Israeli Soldiers Interviewed: Told To Shoot To Kill... Everyone

Would love to hear the Zionist excuses. Begin...

Zionist???


Too often, when it comes to reporting on Israel and the Palestinians, unverified “eyewitnesses” or unnamed sources are a feature of media stories, especially those that impact negatively on Israel.
And so it is with a story concerning the Breaking the Silence organization, which has published a collection of soldiers’ testimonies about last year’s Gaza war. It is covered widely by international media outlets, including CNN, BBC, NPR, The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald, The Independent (links one and two), Financial Times (click via Google News), and the London Review of Books (by radical left-wing Israeli Professor Neve Gordon). Reuters, for example, writes:
Israel inflicted “massive and unprecedented harm” to Palestinian civilians in the 2014 Gaza war with indiscriminate fire and lax rules of engagement, a report said on Monday, citing testimony given anonymously by dozens of troops.

The 237-page report by the Israeli advocacy group Breaking the Silence described how Israel Defence Forces (IDF) left swathes of devastation after they invaded Gaza last July with the stated aim of halting Hamas rocket fire out of the enclave.

“We were firing purposelessly all day long. Hamas was nowhere to be seen,” one tank sergeant was quoted as saying.

The group said its finding cast “grave doubt on the IDF’s ethics”.But what about the warped journalistic ethics behind the reporting of this story? Clearly the Breaking the Silence story is based entirely on anonymous testimonies. In essence, the media are using Breaking the Silence as a middleman to avoid due diligence on the sources.
Breaking the Silence’s report doesn’t meet the accepted standards that journalists themselves apply to their own reports.
And what about questioning the motivations behind Breaking the Silence? As journalist Jake Wallis Simons recounted back in 2013 when he conducted interviews with BtS staff:
It was only a hunch at first. But later, the bias of the organisation became clearer. During a break between interviews, I asked Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of the organisation, how the group is funded. It was with some surprise that I learned that 45 per cent of it is donated by European countries, including Norway and Spain, and the European Union. Other donors include UNICEF, Christian Aid and Oxfam GB. To me this seemed potentially problematic.

As is the case in all democracies, the IDF is an organ of the state, not a political decision-maker. If the goal of Breaking the Silence was simply to clean up the Israeli military, it wouldn’t be such a problem. Instead, the aim is to “end the occupation”, and on this basis it secured its funding.

It appeared, therefore, that these former soldiers, some of whom draw salaries from Breaking the Silence, were motivated by financial and political concerns to further a pro-Palestinian agenda. They weren’t merely telling the truth about their experiences. They were under pressure to perform.

Indeed, I later discovered that there have been many allegations in the past that members of the organisation either fabricated or exaggerated their testimonies.NGO Monitor also notes the foreign government and NGO donations that funded Breaking the Silence’s latest publication and exposes:
Contrary to BtS’ claim that “the contents and opinions in this booklet do not express the position of the funders,” NGO Monitor research reveals that a number of funders made their grants conditional on the NGO obtaining a minimum number of negative “testimonies.” This contradicts BtS’ declarations and thus turns it into an organization that represents its foreign donors’ interest, severely damaging the NGO’s reliability and its ability to analyze complicated combat situations.You can read NGO Monitor’s initial analysis of the Breaking the Silence publication here, which highlights some serious flaws.
But this hasn’t stopped the media from relying on anonymous testimonies to affirm Israeli guilt. As HonestReporting has previously noted concerning anonymous sources, a lack of transparency raises doubts about the quality of the journalism and trust in the reporter. It’s a leap of faith.
In this latest case, journalistic ethics appear to be secondary.

http://honestreporting.com/breaking-the-silence-a-middleman-for-anonymous-sources/

Also whilst you digesting the above, tell me what intent a rocket has fired at Israel?

Is it a war crime?

Also whilst you are pondering that, explain to me why Hamas builds no bomb shelters for the Palestinians?

Explain why they glorify terrorists?

Glorify Martydom?

Teach their children to hate the Jews?

Do you condemn any of this?

Also maybe you can explain the following:


Israel left Gaza, so why are they continuing war?

No wall would have been built if not they had decided to continue a war committing terrorist acts in Israel, the wall being so successful, it has prevented these attacks.

3 times the Palestinians could have had a state, 3 times they have rejected this.

Normally a nation which is attacked in the past and takes lands off aggressors is able to cede that land to their nation. Well when it is was Israel resolution 242 was introduced to deny this. Israel said they would accept this and make peace with Egypt, Jordan and Syria and what did the PLO do? Reject it flat out.

