by Chris Floyd
Veteran Israeli activist Uri Avnery takes on the morally hideous “human shield” myth being propagated with ever-increasing frenzy by the apologists for Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza. He pulls no punches in setting this specious argument in its rightful historical context. From CounterPunch:
Nearly seventy years ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of extremists called “the Red Army” held the millions of the town’s inhabitants hostage and provoked retaliation from the German Wehrmacht from inside the population centers. The Germans had no alternative but to bomb and shell the population and to impose a total blockade, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands.
Some time before that, a similar crime was committed in England. The Churchill gang hid among the population of London, misusing the millions of citizens as a human shield. The Germans were compelled to send their Luftwaffe and reluctantly reduce the city to ruins. They called it the Blitz.
This is the description that would now appear in the history books – if the Germans had won the war.
Absurd? No more than the daily descriptions in our media, which are being repeated ad nauseam: the Hamas terrorists use the inhabitants of Gaza as “hostages” and exploit the women and children as “human shields”, they leave us no alternative but to carry out massive bombardments, in which, to our deep sorrow, thousands of women, children and unarmed men are killed and injured….
An example of this [propaganda] process surrounds the most shocking atrocity of this war so far: the shelling of the UN Fakhura school in Jabaliya refugee camp.
Immediately after the incident became known throughout the world, the army “revealed” that Hamas fighters had been firing mortars from near the school entrance. As proof they released an aerial photo which indeed showed the school and the mortar. But within a short time the official army liar had to admit that the photo was more than a year old. In brief: a falsification.
Later the official liar claimed that “our soldiers were shot at from inside the school”. Barely a day passed before the army had to admit to UN personnel that that was a lie, too. Nobody had shot from inside the school, no Hamas fighters were inside the school, which was full of terrified refugees.
But the admission made hardly any difference anymore. By that time, the Israeli public was completely convinced that “they shot from inside the school”, and TV announcers stated this as a simple fact.
So it went with the other atrocities. Every baby metamorphosed, in the act of dying, into a Hamas terrorist. Every bombed mosque instantly became a Hamas base, every apartment building an arms cache, every school a terror command post, every civilian government building a “symbol of Hamas rule”. Thus the Israeli army retained its purity as the “most moral army in the world”.
Here, Avnery omits one further step in the dizzying Israeli spin on the atrocity: now they say that the attack on the school was a “mistake.” It wasn’t the target at all, they say; some shells firing at an entirely different target went astray. This, after declaring for days on end, in great — if mendacious — detail, that they were absolutely justified in, er, targeting the school. By next week, the Israelis — and their innumerable American cheerleaders — will be claiming that the school never existed.
Avnery goes on:
THE TRUTH is that the atrocities are a direct result of the war plan. This reflects the personality of Ehud Barak – a man whose way of thinking and actions are clear evidence of what is called “moral insanity”, a sociopathic disorder.
The real aim (apart from gaining seats in the coming elections) is to terminate the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In the imagination of the planners, Hamas is an invader which has gained control of a foreign country. The reality is, of course, entirely different…
A top priority for the [war] planners was the need to minimize casualties among the soldiers, knowing that the mood of a large part of the pro-war public would change if reports of such casualties came in. That is what happened in Lebanon Wars I and II.
This consideration played an especially important role because the entire war is a part of the election campaign. Ehud Barak, who gained in the polls in the first days of the war, knew that his ratings would collapse if pictures of dead soldiers filled the TV screens.
Therefore, a new doctrine was applied: to avoid losses among our soldiers by the total destruction of everything in their path. The planners were not only ready to kill 80 Palestinians to save one Israeli soldier, as has happened, but also 800. The avoidance of casualties on our side is the overriding commandment, which is causing record numbers of civilian casualties on the other side….
That means the conscious choice of an especially cruel kind of warfare – and that has been its Achilles heel.
A person without imagination, like Barak (his election slogan: “Not a Nice Guy, but a Leader”) cannot imagine how decent people around the world react to actions like the killing of whole extended families, the destruction of houses over the heads of their inhabitants, the rows of boys and girls in white shrouds ready for burial, the reports about people bleeding to death over days because ambulances are not allowed to reach them, the killing of doctors and medics on their way to save lives, the killing of UN drivers bringing in food. The pictures of the hospitals, with the dead, the dying and the injured lying together on the floor for lack of space, have shocked the world. No argument has any force next to an image of a wounded little girl lying on the floor, twisting with pain and crying out: “Mama! Mama!”
