The Last Exile

As events have started to unfold it appears more and more likely the Israeli narrative is closest to what actually happened. The Israeli narrative goes as follows – Lt Col Avital Leibovich:

Lt Col Avital Leibovich of the IDF told Just Journalism in a conference call consisting of bloggers and journalists:

‘The incident itself took place on Israeli territory, in some places along the northern border. There is some gap between the border fence itself and the actual border. Our troops were conducting routine maintenance work that included, among other things, clearing bushes from that area.

‘In 2006, we had some soldiers that were kidnapped in a similar area [where shrubbery provided cover for kidnappers]. This maintenance job was coordinated with UNIFIL. It was routine, there was nothing unique. The LAF decided in a very provocative manner to initiate fire toward our forces. This is a strict and clear violation of UN Resolution 1701. We retaliated with artillery and helicopter fire, now we are checking at the deeper, intelligence level if it was pre-planned attack from the Lebanese army. We put the responsibility on the Lebanese Armed Forces.’

Leibovich also said that while there is some evidence that Hezbollah has infiltrated the ranks of the LAF, she could not at this point state with certainty if the Islamist party had any hand in today’s violence.

When asked about the LAF’s claim that its forces first fired into the air, then at Israeli troops, Leibovich responded that it was not the Israeli maintenance crew itself that was first targeted by gunfire, but rather a gathering of senior IDF commanders who were standing nearby, a clear sign, she maintained, of a Lebanese ‘provocation’.

The IDF has released a map of the border area at the site of today’s skirmish clearly showing the Blue line, the border of Israel, the Israeli fence and the area of where Israeli troops were located.

Ha’aretz is now reporting UNIFIL confirms 2 key facts. The IDF was well within the Israeli side of the Blue Line when the Lebanese army attack and UNIFIL did receive notitifcation of the Israeli maintenance which it duly passed on to the Lebanese Army.

Milos Strugar, UNIFIL’s senior political adviser said that the IDF had “informed UNIFIL that it was going to conduct maintenance works” on the border, adding that while the Israeli unit had been “on the northern side of the border fence,” it was nonetheless “south of the international borderline.”

However, the UNIFIL official added that the information he had was “preliminary,” adding that he will look into the evidence “more thoroughly” later in the day.
“The situation became tense right away, with the Lebanon army also being there,” Strugar said, adding that UNIFIL forces had tried “to calm the situation and allow the IDF to work.”

Asserting the IDF’s claim that it had informed the Lebanese side of the planned border works, Strugar said that UNIFIL had received a message from the IDF “regarding these works, and we had passed that on to the Lebanese army.”

Ha’aretz is also carrying a report suggesting the Lebanese officer who gave the command to fire was a ‘lone’ wacko wolf.

Israel Defense Forces analysts believe that the Lebanese sniper fire at the Israel-Lebanon border on Tuesday, which killed Lt. Col. Dov Harari and seriously wounded Captain Ezra Lakia, was in fact an ambush planned by a Lebanese officer who was encouraged by his commanders.

Israel Defense Forces analysts believe that the Lebanese sniper fire at the Israel-Lebanon border on Tuesday, which killed Lt. Col. Dov Harari and seriously wounded Captain Ezra Lakia, was in fact an ambush planned by a Lebanese officer who was encouraged by his commanders. The exchange of fire began when Israeli soldiers approached the border in order to trim some bushes that had grown along the fence. The operation had been coordinated in advance with UNIFIL, which in turn informed the Lebanese army.

As in previous cases of such Israeli activity, the Lebanese army deployed soldiers to the area. After a round of yelling, unanswered by the Israeli troops, Lebanese snipers opened deliberate fire at the IDF observation post several hundred meters into Israel, the IDF said. Harari and Lakia had manned the observation post, and both sustained serious gunfire wounds.

