Not to quibble too much (I believe some atrocities have been committed by the IDF during Operation Defensive Shield, but I'll wait for pictures & documentation), but aren't these the same British media outlets that were screaming TORTURE!!!!! after seeing a couple of pictures from Guantanamo Bay?
Here's a crucial little blurb buried in a report from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4394839,00.html "Palestinians admit the camp was liberally mined two or three days before the assault. But the strategy failed because Israel had no compunction about razing homes to make roads for its tanks. "The thing we did not count on was the bulldozer. It was a catastrophe. If the Israelis had only gone one by one inside the camp, they would never have succeeded in entering," said Mr Damaj. " Here's a little more even-handed report from the WaPo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56619-2002Apr15.html Lives Reduced to Rubble Jenin Camp Is a Scene of Devastation But Yields No Evidence of a Massacre By Molly Moore Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, April 16, 2002; Page A01 JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank, April 15 -- The heart of this battered Palestinian shantytown of 13,000 inhabitants has been erased from the face of the earth, its maze of apartment houses and twisting streets bulldozed by the Israeli military into a vast crater of broken concrete. The crater -- about the size of two square city blocks -- lies at the end of a dusty river of destruction that looks as if it swept through in a fierce flood, taking with it sad souvenirs from the homes and lives it obliterated: a hand-knit blue sweater, a lace window curtain, cooking pots, a car sliced in half. The rubble has obscured many facts, but some are indisputable. Some of the most brutal urban battles, heaviest air barrages and most devastating ground tactics in more than two weeks of Israeli assaults against Palestinian towns and communities across the West Bank have been waged here. Others are less clear. Interviews with residents inside the camp and international aid workers who were allowed here for the first time today indicated that no evidence has surfaced to support allegations by Palestinian groups and aid organizations of large-scale massacres or executions by Israeli troops. Thus far, about 40 bodies have been recovered, according to the Israeli military and aid groups. "Everybody was thinking mass graves in the way we think of Kosovo," said Guy Siri, deputy director of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. "I don't think we have seen that." Residents related numerous accounts of individual killings of noncombatants. Nasser Abu Hatab, a mentally disabled man, was shot once in the head and nine times in the chest by soldiers when he failed to follow orders to leave his house minutes before it was bulldozed, they said. Hafaf Dusoky, 54, apparently did not answer a jittery soldier's knock quickly enough and was shot dead through the door. Residents also said that Israeli war tactics became especially harsh after 13 soldiers were killed April 9 in an elaborate ambush set by Palestinian fighters in the camp. One resident said he counted 71 helicopter missile attacks within a 30-minute period the night after the ambush, nearly as many as had been fired previously in an entire night. Residents also said the military stepped up the pace of the bulldozings and stopped giving them advance warnings to leave their homes. Ali Damaj said he peeked through his kitchen window as a bulldozer leveled his entire neighborhood -- first one house, then two, then six. Suddenly, he said, he was watching the wall of his neighbor's house push his refrigerator across the room. "I felt the house shaking back and forth," said Damaj, whose house was left partially standing. "I was in a state of shock. My hair was standing on end." Abdul Hassan Bahaldin, 26, said he heard the first tanks roll into the camp from all four sides of town at around midnight on April 3. "It sounded terrible, it was very frightening, the kids started screaming, we panicked," he said. All 21 members of his family who lived in a house on the edge of the camp scampered into what they considered the safest room, the basement. They had already stockpiled supplies. A few hours later they heard footsteps on the floor above them and soldiers burst into the basement demanding to know, "Where are the men? Where are the men?" Bahaldin said he knew the soldiers meant fighters for the militant groups that operated in the camp. Israeli officials have called the Jenin refugee camp a nest that housed both suicide bombers and architects of suicide attacks. The soldiers wore night-vision goggles, communicated with soldiers outside on wireless phones and seemed "frightened" and eager to move on to their next command post, according to Bahaldin, who said they used his three-story home as "a bridge to the camp." The next day at about noon, Bahaldin's sister-in-law decided to dash up the open-air stairwell to retrieve baby formula she had forgotten upstairs. Israeli snipers fired at her from a nearby rooftop, he said. For four days, the military pummeled the camp with rockets, missiles and artillery shells fired from U.S.