eMail
Print
A Palestinian boy used as a human shield by Israeli Occupation Soldiers, click the image to enlarge it.
By Abu al-Sous (Salah Mansour)*
During the Israeli war on Gaza, Western media propagated Israeli propaganda that the Palestinian resistance have been using their own family members as human shields. Sadly, Israeli propaganda is often presented in Western media as facts, and the Israeli version has been accepted with little verification. The goal is simple: dehumanise the Palestinian by showing that he does not care about his family members, and once that is done it becomes much easier to accept him as a legitimist target.
This dehumanizing campaign is as old as the Zionist movement; it was articulated by Golda Meir (a former Israeli Prime Minister) when she said: Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us. This racist and derogatory comment is often propagated in Western media without a second thought to its dehumanizing consequences. It paints the Arab as a sub-human creature, who has neither affection nor love towards his or her children. When I first heard this racist comment from an American, I felt as if he was telling me: "you are not much of a human as I"!
To this date, the Israel Occupation Army (IOF) still refuses to comply with orders from the Israeli Supreme Court to stop using Palestinian civilians as human shields (click here for a BBC article about this subject). If the IOF is a "professional army" as it claims and it treats Palestinians according to International Law, then:
- I wonder why Israel's highest court would issue such an order?
- I wonder why IOF refuses to stop using Palestinians as human shields?
A Palestinian killed by Israeli Occupation Soldiers used as a trophy.
It has been an Israeli strategy from the start to use civilian target as a strategic weapon. Israeli leaders assume this would cause the civilian population to pressure Arab leaders to submit to Israeli dictates. Sadly, this Israeli tactic has been historically effective with the corrupt and unpopular Arab leaders who are more interested in protecting their corrupt regimes than defending their countries. The reader should be reminded of the "Grape of Wrath" agreement between Hizbullah and Israel 1996 which restricted both sides from hitting civilian targets. This agreement signaled the end of the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon, and as a result a new era in the Arab-Israeli conflict have begun where Israel's deterrence power suffered a major setback. It should be noted that Israel has been determined not to fall into this trap again; that would explain why Israel rejected signing similar agreements with Hamas.
The allegation that Palestinian resistance use their own family members as human shield has been concocted by Zionists to delegitimise any Palestinian resistance, and to deflect from the war crimes that are being perpetrated on the people of Gaza. Palestinians are no different than other colonized people; they're simply defending their homeland from foreign aggressions. The following list of pictures, articles, movies, and Israeli quotations will conclusively prove that the Israeli Occupation Army is the one who use civilians as human shields.
- Video Clip: Kids Used as Human Shields in Balata Refugee Camp
- Video Clip: Israeli Army continues to use Palestinian civilians as human shields
- Video Clip: BBC: Palestinian boys used as a human shield during an Israeli operation in Nablus
- Video Clip: Israeli shoots Palestinian with hands bound point blank
- A Picture of a Palestine boy used as a human shield by Israeli Occupation Soldiers
- Ha'aretz: 'Human shield' dies as Hamas man is killed by troops
- Ha'aretz: Envoys say they saw IDF fire at children
- Ha'aretz: 27 Israeli pilots to refuse missions in West Bank, Gaza
- Israeli Quotes: Collection of quotations from Israeli leaders legitimising targeting civilians.
Be free to share this article with your friends and loved ones.
Our DATE is 60 years LATE, God willing sooner or later we shall return.
* Salah Mansour is the founder and editor of
PalestineRemembered.com, the
largest Palestinian online community.
Related Articles
- Palestinians don't have the right to defend themselves, they've the right to die silently!
- What Would You Do If You Were Born a Palestinian?
- Israeli Soldiers in Gaza Describe a 'Moral Twilight Zone'
- Why Is Gaza's Message Threatening To Some?
- Why Palestinian fight for their rights?
- How Was The Spartan Jew Born?
Over 600 Oral History interviews (including 3,000 hours of recording) can be viewed now online.
Post Your Comment
*It should be NOTED that your email address won't be shared, and all communications between members will be routed via the website's mail server.
By ETHAN BRONNER
JERUSALEM — An Israeli military court convicted two soldiers on Sunday of using a 9-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield by forcing him to check bags for explosives in Israel's 2008-9 Gaza war.
The court said that the two soldiers, both infantry sergeants, had taken part in an operation to seize an apartment building in Tel al-Hawa, a southern suburb of Gaza City, while under attack from Hamas fighters.