(i) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; (ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_242


So the only reason for the PLO to reject this, is because they will not accept or recognize the state of Israel.

would like to add also, when Gaza and the West Bank was under both Egyptian and Jordanian control the PLO never called for the liberation of these areas, what it called for was for Israel to be taken and ethnically cleansed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_National_Covenant


Once you see the history of this conflict the same pattern appears, where it is clear the intent is never to accept or recogise Israel. No matter if Arafat fooled the world, of which even his own people stated he lied.

So what is Israel to do against such naked hate and aggression?

What is Israel to do? They withdrew from the Sinai, Lebanon and Gaza and the only contention now is settlements in parts of the West Bank. So Israel can certainly do more, but is it ever going to be enough? At present clearly not, because it has to happen both ways for peace to happen, which is clear to me Hamas and Fatah have no intention for peace. The more civilians die, they hope Israel can be weakened to the extent they are over run and then what will be looking at?

Another genocide?

paliwood leaps to mind...

Nemesis wrote:
........................................

It is covered widely by international media outlets, including CNN, BBC, NPR, The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald, The Independent (links one and two), Financial Times (click via Google News), and the London Review of Books (by radical left-wing Israeli Professor Neve Gordon). Reuters, for example, writes:
Israel inflicted “massive and unprecedented harm” to Palestinian civilians in the 2014 Gaza war with indiscriminate fire and lax rules of engagement, a report said on Monday, citing testimony given anonymously by dozens of troops.

........................................

NOT ONLY are 6 out of 10 of those news media sources you name there Right Wing (4 of them extremely so..);

Ruppert Murdoch [proprietor of a couple of those titles..] is a long time supporter of Israel, and it's Zionist governments..

SO, WHERE'S that "left wing bias" this time, that you so often complain about, Didgeri' ?

can terrorists explosives be set to not kill, do they show any care or remorse for whom ever they kill in their random blasts, hijacks etc.

On May 4, 2015, Breaking the Silence, a small Israeli non-governmental organisation, published anonymous allegations from Israel Defence Forces soldiers who are said to have fought in Gaza during summer 2014, purporting to "close the yawning gaps between what the IDF and government spokespersons told the public about the combat scenarios, and the reality described by the soldiers …" While there are many problems with the claims, many journalists, including from Australia, repeated the accusation of a few disgruntled Israelis, without any verification. This, despite the failure of this organisation to provide basic details necessary for corroborating claims made in this publication. 
Naming sources is a basic prerequisite for making legal claims, allowing accounts to be verified and witnesses to be questioned. Dates must be provided and locations cited to understand the broader context in which events were alleged to have taken place. Without this information, we are left with a radical political agenda that exploits the language of international law.
In the 200-plus pages of "testimony", mostly from low-ranking soldiers, the names and the units in which they served are left unidentified. Similarly absent are dates of the alleged events, making verification by competent authorities impossible. In the very difficult war between Israelis soldiers and Hamas-led terror cells in Gaza firing missiles from houses, mosques, schools (as recently documented in a rare UN report), and hospitals, context is indispensable.
The lack of details prevents any understanding of these alleged incidents. There is no way to verify the accuracy of the testimonies nor is it possible to view these events in the broader context of the extreme difficulty of defending Israeli citizens from thousands of Palestinian rocket and terror attacks – each one a war crime.

Breaking the Silence's "methodology" to obtain the "testimonies" is also highly problematic. Many of the statements include very leading questions asked by interviewers, often constructed so as to elicit answers that falsely magnify the appearance of wrongdoing. In contrast, the absence of questions that would provide greater context, clarification or justification for certain actions, is striking. 
Moreover, much of the framing of these "testimonies" enhances their politicised nature such as the use of misleading titling. In one instance, a soldier's statement carried the sensationalist header: "I really, really wanted to shoot her in the knees," but the text, for those who read it, describes the young Israeli's fear that an approaching woman was sent by Hamas and could potentially be carrying explosives that would kill him and his friends. IDF soldiers in Gaza have been targeted by suicide bombers, including women, making the fear of such an attack credible.
The deceiving headline also hides the essential fact that the soldiers fired near her feet, scaring her off and successfully resolving the situation in a non-lethal manner.
By not publishing key information, the organisation is expecting readers – in Israel, but primarily abroad, including Australia, to blindly trust it and to suspect no agenda other than the documentation of valid complaints by soldiers. However, as shown by NGO Monitor's systematic research, there are also important financial dimensions. Breaking the Silence receives substantial funding from radical Europeans, who link their donations to the number of statements that are collected. The Dutch church organisation ICCO demanded at least 90 incriminating interviews, while Oxfam (which claims to promote a humanitarian agenda) linked funding directly with the provision of "as many interviews as possible" regarding "immoral activities". These arrangements highlight the clear financial interest in presenting as many negative testimonies as possible.
Indeed, the failure to examine the motivations and history of the donors to this tiny group is of major importance. These funders are involved in anti-Israel activities from Ireland, Britain and the Netherlands and have actively supported, funded and partnered with organisations promoting boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) targeting the Jewish state. The funders are clearly interested in portraying the actions of IDF soldiers as criminal and callous, thereby hoping to pave the way for prosecutions targeting Israel at the International Criminal Court. This is an extension of the long Arab-Israeli wars by other means.
Of course no army is perfect, and some soldiers may have legitimate complaints. But as in any democratic society, this must be done through legal and administrative processes, and not by garnering headlines in the foreign media. Given the obsession with Israel, the deep hostility, and the large sums that are available, particularly to NGOs that join in this form of modern warfare, consumers of such publications, including journalists and government officials, should exercise caution and a healthy degree of skepticism.

