Representative Press Blog

Charles is back to writing things like this: "These kids aren't all 8 year olds. And it doesn't matter the size. They're attacking an army. They should be thankful that rubber bullets is ALL that gets shot at them."

Wow, Charles, what you are doing is really ugly. The facts have already been pointed out to you, so why are you back posting comments that deny the reality of Israeli crimes? So you are basically a denier and you don't give a damn if decent Jews, brave journalists, and honest doctors all attest to the fact that children are being deliberately killed and maimed by Israeli soldiers. You have been told what is really happening with the rubber bullets yet you post more lies.

It has been pointed out to you what an Israeli soldier testified about his commander: "When the company commander gave us a lesson about rubber bullets, he said that you shoot them together in packets of three, and that is almost ineffective because they are too heavy; but if you separate them - it can kill. He added, with a wink: "I'm not hinting at anything… The guys laughed and said to him: 'You are not hinting - you're saying. He didn't correct them."

I posted details here and you are now playing a very ugly game of denial. For others here is a link to the details: http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2005/10/you-quoted-joseph-farahs-vile-lie.html

http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2006/01/israel-does-target-civilians-and.html

Below is the original post:

Israeli soldiers often intentionally murder and maim children.

Journalist Chris Hedges and others have witnessed Israeli troops intentionally murdering children. And what Hedges and others have witnessed has been documented by an Israeli human rights group and has been confirmed by Israeli soldiers admissions. Physicians for Human Rights USA, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem all confirm the Israeli policy of targeting civilians.

In the U.S., the media totaly distorts and suppresses the reality. In 2004, when 22 times more Palestinian children were being killed than Israeli children, we found that ABC, CBS, and NBC were reporting Israeli children’s deaths at rates 9 to 12.8 times higher than Palestinian children’s deaths. By omitting the killings of a great number of Palestinian children, ABC, CBS, and NBC were failing to perform their function as new agencies – the reporting of the news. http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/index.html

"About half of those sustaining gunshot head injuries were children under the age of sixteen, and 15% of the wounded were women. During this four year period, on average, one child under the age of six was shot in the head every two weeks. These and other violations of the military regulations did not lead to the prosecution of the violators, the provision of remedial measures, or reparations for the injured." http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2005/10/you-quoted-joseph-farahs-vile-lie.html

A notable example was a lengthy investigative report in the New York Times Magazine by Michael Finkel, who responded directly to Israel's claims that its soldiers shot only when they were under threat. In a striking passage about the clashes at Karni Crossing, a checkpoint on a road leading from the Israeli settlement of Netzarim in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip into Israel, Finkel recounts: "I spent two weeks at Karni during daylight hours, and in my time there, the Israeli Army fired live ammunition almost every day. Sometimes only two or three shots, sometimes a dozen or more. On occasion the shots were fired when cars or buses needed to enter or exit the settlement, at other times I could ascertain no reason for the shooting. Not once did I see or hear a single shot from the Palestinian side. Never during the time I spent at Karni did an Israeli soldier appear to be in mortal danger. Nor was either an Israeli soldier or settler even slightly injured. In that two-week period, at least 11 Palestinians were killed during the day at Karni." (Source: "Playing War" by Michael Finkel, New York Times Magazine, December 24, 2000)

In October 2001, Harper's magazine published the "Gaza Diary" of journalist Chris Hedges. Hedges' entry for June 17, 2001 provides even more shocking evidence of the wanton and deliberate killing of Palestinian children by Israeli soldiers at Gaza's Khan Yunis refugee camp.

Hedges writes how the Israelis bait the children: "... a disembodied voice crackles over a loudspeaker. "'Come on, dogs,' the voice booms in Arabic. 'Where are all the dogs of Khan Younis? Come! Come!' "I stand up. I walk outside the hut. The invective continues to spew: 'Son of a bitch!' 'Son of a whore!' 'Your mother's ****!' "The boys dart in small packs up the sloping dunes to the electric fence that separates the camp from the Jewish settlement. They lob rocks toward two armored jeeps parked on top of the dune and mounted with loudspeakers. Three ambulances line the road below the dunes in anticipation of what is to come. "A percussion grenade explodes. The boys, most no more than ten or eleven years old, scatter, running clumsily across the heavy sand. They descend out of sight behind a sandbank in front of me. There are no sounds of gunfire. The soldiers shoot with silencers. The bullets from the M-16 rifles tumble end over end through the children's slight bodies. Later, in the hospital, I will see the destruction: the stomachs ripped out, the gaping holes in limbs and torsos."

"Yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight young men, six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve. This afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy, Ali Murad, and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under eighteen. "Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered -- death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo -- but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport."

There can be no doubt that Israeli troops have been targeting innocent Palestinian civilians for death from the beginning of the uprising. This understanding was also reflected in UN Security Council Resolution 1322, passed on October 7, 2000, which "Condemns acts of violence, especially the excessive use of force against Palestinians, resulting in injury and loss of human life."

In making the moral superiority claim, Israel's apologists are either shamelessly denying the irrefutable evidence cited above and are simply lying, or they are asserting that some forms of murder are morally superior to other forms of murder.

From a B'Tselem report: "A conscript soldier who gave testimony to B'Tselem told of a procedure in a particular area of the West Bank during which IDF jeeps were sent as a provocation to areas of friction with Palestinians in order to serve as bait for throwers of stones and petrol bombs. ... What bothers me is had the jeeps not have entered, there would have been no disturbances of the peace."

(The rubber-coated metal bullets in theory are supposed to be non-lethal and their use is supposed to adhere to the IDF's own stated regulations. The rubber-coated metal bullets are not supposed to be aimed at the head.)

