Israelis fired on girl identified as 10-year old (w/tape)

[St.James]

…"Death is, of course, the most acute danger that confronts a Palestinian child, but it is not the only one. According to data of the Palestinian Ministry of Education, 3,409 schoolchildren have been wounded in the intifada, some of them crippled for life.

The childhood of tens of thousands of Palestinian youngsters is being lived from one trauma to the next, from horror to horror. Their homes are demolished, their parents are humiliated in front of their eyes, soldiers storm into their homes brutally in the middle of the night, tanks open fire on their classrooms. And they don’t have a psychological service. Have you ever heard of a Palestinian child who is a “victim of anxiety”?

The public indifference that accompanies this pageant of unrelieved suffering makes all Israelis accomplices to a crime. Even parents, who understand what anxiety for a child’s fate means, turn away and don’t want to hear about the anxiety harbored by the parent on the other side of the fence.

Who would have believed that Israeli soldiers would kill hundreds of children and that the majority of Israelis would remain silent? Even the Palestinian children have become part of the dehumanization campaign: killing hundreds of them is no longer a big deal."

By Gideon Levy

Haaretz

 

[thestickman]

Notice St James ignores all questions poised to him?

T

Time

 

[gilliam]

But they are not targeting children like the PA is. And their press is free to put this into the public forum for debate, unlike what can happen in Palestine.

You must know this article is biased. It doesn’t point out, for example, that the homes that are demolished are homes of terrorists.

You are not convincing me of anything here. The PA is still a state sponsor of terrorism and specifically seeks out children to kill. Until they stop supporting suicide bombing of busses and the like, they will not get my support.

 

[St.James]

Lisa4Catholics:

I am just sad that people kill each other in the first place:crying: I am also sad that name calling is going on the zionist thing is not going to get your point through…

I am also sad that people kill each other. The use of the term, “Zionist” is germane to this discussion, however. The Israeli state is founded in racial and religious inequality which creates the mindset which allows for the slaughter of innocent Palestinians.

The US media is effectively downplaying and even covering up attrocities committed by Israelis. These things need to be made known to the world.

Lisa4Catholics:

That being said, until we recognise all people as children of God and pray for them, this kind of thing will continue.God Bless and be nice you guys

I agree very much that we must all recognize each other as children of God. Unfortunately, Judaism, the official religion of the Israeli state, regards non-Jews (Gentiles: the other nations) as animals.

“Thus it may be inferred that the All Merciful declared their children to be legally fatherless, for [so indeed it is also] written, Whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.” (Yebamoth 98a, Babylonian Talmud)

 

[St.James]

gilliam:

But they are not targeting children like the PA is.

One more time then, with emphasis.

"…As MK Ahmed Tibi (Hadash) said, in a particularly emotional speech in the Knesset, it is no longer possible to claim that all these children were killed by mistake. An army doesn’t make more than 500 day-to-day mistakes of identity. No, this is not a mistake but the disastrous result of a policy driven mainly by an appallingly light trigger finger and by the dehumanization of the Palestinians.

Shooting at everything that moves, including children, has become normative behavior. Even the momentary mini-furor that erupted over the “confirming of the killing” of a 13-year-old girl, Iman Alhamas, did not revolve around the true question. The scandal should have been generated by the very act of the killing itself, not only by what followed.

Iman was not the only one. Mohammed Aaraj was eating a sandwich in front of his house, the last house before the cemetery of the Balata refugee camp, in Nablus, when a soldier shot him to death at fairly close range. He was six at the time of his death.

Kristen Saada was in her parents’ car, on the way home from a family visit, when soldiers sprayed the car with bullets. She was 12 at the time of her death.

**The brothers Jamil and Ahmed Abu Aziz were riding their bicycles in full daylight, on their way to buy sweets, when they sustained a direct hit from a shell fired by an Israeli tank crew. Jamil was 13, Ahmed six, at the time of their deaths.

Muatez Amudi and Subah Subah were killed by a soldier who was standing in the village square in Burkin and fired every which way in the wake of stone-throwing.**

Radir Mohammed from Khan Yunis refugee camp was in a school classroom when soldiers shot her to death. She was 12 when she died. All of them were innocent of wrongdoing and were killed by soldiers acting in our name.

At least in some of these cases it was clear to the soldiers that they were shooting at children, but that didn’t stop them.

