Does the IDF target civilians?

[Orwell]

2004 Amnesty International summary for the region. Sounds depressingly like 2005's report. I'm including all of it for the sake of fairness.

The Israeli army killed around 600 Palestinians, including more than 100 children. Most were killed unlawfully – in reckless shooting, shelling and bombing in civilian residential areas, in extrajudicial executions and through excessive use of force. Palestinian armed groups killed around 200 Israelis, at least 130 of them civilians and including 21 children, in suicide bombings and other deliberate attacks. Increasing restrictions on the movement of Palestinians imposed by the Israeli army throughout the Occupied Territories caused unprecedented poverty, unemployment and health problems. The Israeli army demolished several hundred Palestinian homes and destroyed large areas of cultivated land and hundreds of commercial and other properties. Israel stepped up the construction of a fence/wall, most of which cut deep into the West Bank. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were confined in enclaves and cut off from their land and essential services in nearby towns and villages. Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories continued, further depriving Palestinians of natural resources such as land and water. Thousands of Palestinians were detained by the Israeli army. Most were released without charge, hundreds were charged with security offences against Israel and at least 1,500 were held in administrative detention without charge or trial. Trials before military courts did not meet international standards. Allegations of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees were widespread and Israeli soldiers used Palestinians as “human shields” during military operations. Certain abuses committed by the Israeli army constituted war crimes, including unlawful killings, obstruction of medical assistance and targeting of medical personnel, extensive and wanton destruction of property, torture and the use of “human shields”. The deliberate targeting of civilians by Palestinian armed groups constituted crimes against humanity. Scores of Israeli conscientious objectors who refused to perform military service were imprisoned and some were court-martialled.

http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/isr-summary-eng

 

[webfusion]

rules of conduct

As I have said before, you know the rules, and I believe you would follow them. However, when no-one is held responsible for the death of incidents like the young girl who was not just shot, but had a whole magazine emptied into her, in Gaza, then the IDF should be held responsible. As an organisation, it is not enforcing it's own rules of conduct.

The officer was arrested and put on trial. That is defined as 'enforcement'. He faced a proper and comprehensive Courts Martial, as do many other IDF soldiers for various breaches of the rules of combat and engagement. http://www.kokhavivpublications.com/2004/israel/05/0405041021.html

Sure, he didn't receive the verdict you prefer. However, his acquittal was part of the system of justice, which sometimes frustrates us in the judgements issued. (see: OJ and BLAKE).

 

[Orwell]

"We, Air Force pilots who were raised on the values of Zionism, sacrifice, and contributing to the state of Israel, have always served on the front lines, willing to carry out any mission, whether small or large, to defend and strengthen the state of Israel.

We, veteran and active pilots alike, who served and still serve the state of Israel for long weeks every year, are opposed to carrying out attack orders that are illegal and immoral of the type the state of Israel has been conducting in the territories.

We, who were raised to love the state of Israel and contribute to the Zionist enterprise, refuse to take part in Air Force attacks on civilian population centers. We, for whom the Israel Defense Forces and the Air Force are an inalienable part of ourselves, refuse to continue to harm innocent civilians.

These actions are illegal and immoral, and are a direct result of the ongoing occupation which is corrupting all of Israeli society. Perpetuation of the occupation is fatally harming the security of the state of Israel and its moral strength.

We who serve as active pilots - fighters, leaders, and instructors of the next generation of pilots -- hereby declare that we shall continue to serve in the Israel Defense Forces and the Air Force for every mission in defense of the state of Israel."

Signed: Brigadier General Yiftah Spector, Colonel Yigal Shohat, Colonel Ran, Lieutenant Colonel Yoel Piterberg, Lieutenant Colonel David Yisraeli, Lieutenant Colonel Adam Netzer, Lieutenant Colonel Avner Ra'anan, Lieutenant Colonel Gideon Shaham, Major Haggai Tamir, Major Amir Massad, Major Gideon Dror, Major David Marcus, Major Professor Motti Peri, Major Yotam, Major Zeev Reshef, Major Reuven, Captain Assaf, Captain Tomer, Captain Ron, Captain Yonatan, Captain Allon, Captain Amnon"

http://www.jfjfp.org/BackgroundW/refusenik_pilots.htm

 

[Orwell]

'We're air force pilots, not mafia. We don't take revenge' Israel's F-16 and Black Hawk refuseniks say why they could not obey illegal orders and kill innocent Palestinians.

The line was crossed for most of the pilots with the dropping of the one-tonne bomb last year on the home of a Hamas military leader, Salah Shehade, killing him and 14 of his family, mostly children.