-provided AH-64 Apache helicopters and tanks. Houses throughout the camp were sprayed with bullets and gouged with gaping holes. Not a single glass window appeared to have survived the onslaught. Damaj, a member of Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat's Fatah organization and head of the camp's emergency response committee, communicated with a cell phone today by hot-wiring his electrical cord to hand-held batteries. He said the bulldozers arrived four days into the campaign, just after 10 a.m. on a Saturday, and demolished everything in their paths. Within 10 minutes, Damaj said, the machines had flattened six homes belonging to his neighbors. As soon as the bulldozers moved to the next street, soldiers swarmed into the newly plowed road. "They were shooting everything ahead of them, everything they saw, everything that moved," Damaj said. Before the attacks of the past two weeks, the Jenin refugee camp was a jumble of square concrete houses and apartments stacked atop one another on a hillside. Residents traversed the community through a network of tiny alleyways and a series of steps connecting various levels of the town. Today, the walk from Damaj's neighborhood to what was once the center of town was a panorama of the kind of devastation usually associated with earthquakes or landslides. Bulldozers flattened dozens of cinder-block houses and ripped off the walls of others, exposing their interiors like the open side of a dollhouse: a bedroom with sleeping mats laid neatly across the floors, a kitchen sink with tin plates stacked on the cabinet, a bathroom wall of gleaming white tile, all wide open to the elements. The bulldozers seemed to have nicked the pillars of other houses, tilting the buildings on their sides as though a petulant giant had pushed them. The heavy machinery took giant hunks out of the concrete corners of other houses. Rockets and missiles turned other buildings into a spaghetti of twisted metal and broken chunks of concrete. Rooftop water tanks and satellite dishes were pocked with bullet holes. Cars that had been cut in half or smashed flat by tanks lined the streets. Some alleyways were apparently the scenes of such intense shooting that they appeared to be carpeted in bullet casings. The fine, spiderweb-like lines of wire-guided TOW missiles draped across passageways and trees where they slumped after leading missiles to their targets. The camp initially appeared deserted. Scrawny cats yowled. The cracks of gunfire, booms of tank rounds and roar of patrolling tanks could be heard throughout the day. But deep inside the maze of the camp, largely out of sight of the patrols, residents were beginning to venture out. Thousands remained in their homes, hiding in basements or other interior rooms, according to residents. Ibrahim bu Hassan, 53, a farmer with silver hair, emerged from his basement for the first time in 10 days on Friday. The first thing he checked was his satellite dish: "It was full of holes," he said. "They didn't want me to watch the news." Residents picked their way through the camp, peeking around corners and out gates and doorways before dashing across alleys or streets. They posted lookouts behind the curtains of third-floor rooms and hissed warnings of arriving tank patrols to those on the streets. A few bolder residents walked tentatively to the center of town, gawking in horror and awe at what was once the heart of the camp, apartments and houses that sheltered an estimated 200 families. Residents said that the heart of the impoverished camp was home to many of the fighters for militant Islamic groups that put up resistance to the Israeli attack. Aiseh Saleh's kitchen window overlooks the destruction. The 39-year-old teacher said her house was spared because the Israeli soldiers took it over as a command post. She said they taped an aerial photograph to the wall, with the houses of wanted men outlined with a blue marker. On the day the 13 soldiers were killed, their comrades in her house wept. The soldiers left behind several bandoliers of bullets that her sons draped around their necks. © 2002 The Washington Post Company
I think you make a good point. I wasn't really even speaking of Jenin. I've heard and read a lot of very questionable acts by the Israeli army and thought it should be pointed out. The fact is that both sides are WAY over the line on this one, but the acts of Palestinians are more sensational and also more open which is why they get the headlines. Israel shuts areas down to the media and do what they do through calculated military incursions. In the minds of most of the public, it holds no real shock or even interest. These are images and stories we've heard 100's of times in all kinds of different battles. However, we don't hear about people blowing themselves (or their family members) up very often which launches it into the spectacular if not positive category. While who they kill and how they do it is indeed horrific, for them, it may be one of their only ways to fight back.
