1300 People Killed, 5400 Injured in Occupied Palestine

[bob sacamano]

From a hill just outside the Gaza Strip, Israelis watch the air assaults on Gaza and dance in celebration of the attacks, 8 January 2009. (Newscom)

[Hedley]

So, your insightful observation is that the Israelis
and Palestinians don't like each other?

That's great work! Do you mind explaining to us
how you concluded that?

P.S. Remember the video of the Palestinians after
the 9/11 WTC attacks? I've never seen a happier
group of people.

[sky's the limit]

CONFLICT IN FIGURES

More than 1,300 Palestinians killed
Thirteen Israelis killed
More than 4,000 buildings destroyed in Gaza, more than 20,000 severely damaged
50,000 Gazans homeless and 400,000 without running water

[Hedley]

I would have to agree with you, STL, that Hamas
launching all those rockets into Israel worked out
for Hamas about as well as the so-called "six day
war" in 1967:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel#Con ... e_treaties

in which Israel defeated the combined forced of
Egypt, Syria and Jordan in under a week.

[sky's the limit]

Hedley,

Numbers aside, Hamas looks to be coming out of this rather well, both internally, and by making Israel look to be war mongers to the rest of the world.

Of course, I suspect they were going for that all along, regardless of how much suffering they helped inflict on their own people.... What a world.

stl

[Four1oh]

19 pages, and still no one has figured out a solution... keep'er going boys, I have faith...

[crazy_aviator]

410 there is only 1 solution and i could have told you at the top of the first page but who would listen to a good report ? Look into the good book

[Four1oh]

410 there is only 1 solution and i could have told you at the top of the first page but who would listen to a good report ? Look into the good book

The 'Good Book' is part of the problem, isn't it?

[habit]

childrenterroristspalestine.jpg (28.4 KiB) Viewed 1340 times

Yeah great bunch that HAMAS

[Four1oh]

Ain't dat cute.

[crazy_aviator]

The good book has a happy ending 410

[Apollo]

the good book is a fairy tale. Might as well belive some alien Xenu used a bunch of nuclear weapons to blow up the universe.


HAHAHAAHAHA.

[sky's the limit]

Robert Fisk: So, I asked the UN secretary general, isn't it time for a war crimes tribunal?


Mr Ban said it would not be up to him to launch a war crimes tribunal. It was pathetic

Monday, 19 January 2009

It's a wrap, a doddle, an Israeli ceasefire just in time for Barack Obama to have a squeaky-clean inauguration with all the world looking at the streets of Washington rather than the rubble of Gaza. Condi and Ms Livni thought their new arms-monitoring agreement – reached without a single Arab being involved – would work. Ban Ki-moon welcomed the unilateral truce. The great and the good gathered for a Sharm el-Sheikh summit. Only Hamas itself was not consulted. Which led, of course, to a few wrinkles in the plan. First, before declaring its own ceasefire, Hamas fired off more rockets at Israel, proving that Israel's primary war aim – to stop the missiles – had failed. Then Cairo shrugged off the deal because no one was going to set up electronic surveillance equipment on Egyptian soil. And not one European leader travelling to the region suggested the survivors might be helped if Israel, the EU and the US ended the food and fuel siege of Gaza.

After killing hundreds of women and children, Israel was the good guy again, by declaring a unilateral ceasefire that Hamas was certain to break. But Obama will be smiling on Tuesday. Was not this the reason, after all, why Israel suddenly wanted a truce?

Egypt's objections may be theatre – the US spent £18m last year training Egyptian security men to stop arms smuggling into Gaza and since the US bails out Egypt's economy, ignores the corruption of its regime and goes on backing Hosni Mubarak, there's sure to be a "compromise" very soon.

And Hamas has had its claws cut. Israel's informers in Gaza handed over the locations of its homes and hideouts and the government of Gaza must be wondering if they can ever close down the spy rings. Hamas thought its militia was the Hizbollah – a serious error – and that the world would eventually come to its aid. The world (although not its pompous leaders) felt enormous pity for the Palestinians, but not for the cynical men of Hamas who staged a coup in Gaza in 2007 which killed 151 Palestinians. As usual, the European statesmen appeared hopelessly out of touch with what their own electorates thought.

And history was quite forgotten. The Hamas rockets were the result of the food and fuel siege; Israel broke Hamas's own truce on 4 and 17 November. Forgotten is the fact Hamas won the 2006 elections, although Israel has killed a clutch of the victors.

