Defense Minister Ehud Barak today appointed as new IDF deputy chief of staff, Maj. Gen Yair Naveh. Naveh is notorious for ordering targeted assassinations of unarmed Palestinian militants in defiance of a Supreme Court ruling, then lying about it. His command also observed such slipshod security arrangements that Anat Kamm easily managed to copy several hundred secret documents which she passed on to Uri Blau. In most other self-respecting western militaries, Naveh would have faced disciplinary charges for such a lackadaisical approach. Finally, Naveh has been director general of the Jerusalem light rail project, who polled Jerusalem residents about their interest in practicing gender segregation on the new mass transit system. When the poll came to light, Naveh defended the notion:
“The train was built to serve everyone,” Naveh said in defense of his proposal, adding, “I think it is necessary to create alternatives for everyone.” In his view, “It is not a problem to declare every third or fourth car a mehadrin [super-kosher] car.”
Now, can we say that this surprises us given the IDF’s record of wholesale violation of Supreme Court rulings and Palestinian human rights? No. Barak himself is a willing participant in this system and has personally murdered unarmed Palestinians in their beds himself. But I must say it does give one pause. Is this the image that Israel wishes to project to the world? Of naming to a top command someone who is a cold blooded killer and law-breaker, who practices virtually non-existent security procedures in his own office, and who is willing to violate the civil rights of women to curry favor with the ultra-Orthodox who make up a significant portion of Jerusalem’s population?
I look forward to a time when Naveh is brought before the Hague and perhaps Barak will be joining him there along with Palestinian militants who’ve killed Israeli civilians in cold blood. They deserve each other.
personally murdered unarmed Palestinians ?
seems you forgot to mention the word innocents.
three people were killed in that raid:
Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar – an operations leader in the terrorist group Black September, the group responsible for the 1972 Munich massacre.
Kamal Adwan – a PLO chief of operations
Kamal Nasser – Poet, PLO spokesman
Or so you say. Can you prove yr claim w. a credible source. And since when is it permissible to murder a poet in his bed esp. when dressed as a woman?
And how did these so called murders help anything or make the world better for anyone? If a Palestinian murdered Barak in revenge would that be just because he murdered a Palestinian? By rights, you should say this would be justified. If not, you’re an utter hypocrite. Barak is no less a terrorist than anyone he murdered.
Are you serious ?
you are linking to a Wikipedia page, and when i quote from it you claim it’s not a credible source ?
so why did you link to it in the first place ?
You didn’t quote from it. YOu merely made claims without authenticating them or using quotation marks (which is what a “quote” is). I usually trust the credibility of Wikipedia article when they’re affirmed by other sources. The statement about Barak dressing as a woman & the victims being asleep is documented by hundreds of sources besides Wikipedia. I don’t know for a fact that the ranks & job titles you offered have been. I’m not saying they aren’t. Just that this information is not known to me as the information I noted is.
Not to mention that Israel made grievous mistakes in murdering a number of supposed masterminds behind the Munich massacre who had nothing to do w. it; so I’m not certain that in that Lebanon massacre they killed people guilty of the crimes they claim.
Just out of curiosity what did you think ?
that Israel raided the PLO headquarters for what ? there is a lot of info about Operation Spring of Youth (most of it in hebrew for some strange reason) read about it.
there is a main different between these type of raids and terror attacks, terror attacks are directed at civilians, these type of attacks are surgically directed at members of terror organizations that are hiding behind civilians. that’s why the Hamas raid on the outpost where they abducted Gilad Shalit is a legitimate operation and the murder of the israeli settlers near hebron a month ago is not.
there for in my opinion your statement about barak is untrue and unsubstantiated.
also there is an issue with your site, when i click reply trying to link my reply to the yours, it opens a new one.
Testing to see if Arijay is right about the problem with the reply button. I thought my 7:21 reply was linked to his comment, but either I made a mistake or there’s a problem as he said.
Well, in my case it was my mistake.
I wouldn’t begin to try to fathom the mind of an IDF officer contemplating a targeted assassination. All I know is the history of error in taking revenge on Munich terrorists. And I also know how utterly ineffectual such state terror has been in preventing Palestinian terror. Terror against terror doesn’t work for either side.
Barak murdered unarmed men sleeping in their bed. This is a war crime. Not only that, he murdered men whose guilt he ascertained through military intelligence rather than through law or justice. He didn’t have the right to take those mens’ lives as he did. I only hope that someone doesn’t do to him what he did to them.
That’s astonishing that you concede this. I’ve never heard an Israeli do so before. I promise I won’t tell the MFA that you’ve offended the Israeli consensus.
Sorry about the comment issues. The threading sometimes doesn’t work right.
al-najjar’s wife was also killed.
It’s fairminded of you to make a distinction between the capture of Shalit and the murder of the Hebron settlers, but nonetheless, saying that these types of attacks are surgically directed against members of terror organizations begs a lot of questions. Is any member of Hamas or the PLO back in the day a fit target for assassination? Can Palestinians shoot any member of the Israeli government because the IDF is guilty of war crimes?
Here’s an opposing view on Israel’s record —
link
may i assume that you see the american president as a war criminal to ? after all he’s doing in Pakistan and Afghanistan exactly what barak did in Beirut, only difference he’s using a bit more advanced technology.
I completely disapprove of U.S. actions in Pakistan & have said so here. But in Beirut Barak personally participated in these killings so he’s even more culpable than Obama.
Richard, you still didn’t answer my question, do you think that Obama being the commander in chief is a war criminal for carrying such a policy in Pakistan (i would like to see the actual words coming out of your mouth)
I’m not willing to make that statement. I’m willing to say that I totally disapprove of any nation including my own engaging in targeted assassinations. I also disapprove of our occupation of Iraq & Afghanistan. If we weren’t there then the U.S. military wouldn’t be engaging in this disastrous behavior.
What I will say is that if Obama actually allows the CIA to assassinate Awlaki, the American-Yemeni Al Qaeda cleric, then he will have violated the U.S. Constitution & I would support an effort to hold him accountable for it. I’m not sure whether that should take the form of impeachment, a lawsuit, supporting his defeat in the next election.