8 thoughts on “UNWRA Denies IDF Claim Militants Fired from Gaza UN School – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. re IDF claims:
    this story could be re-circulated from the war on Lebanon.
    Interestingly, listening to different news outlets yesterday I heard several different versions.
    WINS was broadcasting two dis-credited versions -that either Hamas had been inside firing mortars, or it was a Hamas shell that did the deed!
    While even NPR – a totally pro-Israeli outpost on the radio dial – reported the UN story.

    My “favorite”story – in 2004, during an earlier assault on Gaza – the claim flew around the Internet that there was video “proof” of a rocket being loaded into a UN ambulance. Boy, did the propaganda machine feed on this.
    Eventually even the IDF admitted that it was a stretcher, as the UN had said all along.

  2. Another claim, acc to Yahoo news:

    “Hamas fighters are known to have begun wearing civilian clothes.”

    So you see, there are no civilian deaths, they are all ‘Hamas militants’ disguised as civilians, many of them managed to disguise themselves as infants and toddlers.

    Amazing.

  3. So, Richard, this is such a déjà f*^ing vu, I cannot believe it. A case can be made – and a very convincing one – that IDF targets UN installations on purpose. Why? I don’t know, but the pattern is pretty unmistakable. The Qana Massacre I (Grapes of Wrath), the killing of the UN observers in the Second Lebanon Fiasco, now this…
    Juan Cole thinks that

    […]Israeli leaders know that likely their atrocities against civilians in Gaza will produce further terrorism, both against the United States and Israel. They are obviously entirely willing to take that risk. Why? The Israeli far right thrives on ethnic conflict. It may be worried that Obama will try to curb it. What is the worst that could happen, from their point of view? That Obama’s presidency would be destroyed by an alleged failure to prevent such an attack, and that the US public would be shifted to the Right and rededicate itself to its flagging crusade against Islam– oops, I mean “war on terror”?

    I sort of wish I served in Lebanon during Grapes of Wrath, to have a first hand account of the first Qana Massacre (I arrived there after the Grapes of Wrath agreements, when Israeli fire was restrained to a set of pre-approved targets on empty hills a certain distance from any populated area) and be able to sort it out. It just blows my mind as it is.
    Ellen, here is a fantastic summary of the stretcher lie, courtesy of Lawrence of Cyberia.

  4. TIME TO STOP BEING AFRAID OF ISRAEL

    Sam Smith

    Every time Israel doesn’t something mean, cruel or stupid you can almost hear the sound of liberals and progressives rushing for a place to hide. Strip away the rhetoric and the excuses and the problem basically comes down to the fact that people don’t like being called anti-Semitic.

    It’s a great shtick the Israelis have used so effectively that behaving appropriately towards their country has cost the U.S. over $100 billion since Israel was founded. For gratitude we have been granted a plethora of unnecessary conflicts, anger in the Muslim world that contributed to 9/11 and the madness of the war on terror, as well as periodic spying on the U.S. by Israeli agents. What other country to whom we have given so much has been so loath to return the favor?

    Israel’s attack on Gaza, for example, is not only vicious, inexcusable and a violation of international law, it is a direct attempt to interfere with American politics by making sure Obama’s hands are completely tied.

    Yet, once again, the Israelis are getting away with it because even such supposedly enlightened corners of America as the media and liberal groups are afraid to take them on.

    If, the other hand, one feels that it is far worst to support a cruel and unnecessary war than it is to be labeled an anti-Semite then it may be time to be as brave in the face of right wing Jewish accusations as we are confronting criticism by Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh. It is, after all, a partner in illogic – of the sort where unsupportable accusations are used to drown actual facts – such as the constant evocation of the Holocaust in which past victims are shamefully dishonored by using them to justify the creation of still more victims.

    Once you take the simple liberating step of saying that you don’t give a damn what Abe Foxman says about you, then the whole Mid East issue takes on a new look.

    For example, you are suddenly free to wonder whether some sort of boycott against Israel might not be worthwhile. As UN General Assembly President, Miguel D’Escoto Brockman put it recently, “More than twenty years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a nonviolent means of pressuring South Africa to end its violations. Today, perhaps we. . . should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations.”

    Such a boycott might include all of the following: AOL Time Warner, Coca-Cola, Disney, Estee Lauder, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, L’Oreal, Nokia, Revlon, Sara Lee, Home Depot, Starbucks, Timberland, or McDonald’s. Or it might include just one for ease of organizing.

    Another approach would be a campaign to cut aid to Israel. A modest ten percent – $300 million – would start to make the point.

    If you’re not quite up to being at least as tough on Israel as Congress was on the auto workers, there are other ways to make your discomfort known – including sending some money to groups like the New Israel Fund that are trying to set an example of what a progressive Israel would be like.

    But whatever the approach one prefers, we should all take a New Year’s vow not to be afraid of pro-Israeli extremists anymore. They are bullies and it’s long past time that we started treating them as such.

  5. I have long believed that incidents like this are not ‘accidental’. Of course, some of them are, the IDF/IAF have shown themselves just as capable of incompetence as any other institution, viz the ‘friendly’ strike which killed several soldiers recently. It is the regularity of incidents which convinces me, particularly with regard to UN facilites.
    The extensive use of assassination and double strikes (where rescuers attending a first strike are killed and injured) are also convincing. Assassination has an added advantage over arrest and trial in that there is no opportunity for the accused to prove innocence or publicly justify their actions. South Africans are extremely fortunate that this technique was not applied to Nelson Mandela. The Israeli government is clearly keen to avoid its own Rivonias.

  6. ITS sad how those innocent souls killed with such a brutal way..and yet israel deny it ..and isreal crossed all line of humanity meaning…i have one request.at the end its all political game and it will end at one point when no one win but the citisen lose…but those children souls who done no harm to anny i beg the UN takes more action and take the issue to higher level to nternational cour tof justice…its awar crime against humanity…and israel break all geneva law…for the sake of children souls let the criminals pay for there action…….

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