IDF General Sued For "Targeted Killings"

[WildCat]

Well, you know those "partisan hack" accusations I have been making?

Q. E. D.

And the claims that you have nothing tangible to add to this discussion? Proven once again.

Now, you're making me break out the Dylan:

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth,
Blowing down the backroads headin' south.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

 

[Orwell]

Orwell? Why did you waste a post just to throw in that extra ad hom, instead of addressing anything being said here?

You called me a liar, and I'm saying you have to retract your words now that it has been proven I am an IDF veteran.

I posted a challenge to you to respond to the OP, and you are silent. That really says volumes about your inability to grasp the subject matter.

First, I never requested you to prove anything.
Second, your link proves nothing.
Thirdly, even you you were (or are or whatever) in the IDF, that doesn't make you credible. Actually, it makes you even less credible, since you would belong to the organisation that I and others have been criticising for being careless with Palestinian civilians lives. On the other hand, there are people in the IDF I greatly admire (the refusenicks, for instance), so belonging or not belonging to the IDF is less important to your credibility than you think.
Fourthly, maybe you were in the IDF, but as far as we know, you might have been a logistics officer.

Now, your relation to the IDF is irrelevant. You are not credible to me because you have consistently given one sided opinions, and you have, on several occasions, given signs that you have very hostile feelings towards Palestinians; not Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians in general, civilians included. Had you been more reasonable and less partisan, I would take what you say about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict a lot more seriously, and your belonging to the IDF or not would not mater.

 

[demon]

webfusion:
"The idea of a Palestinian State, demilitarized in the fashion of Lichtenstein, is not a problem for Zionism or Israel..."


Anti-Colonial Nationalism always regarded control of foreign policy as decisive for sovereignty (hence Arab Nationalism's hostility to the various western inspired pacts and treaties with which western powers continued to try and control relations between states in the middle east after decolonisation). Demilitarized sovereignty is no sovereignty at all. Lichtenstein and states like it in Europe exist because it is in the interests of Hegemon's in Europe that they do so. The middle east is not the same kind of place and a Palestinian state without guns would not be a state at all. Those who support this are not "people of good will".
They're murderous chauvinists whose ideology is one of perpetual warfare against the emergence of proper Palestinian statehood in which their sovereignty is subordinated to the ends of Israeli and US foreign policy in the region.

 

[demon]

wildcat:
"Every country, even Israel, has the right to defend herself. The Palestinians are doing the military equivalent of bringing a knife to a gun fight, and they're going to lose every engagement they instigate. And this upsets the "johngs" in this world who sit back criticize from the safety of their comfy chairs, well boo-freaking-hoo."


No country has the right to ethnically cleanse a people in order to steal its land, dispossess them for decades, steal more land through military conquest and surreptitious colonisation, steal the water supplies, impose racist laws, build roads on which only the dominative ethnic group may travel, imprison and torture children etc etc.

I daresay the murder and dispossession of Palestinians, and their right to defend themselves, is more important than the attempt by some comfortable know-nothing to sound tough and worldly.
In your case stop whining and bellyaching about suicide bombings of civilians. Quite legitimate and defensible by your reckoning and if you don't like it from the safety of your armchair then boo-hoo.
I love these "tough guys".

 

[demon]

webbie:
This was funny though..

"No, they haven't always been "Palestinians". If you refer to Gaza, they were Egyptians. If you refer to the West Bank, they were Jordanians. If you refer to the Golan Heights, they were Syrians"

How could they have been Jordanians before there was Jordan? How could they have been Syrians before there was Syria? After all actually none of these people deserve a state (the logical consequence of your views) and they only have states at all because of our (ie western) benificence, they should be grateful and except their lot or we'll kill them. That seems to be your message of "Peace".

I am interested though in your rantings. This whole never giving in to terrorism shtick is a nice way of saying, never give in to struggles against injustice until people accept our justice. Endless semantic discussions about terrorism (the origins of the word in the French revolution in which a departure from liberal values was justified on the basis that the State faced an enemy which did not recognise them, make it much more logical to call States terrorist than non-state combatants) are really simply about ignoring the politics of struggle. As soon as you accept this word everything else comes with it.
It`s why Netenyahu and the rest of the Israeli right wing thugs pressed this word with such enthusiasm in the 1980's. Post-9/11 the acceptance of this word as a noun is simply a marker of wider trends towards a return to colonialism and a denial of rights to the colonised.
Oh and webbie, given that the majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are descended from people who lived within the borders of what is now Israel your talk of Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians is even more demented then usual. Notice how being in a powerful position allows you to completely ignore elementary logical structure in argument, obvious facts, and indeed rationality itself. Notice however that in most of the western world webbie has to come onto a site like this for anyone to really attack his views for the gibberish they are. At worst he will be exposed to a version of "BBC Balance" prefaced with long apologies for "terrorism" ("of course I condemn without reservation etc").

