Last year, Al-Qaeda's #2 Zawahiri denounced the UN as the "enemy of Islam" for helping create and legitimize the state of Israel in the past, as well as condoning Western militarism in Muslim lands. We know that Al Qaeda in Iraq attacked the UN headquarters in Baghdad in 2003, killing 22 (including the special envoy to Iraq). After that, the UN withdrew completely from Iraq for years. More recently, Qaeda also claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a UN compound in Algiers that killed 41 (of them, 18 UN staffers) in 2007. These acts against defenseless victims were of course barbaric and cowardly.
http://www.fao.org/world/Regional/RNE/UNNews/news123_en.htm
But strangely, it is actually the Israeli military that has attacked the UN more times since 9/11, albeit less "deliberately" and with fewer casualties.
[The Israeli Defense Forces] don't care if they kill a UN man or anybody on the Lebanese side. For them, their own life is sacred, their own troops are sacred. They have a mission, and if the UN gets in the way of their efforts over there, if the UN gets hit, so be it.
- Timur Goskel, professor at Notre Dame Univ. and former UNIFIL advisor (UN peacekeepers in Lebanon), 2006
Maybe you remember during the Israel-Lebanon War in 2006, then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan chastised Israel for what appeared to be a deliberate targeting of a legally sanctioned UN observation post in South Lebanon that killed 4 neutral observers. The UN has been there since the first Israel-Lebanon war decades ago. The maps haven't changed and that outpost never moved. There were no Hizbullah fighters in the vicinity, yet the IDF decided to fire. But of course PM Olmert demanded than Annan retract his outrageous accusation.
http://www.democracynow.org/2006/7/26/kofi_annan_says_israels_fatal_attack
And earlier this month in the Gaza war, Israeli armor allegedly fired on a UN aid convoy, killing a truck driver (a Palestinian contractor hired by the UN). This incident took place during an agreed-upon 3-hour cease fire. The UN had informed Israel of the aid convoy's scheduled trip, and were given the green light to proceed. Their vehicles are clearly marked with UN blue, and the IDF was given its GPS coordinates. However, Israel claims that it was actually a Hamas sniper that killed the truck driver, possibly in an attempt to set up the IDF for a bad PR incident (as if the IDF needed any outside help in that regard). Even giving Israel the benefit of the doubt here, what resulted was the UNRWA mission suspending all aid shipments into Gaza since then (they are set to resume tomorrow). So needy people continued to go without. If a neutral third party is "aiding" your enemy, would you fire at them as deterrence? Did the IDF want to send a message to the UN, and did the Lebanon incident have a similar purpose? So are their wars against all Palestinians/Lebanese, or just the terror groups?
A few days later, it got worse. Israel attacked UN-run elementary schools at 3 separate locations over 36 hours. One site was vacated, but the others housed hundreds of terrified Gaza residents seeking refuge from the fighting. Over 40 died. Again, these buildings are clearly-marked and the UN gave Israel their GPS locations long ago. The IDF attempted to justify its actions by stating that they observed Hamas mortar fire originating from inside one of the UN schools. UN officials on the ground said that they were 99.9% sure there were no Hamas there and no mortars were fired (and they have no reason to lie for Hamas). Laughably, the IDF further tried to defend the attack by releasing video of Palestinian militants firing a rocket from one of the schools and then fleeing. However, the video was from 2007! In that case, we better bomb Saudia Arabia, because we have past video of Osama bin Laden walking the streets of Riyadh. Even if Hamas was there, how can they defend their attacks? It is a neutral site, off limits like an embassy. For that matter, what if Hamas militants were alleged to be hiding in a US consulate building? Would the IDF still bomb? Technically that is a violation of international law and an act of war.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtStEng.jhtml?itemNo=1053455&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1&title='UN+rejects+IDF+claim+Gaza+militants+operated+from+bombed-out+school'&dyn_server=172.20.5.5
The Israeli army however said the school was being used to store weapons, and the casualties were as a result of secondary explosions caused by the the munitions stored in the building. After a brief investigation this story changed. The army did admit the Israel Air Force targeted the school, but said it was returning fire. It had no comment on the fact that several hundred refugees had taken shelter at the school.
- IsraelNews.net
Israel scorns Hamas and Hizbullah for being so dastardly to hide behind civilian shields, and they're right. If only we could divorce combatants from populated areas, but in the post-Cold War world, most if not all conflicts will be asymmetrical and urban. When you decide to wage war (and let's look past the BS about being "forced" into war - it's always a conscious, voluntary choice), you have to know that many innocents will suffer (especially children), so hopefully that can serve as a deterrent. They should have learned all this at the military academy, but maybe as Prof. Goskel claims, the problem is that Israel just doesn't give a damn. Israel says they're being being set up to take the blame for civilian deaths as part of the propaganda war. But no one forced the IDF to pull the trigger. They know civilians are there, and yet they choose to fire anyway, just to maybe kill a few insignificant foot soldiers, or at best some "high value target" that will just get replaced by an even meaner SOB, as depicted in the film "Munich". They could apprehend and convict them through established legal channels, or wait to attack until their targets are in the clear, or if that doesn't happen then just let it go - because the cost of killing innocents (thereby creating much backlash and future terrorists in the process) is always higher than letting one bad man go free. Therefore, they don't get to blame anyone else for their murders. Not surprisingly, in 2003 27 elite Israeli pilots/officers had enough of their leaders' immoral tactics, and published a formal protest refusing to take part in assassination missions over urban zones where civilians will invariably get hurt (see article at end).