According to information gathered by the IDF, the sniper fire was ordered by a commanding officer within the Lebanese army. The IDF has found no indication that the officer received an order to open fire, and believe that the decision was his alone. However, it is known that the particular officer was influenced by inciting remarks against Israel made by the top commanders of the Lebanese army in the recent past.

I’d be willing to accept the whole lone wacko wolf scenario except something still  really reeks. It turns out there was just happened to be a Reuters photographer on hand to witness the Lebanese side of the exchange wherein the soldiers were given the order to attack. Although, that still doesn’t distract from the lone wolf wacko scenario except….take a good look at where the Blue helmets are standing and ask yourself what is UNIFIL’s role? Acting as cover or shields while the Lebanese army snipers attack an Israeli officer well within the the border of Israel does not strike me as within the terms of their mandate. In fact, I would suggest these blue helmets have seriously compromised the mission they were tasked in carrying out.

The Israeli government needs to seek a very public explanation from the UNIFIL command.

My grandfather used to use this expression all the time. Its’ been a personal favourite of my daughter for years. He use to say it to reinforce that even if there are negative repercussions for a doing a good deed one should always be govern one’s choices or actions on what is right rather than what is rewarded or praised. He believed in a turn for a turn principle and deeply believed that eventually matters would balance out in the end. I, on the other hand, am much more cynical about human nature.

I have to give credit to the anti-Zionist crowd because they never fail to miss an opportunity or a good deed to exploit a blood libel. And Wow. Just wow. This has to be heard to believed.

I have no idea how long this will be up and running, but perhaps, there is no rush as Blood Libels against Jews are really traditional – even ancient.

I was going to blog on why I would not be supporting Geert Wilders and on the mounting number of pedestrian deaths in Toronto – and maybe I will later – but I woke up late and went to read Ynet News over coffee.

 Ynet News:

WASHINGTON – Even when Israel puts itself on the front lines of medical and humanitarian aid sent to the ends of the earth and wins great praise for its professionalism in doing so, there are those who prefer to transform the act into an opportunity to spread hatred and lies at the expense of those suffering in Haiti.

(,,,)The man, who calls himself T. West, fronts a group called AfriSynergy Productions, whose declared goal is to empower the black man. The video purports to present something to think about while exploiting the horrible tragedy that has befallen Haiti to recycle false claims that IDF soldiers engage in organ trafficking. he bizarre host of the video collected praises broadcast on television channels regarding the advanced equipment and treatment the Israeli teams are providing in Haiti. After about a minute and a half of such praise, the man looks straight into the camera and made the claim that there are people operating in Haiti who do not have a conscience and are members of the search-and-rescue teams, including, he claimed, the IDF.

The man repeated the false claims that the IDF stole organs in the past from Palestinians and others. He asserted that there is very little oversight during such tragedies, and that the Haitian people must look out for their fellow citizens to protect them against international medical groups who arrived in the country “for the money.” He claimed that some people were looking to make money off the tragedy. In a conversation with Ynet, the man explained his beliefs behind the hate-filled statements he made. “I don’t have anything against Israel. I have a lot against the ideology of Zionism,” he explained. “We saw what you did in South Africa and with the Palestinians. Because of our history and the suffering of our people, I understand what the Palestinians are going through.” According to him, he is taking action “to promote positive change among Afro-Americans and in Africa.

All I can do is answer – Am Yisrael Chai!

Since this is my morning of hate I thought showcase the toxic diversity of modern anti-Semitism. The first comes via You Tube (h/tip Elder of Ziyon) and for context I will quote the introductory blurb from the site as an introduction:

On 1st December 2009, there was a pro-Israel rally outside the Palestine Solidarity Campaign ‘Christmas concert’ at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church on Tuesday December 1st, starting at 6pm.

British Anti-Semitism

And a Merry Christmas to you John Sullivan.

The second comes from the Ukraine courtesy of Ha’aretz:

Stories appearing on several Ukrainian Web sites claim Israel has brought around some 25,000 Ukrainian children into the country over the past two years in order to harvest their organs.

