Israel accused of using Cluster Bombs and Phosphorus Shells in Gaza Conflict
"...Israeli Defence Forces spokesman Benjamin Rutland told the BBC: "Our definition is that anyone who is involved with terrorism within Hamas is a valid target. This ranges from the strictly military institutions and includes the political institutions that provide the logistical funding and human resources for the terrorist arm."
Philippe Sands, Professor of International Law at University College London, says he is not aware of any Western democracy having taken so broad a definition.
"Once you extend the definition of combatant in the way that IDF is apparently doing, you begin to associate individuals who are only indirectly or peripherally involved… it becomes an open-ended definition, which undermines the very object and purpose of the rules that are intended to be applied." '
From:"Gaza conflict: Who is a civilian?"by Heather Sharp at BBC,Jan. 5, 2009
So here's a couple of clips from Aljazeera on the situation in Gaza.
Note Israel has prevented Western Journalist from entering Gaza. Most of the reports from other Media outlets are done from outside Gaza.
Mobile Bulletin-Jan. 5, 2009 from Aljazeera
Gazans flee their homes/ Aljazeera
As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens, many families are being displaced. About 13,000 people have fled their homes because of Israel's continuing assault on Gaza. Many lived on the outskirts of the Strip and are now in Gaza City, staying at UN schools that have been turned into makeshift shelters.
Sherine Tadros spoke to some Gazans who say there is nowhere they feel safe.
Anyway the current Israeli Regime like the Bush Regime rather than admitting to making mistakes in their bombing of Gaza instead are working overtime to come up with justifications and legal opinions to allow them to kill as many civilians or non-combatants as they wish to. So they argue that it is merely a matter of opinion about who is or who is not a combatant or non-combatant.
It reminds one of the Bush Regimes academic type discussions about what constitutes abuse or torture of detainees. But adhering to the Geneva conventions isn't just a matter of parsing the words of the conventions to find loopholes and ambiguities but rather should be acting according to the spirit of the Geneva Conventions. Finding excuses to bomb University buildings and hospitals and ambulances and schools and police stations is far from adhering to the spirit of the Geneva Conventions.
It is difficult for the American Government or the America Media to see such distinctions since the American Military treats the majority of people for instance in Iraq or Afghanistan as being justifiable targets . The US also has a history in Iraq of targeting ambulances from the Red Cross or Red Crescent because on occasion insurgents have used ambulances to transport arms. And the Israelis and Americans have developed such a hatred towards all Arabs, Palestinians and Muslims that they are little troubled by the deaths of these people who they view as "being not like us".
So there is little reason for hope even if there is a ceasefire in Gaza in the near future since the Mindset of the Israelis and Americans is not going to change anytime soon. Since Americans and Israelis believe that their respective nations are special because they each see themselves as chosen nations ordained not by man but by God . If they are ordained or chosen by God then it follows that Man's laws have no hold over either of their countries. So all this talk about human rights and democracy and freedom are just buzz words to beguile their respective citizens . And if even a majority of the citizens in these countries disagree with their government or military then they just say "SO WHAT!" since after all those in power and in the military or the Pentagon always know what's best.
So how does one go about who is a combatant and who is a non-combatant. The Israelis like the Americans under Bush claimed that anyone with any sort of connection to terrorists or combatants is a legitimate target. So if you go to the same Mosques as known terrorists , or go to shops or restaurants where terrorists go , or as a medical professional or ambulance driver if you give medical help to a terrorists or you live in the same building or next door or in the same neighborhood etc. as do terrorists then you too are a legitimate target . Given the living conditions in Gaza as one of the most densely populated areas on earth the just about everybody from infants to school children to police officers and lawyers and doctors and nurses and paramedics and shopkeepers to those who might receive food or clothing from organizations connected with Hamas are all legitimate targets.
"Gaza conflict: Who is a civilian?"by Heather Sharp at BBC,Jan. 5, 2009
But when an Israeli military spokesman also says things like "anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target," things get complicated.
The International Committee of the Red Cross - guardian of the Geneva Conventions on which international humanitarian law is based - defines a combatant as a person "directly engaged in hostilities".
But Israeli Defence Forces spokesman Benjamin Rutland told the BBC: "Our definition is that anyone who is involved with terrorism within Hamas is a valid target. This ranges from the strictly military institutions and includes the political institutions that provide the logistical funding and human resources for the terrorist arm."
