Photographer killed in hail of Israeli tank fire By Phil Reeves in Jerusalem 14 March 2002 Israel's armed forces killed an Italian photographer yesterday and narrowly missed a TV correspondent in a clearly marked car, who was saved by his flak jacket, adding another entry to a fattening dossier of attacks on journalists trying to cover Israel's activities in the occupied territories. The events occurred during the Israeli army's takeover of Ramallah in the West Bank. The operation – which Israel claims is to root out Palestinian "terrorism"– comprises the largest military offensive by Israel since 1982. Witnesses said Raffaele Ciriello, 42, a highly regarded freelance photographer on assignment for the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, was shot dead when soldiers in an Israeli tank opened fire on him without warning from 150 yards away, using a heavy machine-gun. It was a tragedy many observers had long feared because Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories frequently fire at foreign journalists, knowing that they are unlikely to face any serious consequences or rigorous investigation. The Israeli army said it "regretted" Mr Ciriello's death and was conducting an investigation, an announcement that is unlikely to comfort his family, employers, or friends. Many previous inquiries into cases of Israeli soldiers shooting journalists have dragged on for more than a year, and ended with a whitewash. Mr Ciriello worked for 10 years in trouble spots, including Kosovo, Bosnia, and Afghanistan and had his own website displaying his work. He was killed at about 9.30am in the centre of Ramallah. A colleague who was with him, Amedeo Ricucci, said they were following Palestinian gunmen when an Israeli tank appeared from around the corner. He said soldiers on the tank fired a machine-gun without warning, striking Mr Ciriello in the stomach. "Suddenly a tank appeared from a corner and it opened fire," Mr Ricucci said. In a separate incident in Ramallah, Tareq Abdel Jaber, an Egyptian TV correspondent, said Israeli soldiers fired at least five shots at his car, clearly marked with big TV signs. He said one bullet hit him in the right side but was stopped by his flak jacket. Yesterday's bloodshed came 24 hours after the Israeli army fired for 15 minutes into a hotel being used by journalists in Ramallah. The army justified that assault – in which seven shots were fired at a camera belonging to the American ABC network – by claiming it was returning fire from a gunman. The hotel's occupants said there was no gunman. Later in the day, soldiers also fired at the tyres of a taxi carrying British and American journalists. According to the journalists' organisation, Reporters Without Borders, there have been 40 cases since the start of the Palestinian intifada in which journalists, mostly foreign, have been injured by bullets. The organisation's investigations found the Israeli armed forces were responsible in the majority of cases. Those findings conflicted with those of Israel's military. After investigations into a batch of cases in the early months of the intifada, the army issued a report saying it found none of its troops was to blame, except in one case. Mr Ciriello's death is the second for Corriere della Sera in less than six months. One of its reporters, Maria Grazia Cutuli, was killed with three other journalists in an ambush in Afghanistan in November. here
Boy: You know I'm sympathetic to your inclinations (though not as radical on the issue). But what's the point? It's been rehashed way too much. Nobody's changing anyone's mind, and people are just forming resentments. If anybody's interested, they'll check cnn.com, or if they're slightly more interested, some foreign newspapers. This is readily available to anybody. And it's not like this issue is flying below the radar. And that comment was... very non-objective. While I'd agree that Israel is primarily to blame... they're not the only party that's behaving badly. Blowing up tanks is one thing... blowing up pizzarias is quite another. I've enjoyed the lack of posts on the topic since my vacation ended. So, please do digress, and go post on the rockets for a change .
Boy posting about the Rockets??? lol I agree with haven that we have argued enough over this... I can agree to disagree and just leave it be. Boy.. I dare you to post on the Rockets board or atleast the NBA Dish, if you can't do this.. you're on the wrong BBS. We should make a minimum post amount for members before they can post in the BBS Hangout.. heh.. unrealistic but atleast there won't be people coming on here to spread BS. Boy, if you don't know anything about the Rockets or the NBA talk to ZRB and learn how to troll.
Let boy post where he wants to. You don't have to read the post. Others may wish to read. This is America, remember?!
Why do you never post anything bad against the Palestinians ??? all of your posts are biased , you dont live in israel and you dont know **** about what you are talking about .
francis_rules: How many of the pro-Israeli posters ever post anything bad about Israel ?. A few do, certainly. But I haven't seen you call out the one's that don't. Incidentally, you didn't live in Afghanistan (I assume). So perhaps you're unable to say that the Taliban was an oppressive, terrible regime, by your standards?