Again this is discursive not personal, and much more mainstream then webbie`s more obviously demented views would suggest. He knows his position is powerful in relation to the position of those he attacks so he does not have to pay attention to logic or rationality. Importantly most of those who listen to him, even those who disagree with him, at some level are placed in some kind of relationship to the power of that position, especially in the west.

 

[webfusion]

before before before

They weren't even Palestinians prior to being Jordanians, because they were residents of the various Turkish sanjaks. And since the Turks got on the wrong side of a world war, am I supposed to feel sorry for that entire fiasco, as well?

I never said they don't "deserve a state" -- that is a strawman. They do not deserve an independent status if it is a base of terrorism and unrest aimed at the world. I will absolutely not sit here and acquiesce, under any constellation of circumstances, to a Palestinian State that is designed from the roots to be a harbor and sponsor of Islamic Jihad terror.

As for the politics of the terrorists: In your view, they are going about their violent struggle in the best possible way to reverse the 'wrongs' they have been subjected to. I respectfully disagree, and I stand with a gun in my hand, as a soldier of the IDF, to defend my country against this particular brand of insanity.

Fortunately, demon, you are in Australia, with no power beyond this internet forum, unable to participate in anything directly related to the conflict my country must face. For that, I am grateful. There are plenty of real enemies, without the likes of the demons of our planet who type and type and type but never get their hands dirty.

 

[Mycroft]

...a Palestinian state without guns would not be a state at all.

And...

They're murderous chauvinists whose ideology is one of perpetual warfare...

Who's ideology is one of perpetual warfare? Is it the ideology of those who envision and work towards a two-state solution? Or is those who can’t imagine sovereignty without weapons?

 

[webfusion]

in review:

He is speaking of events from alleged experienced in the IDF. I have no reason to believe him.

I gave you a reason to believe it. Your statement branded me a liar, unless I managed to offer proof of some sort to back my words on an internet forum.

First, I never requested you to prove anything.

By bringing forward some photos of myself in uniform, while serving on active duty in the IDF, your use of the word "allegedly" went up in smoke. The very definition of "alleged" means that you required some proof to back up an assertation! You seem to really have trouble with plain English, Orwell.

• "ALLEGED" = Represented as existing or as being as described but not so proved. (American Heritage Dictionary)

Second, your link proves nothing.

Oh, is that how you want to play this? So, you now demand more proof, while repeating the claim that I am a liar. Very predictable response from you, Orwell. I expected no less, actually, and prepared an additional item of evidence to back my assertation of IDF service.
I wonder at what point you will say, "OK, webfusion is an IDF veteran, and I now believe him" ?

Wait a second --- this 'proof' is meaningless, it could be a photocopy of any random document, it proves nothing! (FYI, the item shown above is my actual call-up notice for active duty in the IDF reserves. I am assigned to a Military Police unit, rank of Sergeant --- I am not a 'logistics officer').


But, let's move past this, and see what else Orwell has in his bag of tricks...
Thirdly, even if you were (or are or whatever) in the IDF, that doesn't make you credible. Actually, it makes you even less credible, since you would belong to the organisation that I and others have been criticising for being careless with Palestinian civilians lives.

In case you haven't noticed, Orwell, nobody in this forum, IIRC, is taking the position that the IDF has not killed innocent Palestinians. Nobody has even brought forward any sort of denial that the IDF is 'careless' in some cases with Palestinian civilian lives. Nobody is arguing that deaths of Palestinians at the hands of IDF soldiers is only the side-result of the Army chasing terrorists always! All we are saying --- the IDF does not target civilians.
The Palestinians do.

Now, your relation to the IDF is irrelevant.

It is not irrelevant. The mere fact you dismissed it, in the course of your maintaining that I am a liar, and now are trying to dance around it when I've offered good evidence, shows that you are the one with a credibility problem here, not me.


Meanwhile, back to the topic (?) ---
The OP here in my thread proposes a discussion about the use of artillery against civilian areas, as an acceptable method to stop war-like actions of rocket-launching by terrorists. The case in the New York courts revolves around that exact subject, in Lebanon, many years ago. It has current implications right now, in Gaza, as the Israeli defense establishment is engaged in precisely that same type of situation.