The claim, which was made by a Ukrainian philosophy professor and author at a pseudo-academic conference in Kiev five days ago, is the latest expression of a wave of anti-Semitism in the country. It comes a few months after a Swedish tabloid ran an article alleging that Israel Defense Forces soldiers have killed Palestinian civilians for their organs.

Jews, Israel and anti-Semitism have become a major motif of the presidential election campaign in Ukraine, with some figures making anti-Semitic statements and others condemning them. Some candidates, including a Jew and someone whose rivals claim is Jewish, blame a third rival – Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko – for bringing anti-Semitism into the race.

“Ukraine’s political system is a parody of democracy,” Russia’s Chief Rabbi, Berel Lazar, said.

Vyacheslav Gudin told the estimated 300 attendees of the Kiev conference a detailed story about a Ukrainian man’s fruitless search for 15 children who had been adopted in Israel. The children, Gudin said, had clearly been taken by Israeli medical centers, where they were used for “spare parts.” Gudin said it was essential that all Ukrainians be made aware of the genocide Israel was perpetrating.

The conference, some of whose participants belong to a Slavic-rights movement, also featured two professors who presented a book blaming “the Zionists” for the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s as well as the country’s current condition.

Ah, yes, the old blood libel dressed up courtesy of Ukrainian academics. What in the world would we do without Ukrainian academics? And then, finally Jewish Israel points me to the more modern version of anti-Semitism which plays on the theme – we love you even as we hate you and pervert your symbols. For those not in the know – this tune uses the Israeli national anthem – the Hatikvah or The Hope to rewrite and deliver its toxic message. Here is a short English translation of the Hatikvah.

As long as in the heart, within,
A Jewish soul still yearns,
And onward, towards the ends of the east,
An eye still gazes toward Zion;

Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free people in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

Keep those words in mind as we roll to the video produced by the Westboro Baptist Church.

I think my hate is done for the morning.

Currently in Israel there is a debate concerning the funding of Non-governmental organizations which receive the bulk of their funding from foreign government bodies. These organizations have very little oversight and seem simply to exist to smear and tarnish the Israeli state internationally. A prime example of one such organization’s handiwork is found in this Arutz Sheva article on B’Tselem ongoing shennigans:

A left-wing Israeli civil rights group accuses Israel of killing an Arab about whom it is “not known” if he took part in fighting Israel. Hamas, on the other hand, says the terrorist was killed when the bomb he was carrying blew up.

Arab affairs correspondent Yehonatan Dehoah-HaLevy, writing for the News-1 Hebrew-language website, has found further proof of his thesis that “not everyting B’Tselem reports must be believed.” He writes that the organization continues to blame Israel for the death of Iyad Lafi Yusuf Al-Ahres, and that the death came about for no apparent reason.

B’Tselem classified the death of Al-Ahres under the heading “Palestinians killed by Israeli forces and it is not known whether they took part in the fighting against Israel.” The entry states only that Al-Ahres, a resident of Rafah [on the Gaza-Egypt border] was killed on October 16, 2001 in Rafah when a bomb went off, and that he was an assassination target.

HaLevy says that information available on the Hamas website for at least six years totally negates this, yet B’Tselem continues to blame Israel. The Hamas site states that Al-Ahres had a long history of firing mortar shells at Israeli targets, and that he was killed when one of the shells he was preparing for this purpose detonated in his hands.

HaLevy notes that B’Tselem neglected to mention the fact that Al-Ahres was a member of the Al-Kassam terrorist wing of Hamas, and that he had been involved in no fewer than 19 shelling attacks in the months before his death – including one the day before he was killed.

Al-Ahres is documented as having fired 18 mortar shells in seven attacks at the now-destroyed Jewish town of Rafiah Yam in southern Gush Katif, and 20 shells in 11 attacks at nearby Morag. All the attacks occurred in the 4.5 months prior to his death.