Professor Steinberg is president of NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research institute, and professor of political studies at Bar Ilan University. 


http://www.smh.com.au/comment/publication-of-israeli-soldiers-accounts-clouded-by-political-agenda-20150508-ggxmaa.html

IDF soldiers refute allegations of Breaking the Silence:

I'm flooded with messages from  IDF soldiers and officers. Not long after "Breaking the Silence" published the testimonies of IDF soldiers who fought in Operation Protective Edge , I was approached by the same soldiers and officers in every way possible: phone, messaging, Whatsapp and even through email. Everyone sent a clear message, "They stuck a knife in our back with a malicious plot", as a tank officer with the rank of lieutenant wrote me. They vehemently deny the evidence disseminated by Breaking the Silence and expose cases that prove their claims, as well as the difficult feelings.

It is important to mention that all interviews in the article were made ​​independently and not through the filter of the army, and not in cooperation with the IDF spokesman.

Lt. Oren (a pseudonym) was a platoon commander in the 7th Brigade during the Gaza war. In one of the testimonies of Breaking the Silence, one argued that, "They just chose [a house] – the tank commander said, “Just pick the farthest one, so it does the most damage.” Revenge of sorts. So we fired at one of the houses. Really you just see a block of houses in front of you, so the distance doesn’t really matter.. "Lt. Oren says he knows the event personally, and even took part in his capacity.

He said, "This is an event about late Levitas (Captain Dimitri Levitas), which is simply not true. I have personally seen his body and we were frazzled. But even then we maintained our military ethics. It is true we did heavy firing, but we fired at the source of fire or suspicious places, all in accordance with the procedure and we followed a very strict identification procedure. Understand what I'm saying: our commander was killed, a friend, and we kept shooting according to appropriate procedures. This nonsense of shooting at the house because we want revenge is just a blatant lie. I can not believe that one of us said anything like that, certainly not someone who was there. "

He said commanders in the field use very precise intelligence information referring to almost any home. They know where the majority of the tunnels are, where there are no civilians is no less important, all shells shot only after a proper procedure they have been practicing for a long time before the operation. "Before and after the operation, we emphasized to the officers and soldiers the importance of accurate shooting, to identify the target of not shoot innocent people. More than that, Lotan brigade commander (Col. Nadav Lotan) still talking about even during every minute of a respite. Even then to the soldiers and commanders, he kept saying, 'Be sure to be careful and accurate so as not to shoot innocent people. "

He also revealed, "I can tell you about the two cases we were able to target what we suspected was a dispatcher, and we desisted for fear of hitting innocent people. One of them turned out to be a dispatcher for sure that hid near civilians."

In a conversation with the then battalion commander, an officer who was then a lieutenant colonel told me that "we had a crazy amount of intelligence. We double checked, and verified the verification," the officer told me. He also said during the waiting time before they would enter the Gaza Strip, "the fighters already studied the importance of accuracy and injury prevention against the innocent." According to him, this is an issue that many officers also emphasized to the soldiers during the fighting.

"Almost all the shooting got my approval and, if not mine then the officer in charge. All of our entrances to areas were made after we announced to them (citizens) with messages from planes, phones and what not. Now give me one example in history, one of the Army in announcing to its enemy where he plans to act and what to do. It is a scene bordering on madness. "

The officer said, "So as not to hurt innocent civilians, we informed them what we're going to do. That's how, by the way, the guys of Hamas could manage their fighting much better. They knew where we worked and where not, and then they could send the their fighters to the right place, you know what I mean?" he asked angrily and assessed that this  conduct cost lives and wounded.