If you are not prepared to talk about it, ORWELL, that's fine.
However, I have yet to see anything from you even remotely resembling a coherent and cohesive on-topic comment. Try it for a change, and see how it goes...

 

[Orwell]

Look, you have no way of proving you're who you say you are. And I have no way of proving you're a liar.

But see, I still think you're not credible. Once again, you are not credible to me because you have consistently given one sided opinions, and you have, on several occasions, given signs that you have very hostile feelings towards Palestinians; not Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians in general, civilians included. Had you been more reasonable and less partisan, I would take what you say about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict a lot more seriously, and your belonging to the IDF or not wouldn't mater.

 

[Orwell]

About artillery against civilian areas:

Here's an obvious observation: terrorists shell Israeli civilians from Palestinian civilian areas probably because they expect Israeli artillery counter-attacks. Artillery isn't the most precise of weapons, and inevitably there are Palestinian civilian casualties (something I suspect the IDF higher-ups know perfectly well), are a few more Palestinian civilians with a few more reasons to hate the Israelis and support the extremists. Or maybe the Palestinian civilians in the area already supported the extremists, and now they will support them even more. The eternal cycle attack followed by counter-attack followed by attack and yadayada, ad nauseam. The IDF does exactly what the terrorists expect, the extremists keep setting the agenda, and the endless cycle of violence keeps going on and on forever amen.

 

[Skeptic]

(FYI, the item shown above is my actual call-up notice for active duty in the IDF reserves. I am assigned to a Military Police unit, rank of Sergeant

Kol ha'zayin ba'miluim... so you are a ma'na'yek of a mem-tzadik, eh, webfusion? ...

(Sorry, private joke)

By the way, technically speaking, isn't posting your active duty on the internet a bitachon sade violation? Being in the MPs, you should know--not that anybody would care.

Thirdly, even if you were (or are or whatever) in the IDF, that doesn't make you credible. Actually, it makes you even less credible, since you would belong to the organisation that I and others have been criticising for being careless with Palestinian civilians lives.

You got to love the logic: if you are not in the IDF, Orwell claims you don't know what it does. If you are, he claims you are partial to it.

 

[Mycroft]

You got to love the logic: if you are not in the IDF, Orwell claims you don't know what it does. If you are, he claims you are partial to it.

Except those refusenicks. They're credible.

 

[Skeptic]

About artillery against civilian areas:

Here's an obvious observation: terrorists shell Israeli civilians from Palestinian civilian areas probably because they expect Israeli artillery counter-attacks. Artillery isn't the most precise of weapons, and inevitably there are Palestinian civilian casualties (something I suspect the IDF higher-ups know perfectly well), are a few more Palestinian civilians with a few more reasons to hate the Israelis and support the extremists. Or maybe the Palestinian civilians in the area already supported the extremists, and now they will support them even more. The eternal cycle attack followed by counter-attack followed by attack and yadayada, ad nauseam. The IDF does exactly what the terrorists expect, the extremists keep setting the agenda, and the endless cycle of violence keeps going on and on forever amen.

Let's take this logic and apply it to other areas, shall we?

Here is an obvious observation about battered wives calling the police on their husband. The battered wife knows full well that after the husband would be arrested, he would hate her even more and would be more likely to beat her next time. Instead of such an endless cycle of violence: beating, arrest, beating, arrest, yadda yadda yadda, it would be much better that the wife simply submit and let the husband beat her occassionally without complaint. Why start a cycle of violence that will go on forever?

Oh wait. The argument is slightly flawed, because the real reason for the husband's beating is not the "cycle of violence" and the wife's latest call to the police, but his desire to violently terrorize her. Same here: the "cycle of violence" is not due to the latest israeli shelling, but due to the Hamas' desire to wipe israel off the map.

Gee, that was simple, wasn't it, Orwell?

 

[zenith-nadir]

You guys know Orwell is playing with you right? He's yankin' your chains. I recommend you don't jump through his hoops. But since we are on a skeptics message board lets' look at the "cycle of violence" myth and use Gaza as an example.

Israel pulled everyone and everything out of Gaza, the Palestnians have a border crossing at their control into Egypt and to the rest of the world. That is what the Palestinians wanted and told us so time and time again. So did the terror stop when the occupation of Gaza ended?

Nope.

Dec 21, '05

....there were 62 Kassam attacks in September (all in the second half of the month), 16 in October, 29 in November, and 49 so far this month.

