Seven years ago the Bush administration passed Security Council Resolution 1397, which called for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The resolution even welcomed the Saudi Peace Initiative, which is based on Israel’s withdrawal to the 1967 lines. Is this what the Obama administration wants? To assure Israel that it can conduct right-wing policy while enjoying the blessing of a liberal American administration? Read more »
The Guardian has compiled detailed evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive against Gaza earlier this year, involving the use of Palestinian children as human shields, the targeting of medics and hospitals, and drone aircraft firing on civilians. Read more »
Israel Defense Forces soldiers did not consider medical teams as entitled to receive the special protection granted to them within the framework of their duties during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, according to a new report by Physicians for Human Rights due to be released on Monday. Read more »
Haaretz last week published an expose revealing soldiers’ accounts of ethical violations in the Gaza offensive earlier this year. Less than a month after the end of Operation Cast Lead, dozens of graduates of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military preparatory program convened at Oranim Academic College in Tivon to testify to their experiences during the war. Read more »
All these propagandistic and ridiculous responses are meant not only to deceive the public, but also to offer shameless lies. The IDF knew very well what its soldiers did in Gaza. It has long ceased to be the most moral army in the world. Far from it – it will not seriously investigate anything. Read more »
Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children’s graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques – these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty. Read more »
“That’s what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn’t have to be with a weapon, you don’t have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him. With us it was an old woman, on whom I didn’t see any weapon. The order was to take the person out, that woman, the moment you see her.” Read more »
Jerusalem Police announced on Friday they would prevent the so-called Palestinian Culture Festival the Palestinian Authority plans to organize in the city on Saturday. The PA is planning to fly a glider plane painted in the colors of the Palestinian national flag over the walls of the Old City as part of the festival, which is meant to declare the city to be “the capital of Arabic culture for 2009.” Read more »
One account tells of a sniper killing a mother and children at close range whom troops had told to leave their home. Another speaker at the seminar described what he saw as the “cold blooded murder” of a Palestinian woman. Read more »
It seems that what soldiers have to say is actually the way things happened in the field, most of the time. And as usual, reality is completely different from the gentler version provided by the military commanders to the public and media during the operation and after. Read more »