And there'll be little time for the peacemakers of Sharm el-Sheikh to reflect on the three UN schools targeted by the Israelis and the slaughter of the civilians inside. Poor old Ban Ki-moon. He tried to make his voice heard just before the ceasefire, saying Israel's troops had acted "outrageously" and should be "punished" for the third school killing. Some hope. At a Beirut press conference, he admitted he had failed to get a call through to Israel's Foreign Minister to complain.

It was pathetic. When I asked Mr Ban if he would consider a UN war crimes tribunal in Gaza, he said this would not be for him to "determine". But only a few journalists bothered to listen to him and his officials were quickly folding up the UN flag on the table. About time too. Bring back the League of Nations. All is forgiven.

What no one noticed yesterday – not the Arabs nor the Israelis nor the portentous men from Europe – was that the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting last night was opening on the 90th anniversary – to the day – of the opening of the 1919 Paris peace conference which created the modern Middle East. One of its main topics was "the borders of Palestine". There followed the Versailles Treaty. And we know what happened then. The rest really is history. Bring on the ghosts.

[trey kule]

That was a very nice post STL.

I have to wonder why there was no mention of the hydrocarbons off the coast of Gaza, and Israel controlling the "waters"

[niss]

Robert Fisk is the pathetic one.

Apparently he never heard of Journalistic ethics, between completely biased stories, misreporting, or completely skewing facts, he isn't a news reporter, he is a news distorter.

[sky's the limit]

Robert Fisk is the pathetic one.

Apparently he never heard of Journalistic ethics, between completely biased stories, misreporting, or completely skewing facts, he isn't a news reporter, he is a news distorter.

No Niss,

He is the real deal, after a lifetime of reporting on this issue, he probably knows more about it than almost anyone.

I'm disappointed to see how entrenched you've become on this.

stl

[niss]

From misquoting and distorting the Kahan Commission report claiming it put direct responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila Massacre, to misquoting Israeli officials, lack of fact checking.

The man just drips of partisan journalism.

February 8, 2006 by Gilead Ini

Fisk Warps the Facts



Robert Fisk

Controversial journalist Robert Fisk, who covers the Middle East for the British Independent and whose syndicated columns also appear in the U.S. press, is author of the new book, The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East.

In a New York Times review of the book, Times deputy foreign editor Ethan Bronner stated that Fisk is "least informed about Israel," pursues his agenda "nearly to the exclusion of the pursuit of straight journalism" and allows his points to be "warped by his perspective." It is no wonder, Bronner added, that Osama bin Laden recommended Fisk's reporting as "neutral."

An excerpt from Fisk’s book, published on the Independent online edition on Jan. 6, 2006 under the headline "Ariel Sharon...," provides example after example of why the British journalist’s work is seen as "warped."

The preface to the piece begins: "Israel's Prime Minister was a ruthless military commander responsible for one of the most shocking war crimes of the 20th century, argues Robert Fisk." This dubious contention is reinforced in the article by a series of unfounded and distorted allegations.

Distortion of Kahan Commission Report

In the third paragraph of the excerpt, Fisk misleads readers about the Kahan commission, the body that investigated the 1982 massacre of Palestinians by Lebanese Christian militiamen at Sabra and Shatila. He criticizes Israeli diplomats who say that "the commission held Sharon only indirectly responsible for the massacre." According to the writer, "It was untrue. The last page of the official Israeli report held Sharon ‘personally responsible.’"

Fisk's insinuation that "personal responsiblity" precludes "indirect responsibility" is wrong. The opening summary of the Kahan report leaves no room for argument: "No Israeli was directly responsible for the events which occurred in the camps." The body of the report, too, repeatedly makes clear Sharon and the Israeli army were not directly responsible:

The Direct Responsibility
... Our conclusion is ... that the direct responsibility for the perpetration of the acts of slaughter rests on the Phalangist forces. ...

The Indirect Responsibility
To sum up this chapter, we assert that the atrocities in the refugee camps were perpetrated by members of the Phalangists, and that absolutely no direct responsibility devolves upon Israel or upon those who acted in its behalf. At the same time, it is clear from what we have said above that the decision on the entry of the Phalangists into the refugee camps was taken without consideration of the danger - which the makers and executors of the decision were obligated to foresee as probable - that the Phalangists would commit massacres and pogroms against the inhabitants of the camps, and without an examination of the means for preventing this danger. Similarly, it is clear from the course of events that when the reports began to arrive about the actions of the Phalangists in the camps, no proper heed was taken of these reports, the correct conclusions were not drawn from them, and no energetic and immediate actions were taken to restrain the Phalangists and put a stop to their actions. This both reflects and exhausts Israel's indirect responsibility for what occurred in the refugee camps.

