Israeli Forces Target Civilians, Shoot Peaceful Protesters.

[a_unique_person]

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...103267249.html

If you are a peaceful protestor, you will be targetted. The IDF does not want the facts of life under occupation to get out to the rest of the world.

Quote:

Australian activist shot by Israelis
October 26, 2003 - 8:22PM

An Australian activist campaigning against Israel's occupation of the West Bank was shot through both legs during an Israeli raid on a refugee camp, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) said today.

Perth university student Joshua Taaffe, 24, was shot through both legs during a night raid by Israeli troops on the Balatta refugee camp on the fringes of Nablus.

Wounded alongside the University of Western Australia law student was American activist Mark Turner, 24, of Boulder, Colorado.

Mr Taaffe later said from a hospital bed in Nablus that he believed Israeli troops deliberately targeted civilians in the camps with live ammunition.

The pair were among several casualties during what proved to be a bloody weekend in Nablus.

The Australian also claimed that Israeli commandos wearing balaclavas stormed the Raffideyeh Hospital in Nablus in the early hours of yesterday morning and threatened himself and Mr Turner.

"Basically we were woken by flashlights mounted on the ends of assault rifles by men wearing ski masks," Mr Taaffe said.

The commandos then proceeded to sweep through the hospital before departing shortly before dawn, he said.

The Perth-based law student, who arrived in the West Bank about a month ago as an activist for the ISM, said the Israelis launched the raid late on Friday night.

After shooting out any streetlights and disabling the camp's generators, "they switched to live ammunition," he claimed.

"What we do is try to make our presence there known to the Israelis so that they cannot act with impunity," Mr Taaffe said.

[a_unique_person]

Quote:

From a distance of between 30 and 50 metres, the Israelis swept the area with searchlights, which Mr Taaffe said gave away their position.

"The bullet came through a cinder block wall," he said.

It then grazed one thigh before lodging in the other, forcing Palestinian doctors to remove what they later told him was an Israeli military issue 5.56 M-16 round, Mr Taaffe said.

At least one Palestinian wounded by Israeli fire near Nablus at the weekend later died.

The man was identified as Jamal Kadus, 39, by Agence France-Presse.

He was reported to have been shot in the back while walking to work in Nablus yesterday morning from his home in the nearby village of Bureen.

More than 3,500 people have died since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of land claimed by both sides intensified in September 2000, including 2,669 Palestinians and 849 Israelis.

So can we get over this myth that the IDF has never targetted civilians?

[Kevin_Lowe]

Lies! Lies! Antisemitic lies from a racist! It's not a real news source anyway! Arafat eats babies and you never post about that, which is proof that everything you say is a lie! I bet that Australian guy looked Palestinian anyway! It's war over there, war, don't you understand? Sometimes in a war you have to plug a few babies, journalists and peaceful protesters!

(I just thought that I'd save Skeptic the trouble of posting it...).

[a_unique_person]

Hi Kevin

another Aussie Drinker.

[Mr Manifesto]

Watch this one, a_u_p... I think he might be South Australian.

[Cain]

Pssssssht! Boulder, Colorado. Figures. I bet Mark Turner is a pony-tailed, trail-mix chomping, limp-writsted, bed-wetting, commie-wannabe vegan. Deserves everything he got (and then some).

In the words of Tony on Rachel Corrie's death: my only regret is that I didn't get to run that bitch over myself.

Defenders of human rights among us can probably say the same for Mr. Turner and Mr. Taaffe.

Quote:

More than 3,500 people have died since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of land claimed by both sides intensified in September 2000, including 2,669 Palestinians and 849 Israelis.

This gives the impression that more atrocities have been committed by Israel-- but completely fails to take into account the appropriate moral calculus: 1000 Palestinians are not equivalent to even a single Israeli.

[edited for a style]

Quote:

Originally posted by a_unique_person


So can we get over this myth that the IDF has never targetted civilians?

Well now we know how they manage to make it look like they are not targeting civilians, they use their X-ray vision and target and shoot the civilians through cinder block walls.... This article does not support the conclusion that the IDF targets civilians.

[renata]

You quoted almost the whole article, AUP.

Paragraphs you skipped

Quote:

Local children responded by throwing stones and at least one molotov cocktail in the dark at the Israeli troops taking up position at one end of a key intersection in Nablus.

Then, Mr Taaffe said, rubber bullets peppered the area, and any available lighting.

Mr Turner and Mr Taaffe then took up position behind a cinder block wall after retreating from the direct line of fire, the Australian said.