One captain described the bombing as deliberate killing, murder even. Another called it state terrorism, though some colleagues swiftly stomped on that interpretation. But they all agreed that the attack sowed the doubts that resulted a year later in the letter that sent shockwaves through the Israeli military.[...]"You don't have to be a genius to know that the destruction from a one-tonne bomb is massive, so someone up there made a decision to drop it knowing it would destroy buildings," he said. "Someone took the decision to kill innocent people. This is us being terrorists. This is vengeance."

 

[webfusion]

KaBoom

Yeah, some IDF soldiers & officers aren't thrilled with the tasks of war.
They are telling the reporters and the public that their missions to defend the state against insiduous and brutal terrorism is not to their liking. They may prefer to engage in air-to-air dogfights against other pilots flying similar jets. That is their training.

But dropping huge 'effing bombs from way up in the air onto whatever happens to be on the ground is really quite normal for air force pilots.
(see: Enola Gay)

I cannot even imagine an IAF pilot saying:
"Nope, an operation to Natanz (IRAN) is out of the question, that facility has a school and a lot of homes around it, I decline to bomb the main target."

Go fly the mission, ace.

 

[Orwell]

http://www.hrw.org/wr2k3/mideast.html

The Mounting Toll: Civilian Victims in the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Intensified and brutal clashes between Israeli military forces and Palestinian armed groups, and the abject failure of the relevant parties and the international community to ensure the protection of civilians, cast a long shadow over efforts to instill greater respect for international human rights and humanitarian law throughout the region. In 2002 three separate Human Rights Watch reports, summarized at the end of this overview, addressed the deteriorating conditions.

By November 2002, some 2,500 Palestinians and over 650 Israelis, many of them civilians, had been killed since violence erupted in September 2000. At least twenty-one thousand Palestinians and two thousand Israelis were injured, including individuals maimed for life. Both Israeli security forces and Palestinian armed groups committed grave breaches of the rules of war in deliberately attacking civilians or displaying serious and systematic disregard for innocent civilian lives. While old abuses continued and intensified, new ones appeared.[...]A major concern was the culture of impunity that had taken hold. Israeli authorities repeatedly failed to conduct timely or credible investigations into numerous IDF abuses, including unlawful or willful killings of Palestinian civilians. Where such investigations did occur, the results were rarely made public. The Palestinian Authority, in turn, failed to bring to justice those responsible for planning and carrying out suicide bombings or other attacks against Israeli civilians while it had capacity to do so. Both sides justified their violations of international law by pointing to the other side's repeated abuses of these very standards.

 

[Orwell]

Can you cite an instance of this happening?

Mr. HEDGES: Well, every afternoon--you know, you could almost time
it--around 3 or 4, the Palestinian kids, who have nowhere to play, would play--would go out on the dunes and they'd have kites or rag balls and this kind of stuff. And I remember--I heard it the first day. And I speak Arabic, so I'm listening over the loudspeaker to the worst curse words in Arabic, and phrases like, you know, 'All the Palestinians who live in Khan Yunis are dogs,' which is calling an Arab a dog is particularly insulting. And I couldn't--I just couldn't believe what I heard.

And I walked out towards the dunes and they were--the--over the
loudspeaker from an Israeli army Jeep on the other side of the electric fence they were taunting these kids. And these kids started to throw rocks. And most of these kids were 10, 11, 12 years old. And, first of all, the rocks were the size of a fist. They were being hurled towards a Jeep that was armor-plated. I doubt they could even hit the Jeep. And then I watched the soldiers open fire. And it was--I mean, I've seen kids shot in Sarajevo. I mean, snipers would shoot kids in Sarajevo. I've seen death squads kill families in Algeria or El Salvador. But I'd never seen soldiers bait or taunt kids like this and then shoot them for sport. It was--I just--even now, I find it almost inconceivable. And I went back every day, and every day it was the same.

http://64.226.129.19/pmw/manager/features/display_message.asp?mid=487

 

[webfusion]

Abuses are well-known to occur. Nobody is even making an assertation that such problems do not exist and that no tragic deaths have happened as the result of various IDF missions and operations, Orwell.

You are posting frantically trying to show that people are dying as a result of the IDF operationally and sytematically targeting civilians, but that spurious claim of yours is not supported by anything you have brought forward.

Let's just take one case, at random, since you're throwing so many instances out there and not even taking the time to evaluate the circumstances and whether there is an objective to kill innocent civilians.

