“Crying and Shooting” with EU support

UN ENDORSES GAZA WAR CRIMES REPORT

Given the extremely difficult circumstances, I think Judge Goldstone did a good job with his report on Operation Cast Lead. Those who accuse him of “bias” should present facts that support their allegations or keep quiet.

His findings simply confirm a long line of previous reports from Human Rights Organisations (including B’t Selem) and the revelations by groups like “Breaking the Silence” although there is one dubious premise which needs to be clarified:

I absolutely agree with Norman Finkelstein, that to refer to the massacre in Gaza as a “war” is totally unacceptable and deliberately misleading, given the huge disparity of force between Hamas militants and the IDF and the fact, that the real military  target was  the civilian  population (as the report confirmed). From the days of Ben Gurion, it was clear to all Israeli leaders that the greatest threat, the “time-bomb” for the “Jewish” state has been the significantly higher birth rate of Palestinians. So from this cynical standpoint, killing women and children indiscriminately, does make sense ….(even poisoning the survivors (their DNA) with DU, DIME and other “novel” weapons ..)

Who can be so cruel? This is a demonization of the  IDF and the political leaders of Israel you might think. Try this to grasp the moral abyss on which this state was founded:

Video: ?????????

Therefore, even though the “firing of (comparatively ridiculous) rockets” into civilian neighbourhoods may be a violation of humanitarian law in principle, the moral dimensions of Israel’s systemic violence ( i.e. the brutal occupation as such, assassinations of Hamas leaders in broad daylight (“extra-judicial killings”) which usually result in the death of many innocent bystanders, etc.) and the occasional symbolic outbursts of “revenge” through these rockets are totally different. This is also demonstrated by comparing the “fatalities” on each side: Can the killing of 1400 Palestinians be judged on the same moral basis as the death of 9 Israelis? (6 were members of security forces – Source: Bt Selem)

The hypocrisy here is in the legal groundwork: people under occupation are entitled to “resist”, to fight againt the occupier but they ought to restrict their attacks to the military. But in light of the seemingly endless horrors of the occupation, the brutal retaliations against peaceful demonstrations and rather harmless “resistance” like stone-throwing children, let alone the ongoing and intensifying violation of human rights in the form of land expropriation, evictions and the inhumane siege on Gaza, this restraint is practically impossible and would require super-human self-control.

I know I am walking on thin ice here because this kind of reasoning leads quickly  to the “argument” of  the  Israeli government: “Our violence is for a good cause, theirs is evil; we are only fighting back, they are the ones who threaten our security, etc.” Violence is always bad and I am not saying that firing rockets into civilian neighbouhoods is no big deal, but the perception Israel wants to create (that they act only in self-defense) is totally wrong as Professor Avi Shlaim also pointed out in January 2009:

“As always, mighty Israel claims to be the victim of Palestinian aggression but the sheer asymmetry of power between the two sides leaves little room for doubt as to who is the real victim.

This is indeed a conflict between David and Goliath, but the Biblical image has been inverted – a small and defenceless Palestinian David faces a heavily armed, merciless, and overbearing Israeli Goliath.

The resort to brute military force is accompanied, as always, by the shrill rhetoric of victimhood and a farrago of self-pity overlaid with self-righteousness. In Hebrew this is known as the syndrome of bokhim ve-yorim (“crying and shooting”).

Shlaim also demonstrates that the hailed “return of the Gaza strip” was just another PR-scam to present Israel (under Sharon) as striving for a peaceful solution while in fact they knew that the cruel (economic) stranglehold on Gaza combined with (little publicised, often clandestine) military aggression now and then would sooner or later lead to more “rocket firing” which could then be presented as proof for the “evil” intentions of Hamas and reinforce the recurring theme of “crying and shooting” … Shlaim goes on:

[…] Gaza, however, is not simply a case of economic underdevelopment but a uniquely cruel case of deliberate de-development. Israel turned the people of Gaza into a source of cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods.

The development of local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the Palestinians to end their subordination to Israel and to establish the economic underpinnings essential for real political independence.”