Palestinian children have no refuge: mortal danger lurks for them in their homes, in their schools and on their streets…"

By Gideon Levy

Haaretz

 

[gilliam]

St. James:

At least in some of these cases it was clear to the soldiers that they were shooting at children, but that didn’t stop them.

Then those cases need to be investigated and the guilty parties punished. If Israel is not doing that, it is to their condemnation.

How does that excuse the PA from blowing up buses?

 

[St.James]

gilliam:

How does that excuse the PA from blowing up buses?

The PA doesn’t blow up busses. Terrorist organizations associated with the PA do.

However, this is not excused by Israeli atrocities. No one has claimed that it is.

The difference is that when a Palestinian terrorist blows up an Israeli bus, the world is alerted with massive news coverage.

When Israeli soldiers shoot Palestinian children those stories are suppressed.

There is a very clear double standard and that double standard has it’s source in the Judaic religion.

 

[Emmy]

St. James:

The PA doesn’t blow up busses. Terrorist organizations associated with the PA do.

However, this is not excused by Israeli atrocities. No one has claimed that it is.

The difference is that when a Palestinian terrorist blows up an Israeli bus, the world is alerted with massive news coverage.

When Israeli soldiers shoot Palestinian children those stories are suppressed.

There is a very clear double standard and that double standard has it’s source in the Judaic religion.

I completely agree with you…

Emmy

 

[gilliam]

St. James:

The PA doesn’t blow up busses. Terrorist organizations associated with the PA do.

Same difference, they support the organizations with material assistance as well as political support.

However, this is not excused by Israeli atrocities. No one has claimed that it is.

Again, if there are atrocities, and you haven’t really proven that yet, they need to be investigated and the guilty parties brought to justice. You see, Israel has a system to do that. I wish the PA did as well, instead of making terrorists heroes.

The difference is that when a Palestinian terrorist blows up an Israeli bus, the world is alerted with massive news coverage.

Of course! They want the news coverage. That is the point of blowing up the bus in the first place. They want attention, so they do something dramatic and terrible. To ferment fear within the civilian population so that the population of Israel will put pressure on the Israeli government to yield to the terrorist’s demands. That is the whole purpose of the method of terrorism. No matter who does it.

When Israeli soldiers shoot Palestinian children those stories are suppressed.

No, just not thought of as all that newsworthy because usually the child is inbetween the target and the soldier. Often placed there by the target.

There is a very clear double standard and that double standard has it’s source in the Judaic religion.

I seriously doubt it. No matter what you think. Blood sells newspapers and TV stories.

 

[thestickman]

gilliam,

Tis’ interesting how the left makes these moral equivilency arguments. Notice how the atrocities supported by the PA during Arafat’s leadership are always justified via either fallacious arguments or outright denial or falsehoods. When you make the valid point the Israeli is being prosecuted for his individual crime there’s silence or more fallaciousness from your counterpart or some intellectually weak attempt to make the crime of the individual represent the whole nation.

Frankly, arguments such as the one being put forward by the anti-Israeli folks who wander into these forums about every 2 or 3 months are both comical and sickening. I guess if the suicide bombers the PA sent into Israel with the assistance of Al-Aqsa and others hadn’t blown themselves to hell we could hold trials for them as well.

I’ll continue to pray for folks who seem to think strapping on a bomb-belt, walking onto a bus full of civilians and committing sucide & cold blooded murder is understandable. Cuz, IMO, Satan has already stolen and hardened their hearts.
Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[St.James]

gilliam:

Again, if there are atrocities, and you haven’t really proven that yet.

Oh I have, and there is evidence of much more. You won’t find it on Fox News though.

gilliam:

You see, Israel has a system to do that.

Yes, that “system” is called mock trials. In most cases it never even reaches that level, only when public outcry cannot be ignored.

gilliam:

I wish the PA did as well, instead of making terrorists heroes.

Orthodox Jew, Baruch Goldstein, who entered a mosque with a machine gun and massacred 29 Muslims as they prayed is regarded as a hero in the Israeli state.

Always the double standard.

 

[thestickman]

St. James:

Oh I have, and there is evidence of much more. You won’t find it on Fox News though.

LOL!!! I rest my case.

 

[gilliam]

St. James:

Baruch Goldstein who entered a mosque with a machine gun and massacred 29 Muslims as they prayed is regarded as a hero in Israel.