A summary of the court's judgment provided by the military spokesman's office said the two had rounded up civilians and come upon bags in a bathroom. They grabbed the child and ordered him to check the bags for booby traps.
"The boy, who feared for his fate and was pressured by the situation, wet his pants," the judges said, pointedly noting that, "unlike the soldiers, the boy had no means of personal protection."
After the boy emptied the contents of one bag and had trouble opening a second, one of the soldiers shot at the second bag. The boy was returned, terrified but unharmed, to his family.
Sunday's convictions, which could carry prison terms, are the first serious ones in Israel's criminal investigations into the conduct of its soldiers during the three-week Gaza invasion aimed at stopping rocket fire at Israeli communities. The army says it looked into 48 cases, and a third of them are still in progress.
In July, the army indicted several officers and soldiers for actions during the offensive, including a staff sergeant accused of deliberately shooting at least one Palestinian civilian who was walking with a group of people waving a white flag.
But human rights groups say that the military's criminal proceedings are insufficient and that Israeli troops carried out a number of atrocities that require outside investigation.
The United Nations Human Rights Council commissioned a South African jurist, Richard Goldstone, to lead an inquiry into the war's conduct. His report, issued a year ago, said there was compelling evidence of war crimes by both sides. It said that Israel had waged war on Gaza's civilians and civilian infrastructure in an act of inexcusable collective punishment.
Israel, which declined to cooperate with that investigation, has rejected the report's findings, saying it is looking into wrongdoing on its own. Some 1,300 Palestinians were killed in the war, many of them civilians.
The Goldstone report cited four episodes in which Israeli soldiers are said to have used Palestinians as shields, but those were all adults in other parts of Gaza.
At the military court where the two sergeants were convicted, several former comrades attending the proceedings wore shirts with the slogan "We are victims of Goldstone."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/world/middleeast/04mideast.html?_r=1&ref=global-home&pagewanted=print
Under pressure from the United States and Israel, Arab states and the Palestinian Authority agreed to shelve Judge Richard’s report and recommendations which leaves the people of Gaza undefended by international humanitarian law. Justice Delayed is Justice Denied.
Shame, disgrace, dishonour, are generous words to describe the betrayal and hypocritical manoeuvres of those so called, liberal Arab heads of state.
The Arabian Republic Libya, the only Arab state on the 15-member body stood for the rights of Palestinians and demanded an urgent debate on alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Long live the Arabian republic of Libya.
FOUAD KAMIL
For centuries, these olive trees have formed the backbone of Palestinian agriculture. Israel has systematically uprooted these Palestinian olive trees by the thousands to clear land for illegal Israeli settlements, apartheid fences and walls, and to dispossess Palestinian farmers of their lands and livelihoods. Many of those uprooted trees were moved and planted in new farms owned by Jewish settlers. The US, UN and Arab Rulers remain with deaf ears and folded arms.
FOUAD KAMIL
This week's meeting of the UN General Assembly included important developments in U.S. policy toward Palestine/Israel. The Obama Administration decided to play for time and press for renewed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the absence of a settlement freeze. Both the US and UN are avoiding accountability for crimes committed by Israel documented in the Goldstone Report fact Finding Mission on the Israeli invasion of Gaza.
Meanwhile, Britain and France that helped Israel to build an atomic arsenal threatened the Islamic Republic of Iran for it’s uranium enrichment program.
FOUAD KAMIL
Israelis should pray to the god who gave them Palestine to get rid of certain Islamic armies along with Al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah because sooner or later they bound to kick them out of Palestine.
FOUAD KAMIL
FOUAD KAMIL
In fact, September 11th now marks the begining of the down fall of a once great nation. The humble American who travelled the world to teach and preach and aid was replaced by the uniformed blood thirsty American who slaughtered over two million innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan. America that once exported education, religion and aid, is now an exporter of death to peace loving cultures. Churches, schools and aid centres that Americans built are replaced by dark prisons and torture centres for anyone who dares to oppose their colonial projects.
Ironically, the world community remembers the 2.974 killed in the New York Towers, but completely ignores the following: over 2,000,000 million slaughtered by American invaders in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousand of Palestinians and Lebanese murdered by Amerca’s Zionist agents. Thousands of innocent people are being tortured in American dark prisons. One and a half million starved Gazans remain imprisoned by Israel in Palestinian lands. Palestinian families witness the daily evictions from their homes passed down to them by inheritance over many centuries only to illegally deliver them over to new Jewish immigrants.The UN, the world community, and so called "Liberal Arab rulers" remain with deaf ears and filded arms.