From the B'Tselem report: For many years, the IDF has been using rubber-coated metal bullets for dispersal of demonstrations in the Occupied Territories. B'Tselem has repeatedly warned against the IDF's widespread use of these bullets and the erroneous treatment of them as non-lethal, despite their great destructive potential and the large number of casualties, including many children, resulting from their use.

"Over the course of the intifada, B'Tselem documented many incidents in which shooting took place in contravention of the regulations and with no real attempt to prevent killing and causing grave bodily injuries. An inquiry undertaken by Physicians for Human Rights (U.S.A.) at the beginning of the intifada demonstrated that many Palestinians sustained head and eye injuries from rubber bullets. The organization determined that such injuries bear testimony to the illegal use of this means.

(The rubber-coated metal bullets come in packets of three and are meant to be fired as a packet so they go slower in order for them to remain non-lethal, you are not supposed to separate the bullet packet)

From the B'Tselem report: One conscript soldier informed B'Tselem that "I do not know a single soldier who does not separate the parts of the bullet

Another soldier told B'Tselem: "When the company commander gave us a lesson about rubber bullets, he said that you shoot them together in packets of three, and that is almost ineffective because they are too heavy; but if you separate them - it can kill. He added, with a wink: "I'm not hinting at anything… The guys laughed and said to him: 'You are not hinting - you're saying. He didn't correct them. everyone shoots rubber bullets that have been separated.

(B'Tselem documented cases of both the IDF soldiers initiating fire, not merely responding and also of the IDF returning fire but not aiming exclusively at Palestinian sources of shooting.)

A conscript soldier who served in the Gaza Strip stated in his testimony to B'Tselem that: "While I was at the post, there were a number of cases of shooting. I thought that it was an exchange of fire, but afterwards I understood from discussions with other soldiers that it was just soldiers shooting out of boredom. Soldiers at two different positions would coordinate opening fire between them, and afterwards they would say that they were under fire. It is important for me to state that I am not talking about single shots, but very massive shooting.

From conversations with my friends who were at posts in other areas, it became clear to me that it occurs in those places as well. My friends, who were at the post in the Strip. Told me that they emptied entire crates of ammunition out of boredom"

A B'Tselem reports the frequency of cases in which innocent persons were harmed by IDF firing, even though no Palestinians shot from their immediate surrounding area, indicates that there are cases in which soldiers shoot indiscriminately. Even a high-ranking officer in the Bethlehem area told journalist Nahum Barnea: "I don't give my soldiers directives of the type 'don't harm the innocent.' In the situation that has arisen, whoever gives such an order has said the equivalent of 'don't shoot at all.' […] We try to shoot at those whom we have identified, but not always."
extended version here with more details SEE: http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2005/10/you-quoted-joseph-farahs-vile-lie.html

Also see: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/index.html
B'Tselem's (the Israeli human rights group) report: http://www.btselem.org/Download/200203_Trigger_Happy_Eng.rtf

Link to other post at IMDB about Israel targeting civilians: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365737/board/thread/31311694?d=33114078#33114078

Charles continues with his denial by claiming: "Those that kill or maim children are first investigated by the Military Prosecutor."

That isn't true Charles.

"In light of the overwhelming evidence of systematic abuse and an astounding lack of official investigations into them, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem released a report in May 2005 entitled Take No Prisoners. This report speaks about “the fatal shooting of Palestinians by Israeli Security forces during ‘arrest operations’” when such killing was unnecessary and unjustifiable.

Shortly thereafter, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report entitled Fostering Impunity, which describes the IDF’s failure to investigate the vast majority of the killings of at least 1,600 Palestinians who were killed outside of combat situations. The report determines that this current state of affairs leads to a trigger-happy culture in the IDF ranks and a sense that there will be no punishment for killing or injuring Palestinian civilians." - Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem describe how Israeli soldiers routinely get away with murder

And you ignored the facts I pointed out to you. It has been pointed out to you that the Israeli soldiers are seperating the rubber bullets in order to make the lethal! YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO SEPERATE THE BULLET PACKETS if you want them to remain non-lethal! "From talking to the guys, it is clear to me that this is ignored, and everyone shoots rubber bullets that have been separated. I don't think that there is anyone who shoots them without separating them. I always ask people about it and they are shocked by the very question. It is clear to them that you shoot them separately." - An Israeli soldier interviewed by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem

An Israeli soldier told B'Tselem that his company commander gave them a lesson about rubber bullets: "if you separate them - it can kill. He added, with a wink: "I'm not hinting at anything… The guys laughed and said to him: 'You are not hinting - you're saying. He didn't correct them."

[ The rubber-coated metal bullets come in packets of three and are meant to be fired as a packet so they go slower in order for them to remain non-lethal, you are not supposed to separate the bullet packet. ]

B'Tselem has repeatedly warned against the IDF's widespread use of these bullets and the erroneous treatment of them as non-lethal, despite their great destructive potential and the large number of casualties, including many children, resulting from their use."

Over the course of the intifada, B'Tselem documented many incidents in which shooting took place in contravention of the regulations and with no real attempt to prevent killing and causing grave bodily injuries. An inquiry undertaken by Physicians for Human Rights (U.S.A.) at the beginning of the intifada demonstrated that many Palestinians sustained head and eye injuries from rubber bullets. The organization determined that such injuries bear testimony to the illegal use of this means. http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2005/10/you-quoted-joseph-farahs-vile-lie.html

http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2006/02/charles-is-back-to-writing-things-like.html