He said the pair kept their heads down, and so did not see any muzzle flashes, but were alerted by the sound of the rounds passing overhead that the Israeli troops had switched to live ammunition.

[crackmonkey]

So apparently the 'peaceful protesters' were amongst the rock and molotov-throwing hordes.
Doesn't it just suck when facts get in the way of a perfectly good fantasy?

[Cleopatra]

Quote:

Originally posted by renata
You quoted almost the whole article, AUP.

Paragraphs you skipped

Renata, you are a Zionist and an apologist of the Israeli attrocities, you should be ashamed of yourself for reading the whole of the article.

[RPG Advocate]

Quote:

Originally posted by crackmonkey
So apparently the 'peaceful protesters' were amongst the rock and molotov-throwing hordes.
Doesn't it just suck when facts get in the way of a perfectly good fantasy?

Not quite. Keep in mind that, if the article is correct, the IDF committed the first act of aggression in this scenario by destroying the streetlights and generators. Because of this, the Palestinians had the right to retailiate until they were reasonably certain of the safety of person and property.

The article may not support the conclusion that the IDF targets peaceful protestors, it does support the conclusion that the IDF really doesn't care who it hurts in its search for terrorists. All they had to do was say that someone in the camp was "harboring a terrorist" and they have carte blanche to mess with hundreds of people who aren't involved.

There has to be a better way to deal with the PLO and Hamas than this.

[Cleopatra]

Quote:

Originally posted by RPG Advocate


There has to be a better way to deal with the PLO and Hamas than this.

There is a better way of course but they don't help. As long as they use the civilians in the camps as human shields such incidents will continue to occur.

[Mycroft]

Quote:

Originally posted by a_unique_person


So can we get over this myth that the IDF has never targetted civilians?

Absolutely! The moment you document it.

You seem unable to make a distinction between civilians getting hurt and civilians being targeted. What you’ve shown us here is a civilian (sort of) getting hurt. That’s the sort of thing that can happen when you make a special effort to visit dangerous places and hang out with people who are very likely to become involved in armed conflict.

[Richard G]

You don't "protest" in the middle of a war zone. I guess a fool might.

[American]

Quote:

Perth university student Joshua Taaffe, 24, was shot through both legs during a night raid by Israeli troops on the Balatta refugee camp on the fringes of Nablus.

Someone needs to go practice their aim... head shot would have been quicker.

[a_unique_person]

Quote:

Originally posted by renata
You quoted almost the whole article, AUP.

Paragraphs you skipped

You aren't allowed to quote whole articles. The paragraphs skipped were not to do with the protestors, but with children attacking an armoured vehicle with rocks and a molotov cocktail.

Other parts skipped were to do with the protestors experiencing the trauma of live ammunition passing over their heads.

What were the armoured vehicles doing there? According to this http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...103273843.html , they had been escorting Palestinians to their olive groves past settlers who have attacked them in the past. Perhaps this was their sin.

[shemp]

Ho hum, just another average day in the world's last colony.

Obviously, he was shot not for being a civilian, but for being an Aussie. Can't blame them for that.

[a_unique_person]

Quote:

Originally posted by Cleopatra



There is a better way of course but they don't help. As long as they use the civilians in the camps as human shields such incidents will continue to occur.

Where do you want them to live, in a separate camp with a big sign on it saying "Terrorists Here"?

[a_unique_person]

Quote:

Originally posted by Richard G
You don't "protest" in the middle of a war zone. I guess a fool might.

Once again, the "They are idiots" defense. I could say the people killed on that bus coming back from the visit to the Wall were idiots for doing that too. They were in a war zone.

Quote:

Originally posted by a_unique_person


Once again, the "They are idiots" defense. I could say the people killed on that bus coming back from the visit to the Wall were idiots for doing that too. They were in a war zone.

Comparing apples to oranges. Big difference between people who actually live in the war zone than some guy who flew in half way across the globe to protest in the war zone.

[a_unique_person]

It's only because of them that we get to hear about incidents such as this. Otherwise you would only get the impression that all the bad things happen to Israelis and the Palestinians have nothing to complain about at all, and are just the sick, murderous barbarians people like Ed make them out to be.

[Mycroft]

Quote:

The incident brings to six the number of solidarity volunteers injured or killed by Israeli action in the past year. Last month, three Australian women were injured by a Palestinian suicide bomb.

I haven't paid a lot of attention to the ISM until recently, but am I alone in my impression that the purpose of this organization is to recruit western kids to go to Palestine and get hurt?

My cynicism aside, I must say that they are certainly preferable to other forms of protest in the region. If only this kind of protest can grow in popularity and replace the murderous kind, that will truly be an accomplishment.

