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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Mar 23, 2009 - 11:11am PT
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EDIT
When your family home is destroyed by an Israeli missile with the words “Made in the USA” on it, as Fisk has reported (poetic licence accepted), and you have seen your six-year-old brother/sister/niece/nephew/daughter/son/neighbor blown to bits or shot by an Israeli trooper, you will have enough motivation without the 72 virgins crap to want to seek revenge.
Such a person does not need some rabid Islamic cleric or terrorist group to persuade then to strap a bomb to themselves.
Likewise, the use of civilian targets/schools/hospitals/houses by Hamas and their elk is also totally despicable.
All sides of this conflict have committed atrocities that leave a extremely bad taste in the mouth. You would have thought that the Jewish people would have learned more from Auschwitz, Treblinka and Polish ghettoes (just as examples) , but they apparently haven't.
Both sides have innocent blood on their hands.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Mar 23, 2009 - 11:32am PT
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Skip, I do not claim it as racism, a word I find to be totally incorrect, as we all are of one race Homo Sapien Sapiens.
Bigotry? Yes.
Hatred? Check.
Tribalism? You bet.
Sectarianism? Most assuredly.
BTW, not so much as changed my post, but added to it, Skip.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Mar 23, 2009 - 11:59am PT
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The only difference between a car bomb and an air strike is that the airstrike costs more. Isreal has borrowed many things from the Germans. The ghettos, the identity papers, the retaliation on family members. I understand that they are in a tough spot trying to survive but they have lost the way and become monsters INMOP. The boneheadded palastinians do little to help their cause as well when they stike civillians. Bunch of crazy fckers may just deserve each other?
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Mar 23, 2009 - 01:19pm PT
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Yep Jeff and twice Bush was elected and look at the sh#t and havoc he drug us all into. Even though more than half of America did not agree with him.
Here is the latest Haaretz report on the moralist army in the world.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1073243.html
Last update - 18:53 23/03/2009
'IDF troops used 11-year-old boy as human shield in Gaza'
By The Associated Press
Tags: Gaza Strip, UN, Israel News
Israel Defense Forces soldiers used an 11-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield during the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a group of UN human rights experts said Monday.
IDF troops ordered the boy to walk in front of soldiers being fired on in the Gaza neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa and enter buildings before them, said the UN secretary-general?s envoy for protecting children in armed conflict.
Radhika Coomaraswamy said the incident on Jan. 15, after Israeli tanks had rolled into the neighborhood, was a violation of Israeli and international law.
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It was included in a 43-page report published Monday, and was just one of many verified human rights atrocities during the three-week war between Israel and Hamas that ended Jan. 18, she said.
Coomaraswamy accused Israeli soldiers of shooting Palestinian children, bulldozing a home with a woman and child still inside, and shelling a building they had ordered civilians into a day earlier.
Israel's diplomatic mission in Geneva said it would respond to the allegations later Monday at a session of the UN Human Rights Council.
There also have been allegations that the militant group Hamas used human shields, but UN human rights experts have yet to verify those, said Coomaraswamy.
"Violations were reported on a daily basis, too numerous to list," said Coomaraswamy.
Coomaraswamy, who visited Gaza and Israel for five days in February, said her list constituted "just a few examples of the hundreds of incidents that have been documented and verified" by UN officials who were in the territory.
She was the only one of the nine UN experts who compiled the report that was allowed into Gaza following the war. The experts covered issues ranging from health and hunger to women's rights and arbitrary executions.
The experts also noted reports that Hamas had committed other abuses. They said Hamas had been unwilling to investigate the allegations.
The report called for Israel to end its blockade of the impoverished territory, where they said more than 90 percent of people are dependent on food aid; allow Palestinians to move between Gaza and the West Bank; and investigate human rights abuses that occurred during the conflict.
Coomaraswamy has been a UN undersecretary-general since April 2006. She formerly headed the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission and reported as a U.N. special investigator on violence against women.
Related articles:
Rights group: IDF killed 16 medical workers during Gaza op
IDF: Soldiers' anti-Palestinian T-Shirts are 'tasteless'
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Mar 23, 2009 - 01:27pm PT
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IDF rules of engagement reported by Haaretz.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072830.html
IDF soldiers ordered to shoot at Gaza rescuers, note says
By Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Amira Hass, Israel News
GAZA STRIP - "Rules of Engagement: Open fire also upon rescue," was handwritten in Hebrew on a sheet of paper found in one of the Palestinian homes the Israel Defense Forces took over during Operation Cast Lead. A reservist officer who did not take part in the Gaza offensive believes that the note is part of orders a low-level commander wrote before giving his soldiers their daily briefing.
