"Human Shields" -- no one's hands are clean on this!

[theHandpuppet]

Let me preface this post by saying this is a transplanted response of mine from another thread. I decided to combine the two posts I made there into a new thread because if I hear one more time that only Hezbollah or Muslims use civilians as human shields as a rationalization for what is happening in Lebanon, I swear I'm going to blow a gasket!!!! No one's hands are clean here, people. Not ours, not the Israelis, not those of Hezbollah! So stop with the rationalizing and holier-than-thou excuses and stop this furkin' bloody madness. PEACE NOW!

I started off with this response to a poster who claimed Israel, unlike Hezbollah, has never used civilians as human shields:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5212870.stm

Israelis accused of 'human shields' tactic
By Lucy Williamson
BBC News, Gaza

The Israeli army has been accused of using Palestinian civilians as human shields in an operation in northern Gaza.
According to the Israeli human rights group, B'tselem, six civilians including two minors were subjected to the illegal tactic during an incursion into the town of Beit Hanoun last week.

(snipping)
It's a week since Israel came into Beit Hanoun, but the gash in the side of his house is still raw, the soft inside of family life still visible through the lumps of concrete hanging from the wall. A broken bed; a few girders dripping onto it; an elegant wardrobe still standing against the back wall.

It was soon after dawn when the Israeli army bulldozed their way in. Hazem was still sleeping, taking a break from his job as an engineer with the local Palestinian news agency.

'Blindfolded'

It was his mother who met them in the hallway, Israeli soldiers in a Palestinian home. Behind her, Hazem and his two brothers emerged, one by one.

The three brothers were blindfolded, says Hazem, and their hands tied behind their backs. He shows me the wounds on his wrists from the plastic handcuffs - still sore and infected, but beginning to heal over.

He shows me where the soldiers positioned them: outside the entrance to his flat on the third floor, in the stairwell, facing down the steps...

MORE

This is the start of the second post I made on this topic

Let's take this excerpt:

"According to the Israeli human rights group, B'tselem, six civilians including two minors were subjected to the illegal tactic during an incursion into the town of Beit Hanoun last week." Okay, so these Israelis are liars?

Another excerpt
Court outlawed tactic

"Allegations over Israel's use of human shields have surfaced before. The last time they made headlines was during Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank town of Jenin, four years ago.

"The army denied its personnel systematically used civilians as human shields during that operation, but it did issue an order outlawing the practice. As did the Israeli High Court." (Note the Israeli army didn't deny using the tactic, they just denied using it "systematically". )''

You want more links? Here one to B'TSELEM, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

http://www.btselem.org/english/Human_Shields/20060720_H...

20 July 2006: Israeli Soldiers use civilians as Human Shields in Beit Hanun

B'Tselem's initial investigation indicates that, during an incursion by Israeli forces into Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip, on 17 July 2006, soldiers seized control of two buildings in the town and used residents as human shield.

After seizing control of the buildings, the soldiers held six residents, two of them minors, on the staircases of the two buildings, at the entrance to rooms in which the soldiers positioned themselves, for some twelve hours. During this time, there were intense exchanges of gunfire between the soldiers and armed Palestinians. The soldiers also demanded that one of the occupants walk in front of them during a search of all the apartments in one of the buildings, after which they released her.... MORE

Or how about this one? And please note the date - 2002.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0817-05.htm

Published on Saturday, August 17, 2002 in the Chicago Tribune
'Human Shield' Flap Hurts Israel
Rights Groups Vow Court Filing to Stop Incursion Practice
by Christine Spolar

(excerpt)
"Rights groups are also concerned by the army's use of Palestinian civilians.

"On Wednesday, Israeli forces destroyed the home of Nasser Jerar, who the army said was planning a bombing attack. In that operation, troops forced 19-year-old Nidal Daraghmeh at gunpoint to approach the building before it was bulldozed to persuade any civilians inside to leave, army officials said.

"Even though he was given a bulletproof vest and soldiers announced his presence, Daraghmeh was fatally shot in the head as he approached the house, local media reported.

"The Israeli army has said Daraghmeh was hit by gunfire from the house. Palestinians accuse the army of killing the young man.

"Jerar was crushed to death as bulldozers razed the house.

"Practice called routine

"The army, throughout the West Bank incursions, has relied on forcing Palestinians to help with its armed raids. This spring, Palestinian bystanders in cities such as Jenin and Nablus told reporters that such incidents were routine."

Or how about this one? The evidence here is presented by the author, who served as an Israeli infantry reservist in the West Bank in the 1980s and '90s

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/21/news/edwatz.php

(excerpts)

Human shields or bulldozers? Or neither?
Haim Watzman The New York Times
Published: June 21, 2006

JERUSALEM Nine months ago, Israel's Supreme Court forbade the Israeli Army to use civilians as human shields when it raided houses to arrest Palestinian combatants. Last week, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the consequence of the ruling has actually been to place Palestinian civilians in greater danger. Instead of soldiers entering houses to find their targets, the army is using bulldozers to knock the houses down...

... "We used Palestinian civilians for other tasks as well. If we discovered that the boys in the village had jury-rigged a roadblock during the night, we'd grab some nearby civilians and order them to dismantle it. This was partly an act of collective punishment, but there was also a safety factor. If the roadblock was booby-trapped, they'd get hurt instead of us.

