23 Palestinians Killed By Israelis

by Mordechai Wed Sep 10, 2003 12:15

Would this be the same Hamas that bombed the Sbarro Pizzeria in Jerusalem, that was full of children at the time, and then organised a public exhibition boasting about it? As Reported by WorldNetDaily last year:

"Organized by the militant Palestinian group Hamas, it contained a room-sized installation with broken tables splattered with fake blood, pizza and human body parts ... Outside the exhibition, which opened on Sunday, a mural depicted the bombing at the Sbarro pizzeria, graphically illustrating screaming Israelis in skullcaps being blown apart by the blast."

There is just no moral equivalence between the actions of the Israel Defence Forces trying to protect Israelis and Hamas. Hamas are beasts, nothing more. Nothing can be done with such animals except to hunt them down and eradicate them. This is because everything else has been tried and it is quite clear they are implacable and do not respond to reason in any accepted sense of the term.

by pat c Wed Sep 10, 2003 12:19

Its ok for the IDF to indiscriminately bomb civilian targets. If its right in your view for the IDF to bomb a house then how is it wrong for Hamas to bomb a Cafe.

I think the bombing of the Cafe and other civilian targets by Hamas was wrong. The Israelis bombing of civilian targets is equally wrong.

by Mordechai Wed Sep 10, 2003 12:26

Pat C: The IDF does not bomb indiscriminately, as you put it. They do their best not to harm bystanders. However, the streets of Gaza, Hebron, Jenin etc. are v. narrow. They use the latest technology and call off 9 strikes out of 10 in order to avoid killing bystanders. However, the bottom line is that ticking bombs (e.g. Hamas pyschopaths) have to be taken out, even if it cannot be guaranteed that no-one else will be hurt. Is this so hard for you to grasp? Is it too abstract for you? Have I used too many syllables?

by pat c Wed Sep 10, 2003 12:30

If you bomb a house that you know is inhabited by civilians then you are targetting civilians. The IDF are also aware that these bombings will damage adjoining houses and kill or injure the inhabitants. To blame the width of the streets is indeed Bart Simpson style logic.

by Mordechai Wed Sep 10, 2003 12:37

You really don't get it, do you? The point is clearly far too subtle for your little brain.

by pat c Wed Sep 10, 2003 12:43

Who doesnt get it. You see Palestinian civilians as legitimate targets.

by Mordechai Wed Sep 10, 2003 13:20

No, I don't. As you have completely missed it, let me explain the point in detail to you:

It's all about a thing called a dilemma. This is where there are two things that are quite different and fight against each other but need to be done at the same time. In this case, it is like this:

Thing 1: To defend innocent Israelis from murder by Hamas

Thing 2: To prevent innocent Palestinians from getting killed.

Problem: It is not possible to do Thing 1 while also doing Thing 2.

Solution: To do Thing 1 in such a way that as little of Thing 2 happens as humanly possible. This is why the IDF uses smart laser-guided weapons, calls off most strikes at the last minute, avoids hitting places like restaurants or markets, avoids deliberately targetting civilians indiscriminately and only goes after active terrorists, verifies target information over and over and over.

Of course, in the one-dimensional world lived in by both four-year-olds and terrorists, everything is black or white and there is no such thing as a 'dilemma'. (Remember what that is?) But in the grown-up world, 'dilemmas' exist. (Sorry to use such a hard word so many times.)

by Salah Wed Sep 10, 2003 13:30

and blew up a seven-story apartment building.!!?

How many families again become homeless? All belongings destroyed! How many lives ruined? Will they get compensation?

What sort of media coverage would this get if it was an apartment in Israel?

by Mordechai Wed Sep 10, 2003 13:40

IF the IDF bombed indiscriminately, there would be nothing left of any Palestinian town, as we are not even using a small fraction of our military power. In fact, the only reason Sheikh 'Psycho' Yassin is still alive, along with all eight or nine leading members of Hamas, is that the last air strike on them used (while they were meeting to plan their latest bombing campaign) deliberately used a 250kg bomb instead of a 1000kg bomb, as originally planned, in order to avoid hurting bystanders. However, we are now paying for this care with the lives of our innocents, as Hamas are still on the rampage.

by pat c Wed Sep 10, 2003 14:08

(And Morderer would have us believe that this was not a civilian target. But what can you exepect, he refers to palestinians as animals.)