Obviously, just another good-time Ysuf out for a good old fashioned fun on the Gaza Strip but don’t think these organizations are going to go off quietly in the corner and mourn the passing of their foreign gravy trains. In fact, some are threatening to spear head an international campaign to boycott Israeli hospitals and universities. Ha’aretz:

As the Israeli government steps up efforts to limit foreign funding for human rights group, an Israeli peace organization sent a letter to European diplomatic missions in Israel this week urging them to tell Israel that legislative action against NGOs may threaten the budget of universities, hospitals and other non-profit organizations.

The government has sought to limit the activity of Breaking the Silence, an organization that has published a damning report of the IDF’s conduct during last winter’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

In the letter, Gush Shalom told the diplomats that “the discriminatory blocking of European government funding to a specific group of legal and legitimate NGOs may well result in a public backlash in the EU, which would force your government to cut all funding to Israeli NGOs, including to universities and hospitals.”

Of course, the Breaking the Silence report, much like the Rabin Academy report from last spring was literally the last blood libel of the IDF the Israeli government was going to tolerate. CAMERA has more on the Breaking the Silence organization and the fruits of their latest blood libel.:

The article attempts to bolster Breaking the Silence’s allegation that Israel is guilty of war crimes by using Palestinian human shields. Opening with a first person account of a Palestinian who alleges he was used as a human shield by Israeli soldiers, Wood claims that “this same incident was described by one of the Israeli soldiers who spoke to Breaking the Silence.” He suggests that because similar allegations were made by someone purporting to be an Israeli soldier who served there (although this is not independently verifiable) , they must be true. He explains:

Until now, the Israeli army always had a ready answer to allegations that war crimes were committed during its offensive in Gaza. Such claims were, they said, Palestinian propaganda. Now, though, the accusations of abuse are being made by Israeli soldiers.

The problem is, however, that this testimony was not based on the soldier’s first-hand experience, but on what was told to him by others. And, in fact, this story has been refuted by the officer of the Golani Brigade who said that a probe of that brigade’s conduct during the war found that no such incidents had occurred.

But the BBC staff has apparently decided to promote the Breaking the Silence narrative without thoroughly probing the testimony.

A lead story on BBC’s World Service news (July 16) featured anchor Dan Damon similarly championing Breaking the Silence’s report. When Israeli spokesman Mark Regev questioned the credibility of the testimony, pointing out that the report “doesn’t even meet the most basic standards of tabloid journalism,” Damon reacted with outrage and attempted to defend the validity of the report, concluding:

Now you can, I suppose, say ‘well we’ve got no evidence, there’s no journalistic integrity here’, but people will believe that these are real testimonies from real soldiers.

Other British outlets similarly promoted the report as truth.

And don’t even get me started on Peace Now.

Back during the Operation Cast Lead there were many reports of the IDF specifically targeting mosques. This had a frighteningly predictable result – cries of ‘war crimes, tisk, tisk’ from the usual human rights for everyone but Jews crowd. The IDF issued report after report of gunmen either using the mosques for cover to launch attacks from or the use of the mosque as an ammo dump for bombs but nary a word or outrage for Hamas’ flagrant abuse of a ‘religious’ holy place as cover for a factory of death.

So today, I offer this report of a mosque being used not only as a storage dump for bombs but as a bomb making facility – and not in the Hamas occupied Gaza Strip but in the heart of the Palestinian Authority. Arutz Sheva:

IsraelNN.com) Hamas terrorists in Kalkilya built a large supply of bombs and stored them in a local mosque without raising suspicion from local Palestinian Authority armed forces who represent the rival Fatah faction. However, the terrorists were out of luck on Wednesday, Passover eve, when a simple electric shortage gave away their plans.

The shortage caused a small fire in the mosque, bringing PA forces to the building, where they found bombs ready for use and large cannisters of bomb-making materials. The mosque was closed down, and PA sappers removed the explosives.