It is only after the commission unequivocally absolves Israel and "those who acted on its behalf" of direct responsibility that it charges Sharon with "personal responsibility." That is, the Kahan report charged Sharon with "personal" but "indirect" responsibility.

Furthermore, as the Kahan report makes clear, the phrase "personal responsibility" is not antithetical to indirect responsibility, but rather is meant in contrast with ministerial responsibility. In parliamentary democracies (such as Israel and the United Kingdom), ministerial responsibility refers to the fact that cabinet ministers are ultimately responsible for the actions of their ministry–even if they are not aware of or involved in the action. In the words of the Kahan report, it is "a minister's responsibility for the shortcomings and failures of the apparatus he heads and for which he should not be charged with any personal responsibility." Personal responsibility, on the other hand, indicates that the minister himself had made a mistake. The Kahan report does "not express an opinion" on ministerial responsibility, and in turn specifies that Sharon's indirect responsibility was "personal," as opposed to ministerial; it blames Sharon himself, and not those working under him, for failing to foresee or prevent the massacre.

As someone raised and educated in the U.K. with a Ph.D. in Political Science, Fisk should certainly understand these distinctions.

"Bestialisation"? Or Rather, Misrepresentation and Hypocrisy

Repeating one of his frequent allegations, Fisk claims in the excerpt that "the Palestinian people continue to be bestialised by the Israeli leadership." Menachem Begin, he asserts, called Palestinians "two-legged beasts." Moshe Yaalon "described the Palestinians as a 'cancerous manifestation,'" Ehud Barak called them "crocodiles," and Rehavam Zeevi referred to Arafat as a "scorpion."

But Begin didn't refer to "the Palestinian people" as beasts. Rather, he was describing in a June 8, 1982 speech those who would attack Israeli children:

The children of Israel will happily go to school and joyfully return home, just like the children in Washington, in Moscow, and in Peking, in Paris and in Rome, in Oslo, in Stockholm and in Copenhagen. The fate of... Jewish children has been different from all the children of the world throughout the generations. No more. We will defend our children. If the hand of any two-footed animal is raised against them, that hand will be cut off, and our children will grow up in joy in the homes of their parents.

Similarly, Yaalon also was not referring to "the Palestinian people," but to terrorism: "Palestinian terrorism is the main threat for Israel because it is spreading like a cancer," he said on August 25, 2002 (after Palestinian violence claimed 15 Israeli lives already that month).

What about Palestinian "crocodiles"? Whoever made this reference — and it is far from clear that it was Barak — seemed to be talking about the Palestinian government negotiators who were demanding more control over Jerusalem. According to the AFP news agency, a close aide to Barak was reported to have said: "In a few weeks we will know if the Palestinians want peace and are prepared to look at the compromise proposals on Jerusalem put forward by (US) President Bill Clinton at Camp David or if they are like crocodiles, which the more they eat the hungrier they are." Israeli Arab Knesset member Ahmed Tibi later accused Barak of being that "close aide," but this was never confirmed.

As far as Zeevi calling Arafat a "scorpion," Fisk finally seems to be correct. The late Israeli lawmaker did refer to the man known as the "father of terrorism," who commanded groups responsible for hundreds of bombings, hijackings, assassinations and other attacks on innocent men, women and children, as a scorpion. Just as Begin referred to terrorists as animals and Yaalon called terrorism a cancer, it is not at all uncommon for people to use animal metaphors in describing violent individuals or organizations.

But then Fisk, despite his repeated criticism of Israelis using animal metaphors, understands very well the use of animal metaphors to describe shady individuals. He himself regularly refers to Saddam Hussein as the "Beast of Baghdad." He described Americans accused of abusing prisoners in Iraq or Guantanamo as "animals." He compared the Taliban to a "chameleon," and the American media to a "dog." Apparently, what is a literary tool for Fisk and others is "bestialisation" when coming from Israelis.

Distortion of Weisglass Interview

Fisk prevaricates yet again when writing that Sharon’s "spokesman," Dov Weisglass, said the Israeli pullout from Gaza would "turn any plans for a Palestinian state in the West Bank into ‘formaldehyde’...."

This allegation is based on a widely disseminated — and widely distorted — interview with Weisglass (who was actually Sharon's advisor, not his spokesman) in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz. While anti-Israel propagandists like Fisk often seize on Weisglass’ words to paint Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza as a nefarious Israeli scheme rather than a positive development for Palestinians, Weisglass never said what Fisk attributed to him. Again, this is a case of Fisk distorting Israeli comments with manipulative paraphrasing.

