UN: Hamas Did Not Shoot from School, Gazans Disagree
In what is becoming quite an interesting controversy, with possibly far-reaching consequences, the Israeli Defense Forces insist that they shelled a UN school in Gaza because Hamas terrorists used the school as a basis to launch attacks from at Israeli soldiers, while the United Nations itself insists that this is not true; a quick review of the international organization supposedly concludes that no shots were fired from the school. Sadly for the UN, however, this conclusion is contradicted by… Gazans.
The AP reported (via)
The United Nations has already demanded an investigation into Israel’s shelling of a U.N. school in Gaza that killed nearly 40 people earlier this week. Israel and residents said militants were operating in the area at the time.
Now, since it cannot be expected that residents would lie about the matter in order to defend Israel and improve the image of the Jewish nation-state, it seems increasingly likely that Hamas was playing a very dirty game indeed, and that the UN’s buildings were used by the organization. Since residents say that the IDF’s account of what happened is correct, the UN’s instant condemnation of the partial destruction of the school – while denying any wrongdoing and automatically charging that Israel’s explanation was wrong – speaks ill of the organization’s prejudices and biases.
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.
Comments are closed.
PoliGazette Comments Policy
PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree.
Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate
these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors.
Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue
publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.
(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly
or blatantly misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that
respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should
not be posted.
(2) Comments should avoid vulgarity as well as racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual bigotry.
(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional
reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.
(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not
include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement
the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.
(5) Public figures are considered open to all substantive criticism of their policies and statements.
Comments that present objectively false factual information about public figures (i.e. "Obama is a Muslim") or
that attack public figures by attacking their families are not welcome. Comments that merely repeat
slogans for or against a candidate without engaging in substantive comment are not welcome.
Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors
by email only.
Michael:
I’d be willing to give the IDF the benefit of the doubt if only it were the first time they targeted UN compounds. But it’s not. You might remember the little village of Qana in south Lebanon. On Tuesday April 18, 1996 Israeli 155mm howitzers shelled UIFIL’s Fiji BATT compound in the village of Qana a few kilometers south east of Tyre. Around 800 civilians had taken refuge at the base. Israelis targeted the base in retaliation for the Hizballah attack on one of their special forces groups who were in action north and outside of the Iraeli occupied “security zone” laying landmines. Over 100 civilians were killed.
The shelling is documented in a UN report discussed in Time Magazine’s article Qana: Anatomy of a Tragedy by James Walsh. The same UN compound was bombarded again in 2006 killing over 60 civilians. Sabra and Shatila is an other massacre for which Ariel Sharon and the IDF was held officially responsible by the Hague.
The IDF gave the same explanation in Qana: Hizballah fighters used it as a human shield. Hizballah is still strong if not stronger and the crisis is not resolved. If only killing a few civilians and considering them as collateral damage were a way out of the Middle East mess, we would have peace by now.
I am also genuinely saddened by your standing towards the UN. It reminds me of the one adopted by many around the world that accuse it of being a useless rubber stamper of Israeli-US policies in the world. Is it the end of the UN as we knew it after WWII?
Read this article:
http://www.crimsonpolitics.com/un-school-gaza-launches-mortars-hamas
Here’s Hamas in 2007, using UN School to fire mortar rounds and then running away.
IDF doesn’t shoot schools because “it’s fun”, it’s usually because there’s a real threat there and it’s their LAST option.
Bruno, i’m not a big proponent of the UN. It has been a tool of dictators and unfriendly regimes too often. They are also all too often spineless; deadline, deadline, deadline, nothing happens. If we just consider it a debating organization or something, fine, but to me, we should not consider it any more than that.
CP: o I agree completely. Hamas has done this more often. That video says a LOT
Two wrongs don’t make a right in my book.
I think that most of the time people miss the fundamental question of the current crisis. Most of the comments i read on here are comments that seem to try to convince the reader of the evilness of Hamas and its fighters. Unless you have a vested interest in defending one party rather than the other, it seems to me pointless. I am not here in the business of propaganda.
But the real question and moral dilemma in the current crisis for Israel and the world is in fact: how do you deal with fighters that use the population as a human shield. Do you decide to bombard no matter what, trying to avoid innocent civilians (knowing quite well that with the local population density it is tantamount to a miracle) or do you try to find an other solution? Bare in mind that previous situations and crisis have proven this current IDF tactic useless.
Michael:
I understand your pessimism regarding the UN current standing in the world. I’m not proud of what they allowed to happen in Srebrenica, or Chechnya or Darfur to name a few. But it hasn’t always been that way if you look back at the history. There has been some great accomplishments. We are maybe witnessing indeed the last breaths of this organization. Time will tell.
True, they certainly did some good things. But I wonder whether we truly need the UN for that, or whether we can also accomplish it by other means? I think that it is indeed dying simply because it may be best to choose other means to reach the same goals now. The world has changed
That is not necessarily a bad thing, we can just change our approach.
The United Abominations… When will we have a fair united organization.
It is after all the UN that created Israel!! It wasn’t considered by Israel impartial then, or was it?It’s very common for ungrateful people to spit on what they once loved!
I’m sick and tired to see that since 1973 (not since its creation) we gave Israel $1.6 trillion already (I won’t even mention the ridiculous amount it costs in interests to taxpayers here in the US every year) and still we don’t see peace in this region, war was brought to our shores, and over 63% of the World Jewish Populationstill lives outside Israel!
Enough is enough!
There’s a must read article over at Volokh Conspiracy.
I find that most people younger than myself have little grasp of the Cold War era, or at least a very incomplete understanding of the pervasive role of US vs. Soviet spheres of influence affected nearly every geopolitical event of that era.
Having that perspective myself, I was surprised in reading that article that I still hadn’t given adequate consideration to much of the historical context of the Cold War as it relates to Israel/Palestine. I suppose it’s because most current reporting and opining on the Mideast ignores it and a lot has already gone down the memory hole- which is rather ironic, since the USSR was famous for using the power of the state to rewrite the history books but now the rest of the world is voluntarily doing a selective rewrite of history as well.
Anyway, I hope folks will click over there to read the whole thing- and perhaps one of the authors here will consider writing about it and linking to it from the frontpage.