The bombs were then turned over to the IDF, which sent experts to detonate the weapons in a controlled explosion. A captain in the PA forces told Israeli journalists that the mosque had been used to both produce and store the bombs. “It was a huge weapons lab,” he said. Four people have been arrested in connection to the incident, he said, two of them members of Hamas and two “everyday citizens.”

Charming, absolutely charming.

Guess which newspaper could possibly wind up in court? Again.
Arutz Sheva:

(IsraelNN.com) Forty-six IDF reservists who fought in Operation Cast Lead in Gaza have sent a letter to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz asking him to investigate the Hebrew-language daily Haaretz for slander. The reservists have accused the paper of publishing serious accusations against IDF soldiers without taking the time to examine the claims.

Haaretz published testimony from two reservists who fought in Gaza who claimed to have witnessed war crimes, including the shooting of an innocent woman and her children. However, after the claims had gained worldwide media coverage, the two clarified that they had not witnessed the incidents in question, but rather had heard about them from others.

No eyewitnesses to the alleged incidents were found and an IDF investigation revealed that the woman and children who were supposedly shot had actually been redirected and sent unharmed away from the scene of battle.

“Professional journalism should include clarifying whether those making serious accusations were eyewitnesses or not before publication,” the reservists wrote. “Unfortunately, it turns out that Haaretz did not conduct even the most minimal fact check before publishing these false accusations.”

The soldiers clarified that they are not against the publication of articles criticizing IDF actions or policies. “We believe that public discourse is critical to our society… We believe that whenever soldiers are found to have violated orders or behaved immorally, in Cast Lead or any other operation, the problem should be given public exposure and dealt with,” they wrote. “However, this does not justify or permit the serious and sweeping accusations against IDF combat soldiers as a group as they appeared in Haaretz,” the letter continued.

I cannot think of a more deserving newspaper for a lawsuit than Ha’aretz.

Late last week Dr. Dawg wrote blog post called The Liberation of Gaza based on unsubstantiated accounts reported from the Israeli daily Ha’aretz alleging Israeli combat soldiers had admitted to witnessing war crimes committed in Gaza. The Ha’aretz account went viral in less than 24 hours and found its way in almost all the large international dailies. Here’s a portion of the Ha’aretz report concerning an alleged ‘eyewitness’ account which Dawg also partially quotes as well.

Ram: “I serve in an operations company in the Givati Brigade. After we’d gone into the first houses, there was a house with a family inside. Entry was relatively calm. We didn’t open fire, we just yelled at everyone to come down. We put them in a room and then left the house and entered it from a different lot. A few days after we went in, there was an order to release the family. They had set up positions upstairs. There was a sharpshooters’ position on the roof. The platoon commander let the family go and told them to go to the right. One mother and her two children didn’t understand and went to the left, but they forgot to tell the sharpshooter on the roof they had let them go, and it was was okay and he should hold his fire and he … he did what he was supposed to, like he was following his orders.”

Question from the audience: “At what range was this?”

Ram: “Between 100 and 200 meters, something like that. They had also came out of the house that he was on the roof of, they had advanced a bit and suddenly he saw then, people moving around in an area where they were forbidden to move around. I don’t think he felt too bad about it, because after all, as far as he was concerned, he did his job according to the orders he was given. And the atmosphere in general, from what I understood from most of my men who I talked to … I don’t know how to describe it …. The lives of Palestinians, let’s say, is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers. So as far as they are concerned they can justify it that way.”

Yuval Friedman (chief instructor at the Rabin program): “Wasn’t there a standing order to request permission to open fire?”

Ram: “No. It exists, beyond a certain line. The idea is that you are afraid that they are going to escape from you. If a terrorist is approaching and he is too close, he could blow up the house or something like that.”

Zamir: “After a killing like that, by mistake, do they do some sort of investigation in the IDF? Do they look into how they could have corrected it?”