Philippe Sands, Professor of International Law at University College London, says he is not aware of any Western democracy having taken so broad a definition.
"Once you extend the definition of combatant in the way that IDF is apparently doing, you begin to associate individuals who are only indirectly or peripherally involved… it becomes an open-ended definition, which undermines the very object and purpose of the rules that are intended to be applied."
And it should be noted that both America and Israel have not been so quick to call groups terrorists who they see as promoting their particular agenda.
The Long and Bloody Hypocrisy of U.S.-Israeli Acts of Terrorism"By Robert Parry, Consortium News.Jan. 5, 2009.
Without an extreme double standard on terrorism, it's hard to see how today's bloodbath in Gaza would be possible.
Israel, a nation that was born out of Zionist terrorism, has launched massive airstrikes against targets in Gaza using high-tech weapons produced by the United States, a country that often has aided and abetted terrorism by its client military forces, such as Chile’s Operation Condor and the Nicaraguan contras, and even today harbors right-wing Cuban terrorists implicated in blowing up a civilian airliner.
Yet, with that moral ambiguity excluded from the debate, the justification for the Israeli attacks, which have killed at least 364 people, is the righteous fight against “terrorism,” since Gaza is ruled by the militant Palestinian group, Hamas.
Hamas rose to power in January 2006 through Palestinian elections, which ironically the Bush administration had demanded. However, after Hamas won a parliamentary majority, Israel and the United States denounced the outcome because they deem Hamas a “terrorist organization.”
Hamas then wrested control of Gaza from Fatah, a rival group that once was considered “terrorist” but is now viewed as a U.S.-Israeli partner, so it has been cleansed of the “terrorist” label.
Unwilling to negotiate seriously with Hamas because of its acts of terrorism -- which have included firing indiscriminate short-range missiles into southern Israel -- the United States and Israel sat back as the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza worsened, with 1.5 million impoverished Palestinians packed into what amounts to a giant open-air prison.
And once again Israel like America in their military actions use whatever weapons they have at their disposal despite International Agreements baning those weapons. They can use whatever weapons they want to but their enemies can not.
"Israel Rains Fire on Gaza With Phosphorus Shells" by Sheera Frenkel and Michael Evans January 5, 2009 by the Times Online (UK)
JERUSALEM - Israel is believed to be using controversial white phosphorus shells to screen its assault on the heavily populated Gaza Strip yesterday. The weapon, used by British and US forces in Iraq, can cause horrific burns but is not illegal if used as a smokescreen.
...The Geneva Treaty of 1980 stipulates that white phosphorus should not be used as a weapon of war in civilian areas, but there is no blanket ban under international law on its use as a smokescreen or for illumination. However, Charles Heyman, a military expert and former major in the British Army, said: "If white phosphorus was deliberately fired at a crowd of people someone would end up in The Hague. White phosphorus is also a terror weapon. The descending blobs of phosphorus will burn when in contact with skin."
The Israeli military last night denied using phosphorus, but refused to say what had been deployed. "Israel uses munitions that are allowed for under international law," said Captain Ishai David, spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces. "We are pressing ahead with the second stage of operations, entering troops in the Gaza Strip to seize areas from which rockets are being launched into Israel."
As Glenn Greenwald at Salon .com argues that too many Americans can easily identify with the Israelis but are unable to identify with Palestinians. He argues that those who support Israel in this conflict make the same rationalizations as those of Terrorists.
"Orwell, Blinding Tribalism, Selective Terrorism, and Israel/Gaza"Sunday, January 4, 2009 by Salon.com
by Glenn Greenwald
Former McCain-Palin campaign spokesman and current Weekly Standard editor Michael Goldfarb notes that Israel, a couple of days ago, dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on a Gazan home which killed a top Hamas leader . . . in addition to 18 others, including his four wives and nine of his children. About the killing of those innocent civilians, Goldfarb writes (h/t John Cole via email):
The fight against Islamic radicals always seems to come around to whether or not they can, in fact, be deterred, because it's not clear that they are rational, at least not like us. But to wipe out a man's entire family, it's hard to imagine that doesn't give his colleagues at least a moment's pause. Perhaps it will make the leadership of Hamas rethink the wisdom of sparking an open confrontation with Israel under the current conditions.
That, of course, is just a slightly less profane version of Marty Peretz's chest-beating proclamation that the great value of the attack on Gaza is to teach those Arabs a lesson: "do not fuck with the Jews."