Israel faces rage over 'massacre' London and Brussels politicians demand UN investigation of Jenin allegations Ian Black in Brussels, Ewen MacAskill and Nicholas Watt Wednesday April 17, 2002 The Guardian Israel's international reputation slumped to its lowest point for two decades yesterday, amid condemnation in Britain and Europe of the Israeli army's behaviour at the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin in the West Bank. There were calls for a United Nations-led inquiry into allegations that the Israeli army carried out a massacre and that its soldiers were guilty of war crimes. Senior politicians lined up in London and Brussels to express outrage. The European Union's external relations commissioner, Chris Patten, in an interview with the Guardian, said Israel must accept a UN investigation of alleged atrocities against Palestinians or face "colossal damage" to its reputation. In a Commons debate, Gerald Kaufman, the veteran Labour MP who is Britain's most prominent Jewish parliamentarian, launched a ferocious attack on the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, denouncing him as a "war criminal". With MPs on both sides of the Commons condemning the Israeli incursion, Mr Kaufman said Mr Sharon had "ordered his troops to use methods of barbarism against the Palestinians". Expressing fear that something dreadful had happened in Jenin, he said: "It is time to remind Sharon that the Star of David belongs to all Jews and not to his repulsive government. His actions are staining the Star of David with blood." With the Israeli army still blocking full access to Jenin, it is impossible to establish even a rough body count. However, both Amnesty and the New York-based Human Rights Watch yesterday called for inquiries. A senior Palestinian, Nabil Shaath, accused Israel of carrying out summary executions and removing corpses in refrigerated trucks. He said close to 500 people had been killed. Israel says 70 Palestinian fighters died in the fighting. "The Israeli army took six days to complete its massacre in Jenin and six days to clean it up," Mr Shaath said. An Israeli government spokesman dismissed as "ridiculous" suggestions of either a massacre or war crimes. He said: "It is not at all clear why these organisations wish to investigate, given that they already seem to have made up their minds as to what has happened." He added that he could not recall "these voices of international morality" demanding inquiries into attacks on Israel funded by the Palestinian Authority. Against this background, the chances of a start to the peace process appeared remote. The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, announced yesterday that he is due to leave the region today, having made one last attempt to negotiate with the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. US support for Israel remains strong compared with Europe, where anger against Israel reached levels not seen since the massacre at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in the Lebanon in 1982. In the Commons, even the foreign secretary, Jack Straw - in recent months a strong defender in public of Israel - joined in criticism. Mr Straw said he was "profoundly concerned" at the scenes "of widespread destruction of densely populated refugee camps. We are doing all we can to obtain an authoritative account of the conduct of the Israeli operation and of its consequences. I have to say as a long-standing friend of Israel that such scenes can only be harmful to Israel's reputation abroad". The Foreign Office minister responsible for the Middle East, Ben Bradshaw, said the British government was concerned at "worrying reports" from Jenin. He added: "We expect the Israeli government to grant immediate access to all the international non-governmental organisations - the International Committee of the Red Cross and so forth - so a full investigation of events there can take place." Mr Patten was even more direct, telling the Guardian: "It is in Israel's interest to behave like a democracy that believes in the rule of law. There has to be movement, and movement fast, to enable the international community to deal with this calamity." He added: "If Israel simply refuses all the genuine calls for humanitarian assistance; if it resists any attempt by the international media to cover what is going on, then inevitably it is going to provide oxygen for all those who will be making more extreme demands." Mr Patten, who also con demned Palestinian suicide bombings, would not be drawn on whether Israelis could face war crimes charges. But he said: "Israelis can't trample over the rule of law, over the Geneva conventions, over what are generally regarded as acceptable norms of behaviour without it doing colossal damage to their reputation." He backed Mary Robinson, the UN human rights commissioner, who has been asked to lead a fact-finding mission to the Palestinian territories. Poul Nielsen, the EU's aid commissioner, said the job of relief workers was more difficult in the West Bank than in Chechnya. "I am deeply concerned about the way in which basic principles of humanitarian law - in particular regarding access to civilian casualties - are being flouted," he said.
