Jyllands-Posten advarede 11. maj i deres leder imod, hvad de kalder ‘den nye antisemitisme’. Der sættes ikke navn på nyheden, som kun er ny for os fordi den er indvandret fra muslimske lande. Men den sætter til gengæld venstrefløjen til vægs for dels at fodre og dels at lade sig forføre af den
Men den nye antisemitisme viser sig allerede igen. En københavnsk kirke, hvor tidligere overrabbiner Bent Melchior skulle tale, var oversmurt med slagord, og en kosherforretning blev angrebet med sten og graffiti. Det er heller ikke sådan, at danske jøder nu kan bevæge sig mere sikkert rundt i gaderne. Der har allerede været flere eksempler på chikane og overgreb mod jødiske danskere.
På københavnske busser finansierede Dansk Palæstinensisk Venskabsforening en storstilet kampagne mod staten Israel, hvor to kvindelige bedsteborgere fra Hellerup meddelte, at de sandelig ikke køber israelske varer, og når terrordrabet på den jødiske vagtmand Dan Uzan begrædes i den offentlige debat, søges det ofte relativeret ved at minde om krigen mellem Israel og Hamas, der også kostede civile liv.
Letheden i omgangen med den nye antisemitisme, der nu igen stikker sit hæslige fjæs frem i Europa, må være den egentlige kollektive lektie af terrorangrebene. Historieløsheden i sig selv er alarmerende. Indtil kort før forrige folketingsvalg var den samlede SF-ledelse medlemmer hos foretagendet ”Boykotisrael.dk”, hvis paroler kun kan give mindelser om nazisternes udskejelser i 1930’erne: ”Køb ikke hos jøder”.
Dagbladet Arbejderen er helt verliebt i denne nye antisemitisme. Det har den nu, som det meste af venstrefløjen, været længe, fra før den var ny faktisk. Hamas angreb på Israel i sommeren 2014 er de langt fra færdig med: “Den 8. juli angreb Israels hær den besatte Gaza-stribe. 2138 palæstinensere blev dræbt under angrebet. Heriblandt var 578 børn mellem én måned og 17 år” skriver de, som en indigneret modstilling til at kun ”68 israelske soldater og fem civile israelere blev dræbt“. Det palæstinensiske parlamentsmedlem Fathi Hamad udtalte baggrunden for denne logik på Al-Aqsa TV allerede i 2008, “because we desire death like you desire life.” Derfor byggede de palæstinensiske myndigheder terrortunneller ind under grænsen til Israel frem for bunkers til deres civile. Og netop i de dage rundede tallet for dræbte palæstinensere 1.800, alle civile, i Syriens borgerkrig, der indtil da havde krævet 170.000 mennesker livet. Men det er kontekst, ingen gider at tale om palæstinenseres lidelser, hvis ikke israel kan anklages.
Allerede mens kampene stod på den sommer kunne man med rimelig sikkerhed sige at halvdelen af de dræbte palæstinensere var terrorister. Selvfølgelig skulle man være varsom med tallene i de dage; nogle ofre blev dræbt ved mere end een lejlighed. Andre blev henrettet af Hamas mistænkt for at samarbejde med israelerne. Andre igen ved terroristernes egen uduelighed, som de raketter, der slog ned i Shati-lejren og endda formåede at ramme et hospital. Den glimrende Thomas Wictor argumenterer endda overbevisende for at Hamas var skyldig i at tage flest civile liv.
Israel bombede syv FN-skoler. 143 Gaza-skoler blev ramt af bomber, granater eller missiler. 24 blev helt ødelagt. 15.671 civile hjem blev ødelagt, viser tal fra FN og Gazas myndigheder og den israelske menneskerettighedsgruppe B’Tselem.
Hvad Dagbladet Arbejderen glemmer at fortælle deres læsere er at FN-skolerne blev brugt som både våbenlagre og militærbaser. Selv Hamas måtte erkende dette. Og B’Tselems dokumentation bygger mestendels på telefoninterviews.
One example of many is Rima Kasab, who lives in a-Shuja’iyeh neighborhood in Gaza City and gave her testimony by phone to Salma a-Deb’i, B’Tselem’s field researcher in Nablus, on 10 July 2014.
Amazingly in these telephone conservations with Gazans whose homes were damaged or destroyed, B’Tselem purports not only to be able to determine that the homes were not used for military purposes but also to distinguish between combatant and civilian casualties.
The organization’s credibility is damaged further by its rush to immediately to put out possibly incomplete or erroneous information as further admitted on its web site:
“.. in these circumstances, reports may be incomplete or contain errors. Given the urgency of informing the public about events in Gaza, B’Tselem has decided to publish the information now available.”
