Originally Posted by BeAChooser
Note also that your source indicates the Israeli high court ruled human shields are illegal ...
Yet they continued.
Prove that any incidents were Israeli policy, like Hamas' use of civilians appears to be? If Israeli soldiers are actually caught using innocents as human shields, I have no doubt those in charge will be punished by the Israeli government and judicial system. I have no illusions that such punishment would happen on the other side. It simply won't.
To illustrate the basic difference in decency between the two sides, consider this from Dennis Prager (published in today's paper):
Take for example, Palestinian reaction to the 2001 Palestinian terror bombing of a Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria in which 15 Jews, five of whom were two sets of parents and their children, were murdered and an additional 130 people were injured, some permanently maimed.
As reported by The Associated Press, a month later, "Palestinian university students opened an exhibition that included a grisly re-enactment" of that mass murder. The students built a replica of the Sharro pizzeria, with fake blood, splattered pizza, a plastic hand dangling from the ceiling, and a fake severed leg wearing jeans and a bloody black sneaker.
"The exhibit also included a large rock in front of a mannequin wearing the black hat, black jacket and black trousers typically worn by ultra-Orthodox Jews. A recording from inside the rock calls out: 'O believer, there is a Jewish man behind me. Come and kill him,'" paraphrasing a verse in the Koran. It became a popular tourist attraction for Palestinians, to which Palestinian parents took their little children.
Here's the question: Can anyone even imagine Jews, in Israel or anywhere else on earth - no matter how right-wing they are politically or religiously - doing something analogous to celebrate the death of Palestinian civilians?
... snip ...
This moral chasm that separates Israel from its enemies, and separates the Jews from their enemies, merely confirms what Hamas repeatedly says about itself: "We love death more than the Jews love life." This motto is so true that Hamas not only doesn't weep for dead Israelis, it doesn't weep for dead Palestinians. It uses living Palestinians as human shields and uses dead Palestinians as propaganda.
Comment?
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in contrast to the Hamas official seen in the video I provided above boasting about use of human shields by his side.
Did he mean the use of volunteers?
If they are "volunteers" then perhaps they are no longer non-combatants and Israel should take the gloves off and bomb cases like that. But then there is no possible way you could claim that the children (some infants) seen in some of the material I presented (like on top of that one building Hamas wanted to protect) were "volunteers". And tell us, FireGarden, do you consider the small children seen in this,
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2009/01/05/children-of-hamas/ , volunteers? Hmmmmm?
Well let's examine those cases a little closer.
Notice the first sentence of the first linked article (the one about a "female human shield killed in Gaza"):
By the thousands they descended on Beit Hanoun, answering Hamas’s overnight radio pleas to rescue besieged Palestinian gunmen from the mosque.
These aren't innocent civilians. They put themselves into the line of fire to "rescue" "gunmen". The article says they planned to "smuggle their men out in women’s clothes". Again, these aren't *innocents* caught in the line of fire or used by Israel to protect their own troops. These are people who are actively helping one side in the conflict ... who placed themselves into a situation where bullets were flying. If one of them got killed doing that ... so be it. And doesn't the plan to hide gunmen as women put Palestinian women everywhere in more danger? Hmmmm?
And by the way, what were Palestinian gunmen doing inside a mosque in a civilian area in the first place? Note that the article states Hamas said "73 people in total were inside the mosque - 69 armed men and four civilians and repeatedly appealed for women to march on the building". Do you approve of Hamas in this case? And then, like Dennis Prager said, Hamas uses the dead as propaganda. From your source: "By noon today freshly-printed leaflets bearing the logo of Hamas’s military wing were already being handed out by eager schoolchildren outside emergency wards, proclaiming: 'The woman of North Gaza arose to help Beit Hanoun.'" Any comment? ANY indignation on your part? Hmmmmmmmmmmm?
How about your second link? That's the case I noted earlier ... where Hamas called on "civilians" (waving Hamas banners) to protect a building that Hamas was using to store arms. I don't know about you, but in my book that makes these civilians combatants. Article 51(3) of Protocol I states that "civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this Section,
unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities". Article 28 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that "the presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations". Article 51(7) of Protocol I states "The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attack or to shield military operations." Hamas violated this.
Your link says there were "reports" of an imminent Israeli strike but the truth is that Israel called the occupants of the house and told them to get out because they were about to be bombed. And to protect the building, women arrived, *volunteering* their small babies as human shields (see the second slide in your link). To me that's despicable. It's one thing to volunteer one's own life but to volunteer a baby? Comment?