An infantry soldier testified, "In some places they called and told us we should not shoot.They were saying we were permitted to return fire only if we identify the enemy in the eye, and clearly. Conditions were very intense and some of us took it poorly, as if our lives are worth less than the Gazan with AK. But I can say we even understood this. Besides, that's the difference between us and a coward terrorist who fires behind the back of a woman or a child. "

His fury was not really hidden, he added, "then these people come and tell me we fired freely. Bullshit, I bet that they did not speak with a single real fighter in Protective Edge". He also revealed that in one of the skirmishes they did not receive permission to shoot artillery fire, because of the proximity of the source of Hamas's shooting to civilians. He said, "We were under fire and my squad commander ordered artillery support, a conversation I heard with my own ears. Any approval of artillery had to be done twice, ...I remember that under a real source of fire in a specific location. We waited a long time until we have received assistance and it was precise fire from the Air Force. "


Another soldier talked with me as well, a sergeant, reacted to the issue of Hamas lookouts, as mentioned in testimonies of Breaking the Silence, which said the IDF fired there on unarmed women who with phones. [BTS: "They were two young women walking in the orchard. The commander asked to confirm, “What do you see,” and whether they were incriminated or not. It was during daytime, around 11:00 AM, or noon. The lookouts couldn’t see well so the commander sent a drone up to look from above, and the drone implicated them. It saw them with phones, talking, walking. They directed fire there, on those girls, and they were killed. After they were implicated, I had a feeling it was bullshit.]

A paratroop officer told me that Hamas often used women and children to alert their men of where to fired at IDF forces. He says he personally witnessed such a case:"A woman with a child came very close to our position and really you see how she points to our positions . You see how she talks on the phone and after a moment passed, we started taking sniper fire and mortars." He noted you are allowed to shoot such observers but not freely, there are procedures that must be adhered to, and in this case by the time they finished the procedures she was gone.

According to him and other respondents, there were dozens of cases in which women and children were sent with phones to locate the positions of the army, which of course caused terrorist organizations to open fire. It cost the lives of soldiers. "So there were cases where we fired in such circumstances, and it is absolutely legal becaue this is a real threat to life. But there were many cases of doubt where nobody opened fire," said the lieutentant colonel we spoke with.

"I have no problem with people on our side who want to repair the world and be angels",  a paratrooper told us, "but that's not the case. We went to war against a terrorist organization  and specifically those we went to defend, are betraying us. It's really a betrayal. I read the evidence where it seemed like they were describing another war, I was there and that's just not true. What they did is to make our blood worthless, really, and it is unbelievable. "

Oren, an officer in the armored units, said, "We feel this report is very difficult. They made us into war criminals while we, we left to protect them, we were the only ones operating in morality and maintained the purity of arms. This is something that is impressed upon us from the start, not to mention in the command courses, and yet they come against us. I do not believe in protecting these people. I am in favor of investigating properly. I was upset about what was published, some people looted money, it was great that the IDF investigated and stopped them. But to accuse us of systemically acting against civilians, as if we freely fired, it's just a shame and betrayal of Israeli soldiers. "

Another interviewee is Air Force fighter pilot who took part in a Protective edge and Pillar of Defense. He said many attacks were canceled because of proximity to civilians and had difficult personal feelings from the publication of Breaking the Silence. "They claimed that there was active heavy fire as part of the policy. And I ask, what exactly do you expect? That our soldiers would enter into an area that wasn't made safe? And I tell you that this happened in some cases. In the testimonies I read they said fired at houses before entering and turn on heavy fire in neighborhoods, They say it's part of the IDF's destruction policies and I can tell you that it is nonsense. I personally witnessed the military's efforts to evacuate civilians from a place where we attack, I saw a lot of activities that do not reveal how  UAVs are used to confirm that no civilians are there right up to the moment you press the button. "

The pilot indicates that for him, the report of Breaking the Silence "is not intended to fix anything. Apparently it's part of our self-flagellation. They use columns of Gideon Levy, people who were not in war rooms and don't see what we are doing to preserve the purity of weapons. Or they fabricated their evidence, or somebody gave them information from frustration and to take revenge, I do not know. What I do know is that they hurt us, a very deep trauma. I can say that personally these things, these plots are disturbing to me. These things cost us and stay forever, components of a false and cruel blood libel that is part of their DNA.

"Breaking the Silence" responded by saying that nothing in the new testimonies contradicted their claims, and that the case of the shelling of the 7th Brigade in memory of a soldier killed, the claim was examined and it is not the same case referred to by what they published. The testimony above shows that some of the women and children who are listed as "civilians" killed - even according to the Meir Amit Center - were in fact acting as spotters for terrorists and were legal targets under the laws of armed conflict.

It also shows that, shamefully, the IDF accepts casualties in its own soldiers in order to avoid even the appearance of being too reckless with the lives of its enemies.

That is a real scandal, and one that no NGO would ever get funding to document.


http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.il/2015/05/idf-soldiers-refute-allegations-of.html#.VU9odPCkOt_