Jenin camp 'horrific beyond belief' The Israelis say they will leave most of the West Bank by Sunday A UN envoy has said that the devastation left by Israeli forces in the Jenin refugee camp is "horrific beyond belief". I think I can speak for all in the UN delegation in saying that we are shocked Terje Roed-Larsen Terje Roed-Larsen, who toured the West Bank refugee camp on Thursday, said it was "morally repugnant" that Israel had not allowed rescue teams in after the fighting. He called for the full withdrawal of Israeli forces and the lifting of a curfew in the area. Palestinians claim hundreds of bodies are buried beneath the rubble, but Israel says the numbers of dead are far fewer. An independent forensic expert says evidence suggests that a massacre has taken place. Roed-Larsen called for a full Israeli withdrawal Israel pulled its forces out of Jenin town and part of the refugee camp before dawn on Thursday. Officials said they were also withdrawing from Nablus and that over the next three days troops would leave most West Bank areas apart from Ramallah and Bethlehem. The BBC's Richard Miron, just outside Jenin, said Israeli forces had pulled back but remained close by. Search and rescue He said the UN envoy was highly regarded in the region and his criticism would put more pressure on the Israelis to fully withdraw. Mr Roed-Larsen said the top priority was to bring in search-and-rescue teams. The only rescue efforts currently under way are residents digging though the ruins looking for survivors. "It is totally destroyed, it looks like an earthquake has hit it," he said. Aid agencies now have access to Jenin "I am watching two brothers pull their father from the ruins, the stench of death is horrible. We are seeing a 12-year-old boy being dug out, totally burned," he said. "We have expert people here who have been in war zones and earthquakes and they say they have never seen anything like it," he added. Mr Roed-Larsen, who is the UN's Special Co-ordinator for the occupied Palestinian territories, was visiting the camp with Red Cross and UN workers. He added: "It is totally unacceptable that the government of Israel for 11 days did not allow search and rescue teams to come." Israel 'concerned' Israel invaded the Jenin camp on 3 April, saying it was a hotbed of Palestinian militancy and declaring it a closed military zone. Palestinian claims of an Israeli massacre in the camp have been denied, although British forensic expert Prof Derrick Pounder has said that the evidence points to large numbers of civilian dead. Prof Pounder is part of an Amnesty International team granted access to Jenin. Click here to see town-by-town update Danny Ayalon, the chief foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said that Israel shared the humanitarian concerns and was already allowing some aid teams to operate. The partial pull-out by Israel came a day after the departure of US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who left the region without achieving a ceasefire or a full withdrawal of Israeli troops. Israel says troops will continue to surround the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where a group of armed Palestinians are among more than 200 people who have been holed up for more than two weeks. Truce talks cancelled The first face-to-face talks between negotiators trying to end the stand-off were cancelled on Thursday, after the Palestinian delegation was told that a third party, such as the Red Cross or church leaders, would not be allowed to take part. Israel says it will also continue to surround Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah, where it believes the man responsible for the killing of the Israeli tourism minister, Rehavam Zeevi, is hiding. However, Palestinian sources said that Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher met Mr Arafat in his battered headquarters on Thursday. The Jordanian news agency said Mr Arafat's personal physician went with Mr Muasher to give the Palestinian leader a check-up. The Israelis have so far allowed only Mr Powell, US envoy Anthony Zinni and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher to visit Mr Arafat. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1937000/1937387.stm
The sad thing is the consequences of this are so easy to predict. Let's see, you go in and destroy someone's home, kill their family, and then you're shocked that they are willing to blow themselves up to fight you? Hmmm. It's great that Israel probably killed a bunch of terrorists, but if they created even more in the process, is it worth it?
Calling someone a war criminal is easy, proving that they really committed war crimes is not so easy.. I have some free time now, so lets determine what a war criminal truly is. These definitions are from encyclopedia.com war crimes See also: International Law in international law, violations of the laws of war (see war, laws of ). Those accused have been tried by their own military and civilian courts, by those of their enemy, and by expressly established international tribunals. The records of the war crimes trials after World War II provide one of the most comprehensive formulations of the concept of war crimes. During that war the Allies agreed to try Axis war criminals. In Aug., 1945, Great Britain, France, the USSR, and the United States established a tribunal at Nuremberg to try military and civilian Axis leaders whose alleged crimes were directed at more than one national group. The trial opened in Nov., 1945. Voluminous evidence was presented to prove the plotting of aggressive warfare, the extermination of civilian populations (especially the Jews), the widespread use of slave labor, the looting of occupied countries, and the maltreatment and murder of prisoners of war. Among those sentenced to death (1946) were Hermann Goering , Joachim von Ribbentrop , and Julius Streicher . Hjalmar Schacht and Franz von Papen were acquitted. The