FOUAD KAMIL
The world knows that you are following the foot steps of George Bush and repeating the same crap. Terrorists are your troops and Israeli partners in invading, torturing and murdering innocent people. The Taleban, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah are freedom fighters protecting their fatherland from your colonial projects.
A couple of weeks ago your partners the Israelis evicted nine Palestinian families, 53 persons from their homes that were immediately occupied by Jewish immigrants. What did you do about?
Racists, colonialists, with the help of god, freedom fighter shall liberate Palestine, Iraq, the Islamic holy land and Afghanistan from your and Israel’s colonial projects.
FOUAD kAMIL
b) US veto at the UN is preventing the international community from holding Israel accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian people and the annexation of Lebanese and Syrian occupied land.
c) 2001-2006 the US provided Israel with more than 300 million dollars in spare parts for its fighter jets and helicopter gun ships.
d) July 2008 The US provided Israel with 186 million gallons of JP-8 aviation fuel for its F16 and Apache gun ships.
e) July 2008 the US signed a contract to transfer 1.9 billion dollar combat ships to Israel.
f) Barak Obama has pledged to implement an agreement to increase arms transfers to Israel by 30 billion dollars over the next decade.
The United Nations that once crippled the Iraqi and Libyan economies stands deaf and dumb as Palestinian land is being taken daily through an insidious collaboration between violent Jewish settlers, the Israeli military, and government.
The Israeli government is daily appropriating Palestinian land for what it calls “sterile zone”. A program by which Palestinian families are driven from their own lands and forced to live in smaller and smaller areas where only 20% of Palestinian water resources is made available to them while 80% is reserved for Jewish settlers. Land in the sterile zone is converted into settlements for Jewish immigrants. Ironically, the Israeli flag continues to fly high in certain Arab capitals while other so called “Arab liberal rulers” stand with folded arms.
FOUAD KAMIL
During the US presidential race, Hillary Clinton fell short of calling Barak Obama “Nigger”, a word commonly used by Americans to degrade and offend descendants of Africans
But then, under pressure from American Zionists and whites, Obama was forced to accept Hillary as secretary of state.
Wednesday 22 July the BBC reported that at the regional summit of ministers in Thailand, Hillary boasted arrogantly: “Iran will face severe consequences if it did not abandon its nuclear ambitions
Why Iran is not entitled to build an atomic arsenal like Israel? Is there any reason other than the fact that Iran is an Islamic republic opposed to US/Zionist colonial ambitions In the Middle East? Hopefully the Arab Republics of Syria and Libya will also build nuclear arsenals to protect our world from US/Zionist colonial dreams.
Long live our liberators, Hamas, Hezbollah and all Islamic freedom fighting groups.
FOUAD KAMIL
.
Long live Hamas and all Islamic freedom fighting groups.
FOUAD KAMIL EMAIL: fouadkamil@hotmail.com
------------------------------------------
Israeli soldiers testify on army's immoral behavior in Gaza war
by Katherine Orwell, International Middle East Media Center Editorial Group
Wednesday July 15, 2009 14:14
A group of 29 soldiers, that served in Israel's recent assault in Gaza, anonymously spoke out about the war crimes they committed in Gaza. Breaking the Silence, a group of ex-soldiers, that has been trying to break the taboo around speaking about the army’s behavior, collected their testimonies and published them in a report on Wednesday.
The testimonies reveal the use of "accepted practices," the destruction of hundreds of houses and mosques for no military purpose, the firing of phosphorous gas in the direction of populated areas, the killing of innocent victims with small arms, the destruction of private property, the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields, and most of all, a permissive atmosphere in the command structure that enabled soldiers to act without moral restrictions. The testimonies demonstrate that the soldiers were not given directives stating the goal of the operation and, as one soldier testifies, "there was not much said about the issue of innocent civilians." …
Obama just touched the subject of a Palestinian state and Netanyahu insisted on Arab recognition of Israel as a Jewish State, meaning that Palestinians like Lebanese of Sheba farms and Syrians of the Golan Heights automatically become foreign second class citizens in their own land
Now as certain Arab rulers struggle to satisfy their American masters and the government of Hosni Mubarak collaborate with Israel to keep Gaza the largest prison on earth, Netanyahu declared on July 19: "Unified Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. Our sovereignty over it is unquestionable."