There are few concepts more elastic and subject to exploitation than "Terrorism," the all-purpose justifying and fear-mongering term. But if it means anything, it means exactly the mindset which Goldfarb is expressing: slaughtering innocent civilians in order to "send a message," to "deter" political actors by making them fear that continuing on the same course will result in the deaths of civilians and -- best of all, from the Terrorist's perspective -- even their own children and other family members.
To the Terrorist, by definition, that innocent civilians and even children are killed isn't a regrettable cost of taking military action. It's not a cost at all. It's a benefit. It has strategic value. Goldfarb explicitly says this: "to wipe out a man's entire family, it's hard to imagine that doesn't give his colleagues at least a moment's pause."
That, of course, is the very same logic that leads Hamas to send suicide bombers to slaughter Israeli teenagers in pizza parlors and on buses and to shoot rockets into their homes. It's the logic that leads Al Qaeda to fly civilian-filled airplanes into civilian-filled office buildings. And it's the logic that leads infinitely weak and deranged people like Goldfarb and Peretz to find value in the killing of innocent Palestinians, including -- one might say, at least in Goldfarb's case: especially -- children.
and there are those who have a callous indifference to the deathas of Muslims:
Those who giddily support not just civilian deaths in Gaza but every actual and proposed attack on Arab/Muslim countries -- from the war in Iraq to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to the proposed attacks on Iran and Syria and even continued escalation in Afghanistan -- are able to do so because they don't really see the Muslims they want to kill as being fully human. For obvious reasons, one typically finds this full-scale version of sociopathic indifference -- this perception of brutal war as a blood-pumping and exciting instrument for feeling vicarious sensations of power and strength from a safe distance -- in the society's weakest, most frightened, and most insecure individuals.
Here's right-wing blogger (and law professor) Glenn Reynolds revealing that wretched mindset for all to see:
“Cycles of violence” continue until one side wins decisively. Personally, I’d rather that were the Israelis, since they’re civilized people and not barbarians.
Or, as Goldfarb put it: "it's not clear that they are rational, at least not like us."
If you see Palestinians as something less than civilized human beings: as "barbarians" -- just as if you see Americans as infidels warring with God or Jews as sub-human rats -- then it naturally follows that civilian deaths are irrelevant, perhaps even something to cheer. For people who think that way, arguments about "proportionality" won't even begin to resonate -- such concepts can't even be understood -- because the core premise, that excessive civilian deaths are horrible and should be avoided at all costs, isn't accepted. Why should a superior, civilized, peaceful society allow the welfare of violent, hateful barbarians to interfere with its objectives? How can the deaths or suffering of thousands of barbarians ever be weighed against the death of even a single civilized person?
and see:
"Civilian casualties rise as Israel presses in on Gaza City" by Dion Nissenbaum, McClatchy Newspapers, Jan. 5, 2009
and: "Fighting rages in Gaza" Aljazeera,Jan.6, 2009
and for more updates on Gaza conflict: Aljazeera.net
and for more on America's continuing support of Israel even when Israel has been found guilty of on going systematic Human Rights abuses:
"Gaza - Fact Sheet of US Complicity: Israel Is Killing Palestinians in Gaza w/ U.S. Weapons"Thoughts by Dee at wordpress.com
According to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (P.L. 87-195), “No assistance may be provided under this part [of the law] to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” As documented not only by Palestinian, Israeli, and international human rights groups, but by the U.S. government as well, Israel has an atrocious human rights record and therefore should be ineligible for any form of U.S. aid.
And Israel has made things difficult for Humanitarian aid organizations to enter Gaza:
"Israel bars ICRC entering Gaza" Presstv.com Sat, 03 Jan 2009
For a second day running, Israeli authorities have barred a Red Cross medical team from entering Gaza to help treat residents injured in bombings.
"The ICRC had notified the authorities of the team's arrival in advance, but they have been awaiting authorization to enter the (Gaza) Strip since Friday morning," the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement on Saturday.
and:
"Israel uses cluster bombs, phosphorus shells against civilians"Today's Zaman/ Jan. 6,2009
"...A shell fired by Israeli forces explodes over the Gaza Strip. Israeli tanks and infantry battled Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip in a ground offensive launched after eight days of deadly air strikes.
Reports have been coming in from the Gaza Strip indicating that Israel has been using cluster bombs and other controversial weapons in its ongoing assault on the region, which escalated from days of air strikes into a ground invasion on Saturday afternoon..."
and so it goes,
GORD.
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