[a_unique_person]

ISM seem pretty harmless to me, on the whole. They have their protests, and can get pretty emotional about them. But I have never heard of them using any weapons. They don't exist to just send people to Israel and Palestine, though.

Quote:

Originally posted by a_unique_person
It's only because of them that we get to hear about incidents such as this. Otherwise you would only get the impression that all the bad things happen to Israelis and the Palestinians have nothing to complain about at all, and are just the sick, murderous barbarians people like Ed make them out to be.

Only because of who? The protesters?

[a_unique_person]

I think you can pretty well guarantee that if these protesters weren't there, we would not have heard of the incident.

[Mycroft]

Quote:

Originally posted by a_unique_person
I think you can pretty well guarantee that if these protesters weren't there, we would not have heard of the incident.

Huh?!

That tiny country gets more international press coverage than anyplace in the world. What are you smoking?

[Cleopatra]

Quote:

Originally posted by a_unique_person


Where do you want them to live, in a separate camp with a big sign on it saying "Terrorists Here"?

Why you do this? I mean this is not a serious question, of course I have the option not to answer it but I cannot let such things unanswered.

In Humans' History, only cowards that play the liberators hide behind their wive's skirts.

Tomorrow is a National Holiday here, in the 28th of October 1940 the Italians attacked us and Greece got in WW II.Also that day we celebrate the Greek Resistence.

The Greek Resistence became proverbial for its persistence and its effectiveness.

The Greek guerillas had never hidden in houses of civilians, they didn't even approach villages in order not to risk the lives of unarmed people.

Fighters of Freedom know what to do ,cowards who use their very children as shields do not deserve our respect. Just our pity.

[a_unique_person]

The geography of greece is a lot different, and the resistance fighters were getting support from outside, such as arms. Also, they didn't actually have to beat the Nazis, just annoy them till the real armies turned up.

[rikzilla]

Quote:

Originally posted by a_unique_person


You aren't allowed to quote whole articles. The paragraphs skipped were not to do with the protestors, but with children attacking an armoured vehicle with rocks and a molotov cocktail.

Other parts skipped were to do with the protestors experiencing the trauma of live ammunition passing over their heads.

What were the armoured vehicles doing there? According to this http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...103273843.html , they had been escorting Palestinians to their olive groves past settlers who have attacked them in the past. Perhaps this was their sin.

AUP obfuscates deftly as he is called to task yet again for his habit of posting half-truths.

Oh, and AUP...they ARE idiots. It's not a defense, it's an objective fact. About the nicest thing one could possibly call these idiot "student" human shields is "Terminally Idealistic". A tragedy? Sure. But so is every darkly amusing "Darwin Award" contestant.

Everyone has to die, but dying stupid is the worst. A person deliberately going into a war zone because they think they are ten feet tall and bulletproof...because they believed the propaganda....because they think they are doing great acts...IS IDIOCY.

As usual....Darwin is constantly proven correct.

-z

[Doubt]

A few minor problems with the story AUP posted.

1.) The person shot through the legs says the IDF shot out streetlights and then “switched to live ammunition”. What does this mean? They shot out the street lights with blanks? Is this hype inserted to show some sort of sinister change of action?

2.) The person in question was shot through a cinder block wall at night. OK, so when did the IDF get superman like x-ray vision?

3.) I wonder about the M-16 bullet passing through a cinder block. I will have to look for more info on that, but the bullet is pretty tiny. Kinetic energy is E = 0.5*m*v^2. Not sure a normal 5.56mm bullet will penetrate a cinder block. (I never had the chance to test such a thing myself.) A 7.62mm bullet may even have problems getting through, depending on the range.

This story is not good evidence of peaceful protesters being targeted. It is also not evidence against it either.

(edited to add a missing "against")

[corplinx]

Quote:

Originally posted by Doubt

1.) The person shot through the legs says the IDF shot out streetlights and then “switched to live ammunition”.

It could mean the troops switched from rubber to fmj bullets. If you shoot out a streetlight with a metal bullet, you could injure someone farther away if it misses since you are firing up.

Nice to know these peaceniks know so much about militar ammunition.

[renata]

Quote:

Originally posted by Doubt
[b]A few minor problems with the story AUP posted.

1.) The person shot through the legs says the IDF shot out streetlights and then “switched to live ammunition”. What does this mean? They shot out the street lights with blanks? Is this hype inserted to show some sort of sinister change of action?

