Friday, February 5, 2010

Desmond Travers ( co-author of the Goldstone report) : The IDF regularly used the human shield tactic

...the Israelis had got a 59 year old man and made him go into this house where there were three Hamas operatives in hiding, repeatedly, because they wouldn’t go in themselves. This human shield tactic, known among the IDF soldiers as the “Johnny” or “Good Neighbour” tactic brings me to another point. It was practiced and applied in all the Israeli brigade areas in Gaza and is strongly indicative of prior training. It does, however, also reveal an emphasis in that training on “risk aversion”. This aversion in turn imposed the transference of such risk onto the civilian population be they women or children. This is very troubling for various reasons but one in particular to me, an ex-soldier, and it is this: What is an army that commits its soldiers to avoidance of risk? Whatever it is now, it is no longer an army, in my view.
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Exactly, no longer an army, but a bunch of cowardly thugs.

3 comments:

  1. <p>"So the obvious PR strategy by those who would defend Israel at all costs was to keep slinging mud in the hope that sooner or later the sheer volume of it would stick or wear people down."
    </p><p> In my opinion this is just the tip of the iceberg. 
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  2. <span>They're liars , but not  smart liars:  
    <span>" </span>In all of the 36 cases we found against the perpetrators. In one case the Israelis admitted to a mistake. They shelled a house killing 22 people of the Al-Daya family and they said, sorry we meant to hit the house next door, <span>but since they didn’t fire a shell the following day at the house next door we didn’t accept their explanation.</span>"</span>

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  3. <p>IMHO .They got off lightly.
    </p><p>"Nevertheless, there were issues and incidents that could not be investigated as well as they might have been; for example, <span>the blowing up of the tunnels, etc. It still bothers me because I think certain munitions were used there that ought to have been subject to analysis "</span>

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