Do you want to know what Israel has started doing in response to this sort of tactic? Dropping duds on buildings these Hamas sympathizers are *defending*. The women and children tend to run away after that happens. THEN the building gets bombed for real. Any problem with that, FireGarden? Or alternatively, Israel says it may go in on the ground against these targets. Then the real bloodshed will begin. Do you approve?
There's a huge difference. Tank man wasn't defending terrorists. And Israel is no Red China where human rights are concerned.
Again, Rachel Corrie wasn't defending terrorists in a hot war. So no comparison. It looks like the driver of the bulldozer may not have seen her. The driver insisted he had no idea she was in front of him. "You can't hear, you can't see well. You can go over something and you'll never know. I scooped up some earth, I couldn't see anything. I pushed the earth, and I didn't see her at all. Maybe she was hiding in there." Certainly Israel didn't have a policy of killing ISM volunteers. As another activist who was there said "We were horribly surprised. They had been careful not to hurt us. They'd always stopped before." Sad story but ... oh well ... when you do something foolish for a foolish cause sometimes it may not have a happy ending.
By the way, did you read in your link how the parents of Rachel were at the Palestinian home of the man who owned the house Rachel was trying to protect when she was killed ... when Palestinian militants barged in and tried to kidnap them as bargaining chips to secure the release of a Palestinian militia leader who had been arrested ... not by Israelis ... but by Palestinian intelligence on suspicion of ordering the abduction of another human rights activist and her parents? Ironic, no?
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Finally, if this ...
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2007/0...-refugee-camp/ ... is the sort of evidence your side has that Israel is using human shields, I'd have to call it weak evidence at best.
I've supported my claim, so why bring up evidence of your own?
Actually, the first of your sources only alluded to the fact that the Israeli High Court in 2005 banned "the neighbour procedure" (
http://www.israelpolicyforum.org/display.cfm?id=6&Sub=28&Dis=42 ). Specifically, they said the IDF couldn't arrest fugitives by having a Palestinian civilian,
who had agreed to do so, go up to a fugitive's house, knock at the door and ask the fugitive to come out. The HCJ ruled that this procedure contravenes international law. Chief Justice Aharon Barak also declared: "You cannot exploit the civilian population for the army's military needs, and you cannot force them to collaborate with the army." He added: "Based on this principle, we rule it illegal to use civilians as human shields, and we also rule it illegal to use civilians to pass military warnings from the army to those the army wants to arrest." What a refreshing difference between the way Israel confronts this issue and Hamas' approach. BTW, your first link provided no evidence that Israel has been violating that ruling or using human shields since 2005.
Your second link (from MSNBC in 2007) is a report of some apparent violations. At least one of those claims may have some merit in that there is video (see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXq57XK2L0A&feature=related and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buRfcFE1O6c ) of a young man named Sameh Amira being used in February 2007 by soldiers to help clear houses. Whether the young girl's claim is real or made up is unclear (it wouldn't be the first time a young Palestinian has lied for propaganda purposes).
By the way, here's an apparent affidavit by Sameh Amira on the incident:
http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cach...h+amira+palestinian&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=37&gl=us . Apparently, these people were related to someone named Omar that the Israelis soldiers were seeking. Doesn't sound like the soldiers and family were on very good terms either. I'm not excusing the soldiers use of Amira, just noting the context of the incident.
Note that your source states the army launched an investigation into whether soldiers violated the 2005 ruling. Do you want to know the result of that investigation before we issue a blanket condemnation of the Israeli government? Here it is:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-10-18-1075801657_x.htm
General reprimanded in human shield case
Posted 10/18/2007
by Mark Lavie, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM — The commander of Israeli forces in the West Bank was reprimanded Thursday following an investigation into allegations that troops used a Palestinian man as a human shield during an operation in the West Bank city of Nablus.
The army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, reprimanded Brig. Gen. Yair Golan and held up his advancement, the military spokesman's office said in a statement.
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The Israeli rights group B'tselem, which monitors Israeli human rights violations in the West Bank, praised the decision.
"We welcome the fact that the army took this seriously and investigated the case and took action," spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli said. Golan "was a senior officer who broke the law, and we hope that this will send a message to officers that they cannot give orders like this to soldiers."
Now show me something comparable that Hamas' government or *army* has done to stop their side's use of human shields. Hmmmmmm?
And note the considerable amount of coverage by the mainstream media regarding Hamas allegations ... compared to the media mostly turning a blind eye to what Hamas has been doing over the years. Finally, if this ... http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2007/...eli-occupation-forces-in-balata-refugee-camp/ ... is the sort of evidence your side has that Israel is using human shields, I'd have to call it weak evidence at best.