In total, then, there were 156 rockets since Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza this past August. Over 80 more Gaza-fired Kassams landed during this period inside Gaza, short of their targets.

So even the end of the occupation of Gaza didn't stop the terror from within Gaza. The Palestinian islamists still fire rockets at Israeli civilians almost every day from Gaza. 156 rockets since Israel's withdrawal to be exact. An act of war in my books.

So the "you end the occupation" and "we'll end the terror" lie is just that ...a lie. Hamas and Islamic Jihad seek to destroy Israel not the end to the occupation.

Now lets move to the second greatest lie.

Abbas pledges full efforts to end armed uprising - 10:14 PM Jun. 04, 2003

Abbas pledge to end violence - November 26, 2004

Abbas pledges to stop Hamas attacks - 17 July 2005

Abbas pledges to end Gaza 'chaos' - 13 September 2005, 22:11 GMT

Abbas pledges to end poll-linked violence - 12/03/2005 12:00 AM

The second lie always starts with "Abbas pledges". Abbas has been pledging to do what he is obligated to do for over a year. What he is obligated to do today is what the Palestinian Authority has been obligated to do since 1993. Yet he has never done it nor has the Palestinian Authority ever done it. Yet we hear these endless pledges and promises over and over and over again in the media.

Well Orwell after pledging to do something a hundred times and never doing it smart people, not the "useful idiots" get wise to that trick.

Wed Dec 21, 6:13 PM ET

Senators said they were "deeply disappointed" that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas "has yet to do what the Palestinian Authority has committed to doing on numerous occasions -- asserting its control over the terrorist groups that operate freely within the West Bank and Gaza."

In closing I would like to say that pledging to do something and never doing it and allowing rockets to rain on Israel from unoccupied Gaza should DEBUNK the "cycle of violence" myth once and for all.

{edited to add}

The Islamist terror coming from Gaza and the West Bank is no different than the islamist/insurgent terror in Iraq. To debate that American and Iraqi forces attacking islamist/insurgents perpetuates a "cycle of violence" would be absurd, yet in Israel's case the world bought the "cycle of violence" myth hook, line and sinker.

 

[webfusion]

mem tzadik

Skeptic, I would agree, it is technically breaking rules bitahon sade, and I really agonized about even posting it, (even with the numbers blocked out) but it is a very unique document, available only to someone serving in the Israeli Army, and as such, provides clear and non-arguable refuting to Orwell's claim of "alleged" IDF service ---
Although he still says that I have 'no way of proving' I'm in the IDF, even after I just did exactly that! Amazing what some people will deny, even when it is right in front of their eyes! Orwell no longer qualifies as 'skeptical' on this board (if he ever did) -- Now he is acting like a woo. And he's talking about MY credibility, like he is some sort of authority! I want to post the laughing dog, but it's too cliche!

-----------------------------------

Well, I'm glad to see a reply on-topic at last from Orwell.

Here's an obvious observation: terrorists shell Israeli civilians from Palestinian civilian areas probably because they expect Israeli artillery counter-attacks.

How about this observation -- terrorists perpetrate atrocities of many shapes and sizes, in the quest to kill innocent civilians. That is their goal. They have no quid-pro-quo in mind at all. To the islamic terrorist, a suicide attack in a crowded bus station, or launching missiles at Israeli towns and villages, or shooting people driving along the roads, or crashing planes into buildings, is not done to provoke "artillery response" --- it is done to create havoc, and terrorize the civilian populations of their declared enemies.

Case in point -- the terrorist tactics of Saddam Hussein in 1991, sending SCUDs into Israeli population centers. I doubt very much he was trying to provoke an Israeli response, since he watched CNN like the rest of the world, and understood perfectly that PM Shamir had promised to avoid getting involved with the war efforts. Every Israeli man woman and child knew that we were going to be attacked for months on end, and that the IDF/IAF was not going to do anything (beyond Patriot intercepts that largely were ineffective).

