Now that the IDF’s prosecutor general has disposed in a record 11 days of the possibility that any soldiers committed any war crime in Gaza, I really shouldn’t bring the following story to your attention. But in the event that you are just a tad suspicious of the alacrity with which the army’s top lawyer dispatched his investigation, I invite you to witness these disturbing images taken in Gaza homes of graffiti inscribed by IDF soldiers who bivouacked in them.
For those who favor the prosecutor general’s method of dispatching with inconvenient evidence, I provide you with one surefire way you can dismiss what I’m about to show you: it comes from Palestinian sources. This automatically discounts the evidence by 99% or more in some quarters. But as I said, there may be a few of you who don’t share such dismissive attitudes:
At Mos’ab Dardona’s home in…northeast Gaza, Israeli soldiers…left behind intricate drawings on the walls, some depicting soldiers urinating on toppled mosques, or devouring Palestinian villages. In the house next door, belonging to Ibrahim Dardona, soldiers left behind dozens of bags of faeces in the bedrooms, despite the presence of a functioning toilet, and left crude sexual diagrams on the walls.
…“The writing left by Israeli soldiers in the homes in Gaza provides an insight into the disturbing culture of hatred and racism towards Palestinians and Arabs which exists among parts of Israeli society,” says Hamdi Shaqqura, PCHR’s director of democratic development. “In light of the evidence PCHR has gathered of the wilful and wanton killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, this graffiti is even more disturbing.”
…Others have had to move back into their partially destroyed homes, clear up the debris and sometimes the evidence of the deaths of loved ones, and try to get on with their lives. The Dardona families have moved back into their houses, and are torn between unwillingness to destroy evidence of the behaviour of Israeli soldiers and reluctance to endure the constant reminders of the horrors that took place here. And there are similar cases in other parts of the Gaza Strip.
At dawn on 4 January 2009, the first full day of Israel’s ground offensive, a shell landed near the home of Saleh Abu Hajaj in Johur-ad-Dik…The Israeli military ordered local residents to evacuate their homes. Saleh’s 36 year old daughter Majeda Abu Hajaj tied a white scarf to a stick and led a group of civilians out of her neighbour’s house.
As they were trying to escape, tanks opened fire on the group and Majeda was shot dead, allegedly in the back. Moments later her 64 year old mother Raya, was also shot and bled to death a few metres from her daughter. Majeda and Raya’s bodies were not recovered until Israel’s declaration of a unilateral ceasefire sixteen days later…
Israeli soldiers set up military positions in the Abu Hajaj house after the killings, and left graffiti in every room. Above Majeda’s bed are the words “Death will find you soon” scrawled in red pen. Other parts of the house carry the words “Have you ever wondered what hell looks like? Well… look around you —–! Ha ha ha”
In the Zeytoun district, where 27 members of the Samouni family were killed by an airstrike while sheltering in a building they had been placed in by the Israeli army, there are more chilling messages on the walls. In Talal Al Samouni’s home Israeli soldiers wrote the words “Die you all”, “Make war not peace”, “Arabs need to die” and a gravestone engraved with the words “Arabs 1948-2009” referring to the dates between the creation of the state of Israel and its latest military offensive.
A stairwell in Rashad Helmi Al Samouni’s house a few doors down includes the following sentences written in chalk:
“There will be a day when we kill all the Arabs”
“Bad for the Arabs is good for me”
“A good Arab is an Arab in the grave”
“Peace now, but between Jews and Jews, not Jews and Arabs”
Some may say that graffiti is little more than teenage Israeli boys blowing off steam. But in tandem with the IDF soldiers’ testimonies which the prosecutor general just dismissed, the Guardian’s masterful expose of potential Israeli war crimes, Human Rights Watch’s report on the massive illegality of Israel’s use of white phosphorus on civilian populations, and Haaretz’s expose of racist t-shirt slogans of Gaza war veterans–all of this creates a damning portrait of willful brutality on the part of Israeli forces.