• Nine-year-old Abdel Salam Sumerin was killed yesterday when Israel Defense Forces troops used live fire to disperse a crowd of school children challenging the army's attempt to impose a curfew on the El Amari refugee camp, in El Bireh.

------ Live fire.
Against nine-year old school kids. Wow. That's really brutal, the IDF is obviously intent on murdering those kids, firing right at them, mowing them down like they deserve.
Wait a sec. How many bullets were fired? Hundreds? Thousands? Point-blank with automatic weapons in the hands of trained IDF troops, and one kid is killed? How come? These troops must really be bad shots!
------ Curfew.
Why did the Army wish to impose a curfew? What was going on in the district? Was the IDF Military Commander just in the mood to punish everyone in ElAmari, for the heck of it? Maybe it seemed like a good way to keep his men busy, and that detachment was sent up to the school with their orders, "shoot the kids"
------- Challenging.
How were these little kids any threat to a fully-equipped IDF patrol? It seems almost absurd to think of how a group of children could even provoke an armed fighting unit to open live fire. Yet they did, somehow.

(Note to Orwell: I've seen it happen, if you want a description of that situation from the perspective of an IDF veteran like myself ::::::: two or three hundred 'schoolkids' aged 8-17 all suddenly surround your unit of maybe 5 guys, throwing rocks and bottles and iron bars, many using slingshots which can send decent-sized stones flying at missile velocity right at your face, and sometimes even supported by gunmen shooting from behind the mob, using the civilian melee/riot for cover. The noise is incredible, shouts of "Kill the Jews, Kill the Bastards" erupts in unison, barrages of debris raining down on you, and you're thinking one thing and one thing only, "I have 28 rounds in the clip and the only way we'll get outta of here alive is to stick close with my buddies and fire into that crowd to keep the mob at bay from swarming over us")

I'm here to relate...

 

[Orwell]

I'm not franticly posting, Webfusion... The kind of stuff I'm linking is widely available on the web. Just google for it. I'm just acknowledging that it is pointless to argue about these things with you, so I just let the facts speak for themselves. By the way, I don't claim that all Palestinians are poor innocent victims of Israeli oppression. But as I said before, both sides are guilty of a lot of crap. Any balanced assessment of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict must start with that.

And while you waste your time trying to explain away the inexcusable, I'll just keep happily posting these links away...

 

[Orwell]

http://www.btselem.org/english/Publications/Summaries/200505_Take_No_Prisoners.asp

According to B’Tselem’s figures, since the beginning of 2004, Israelis security forces have killed eighty-nine Palestinians during operations that the defense establishment refers to as arrest operations. At least seventeen of the persons killed were not wanted by Israel, but were civilians who were not suspected by Israel of having committed any offense. In addition, at least forty-three of those killed were unarmed, or were not attempting to use their arms against Israeli security forces at the time they were killed. None of these cases were investigated by the Military Police investigation unit.

 

[Art Vandelay]

Ah, Orwell. Yet again you live up to your name. You redefine terms, then call people "partisan hacks" when they refuse to accept your Newspeak.

Ask yourself this. If the IDF is chasing a terrorist and he runs into a crowd of Israelies, would the IDF react the same than if he ran into a crowd of Palistinians?

Ask yourself this: if a terrorist runs into a crowd of Israelies, would the crowd react the same as if the terrorist ran into a crowd of Palestinians? In the latter case, the IDF probably wouldn't have to give chase; the terrorist would be dead before they got there. It's really stretching the word "civilian" to apply it to someone who is helping a terrorist escape by providing their body as a shield.


Cleon

Makes you wonder, then, how it is that the IDF winds up killing more civilians than the Palestinians do.

Because anti-Israelis call pretty anyone the IDF kills a "civilian"? Technically, since Palestine isn't an official state, they don't have an official army, so every Palestinian can be considered a "civilian", making the term rather meaningless.

If the IDF really is so ruthless in attacking Palestinian mobs, why are Palestinians so eager to join mobs? Let's accept, for the sake of argument, that the IDF kills demonstrators. Isn't it therefore reasonable to suspect that one of the purposes of demostrations is to supply more "martyrs"? Given how people like you keep repeating this "point" like it means that Palestinians are the victims, there's clearly a strong motivation for Palestinians to encourage these killings.

Palestinians should have a pretty good idea by now what will get them killed. So why do they keep doing it? When they're in a demonstration, and they see someone throwing rocks at the IDF, why don't they either grab the rocks away from the guy, or run away? As far as I'm concerned, anyone who voluntarily stands between the IDF and a combatant is a combatant. If you're on the field, you're part of the team, even if you never touch the ball.