Twenty-five people were wounded, including three women and five children.


Zahar's wife suffered serious injuries but was in stable condition after surgery, said Dr. Hazaa Abed, director of surgery at Shifa Hospital. A daughter of Zahar was also lightly wounded. Another of his sons, Sami, was missing.


Zahar himself left the hospital, and Hamas officials said he was taken to a safe place.


Men were searching the rubble for survivors. A taxi driver, Jaber Abu Rass, joined the search and heard the sound of a child screaming.


"She was covered in blood and dust," he recalled. As he carried the girl out of the rubble a gas canister exploded, bringing down the wall of a neighboring house and injuring him in the head.


An ambulance driver, Rami Salameh, said he evacuated Zahar.


"When I moved him to the stretcher with the help of other people, he screamed from pain in his back, but he was talking to us, saying `I'm okay, I'm okay," Salameh said.

by Eoin Dubsky Wed Sep 10, 2003 14:20

There are a few "cardinal" or "intransgressible" rules of international humanitarian law and human rights which are -- if you want to use that language -- in "black and white". This goes for whether you are Palestinian and live near or leader of Hammas, or you are an Israeli and like to spend your evenings at a cafe. Your right to life is the same. It makes no difference of course whether your life is taken by shrapnel from a bomb attached to someone's body, or shrapnel from a bomb intending to murder your neighbour.

Oh yes, I used the word "murder" (another one from the "black and white" lexicon)! Deliberate extra-judicial killings are called murder.

by Mordechai Wed Sep 10, 2003 14:34

Even under ordinary criminal law, not all deliberate killings are murder. For example, everyone has the right to self-defence, even to the point where you kill someone who is about to kill you.

In this case, it is quite reasonable to assert that Hamas members are 'ticking bombs' about to kill innocent Israelis and need to be taken out before they get a chance to do it.

by pat c Wed Sep 10, 2003 14:34

The latest deaths bring to 3,474 the number of people killed since the start of the Palestinian intifada at the end of September 2000, including 2,595 Palestinians and 818 Israelis.

I'm sure Morderer is unaware of these figures. However could the so efficent IDF kill so many innocent Palestinians?

by pat c Wed Sep 10, 2003 14:37

I reckon some members of a Fascist organisation are planning to kill me. Therefore I go and blow up the house of their leader while he and his family are asleep inside. Do you think I would get away it?

You truly have a Bart Simpson mentality.

by Colm - IPSC Wed Sep 10, 2003 14:51

Mordechai, what you are stating regarding the activities of Israel's occupation forces would be logical though morally flawed, if it were true.

The fact is that the Israeli army indiscriminately and routinely target civilians in the Occupied Palestine. I speak from direct experience as I saw this occur on an almost daily basis when I visited the West Bank last year.

Some examples may suffice: In the village of Beit Ummar I stood right next to a soldier who opened fire on a group of small children who had gathered in a lane way nearby. It was a miracle that none of them were injured.

When I stayed in the refugee camp in Jenin, I witnessed at first hand the constant raids of the army. Most of these raids were not about 'catching terrorists' since they involved tanks and armoured vehicles entering the camp , zooming around the narrow streets and firing indiscriminately at civilians. I witnessed these scences and the death and injury caused by them a number of times. Note that on most of these raids no attempt was made to apprehend or arrest anyone, indeed no Israeli soldiers emerged at all.

I am utterly opposed to the sucide bombings both on moral and political grounds, just as I oppose the constant murder of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli forces. The murder of civilians is always wrong, period. The difficulty with what you are arguing Mordechai, is that it just what Hamas argues: that if your cause is just civilian deaths are justified. In effect you are aligning yourself with the fundamentalists in Israeli society, who regard Palestinian lives as expendable, because somehow they are deemed less human than Israelis. Fortunately your views are not shared by all Israelis, many of whom have bravely opposed Sharons crazy and unsuccessful policies, at great personal cost.

I believe as do most Palestinians and many Israeli's that the solution is simple: Israel withdraws from the Occupied Territories, dismantles the illegal settlements and thereby wins the security that Sharons policies have so clearly failed to deliver. A Palestinian state, as sovereign and independent as Israel is the only thing that will guarantee peace and security for Israel.

by pat c Wed Sep 10, 2003 15:33

"The targeting of civilian houses is a violation of all red lines. Therefore the Zionist enemy will have to shoulder responsibility for the targeting by us of houses and Zionist buildings everywhere in occupied Palestine," the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, said in a statement.

