Israeli pseudo-justification for war crimes against Gazan civilians debunked

Brown Bomber

Gareth Porter, the author, along with Bob Parry is probably the best investigative reporter you never heard of. Time after time he has debunked IDF propaganda with facts.

He has gone to extraordinary lengths here to expose the deception of the Israeli state in it's justification of it's collective punishment and mass-murder.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/09/hamas-rocket-launches-dont-explain-israels-gaza-destruction/

Additional content added per request - Dgn

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On the 17th of July Israel's IDF shelled to destruction El Wafa rehabilitation hospital in Gaza. El Wafa cared for patients from children to the elderly with brain and spinal injuries with all of it's patients having some degree of paralysis and needing round the clock care. Wafa hospital was just one of several hospitals destroyed by Israel during Operation Protection Edge, along with ambulances, Mosques, schools, Court Houses and every branch of civilian life you can drop a bomb on.

This is crime scene formerly known as Wafa Hospital.

And this is one of it's former patients.

International Law, with exceptions, views attacking hospitals as a war crime.

Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.

Wounded and sick IV. Discontinuance of protection of hospitals


ARTICLE 19 [ Link ]

The protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy. Protection may, however, cease only after due warning has been given, naming, in all appropriate cases, a reasonable time limit, and after such warning has remained unheeded.
The fact that sick or wounded members of the armed forces are nursed in these hospitals, or the presence of small arms and ammunition taken from such combatants and not yet handed to the proper service, shall not be considered to be acts harmful to the enemy.

So Israel has a dilemma: How to carry out it's counter terrorism program it obscenely calls "mowing the lawn" or more accurately the "Dahiya Doctrine" which involves collectively punishing Gazans, causing mass suffering and systematically destroying Gaza itself every few years while at the same time avoiding War Crimes charges?

The answer: As is always the answer with Israel is to use deception under the cover of a largely compliant media and bought and paid for Congress. Herein lies the "conspiracy"

The Deception:

From the official IDF Twitter account, https://twitter.com/IDFSpokesperson/status/491180162000494593



However, the reality is that isn't Wafa hospital it's the Right To Life Center in Gaza.




The Deception Continued: From The IDF's official youtube account.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM1F9oP80kc

The video contains Israeli claims that there was firing coming from the hospital.

This video, including it's audio has been thoroughly debunked.

Based on the camera angle and altitude, the video was taken by an Israeli drone, according to a former US intelligence officer, with experience in interpreting military-related images, who analyzed the video for Truthout. The first segment of the video is a grainy, black-and-white aerial shot of a building that starts with the legend, "Terrorists Threaten IDF from inside Wafa Hospital." The building shown is not Al Wafa hospital, however, but an annex to the hospital that had been empty, both Dr. Alashi and Charlie Andeasson, a Swedish activist who was in the hospital when it was attacked on July 16, told Truthout.


The eight-second video shows what could be two brief bursts of fire from one of the windows on the third floor and then a third flash in a fourth story window. The former US intelligence officer confirmed that the footage of the building was selected from two different times of day. After the first three seconds of the video, the camera angle and the amount of light both change perceptibly. Nevertheless an exchange between the two voices on the audiotape accompanying the video continues as though the scene were continuous during the entire eight seconds.


The first voice heard on the audio recording says, in Hebrew, "Do you see this firing? Have spotted fires from within the house." The English subtitles accompanying the audio add "hospital" in parentheses after the word "house," but Seattle-based blogger on Israeli affairs Richard Silverstein, who speaks Hebrew, confirmed to Truthout after listening to the audio clip that the speaker uses the word "bayit," which can only mean "house."
A second voice then says, according to the subtitles, "Positive, fire from within the house." But the speaker actually uses the term "small house" ("bayit ha katan hazeh"), according to Silverstein.
Those references to firing from a small house indicate that the audio clip was taken from an entirely different incident at another location. That device was obviously used because there was no audio of an incident involving firing from the hospital.


Dr. Alashi said he believes the eight-second video clip portrays firing from the annex that occurred in the 2008-09 Israeli attack on Gaza. "People confirmed to me that there was firing from the building then," he told Truthout. That building was, in fact, attacked on January 16, 2009, by Israeli tanks only 70 meters away from the hospital, damaging the third and fourth floors of the building - the very floors from which the flashes are shown in the video - as the UN Fact-Finding Mission noted in its September 2009 report.

Brown Bomber

A radio interview with the journalist on his investigation.
http://scotthorton.org/interviews/2014/09/10/091014-gareth-porter/

Sacksian

This is not a conspiracy theory - there is plenty of discussion about Israel in the politics forum and AH.

More appropriate to those forums.

degrassinoel

I have to agree, it would be more at home in politics. Locking for now.

Brown Bomber

Coming Soon...

degrassinoel

amended OP

Sacksian

Still not a conspiracy theory, by any definition.

Unless govt accused of lying is a conspiracy? In which case, 90% of political news stories would end up in this forum.

degrassinoel

Sacksian wrote: »

Still not a conspiracy theory, by any definition.

Unless govt accused of lying is a conspiracy? In which case, 90% of political news stories would end up in this forum.

It probably wouldn't make them very popular CT topics though. But feel free to post anything you see as fitting within the charter for CT's, even if it is a minor theory, it still might be worth discussing.

Brown Bomber

Sacksian wrote: »

Still not a conspiracy theory, by any definition.

Unless govt accused of lying is a conspiracy? In which case, 90% of political news stories would end up in this forum.

I've just posted evidence of probable war crimes against civilians and your Pavlovian response is complain about it not being on the right forum. Seriously?

Sacksian

degrassinoel wrote: »

It probably wouldn't make them very popular CT topics though. But feel free to post anything you see as fitting within the charter for CT's, even if it is a minor theory, it still might be worth discussing.

How does this fit within the charter for a Conspiracy Theory?

Brown Bomber

Sacksian wrote: »

How does this fit within the charter for a Conspiracy Theory?

More to the point how does it not?

degrassinoel

Sacksian wrote: »

How does this fit within the charter for a Conspiracy Theory?

Look, instead of derailing a thread with questions like these all day, report the original post as a breach of the charter. If it does indeed breach the charter it will be either removed, locked or amended to fit with the CT topic. This thread has already been discussed in feedback and any further derailment will result in infractions being given.