And just today, Israeli artillery fire near the UN Gaza headquarters (housing over 700 refugees) started a blaze that destroyed their food/fuel storage warehouse. This time, they openly acknowledged that it was a "mistake", though again insisted that Hamas fire came from the area. It is suspected that phosphorous incendiary rounds were used, which easily cause fires to spread in cities (and therefore their use in urban zones is prohibited). Tons of vital aid supplies went up in smoke. A Red Cross/Crescent hospital was also hit, and the Palestinian death toll rose above 1,000 dead/5,000 wounded. Israeli losses still stand at 13, with 4 dead from friendly fire.
The belief is that Israel is stepping up military operations ahead of agreeing to a ceasefire in the days immediately before Tuesday's inauguration of Barack Obama as U.S. president.
- The Daily Mail
So once again, it seems like politics trump decency. Isn't an escalation of violence prior to a ceasefire defeating the very purpose of that ceasefire? I guess they just want to get those last shots in, and probably Hamas will too (well, does the fact that Hamas still launches rockets at the end of the war signify the folly and failure of the war?). And I guess Israel wants to make a good impression on the new president by pausing its war for his inauguration. How thoughtful.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1117144/Israels-strike-UN-headquarters-Gaza-indefensible-says-Gordon-Brown.html
So if the gunmen and thugs under Milosevic, Haitian/Somali warlords, and even Hamas, Hizbullah, and the Taleban can mostly respect UN neutrality in their conflicts, then what is Israel's problem? After all, they are the most democratic and technologically advanced nation in the Middle East. Pretty much the only other places in the world where UN staff are under such direct assault are Congo and Sudan. Ignominious company for sure. And in those nations, UN soldiers are authorized to actually engage local forces to protect civilians, so they have chosen to be part of the fray. No UN worker ever fired a shot at an Israeli.
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27 Israeli pilots refuse raid duty
Question morality of hitting civilians
By Dan Ephron, Boston Globe Correspondent, 9/25/2003
JERUSALEM -- Twenty-seven Israeli air force pilots, who are considered the most elite servicemen of the Israeli Defense Forces, pledged in an open letter published yesterday that they no longer would take part in raids on Palestinian population centers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, describing them as "illegal and immoral."
The letter, published on the websites of several Israeli newspapers, appeared to give new impetus to the movement of several hundred soldiers who refuse to serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on moral grounds. It also marked the first time a group of air force pilots, who could face ouster or military trials, have banded together to take such a stand.
Among those who signed were a brigadier general who took part in Israel's 1981 raid on an Iraqi nuclear facility, two colonels, and four lieutenant colonels. About half of them fly warplanes and attack helicopters in reserve duty, while the rest are inactive, according to a senior air force officer.
Military officials described the letter as politically motivated and insisted that the Israeli military goes to great lengths to avoid harming civilians, even when Palestinian militants hide in their midst. One analyst said the letter carried symbolic weight, but would be significant from an operational standpoint only if dozens of other pilots refused to serve.
"We veteran and active duty pilots . . . are against carrying out illegal and immoral attacks of the kind that Israel is conducting in the territories," the letter reads. "We . . . refuse to take part in air force attacks on civilian population centers.
"We [pilots], who feel that the Israeli Defense Forces and the air force are an integral part of us, refuse to continue attacking innocent civilians," said the letter, which also condemns Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Several pilots who signed the letter could not be reached for interviews.
Air force pilots have had a large role in the fighting between Israelis and Palestinians that erupted three years ago, most controversially in track-and-kill missions against key militants. Israel has assassinated scores of militants in missile strikes and bombing missions in crowded areas of the West Bank and Gaza, but scores of innocent civilians have also been killed and wounded in the raids.
In one particularly devastating attack in July 2002, Israel dropped a 1-ton bomb on a building in Gaza where Salah Shehadeh, a top member of the Islamic militant group Hamas, was hiding. He was thought to have orchestrated attacks that killed dozens of Israelis. The bomb killed Shehadeh, his wife and daughter, and 12 other civilians.
Reuven Pedatzur, a former fighter pilot who is now a defense analyst for the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, said the Shehadeh assassination was a turning point for Israeli pilots. "I think that was the moment many pilots began asking questions about what they're doing and why civilians are being killed," he said.
Pedatzur said the letter was significant because air force pilots are the military's "cream of the crop" and because pilots have never protested collectively in such a manner. But a top air force commander said that the protesters represented a small minority of fighter pilots and that most of them had not been taking part in missions during the past three years of fighting.
Ido Nehushtan, an air force brigadier general, said pilots participating in missions against Palestinian militants had the complicated task of trying to thwart terrorists who operate in civilian centers. He said that pilots have the authority to abort missions if they believe civilians might be harmed, but that the air force could not live with a situation in which individual pilots decide not to take part in a whole category of operations.
"I can tell you with full confidence that we do everything possible to avoid harming civilians," Nehushtan said late yesterday, hours after the letter was published.
He said the pilots published their letter in the media without first presenting it to their commanders.
Pedatzur said the Air Force must decide between ousting the pilots from their units or trying them for insubordination. Military judges have jailed dozens of reservists in ground forces who have refused to serve in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
"This is a serious dilemma, because these aren't just privates in regular units; they're air force pilots," Pedatzur said. "If you put them on trial, the atmosphere in the air force could become very sour, and this wouldn't be good for the military in general."
In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy was killed in an early morning gun battle between Palestinians and Israeli troops searching for weapons-smuggling tunnels along the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
The firefight erupted when 20 Israeli tanks and armored bulldozers entered the Rafah refugee camp. Mohammed Hamdan, 16, was killed in the clash, hospital officials told the Associated Press, and more than a dozen Palestinians were wounded. Palestinian witnesses said troops razed two houses.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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