Fellow Arabs, Only our unity and full support of our armed forces; Hezbollah, Hamas and other Islamic freedom fighting organization will liberate us from the colonial projects of the infidels
Fouad Kamil. fouadkamil@hotmail.com
By the way, this also qualifies as a WAR CRIME, as does firing rockets at civilian areas in another country.
"The Prophet, Allah's prayer and peace be upon him, says: "The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,' except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews." (Recorded in the Hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim). "
"The Motto of the Islamic Resistance Movement
Article Eight
Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model to be followed, the Koran its constitution, Jihad its way, and death for the sake of Allah its loftiest desire."
(from Hamas Charter)
So, Kill all the Jews - yet another war crime...
Oh and speaking of a solution, I thought of one. Its unrealistic but here it is: (it was actually kind of offered by Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while critizing the west of being so sympathetic of the zionist cause) the state of Israel should not exist in Palestine but in a Western nation that supports a Jewish state and is very tolerant to Jews. Well obviously the US has the largest Jewish population in the world, hell we already have Florida and New York, and I'm sure there is a very large Jewish population in Chicago. But I figured how many people would be harmed by creating a state out of land the size of present day Israel between Wyomong, Utah, and Colordo? My reasoning for this is because the importance of the land of Palestine to the Jewish people is a bit exaggerated. Plus, to continue having the existance of Israel in Palestine simply isn't worth it. But anyway, my reasoning is this would ultimately cause peaceful tensions in the middle east (despite the establishment of a Government and a state of a people have been broken and deprived of resources for years, and possible tensions between different Palestinian refugees from all sides of Israel). However, I would predict peace within not too long after the removal of the Jewish, at which Jews and Christians could live as a minority in this state, and visit the Western wall just like how Muslims visit the Mosque on the Temple Mount.
Obviously this would piss off too many Jews and as long as America's foreign policy consists of draining resources from the middle east, their going to love having another "western" nation in the east.
Israel is insisting to continue in the region as a military fact ignoring that never such facts continued forever all over the mankind history.
I am a Lebanese author living in Brazil. I shall be thankful if you would publish the following message.
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
More than ONE THOUSAND defenceless men, women and children have been barbarically slaughtered in Gaza by Israel’s high tech weapons of destruction. Not to mention the wounded and hundred’s of thousands made to face starvation and extreme hardship in this strip of land which has been infamously turned into the most notorious prison on earth by the state of Israel with the full collaboration and support of the United States of America.
The slaughter goes on as powerful inferiority complexed Arab rulers relax in their palaces with folded arms and closed hearts. To save face, their representatives prostitute in America's bloody arena, the United Nations, as the Zionist and Crusader war rages against Arabs and Islam.
Ironically, in collaboration with Israel, Egyptian rulers closed their borders with Gaza preventing desperate families from escaping the Israeli slaughter as the barbaric annihilation of Palestinians continues. This is, while the Israeli flag continues to fly high in certain Arab capitals.
Shame, disgrace, dishonour, are generous words to describe the betrayal and hypocritical manoeuvres of those so called, liberal Arab heads of state.
Arab rulers. Wake up. In terms of the biblical promise “Genesis 15:18” The Zionists and Crusaders final objective is to turn your world, your palaces and the very spot where your feet stand into their dream of “Greater Israel;” the promised land, from the Nile to the Euphrates river where you and your descendants will for ever be, classed, inferior human beings. Unity and full support of Arab/Islamic freedom fighting organizations is your only salvation.
Long live Hamas and all Arab and Islamic freedom fighting organizations. Glory is yours.
FOUAD ABU KAMIL
Lebanese citizen from Bakleen, Al-Shouf
I wanna discuss a great issue here if you let me .. As we Palestinians, we don't need any help of the countries around us, I sake one thing and will solve it all, open the borders for the all the Palestinians living around the world and we will fight the murderers ourselves, will fight them with our bodies, our bare hands .. We should open and raise this subject all over again .. They know that we can do it .. We will always fight for our right ..
Long live Palestine
You are a leader of effecient army. Wish to congratulate you and congratulate ourselve to have a leader like you.Sincerely/ Farid Shublaq