solid ground. According to international law, Israel is not required to calibrate its use of force precisely according to the size and range of the weaponry used against it.
-Ibrahim Barzak and Amy Teibel wrote for the Associated Press on December 28 that most of the 230 Palestinians who were reportedly killed were "security forces," and Palestinian officials said "at least 15 civilians were among the dead." The numbers reported indicate that there was no clear intent to inflict disproportionate collateral civilian casualties. What is critical from the standpoint of international law is that if the attempt has been made "to minimize civilian damage, then even a strike that causes large amounts of damage - but is directed at a target with very large military value - would be lawful."
-Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, explained that international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court "permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks against military objectives, even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur." The attack becomes a war crime when it is directed against civilians (which is precisely what Hamas does).
-After 9/11, when the Western alliance united to collectively topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, no one compared Afghan casualties in 2001 to the actual numbers that died from al-Qaeda's attack. There clearly is no international expectation that military losses in war should be on a one-to-one basis. To expect Israel to hold back in its use of decisive force against legitimate military targets in Gaza is to condemn it to a long war of attrition with Hamas.
Please read the full article:
http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=1&DBID=1&LNGID=1...

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[shadowofears]

Channel 4 nails the truth with an Israeli intelligence document from the Intelligence and Terrorist Information Center at the Israel Intelligence and Heritage Commemoration Center which says there were no Hamas rockets fired during the cease fire last year. Former Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom squirm

[shadowofears]

@Wez666 Nazi Strategy Remember Ghetto camps!

[none2787]

USA rules all??!!!

Are you joking??!! You cannot even rule your own people properly. The only thing you can is bombing third world countries, cause your people are cowards and wouldnt even dare to attack Europe, Russia, China or India.

Weak, weak, WEAK....

[Wez666]

it's time for Israel to flatten Gaza.

Fuck all those terrorists and their supporters

Go IDF!!

[MohummedsM8]

Sorry for your loss. My Father is dead.

Look, it's bad I know, but if you are a small kid and you go around picking on the school bully, don't be surprised when he beats the crap out of you.

Hamas has a lot to answer for, as do the Jews.

[spinoza1111]

My mother is dead.

My point is that "kicking" the Gazans "as hard as possible" is "kicking" innocent women and children: is "kicking" using high technology and no fair fight in the desert: and is a "kicking" that doesn't get the peace that Israel says it wants: the Middle East conflict has lasted longer than the Thirty Years War, and looks to last as long as the Eighty Years War.

[MohummedsM8]

No I agree, just as the rockets don't stop the oppression of the Palestinian people. But if I was in Israel and knowing how world opinion is on the side of the fucking terrorists, I'd do exactly what they are doing! I'd kick my enemy as hard as I could as long as I could to make them think again about provoking me... If I keep punching you in the nose repeatedly, Tell me spinoza, what are you going to do, go crying to your mummy?

[spinoza1111]

There actions don't stop the rockets. Massive civilian casualties don't stop the rockets.

A passive mini Star Wars shield, or removing population from areas of southern Israel that are under attack, would stop the rockets, but it's absurd to claim that a one-sided military attack could do so.

[MohummedsM8]

I totally agree with what you say... but just as nobody was listening to the Palestinians which (stupidly) provoked them to fire rockets at the Israelis, the Nobody was listening to the Jews when they complained about the Rockets... I'm not saying what the Israelis are doing is right, but you can see why they would want to stop the rockets!

[MohummedsM8]

I don't like Israel and I don't like the arrogant attitude of the Jews, but you are 100% correct in what you say. I can't understand why brainwashed idiots here can't see that.