 

[a_unique_person]

The officer was arrested and put on trial. That is defined as 'enforcement'. He faced a proper and comprehensive Courts Martial, as do many other IDF soldiers for various breaches of the rules of combat and engagement. http://www.kokhavivpublications.com/2004/israel/05/0405041021.html

Sure, he didn't receive the verdict you prefer. However, his acquittal was part of the system of justice, which sometimes frustrates us in the judgements issued. (see: OJ and BLAKE).

A girl was shot, in pretty simple circumstances. It was only a member of the IDF who did it, and there were only a few people at the scene who could have committed the act. In the OJ case, there were no eye witnesses, even if it was pretty clear that he did do it. In this case, there were eye witnesses. Apparently they were accused of framing the accused man. Of what, I don't know, because if he didn't do it, then one of them must have. But the radio communications makes clear who did it.

I have been on jury duty. The judge made it clear what the rules of evidence are. Even if you don't see it happen, if you can place the accused at the scene, and someone is killed, and no-one else could have done it, then it must have been the accused. I have read of some people being shot in Gaza, that it could have been anyone. In this case, there was never any question that it could have been anyone else.

 

[Mycroft]

I have been on jury duty. The judge made it clear what the rules of evidence are. Even if you don't see it happen, if you can place the accused at the scene, and someone is killed, and no-one else could have done it, then it must have been the accused.

Good god, you're a master propagandist. You know damned well the issue isn't if he was there or not, nobody disputes that he shot the girl, yet you still print this. Have you no shame?

 

[Mycroft]

I'm not franticly posting, Webfusion...

Your claim is that the IDF targets civilians. When asked to support that claim, you post link after link, twenty-three of them, which are apparently just random links from Google all of which are critical of Israel.

Do any of those links claim the IDF targets civilians?

Well, to be fair to you, two of them do. One a claim from B’tselem that claims the IDF targeted some ambulances, and another article written by Chris Hedges that was never corroborated and thoroughly debunked by Honest Reporting years ago.

You apparently weren’t even looking for anything that shows the IDF targets civilians, you think it’s enough to show that civilians are killed or that Palestinians suffer in the conflict.

Twenty-three links, and only two of them said anything close to what you are claiming.

I don’t believe any one negative thing said about Israel proves any other negative thing said about Israel. That seems like common sense to me, but apparently it’s not so obvious to many on the other side of the argument. If someone claims that the IDF targets civilians, I expect to see links that show the IDF targeting civilians as proof. I do not expect to see links that show that Israel closing their border causes financial hardship for the Palestinians or links that show checkpoints making it difficult for Palestinians to get to school or work, or even links that show how many Palestinian civilians died in the conflict. These are all very real issues, quite worth discussing, but they are also different issues from the IDF targeting civilians.

That’s not a difficult concept to understand, or at least it shouldn’t be. How come you have so much trouble with it?

 

[Cleopatra]

Orwell my boy.

First of all I thought that the comment in the other thread was posted in a tongue in cheek manner and you don't deserve to be chased for that but it turns out that this thread demonstrates how people form their views regarding Israel.

You will have great difficulty in proving that IDF deliberately targets civilians. Posting articles that demonstrate collateral damages doesn't constitute proof of your claim.

IDF knows that International Media that have the worse of intentions towards the country and its Army scrutinize everything that happens and they ready to report the minor incident.

IDF themselves scrutinize every report of unnecessary violence towards civilians but keep in your mind that IDF's soliders are people like you,they have nothing in common with the soldiers in Abu Graib for example.

Imagine yourself chased by "poor kids" with petrol bombs in their hands, or fighting with people that don't hesitate to use Red Cross' ambulancies for their terrorists acts and you will feel surprized by the very low amount of accidents caused by IDF.

 

[a_unique_person]

There are two documented cases that come to mind. The IS british citizen who was shot, and the small girl in Gaza. I am not making any claims as to the extent of the issue, but these two cases do appear to be clear.

The only reason the death of the british citizen was brought to a conclusion was because of the ability of his parents to bring diplomatic pressure to bear.

 

[Chaos]

Assuming these two cases are genuine (I´m not familiar with them) - are these cases of soldiers spontaneously targeting civilians, or an IDF policy for targeting civilians? The latter seems extremely unlikely due to the low number for a period of almost 60 years, even if these are only the cases documented beyond doubt.

 

[a_unique_person]

According to Webfusion, and I have no reason to doubt him, it is not IDF policiy to target civilians. However, it does not appear, to me, to be be policy to control those who do, which is tantamount to unofficial endorsement of such acts.

