-Caveat Lector-
actually it was pretty clear that the kids were either playing with it, or
stepped on it, and it was a unexploded shell.
the big mistake was not in reference to that shell but a mine that killed
two in a different spot where snipers hang out
where's the article about the 3 killed and 50 wounded on an Israeli bus
today?
--
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up
and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
Sir Winston Churchill
NEURONAUTIC INSTITUTE on-line: http://home.earthlink.net/~thew
> From: Agent Smiley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: Conspiracy Theory Research List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 14:59:59 -0800
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [CTRL] Suffer Palestine's Children
>
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> http://www.counterpunch.org/
>
> November 27, 2001
>
> Suffer Palestine's Children
> By Sunil K. Sharma
>
> Early in the morning of November 22, five Palestinian
> children were blown to pieces by an Israeli mine or
> bomb as they headed to school in Khan Younis. The
> children were 6 to 14 years-of-age, all from the Al
> Astel family. It is unclear if the explosion was set
> off by the children tripping over or kicking the
> device, or via remote control.
>
> The next day, a senior Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)
> official was quoted on Israel Radio as saying "a big
> mistake was done." The officer admitted an undercover
> army unit planted the device "in the area," yet evaded
> any explanation as to why it was planted in the
> vicinity of a school. Yesterday, the IDF issued its
> first official statement regarding the killings. An
> IDF investigation revealed serious flaws in the
> planting and operation of the ordnance. Following the
> usual script, the IDF feigned "sorrow over the deaths
> of five children." The IDF claims the device was
> planted in an area used by Palestinians to fire
> mortars at nearby Israeli colonial settlements and
> army positions. Israel Radio quoted IDF officials as
> saying the "device was meant to remain well hidden and
> was to be set off when the Palestinian shooters
> returned to the area." (quoting Ha'aretz, 11/25/01)
>
> Israeli opposition leader MK Yossi Sarid of Meretz,
> responding to IDF claims that their recent operations
> in Khan Younis were designed to prevent Palestinian
> attacks, stated: "That's a targeted hit? Do you know
> who will pass by the area [where the bomb is planted]?
> It's a residential area. What kind of bombs do you
> place in an area where school children pass by?"
> (Ha'aretz, 11/24/01)
>
> MK Ran Cohen (Meretz) has called for a Knesset
> committee to investigate the incident, expressing
> dismay that the IDF sat quietly for two days before
> putting out an official statement that amounts to
> little more than a cover-up.
>
> MK Uri Ariel (National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu)
> disagreed, stating that IDF investigations take time
> because they are thorough. "I have faith in the IDF,"
> he stated. "[Ariel] said that the army was is in the
> throes of the battle in the territories, and was busy
> assassinating Mahmoud Abu Hanoud [of Hamas] and so
> could not concentrate solely on the investigation that
> Cohen demanded." (Ha'aretz, 11/25/01)
>
> In other words: we were too busy trying to assassinate
> a Palestinian leader to investigate our killing of
> Palestinian children, but now that we've taken a
> five-minute breather from our assassination campaign
> we can conclude from our thorough investigation that a
> regretful mistake was made. Sorry kids, we'll try to
> do a better job of killing the right folks next time.
>
> The Israelis have not condemned the killings, though
> some officials say an apology might perhaps be in
> order.
>
> According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, the
> total number of Palestinians killed since the second
> Intifada erupted on September 29, 2000 is 821. 16,661
> Palestinians have been injured, many maimed for life.
> Palestinian children under the age of 18 represent
> about 1/4 of those killed.
>
> The Israeli military's killing of Palestinian children
> is not a sometimes accidental by-product of 34 years
> of occupation. It is in fact a matter of deliberate
> policy.
>
> In a chilling interview conducted by Ha'aretz
> correspondent Amira Hass, an IDF sharpshooter admitted
> it was IDF policy to shoot at children above the age
> of 12. Here is an excerpt [AH = Hass, IS =
> Sharpshooter]:
>
> (AH) You haven't shot children.
>
> (IS) "All the sharpshooters haven't shot children."
>
> (AH) But nonetheless there are children who were hit,
> wounded or killed after they were hit in the head.
> Unless these were mistakes.