Rather than turning plans into formaldehyde, Weisglass spoke metaphorically of preserving them with the chemical. The pullout, in Weisglass' words, would preserve the "road map" peace plan and its principles, as if in formaldehyde, until the Palestinian side was readly to comply with its obligations. (For more on distortions of the Ha'aretz interview, including relevant excerpts of the interview, see here.)

And More

On subject after subject, Fisk misrepresents the truth. He refers to Sharon’s supposed "outspoken criticism of NATO’s war against Serbia" based on an Israeli news report, but hides the fact that Sharon’s spokesman denied the validity of the report, and that Sharon had in fact openly spoken in support of the NATO intervention, saying: "We expect that U.S. and NATO forces will do everything possible to stop the suffering of innocent people" in Kosovo. (And of course, Fisk makes no mention of Israeli aid to Albanian refugees.) He describes Palestinians who rained stones and bottles on Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall merely as "demonstrators." He mocks the fact that Israelis see those who kill Jewish civilians as "terrorists," and suggests that the reason "Judaism and Islam are crashing into each other" is because of supposedly vengeful Jewish values stemming from the Old Testament.

"One of the most shocking war crimes"?

Clearly, Fisk's facts do not withstand scrutiny. But what of his opinion, expressed in the very first sentence of the preface to the excerpt, that the 1982 killings at Sabra and Shatila are "one of the most shocking war crimes of the 20th century"? The murder of civilians is always shocking, and these two Phalangist massacres are certainly no exception. Still, in the context of the long and brutal Lebanese civil war, these most infamous of massacres were not so exceptional. Correspondingly, in the much longer and much more brutal 20th century, it can hardly be claimed that the tragedy in the refugee camps belongs among the "most shocking war crimes."

The war in Lebanon was characterized by massacres, counter-massacres, and other wanton killing. Fisk himself obliquely admits that the 1982 massacre might not even be the worst carnage ever inflicted on the Sabra camp, noting in his book Pity the Nation that "about 2000 women and children [were killed] in the shelling of Sabra in 1975 and 1976." In 1976, according to the same book, "thousands" of Palestinians in the Beirut refugee camp of Tel al-Za'atar, "mostly civilians," were killed by Lebanese Christian militiamen. Jonathan Randal, a reporter whom Fisk recommends, described in his book Going All the Way the murder in 1976 of "a thousand" residents of Karantina in Beirut. Professor William Harris put the number at 1,500. On "Black Saturday" of December 1975, in the first atrocity of the civil war, "at least 300 Muslims were butchered" along with an equal number of Christians, and the following month, a Palestinian attack on Damour left at least 149 dead, and probably a couple of hundred more (Fisk, Pity the Nation).

The list of 20th century war crimes outside the Lebanese stage further indicates that the Sabra and Shatila massacres, terrible as they were, cannot fairly be characterized as among the "most shocking" war crimes of the century. In the middle decades of the century alone, a deluge of massacres — the mass murder of Jews in Odessa, Ninth Fort, Rumbula, Lvov, Pinsk and Bessarabia during the Holocaust, of Christians in Poland, of Chinese in Nanjing, to name only a few — dwarfed the casualty count at the Lebanese refugee camps. So did the numbers killed during the Armenian genocide, in Rwanda, Bosnia, Hama in Syria, and Cambodia, and during "la Mantaza" in El Salvador — again just to name a few.

Fact-Checking Fisk

According to historian Efraim Karsh, who reviewed the book, such errors span the entire volume. But it is not much of a surprise that Fisk shows little regard for facts. He has said that journalistic neutrality is "no longer relevant" to the Middle East and that instead journalists are "morally bound ... to show eloquent compassion to the victims." And Fisk’s reporting makes all too clear whom he anoints as the "victims" in the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Nor is it a surprise that the Independent is willing to publish even Fisk’s most patently false claims. That newspaper’s foreign editor has himself parroted some of Fisk’s specious allegations, including the absurd assertion that the word "settlements" has been replaced by "neighborhoods" in the media.

What is somewhat surprising is that the mainstream American media, committed to objectivity and accuracy, continue to publish the journalist’s deceptive and error-ridden work, seemingly without any fact-checking.

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_conte ... ticle=1062

[sky's the limit]

But of course...

Not surprising, your sources against Fisk. That said, he is absolutely correct in saying there is no journalistic impartiality anymore - there never was.

He is the guy who says what others won't, that's bound to make enemies... In newspapers. The book is his opinions, and they count for a lot.