 

[WildCat]

Imagine a shooting competition where Orwell makes the rules. Everyone would get a perfect score, because even a complete miss is a perfect hit by his rules, because the target isn't defined by what you're shooting at but by wherever the bullet hits.

Orwell, over at the paranormal part of this forum Kilik was fond of "proving" his points by posting link after link without any comment. He proved nothing in the end, and neither have you. Either you have a complete inability to comprehend what's being asked of you (find a link that claims IDF targets civilians) or you're being deliberately evasive. Mycroft gave a crystal clear example with ”The deliberate targeting of civilians by Palestinian armed groups constituted crimes against humanity.” You have not given a single such example, nor a shred of evidence.

 

[zenith-nadir]

Ask yourself this: if a terrorist runs into a crowd of Israelies, would the crowd react the same as if the terrorist ran into a crowd of Palestinians?

No.

Word's are great JREFers but let's see some pictures to illustrate why Palestinian civilians get killed in this conflict much too often.

(img courtesy of typepad.com)... Look at the Palestinian civilians behind the islamist gunman in the foreground. Who's likely to get hit in a firefight with the IDF?

(img courtesy of BBC)... Look at the Palestinian civilian children behind the islamist RPG militant in the foreground. Who's likely to get hit in a firefight with the IDF?

(img courtesy of Yahoo)... Look at the Palestinian civilians cowering behind the islamist gunmen. Who's likely to get hit in a firefight with the IDF?

(img courtesy of science.co.il)... Look at the Palestinian civilians and children behind the islamist gunmen. Who's likely to get hit in a firefight with the IDF?

(img courtesy of detnews.com)... Look at the Palestinian civilians and children behind the islamist gunmen firing recklessly into the air. Who's likely to get hit in a firefight with the IDF?

(img courtesy of mac.com)... Look at the Palestinian civilian teens behind the islamist gunmen. Who's likely to get hit in a firefight with the IDF?

(img courtesy of israelactivism.com)... Look at the Palestinian civilians surrounding the islamist gunmen with their bodies. Who's likely to get hit in a firefight with the IDF?

(img courtesy of intelligence.org.il)... Look at the Palestinian civilians cowering behind the islamist gunmen. Who's likely to get hit in a firefight with the IDF? They are hiding from something... and the gunmen are firing at something... I bet it's the IDF.

(img courtesy of science.co.il)... Look at the Palestinian civilian children walking near the islamist rocket squad. Who's likely to get hit in a firefight with the IDF? Where are the Palestinian Authority police? How come armed rocket squads are allowed to roam feely on Palestinian streets amongst civilians?

I could literally post hundreds of examples where Islamist Palestinian terrorists use noncombatant Palestinian civilians for cover and concealment.

Now tell me when you read those human rights reports about Palestinian civilian casualties did they say anything about these civilians surrounding the combatants? Nope. Do the human rights reports clearly say in a preamble that said Palestinian combatants use Palestinian civilian areas to hide in and operate from? Nope. Do the human rights reports clearly tackle the very real and serious problem the IDF faces every single day whereby armed Palestinian rocket squads/gunmen/militants/suicide bombers are allowed to roam freely on Palestinian streets by the Palestinian Authority? Nope.

Am I lying? Nope. Are your eyes lying to you? Nope. Did I photoshop all those images just to make it look like Islamist Palestinian terrorists use noncombatant Palestinian civilians for cover? Nope.

So then who's responsibility is it to protect Palestinian civilians Orwell? The IDF? The Palestinian Authority? Hamas? Islamic Jihad? Syria? Iran? Who's responsibility is it in your country to seperate armed terrorists from your noncombatant civilian population JREfers? Your government? Another government? The armed terrorists? Spiderman? Batman?

And this is why reading human rights reports do not always paint a complete picture. Yes Palestinian civilians get killed, yes there are abuses by the IDF - they are only human after all and not emotionless superbeings.

Sadly in this war the Palestinian Authority DOESN'T LIFT A FINGER to seperate the militant Palestinian combatants from the civilian Palestinian non-combatants. The civilian Palestinian non-combatants are used as cover and concealment by the militant Palestinian combatants from the IDF. And I just proved it repeatedly in pictures. Hell, these islamist militants don't even have the guts to wear proper uniforms with a fixed symbol recognizable at a distance, they often are dressed like noncombatant civilians! The picutres prove it.

Firefights between militant Palestinian combatants and the IDF it causes many civilian deaths. Does that mean the IDF has a doctrine to kill civilians? Nope.