(…)
In distinguishing between combatants and civilians, B’Tselem based its determination on a new approach of the ICRC whereby according to B’Tselem even trainers of combatants are not legitimate targets:
“..persons who continuously accompany or support an organized armed group but whose function does not involve direct participation in hostilities maintain their status as civilians and are not legitimate objects of attack. Thus, recruiters, trainers, and funders may contribute to the general war effort, but as long as they do not directly participate in hostilities, they are not a legitimate object of attack.”
Thus by B’Tselem’s standards a householder who permits Hamas to fire missiles from his house or to create an entrance to a tunnel in the house is not a legitimate target.
B’Tselem confirms its bias by stating on its web site
“Wherever there is a doubt regarding the actions of a person, the doubt works in the individual’s favor, and it is forbidden to target the person for attack.”
By the above criteria it is unsurprising that B’Tselem’s statistics contain so few combatant casualties.
“Er De terrorist? Nej? OK”. Men det er selvfølgelig en ny rapport fra Breaking the Silence, en form for whistleblower organisation for soldater og officerer fra det israelske forsvar, der har afstedkommet Dagbladet Arbejderens genoplivning af sommerens kampe i Gaza
Rapporten afslører, at soldaterne blev opmuntret til at skyde, før det var “nødvendigt”. De blev sat til at bruge for kraftige våben. Og de blev systematisk opfordret til at betragte alle palæstinensere på deres vej som “krigsførende parter”.
– Israels militær betragtede alle palæstinensere i Gaza som våbenførende modparter og gennemførte en massiv ødelæggelse på sin vej ind i Gaza, siger Yehuda Shaul fra Breaking the Silence.
Han tilføjer, at det skete for at sende et signal til palæstinenserne om øget omkostning ved at “udfordre Israel”.
Resultatet var total ødelæggelse af flere kvarterer i Gaza-striben. Ifølge rapporten affyrede Israels hær tusinder af upræcise artillerigranater imod civile boligområder.
“Den israelske forsvarsstab siger ifølge dagbladet Haaretz, at Breaking The Silence “ikke har bevis for sine påstande”.” skriver Dagbladet Arbejderen med et sæt velvalgte citationstegn. På venstrefløjen er sandheden suspekt. NGO Monitor har kigget rapporten lidt efter i sømmene
Initial Analysis
- BtS makes sweeping accusations based on anecdotal, anonymous and unverifiable testimonies of low level soldiers. These “testimonies” lack context, ignoring the fact that during the 2014 Gaza War heavy fighting took place between Israel and terror groups in Gaza, and that soldiers faced grave danger throughout the conflict from rockets, mortar shells, and terrorists emerging from tunnels dug beneath private homes. These distortions and erasures dovetail BtS’ ideological agenda and fuel delegitmization campaigns against Israel.
- A careful reading of the testimonies reveals that IDF soldiers conducted themselves according to the norms expected of soldiers (Israeli or from other democratic countries) when faced with the challenges of high-intensity fighting. The testimonies (if indeed reliable) that portray questionable incidents should be fully investigated. In such instances, the testimony and relevant individuals should be referred to the Military Advocate General Corps, which can order an investigation to be opened. That BtS did not approach the MAG Corps raises serious questions regarding the NGO’s motives.
- BtS’ allegations that the IDF operated according to a principle of “minimum risk to our forces, even at the cost of harming innocent civilians” together with “an attempt to terrorize the Palestinians” and that “serious questions arise as to the moral norms that guide IDF operations” do not tally with the testimonies, and are nothing more than an attempt by the NGO to portray the events in line with its political agenda.
- In its introduction, BtS fails to mention that terrorist groups in Gaza launched rockets, dug tunnels, and placed almost all of their fighting positions in civilian areas in Gaza, including mosques, schools, and hospitals. Thus, the organization provides a partial portrayal of the rationale that guided the IDF. Additionally, BtS does not explain that the IDF used multiple methods of warning civilians to leave areas of fighting in a way that is above and beyond the norm among Western countries. Methods included leaflets, phone calls, and “roof knocking.”
- In many cases, the testimonies and the headlines create an impression that soldiers wanted to commit crimes. For instance, a testimony titled “I really really wanted to shoot her in the knees” actually describes how terrorist groups used civilians and animals to attack IDF troops. Another testimony mentions that the IDF attacked Wafa Hospital, but neglects to mention the terrorists operating from within the hospital.
Og ikke nok med det, så er Israel vel indenfor internationale ifølge Ted Lapkin i Times of Israel
In fact, many of the report’s narratives describe the lengths to which the Israeli army went in its attempt to avoid civilian casualties amidst the violent chaos of urban combat. As BtS concedes in its executive summary: “many soldiers spoke of a working assumption that Palestinian residents had abandoned the neighborhoods they entered due to the IDF’s warnings.”
This desire to spare non-combatants was also clear in the testimony of BtS source no 41: “There was a field interrogator – usually a reservist who speaks Arabic – who comes around with an electric megaphone and shouts really loudly that if anyone is in the house they should come out. They were about to launch the rocket and then *** yelled, ‘Don’t shoot’ because he could hear people inside the house, he saved an entire family. They found this family in one of the houses and moved them to another house, a two-minute walk from there.”