Sorry, I don't buy that argument, Orwell, of the terrorists trying to chide the IDF into doing their bidding. The IDF acts with precision, with design, and with professional management. Furthermore, IDF warns civilians IN ADVANCE to clear out of an area that is about to be targeted and hit, according to policy. When they target something with artillery, dude, they pinpoint it --- those guys on the cannons can hit the bedroom of a house and leave the kitchen untouched, several kilometers away! They have overhead drone spotters and triangulation lasers, all tied into the computer-controlled azimuths of those guns. Your statement that "inevitably there are Palestinian civilian casualties" has little basis in reality. How many Palestinian civilian deaths have been the result of the past few weeks of IDF bombardments into Gaza? Tens? Hundreds? Thousands? How about none?

http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/medigest/mar00/backgrnd.html
In Kfar Kana, IIRC, the IDF was pursuing a war, it was in the midst of wide-ranging combat called "Operation Grapes of Wrath" and the incident in question was the result of the IDF responding to perfidy on the part of the terrorists. The IDF was not 'targeting civilians' on a clear day in Spring 1996.

http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/300/320/324/324.2/hizballah/beres.html

• The recent harms to civilian refugees in Lebanon caused by Israeli shelling are tragic and regrettable, but the legal responsibility for the tragedy lies with those whose perfidious conduct brought about such shelling. --- Louis Rene Beres

To bring a court case against General Ya'alon personally is an abomination, and I hope the case is thrown out of the American justice system, as it rightfully deserves to be. IMHO, as always.

 

[Orwell]

As the real Orwell said about one kind of partisan hack (i.e. nationalists): "Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side."

 

[webfusion]

non-reply

Orwell, that was a non-reply. In fact it is the same one that you have repeatedly offered on this and other threads. I almost expect you to start spamming this thread now with your links to HR Watch, etc. Z-N pegged you right, you're here just to yank chains.

=======================================

Follow-up to the OP:

"Defense Minister Mofaz said he has directed the Israel Defense Forces to pursue a policy now of (more) intensive operations and targeted killings of Palestinian militants following last week's Qassam rocket fire. The IDF is authorized to act to prevent Palestinians from entering the areas from which the rockets were launched by using both artillery fire and aerial strikes, and clearing a 'no-mans-land' in Northern Gaza. {The Qassam can travel a maximum distance of nine kilometers.}
Security sources believe the decision to focus Qassam fire on the Ashkelon area comes from the highest levels of the Islamic Jihad in Damascus. According to Israeli intelligence sources, Islamic Jihad command in Damascus is consistently pressing militants in the Strip to continue launching rockets, primarily at "strategic targets" in the Ashkelon area, like the power station and the oil pipeline."

• Security sources believe Hamas is now taking advantage of the relative calm in violence to focus on improving the Qassams' range. The sources said Hamas would soon be able to produce rockets with a range of some 15 kilometers.

It should be recalled that the entire Gaza Strip is only 45 Km. long.
The no-mans-land zone could conceivably be extended to 1/3 of the entire area of the Strip!

 

[Orwell]

I've asked this question repeatedly: why should I believe you and not Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B'Tselem, the refusenicks quoted in bunch of newspapers, etc.? What makes you more credible than them?

As far as I'm concerned, based on these reports, Israel has committed severe human rights abuses. Israeli security does not justify these human rights abuses.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

I've asked this question repeatedly: why should I believe you and not Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B'Tselem, the refusenicks quoted in bunch of newspapers, etc.? What makes you more credible than them?

As far as I'm concerned, based on these reports, Israel has committed severe human rights abuses. Israeli security does not justify these human rights abuses.

Orwell, this isn't a credibility pissing contest, it's about evidence, sites, opinions, and ethics. You're simply appealing to authority. I appreciate what Amnest International has to say myself, but simply saying "Amnesty International says it's so, so it must be so" is a very weak areguement.

 

[Orwell]

Let's take this logic and apply it to other areas, shall we?

Here is an obvious observation about battered wives calling the police on their husband. The battered wife knows full well that after the husband would be arrested, he would hate her even more and would be more likely to beat her next time. Instead of such an endless cycle of violence: beating, arrest, beating, arrest, yadda yadda yadda, it would be much better that the wife simply submit and let the husband beat her occassionally without complaint. Why start a cycle of violence that will go on forever?

Oh wait. The argument is slightly flawed, because the real reason for the husband's beating is not the "cycle of violence" and the wife's latest call to the police, but his desire to violently terrorize her. Same here: the "cycle of violence" is not due to the latest israeli shelling, but due to the Hamas' desire to wipe israel off the map.

Gee, that was simple, wasn't it, Orwell?

Gee, I guess that in that argument, the Israelis, who are citizens of a country which has one of the most efficient and modern armies in the world, a country which receives billions of dollars in US aid money every year, a country with a much better quality of living than its neighbours, and finally, the country which has occupied the lands where the Palestinians live, are the "poor defenceless battered wifes"... Another male bovine manure argument, pretty typical of the stupidly emotional dumb demagogic crap that has been said on this subject.