Numerous reports from the UN have also highlighted the dramatic situation in Gaza even before Operation Cast Lead began  (sewage systems on the brink of collapse, food scarcity, high unemployment, frequent power shortages, etc. – all the result of the isolation and siege of Gaza). And in the West Bank a smiliar strategy to destroy the economy (and hope) was used …

Given these horrific circumstances, this hopelessness, 1,4 million people being imprisoned in this small strip of land, helplessly watching how Israel steals more and more land in the West Bank and East Jeruslaem, and the “international community” does nothing to stop these crimes, it is remarkable that there have not been more outbursts of violence. No-one, not even Ghandi would have advocated civil disobedience in this scenario …

Goldstone knows perfectly well that the accurate historical context is necessary to be able to judge actions on both sides and he draws a clear picture about the events that lead to the end of Hamas initiated cease-fires. That is perhaps the main reason why Israel must prevent any detailed discussion of the report because then the whole “tapestry of lies” would fall apart ….

Besides, as far as I know, at the beginning of the intifada, the Palestinian attacks were limited to IDF soldiers but the massacre in a Hebron mosque in 1994 was the incentive for Hamas to attack also civilians inside Israel.

It is painfully clear, that Israel WANTS and NEEDS to provoke violent resistance so that it can portray its own cruelty and violence as “defense” in the context of the “war on terror” …

It is highly ironic, that the world has been duped into believing that Islam represents a threat to global security while in fact Zionism is the real threat (as political abuse of religion is has replaced Christian hypocrisy in the colonial mindset …) and is never even mentioned in this context (at least not here in Germany).

In his book “Overcoming Zionism” Joel Kovel (a Jewish psychiatrist) shows the insanity of Zionism as a political instrument and the staggering hypocrisy and self-deception this has entailed: the eternal “victims” with their (self-attributed) high Jewish morality, created a state on the brutal expropriation and misery of another people. The “victims” (Zionism started long before Hitler appeared on the scene)  became racist perpetrators but in order to maintain their collective identity and exculpatory self-image,  they had to bend over backwards to put the blame somehow on the victims …. so they invented “reasons” why their criminal and inhumane actions could be justified before their conscience and before their God. This can be very well illustrated by a quote from Golda Meir:

“I will never forgive the Arabs for forcing us to kill them”

Jewish souls are very special, no less than a part of God, so we have learned. Baruch Goldstein, a medical doctor, who committed the above mentioned massacre in Hebron,  refused to treat non-Jews, even in the IDF …

To return to the UN-GA resolution: I am deeply ashamed that with the exception of IRELAND, NO EU member state  has voted FOR  the resolution.

The majority of the EU-hypocrites abstained …

Considering how hard it was to fight for a Declaration of Human Rights, how many people suffered or even died to reach that goal,  I find it totally unacceptable that a “Human Rights Council” allows abstentions during a voting session.

Recently, I saw a movie called “One against the Wind” which tells the true story of a brave woman, who supported the resistance in France during the German occupation, by taking care of wounded allied soldiers and getting them out of the country. She was eventually sent to a concentration camp but survived … In one scene she tells the American ambassador in Paris (before the US entered the war): “There is a special hell for fence-sitters…” Precisely – in the context of Israel’s impunity this hell must already be heavily overcrowded …

In this insane world, where property rights, the “freedom” of capital  and “strategic interests” make a mockery of human “values” on a regular basis, we can no longer afford to “abstain”, when  the defense of these  values is called for. A supposedly universal “right” that exists only on paper, and is only defended when a certain category of people is involved, has not just lost its meaning, it has become a farce.

So when Jewish wire services report that  “He [Foreign Minister Lieberman] believes Israel’s diplomatic work on the eve of the General Assembly vote led to fitting results” and that “Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has confirmed that there is a “silent understanding” with the US that it would not let the Security Council endorse such a resolution” – what can one say? That the whole idea of the “United Nations” and “Human Rights” has been turned into a theatre of the absurd? That the UN should replace symbolic decorations like Picasso’s “Guernica” with George Orwell’s “Some are more equal than others” (as a kind of  “mission statement” endorsed by the US) engraved in stone?

Former US ambassador to the UN,  John Bolton, a diplomat who seldom hid behind “diplomatic language”, used to call the UN “an instrument of US foreign policy and nothing else”. His point was proven in a spectacular fashion during the last “Anti-Racism Conference” in Geneva, when USrael staged a brilliant PR-event to further demonize and isolate Iran because “the new Hitler” Ahmadinejad had the audacity to talk about Zionism (as a form of racism) and its links to the new forms of colonialism (better known as “globalisation”). Since then the hyped “nuclear threat” to the world, allegedly coming from Iran is the latest attempt to divert attention from the real culprits.

