Those of us outraged and angry at what Israel has done in Gaza need to also see what Hamas did in Israel..
This is not easy reading, although being the BBC it’s not graphically dreadful either. It’s likely that the report is genuinely independent and accurate - efforts were made for it to be so if this account is true.
However the timing is interesting, with the announcement recently of the death penalty for anyone shown to have taken part in the attack. It’s hard to not see the 2 as linked, one used to support the other, even though such a conclusion is deeply cynical.
Where is the BBC report of the systematic use of sexual assault in Israeli prisons for decades. Unfortunately I take any Israeli report, independent or not, with a pinch of salt. Israel has ignored all international laws in the treatment of Palestinians, dehumanizing and deliberately creating a desperate unsustainable existence.
How can anyone be surprised? Whenever Israel has been threatened or attacked in the past it has reacted in what many people would conclude is a disproportionate manner.
There are endless examples of an attack on Israel being met with an overwhelming response. Most of these have been met with varying degrees of international disaproval but the response has always been consistent.
The exception perhaps was the Entebbe hijacking where 2 Palestinians hijacked a plane to Uganda, released all non-Israelis, and held the rest captive. The response was four helicopters carrying special forces flying 4000 miles, killing the Palestinians and Ugandan soldiers and releasing all the captives. (As an aside, I was once detained by MOSSAD as a suspect in that hijacking).
I believe that when Hamas carried out that appalling act they knew exactly what the response from Israel would be but did it anyway. I believe they thought the sacrifice of the Palestinian people would be worth it in return for gaining the sympathy of the International community.
Can’t argue with that, but it in no way excuses the traditional Israeli response especially as it is at roots a war of invasion. oppression and a struggle of freedom.
I’m sure you are correct, and they attacked in a way that was as deliberately outrageous and offensive as they could in order to break the situation. I’m still reasonably sure that the attack was deliberately enabled to happen by some within Israel in order to permit a final solution to Gaza.
I was due to fly home from Tehran to UK at the end of an assignment.
When I went to check in, I found my flight had been cancelled. The airline representative had telephoned all the passengers to tell them of the rescheduled flight the following day. Unfortunately, we had a burglary the night before and our phone was stolen so I did not get the message. I did what was usual in those days and got any flight I could, going roughly westwards. I got booked onto an Air France flight to Tel Aviv with an onward connection to Paris. In Tel Aviv we were actually searched in our seats before the flight took off. The onward leg from Paris to London was fully booked but that could easily be sorted once I was in Paris. I sent a telex back to my office in UK explaining my change of plans and settled down to get on with the flight.
In Paris I was given the option to stay overnight at their expense until a seat was found or transfer to another airline. I accepted the former because I had not seen Paris and this was an ideal opportunity to do so at someone else’s expense. For various reasons I ended up staying three nights before flying back to UK. Considering how much I travel in a year, I got a rather disproportionately large welcome when I strolled into the office.
What happened was, they had received a telex from me saying I was on a flight from Tel Aviv to Paris but then I had not arrived back when expected. The following days the papers were full of stories of the Tel Aviv to Paris flight that had just been hijacked to Entebbe (remember the incident when the Israeli commandos went in and recued them?). Despite frantic phone calls, the office could get no confirmation that I was one of the missing (because I had actually been on the preceding flight) so everyone was getting worried. In Paris I had not seen any news, I was just having a good time and forgot to tell the office of the extra delay (in case they insisted I get back earlier by another carrier).
Anyway, a year or so later, I was crossing the Allenby Bridge from Jordan to Israel. MOSSAD must have had lists of people who had flown through Tel Aviv using Air France during the days preceding the hijack just in case they were doing some reconnaissance before the event. If anyone on the list passed through their borders at a later date they were detained and questioned. Fortunately, I had been positively vetted by UK security forces to work on particular government projects. MOSSAD were able to verify this with UK. Three hours later I was released with an apology. I went on to do all the usual tourist things in Jerusalem and got back to Jordan, where my paper containing all my visa stamps was removed, in time for starting work after the Eid holiday.
I get the impression that the Israelis have removed a lot of independent scrutiny or reporting. They killed a shocking number of journalists last year.
One more reason why the bus I was on from London to New Delhi in the '60s turned left in Beirut, rather than straight on, then took a right into Jordan at Damascus before another left to Iraq.
Didn’t use any more fuel I suppose and it did reveal to me the wonderful treatment of Arabs to travellers, so I was hardly disappointed by the move but ironically, I nearly made it to Israel not long afterwards as it faced a full scale war from all the surrounding states. Out of work in Sydney I responded to a plea from the Israeli embassy for volunteers. They asked me for my skill base and I proudly said ‘road train driver’ thinking that would be a shoe in. At first they were excited but then revealed that they had misunderstood me. What they really wanted were crane drivers to unload American tanks at the docks. They would love to have me anyway they said, but I would have to pay my own fare to get there. Thus I might well be able to attribute my advanced age now to the fact that I was broke and only volunteered as a way out of my plight. How hard can it be to operate a crane anyway, never had any problems with my Meccano ones.
The point I was trying to make - probably clumsily - is that it is unreasonable to discount claims of war crimes just because they are made against the side you support.
It is perhaps one definition of madness to support either Palestine or Israel.