One of the main themes in news reports during the Gaza operation, and which appears in many testimonies, is that IDF soldiers shot at Palestinian and Red Cross rescuers, making it impossible to evacuate the wounded and dead. As a result, an unknown number of Palestinians bled to death as others cowered in their homes for days without medical treatment, waiting to be rescued.
The bodies of the dead lay outside the homes or on roadsides for days, sometimes as long as two weeks. Haaretz has reported a number of such cases, some of them as they happened. The document found in the house provides written proof that IDF commanders ordered their troops to shoot at rescuers.
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The sheet of paper entitled "Situational Assessment" was found by a field researcher of The Palestinian Center for Human Rights in the home of Sami Dardone's family in Jabal al-Rayes, east of Jabalya. The extended Dardone family lives in about 40 homes in this neighborhood, built on a hilltop. Some of the homes were taken over by the army to house troops during the offensive and to serve as sniping positions, or for shooting in general.
Most of the homes were seriously damaged when the IDF directly bombed them or other targets nearby at the start of the ground operation. This was also the reason the homes' residents fled on January 4. When the residents returned to the neighborhood at the end of the offensive on January 18, they found that the IDF had completely destroyed some of the homes, in addition to those that had been damaged by shelling and others that were wrecked when soldiers broke in through the walls. Sometimes the soldiers needed explosives to break in.
A military source told Haaretz that "the document that was found is not an official document signed by a particular commander, and as such the IDF cannot comment on fragments of sentences that were jotted down on a piece of paper, and asks that this not be interpreted as directives and instructions that were issued by commanders."
'Situational assessment'
According to the reservist officer who did not participate in Operation Cast Lead and who received a copy of the document via fax, the "Situational Assessment" was written by a platoon commander, or at the highest level a company commander. The reservist says the author of the "Situational Assessment" was making notes to brief his soldiers based on a briefing that low-ranking commanders receive from senior officers.
The date on the sheet is "16.1.08," clearly an error because it should read one year later. It comments on political and military events that occurred in mid-January 2009. It's possible to conclude that the author is discussing the possibility of a cease-fire, which was being discussed publicly by Israeli officials at that time.
"The next 24 hours are important; there is a likelihood they [Hamas] will not accept the agreement," the author writes. He also mentions the "Interior Minister." The reference is probably to Hamas Interior Minister Said al-Sayam, who was killed on January 15 when the IDF bombed his home. Four members of his family and five members of a neighbor's family were killed. Among the dead were four children.
The commander's notes toward the top of the sheet are largely a short political briefing - for example, "the local leadership wants [a cease-fire], the external [Hamas leadership] is out of touch" - and an assessment of the enemy's intentions - "the enemy would like to achieve a kidnapping [of soldiers], the destruction of homes."
"Rules of Engagement" is written in the lower half of the sheet, along with one other category: - "Operational Routine."
The following is written: "Rules of Engagement: Fire also upon rescue. Not on women and children. Beyond the tantcher - incrimination."
"Tantcher" is what the IDF calls Salah al-Din - the route that runs the length of the Gaza Strip. The home of the Dardone family is east of the route, so it is possible to assume these are instructions on shooting at anyone crossing the route to the east into areas held by the IDF.
A reservist soldier who did not participate in Cast Lead says that to the best of his knowledge "incrimination" refers to the process of identifying whether a person approaching is a terrorist.
The reservist officer who did not take part in the Gaza operation spoke with reservists who said "incriminating" was a shoot-to-kill order, contrary to "suspect procedure," in which shots are fired in the air and then at the legs.
The IDF spokesman said in response that "IDF forces were given unequivocal instructions not to fire at those identified as not being involved in the fighting, and to assist as much as possible injured Palestinians under battle conditions."
The reservist officer told Haaretz that "according to the details mentioned in the paper it appears the author was a low-ranking officer who dealt with the affairs of about 30 soldiers - like organizing their platoon equipment and oiling their weapons."
He says the author might have taken part in an earlier briefing by more senior officers and took notes for his political and military briefing. That is where he received his instructions on the rules of engagement.
