[lit-ideas] Re: The Rules of War
- From: "Stan Spiegel" <writeforu2@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 00:21:59 -0400
In its May 2 report entitled "Jenin: IDF Military Operations," Human Rights
Watch documented several cases of IDF use of "human shields," including one
case in which eight Palestinian men, including a fourteen-year-old boy,
were
taken from their homes and placed on a balcony overlooking Palestinian
fighter positions while IDF soldiers fired from behind the men. In another
case, IDF soldiers put a sixty-five-year-old Palestinian woman on the
exposed roof of her home during a gun battle.
Reading this fraudulent argument again -- it's already been discredited --
is revolting. What we learned about Jenin was this, Helen...
The Big Jenin Lie
The only good thing about the Jenin "massacre" was watching the propaganda
being debunked in record time.
by Richard Starr
05/08/2002 12:00:00 AM
Richard Starr, managing editor
PRECISELY A MONTH AGO, on April 8, the Palestinian news agency Wafa
was reporting that Israel had committed the "massacre of the 21st century"
in the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin. "Medical sources" informed Wafa of
"hundreds of martyrs." This was a lie, concocted not only for local
consumption--to keep the Palestinian people whipped up in a patriotic,
Israel-hating frenzy--but mostly for export to the West.
That same day, you could hear breathless reports of the supposed
Israeli atrocities in Jenin being spread by Palestinian sources on NPR, CNN,
and elsewhere. Typical was the hysteria of Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian
representative to the United Nations, on CNN: "There's almost a massacre now
taking place in Jenin. Helicopter gun ships are throwing missiles at one
square kilometer packed with almost 15,000 people in a refugee camp. . . .
Just look at the TV and watch, watch what the--what the Israel forces are
doing. . . . This is a war crime, clear war crime, witnessed by the whole
world, preventing ambulances, preventing people from being buried. I mean
this is an all-out assault against the whole population."
No, this was an all-out assault on the truth. There was a pitched
battle in Jenin. But the "hundreds" of martyrs were a cynical invention. The
death toll was 56 Palestinians, the majority of them combatants, and 23
Israeli soldiers.
Unlike the celebrated foreign-dispatch lies of the 20th century--the
New York Times's Walter Duranty Pulitzer-winning cover-up of Stalin's
murderous Ukraine famine, say, or Herbert Matthews's 1957 reports of Senor
Fidel Castro's hopes for a "democratic Cuba"--the Jenin fraud has been
almost entirely inflated and then deflated in the short space of a month. I
think it's safe to say that no one will win a Pulitzer for reporting on the
(non-existent) "massacre of the 21st century." This was amateur-hour
propaganda, and any reporter who fell for it should be mortified.
Mostly that means British reporters. Full credit to the Guardian for
allowing Sharon Sadeh to administer a well-deserved flogging to Fleet Street
in its pages on Monday. "The Independent, the Guardian and the Times, in
particular," writes Sadeh, "were quick to denounce Israel and made
sensational accusations based on thin evidence, fitting a widely held
stereotype of a defiant, brutal and don't-give-a-damn Israel." You can read
the whole satisfying piece here.
Not that American reporters were without sin. Screenwriter Daniel
Gordan's description of the ax-grinding media in action is also worth a
click. My favorite part is his description of this encounter between CNN's
Sheila MacVicar and an Israeli soldier in Jenin:
"One [Israeli] reservist sensed MacVicar's hostility. He was a
soft-spoken man who approached her and introduced himself as the reserve
unit's medical officer, Dr. David Zangen. He told her that when the fighting
was over, they found photograph albums of children from roughly 6 years of
age up through early and mid-teens. It was an album of photos of children
who would be the next crop of suicide killers, with notations indicating
when each of the children would be ripe. The reporter had no time for the
doctor, however.
"'Perhaps you should ask yourself why,'" she said, dismissing him.
"'I do, madam,' he said, 'I ask myself why. I can't imagine it. I
can't imagine sending one's child out to be a mass murderer who commits
suicide to kill women and children.'
"'Well, I can explain it,' said the reporter. 'For me it all comes
down to one word, "occupation."'