>
> (IS) "If they were children, they were mistakes."
>
> (AH) Do they talk about this?
>
> (IS) "They talk to us about this a lot. They forbid us
> to shoot at children."
>
> (AH) How do they say this?
>
> (IS) "You don't shoot a child who is 12 or younger."
>
> (AH) That is, a child of 12 or older is allowed?
>
> (IS) "Twelve and up is allowed. He's not a child any
> more, he's already after his bar mitzvah. Something
> like that."
>
> (AH) Thirteen is bar mitzvah age.
>
> (IS) "Twelve and up, you're allowed to shoot. That's
> what they tell us."
>
> (AH) Again: Twelve and up you're allowed to shoot
> children.
>
> (IS) "Because this already doesn't look to me like a
> child by definition, even though in the United States
> a child can be 23."
>
> (AH) Under international law, a child is defined as
> someone
> up to the age of 18.
>
> (IS) "Up until 18 is a child?"
>
> (AH) So, according to the IDF, it is 12?
>
> (IS) "According to what the IDF says to its soldiers.
> I don't know if this is what the IDF says to the
> media."
>
> (AH) And children are from 12 down. Is there no order
> that between 12 and 18 you shoot at the legs and not
> the head?
>
> (IS) "Of course we try to see to it that he really is
> over
> 20."
>
> (AH) In the 10 seconds that you have.
>
> (IS) "In the 10 seconds that I have, I have to
> estimate how old he is."
>
> (AH) And in what direction the wind is blowing, and
> the deviation here and there, and which way he'll jump
> the next moment.
>
> (IS) "Yes, but there are hardly any mistakes by
> sharpshooters. The mistakes are made by people who
> aren't sharpshooters."
>
> (AH) And it turns out that they happen to hit the
> children's heads, and all this is just by chance?
>
> (IS) "If you say you have seen children that have been
> hit in the head a lot, then it is sharpshooters."
>
> (AH) So what you're saying is that our definition of
> children is different.
>
> (IS) "Your definition is different."
>
> (AH) Because for you it's someone who is 12.
>
> (IS) "Yes."
>
> (AH) But a child of 13 doesn't bear arms, no matter
> what you call him, a boy or a teenager or an adult.
>
> (IS) "He isn't holding a gun but a firebomb, and in
> certain places it is possible also to fire on people
> who throw firebombs."
>
> ["Don't shoot till you can see they're over the age of
> 12," Ha'aretz, November 20, 2000]
>
> In another article, Hass reported that a group of
> Western diplomats traveling from Jerusalem to Ramallah
> witnessed Israeli troops fire live ammunition at a
> group of stone-throwing Palestinian children, "even
> though the children were too far to pose a risk to the
> soldiers." "The diplomats say that shots were fired
> even though a long line of civilian cars were
> traveling past the children at the time." "[One of the
> diplomats] says that he saw a second soldier in the
> observation tower clapping and raising his hands as if
> in victory after his colleague fired at the children."
> ["Envoys say they saw IDF fire at children." Ha'aretz,
> July 26, 2001]
>
> In a damning indictment of Israeli military
> criminality and pathology, New York Times Middle East
> Bureau chief Chris Hedges writes: "Yesterday at this
> spot the Israelis shot eight young men, six of whom
> were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve. This
> afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy, Ali Murad,
> and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under
> eighteen. 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 and watched them crumple
> onto the pavement in Sarajevo-but I have never before
> watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap
> and murder them for sport." ["Gaza Diary: Scenes from
> the Palestinian Uprising," Harper's Magazine, October
> 2001]
>
>
> In a report released last week, B'Tselem, the leading
> Israeli human rights organization, blasted what it
> called a "shallow and superficial" Israeli army
> investigation into the shooting death of an
> eleven-year-old Palestinian boy, Khalil al-Mughrabi.
>
> On July 7, Khalil and twenty to thirty other children
> played soccer in the Yubneh Refugee Camp, in Rafah,
> near the Egyptian border. After they finished playing,
> the children sat on some mounds of sand near the
> border fence. Suddenly, Khalil's head burst into parts
> from a bullet fired by an Israeli soldier in a nearby
> observation post. The soldiers proceeded to unleash
> "intense fire" on the other children. Ibrahim Abu
> Susin, 10, and Suleiman Abu Rijal, 12, were badly
> wounded.