Just on the first one, I think he means they were using rubber bullets at first. This was in the paragraphs he did not post, but I did- check my post. I assume it is possible to shoot out the lights with them, but I do not know much about rubber bullets themselves. Other than that, agree with all your points.

edited to add

In this article, it gave this version
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...103273843.html

Quote:

The activists were told that three Israeli armoured vehicles had entered the entrance to the camp and they went out into the street to "establish an international presence" in the hope that this would deter the Israelis from using live ammunition.

Mr Taaffe said that one teenager had already been injured by an Israeli rubber bullet when a molotov cocktail was thrown at an armoured vehicle, missing it.

He said the Israelis then backed out of the camp and shot out the power transformer.

Mr Taaffe said he and Mr Turner were in the partial cover of a low wall when a number of rifle shots passed through it. He rejected the Israeli Defence Force's claim that a curfew was in place or had been declared at the time of the incursion.

Here is another article, it looks like Israelis were shooting rubber bullets at first, and then got attacked with molotov cocktails, retreated. Now, in this kind of shooting, when two people are hiding behind a wall, heads down, away from direct line of fire, is it possible to determine who is shooting at whom, from which direction? In other words, if this bullet is unlikely to have passed through the cinderblock wall, could it have come from the side, or the back?

I note in the original article it said

Quote:

It then grazed one thigh before lodging in the other, forcing Palestinian doctors to remove what they later told him was an Israeli military issue 5.56 M-16 round, Mr Taaffe said.

In another article,
http://www.abc.net.au/ra/newstories/...ies_975446.htm

Quote:

Once they removed it it was very obvious it was not a plastic bullet and the Palestinian Authority police officer identified it as an M-16 bullet," he said.

It seems it is unclear who identified as an M-16 bullet and gave him the caliber, but if he has the bullet, and that itself is unclear from the article, it would be pretty easy to settle this issue.

As to what IDF was doing in Nablus other than employing their Xray vision to seek through cinder block walls and raiding hospitals?

Oh, they were indeed raiding a hospital, which is indeed a violation of international law, but not for Taaffe, as this guy may seemed to imply

Quote:

The Australian also claimed that Israeli commandos wearing balaclavas stormed the Raffideyeh Hospital in Nablus in the early hours of yesterday morning and threatened himself and Mr Turner.

"Basically we were woken by flashlights mounted on the ends of assault rifles by men wearing ski masks," Mr Taaffe said.

The commandos then proceeded to sweep through the hospital before departing shortly before dawn, he said.

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet...71748781&path=!news&s=1045855934842

Quote:

NABLUS, West Bank - Masked Israeli troops raided two Palestinian hospitals yesterday and arrested two suspected militants.
....

The troops, wearing black ski masks and carrying assault rifles, entered the Nablus hospitals before dawn. They snatched one militant from his hospital bed, where he was in critical condition, and found another in a basement with a pistol in his hand, the army said.

Human-rights groups and Palestinians condemned the raids, fearing hospitals no longer are neutral ground in the ongoing fighting, and saying that international law bans military operations in medical facilities.

The army countered that international law prevents militants from seeking refuge in a hospital.

.....

Arriving in jeeps about 3 a.m., troops swept into the hospitals and confined doctors and other staff to rooms for more than an hour as they kicked open doors in room-to-room searches, witnesses said.

Soldiers entered the intensive-care unit of Anglican Hospital and grabbed Khaled Hamed from his bed. The 25-year-old Hamas militant was badly injured Wednesday when explosives inside a car he was riding in went off accidentally.

Dr. Annan Abdel Hak said Hamed lost two fingers in the blast and suffered bleeding in his brain and light burns on his body.

Hamed was taken in a military ambulance to Beilinson Hospital in central Israel, where he was in stable condition, a military source said. Hamed had planned suicide bombing attacks, the source said.

Additional tidbit, what did they find in Rafidiyeh when they so inconsiderately woke Taaffe up?

http://www.news-leader.com/today/102...ar-201852.html

Quote:

Elsewhere in Nablus, troops stormed Rafidiyeh Hospital and arrested an armed member of a militant group with links to Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.

The military said troops found the man, whom Palestinians identified as Jawad Ishtayeh, 27, hiding in the hospital's cellar.

The army said the man was healthy, and Palestinian security sources said the man was not a patient.

So they took a Hamas activist who was seriously injured when explosives in his car blew up (explosives he needed for what, I wonder?) and transported him via ambulance to another hospital, and they took a healthy armed militant hiding out in another hospital. This is what Taaffe was protesting and trying to stop.

[Skeptic]

Quote:

Originally posted by Cleopatra




Renata, you are a Zionist and an apologist of the Israeli attrocities, you should be ashamed of yourself for reading the whole of the article.