"The rules of engagement are not something the platoon or company commander makes up," the reservist officer said.
According to the graffiti left in the Dardone homes, and based on what is known about the IDF's deployment in the Strip, the unit involved was part of the Golani Brigade.
The last portion of the document is entitled "Operational Routine - Fighting Timeline," and includes things such as guard duty, responsibility for platoon equipment and briefings. Under "Operational Routine" a note is included whose title can be translated as "Shitting of Houses."
The reservist officer and soldier with whom Haaretz spoke said they were not aware of that term.
Many of the homes the IDF troops took over were left in particularly unsanitary conditions; the residents of Sami Dardone's home found their clothes in piles with obvious signs of human feces.
Sealed bags
Haaretz asked the IDF spokesman whether "Shitting of Houses" refers to "an intentional action of turning the homes into latrines, or whether the commander wanted to talk to his soldiers about the fact that they had turned their living space into latrines."
A reservist soldier who took part in Cast Lead told the reservist officer that "going to the toilet was part of the briefing, and perhaps 'Shitting of Houses' is a reference in the briefing to where to pile up the sealed bags the IDF provides the soldiers for relieving themselves."
The IDF spokesman said that "soldiers who were in the homes were instructed to relieve themselves in areas where it did not endanger their lives, mostly inside the house, and which allowed them to carry out their operational activities in the best possible way, and for as long as it would be necessary."
The other side of the "Situational Assessment" sheet shows that it was written on a letter sent to the troops by a child. "To the Golani soldiers, good luck in the war," the letter reads in the hand of a young child. In the middle of the page there is a drawing of an armed soldier. "Love, the S. family."
Related articles:
IDF ceased long ago being 'most moral army in the world'
Testimonies on IDF misconduct in Gaza keep rolling in
Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009
Kind of relieving to know the IDF had to stay around with their own sh#t for days on end. Oh the HORROR.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Mar 23, 2009 - 01:51pm PT
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Skip, you and Philo sparring with one another about which side has caused more atrocities is a bit morose.
Why don't we all agree that as things are and have been, humanity has suffered. As a race, the human race (Homo Sapien Sapiens), let's try collectively to find a solution.
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scabang
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 23, 2009 - 05:31pm PT
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Just when you thought it was safe to go out and play.
"Bet you got raped!" was another favorite slogan for the Lavi Battalion. The image was a bruised Palestinian woman.
An IDF spokesman described the tees as "tasteless".
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Mar 23, 2009 - 06:42pm PT
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Did someone say Zionist?
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corniss chopper
Mountain climber
san jose, ca
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Mar 23, 2009 - 06:58pm PT
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Muslims are deceivers -its a part of their religion.
Everything you've heard bad about Israel is an Arab propaganda lie.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Mar 23, 2009 - 07:05pm PT
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This is not propaganda.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Mar 23, 2009 - 07:10pm PT
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Yosemite is called "the ditch" for a reason.
ZIONIST BASTARDS UNITE!
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Mar 27, 2009 - 11:15pm PT
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What's interesting is to see people on this thread so hell-bent on demonizing Hamas. Most of us understand that many of their practices are imcomprehensible or at any rate, odious to a westerner - like cutting people's heads off with steak knives, video taping the execution and putting the video on the net, or operating mortars and rocket launchers out of schools, hospitals and mosques, suicide bombers, using kids as human shields, cha cha cha.
But what should we really expect from these people? How might we respond in similar circumstances? If your people were being destroyed at a ratio of 100 to their 1 - or even 10 to their 1 -how crazy would that make you? How far might you go to even up the score? What would you DO if someone bulldozed you crib with your kid inside?
It simply won't do to state that such cases are overstated, exagerated, justified, bla, bla, bla.
The crime here is that for many, including many Arab states, and probably myself as well (I've never done one damn thing for their cause), the Palestineans have become so cheap as to be valuable only as political pawns or as target practice. The death of a Palentinean - or 100 Palestinians - has come to be virtually meaningless to most westerners, or at worst, these deaths are justified by facile pronouncements of their barbarism.
I'm quite sure that few in the west gives a rat's ass about the Palestinians. A lot of this has to do with what Fattrad calls the Clash of Civilizations. Case in point - I've had more than a few friends who have worked in Saudi Arabia and when asked what to do with the country, almost all of them said to nuke the joint and start over.
And so the fighting continues . . .
JL
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