Tuesday, February 17, 2009

DUPED!

The IDF has belatedly opened its dossier on Palestinian fatalities and revealed "an overview utterly at odds with the Palestinian figures" which were widely published and acepted by the world's media during the Gaza conflict." - World duped by Hamas death count.

The Israeli figure of roughly one third civilian casualties is consistent with claims by IDF supporters that its campaign was marked by an extraordinary effort to minimise civilian casualties in a battle against an enemy that shows no respect for civilians — either on its own side or on that of the other.

The Jerusalem Post article goes on to expose the so-called Gaza school massacre as even more of a scandalous lie than was previously thought:

As an example of such distortion, he cited the incident near a UN school in Jabalya on January 6, in which initial Palestinian reports falsely claimed IDF shells had hit the school and killed 40 or more people, many of them civilians.

In fact, he said, 12 Palestinians were killed in the incident - nine Hamas operatives and three noncombatants. Furthermore, as had since been acknowledged by the UN, the IDF was returning fire after coming under attack, and its shells did not hit the school compound.

“From the beginning, Hamas claimed that 42 people were killed, but we could see from our surveillance that only a few stretchers were brought in to evacuate people,” said Levi, adding that the CLA contacted the PA Health Ministry and asked for the names of the dead. “We were told that Hamas was hiding the number of dead.”

The media across the world fell into a spider's web of lies fed to it by Hamas and inflamed by its UNRWA lapdog spokespersons who seem to think its their job to shill for the terrorists. I have already noted that Toronto Globe and Mail recently refuted the early claims published around the world that Israel targeted the school but now it turns out that the Israel version that it responded to and took out an enemy that used its own civilians as human shields is right on the mark. And the number of civilians who died was three and not 42 as alleged elsewhere.

The Melbourne Age, which apologised for publishing an antisemitic opinion piece about the conflict in its business pages, has never properly retracted its atrocious deceptive on line headline story from the day following the incident - Israeli strikes kill 48 in school refuges.

It did not do so following the Globe and Mail revelations and my guess is that it won't do so now.

It is true that Age correspondent Jason Koutsoukis later reported that the IDF shells fell outside the school grounds but a one line statement in a news article hardly represents a proper retraction of the original lie told with bold headlines that highlighted the Age on line edition's home page for the better part of the day. Certainly, those who were duped by false tales of imaginary Israel war crimes and who marched in pro Hamas rallies remain oblivious to this very day. This is the lie the Age published on 7 January, 2009 and which prompted many to demonstrate in a crowd that included people who urged Jews to be gassed:

"Israeli forces blazed into towns across Gaza today, striking Hamas targets but also hitting three United Nations-run schools in attacks that killed up to 48 people and led to urgent new calls for a ceasefire."

The Age doesn't get it and won't apologise for its error but one person who does is Greg Sheridan of the Australian who wrote recently -

"The cost in innocent Palestinian lives was heavy and tragic, and the fault for this rests entirely with Hamas, the terrorist death cult that rules Gaza. I do not believe a single story of Israeli war crimes or atrocities in Gaza. There is no evidence of any such story beyond Palestinian eye-witness accounts and on countless previous occasions these accounts have been fabricated. Remember the reports of the so- called massacre in the West Bank Palestinian town of Jenin in 2002, reports buttressed by eye-witness accounts? Did you know that it never took place, as later international investigations acknowledged?" - There May Be the Will but Not Necessarily the Way.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I hear that the United Nations is going to carry out an investigation of its own now.

The results will be interesting going on thestatements and conduct of the UN's apparatchiks in general. Will Ging or Gunness carry out the "investigation"?

Why not an independent investigation carried out by a reputable judge or legal expert?

Whatever happens, you can bet that if the outcome is a report critical of Israel, the Age will publish the results while they are still hot off the presses. If they vindicate Israel, the results will be ignored.