Of course the display of  “outrage” by the Israeli ambassador and his US-“echo” after the endorsement of the  Goldstone report on Gaza,  was yet another attempt to reframe the debate. Let the people forget the clear evidence of Israel’s guilt: If it (the government) has nothing to hide

• Why did it prevent foreign reporters from entering Gaza?
• Why did it refuse to cooperate with the UN fact-finding mission? (Refusing even to let Goldstone enter Gaza through Israel, so he had to enter via Egypt)
• Why did it also treat former UN-envoys with disrespect (not to say contempt)i.e. Richard Falk?
• Why did it even belittle and debase  the testimony from IDF soldiers ( “Breaking the Silence”)?
• Why does it always try to get rid of justified criticism by “character assassination”? (claiming its supposedly “superior moral standing” as proof of honesty while accusing opponents of despicable motives, (anti-semitism) or having no right “to teach us about morals…” (the “Zionist” argument par excellence)

One has to concede that, if countries like Saudi Arabia show consternation about human rights violations by Israel, it is appropriate to say “ Mind your own business”. At the same time we all know, that without the great “friendship” of the US, Saudi princes would sleep less soundly. In fact, without US-support many undemocratic and repressive regimes would not have come to power or stayed in power (see for example Mubarak in Egypt)  in the first place.

However, on the other hand, there have been several genuine peace initiatives from the Arab states but all have been rejected by Israel on some pretext. Peace is the last thing, the Zionist government wants. The whole identity of Israel ( “a military with a government”) is based on “defense”, on eternal victimhood, on being a lone island of “European civilization” among the “primitive Arabs” and Jew haters, who want to “drive us into the sea”… Pathetic as it sounds, it still works in the media ….

And Europe? What about the “community based on values” as the EU has sought to present itself by adopting the Declaration of Human Rights as part of the Lisbon treaty (formerly called  “constitution”)?

The puppets in Eastern Europe voted against the resolution (… divide and conquer does work …) , but the biggest assholes are GERMANY, ITALY AND THE NETHERLANDS. Germany sells heavily subsidized submarines to Israel and the EU has awarded  Israel a “privileged” trade status …

Professor Avi Shlaim also touched on the subject in his article:

“America and the European Union shamelessly joined Israel in ostracising and demonising the Hamas government and in trying to bring it down by withholding tax revenues and foreign aid. A surreal situation thus developed – where a significant part of the international community imposed economic sanctions not against the occupier but against the occupied, not against the oppressor but against the oppressed.”

This “surreal” picture became even worse when the tendency to decouple the EU’s economic preferential treatment from Israel’s terrible human rights record became clearly visible:

“The Czech Republic, which held the European presidency until 30 June, made no secret of its desire to see closer ties and more exchange between the EU and Israel. The outgoing Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolanek, made this clear in an interview with the Tel Aviv daily Haaretz on 26 April in which he said that “the peace process mustn’t be linked to EU-Israeli relations”.

In doing so, he was reacting to the view expressed by Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU commissioner for external relations and European neighbourhood policy. She said: “We believe that good relations with Israel are essential…” (Why?)

While other media sources fell victim to the diplomatic waffle and reported that according to a Senior European diplomat “people are saying there should be a pause in close ties between Israel and the union.”

What breathtaking hypocrisy. While the Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert described the horrible injuries and deaths he saw in the  Shifa  hospital in Gaza as “scenes from Dante’s inferno” the EU talks about “a pause” in the close relations to Israel. It is like saying “I know, on top of all the other human rights violations, Israel is bombing an overcrowded ghetto right now and hundreds of people are going to be terribly wounded or killed, so what? Let’s just wait till the furor has died down and then we’ll continue with business as usual …”

As LMD reported, The General Affairs and External Relations Council brushed aside the parliamentarians’ concerns [about human rights violations in Gaza] and after France took over the EU presidency at the end of 2008, …. the council expressed its determination to strengthen its links with Israel from April 2009:

“In accordance with the political commitment made on 16 June 2008 at the 8th Association Council meeting between the European Union and Israel, the Council reaffirms its determination to upgrade the level and intensity of its bilateral relations with Israel within the context of the adoption of the new instrument which will replace the current Action Plan from April 2009. That building-up must be based on the shared values of both parties, and particularly on democracy, respect for human rights, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms, good governance and international humanitarian law.”