"'But madam,' the doctor said, 'Jenin hasn't been occupied for nine
years.'"
Oops.
Richard Starr is a managing editor at The Weekly Standard
----- Original Message -----
From: "Helen Wishart" <hwishart@xxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 12:07 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The Rules of War
I wonder what kind of cartoon could emerge from this?
http://www.occupationalhazard.org/boy-bido.jpg
For both sides in a conflict, what works, too often trumps what's right.
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Israel: Decision to Stop Use of "Human Shields" Welcomed
(Jerusalem, May 10, 2002) - The Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) decision to
prohibit the use of Palestinian civilians as "human shields" during
military
operations is an important step forward toward complying with the
requirements of international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch said
today.
Human Rights Watch also urged the IDF to take further action to stop the
coerced use of Palestinian civilians during military operations, an issue
the IDF said it would "examine," and reiterated its call for a full
investigation into allegations of serious law of war violations committed
by
Israeli forces in Jenin. The Israeli army has taken an important step
towards respecting the laws of war," said Hanny Megally, executive
director
of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. "But
there are many other Israeli army practices that similarly violate
international standards and require the same unequivocal and immediate
action."
In response to a High Court of Justice petition by seven Israeli and
Palestinian human rights groups, the Israeli army decided on May 9 to
"immediately issue an unequivocal order" to its soldiers, stating that
soldiers "are absolutely forbidden to use civilians of any kind as a means
of 'living shield' against gunfire or attacks by the Palestinian side, or
as
'hostages.'" The order states that the prohibition applies "in houses,
streets, and in every area and place in which IDF forces are acting." The
Israeli army also committed itself to "examine" the use of Palestinian
civilians during military operations.
Human Rights Watch researchers met with senior IDF representatives on May
6,
and presented them with detailed research on the use of Palestinian
civilians as human shields and the coerced use of Palestinian civilians
for
military purposes, gaining a commitment from the IDF to investigate the
practices and agreement that such practices would violate Israel's
international obligations.
Human Rights Watch has reported extensively on the coerced use of
Palestinian civilians during military operations, and most recently
documented the use of Palestinian civilians as "human shields" and for
military purposes during the Israeli military operations in Jenin. In
April
2002, Human Rights Watch released a report on the coerced use of
Palestinian
civilians by the IDF, entitled "In a Dark Hour: The Use of Civilians
during
IDF Arrest Operations."
In its May 2 report entitled "Jenin: IDF Military Operations," Human
Rights
Watch documented several cases of IDF use of "human shields," including
one
case in which eight Palestinian men, including a fourteen-year-old boy,
were
taken from their homes and placed on a balcony overlooking Palestinian
fighter positions while IDF soldiers fired from behind the men. In another
case, IDF soldiers put a sixty-five-year-old Palestinian woman on the
exposed roof of her home during a gun battle.
Prior to the May 9 Israeli army decision, rather than investigating the
practice, Israeli army officials regularly issued blanket denials about
the
IDF's coerced use of civilians and the use of "human shields." For
example,
in response to the April 2002 Human Rights Watch report on the coerced use
of civilians, IDF spokesperson Isaac Greenburg told Agence France-Presse:
"Under no circumstances do we use, or will we ever use civilians to help
us.
The very idea, the very allegations are preposterous."
"We hope that the Israeli army is finally moving beyond blanket denials
and
is now taking seriously its duty to investigate and stop abuses," said
Megally. "It is the duty of any professional army to investigate abuses,
punish those responsible, and issue unambiguous orders to the troops to
stop."
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2002/05/10/isrlpa3914_txt.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4314898.stm
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Eric Yost
Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 3:12 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The Rules of War
Ursula: Pure propaganda.
Eric: I am appalled at the inhumanity of those who consider situating
civilians in military targets to be an acceptable tactic.
By the way, the current issue of The Economist has a great cartoon in it.
The cartoon is called SHIELDS THROUGH THE AGES. The panels trace the use
of
shields from the ancient Greeks through the Romans and Western middle
ages.
Small shields, large shields, beveled shields, etc.
The final panel of SHIELDS THROUGH THE AGES shows a Hezbollah terrorist
with
Lebanese civilians strapped to his body.
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