Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumThe myth of Hamas’s human shield
Some Gazans have admitted that they were afraid of criticizing Hamas, but none have said they had been forced by the organisation to stay in places of danger and become unwilling human-shields. The Bani Sobeila area, near Khan Younis, where the Abu Jamaa deaths took place received leaflets dropped from the air last week warning them to leave.
But almost all stayed. One reason for that was many of the houses belonged to the Abu Jamaa clan who felt there was safety in staying together. Another reason was given by a neighbour, Abdullah al-Daweish: Where do we go to? Some people moved from the outer edge of Khan Younis to Khan Younis centre after Israelis told them to, then the centre got bombed. People have moved from this area to Gaza City, and Gaza City has been bombed. Its not Hamas who is ordering us in this, its the Israelis.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israelgaza-conflict-the-myth-of-hamass-human-shield-9619810.html
mwrguy
(3,245 posts)shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)if you were willing to believe that Palestinians were fundamentally different from other people and were thus willing to offer themselves up to the air strikes of the Israelis.
shira
(30,109 posts)Make up your mind.
stranger81
(2,345 posts)Underlying this meme is the racist assumption that Palestinians are less than human.
sabbat hunter
(6,834 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)Here's the reality: This isn't pro-Palestinian advocacy anymore as much as it is pro-Hamas. It's blatant now.
In the most literal sense, it's covering for Hamas war crimes against the Palestinian people. I've posted one article after the next, with videos, showing evidence of Hamas human shielding. Advocacy groups like B'tselem and Breaking-The-Silence even acknowledge Hamas human shielding.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/113471416
No amount of evidence will convince the propagandists.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)one of the images details a rocket that was fired from the vicinity of a cemetery, which it claims was a "civilian structure". I supposed that is correct if you really stretch the definition of "structure", but even so I doubt that anyone was taking shelter there.
Another details a rocket fired from a mosque courtyard on a Tuesday afternoon at about 2:30 pm, when you wouldnt normally expect anyone to be there.
Another alleges a rocket fired from the periphery of a childrens' playground, which certainly sounds bad. But it was at 7pm at night, and I doubt that anyone would have been there particularly when there is a war going on.
Not a single launch from a residential neighbourhood, which is a bit telling, isn't it? Is this really the best that you can do?
Igel
(35,337 posts)The onus for protecting civilians is on combatants. It's the very basis of war crimes claims against what the IDF is doing.
One doesn't have to order civilians to be human shields. You just set up shop among civilians--you've just violated what's come to be considered a fundamental (theoretical) rule of warfare, putting the onus on them to move or function as a shield. You're attracting fire to civilians, which is pretty much the opposite of *protecting* civilians and shielding them.
That's a big bad no-no.
Note that if you're a combatant and civilians flock around you to protect you--something we've seen from time to time in the last 6 months, counting on the "aggressor's" unwillingness to hurt civilians--then you're off the hook. Some folk in 2003 went to Iraq to be human shields, thinking themselves to be innocent civilians (even the highly intelligent can be benighted). In those cases civilians have just assumed liability for everything and anything that happens to them and the only reason not to ignore them in shooting at the combatants is for PR among those who somehow think intentionally putting one's self in harm's way makes you "innocent." This is a completely different matter, however, from when civilians fail to move when somebody stands behind you and shoots past you.
You don't give civilians "negative check-off" on being your protection if you're a combatant. Even if it means that your one real option is to stand in a field with a mortar while fighter-bombers come at you.
wellst0nev0ter
(7,509 posts)and all the urban guerrilla tactics and soft targets it attacked during the Mandate period.
But of course, That's Different.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)About Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other armed groups using Gazan civilians as human shields. This Israeli claim is based on the fact that Gazan militants live among the civilian population and keep much of their weaponry in the neighborhoods. But this is hypocrisy; every guerrilla army that fights on its own turf against an incomparably stronger enemy fights from among the civilian population. The pre-1948 Irgun and Lehi guerrillas would kill the British, then melt back into the Jewish neighborhoods. In Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan, there are civilian public buildings including schools with plaques at the entrance telling how they housed weapons caches and training camps for the Irgun, Lehi or Haganah. Up through Israels War of Independence, the kibbutzim were military outposts as much as they were civilian settlements.
http://972mag.com/blame-israel-and-hamas-both-for-gazas-civilian-deaths/93351/
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)in synagogues across Israel today:-
http://azvsas.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/zionist-weapons-cache-found-in.html
I'm fairly used to blatant hypocrisy from the hasbarados, but this one takes the cake.
shira
(30,109 posts)....to endanger Palestinian civilians & maximize the number of their deaths because in the 1940's Zionists were hiding weapons from the Brits.
You want to talk hypocrisy?
How do you square your support of Hamas methods with your concern for Palestinian innocents?
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)You dont have a problem with Israel launching air strikes on a mosque if there are weapons inside it, but you would have had a problem with the Brits launching an air strike on a synagogue if there were weapons inside it.
shira
(30,109 posts)Back then, the Brits sent Jews back to death camps rather than let them into Palestine. Such was their contempt for Jews. I doubt they'd have cared one whit about innocents had they bombed synagogues.