court did not convict Nazi organizations or the German general staff. In 1961, Israel captured, tried, and later executed Adolf Eichmann .A trial of 28 alleged Japanese war criminals was conducted (1946-47) by an 11-nation tribunal in Tokyo. Evidence similar to that presented against the Nazis brought death sentences to Hideki Tojo and others. The U.S. Supreme Court refused an appeal that was based on the ground that the international court was unlawful. There were many trials in national civil and military courts, including those of the Japanese generals Tomoyuki Yama****a and Masaharu Homma.Critics have questioned the legal basis of some of the charges at the post-World War II trials. Individuals were found guilty of acts considered legal, or even required, by their nation at the time; such findings represent a violation of the concept of sovereignty . The plotting or carrying out of aggressive war had not been previously and explicitly called criminal, and the judges tended to define it very narrowly. A defendant was generally found guilty only if he had been involved in developing the policy, but not if he had simply carried it out.Critics have also termed the trials an act of vengeance by the victors and questioned their practical use as a precedent. Personal liability for national action is very difficult to prove conclusively, and a nation will be reluctant to try its own leaders. Therefore, effective prosecution may be possible only if a nation is defeated (and then perhaps only if the documents are captured, as they were after World War II).Both critics and supporters of the U.S. role in the Vietnam War have justified their positions on the basis of the post-World War II trials. Several Americans were tried for war crimes in this war, and Lt. William Calley was found guilty (see My Lai incident ) of particularly disturbing acts against civilians that for many became emblematic of the horrors of the Vietnam conflict. In the 1990s, in reaction to war atrocities committed by various parties during the breakup of Yugoslavia , the United Nations established a tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands, and attempted to gather evidence for prosecutions; Serbs, Croats, and Muslims have been charged, including top civilian and military Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat leaders. Many of the accused have not been extradited by their governments, and the suspects themselves are in charge of essential evidence. In 2000 the Hague tribunal officially established rape, which was rampant during the Yugoslav civil strife, as a war crime. A UN tribunal was also set up in Tanzania to bring to trial those responsible for Hutu massacres of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.In 1998 the UN General Assembly voted in favor of a treaty authorizing a permanent international court for war crimes. The United States, China, and five other nations opposed the treaty, and 21 nations abstained. The court, to be called the International Criminal Court and to be located at The Hague, will prosecute war crimes, genocide, crimes of aggression, and crimes against humanity. The treaty has been signed by more than 130 nations (including the United States); 60 of the signatories must ratify the treaty for the court to be established. Under the G. W. Bush administration, however, the United States has opposed implementation of the treaty, out of fear that American officials or military personnel might be arrested abroad on baseless charges. war, laws of See also: International Law in international law , rules and principles regulating an armed conflict between nations. These laws are designed to minimize the destruction of life and property, to proscribe cruel treatment of noncombatants and prisoners of war , and to establish conditions under which the belligerents may consult with one another. To mitigate the effects of insurrections and civil wars, established governments often recognize the belligerency of domestic opponents and conduct conflicts with them according to the laws of war. See also neutrality ; seas, freedom of the . belligerency See also: International Law (belij´erense), in international law, status of parties legally at war. Belligerency exists in a war between nations or in a civil war if the established government treats the insurgent force as if it were a sovereign power. The rules of international law as formulated at the Hague Conferences require that belligerency between states be preceded by an absolute declaration of war or an ultimatum prescribing the terms on which the issuing power will refrain from war. When belligerency has been established, the relations between the warring powers are determined by the laws of war (see war, laws of ). In civil wars if the insurgent force is granted belligerency rights, neutral nations generally abstain from supplying or helping either the established government or its opponent. An example of this practice is found in the neutrality proclamations issued by European powers in the American Civil War. Neutral nations may refuse to recognize the belligerency of an insurgent, however, and in this way preserve the right to claim any damages that accrue against the established government for having failed to suppress the rebellion without delay. Under its charter, the United Nations recognizes as legitimate only wars that are fought in self-defense, or for the collective enforcement of the UN Charter. All other wars are regarded as illegal acts of aggression. The United Nations also considers civil wars as threatening to international peace, and, when possible, takes measures to end such hostilities (e.g., Kashmir, Palestine, Korea, the Congo, Cyprus). ------------------------------------ Has Israel committed war crimes? Lets compare them to the Nazis 1.They were shown to have plotted aggressive warfare. From the dictionary.. the definition of aggressive is: 1. aggressing or inclined to aggress; starting fights or quarrels 2. ready or willing to take issue or engage in direct action; militant 3. full of enterprise and initiative; bold and active; pushing 4. Psychiatry of or involving aggression. In no way has Israel started this fight... This definition shows that the Palestinians are more like war criminals.