So where do we go from here? The UN has contemplated investigating Israeli war crimes. Though given the record of the Rafik Hariri investigation, we shouldn’t expect much from this avenue. We also have the precedent of Balthazar Garzon’s indictment of six high level Bush administration officials for culpability for the U.S. torture policy. This Spanish judge would seem to be an ideal candidate with whom to share evidence.
The EU has notified Israel that its acceptance into a special economic class within the Union is dependent on the next government making serious progress toward a 2 state solution. Divestment campaigns are rippling their way through multiple U.S. university campus.
These are the types of carrots and sticks that will be necessary to ratchet up pressure on Israel.
Comment is Free has asked me to write more about the war crimes campaign and how to hold Israel accountable for its actions in Gaza. I’d be eager to hear readers’ views on this as well.
The combination of ethnic hatred, as expressed in the graffiti, t-shirts, etc., and large scale death and destruction is reminiscent of events in the former Yuglosavia. The Israeli cover-ups and excuses for war crimes also bring to mind a lot of the Serbian rhetoric at the time. There has been much talk over the years of the “balkanisation” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but I think that “Cast Lead” has brought us the closest we’ve ever been – not in the usual geopolitical sense of the term, but on a much deeper level.
Eva Bartlett, who was in Gaza before, during, and after the Hannukah Massacre, has plenty of photo documents at:
http://ingaza.wordpress.com/
I urge you to copy and spread her photos -they are first hand evidence of Israeli war crimes in this ‘campaign’.
Slightly off-topic, but the Palestinian Center for Human Rights is bothered by the Israeli attempts at downplaying the civilian death toll–
Link
I browsed their website and was pleased to see they also have reports critical of Palestinian-on-Palestinian violations on human rights. And they are opposed to the death penalty. In short, they seem like the sort of group that the NYT would regard as having a great deal of credibility when set against a military which denies committing atrocities, if this were in any other part of the world.
The PCHR is an excellent organisation. I believe their main focus is actually Human Rights within Palestine, particularly as regards the PA and, presumably, the Hamas administration in Gaza. I read their annual report for the preceding year when I was there and was very impressed. It’s coverage was comprehensive and objective.
hello richard,
so i guess all those blood libelists are left with a bunch of rumors and some grafitti on the wall…at the end of the day that is all you have…just like all those hundreds and thousands “massacred” in Jenin.
a word on myself before going on.
i left a few comments in the past on your blog but was dismissed as a “know nothing”…i think i know a little bit becasue i…live in israel. i am not Israeli or Jewish (well, actually, i am a convert)…i am a good old white boy, originally from Duluth Minnesota (Swedish-German stock).. no, i am not a born again…my connection to israel comes from my beautiful israeli wife whom i have been living here for the past 8 years (met in college).
i serve in miluim and In the recent op in gaza i was right in the middle of everything…i would be happy to challenge any arm chair genius living in the washington wilderness…sorry, richard, i had to shoot that arrow…
as i said i was right in hte middle of everything, i never commited any war crimes, nor do i know anybody around whom did…there were no order to kill for fun, no mass excutions..there was a real fight for our lives there, and it ain’t easy trying fighting terrorists who use civilians as cover..and that was exactly what we were facing…
you claim to know israel well, and that you read the israeli media…you know how hard it is to keep a secret in israel…
matt
Well, yes if you consider 1,400 corpses to be the equivalent of “rumors” and “graffiti.”
See above.
Certainly, you are. You’re a born again pro-Israel true believer.
Instead of “arrow,” don’t you mean cluster bomb, or D.I.M.E. munition, or white phosphorus shell?
I don’t consider you a trustworthy or reliable source given your interest in covering up the well-documented incidents of cold-blooded murder in Gaza.
Oh, pls. do tell. What fight was there considering that Hamas evaporated and most units were bored out of their minds?