So which is it? Are you defending Hamas war crimes against its own people, or denying them?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)that all displaced people were in not just Jews as death camps
shira
(30,109 posts)...were fighting the Brits during the WW2 and Holocaust years, when it was perfectly acceptable for the Brits to send Jews away from Palestine and back to the death camps.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)because that's is where the Brits deported Jews to during WW2 they did allow for a paltry 10,000 Jews per year to immigrate
and Zionist fought against the British during WW2? Sure you wish to go with that?
and ell it wasn't a law yet -can you say double standards?
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)the Fourth Geneva Convention was made in 1949. They called it the "fourth" because there were three others that preceded it, in 1864, 1906 and 1929. Then you have other conventions such as the Hague Convention on the Rules of War, etc.
Nowadays, Israel sends Black "infiltrators" back to their deaths in Sudan and Somalia.
That has to be the most inane statement you have ever uttered. The whole point is that the Brits did not bomb synagogues, even though Jews used them to store weapons that were used to kill British soldiers, Arab civilians and sometimes Jewish civilians. Faced with the same situation, the Brits responded with far more humanity and restraint than Israel does.
shira
(30,109 posts)Israel is not sending anyone back to death camps. Yet another failed and vulgar moral equivalency.
And Zionist militias weren't even in the same league as Hamas in the 30's and 40's. They weren't purposely killing as many innocents as possible while trying to maximize Jewish civilian losses... counting on radicals in the West to support such vileness.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)Its an interesting argument, although incorrect. Human shield protocols were included in the Third Geneva Convention in 1929:-
http://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_cha_chapter32_rule97
bemildred
(90,061 posts)I suppose the Israeli objection to Hamas' "using human shields" is purely a legal matter, they would not mind were it only were still legal like when they did it. Except that they still do it too.
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/survivors-massacre-palestinians.html
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)twisted world view, but when the law is applied to Israel you poorly jump through hoops defending Israeli crimes.
But I expect you to remain silent on this.
Silence is a sure indicator of guilt.
PCIntern
(25,576 posts)This means what?
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)Nevernose
(13,081 posts)And we're talking about today and this month, in which hundreds of innocents have been killed because two governments are so overrun with extremists that neither of them can protect civilians.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)With hundreds of largely civilian Palestinians dead, Israels attempts at crippling Hamas in the Gaza Strip have resulted in grim headlines and news broadcasts around the world. Regardless of whether or not Israel is winning on the ground in Gaza, it is slipping in its worldwide battle for hearts and minds.
It stands to reason, then, that friendly intellectuals are stepping forward to present their justifications for Israels actions. Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, for example, toured a Hamas tunnel and dined with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu before describing him as a reluctant warrior, echoing Israels official position that Hamas is forcing the Israeli Defense Forces to bomb civilian areas.
Unfortunately, some of these defenses invite rather unflattering comparisons.
In todays Wall Street Journal, New York University professor Thane Rosenbaum outlines what he sees as Israels moral dilemma of whether or not to strike suspected Hamas targets also populated by civilians.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/07/nyu-professors-defense-of-civilian-deaths-in-gaza-has-no-basis-in-existing-law
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)predictable appellate defense attorney for Bibi...why waste space on his opinions..one can write them for him,
before he does.
But this one here, the no holds bar guy:
In todays Wall Street Journal, Thane Rosenbaum, a senior fellow at New York Universitys law school, outlines what he sees as Israels moral dilemma of whether or not to strike suspected Hamas targets also populated by civilians.
Rosenbaum goes on to question the very idea of what a civilian means. Its worth quoting him at length, to avoid running the risk of misrepresenting his position:
On some basic level, you forfeit your right to be called civilians when you freely elect members of a terrorist organization as statesmen, invite them to dinner with blood on their hands and allow them to set up shop in your living room as their base of operations. At that point you begin to look a lot more like conscripted soldiers than innocent civilians. And you have wittingly made yourself targets. . . .
Surely there are civilians who have been killed in this conflict who have taken every step to distance themselves from this fast-moving war zone, and children whose parents are not card-carrying Hamas loyalists. These are the true innocents of Gaza. It is they for whom our sympathy should be reserved. The impossibility of identifying them, and saving them, is Israel's deepest moral dilemma.
Rosenbaum presumably didnt realize that his words in defense of Israel echo those of none other than Osama bin Laden. In his 2002 Letter to America, bin Laden laid out his justifications for targeting American civilians.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Ah, here it is:
The most vile op-ed you will read about Gaza
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/07/23/the-most-vile-op-ed-you-will-read-about-gaza/
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)but I find it hard to summon the disgust anymore when it comes to the Washington Post. As the Floyd boys called it, I have become, comfortably numb.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)...then every single Jewish civilian in Israel is responsible for Netanyahu's war crimes. Leads me to believe "Rosenbaum's Law" is only meant to apply in an apartheid state.... one set of laws for us folks, another set for "them" folks. Which is the crux of the problem.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)The Magistrate
(95,252 posts)Has no relation to existing law, or contradicts existing law, would be more precise....
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Perhaps "Obscures existing law" would work too.
sabbat hunter
(6,834 posts)more weapons are being stored in UNRWA schools. And that is from the UNRWA
http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/unrwa-condemns-placement-rockets-second-time-one-its-schools
Any wonder why Israel's leaders find it necessary to attack schools?
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)evidence that hamas's terrorist distinction is valid.