With AUP, you can never trust the articles he gives as "proofs". Tiny, insignificant details--like the fact that the israeli soldiers were targeted with rocks and a molotov cocktail, and that they shot RUBBER bullets back--are conveniently edited "for space".

AUP is the David Irving of selective quotations. Of course, Irving was at least smart enough to mirepresent obscure documents that were hard to find, so it took a while to find out he is a liar and falsifier. AUP, on the other hand...

[DaChew]

A 5.56 round passes through a cinderblock wall? and is still identifiable? The skeptic alarm is going off in my head right now. Going to need to see evidence on that one. Of course now, it may have been a ricochet. But then that would mean the activists were not deliberately targeted. Which can't possibly be true. Can it?

[Kodiak]

Quote:

Originally posted by DaChew
A 5.56 round passes through a cinderblock wall? and is still identifiable? The skeptic alarm is going off in my head right now. Going to need to see evidence on that one. Of course now, it may have been a ricochet. But then that would mean the activists were not deliberately targeted. Which can't possibly be true. Can it?

Good call, DaChew...

Soldiers complain that 5.56 fails to penetrate even "light" materials.

Googling "penetrating power 5.56 bullet" yielded this plus at least a score of other related links in the same vein.

[rikzilla]

Quote:

Originally posted by Kevin_Lowe
Lies! Lies! Antisemitic lies from a racist! It's not a real news source anyway! Arafat eats babies and you never post about that, which is proof that everything you say is a lie! I bet that Australian guy looked Palestinian anyway! It's war over there, war, don't you understand? Sometimes in a war you have to plug a few babies, journalists and peaceful protesters!

(I just thought that I'd save Skeptic the trouble of posting it...).

A very unimaginative and shrill strawman/ad-hom. It really doesn't deserve a response, but I do wonder Kevin, what Skeptic has done to make you post such an attack. I've read a great many of his posts, and he is usually quite well informed and polite unless goaded.

Your attack seems not only unwarranted, but spiteful and childish.

-z

[Skeptic]

A very unimaginative and shrill strawman/ad-hom. It really doesn't deserve a response, but I do wonder Kevin, what Skeptic has done to make you post such an attack.

Well, it's obviously an attempt at sarcasm, not to be taken literally. Nevertheless, it does fall rather flat.

Of course, part of the "flatness" has to do with the fact that the sarcasm turns out to be partially true: the "smoking gun" evidence DOES turn out, on closer investigation, to be antisemitic lies further distorted by a well-known israel-basher... what a surprise.

I've read a great many of his posts, and he is usually quite well informed and polite unless goaded.

Indeed so. The note outside my cage says, in full:

"Do not disturb the Skeptic. No thrown peanut shells, prodding with sticks, or stupid internet posts, or he'll FLAME you."

"Feeding hours 3-4 p.m daily. Please do not give the Skeptic any food. The zoo takes good care of him, and besides, being a jew, he'll just send it back and complain, like they do in the wild."

[Cleopatra]

AUP!!!

Read THAT please:

Quote:

Originally posted by renata
So they took a Hamas activist who was seriously injured when explosives in his car blew up (explosives he needed for what, I wonder?) and transported him via ambulance to another hospital, and they took a healthy armed militant hiding out in another hospital. This is what Taaffe was protesting and trying to stop.

Those monsters have blacklashed the fight of the Palestinians and they continue applying their dirty methods JUST BECAUSE THERE ARE PEOPLE IN EUROPE AND ELSEWHERE WHO DEFEND THEM.

Can't you see what they are doing???? Those people do not respect even injured soldiers, they do not respect their children and you want the Israeli army who is an army of citizens to pity them??

Why a soldier who serves his country must be killed from somebody who hides in an abulance? Can you please explain this to me???

[a_unique_person]

Quote:

Originally posted by corplinx


It could mean the troops switched from rubber to fmj bullets. If you shoot out a streetlight with a metal bullet, you could injure someone farther away if it misses since you are firing up.

Nice to know these peaceniks know so much about militar ammunition.

It could be years of experience being shot at there.

[a_unique_person]

Quote:

Originally posted by Mycroft


Absolutely! The moment you document it.

You seem unable to make a distinction between civilians getting hurt and civilians being targeted. What you’ve shown us here is a civilian (sort of) getting hurt. That’s the sort of thing that can happen when you make a special effort to visit dangerous places and hang out with people who are very likely to become involved in armed conflict.

Civilian, (sort of), = Lefty Commo who deserves to be shot anyway.

So that doesn't count, the IDF still doesn't target civilians.