Comments on: Gaza: Praise the Dead, Curse Their Killers

By: Miles Stuart

Miles Stuart — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 08:25:27 +0000

The al-Samouni story was one of the lead items on BBC radios flagship ‘Today’ programme’s news. I was distressed at how little coverage this got, but now it seems to be everywhere. My feeling at this moment is that it could be even more damaging than the Qana incident. It is the indisputable callousness which is so damaging. There is just no way of portraying it as accidental.
As I write this there has just been another segment interviewing Jeremy Bowen during the prime 8:10am slot reinforcing the authority of the sources.
This is going to reverbarate long and hard.

By: Miles Stuart

Miles Stuart — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 04:15:57 +0000

Thanks Bill, very well done BarNavi for picking it up.
This is an official Israeli ‘belief’ with zero actual evidence which is flatly contradicted by earlier UNWRA statements following their investigation. It deserves only derision. This is the kind of Stalinesque propaganda routinely trotted out by Israeli officials. Its main effect is to reinforce existing support at the cost of damaging their long term credibility. I don’t think they really expect intelligent people to believe it. It’s just a rather withered fig leaf.
I would still be grateful to know where I can find the broadcast.

I am still shocked at what happened to the al-Samouni family. There is now a (cautious) BBC report on this which is consistent with the Telegraph story, but does not explicitly confirm the grizzly death toll.
In my own mind I am convinced the shelling was deliberate, as was the tank fire on the UN truck today. What I find shocking is that the Israelis would deny the survivors medical attention for THREE WHOLE DAYS. Surviving children were found, dehydrated and starving, next to their dead mothers.
Even assuming the shelling was deliberate Israel could make a plausible claim that it was accidental. The grotesque denial of medical attention is a clear “We just don’t give a @*&#” signal. They do not feel the need to maintain even a pretence of civilised conduct.
I have just heard the report (by Jeremy Bowen) again on BBC News, it is being repeated hourly at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7459669.stm. The ICRC has publicly and explicitly accused the IDF of “breaking International Humanitarian Law”.

By: Bill Owen

Bill Owen — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:09:53 +0000

Miles, I did not hear that report on the BBC, but I did hear it on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). They actually ran an Israeli spokesperson (a woman) saying that they “believed” that Hamas had booby trapped the school, and that “perhaps” the tank shells had set off the explosives. I also heard another later claim that the people inside were “hostages”.

The general and oft repeated “justification” for this action was that they had come under fire from the school. If a bank robber takes hostages at a bank, are the police justified in shooting into the hostages just to arrest or kill the bank robber? No, of course not, but this is “different” in the minds of the IDF, Israelis and credulous Americans, as after all, every knows that the Pals are not really human, not of the tribe, and may be killed with impunity.

It’s like in a Rwanda when an American commander said he would risk, at most, 10 American soldiers to save 800,000 Rwandans.

By: fta

fta — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:59:10 +0000

I second Miles Stuart re the BBC “report”. I have heard no such thing on any of the World Service news programmes.

By: Crimson Ghost

Crimson Ghost — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:04:26 +0000

Unfortunately Zionist savagery in Gaza and in fact towards the entire Palestinian population for three geenrations now is not the first time modern day jews have committed or been accomplices to horrible crimes.

In the Soviet Union under Stalin Jews were very prominent in the apparatus of terror that led to the Gulag and millions of deaths (until Stalin finally turned on the Jews). This is something that most Jews have banished from their historical memory.

By: Miles Stuart

Miles Stuart — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:20:42 +0000

If this is true as reported (the corralling, repeated shelling and subsequent denial of attention for the wounded of the Samouni family) it is an act of indescribable barbarity and depravity.
I really hope there are people in Gaza who believe it’s worth collecting evidence for war crimes trials.

@B.BarNavi
I listen to the BBC almost constantly and I have heard no such suggestion. I cannot find anything on the website either. Can you tell me what station and what time you heard this?

By: B.BarNavi

B.BarNavi — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:19:49 +0000

I’ve heard the BBC saying that Hamas actually rigged the school with explosives. If true, and word of this got out, this would be the Gazan equivalent of Israel’s soldiers being bombed – a severe hit in public opinion against the warring side.

Shame it has to get to “friendly fire” for people to see the madness.

By: americangoy

americangoy — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:59:37 +0000

I am sorry Mr. Silverstein, but Mr. Obama by his appointments (keeping on Gates, hiring Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff) and his action – rather, inaction – has shown his true colors.

In fact, to all of us who have not been swayed by some brilliant rhetoric mouthing platitudes, we have seen Mr. Obama – a good, as in a professional, politician.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Israel can kill Palestinians with impunity because the USA’s media elite cower in fear and trip over themselves to justify this slaughter to their stupified audience, us.

After all, (brown) nigger babies do not count, right?