In the past the European parliament repeatedly tried to call for the suspension of its association agreement with the Israelis (.. when Israeli atrocities received a short media spotlight ..). but the council always undermined these calls for accountability. Even the “diplomatic” (read: alrady hypocritical) rhetoric now shows what all the great talks about “European values” is really worth: The original text stated that “Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement but the latest update (see above) says “it must be based on the shared values of both parties, ..particularly on democracy, respect for human rights ..”, etc.

This is of course totally meaningless. To say in this context that something “must be based on …” is simply a euphemism for saying “it should be based on. It is like the Sunday sermon of a priest, it sounds rather noble, but the people who wrote it,  never expect it to really happen.  In a world where the categorical imperative would rule, moral behaviour would be the norm. (It still is for most ordinary people, I daresay but the profit cult  makes it harder every day …) but in a world based on “might is right”, rules have to be enforced by sanctions and these must be applicable to all parties.

Will Europe be forever sucking up to the “gangster state” (see Avi Shlaim) Israel because they have excelled at exploiting Holocaust guilt? The perpetrators of unspeakable Nazi crimes are dead. The Holocaust is over. But the crimes against the Palestinians go on and on so we have a moral responsibility to stop them and demand accountability from Israel.

The Eurpean Union has no moral  authority whatsoever. It is a Trojan horse for corporate interests, the financial, neo-feudal, extractive “aristocracy” and the cult of the market. It destroys national sovereignity and undermines democratic decision-making (see the case of Ireland: Voting “No” against a treaty – is not applicable), it pushes for the militarization of Europe  while posing as a “community of values”.

A “European” version of a foreign minister has no democratic legitimacy at all and heaven help us, if it is going to be Tony Bliar ….

Nobel Peace Prize & Merchants of Death

My first reaction when I heard the news was disbelief and  spontaneous laughter – the absurdity of  it all is too much and can perhaps best be expressed with paraphrasing Eric Margolis (he was referring to the Afghan elections) : ..”a fraud wrapped up in a farce”.

The PR-industry who invented the brand “Obama” (“Hope & Change” Trademark) has more reason to celebrate….

That any US president should get a “Peace Prize” is utterly ridiculous but in the case of Obama it is plainly absurd because he has done NOTHING for a peaceful world except delivering eloquent speeches.

As many other commentators have pointed out already, Obama is basically continuing the foreign policy of GWB – the only difference is style: he is intelligent, polite, articulate and conciliatory (in his rhetoric) and “offers a hand” to those states whose learders are willing to concede that defying the interests of the United States of Arrogance (by executing policies in the interest of the population)  in the long run is a bad idea and must stop ASAP.

The recent “intervention” of the Obama administration at the UN – to postpone / avert an urgent UNSC discussion of the devastating Goldstone Report on Israeli war crimes in Gaza  is just one absurd example of  …”a  [a new US-] policy  [of] exporting peace and stability to the world…”

But this incredible farce (even the “naked emperor” tale pales in comparison) can also be seen in another, more realistic light which suddenly makes Obama (as US president) a suitable candidate for the prize:

All these awe-inspiring talks about the “Nobel-Prize” are very deceptive because nobody talks anymore about the basis for all this money:

The Nobel family made a fortune with  (possibly the first) “weapons of mass destruction”:  a new class of explosives   that killed thousands of people. Alfred Nobel’s father “made a killing” (excuse the pun) in the Crimean War and the American Civil War – he was perhaps the first mass manufacturer of mines . Alfred Nobel believed in the idea of “deterrence”- not “education for peace” through values like solidarity and working for economic & social justice.

His life-long (but unfulfilled) love was  Baroness Bertha von Suttner, the first international female peace activist who probably inspired the Nobel Peace Prize. She worked for a short time as his private secretary and became famous with the publication of her novel “Lay Down your Arms”  in 1889 which sold hundreds of thousands of copies and was translated in many languages. The book was sensational not only because of its female aristocratic author but  because it depicted in graphic detail the horrors of war in an era of nationalism, where “the military and patriotic duties to the fatherland” were considered sacrosanct.

She called war “commanded mass murder”, denounced the deceptive language of “patriotism” and  was also aware of the connection between  (systemic) economic / social injustice and war; she also correspondend with the famous Russian novelist Leo Tolstoi, who supported her work. For Tolstoi “the people lead a slave-like existence to serve the interests of a rich minority who lived at their expense” (that was long ago, one might argue but isn’t the “bank bailout” in the trillions yet another symptom for the refeudalisation of society, for serving the interests of a financial aristocracy?)