Always the double standard.

Goldstein is best known for having killed 29 Muslims during Friday prayers, February 25th, 1994, in the Cave of the Patriarchs, a Hebron site holy both to Muslims and Jews. After being subdued with a fire extinguisher, Goldstein was beaten to death by survivors. Goldstein left behind a widow and 4 children.

Rioting immediately following the massacre led to the deaths of another 26 Palestinians and 2 Israelis.

Testimony at the Israeli inquiry raised the possibility Goldstein had an accomplice - two Israeli army guards testified that a second settler entered Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs on February 25th shortly after Goldstein, and that when Goldstein went into the tomb he was armed with a different gun from the Galil assault rifle found by his body. The second settler was carrying a Galil, they said. This testimony was never confirmed.

Goldstein’s actions were immediately condemned by the Israeli government, and the Israeli populace in general. Spokespeople for all the organized denominations of Judaism denounced his act as immoral and as terrorism. However, he became a hero to some Israeli right-wing extremists. Members of the outlawed Kach organization, to which he belonged, glorify his mass murder (claiming that he pre-empted the mass murder of Jews by Arabs), and sometimes hold celebrations at his tomb. His tombstone in Kiryat Arba reads:

Here lies the saint, Dr. Baruch Kappel Goldstein, blessed be the memory of the righteous and holy man, may the Lord avenge his blood, who devoted his soul to the Jews, Jewish religion and Jewish land. His hands are innocent and his heart is pure. He was killed as a martyr of God on the 14th of Adar, Purim, in the year 5754.

Most Israelis are repulsed by the glorification of this mass murderer. In 1998, a bill was passed in the Israeli Knesset that forbade the erection of monuments to terrorists; in 2000 a small shrine built around Goldstein’s tomb was demolished. At the time, it was also declared that a discussion of the inscription on his tombstone was pending but no revisions have yet been made (as of 2004).

from:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Goldstein

 

[St.James]

Murdering Children for Sport

"Ali Murad Abu Shaweesh was 12 when Israeli soldiers shot him in the back. Ali was killed on the same day in June, 2001 that Sharon refused to let the Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, meet with Yasir Arafat, yet his death also went unnoticed by American television news. But not entirely unnoticed, since the Israeli soldiers, who taunted the Palestinian boys over loudspeakers outside the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, goading them to come out and throw rocks, did so under the gaze of Chris Hedges, a reporter for the New York Times.

“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…in Sarajevo–but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport,” Hedges wrote. His account, coolly factual yet full of passionate intensity, was written not for his own paper but for Harper’s Magazine, which sent Hedges to Gaza on his vacation." The Nation, March 11, 2002

 

[St.James]

***Five children get up in the morning and leave home for school. Dressed in their school uniforms, carrying a school bag in which is a pencil-case, they cross an open field at the end of their neighborhood, not far from their house. Suddenly there is a huge explosion. All five are killed. ***

At first the circumstances are not clear. Maybe the Israelis were shelling the area - the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit in the area fired from tanks a few days earlier, wounding a mother and her two children. Maybe some ammunition fell, maybe it was a land mine.

***Israel isn’t claiming it was a so-called “work accident” - a terrorist blowing himself up while arming a bomb - because the dead are children. Nor can Israel claim that the victims were on their way to perpetrate a terrorist attack, as the IDF usually does without anyone being able to check it out. ***Then the picture becomes clearer - the five children were apparently killed by a bomb left at the site by the IDF. At first the IDF spokesman declines to comment, even though it’s pretty obvious the IDF knows very well what caused the death of the children. The horrific pictures are screened around the world.

A state places explosive charges where children are likely to pass and then claims that only the other side practices terrorism? We have to admit that an act of this kind can be considered an act of terrorism, because it strikes at the innocent and doesn’t discriminate between the victims, even if the intention was not to kill children and even if the goal was the war on terrorism. (On the way to school, By Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz, 11/26/2001).

 

[Jeffrey]

It doesn’t…he just seems to like to spew Anti-Semetic rants.

gilliam:

Then those cases need to be investigated and the guilty parties punished. If Israel is not doing that, it is to their condemnation.

How does that excuse the PA from blowing up buses?

