In This Issue:
• Extraordinary Admission: Palestinian UN rep admits Hamas war crimes
• UN Watch Post Goes Viral: “Are you pro human rights, or just anti-Israel?”
• Col. Richard Kemp: “IDF is the most moral army in the history of warfare”
News Update: Israel has just launched a ground incursion against Hamas in Gaza, following the terrorist group’s firing of 1500 rockets in 10 days against millions of civilians in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and numerous other cities and towns across the country.
The operation will focus on destroying rocket launchers and the vast network of tunnels that Hamas built with humanitarian-purpose cement in order to launch spectacular terrorist attacks, such as yesterday’s attempt by 13 terrorists, defeated by the IDF, to perpetrate what President Shimon Peres said would have been wholesale slaughter in Kibbutz Sufa.
Meanwhile, earlier today, UN sources in Geneva reported that the Arab and Islamic blocs, with the vocal support of groups like Human Rights Watch, are planning to convene a special session of the Human Rights Council next week that would condemn Israel, but not Hamas, for alleged human rights violations.
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Extraordinary Admission: Palestinian UN rep admits Hamas war crimes
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“Each and every” Palestinian missile now being launched against Israeli civilian centers constitutes “a crime against humanity”;
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That, by contrast, Israel’s own response actions in Gaza “followed the legal procedures” because, as Hamas admitted on TV, “the Israelis warned them to evacuate their homes before the bombardment”;
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But, “as for the missiles launched from our side, we never warn anyone about where these missiles are about to fall or about the operations we carry out.”
The UN Watch post below on Facebook has been liked and shared by more than 20,000 people, a record figure for UN Watch, making it go viral worldwide on the Internet. Click here to share it on Facebook.
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Col. Richard Kemp: “IDF is the most moral army in the history of warfare”
As the UN Human Rights Council is set to orchestrate yet another grossly one-sided special session that will turn a blind eye to Hamas aggression—the firing of 1,497 rockets against Israeli civilians in 10 days—the following 2009 speech by British Col. Richard Kemp is a timely reminder of how international humanitarian law is often distorted concerning Israel.
UN Watch Statement, delivered by Colonel Richard Kemp
UN Human Rights Council,12th Special Session, 16 October 2009
Debate on the Goldstone Report:
Thank you, Mr. President. I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee.
Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.
Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.
The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.
The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy’s hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.
Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.
More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’ way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.
Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets.
And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Thank you, Mr. President.