Posted on 05/03/2002 6:05:14 AM PDT by tomahawk
Human Rights Watch: No massacre in Jenin camp
By The Jerusalem Post Internet Staff
IDF troops did not carry out a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp, the international Human Rights Watch organization has announced following it's investigation of the recent events.
According to the HRW report, Palestinian gunmen endangered the lives of local residents by preparing and setting explosive devices inside the refugee camp.
Armed Palestinians also utilized the camp area in order to plan terror attacks, the report determined.
During interviews with Human Rights Watch researchers, local Palestinian residents of the refugee camp did not claim IDF carried out a massacre....
The organization's chief investigator told Israel Radio that Human Rights Watch intends to publish a separate report on Palestinian suicide attacks on Israeli civilian targets - a phenomenon that he termed a crime against humanity.
The report will also investigate the involvement of sovereign nations in the preparation and execution of Palestinian suicide attacks.
He seems to think Serbia's actions should have fallen under the same veil of "internal civil conflict into which we cannot possibly intervene" which covers nations like Rwanda and Israel (for wholly different reasons, of course).
Perhaps he was taking a page from Israel and the United States and looking at the human life "in proportion".
1 Palestinian killed is a massacre, one innocent Jew killed by a homicide bomber is a reason to celebrate.
May I nominate this for quote of the day?
I'd love to see that film with the bereaved, grieving Palis in the funeral procession, then them running away alongside the "dear departed".
BTW, isn't it interesting how the pali-loving demonrats of a few months ago are now falling over themselves to prolaim support for Israel? They must be getting some interesting polling results these days.
Yes, and one of the big 'ifs' of our times will be "what if Al Gore had won the election?" That must give at least some Democrats pause.
Handling his own defense, you know. The US's attempts to broker deals with war criminals to help del Ponte coast to a World Court Cup Victory has got him hopping.
Looking at lives "in proportion"? Absolutely.
How have you missed that bit of salesmanship by which it's driven home to Americans the "real toll" of suicide bombings in Israel as if the horror that is indiscriminately terrorizing and taking of innocent, civilian human lives weren't sufficiently appalling on its face?
I believe one Israeli life counts for somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple thousand American lives. If I'm not mistaken, there was an article on the phenomenon recently.
It's a trial-attorney sort of world, I'm afraid.
Yes, and one of the big 'ifs' of our times will be "what if Al Gore had won the election?" That must give at least some Democrats pause.
Too horrible to contemplate...
Isn't that an unjustly cynical interpretation and condemnation of what they have said? I have yet to see such a suggestion at all. All I have seen is reference to population numbers not value of individual lives lost.
Referencing the proportional impact of x number of lives lost between countries is a very far cry from saying one life is worth more than another. The first is a legitimate statement on the impact upon a population, the latter is immoral.
One has to be paranoid at best to disregard face-value and extrapolate such a sinister message from a legitimate statistical observation.
Perhaps when we make a practice of doing it for all nations the victims of terrorists or massacre, this statistical practice the press employs for Israel won't jump out at me so.
To be honest, I can't recall a foreign tragedy's ever being "brought home" thus though it might have made for some impressive statistics if we'd applied this legitimate statistical analysis to places like Rwanda, Iraq or Tibet.
I'll see if I can't find you the article which got my attention. Regards.
The organization's chief investigator told Israel Radio that Human Rights Watch intends to publish a separate report on Palestinian suicide attacks on Israeli civilian targets - a phenomenon that he termed a crime against humanity.
The report will also investigate the involvement of sovereign nations in the preparation and execution of Palestinian suicide attacks.
It's about freaking time! When did they all of this sudden decide to be fair and balanced?
"Human Rights Watch also documented cases in which Israeli troops used Palestinian civilians as human shields, a practice prohibited under international humanitarian law. In one case, IDF soldiers forced eight civilians to shield them by making them stand on a balcony while the soldiers fired at Palestinian gunmen. Kamal Tawalba and his fourteen-year-old son were among them. Tawalba described how the soldiers kept them for three hours in the line of fire, and used his and his son's shoulders to rest their rifles as they fired."
To me this is a new despicable low for the IDF thugs. This is something a criminal might do to effect a get-away. Do our "allies" in the IDF truly reflect our Western, democratic values?
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