The IDF operational procedures described in the BtS report are considerably more rigorous than the minimal requirements imposed by the law of armed conflict. They reflect a standard of battlefield practice on par with that employed by Coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Yet Israel’s efforts to avoid collateral casualties are made much more difficult by the immoral lawlessness of its foe. Like Aussie diggers and US Marines fighting the Japanese during WWII, the IDF faces enemies that routinely and intentionally spurn the law of armed conflict.
In a letter to the Security Council on 27 April 2015, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon wrote: “I am dismayed that Palestinian militant groups would put United Nations schools at risk by using them to hide their arms…and, in two cases, probably to fire from”. Palestinian militias have also been caught on camera using Red Crescent ambulances to transport gunmen and weapons around the battlefield.
(…)
The ensuing downwards spiral is perfectly portrayed in the testimony of BtS source no. 13, who described how one elderly Palestinian: “70 or 80 years old, turned out to be booby-trapped from head to toe. From that moment on the protocol was very, very clear: shoot toward the feet. And if they don’t go away, shoot to kill.”
Og, der er ikke overraskende problemer med araberes vidneudsagn, som Amnesty Internationals Donatella Rovera overraskende skriver for PHAP
Fear can lead victims and witnesses to withhold evidence or give deliberately erroneous accounts of incidents. In Gaza, I received partial or inaccurate information by relatives of civilians accidentally killed in accidental explosions or by rockets launched by Palestinian armed groups towards Israel that had malfunctioned and of civilians killed by Israeli strikes on nearby Palestinian armed groups’ positions. When confronted with other evidence obtained separately, some said they feared reprisals by the armed groups.
Men ikke blot arabernes udsagn er problematiske. Også for anonyme israelske andenhåndsvidner kniber det med opfattelsen af virkeligheden ifølge Algemeiner
IDF soldiers from various units who fought in last summer’s war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip called a recent report by NGO Breaking the Silence a “total lie.”
The soldiers spoke to Israel’s Channel 2 to tell their side of the story, and to counter the testimonies compiled by Breaking the Silence.
One soldier called the report “a wicked story” and a “stab in the back.”
Another soldier, Lt. Oren (a pseudonym), was a platoon commander in the 7th Brigade during the previous Operation Cast Lead, which began in late 2008. The Breaking the Silence report claimed that one of the tank commanders in Oren’s platoon carried out a “revenge attack” by targeting civilian houses in Gaza.
Oren refuted the claim, saying “this nonsense about ‘fire on the house that you want for revenge’ is simply a total lie.”
He said “it is very hard for me to believe that one of ours said something like that, definitely not someone who was there.”
Venstrefløjen og her ved Dagbladet Arbejderen være sandelig ved til ‘den nye antisemitismes’ bål. For det er ikke en fejl når man insisterer på at gentage de samme løgne igen og igen.
We have seen this before. A similar dispute over casualty figures occurred during Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” in the Gaza Strip in January 2009. The Israelis contended that the majority of the fatalities were combatants; the Palestinians claimed they were civilians. The media and international organizations tended to side with the Palestinians. The UN’s own investigatory commission headed by Richard Goldstone, which produced the Goldstone Report, cited PCHR’s figures along with other Palestinian groups providing similar figures. Over a year later, after the news media had moved on, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad enumerated Hamas fatalities at 600 to 700, a figure close to the Israeli estimate of 709 and about three times higher than the figure of 236 combatants provided by PCHR in 2009 and cited in the Goldstone Report. Initially, playing to the international audience, it was important for Hamas to reinforce the image of Israel’s military action as indiscriminate and disproportionate by emphasizing the high number of civilians and low number of Hamas combatants among the fatalities. However, later on, Hamas had to deal with the flip side of the issue: that Hamas’s own constituency, the Gazan population, felt they had been abandoned by the Hamas government, which had made no effort to shelter them.
Scrutiny of Palestinian figures in the current conflict reveals a spike in fatalities among males ages 21 to 27 and an over-representation from ages 17 to 30. Data gleaned from the daily reports of the PCHR show that from July 8, the start of Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge,” through July 26, 404 out of 915 fatalities tallied from daily reports in which the ages were identified occurred among males ages 17 to 30, comprising 44% of all fatalities among a group representing about 10% of Gazans.
Expanding the age range from 17 to 39 and including those identified as combatants whose ages were not given increases that number to 551 fatalities, or 57% of all fatalities, even though this group represents less than one-sixth of Gazans. By contrast, adult female fatalities were less than 10% of total fatalities for a group that comprises a quarter of the total population.
Children, here defined as those under age 17, represented 194 of fatalities, 20% of the total. Any child fatality is a tragedy, but it is important to note that children make up over half the population of Gaza.
Og vi tæller allerede ned til de næste kampe.