 

[Jeffrey]

If a PA or Muslim mowed down a room full of Christians/Catholics or Jews…he’d be a hero. The PA would just rather use children as bombs.
St. James:

Oh I have, and there is evidence of much more. You won’t find it on Fox News though.

Yes, that “system” is called mock trials. In most cases it never even reaches that level, only when public outcry cannot be ignored.

Orthodox Jew, Baruch Goldstein, who entered a mosque with a machine gun and massacred 29 Muslims as they prayed is regarded as a hero in the Israeli state.

Always the double standard.

 

[St.James]

A group of Israeli soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip have reportedly admitted killing a 15-year-old Palestinian in Khan Yunus for sport.

According to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronoth, the incident took place in March when a group of newly graduated soldiers were on a hike near the town of Khan Yunus.

According to the report, an undisclosed number of Givati brigade soldiers shot and killed Khalid Sulaiman Mahdi while he was working with his father on their farm.

The boy’s father, Sulaiman Mahdi, told the paper the killing was “just for the sake of it”.

“Seven bullets pierced my son’s head, so you can’t talk here about a mistake or random gunfire. This was an act of direct and clear sharp shooting,” he said.

“The area is wide open and contains nothing special. The only thing unusual was the shooting at us, which killed my son.”

No threat

The father, Khalid, and two other sons were working in the family’s field when the shooting occurred.

According to soldiers interviewed by Yediot Ahronoth, there were no operational purposes for the shooting and no justification, since the boy and his family posed no threat to the soldiers.

An Israeli army spokesman said the army had investigated the incident, but admitted that no arrests were made.

The spokesman refused to say why the soldiers concerned were not arrested or prosecuted.

Sulaiman Mahdi, who leads a simple farmer’s life, said he did not plan to sue the Israeli army for his son’s murder.

“I only hope the Israeli army takes care such a thing doesn’t occur again. There are lots of children here who work with their parents and I hope Khalid will be the last casualty.”

Frequent occurrence

According to human-rights groups operating in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation army has killed hundreds of Palestinian minors, often without justification, in the course of its incursions into Palestinian population centres.

The killing of innocent Palestinians by the Israeli army during the past four years has reached a worryingly frequent level, say the rights groups.

“I don’t have the slightest doubt that it is a rampant phenomenon,” says Basim Eid, a former field researcher for the Israeli human-rights group, BTselem and head of the East Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group.

“The Israeli army is no longer an army that abides by military ethics.”

Show trials

In an interview with Aljazeera.net, Eid accused the Israeli army of “inspiring soldiers to commit these abominable acts of sheer murder”.

“The army top brass has given every indication that soldiers who commit murder will be immune from serious prosecution, and even if they are prosecuted, it won’t be a big deal.”

Eid said investigations carried out by the army were only for show, and to appease international public opinion.

“I don’t think they carry out genuine investigations in these killings,” he said.

“They only put up a show and usually after the press and human-rights groups have exposed a given crime.”

Last month, BTselem accused the Israeli army of covering up crimes against innocent Palestinians.

The army rejects the charges.

Khalid Amayreh, 8 December 2004

 

[Lisa_N]

So St James your only defense of the PA is “those other people do it too?” Since when does an argument become defensible by pointing to the sins of others? Shoot my mom saw through that one when I was nine years old.

What is your real objective here? I think you clearly have an agenda and I suspect the best thing to do with you is ignore you but I guess I’m curious why you don’t simply state your case instead of carefully selecting stories that tend to make the Israelis look like a bunch of thugs. Sure some of them are probably total goons but again they aren’t routinely sending l6 year old girls into a market to blow up other 16 year old girls.

Some of the supposed deaths of children have been staged as was the famous photo that supposedly showed some man holding a dead or dying child. Turned out to be a total hoax. I’m afraid your sources aren’t all that credible. Herratz is the most left leaning newspaper in Israel. Got that right from the horse’s mouth FWIW, a real live Israeli, living in Israel. It’s like assuming everyone in America sees the world through the lens of the New York Times.

Good luck in your quest. So far I don’t see you changing any minds but keep trying. There may be someone here who falls for this tactic.
Lisa N

 

[St.James]

Lisa N:

So St James your only defense of the PA is “those other people do it too?”

The topic of this thread is not the PA, as much as some people have attempted to frame the discussion that way.

The topic of this thread is the children killed by the Israeli military.

And I’d appreciate if you didn’t put words in my mouth.