Friday, April 17, 2009
'Israel could have made peace with Hamas under Yassin'
"We turned Kuntar into God-knows-what - the murderer of Danny Haran and his daughter, Einat. The man who smashed in the girl's head. That's nonsense. A story. A fairy tale. He told me he didn't do it and I believe him. I investigated the event within the framework of the next book I am writing, about hostage-taking incidents. As far as I am concerned, it was no more than a newspaper report. I sat with him; he was very intelligent. He was a squad commander at 17. He told me that his motive for infiltrating Nahariya was to take hostages. He said [his organization] knew that would both humiliate Israel and get them media publicity.
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What's the link to this story, Saif?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=1078849
ReplyDeleteIsraeli -
ReplyDeleteSUMSAY
This is a really interesting article but how does one know what is true and what is not? Especially that business about Kuntar. This story needs a very good investigative journalist.
ReplyDelete"We turned Kuntar into God-knows-what - the murderer of Danny Haran and his daughter, Einat. The man who smashed in the girl's head. That's nonsense. A story. A fairy tale. He told me he didn't do it and I believe him. I investigated the event within the framework of the next book I am writing, about hostage-taking incidents. As far as I am concerned, it was no more than a newspaper report. I sat with him; he was very intelligent. He was a squad commander at 17. He told me that his motive for infiltrating Nahariya was to take hostages. He said [his organization] knew that would both humiliate Israel and get them media publicity."
ReplyDelete"He told me: 'If I had wanted to kill Danny and his daughter, I would have shot them in the house. I took them to the boat because I wanted hostages. I had no interest in hurting them. After I got them into the boat, wild gunfire started and I went back to help my squad on the shore. Danny, the father, kept shouting, "Stop firing, you crazy people." He and his daughter were found shot in the boat. I was on a small rise, shooting at your forces, and the boat was 20 meters away in the water, with Danny and the girl.'"
ReplyDeleteSo you say that Kuntar did not murder Haran and his daughter?
ReplyDelete"That is what he says, and in my opinion there is support for the fact that they were killed by fire from the Israeli rescue forces. You can accuse him all you like, but it was obviously the rescue forces that opened fire. There were all kinds of legends about Kuntar. People also said that he would return to being a terrorist [after his release]. Nonsense. He told me then explicitly that he would not go back to terrorism, that he was too old to execute operations - and that's also clear. For the same reason, I see no problem in releasing terrorists with blood on their hands in return for [kidnapped soldier] Gilad Shalit. I get the feeling the country is waiting for his body.
vza
ReplyDeleteAt the very heart of the Israeli propaganda lies the most effective tool of persuasion! Dehumanisation! Dehumanising the enemy is essential in order to make the Israelis, their supporters and anybody who cares listening feel better about themselves going ahead or supporting the criminal enterprise of ethnic cleansing and/or the subjugation of the enemy! Why would the ordinary Israeli citizen cheer and dance on the balcony while the 10 tons bombs are flattening entire populated areas if the enemy is not just subhuman filth and animals who aren't like you and me...?
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That may well be true, tgia but how do we know Kuntar is telling the truth? Are you saying that simply by virtue of being the victims of Israel, we must believe everything from the Palestinian side? How do we know this man relating the story is telling the truth?
ReplyDeleteI meant what I said. This was an extremely interesting article and I now agree with the Professor on this. There should be an inquiry into the whole story to determine the truth.
If Israel lied about this, and accidentally killed those two and then covered it up by smashing that little girl's head in to make it look like Kuntar did it, some effort should be made to find out the truth, since this story has loomed large in the minds of Americans when they bring up their support for Israel.
vza, there is no "IF," Israel lies about everything, stop trying to turn the beast into a harmless creature - Israel IS a lie. There are hundreds of thousands that have been imprisoned under false pretenses, thousands have been point blank slaughtered. The onus is upon the aggressor in the main, not upon the victims. There is not one institution that is not tainted by these lies in Israel and the fact of the murderous occupation, it shakes the foundations of any claimed legitimacy about Israel to the core.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of what is legitimate, and this applies to most Hegelian state creations -
ReplyDeleteLEGITIMISM
Excerpt - (Legitimism)
ReplyDeleteDo I have to innumerate the problems? You have a government in Washington that only listens to the moneyed elite, you have legal institutions that are for sale to the highest bidder, you have education that is truncated by self-interest and pseudo-historical monopoly, you have media which is the province of mega - corporations, you have medical care held hostage by pharmaceutical and health care monoliths, you have a military which is at the beck and call of moneyed interest, and you have religious institutions which are mere cheerleaders of the whole charade! Do you understand the depth of the problem we are facing? None of this is legitimate, none of it!!