(The Hamas and PLO Charter calling for the destruction of Israel). The warfare of Israel is RETALLIATION to terrorist acts so their warfare can't be considered "aggressive" 2. the extermination of civilian populations (especially the Jews), In no way, shape, or form has Israel committed any genocide on the Palestinians.. In fact, Lebanese Christians(Sabra and Shatilla) and Jordanians(Black September) should be tried for war crimes against the Palestinians. 3. the widespread use of slave labor, Nope 4.the looting of occupied countries, This is a big one.. the dictionary says that looting is:vt. 1. to plunder; strip of everything valuable; despoil 2. to take or carry off as plunder; steal--vi. to engage in plundering. Israel has not stolen anything from the Palestinians from Gaza/West Bank... They are searching for militants and bomb factories. There is a possibilty here that INDIVIDUAL soldiers did abuse their powers and destroyed something that didn't need to be destroyed. However, should someone be convicted of war crimes solely upon "looting"? 5.the maltreatment and murder of prisoners of war Israel will be watched carefully here. I am sure they are properly feeding and keeping the arrested militants in good health. As to any executions, I will call them pure propaganda until there is further proof. --------------------------------- We also must ask ourselves.. Is this a WAR? Has war been formally declared. The answer is yes and no. Sharon stated that it is a war against terror. Technically though, there is no Palestine so Israel is not at war with a country. After reading about belligerency though, I think it falls under a civil war.Belligerency exists in a war between nations or in a civil war if the established government treats the insurgent force as if it were a sovereign power. This means that the Palestinians do get belligerency rights. The U.N. should see this as a legitimate war because Israel is defending itself from suicide bombers and therefore cannot label Israel's operation as an illegal act of aggression(proven above). These articles posted are baseless charges and DO NOT PROVE that war crimes have been committed. However, if certain indivuals in either camp(Israeli or Palestinian) have committed crimes, I would like to see them be brought to justice. You can't just accuse an entire country of doing war crimes against another though.
From the Israel Website(written on April 10th) http://www.israel.org/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0ljf0 Lies and Disinformation as a Palestinian Weapon April 10, 2002 The Palestinian use of lies and disinformation has been well known for many years but, in recent days it has reached new heights, the likes of which we have not seen before. The false reports published in the Palestinian media, or from time to time by their spokespeople in the international media, have a double purpose: on the one hand, to delegitimize Israel and, on the other hand, to distract world attention from the Palestinian Authority's deep involvement in terrorism. The Palestinian collection of lies is particularly disturbing in light of the well-known phenomenon that when a lie is repeated often enough it becomes the truth, even if it has no basis. Even more disturbing is the willingness of the international media to serve as the instrument for publicizing the Palestinian claims, without checking their veracity and knowing that in many cases they are without foundation. The denials, if they are published later, receive much less publicity; by then, the damage has been done. Below are a few examples of fabrications disseminated by the Palestinians: 1. One of the most popular themes, arising from the restrictions placed on Arafat, is the fear for the life of the president. On March 31, Yasser Abed Rabo said, in an interview to the Al Jazeera television station, that a warning was received that the IDF would enter the compound in Ramallah, and that this step was planned by Sharon with the intent to kill Yasser Arafat. The same day, Hassan Asfor said to BBC radio that the IDF had broken into Arafat's offices and that the situation was dangerous, "on the brink of disaster". Also on the same day, Saeb Erekat said on Egyptian television that he was unable to make contact with Arafat and that he feared for his life. Erekat repeated this in an interview he gave to CNN on April 6. These fears were all proven to be unfounded. 2. Jibril Rajoub (March 30, on MAHAD TV, a local television station in Ramallah) accused Israel of carrying out a "massacre," executing 30 Palestinians in Ramallah. The announcement was also broadcast on Al Jazeera and other stations. The reality, of course, is different: in battles which took place on that day in Ramallah, 9 Palestinians were killed - all of them armed. 3. Palestinian television reported on April 2, on the basis of an official announcement by the Palestinian leadership, that a priest named Jacques Amathis had been killed and dozens of monks wounded in an IDF action in Bethlehem. The announcement was published prominently in the Italian and French media and prompted a storm of protest. The following day the 'late" priest was interviewed by the MINSA agency and confirmed that he and the monks in the monastery were safe and well. 4. Arafat, in an interview to Al Jazeera television on April 3, claimed that Israel had "burned the mosque" opposite Santa Maria Church in Bethlehem and "destroyed many churches and mosques." He called upon the Christian and Muslim world to take action. MAHAD TV reported that a fire had broken out in the Omar el-Hatib Mosque in Bethlehem and that the IDF was preventing the fire brigade from reaching the site to extinguish the flames. None of these charges has any factual basis. 