Ram: “They haven’t come from the Military Police’s investigative unit yet. There hasn’t been any … For all incidents, there are individual investigations and general examinations, of all of the conduct of the war. But they haven’t focused on this specifically.”

What the good Dawg hadn’t realized was Israeli Channel 2 reporter Roni Daniel managed to track down one of the two soldiers quoted extensively in the Ha’aretz article the evening after the Ha’aretz article was published. The report aired on Israeli television that same night.

I waded into the comments and wrote this at the good Dawg’s blog and wrote this:

Sometimes I really wish you would take a pause before you give into your often overwhelimg compulsions to cast stones at Israeli Jews. If you had you might have learned Israeli TV Channel 2 correspondent Roni Daniel has already tracked down one of the two soldier’s Ha’aretz based their report on. Turns out he was witness to much ado about nothing. Channel 2 is looking for the other. The report ran last night on Israeli television.

The soldier who described the shooting of a woman and her two children was called into his commanding officer and stated, “I didn’t see it myself. There were stories like this. I wasn’t in that house and all that I said was based on rumors. The conference (where I related the story) was a social conversation, and that’s how I related to it.” The soldier who described the shooting of an elderly woman admits he doesn’t know the full story. “The credibility of the two stories is very doubtful,” the correspondent concluded. (Israel Television Channel 2-Hebrew)

Was there IDF soldier misconduct? Probably, there has been no war I have ever read/heard about when some kind of misconduct wasn’t present at some point. Was it widespread or systematic – I sincerely doubt it.

But more importantly, while you remain so critical of IDF rules of engagement, how about a post on Hamas rules of engagement – for balance’s sake

Dawg’s response:

“Cast stones at Israeli Jews?” Good grief, I didn’t start this. I quoted an Israeli newspaper, referenced in the Toronto Star.

I guess if I mouthed off in a military setting and then found my name plastered all over the evening news, I might do some backpedaling too.

We’re promised more accounts. I’ll be watching with my normally critical eye.

I cannot speak for the Israeli soldier quoted above or even for Dr. Dawg (although he alludes to potentially backpedaling) but if I had mouthed off about witnessing a war crime you couldn’t get me to back pedal or back down in a million years or three universes. Of course, I would have followed the military code of justice at the time and reported the incident as per the demands of military code of justice but that’s just me.

Yesterday, the Jerusalem Post carried this article:

Allegations that IDF soldiers deliberately shot and killed Palestinian civilians in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead have been found to be categorically untrue in official army investigations, an IDF source told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

The source spoke on condition of anonymity because the results of the investigations have not yet been officially released to the public. He stressed, however, that the investigations were close to completion.

The investigations examined claims made by graduates of the Rabin Pre-military Academy during a conference held last month, which were later written up and printed in an academy pamphlet. Some Israeli media outlets, including Haaretz, then seized on the claims, and the allegations went on to make headlines around the world. During the conference, one soldier claimed a marksman opened fire on a mother and two of her children, in full knowledge that they were civilians, after a squadron commander told them to walk into a no-entry zone. “All of the soldiers who were involved in the conference were questioned – not as a punishment – but in order to understand whether they had witnessed these things. From all of the testimonies we collected, we can safely conclude that the soldiers who made the claims did not witness the events they describe,” the source said.

“All of it was based on rumors. In the incident of the alleged shooting of the mother and her children, what really happened was that a marksman fired a warning shot to let them know that they were entering a no-entry zone. The shot was not even fired in their general direction,” the source said.

“The marksman’s commander ran up the stairs of a Palestinian home, got up on the roof, and asked the marksman why he shot at the civilians. The marksman said he did not fire on the civilians. But the soldiers on the first floor of that house heard the commander’s question being shouted. And from that point, the rumor began to spread,” the source added. “We can say with absolute certainty that the marksman did not fire on the woman and her children. Later, the company commander spoke with the marksman and his commander. We know with certainty that this incident never took place,” he said.