>
> B'Tselem concludes: "An eleven-year-old child was
> killed and two children were injured for no reason.
> However, the army failed to open any investigation
> against the soldiers responsible, even though all the
> army officials involved in the review of the incident
> clearly knew that the soldiers had used lethal weapons
> when their lives were not in jeopardy and had violated
> army regulations."
>
> B'Tselem notes that despite the deaths of hundreds of
> Palestinian civilians since the Intifada broke out,
> "the Military Police only opened some twenty
> investigation files relating to the illegal use of
> weapons. In none of the cases were indictments filed."
> The report goes on to say that, "Over the years,
> B'Tselem has received hundreds of letters from the
> Judge Advocate General's office regarding events in
> which Palestinians were killed, injured, or beaten by
> soldiers. In some of the cases, Military Police
> investigations were opened, and in some, the Judge
> Advocate General's office only conducted an internal
> investigation. Most of the replies that B'Tselem
> received state that the soldiers acted properly and
> that no action was taken against the soldiers
> involved." ["Whitewash: The Office of the Judge
> Advocate General's Examination of the Death of Khalil
> al-Mughrabi, 11, on 7 July 2001," B,Tselem, 11/13/01]
>
> Given the well known history of the Israeli military's
> farcical self "investigations," don't hold your breath
> for an honest accounting of the killing of the five
> children in Khan Younis.
>
> The message Israeli troops receive from the lack of
> serious investigation into and punishment for military
> criminality is clear: you can murder civilians -- even
> little children -- for no reason at all, and you can
> do it with impunity.
>
> True to form, the US has also refused to condemn its
> client's murderous actions.
>
> US State Department spokesman Philip Reeker expressed
> "regret" over the latest killing of Palestinian
> children, saying the incident served as a "strong
> reminder" of the consequences of the ongoing violence.
> "The United States deeply regrets the tragic
> accidental deaths of five Palestinian children . . .
> when they came in contact with unexploded ordnance. It
> was a terrible tragedy. We understand that the Israeli
> army has begun an investigation into the circumstances
> of these deaths and we expect that investigation will
> thoroughly determine what happened. This incident...
> is a strong reminder of why both sides should do all
> they can to end the violence, reduce tensions and
> resume negotiations," he added.
>
> And so it goes, the children of Palestine suffer, the
> occupation continues, Israeli state terrorism
> accelerates and the best that the Palestinians can
> expect from the US by way of Colin Powell is a PR
> performance that does nothing in substance to pressure
> our Israeli client from desisting. Instead, the US
> puts the burden of responsibility for "ending the
> violence" squarely on the Palestinians, while calling
> for an end to the Intifada, an uprising (however
> flawed) that is both a reaction to Israel's brutal
> occupation and the Palestinian Authority's corruption,
> incompetence and selling out of the cause.
>
> To steal a quip from Palestinian writer Sam Bahour, US
> statements are "equivalent to that of a policeman
> walking past a rape victim, still pinned under her
> assailant, and verbally scolding both parties by
> advising them to work out their differences."
>
> Israel has little to fear that its continuing rampages
> through the occupied Palestinian territories and the
> latest incident of child killings will jeopardize the
> staggering $3-5 billion of military and economic "aid"
> it receives from the US annually. Nor should Israel
> fear that America's vaunted "War on Terror" will
> extend to them. It's simply a matter of whose side you
> are on.
>
> Our tax dollars at work as they say. And still we
> wonder why the US is the object of anger and
> resentment to many around the world.
>
> Given the overwhelming US military, economic and
> diplomatic support for Israel, the moral imperative is
> on us to end our government's decisive role in
> Israel's ongoing colonial conquest and occupation of
> Palestinian lands and its people. CP
>
> Sunil Sharma is a musician, writer and activist based
> in Northern California. He is the editor of Dissident
> Voice, a semi-regular newsletter "dedicated to
> challenging the lies of the corporate press and the
> privileged classes it serves." He can be contacted at
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
> =====
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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> http://www.webcom.com/%7epinknoiz/covert/seberg.html
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