The stupid “human shields” claim. We can’t seem to drive a stake through the heart of that lie. So tell us about the terrorists who used civilians as cover. Give examples & provide evidence to document yr claim.
wasn’t pretending to be balanced or nuetral…certainly i ain’t.
i ain’t gonna get into counter claims, which, i have to say this seem ot be more and more driven by hate…
i have been reading your blog, for some time now and noticed that you and your rehetoric have been taking a a nose dive in your criticism of israel and are on a slippery slope becoming “finkelsteinzed” (nazi like, satanic, mudurous, evil), although you are not there yet..
one more thing, you say “”Certainly, you are. You’re a born again pro-Israel true believer:…i though you were “pro-israeli”…sounds like an accusation.
with love,
matt
You ain’t spellin’ too good [sic] either.
Which is your way of saying that you refuse to support any of your claims that Hamas fighters used human shields in fighting you or that you faced a fight to the death in Gaza. Nice. I think you’re turning tail and running as you Israeli rightists claim that Hamas did during the Gaza fighting.
Coming from you with your stellar intellectual and rhetorical standards, I’m simply crestfallen to hear your low opinion of me. BTW, I love that unintentionally comic metaphor…I’m taking a “nose dive” down that “slippery slope”…
Not yet pure evil? I’m so sorry to disappoint you. But I promise I’ll work hard to earn your four star BAD rating in future.
I think most of us understand the diff. bet. being “pro-Israel” as I am, and being a “born again pro Israel true believer,” which I’m not.
I just read a piece at Yesh G’vul. It gives quite a good feel for the IDF which tallies with my own experience of them. A (very) few good men and a huge bulk who really just don’t give a damn but who can be induced to acquiesce or partake in thuggery by a substantial group of out and out racists whose mission is to make the lives of Palestinians as miserable as possible. The IDF’s problem is the complete lack of restraint it exercises on its soldiers, particularly as regards this last group. Nothing could better illustrate the effective encouragement it gives them to commit abuses than the peremptory dismissal of the complaints about IDF conduct during the recent Gaza atrocities. No proper inquiry could be conducted that quickly.
Matt Linquist, I don’t know who you are trying to convince, but you are clearly deceiving yourself.
Matt Linquist sounds like he is living far too deep in the fog of war and can’t see the truth through it. A good and faithful “brother in arms”: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
Linquist, I don’t think your personal experience is any sort of indication on the whole.
Hence why we have HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS. You know, they check the ENTIRE record as opposed to the personal experience of one guy.
Israeli soldiers regularly commit atrocities. During Occupation and during war.
We can look at plenty of IDF operations to see that. Compare the Lebanon 2006 War in which 1000 civilians died to this one.
The 2006 war is all done and we can now reflect on it w/ accuracy.
Gaza just ended but I will trust the PCHR over the IDF. The victims over the perpetrators.
First of all, the usual claim is that the resistance – whether it be Lebanese or Palestinian – use human shields.
But this has been refuted in studies in the past. And the last example – the 2006 Lebanon War – this was refuted by the US Army War College.
Now with this context, and the knowledge that Israelis commonly employ a basic set of hasbara points (human shields, terrorist = resistance, jew hatred, etc.) I don’t trust Israel AT ALL.
And yes, I know I bring that report up all the time. I think that’s what we have to do. We have to shove the facts in their faces ALL THE TIME. Make it as redundant as their hasbara except our argument is based on FACTS and not empty emotional rhetoric.
Matt Linquist – thanks for your reply – it was very revealing.
“…my connection to israel comes from my beautiful israeli wife whom i have been living here for the past 8 years (met in college).”
Not at all surprising – prick defeats brain.
And it doesn’t surprise me at all that “a good old white boy, originally from Duluth Minnesota (Swedish-German stock).. ” doesn’t appreciate or even try to undertsand the native wogs his adopted state are oppressing and trying very hard to wipe out.
Matt, you are the perfect representative of the dumb US public that allows these horrors to go on. (not that they could do anything about it if they differed – which they do).
Moderator -please excuse this ad hominem attack, but that message was more than I could take.