tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3647180678398772674.post3648384526420090657..comments2024-01-19T16:57:32.385-08:00Comments on Six Foot Turkey: Gaza, Israel, and the Lone IntellectualJoshua Leachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04786588059362202964noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3647180678398772674.post-79478654901296645722014-07-19T22:44:23.891-07:002014-07-19T22:44:23.891-07:00Goldberg is not a serious expert on the Middle Eas...Goldberg is not a serious expert on the Middle East, just a propagandistic hack whose "understanding" of every country surrounding Israel only goes so far as understanding what Israel wants from them. He should be ignored -- and unfortunately, because he parrots what people want to hear, he won't be. http://paper-bird.net/2013/12/25/the-warped-reality-therapy-of-jeffrey-goldberg/Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13239454726337120553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3647180678398772674.post-63084385463170356022014-07-19T08:49:20.516-07:002014-07-19T08:49:20.516-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Joshua Leachhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04786588059362202964noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3647180678398772674.post-18298637091059829892014-07-19T08:49:03.856-07:002014-07-19T08:49:03.856-07:00Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic is making similar...Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic is making similar claims to Krauthammer 's about the motives and actions of Hamas:<br /><br />http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/07/understanding-what-hamas-wants/374656/<br /><br />Specifically, he asserts that the civilian casualties in the conflict so far have been due to Hamas' perfidy, rather than to war crimes on the part of the IDF. He writes: "Civilians get killed during the Israeli response in part because Hamas rocket teams operate from sites that are among Gaza's most densely populated, and in part because Hamas stores its weapons in schools and mosques."<br /><br />Where is the evidence for this claim? It is true that Hamas has a history of using human shields in past conflicts, as noted above. Also, Amnesty International reported yesterday that the UN had found 20 rockets stashed in a "vacant school."<br /><br />http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/further-war-crimes-must-be-prevented-after-israeli-ground-assault<br /><br />But it is quite a leap from acknowledging this to implying that all or most of the civilian casualties in Gaza to date were killed because they were in proximity to a military target. Where is the evidence that they were?<br /><br />We have quite a lot of documentation already showing by contrast that civilians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes for no identifiable military purpose, and with no or very little advance warning:<br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/19/world/middleeast/fleeing-amid-airstrikes-gazans-find-few-places-to-be-safe.html<br /><br />http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/15/israelpalestine-unlawful-israeli-airstrikes-kill-civilians<br /><br />http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/further-war-crimes-must-be-prevented-after-israeli-ground-assault<br /><br />Where are the stories exculpating Israel's choice of targets? Does any of us believe that Goldberg and Krauthammer wouldn't have cited them already if they had found them? The fact that they cite no concrete instance of this phenomenon suggests to me that they are benefiting from the tendency described in this post: stashing rockets in hospitals sounds horrible enough to seem true, so people believe it.<br /><br />I still think that the Israeli response would fail other metrics of humanitarian scruple and international law, even if it could be shown that Israel had only killed civilians due to their proximity to military targets (such as arms stockpiles, rocket sites, etc.) But I have yet to see evidence even for this latter point. <br /><br />Meanwhile, we have cases like that of the killing of the al-Hajj family, for which Golderg's explanation completely fails-- an entire family of eight killed at 1 AM in the morning. 20 of their neighbors wounded. Only one of them had an affiliation with Hamas, and the family home was not a base of Qassam operations. As Human Rights Watch opines: "Israel would never accept an argument that any Israeli home of an Israel Defense Force member would be a valid military target."<br /><br />http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/15/israelpalestine-unlawful-israeli-airstrikes-kill-civilians<br /><br />There are plenty of other stories like theirs-- and I'm sure we'll be hearing more in the weeks ahead.<br /><br />In the meantime, no more crocodile tears for Palestinian civilians, please, from people who aren't willing to entertain the possibility that the IDF might be morally responsible for their deaths.Joshua Leachhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04786588059362202964noreply@blogger.com