WHAT MUST HAPPEN IN THESE NATIONS
ReplyDeletevza
ReplyDeleteI agree. An investigation is needed here but doesn't experience show that the Israelis are accustomed to such tactics of blaming the enemy for their crimes? They did it in the case of the murdered family who was on a picnic on a Gaza beach. They did it in the Muhammad Al Durra case. Only a couple of examples.
Why would Kuntar crush the skull of the girl when he could simply shoot her? Because the Israelis are meant to be horrified and outraged by such a barbaric act and Israel enemies are not even barbarians, they're animals, they crush babies' skulls!! They don''t simply kill like us!
Now, do we really hold the truth here of course not.
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If someone could prove that Israel set this story up and if a full disclosure of all of the events pertaining to the attack on our ship, The Liberty, ever came to light, you would see American support for Israel evaporate.
ReplyDeleteYes, I read the professor's posts at the time and they did get me thinking about it all. I even emailed the professor and he replied that he thought there should be an independent investigation.
ReplyDeleteAccounts given by Kuntar to Lebanese newspapers after his release gave a story that has nothing to do with the Israeli tale about smashing skulls. That the Israelis refuse to divulge the court accounts on the incident tends to infirm their version and confirms his,in my opinion.
ReplyDelete.
I find the pervasive nature of discussing this case reprehensible, as compared to the thousands of atrocities upon the Palestinians. That this incident would be repeatedly brought up in this manner, even if it were true (that is the Israeli lie) which it is not, is the height of base propaganda.
ReplyDeleteThat this incident would be repeatedly brought up in this manner, even if it were true (that is the Israeli lie) which it is not, is the height of base propaganda.
ReplyDelete--------
The tree which hides the forest.
By the way, this is the first time that people have talked about Kuntar's innocence. This is "old" news. Anyone paying attention to the case at the time realized it was bogus.
ReplyDeletehttp://angryarab.blogspot.com/2008/07/of-course-new-york-times-is-busy.html
Of course, the New York Times is busy producing propaganda and lies on behalf of the Israeli government. I was reading their accounts of the prisoner exchange and remembering the words of the late George Carlin: why are Israeli terrorists called commandos, and why are Palestinian commandos called terrorists. And there are always stories about the "victims" of Palestinian operations on Palestinian lands but never stories about the victims of Israeli crimes. Not one story about those Israeli "prisoners": What were those Israeli occupation killers doing in Lebanon in the first place? And I hate how Israeli (and American and Saudi) propaganda keep referring to Israeli prisoners by their names, to humanize them. You will never see refer to them by their names here because I refuse to succumb to the media standards that distinguish between expensive human being, and the cheaper human beings. You want me to feel sorry for an Israeli pilot who was downed while dropping cluster bombs on villages and towns in South Lebanon? Are you kidding me? And then this by Dina Kraft: "Mr. Kuntar, who was formally pardoned by Israel on Tuesday as part of the swap agreement, gave a different version of the night of the attack in his court testimony in 1980, excerpts of which were published for the first time on Monday in Yediot Aharonot, an Israeli newspaper. He told the court that Israeli gunfire had killed Mr. Haran as soldiers burst in to free him and that he did not see what happened to Mr. Haran’s daughter." First, tell Dina Kraft of the New York Times to do some research. Kuntar never belonged to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He belonged to the Palestinian Liberation Front. Secondly, of course Israel never released the transcript of the trial before because Israel--like that character played by Jack Nicholson said--"CAN"T HANDLE THE TRUTH." Why would Israel release the actual transcript of the court when they prefer their lies and fabrications to prevail, just as they lied about Munich and their precious athletes. I am more convinced than ever: this is a long struggle, and Zionism will not prevail on the land of Palestine, no matter what, and I don't care how many Bush, McCain, and Obama come to the rescue of Israeli occupation and aggression.
Posted by As'ad at 8:25 AM