I'm curious as to what people think will happen in the Israel Paestininan situation in the near term. I really don't know. In the long run I believe Israel will cut a deal for land and give back all of the post 1967 occupied land except for some part of Jerusalem, perhaps as an international city that neither side controls. 6 million people can't occupy 4 million people supported by their neighbors forever. Expelling the Palestinians won't be tolerated by the world community. Given Israel's determination to be an ethnically based state,with a strong majority of Jew, They must let the Palestinians go. In the short if Bush gets tired enough to reign Sharon in. Ultimately he can do so, but it will be hard to convice Sharon that he is serious. Below is an interesting article on Sharon's historical strategy, including his ultimate desire to not alienate the US. Exerpts from it are below, with the link for the whole article. Sharon's traditional strategy Since his election, Sharon has stated two policy goals. The first is an unconditional cease-fire. "Violence and peacemaking are diametrically opposed. Therefore the position of the national-unity government is that Israel will not negotiate under fire," says Dore Gold, ex-ambassador to the United Nations and a member of Sharon's inner policy circle. After quiet is achieved, Gold adds, "the diplomatic strategy is to get to a long-term interim agreement" with the Palestinians, rather than a final peace accord. Sharon has said he'd offer the Palestinians a state in 42 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That's the amount of land that Israel already turned over to Palestinian administration under the Oslo Accords, in the form of a collection of jagged enclaves. It's far less than former Prime Minister Ehud Barak's offer at the July 2000 Camp David summit, which Yasir Arafat rejected. So it's tempting to conclude that Sharon's proposal isn't meant seriously -- and that he lacks any vision of how to conclude the conflict. …… As a general and a politician, Sharon always has acted according to a strategic vision. It includes "battalion-level calculations regarding the value of territory," notes Yossi Alpher, a leading Israeli strategic analyst. To maintain overall military control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Sharon believes that Israel must "control every strategic hilltop, and fragment the Palestinian population," says Alpher. As an architect of Israeli settlement policy, Sharon implemented that approach. Alpher recalls a conversation with Sharon several years ago in which Sharon took out a map and pointed to a desolate corner of the southern West Bank. In one wadi, there was a Bedouin tribe, he said, and in the next wadi there was another. So, Sharon said, explaining his method, "I plant an Israeli settlement on the hilltop between them" to keep them from uniting. In an interview soon after he became prime minister last year, Sharon said that even the isolated Gaza Strip settlement of Netzarim, where a few dozen Israelis live between hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, "has strategic importance" because it divides the Palestinian cities of Gaza and Khan Younis. When Sharon offers the Palestinians enclaves divided by Israeli territory, that really is his map of a long-term solution. Does he expect Palestinians to accept such a map? The answer lies in another aspect of Sharon's thinking, revealed during his tenure as defense minister under Menachem Begin from 1981 to 1983: He presumed that he could use force to manipulate Arab politics and produce leaders who would bend to Israel's needs. Under Sharon in those years, Israeli government in the West Bank gave funds and guns to rural groups known as "village leagues." The goal was to create Israeli clients in place of the pro–Palestine Liberation Organization leadership in the territories. It was a bid to "bypass the national movement," according to Menachem Klein of Bar-Ilan University, an expert on Palestinian politics, and in the end it "failed utterly." Meanwhile, Sharon began preparing to invade Lebanon as soon as he became defense minister. His plan was to drive PLO forces out of southern Lebanon and Beirut and bring the Christian Phalange Party under Bashir Gemayel to power in the country. Sharon expected Gemayel to sign a peace treaty with Israel and, it seems, to remain under Israeli hegemony. ….. In the words of professor Arye Naor of Ben-Gurion University, who was cabinet secretary under Begin until the spring of 1982: "It's pretty clear his intent was . . . that the Palestinians in Lebanon would go to Jordan and overthrow the government, and [Israel] would help them create a Palestinian state in Jordan. It's belief in force: We'll make the process happen." But Sharon's design quickly unraveled. Gemayel was assassinated. Sharon sent Phalange forces to take control of the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, where they slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians. The Israeli inquiry commission into the massacre forced Sharon to resign as defense minister. The PLO didn't vanish. But it took Israel until 2000 to extricate its army from Lebanon. …… Sharon's strategic thinking, though, has not changed. The most reasonable reading of his actions for the past year is that he still believes Israel can "exploit territorial control to manipulate the [Arab] leadership structure," as Alpher puts it. Sharon wants the Palestinians to end the uprising -- and then to accept his program for a "state" in enclaves broken up by Israeli settlements. Regarding Arafat as both the cause of the violent conflict and the roadblock to Palestinian acquiescence, he seeks to push him out of power. Sharon apparently thinks that Arafat's successor will be more willing to bend. Sharon, says Menachem Klein, expects "to get a Palestinian gas-station attendant who doesn't want a state, just better pay." To achieve his goals, Sharon has used ever increasing military force while trying to maintain domestic and American backing. Last April, for instance, after Palestinians fired mortar shells from the Gaza Strip into Israel, Sharon ordered the army into Palestinian-controlled territory in the strip. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell immediately condemned the operation and the troops withdrew that day. But each successive operation makes the next one less startling. In October, after Palestinian gunmen assassinated far-right Tourism Minister Rechavam Ze'evy, Israeli troops moved into Palestinian Authority territory in six West Bank cities. Several days passed before Labor Party politicians began protesting and the United States demanded a pullout. It was two weeks before the troops began withdrawing. For much of this winter, Israeli troops held pieces of Ramallah in what has become routine reoccupation. Sharon has stopped short of deposing Arafat. Again, he's paying attention to domestic and U.S. pressure. "Israel has a national-unity government," observes Sharon's adviser Dore Gold, one "where perhaps [Labor's Foreign Minister Shimon] Peres believes you can give Arafat another chance to change, while the prime minister is very skeptical about that happening." Instead, Sharon has sought to undercut Arafat's position. In mid-December, following a Palestinian attack at the settlement of Immanuel, the Israeli security cabinet declared the Palestinian leader "no longer relevant to Israel." After that, Sharon announced that Arafat would not be allowed to leave his Ramallah headquarters until he arrested Ze'evy's killers. In late February, the alleged murderers were arrested -- and Arafat was told he could move no farther than the town of Ramallah. The point is to show that Arafat cannot function as leader and to encourage other Palestinians to remove him. ……. It still remains possible, however, that further American pressure -- in support, say, of the Saudi peace proposal -- or the drop in domestic support could put the brakes on Sharon. After a year and a half of violence, Israel still faces the dilemma of how to end the conflict and reach a livable compromise with the Palestinians.
How many of the pro-Israeli posters ever post anything bad about Israel ?. A few do, certainly. But I haven't seen you call out the one's that don't. Incidentally, you didn't live in Afghanistan (I assume). So perhaps you're unable to say that the Taliban was an oppressive, terrible regime, by your standards? haven, you're slowly being sucked back in to this topic
Major: I'm trying to stay out, content-wise . I think I'll pull a Mango and just cheer from the side-lines, occasionally making caustic remarks about the dubious logic of each side!
Haven, for us it is like an itch we can't stop scratching. Can you imagine what is going on in Israel? or Palestine? Our media and our modern western culture has pretty much made it hard for us to empathize totally with the Palestinians, so just imagine the problems that are occurring in Israel. It is like the split in this country during the Vietnam War, but it will get worse. Some are refusing to go fight in the occupied territories; some view them as heroes, others as cowards who should be jailed, many people refuse to watch the news, it is too depressing. They take as much vacation as possible outside the country. Their relatives who lie outside the country are reluctant to visit. There have been reports of even settlers asking Arafat to find them buyers for their homes, which are declining in value etc. The majority doggedly continues to fight perpetual war and be afraid to go to pizza parlors etc. The majority probably knows in their hearts that they will eventually have to use the army to expell the settlers that previous governments have encouraged to move to those isolated settlements to try to make it politically impossible to give back the land and to gain votes from religious extremists. This is nothing to look forward to. What a mess.
Israel will have to give up land for peace. It's inevitable. My only question is how tall and how thick will the "new Berlin Wall" be that runs between Israel and the new Palestinian nation.
In the essential movement of the spectacle, which consists of taking up all that existed in human activity in a fluid state so as to possess it in a congealed state as things which have become the exclusive value by their formulation in negative of lived value, we recognize our old enemy, the commodity, who knows so well how to seem at first glance something trivial and obvious, while on the contrary it is so complex and so full of metaphysical subtleties.
His 2 Rocket posts probably had something to do with ex UH Cougar Or Goren (Israeli basketball player).
In reply perhaps to typically postmodern language posted by Rimbaud, I post the following link to an article which addresses the way in which postmoderrn thinking is used by some who consider themselves intellectuals and even progressives as an excuse for inaction and perhaps even unconcern with such present day problems as the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict. Postmodernism and Unconcern w. Palestine Let me admit that I know not much about postmodernism. It is an intellectual trend that occurred after I went to college. It is an interesting trend, but of course very in accessible (deliberately?) to educated people from other areas of life.