Democracy Now!
August 17, 2009
Human Rights Watch Calls on Israel to Investigate “White Flag” Shootings of Gaza Civilians
Human Rights Watch released a report last week detailing new evidence of possible Israeli war crimes committed during last winter’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza that left over 1,400 Palestinians dead. The report says Israeli soldiers unlawfully shot and killed at least eleven Palestinian civilians, including five women and four children, who were in groups waving white flags to make clear that they were civilians and not combatants. We speak to HRW’s Fred Abrahams and air exclusive video from Gaza from Democracy Now!‘s Anjali Kamat and Big Noise Film’s Jacquie Soohen. [includes rush transcript]
Fred Abrahams, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch’s Emergencies Program. He is the lead author of the report, ‘White Flag Deaths: The Killings of Palestinian Civilians During Operation Cast Lead’
Ambassador Daniel Carmon, Israel’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations
video and transcript: Human Rights Watch Calls on Israel to Investigate “White Flag” Shootings of Gaza Civilians
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Dandelion Salad 
I don’t understand the logic and point in asking the very perpetrator of a war crime to investigate its soldiers, who pretty much know what they are allowed to and what they are not. They know they are covered and no one will be punished for any thing, like in the tens of other investigations conducted by the Israeli army of its own soldiers, where no one is ever found guilty, much less punished for any thing, and the reason is that they do it all with the tacit approval of their superiors in the army.
So by asking the Israeli army to investigate, expose and indict its own soldiers is a joke at best, because it just isn’t going to happen, and whoever keeps suggesting this lame, useless method is either a fool or thinks people are fools.
Israel’s war crimes are as evident and evidenced by so much as Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot’s crimes were, and what the world over saw on live TV to innocent Palestinian civilians over and over needs no further proof of the genocide committed.
No matter how many investigations they conduct or how guilty of war crimes Israeli army is found, it’s not going to matter much as no one is going to take any serious action against Israeli war criminals or try to bring them to justice.
The rules that apply to Israel, as we all know, are different from the rules that apply to all others, and no matter what Israel does, and no matter how barbaric and against all international laws its conduct is, no one can punish Israel. Any one who thinks otherwise doesn’t know how this insane and sick game is played.
Israel has been for so long, and will continue to be America’s and the West’s spoiled, obnoxious baby, that is allowed special privileges and rights, including war crimes and no one can touch it.
America and the other Western countries are guilty of harbouring a criminal of the worst kind, and protecting it at a very high cost to the whole world – and that makes them accessory to those war crimes themselves.
Shame on these phony pseudo-civilized countries who have no real, moral backbone and who keep preaching the world about human rights, fairness and justice when they don’t practice what they preach.