Bertha von Suttner also travelled to the United States and one of her comments about America is  still highly relevant today: (.. here the circle to Wall Street supporting Obama and Obama supporting Wall Street …. is closed…)

„While talking about doomed monarchies and the constitution of republics, we build  in the “ideal Republic America” a monetary monarchy , which is more absolute than the power of the Russian tsar…”

Bertha von Suttner received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905. She died shortly before the outbreak of World War I.

Before Alfred Nobel actually died, a premature obituary appeared in a French newspaper titled  “Le marchand de la mort est mort” (“The Merchant of Death is Dead”) referring to  Nobel as the man “who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before”.

From this perspective, awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the (current) President of the United States makes a lot of sense. To give this award to  the “Commander in Chief” of the mightiest military machine in the world and to the president of a “superpower” whose economic, financial and military elite sees no problem in demanding  global “full spectrum dominance” – no matter what the moral, social and human cost –  seems quite logical to me.

The profits of one  “Merchant of Death” are being used to reward another MoD, the leader of a country that spends more money on weapons (designed for mass murder)  than all other states combined (but always kills for a “good cause” of course)… and at the same time, we have a government unwilling to provide affordable health insurance to all its citizens (another way to increase suffering and death) because this would means lesser profits for the private health insurers who basically run their business as a racket.

(On “Full Spectrum Dominance” and America’s “role in the world”, how it sees itself” – see also (the second part of) the Nobel Prize speech by Harold Pinter with the theme “What is true and what is false?” and the conclusion: “We are surrounded by a vast tapestry of lies…and if we let this situation of organized deception  prevail, humanity and human dignity are doomed… )

This also resonates with Ghandi’s  concept of “Satyagraha” : the power of truth, to fight for truth, hold on to truth, etc. (…. not to be confused with non-violence…)

Coming back to the Goldstone Report and its instant “burial” by the media, followed by the US-supported demise from the UNSC agenda – Ghandi must be turning in his grave… What did he say about Zionism during his lifetime (in 1938)?

“The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine.
Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?
Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war.

Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home. The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French in precisely the same sense that Christians born in France are French.

[…]  If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German might, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this I
should not wait for! the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance, but would have confidence that in the end the rest were bound to follow my example…

[…]  And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under  the hadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart.

The same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart… They will find the world opinion in their favor in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.” […]

So much for “non-violence” under all circumstances…

But the astounding “act of hypnosis” (which Pinter referred to in his speech) ist still working: no matter how many “reports” about war crimes or crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli government are being published:  they are followed by –   silence.

How is that possible?  The two involved “Merchants of Death”, the US and Israeli government have eternal impunity, no human law can apparently touch them… they seem to be  a  (immoral) class of their own… as the following dialogue between a professor of international law and a former legal counsel to the IDF, which really took place)  shows:

“You have inflicted Nuremberg crimes on the Palestinians”. How can you justify that?

“Military necessity.”

“That argument was rejected at Nuremberg”.

“We have PR-people in the United States who handle these matters for us.”

(Case closed.)

THE ISRAELI PATIENT -Part 1

Reflections on (German) media and other reactions to the publication of the Goldstone report on Gaza War Crimes

Victim of "Operation Cast Lead"

“We believe that the existence of a moral society clearly requires a profound, honest discussion, of which the voice of soldiers on the ground is an inseparable part.”

(Statement from “Breaking the Silence” activists)

German Media resonance to UN Report on War Crimes in the news

1. German State Television :

ARD (“TAGESSCHAU”): 7 broadcasts per day with  73 minutes total airtime and the extended version “Tagesthemen” with 27 minutes airtime at 10 pm.

Mentioned once

in  “tagesschau”: Sept. 15, 8 p.m.

31 seconds in “news in brief” section; no follow up, no context, no comment considered necessary;

(Transcript / English translation)

“Eight months after the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza strip, the UN have released the results of their investigation.

According to the report both Israelis and Palestinians committed numerous war crimes i.e. the mission concluded that Israel intended to punish the whole Palestinian population. The report also condemns the firing of rockets into Israeli residential neighbourhoods by radical Palestinians.

During the Israeli offensive more than 1400 people were killed and thousands were wounded.”