"I always felt queasy about using civilians to protect us. It didn't seem to me that we had the right to put someone else's life in danger to protect our own. I voiced my reservations on occasion, but nothing changed. Sometime during the years that followed, the pointer and roadblock clearers evolved into something even more questionable: the human shield. Soldiers who had to raid a house or patrol a dangerous stretch of road would grab a nearby civilian and place him in front of them.

"The routine became much more widespread in April 2002, when Israel reoccupied the West Bank in response to a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings and other acts of violence against Israeli civilians...."

Or this one? The Israelis have been doing this FOR YEARS.

Posted 10/6/2005 7:28 AM
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-10-06-israelhum...

Israel court bans practice of 'human shields' in arrests

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's Supreme Court on Thursday banned the military's practice of using Palestinian civilians as "human shields" in arrest raids, saying it violates international law.

The ruling was a rare instance in which the court took a stand in Israel's conflict with the Palestinians. The Supreme Court has often deferred to security arguments despite international condemnation of some Israeli practices. It has upheld practices such as targeted killings of Palestinian militants.

Human rights groups filed the petition in May 2002 in response to the army's use of Palestinian civilians in dozens of West Bank arrest operations. In August 2002, the court issued a temporary injunction against the practice. Human rights groups have said the military has repeatedly violated the ban since then.... MORE

Or how about this one?

Rights group on Jenin: Massacre, no; human shields, yes

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/05/03/rights.w... /
May 4, 2002 Posted: 3:12 PM EDT (1912 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Israeli troops used Palestinian civilians as human shields and forced them to participate in dangerous military operations during the Israel sweep through a refugee camp in Jenin last month, according to a report released Friday by Human Rights Watch.

But the group's investigators found no evidence that Israeli troops massacred Palestinian civilians in Jenin, as some Palestinian officials had earlier charged.

"The abuses we documented in Jenin are extremely serious, and in some cases appear to be war crimes," said Peter Bouckaert, senior researcher for the group and a member of the investigative team.

Had enough? No? Here are some more links...

http://www.btselem.org/english/Human_Shields/Timeline_o...
http://www.btselem.org/English/Testimonies/Index.asp?TF...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4314898.stm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0418-06.htm
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/9/2004/581

There are plenty more where those came from.

Using civilians as shields is wrong no matter who does it and it is never an excuse for MURDER.

CEASE FIRE NOW!

[earthside]

1. Where is Your military base?

Here's what I would like to see ... Is there a military base in YOUR neighborhood? A National Guard armory in your suburb?

All over this nation there are military installations smack dab in the middle of urban and suburban areas. Does that mean that the U.S. is using civilian occupied areas as human shields?

In wars people fight where they are, it's that simple.

In the end, civilian killings during war ARE wrong ... and everybody is guilty of doing just that.

This is why war is so horrible!

Get it?

[theHandpuppet]

3. Boy, did you misread my post

Or maybe you missed these parts:

No one's hands are clean here, people. Not ours, not the Israelis, not those of Hezbollah! So stop with the rationalizing and holier-than-thou excuses and stop this furkin' bloody madness. PEACE NOW!

or

Using civilians as shields is wrong no matter who does it and it is never an excuse for MURDER.

CEASE FIRE NOW!

[Zodiak]

8. I do not think that...

your posts disagree between each other. Both of you show that there is no moralizing in war. Your post is more specific in countering a particular canard hurled around recently, and the poster you responded to was making a generalized point that war, in itself, is wrong.

Both of you argue that no party, the US included, is innocent in this mess.

Both of you are right.

And that is why at Nuremberg, it is determined to be a war-crime to launch an aggressive war, regardless of how "clean" such a war is.

[theHandpuppet]

9. Thanks for the insights

It was difficult to tell whether the poster was addressing me directly or the broader DU audience. You explained both our positions succinctly and well. :thumbsup:

[riverwalker]

2. Wrong, there ARE some clean hands

Those of the children and mothers and grandfathers who held them as they gasped their last breathe as the Israeli bombs crushed and burned them. Those hands are pristine and immaculate, hands that reached out to us to end this madness, hands too small to stop the bombs.

[theHandpuppet]

4. I'm not disagreeing with you!

Jeezus H. Christ, how can so many people misread my post?

[Celeborn Skywalker]

Don't forget those of Israeli

children and grandmothers dying as Hizballah or Hamas rockets come crashing down upon them.

[theHandpuppet]

7. No one is excused here.

NO ONE.

[Bluerthanblue]

5. I agree, and is it not also true that

the World Trade Towers had offices of the ....FBI...?? or CIA?? with documents pertaining to cases of terrorism???

The Pentagon, was another 'military target'-

And the White House would also be a 'military target' because of the Comander in Chief'-

so, one needs to be careful about how we complain about placing civillians in harms way-

We have plenty of military instillations in civillian areas- If we can excuse killing civillians because they were in the way of those 'we' chose to bomb... we'd beeter be careful of 'turn about fair play'-

good point Handpuppet

[theHandpuppet]

6. Exactly.

Thank you, bluerthanblue.

[EC]

10. I always wondered where our armories are

I suspect they are by hospitals and big cities, we have one here, next to a park...just like the "evil" countries are said to be...you're right, it's a tactic of war, that every army uses...