5. The WAFA (Palestinian News Agency) Internet site reported on April 2 that the IDF had shelled the new mosque in Tulkarm after the muezzin called people to noon prayers. In fact, no such incident took place. 6. Jibril Rajoub claimed, in an interview with Syrian television network ANN on March 30, that the only people in the compound of the Preventive Security Services in Betouniya were people working for the service, women and civilians, and that there were no wanted terrorists there. The truth, of course, is somewhat different. On April 2, a number of wanted terrorists were captured in the building, including senior members of Hamas involved in many terrorist activities. 7. On the WAFA Internet site, it was reported on April 2 by the Palestinian Minister of Health, Riyad Al Zanoun, that the IDF had taken control of five Palestinian ambulances in Ramallah, forced their teams to strip, and taken them to an unknown site, in order to prevent them from treating the wounded. In reality, ever since an explosive belt was discovered in a Palestinian ambulance underneath a stretcher on which a small child was lying (end of March, at the A-Ram check post), the IDF has been forced to act with extreme caution. A similar charge, incidentally, was made on April 5 by Al Kuds newspaper, which reported that a Red Crescent ambulance was seized in El Bireh, and that IDF soldiers attacked its driver and the paramedics traveling with him. No such incident has ever taken place. 8. In an interview with Abu Dhabi television on March 29, Arafat claimed that "there was also that incident in Hebron, that insolent and criminal incident; they even attacked and killed in the Hebron area three members of the international force: two from Turkey and one of the nurses from Switzerland." In fact, in the incident in question, one of the Turkish members of the force was rescued, and he said, in a radio interview, that the attack was carried out by an uniformed Palestinian. 9. The Al Kuds newspaper reported on April 4 that the IDF refused to permit a patient to be transferred by ambulance from the clinic in the Greek Orthodox Monastery in Beit Sahour to hospital in Beit Jala. In fact, no such incident took place. 10. The WAFA agency reported on April 5 that the IDF shelled the Um Nasser neighborhood, the Al Udeh towers and the residential areas near the Salah a Din road in the northern Gaza Strip. The reality was somewhat different - the mortar shells were fired by the Palestinians themselves, but landed in their own territory. 11. The Al Kuds newspaper reported on April 5 that the prisoners in Ofer Camp, near Givat Ze'ev, undergo torture, including breaking their fingers. This allegation too has no basis. 12. The WAFA news agency reported on April 6 that a person named Ali Mustafa Abu Razek, aged 30, was shot and killed by the IDF close to the Sufa Crossing. In fact, Abu Razek was a terrorist who was trying to place an explosive device and was blown up together with the device. 13. At the beginning of the events, IDF soldiers were accused of broadcasting pornographic films on Al Watan television in Ramallah. This claim was thoroughly investigated by the IDF and found to be baseless. 14. On April 5 Nabil Sha'ath claimed in the Saudi 'Okaz' that Israel had forged the document seized from Arafat's office in Ramallah indicating that the Palestinian Authority was funding the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade. The document is of course authentic, and in the meantime other documents have been found indicating the involvement of the Palestinian Authority and of Arafat in terrorism and in its funding. These are just a few examples of the uncontrolled Palestinian disinformation campaign being waged also in the leading world media networks. This campaign creates a picture of Israel as a cruel and inhumane country, which damages holy sites, persecutes first aid agencies in contravention of the Geneva Convention and so on. The reality is different. The ones who are harming innocent civilians are the Palestinians terrorists. The ones who are desecrating holy sites, and not for the first time, are the Palestinians. The ones who are violating the Geneva Convention and using ambulances and hospitals for other than their real purpose - are the Palestinians. A propos the use of ambulances, there is a famous picture from Bethlehem showing a tank moving aside two ambulances blocking its path. For some reason, no one gave a thought to this use of these ambulances as a barricade - not one of the natural and protected uses of ambulances. We are publishing these things because we suspect that the Palestinians will claim that a massacre took place in the Jenin refugee camp, in view of the heavy losses that they sustained in the bloody battles that were fought there. The Palestinians are preparing the ground for such a claim. On April 6, they published an urgent call to the international community to intervene immediately in order to save the lives of the residents of the refugee camp, because the camp was under merciless attack and "there are dozens of dead and injured, a situation which could reach the scale of a new Sabra and Shatilla massacre." They do not allow bodies to be evacuated from the site so as to intensify the effect, and the only thing left for us to do is to be prepared and to reject any attempt to draw such a comparison. This is particularly important against the background of the item by Al Jazeera reporter Walid Alamari, who announced on April 8 that, according to information coming from the Jenin refugee camp, all the resistors and fighters are wearing explosive belts. If this is the case, then we are talking about a bloody battle and not a massacre. But the associations that the Palestinians are trying to arouse are stronger than the facts.