CAMERA has translated the latest Ma’ariv account

The brigade commander’s findings were reported in the Israeli newspaper Maariv, in a story titled IDF Investigation Refutes the Testimonies About Gaza Killings. According to the story (translation by CAMERA):

Two central incidents that came up in the testimony, which Danny Zamir, the head of the Rabin pre-military academy presented to Chief of Staff Gaby Ashkenazi, focus on one infantry brigade. The brigade’s commander today will present to Brigadier General Eyal Eisenberg, commander of the Gaza division, the findings of his personal investigation about the matter which he undertook in the last few days, and after approval, he will present his findings to the head of the Southern Command, Major General Yoav Gallant.

Regarding the incident in which it was claimed that a sniper fired at a Palestinian woman and her two daughters, the brigade commander’s investigation cites the sniper: “I saw the woman and her daughters and I shot warning shots. The section commander came up to the roof and shouted at me, ?Why did you shoot at them.’ I explained that I did not shoot at them, but I fired warning shots.”

Officers from the brigade surmise that fighters that stayed in the bottom floor of the Palestinian house thought that he hit them, and from here the rumor that a sniper killed a mother and her two daughters spread.

CAMERA is also hosting the Roni Daniel interview with English subtitles as well as giving a little background on Danny Zamir, the head of the Rabin pre-miliary academy which hosted the forum where the soldiers shared their recall of Operation Cast Lead.

Caroline Glick’s Our World column carried a little more background on the forum where the soldier’s shared their experiences and how their ‘stories’ came to see the light of day in Ha’aretz:

Last month Zamir organized a conference of his former cadets who are now serving in IDF combat units. There, he encouraged these young soldiers to tell him and their war stories. In what can only be compared to a Communist group confessional, Zamir told Channel 10 that young soldiers were encouraged to view their actions in Gaza as immoral. A number of them accepted the terms of debate and described purportedly immoral acts they alleged were carried out in Gaza. In most cases, Zamir’s soldiers acknowledged that they were not present on the scenes in the events they described.

These included killing Palestinian women and children who entered fire zones and behaving in an unfriendly manner to Palestinian civilians whose homes the soldiers commandeered during the operation. Others characterized ethical, legal standing orders – such as the requirement for soldiers to value their lives and the lives of their comrades more highly than the lives of terror suspects – as immoral or illegal.

Zamir claims that he took these non-eyewitness accounts to the IDF and asked that they be investigated. Since he refused to provide the names of the soldiers involved in the alleged incidents and his eyewitness accounts were from soldiers who had not witnessed the accounts, the IDF officers he spoke with said they would have a hard time investigating.

UNHAPPY WITH THIS response, Zamir published the unsubstantiated accounts in his school’s bulletin and gave the bulletin to two far-left reporters – Ofer Shelach from Channel 10 and Amos Harel from Ha’aretz.

In an act of unmitigated journalistic malpractice, on Friday night Shelach presented the unattributed testimonials as first-person accounts. He used actors to read out the soldiers’ statements as if they were the soldiers themselves, and never told his audience that the voices they were hearing were not the voices of the actual soldiers. Then, he attacked the IDF for refusing to take these accounts seriously and for having the nerve to note that the Rabin pre-military academy is a known leftist institution. He of course didn’t mention that Zamir himself served a prison sentence for refusing orders or that as recently as 2004 he contributed to a book explaining why the IDF is an immoral army.

As for Harel, he published the soldiers’ statements in Ha’aretz. He then wrote an “analysis” arguing that the IDF cannot discount the statements by these anonymous voices because, in his view, the soldiers have “no reason” to lie. The fact that they present no evidence of their claims is apparently of no importance.
Now by presenting these second hand accounts of battles as fact; by presenting Zamir as a credible and objective observer; and by instructing the IDF to be ashamed of itself and mend its ways, Shelach and Harel are certainly atoning for their “sin” of supporting the army in Operation Cast Lead. Perhaps for them, that was all this was about.