"We reiterate that in the past we have avoided targeting houses and Zionist residential buildings but the enemy was the one to initiate it and the enemy has to harvest what it has sown," said the statement, which was sent to news organizations.


"Our painful operations were to tell the enemy that we have struck you when your security arrangements reached a climax yesterday. Our response came, and has not been completed yet," the statement by the Hamas military wing said.


"We sent this message to tell the terrorist (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon and his Nazi government that we are able, by God's will, to achieve our goal in a time which we will determine," it said.

by Mordechai Wed Sep 10, 2003 15:43

Colm, I have a lot more close knowledge of the IDF than you do. I cannot speak to your individual instances, but I have those of my own, many, many of them which are to the contrary. For example, I can't remember how many Egyptians dying of thirst my unit saved from death in the Sinai in '67 but it was definitely over 500. We could have driven right on past them, but we didn't.

You make a big mistake if you think my argument is equivalent to that of Hamas. Unlike theirs, it does not contain any sophistry. I have had the misfortune to meet some of these people one way or another and I can tell you they are not exactly the world's greatest intellectuals. Far from it.

by kokomero Wed Sep 10, 2003 18:51

Some individuals in the IDF may well have shared their water in the war zone. However it is an organisation much better known for dealing out lead indiscriminately.

This includes Palestinian civilians, Lebanese civilians and the 250 or so UN troops killed by Israel and their proxies in Lebanon of which 50 were Irish soldiers guilty only of trying to keep the peace.

by kokomero Wed Sep 10, 2003 19:08

How do you know that the suicide bomber who killed the off-duty soldiers yesterday was not simply acting in self-defence against future IDF attacks.

In fact from that point of view any attack against Israeli adults is really an attack against the IDF in that almost all Israelis are at least part-time soldiers.

It's very difficult when you start to try and distinguish between one killing and another isn't it?

The sooner you realise what is happening and call an end to your civil war the better for you and your Palestinian neighbours.

by Eoin Dubsky Wed Sep 10, 2003 22:32

You wrote above that Hamas leaders would "need to be taken out before they get a chance to do it [kill]", and you likened this to self-defence. Of course its got nothing to do with self-defence, because pre-emptive force is not the same as preventive force. In any case, all this is kinda pointless, because the IDF do in fact deliberately attack civilians and subject them - deliberately, again - to unusual and cruel punishments.

by Makhnist Wed Sep 10, 2003 23:05

Did you expect that the IDF will remain silent after the 2 suicide bombings?
Moreover, how many of you heard about the parade of joy in Gaza after the suicide bombing in Jerusalem in which thousands participated?
I bet my ass that in few days there gonna be more suicide bombings.

by pat c Thu Sep 11, 2003 11:07

Israeli tanks shell Palestinian police post, no injuries
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli tanks shelled a Palestinian police post Wednesday night, but no one was injured, Palestinian police and rescue workers said.
Five tank shells were fired at the police post near the village of Karara, east of Khan Younis, but they did not cause any serious damage, police said.

It was unclear why the shells were fired.

The army did not immediately have information on the incident.

by Mordechai Thu Sep 11, 2003 11:07

This is a distinction without a difference. The only thing that counts is whether the action is reasonable in all the circumstances or not.

by Magneto Thu Sep 11, 2003 11:46

Bombing houses and Police Stations is reasonable?

by Hebe Thu Sep 11, 2003 12:01

(comment removed) post a link

by pat c Thu Sep 11, 2003 14:36

To delete the comment above. It was a short piece and there was no need for a link. I think some editors are too trigger happy when it comes to deleting comments.

I made my protest on the Editorial List but I think its important that others get on there as well. That way if you disagree with deletions etc you can voice an opinion.

by Combi Thu Sep 11, 2003 15:00

Well, Pat, I sent an e-mail to the editorial list to complain about comments made by our detested troll on the CAZ story. I got a message back saying that my e-mail was being moderated and I heard nothing back since. The trolls comment remained up and I suspect contributed to the lack of responses to the article.
Doesn't inspire much confidence in the plea "make your complaints to the editorial list, not on the newswire"!

by pat c Thu Sep 11, 2003 15:51

I put your comment on the editorial list

You can join the list at:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-ireland-editorial

Its important to have non-editors on the list.