<b>From the Israel Website</b> C'mon. At least quote a slightly less biased source. It's like boy posting stuff from Al Jazeera.
Its a government website.. so whitehouse.gov is all fake? If you think that the Israeli gov't is less credible(or even equal to) than Al Jazeera, then I think you aren't as unbiased as I thought you were Jeff. btw.. if you go to the official palestinian authority website http://www.pna.net it links you to electronicintifada.net.
I didn't say "fake." I said "biased." Of course WhiteHouse.gov is biased. You think Ari Fleischer's answers to reporters are always perfectly balanced and reflect only the whole truth??? The governments of all countries do not "report," they "spin." It is politics. It is the nature of their business to spin whatever truth they have in their favor and to avoid everything else. Can you say, "Read my lips, no new taxes."? Was that a lie? No. He meant it at the time, but it was ultimately not reality, it was just a way to swing perception on that issue in his favor and people believed him. This has nothing to do with truth or reality. It has to do with perception. If Isarel really told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, they'd have to admit that some of what their soldiers have done is wrong and even brutal. Both sides would have to admit that they are acting like fools. You can't expect to get the perfect, unclouded truth from a government website. It doesn't work that way.
Its a government website.. so whitehouse.gov is all fake? I think Jeff's point is that there's no question the Israeli's are going to say this. Do you really think they'd post on their website "yes, we did commit warcrimes" even if they had? The fact that they are denying it tells us NOTHING about what happened there. And yes, I do believe they would lie, because both they and the Palestinians have done it multiple times in the past. Right now, what we have are INDEPENDENT visual observations from U.N. personnel, AP reporters, and CNN reporters who all are saying this is some of the worst civilian damage they have ever seen. http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/04/18/mideast.crisis/index.html some quotes: <I>"It looks as if an earthquake has hit the heart of the refugee camp here," said Terje Roed-Larsen, the U.N. envoy. "I've just been witnessing two brothers digging out of the rubble their father and five other family members. I witnessed a family digging out their about 12-year-old son from beneath the rubble. There's a stench of decaying corpses all over the place here, the scene is absolutely unbelievable." </I> ... <I>"What we are seeing here is the large-scale suffering of the whole civilian population here. No military operation could justify the suffering we are seeing here," he said. "It's not only the corpses, children lacking food."</I> ... Remember this quote? <B>They do not allow bodies to be evacuated from the site so as to intensify the effect</B> <I>He said the Israel Defense Forces had lifted a curfew at midnight, allowing families into the heart of the camp for the first time where he said they were "digging to find loved ones." </I> Maybe they weren't ALLOWED to do so. Not only that, but as of yesterday, search and rescue teams weren't allowed to go in to help search for survivors or provide medical attention either. This isn't to say Israel has committed any war crimes --we certainly don't know that, and I doubt they did. But their website saying "we didn't do anything" is about as useful as any accused criminal saying "I didn't do it!"
Since this topic is already going, I didn't want to start a new thread. I received this article in my email today, so I thought I'd post it on here as well. Here is the article. Rockit
OK Jeff, I agree that government websites are definitely biased but I was just trying to put the Israeli point of view into perspective along with my previous post of what a war crime actually is. I believe, even though its horrible, that what has happened to the Palestinians in Jenin was brought upon mostly by themselves and other arab nations. 30 suicide bombings have come from Jenin since 1994. Israel has no intentions of large scale massacres or taking land. I have taken a stance behind Israels policy, which most Americans haven't. I have always believed that, in some cases, war is necessary for there to be a possibility of peace. This is my OPINION and if people can post things from varieties of websites(which many have), biased and unbiased, don't make it a special case to blast me. btw, I've had to do a lot more typing for pro-Israel since treeman left.. I wonder how he's doin.
Innocent civilians do not 'bring things upon themselves'. The same distorted logic is used by others against Israeli shoppers. Although civilian casualties are difficult to avoid, you have to show respect to civilians' rights, especially the right to life. I am unconvinced that the Jenin residents were shown any such respect. I do not consider myself dovish, and understand the need for war at times. But I am sad for Israel because I think the way they undertook this battle created 10 more problems for every one they solved, and needless to say I am sad for the Palestinians who will now be overcome by the hate that hateful actions have created.