The planners thought that they could stop the world from seeing these images by forcibly preventing press coverage…But in a modern war, such a sterile manufactured view cannot completely exclude all others – the cameras are inside the strip, in the middle of the hell, and cannot be controlled. Aljazeera broadcasts the pictures around the clock and reaches every home….
People with moral insanity cannot really understand the motives of normal people and must guess their reactions. “How many divisions has the Pope?” Stalin sneered. “How many divisions have people of conscience?” Ehud Barak may well be asking.
As it turns out, they do have some. Not numerous. Not very quick to react. Not very strong and organized. But at a certain moment, when the atrocities overflow and masses of protesters come together, that can decide a war.
Quotes on Zionist rule
The Zionists are crooks. A small handful of Zionists, with a very intricate organization, have taken over the power centers of the world. According to our estimates, the main cadre of the Zionists consists of 2,000 individuals at most, and they have another 8,000 activists. -Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
As the picture of the current economy disaster becomes ever more clear, it becomes rather obvious, to me at least, that the ideology and the people who are directly responsible for the mass killing of millions of Iraqis and the displacement of many other millions, the people who keep the Palestinians starved behind walls, are unfortunately very much the same people who are responsible for a class genocide of millions of disenfranchised Americans who are now on the brink of total dispossession. - Gilad Atzmon
…the neocons have now become the conservative establishment. When Kristol (or Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity) hold forth at Fox News, most people have no idea that they are tuning into the public face of a fundamentally Jewish movement that elbowed out more traditional conservatives. -Kevin MacDonald
The Jewish community should expose 9-11 because the secret actions of a few Jews (and non-Jews) has put all Jews in jeopardy. Instead, Jews stupidly implicate themselves by attacking truth seekers. All 9-11 conspiracy-deniers are accomplices in the cover-up. -Henry Makow
The fact that the NYT considers the prospect of an Israeli mass extermination of millions of Iranians part of the policy debate in the Middle East reveals the degree to which Zionofascism has infected the ‘higher’ cultural and journalist circles of the United States. -Professor James Petras
Also See:
Video: Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land
Video: A just-leaked cell phone video of Israel’s atrocity in Gaza
Video: ZIONIST GOALS, RESOURCES & STRATEGIES
Israel Created Hamas to Split Palestine
Al Qaeda is More of a U.S. Propaganda Campaign than a Real Organization
Why Hamas and Hizbullah Will be Difficult to Defeat
America’s Hidden Role in Hamas’s Rise to Power
CIA, Mossad Infiltrated Muslim Organizations
Gaza Invasion – Part Of A Broader Israeli Agenda
Gaza Massacre: The Truth About Those Hamas Rockets
The Target is Iran: Israel’s Latest Gamble May Backfire
The Sources of Arabs’ Shame: Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia
Zionist Rulers of Saudi Arabia
Arabs’ Deadly Silence: All Quiet on the Gaza Shore
Are the US and Israel Planning a Broader Middle East War?
Gaza Horror: Large Photo Gallery of Gaza Massacre by Israel
In Pictures: Mass Worldwide Protests Against Israeli Massacre
In Pictures: Massacre of Gazan Children
Open Letter to Barack Hussein Obama, President-elect of the United States of America
Project 2012: Predictions Coming True? Nuclear War Begins Soon? Updated 13 Jan 2009
War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields
Guess What? Lots Of Oil, Natural Gas In Gaza!
The Israeli Global Military Beast
BBC Blocks Public Outrage Over Gaza
Red Cross – Israel Breaking International Law
Gaza Killing Sparks Attacks On Jews In Europe
Call To Stop Arming Israeli Jews
Americans Have Learned the Wrong Lesson from the Holocaust
Unconventional Weapons against The People of Gaza
Depleted uranium found in Gaza victims
Zionist Israel Is Run By Terrorists
Jewry’s Crushing Silence On Gaza
Israeli Air Strikes Hurt Obama, Help Ahmedinajad
Gaza Carnage Continues; Death Toll Rises To 390
Video: Anti-Zionist Jews who lived in Palestine tell their story
Shock, Awe and Lies: The Truth Behind the Israeli Attack on Gaza
Video: Gaza Airstrikes – Did Israel target School Children?
Video: Israel launches attack on Gaza, kills 210, injures 900+
Israel May Attack Iran Soon Before President Obama Takes Over