Anyway, you're obviously determined to defend Israel's right to slaughter civilians, imprison an entire culture, and occupy their land. How can I argue with that?

Can't, so I won't.

stl

[sky's the limit]

In 1991, Fisk won a Jacob's Award for his RTÉ Radio coverage of the first Gulf War.[21] He received Amnesty International UK Press Awards in 1998 for his reports from Algeria and again in 2000 for his articles on the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. He received the British Press Awards' International Journalist of the Year seven times, and twice won its "Reporter of the Year" award.[22] In 2001, he was awarded the David Watt Prize for "outstanding contributions towards the clarification of political issues and the promotion of their greater understanding" for his investigation into the Armenian Genocide by the Turks in 1915.[23] In 2002 he was the fourth recipient of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. More recently, Fisk was awarded the 2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize along with $350,000.[24]

He was made an honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of St Andrews on June 24, 2004. The Political and Social Sciences department of Ghent University (Belgium) awarded Fisk an honorary doctorate on March 24, 2006. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the American University of Beirut in June 2006. Trinity College Dublin awarded him a second, honorary, Doctorate in July 2008.[25]

Sounds like an unreliable guy to me....

[habit]

Robert Fisk is the pathetic one.

Apparently he never heard of Journalistic ethics, between completely biased stories, misreporting, or completely skewing facts, he isn't a news reporter, he is a news distorter.

No Niss,

He is the real deal, after a lifetime of reporting on this issue, he probably knows more about it than almost anyone.

I'm disappointed to see how entrenched you've become on this.

stl

ummm,,, STL me thinks you are also entrenched

[crazy_aviator]

Niss, Do you also believe that ALL other nations and peoples are Goyim or cattle or dogs and they ALL are to be under Jeswish control ??

[niss]

But of course...

Not surprising, your sources against Fisk. That said, he is absolutely correct in saying there is no journalistic impartiality anymore - there never was.

Can you dispute the claims in my reference?

A journalists job is to present the news and facts with out bias. It is one thing to feel remorse, it is another thing to inform people with your own personal slant.

He is the guy who says what others won't, that's bound to make enemies... In newspapers. The book is his opinions, and they count for a lot.

If he wants to write a book about his opinions fine, if he wants to be a journalist and write news, he should either do it objectively and properly or face the criticism.

Anyway, you're obviously determined to defend Israel's right to slaughter civilians, imprison an entire culture, and occupy their land. How can I argue with that?

Strawman. I never defended their right to slaughter civilians, imprison an entire culture, and occupy their land.

I have always maintained that I am all for withdrawing from the territories and a Palestinian state within Gaza and the west bank. I am not defending a right to slaughter civilians but I do defend Israels right to defend against violence with violence. Civilians die in war, it is a fact.

The people who justify and apologies for Hamas' tactics against Israeli civilians are the ones who are defending rights to slaughter civilians.

Maybe you should post articles from another 'reputable' person?

Dianna Buttu whom many in the west apparently respect as well has lately been saying that the Hamas rockets carry no warheads and do not explode. She has a long list of credentials just like Fisk and also deems it acceptable to either distort the truth or outright lie.

Where is the outrage of Palestinian militants attacking (inside Gaza) the trucks carrying aid from Jordan after the ceasefire?

[Four1oh]

I have a question. I heard that the palestinians SOLD their land way back when to the Israelis and/or the UN sometime after WWII. Is that true?

[niss]

I have a question. I heard that the palestinians SOLD their land way back when to the Israelis and/or the UN sometime after WWII. Is that true?

The JNF (Jewish National Fund) raised funds before and after the establishment of the state of Israel to buy land to start towns & settlements.

Many towns and cities in Israel proper were started with land purchased by the JNF.

Many other towns (and settlements in the west bank) were created using a law left over from ottoman times allowing the state to develop towns on state owned land (one argument as to why settlements are not illegal).

Some settlements in the WB were built on privately purchased Palestinian land and some were built on stolen Palestinian land. I have done plenty of research into how much was purchased/stolen but these numbers are highly disputed.

A very rarely mentioned fact is that there were actually Jewish communities in Gaza and Hebron that the Jews had to leave during the 1929 Revolt.

Apparently Palestinians can kill and steal land as well but you wouldn't know it buy reading here.

Since 1948 almost 800,000 Jews were kicked out of their native arab countries and their land expropriated.

Again, something you wouldn't exactly pick up on this forum.

[bob sacamano]

No Comment video: Gaza

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64LsV16X ... re=channel


http://www.nocommenttv.com

http://www.euronews.net

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=noc ... iew=videos