For comparison: the death of Hollywood actor Patrick Swayze was reported in all broadcasts on that day ….

ZDF (“heute”): 2 broadcasts per day[1] with 32 minutes total airtime and the extended version “heute journal” with 30 minutes airtime at 9:45 pm)

Not mentioned at all

Only reported on website (with old video):

UNO wirft Israel und Palästinensern Kriegsverbrechen vor

(“UN accuses Israel and Palestinians of war crimes”)

2. Austrian State Television – ORF (2 channels)

ORF 1 (“Zeit im Bild ”): 4 broadcasts per day with  a total of 42 minutes airtime und ORF 2 (“ZiB” und  extended version “ZiB2”: 25 minutes ): 69 minutes total airtime

Mentioned once

in “ZiB 2”: Sept. 15, 10 pm – 16 seconds – (total airtime 25 minutes)

Transcript / English Translation:

According to a UN report, Israel is responsible for numerous war crimes committed during the Gaza offensive. The report also condemns the Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

Israel has criticized the report but is going to scrutinize its findings.

To be fair, state television (ZDF)  did broadcast previous allegations of war crimes and violations of humanitarian law (Sources: “Breaking the Silence”, Haaretz, etc.):

Israels Soldaten brechen Schweigen über Gaza-Krieg (July 2009)

Schockierende Aussagen zum Gaza-Krieg (March 2009)

They also „reported“ self-exculpatory propaganda like this in January 2009:

Ex-Botschafter Stein: Keine Katastrophe in Gaza

(“[Israeli] Ex-ambassador: No Catastrophe in Gaza”) – with the typical projection theme: („they“ are always to blame for having started the aggression to which “we” had to respond…)

„Hamas has forced Israel to start a war – not  the other way round“. ..Israel does not conduct a war against the people of Gaza, who have been taken  hostage by Hamas”….etc.

ARD has also previously reported the findings of Human Rights groups and other NGOs on the outrageous conduct of the IDF during Operation Cast Lead:

“Zögert nicht, alles zu zerstören”

(„Do not hesitate to destroy everything“)

(Source: Breaking The Silence– testimony from IDF soldiers;  July 2009)

Scharfe Kritik an Israel und Hamas

(„Strong Criticism on Israel and Hamas“, Source: AI, July 2009)

ARD also reported on Sept. 9, 2009:

773 tote Zivilisten im Gaza-Krieg?

(“773 dead civilians in Gaza War?”)

“According to B’tselem the war in Gaza caused more civilian deaths than military casualties. The military and journalists (!) consider these figures false: they believe that many of the victims were in fact combatants, erroneously counted as killed civilians.”

“The IDF has put the number of  killed Palestinians at 1166 with two thirds being counted as  Hamas militants.” Then they quote Yaacov Ammidror (a reserve General) as follows:

B’t Selem has a long tradition of lies and deceptions. They claim for example that 248 policemen have been killed. Hamas says that a majority of these policemen were members of their “armed wing” but they need not admit that, one only has to ask Fatah people…”

“Has B’t Selem ignored facts?”

(Picture: Can you spot the dead “combatants” on the ground?

One journalist called Ben Dror Yamini of the  daily  “Ma’ariv” is also quoted to sow doubt about the accuracy and honesty of B’tselem. He claims that because many names were also on a list of dead persons published by Hamas, this “proves” that they were Hamas combatants. He complains that “it is now being hammered into the heads of the public” that more than 700 of the people killed were civilians, altough this is “simply not true”.

This is just one example (others will follow in my next commentary) of Israel’s latest PR strategy to discredit all justified criticism: “Character assassination” as the last stage of a smear campaign against NGOs (especially Human Rights groups) and of course the UN, that has been going on for some time.

If you have no valid arguments to disprove evidence like this:

…. I asked the Israeli army to give me their list of—which they say about 700 casualties that they claim, or 1,000—I don’t remember now. They refused to give me their list. I wanted the list to check name by name and then to compare with the list that Palestinian human rights organizations compiled and to see where the differences are. And they said they could not give me the list, because this would disclose their sources. In one specific question about two women who were killed in short—by short range from a tank, I asked, “Are these two women included in your list of casualties?” I didn’t get an answer. So, the Israeli refusal to cooperate with information is very telling.

Israeli journalist Amira Hass on Democracy Now!