The Jerusalem Post also carried this little blurb Danny Zamir, the pre-military academy head who arranged the forum and supplied Ha’aretz with the ‘testimony’:

Mr. Zamir has a record. As a parachute company commander in 1990, he was tried and sentenced for 28 days in prison for refusing to stand guard over people whom he called “right-wingers” at a ceremony bringing Torah scrolls to Joseph’s tomb in Nablus, then under IDF supervision.

In 2004 Zamir published a crie de coeur relating to his refusal to obey military orders, in the process of which he attacked the IDF and denied that Israel was a democratic state. This appeared in a book titled Refusenik: Israel’s Soldiers of Conscience, which carried an endorsement by the icon of anti-Israeli academics, Noam Chomsky.

Let the full implications of this sink in for a moment – Danny Zamir, a parachute company commander in the IDF – refused an order to protect Israeli Jews conducting a religious ceremony at Joseph’s Tomb. And he calls himself an Israeli soldier of conscience. I don’t think I know a word in English which adequately describes the gross dereliction of humanity this act constitutes. What does it tell us about the nature of any pre-military academy who would hire such a man as their head?

In the coming days – possibly as soon as tomorrow, the IDF will release their full report and I suspect every single story of Danny Zamir’s staged managed forum will be presented as false, and if not absolutely false, the events reported will have found to be taken completely out of context. In a fair world or a just world, the international media, who was so quick to condemn the IDF for these allegations would be just as quick to exonerate the IDF of all such allegations.

In a fair or just world, the dawgs of the world would pause, and take a minute to pen their apologies. But this isn’t a fair or just world, and dawgs of the world would no more admit their quick condemnation were the result of their own prejudices and biases against the Israeli state motivated by their extreme apathy towards religious Jews in all forms.

The dawgs of the world wanted the Ha’aretz accounts to be true because it affirms their false beliefs and prejudices, and so, they will suspense all caution to the wind and primed their pens with bile and to hell with those who are smeared in the process.

They wanted it to be true, because they felt it was true in their heart, because a Jewish state represents all which they loathe, and therefore, should be a pariah state among the community of nations. Not for a minute do they believe a Jewish state should be allowed to exist, and what they would grant to any other group of people; they will not grant to the Jews. So they write and post these allegations as if it was unquestionably true. At no point, did they acknowledge accounts were coming to the surface which should require an objective thinker to take these accounts with a grain of salt.

Dr. Dawg claims he will be watching with his normally critical eye. This is code for dawgspeak which means; I will backpedal or reject any evidence which directly contradictions or challenges any evidence which does not support the bias written in my heart.

The Jerusalem Post ended their report with a quote from the IDF source:

“Unfortunately, due to competition, sections of the press picked up this story and ran with it. It is a shame the media promoted this sort of spin all over the world,” he added. It is unlikely the damage to Israel’s image from the allegations can be repaired, irrespective of the results of the investigation, he noted. “It is a shame that the media allowed Palestinian manipulations to spread,” he said. “Look at the allegation that we killed 48 civilians in a UN school in Gaza. In reality, seven people were killed, and four to five of them were terrorists. The UN apologized, but the damage is done,” the source said.

Oh, dear, I think Dr. Dawg posted on that UN school incident as well…. I’m sure there is a follow-up – or probably not.

I will end with this quote from Rebbe Nachman of Breslov which I found at A Simple Jew:

When a person writes he puts his soul into his writing. Therefore, by looking at a person’s writing the true tzaddik can know about a person’s soul, his soul’s inner essence, his emuna, and the root of his emuna.

I make no claims of being a tzaddik or even make a pretension of standing as a righteous woman but I suspect Rebbe Nachman might have given us all a little bit of wisdom to follow about those who do stand and write among us.