– you must resort to attacking the personality of the messenger or your opponent (ad hominem attacks) in an attempt to destroy their credibility. In this case not just the person speaking out but the whole organisation behind it.

Under the motto “Consider the Source” the pro-Israeli “thought police” has created or infiltrated groups like “UN-“Watch” who may appear as a decent watchdog at first sight, but as soon as you dig deeper you will find the “affiliation to the American Jewish Committee” and their “work” consists mainly of smearing anybody who dares to speak the truth about Israel (or the US and its economic terror for that matter – just see the case of UN food rapporteur Jean Ziegler)

Thanks to the JTA we are informed with unusual candour about the countermeasures  Israel and “Jewish groups” are going to take to utterly discredit the Goldstone report (which corroberates what many other investigations found earlier) and, in the process, will hammer the last nail into the coffin of the UNHRC’s “battered” reputation (Durban was just the beginning of a smear campaign…)

The unspeakable crime of the UN (and practically all other organisations which criticize Israel’s Human Rights violations)? alleged “hopeless bias” against Israel.

No matter how impeccable their professional records as experts of international law, no matter how high their moral authority is (i.e. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who also chaired a fact-finding mission mandated by the Human Rights Council in 2008), whether it is AI, HRW, B’tSelem, etc. – even the US State Department is “not credible” and “lacks professionalism” and the reports are always “highly flawed”.

A favourite method is to associate  the sinister UN folks (in the minds of the public) with “a hated or despised category” of people and who can be better for this purpose than the ultimate bogeyman Ahmadinejad who must serve as poor substitute for Hitler.

So what did the Knesset speaker first tell the world?

“ The same UN that allows the president of a country to announce on a podium its aspiration to destroy the state of Israel has no right to teach us about morality”

(he was of course referring to the Iranian President).

What "morality" could he mean?

As all informed citizens of this planet know Ahmadinejad never said, that Israel must be “wiped off the map” and the “outrage” at the UN anti-racism conference in Geneva was also a fine demonstration of the power of Israel’s PR-machine, but that is beside the point.

Thanks to our media sheep the average “consumer” now believes that Ahmadinejad, standing for the “evil” state of Iran, and by having been labelled   a “Holocaust denier” is of course a threat to world peace. (I have covered this subject in more detail in my German blog at wordpress – medienschafe).

The negative “terrorist” frame for Iran, Hamas or Hisbollah for that matter, has been firmly established in the public opinion so that the mere mention of their names is enough to trigger all the desired contempt and fears.

But the JTA is surprisingly frank about the real concerns of the Israeli government: the decades of suffering and monumental injustice the Palestinians have endured is not the central problem, no – the Goldstone report is rather “a public relations problem” not  the final proof of the  moral abyss into which the IDF and the Israeli government have fallen….

While ordinary people like us stand aghast in view of the systematic brutality (weblink: scroll down forEnglish version) of the Gaza massacre –

(I  quite agree with Norman Finkelstein: this was no “war” – given the huge disparity of force and  the earlier transformation of Gaza into an “Open-Air prison”)  – these people are mainly concerned about  the “bad timing” of the report just as one is trying “to convey the impression in Washington that Israel is more open to negotiations than the Palestinians and that the principal threat to the region is Iran.”

(Increasing evidence of) white phosphorus, DIME weapons; traumatized and undernourished children, total destruction, deliberate killing of civilians including children, collective punishment, targeting of  flour mills, chicken farms, water wells and sewage lagoons – no big deal!

Instead, the problem is, that the “hopelessly biased” reporting of all these atrocities “gives Palestinians and Arab nations an opportunity to complicate that effort.” [to present Israel as  a “reasonable” party willing to negotiate for “peace”, etc.)

But the hypocrisy and self-righteousness knows no bounds: the “radical body” UNHRC is accused of having “consistently demonized Israel, while giving a free pass to some of the world’s worst tyrants, from Sudan to Iran.” (Where is the proof for this accusation?)

This is a recurring theme in Israel’s verbal attacks: they accuse others of their own immoral practices, perhaps a case of  what psychologists call “projection”? For we all know that the masters of “demonization” are located in Tel Aviv (and Washington) – as the cases of  Iran or Hamas clearly demonstrate.

(to be continued….)

Read the Goldstone report and see for yourself if it is “biased”…

P.S.  I am going to explain why this (trilogy) is called “The Israeli Patient” in the next post on this subject …

Al

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