A Place to Stand

Try…

Beach deaths 'not Israel's fault' at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5074792.stm
 

Thanks for that. There are 2 points I would make. Firstly this is not the main BBC news but merely the online version where they tend to put news items they want to have reported but don't really want anybody to see (for example they have mentioned the Bilderburg Group there). Secondly, but more importantly, this news item is clearly slanted & makes no mention whatsoever of the suggestion that it was a Hamas rocket. Instead introducing the straw man argument of it being a mine, which they then dispose of, implying that it must have been the Israelis whatever they say.

Neat but hardly honest.
 

Well, the question of the accuracy of the original article is an issue. It quotes Israeli intelligence, perhaps not an unbiased source. See:

Revealed: the shrapnel evidence that points to Israel's guilt

at

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article994070.ece

which seems pretty plausible too
 

I have looked for any eye witness reportage that there where rockets fired from that beach and cannot find any. Apart from the IDF claim, do you have any witness reportage stating that there were?

The facts seem clear. The IDF shelled a site a quarter of mile away, as is their want.
One shell was 'unaccounted' for and likely strayed.
One family was blown into little pieces.
An IDF report later tries to deny liability using the usual 'human shields' bit alongside the usual bumph about it being 'their own fault'
I ask you, if you took your precious family to the beach on one of the hottest days of the year and found militants firing missiles there, would you:
1. All sit around the missile launchers in full knowledge of the usual Israeli response and have a lovely picnic,
or would you:
2. clear off pretty quick?

Sensible Question. Do you really think Palestinians familes are crazy?
 

Ken
"The IDF shelled a site a quarter of mile away, as is their want"

Seriously. If they genuinely went in for deliberate mass shelling of civilians there would be as many palestinians left as Krajina Serbs. you may wish to reconsoder that claim.

By definition the only witnesses are going to be the IDF & Palestinians & I would not accept this Palestinian account < http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2006%20Opinion%20Editorials/June/15%20o/A%20Tragic%20Tale%20About%20A%20Picnic%20On%20A%20Beach%20In%20Gaza%20By%20Ali%20Al-Hail.htm > as entirely credible (its a 3 hankey job).

Anon again the Independent report you name makes absolutely no mention of the possibility of Palestinian shelling which is exactly my point about bias. That they extensively quote an "expert" from human rights watch, a pro-Nazi (at least in Yugoslavia) organisation whose word has been proven worthless confirms it.

It also appears that the shell fragments that Palestinian medicos removed from the bodies have unaccountably disappeard. Pity.
 

Ah well, even the Israelis are having second thoughts…

Doubts over Gaza deaths inquiry

Doubts have been raised about Israel's denial of military responsibility for the deaths of eight Palestinians relaxing on a Gaza beach last Friday.

Investigator Gen Meir Klifi had said it was unknown what caused the blast, but hinted it was a Palestinian-laid mine.

In a later interview he again ruled out Israeli shelling but said old Israeli munitions could have been to blame.

At http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5079464.stm
 

Oh, and re the Markale Market Massacre…

Bosnian Serbs Responsible for Markale Massacre, Expert Testifies

THE HAGUE - Berko Zecevic, an expert in designing ammunition who investigated the mortar shell that killed 68 and wounded 144 in Sarajevo's Markale Marketplace on February 5, 1994, concluded that the shell could only have come from the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) positions. His conclusion was presented in a report commissioned by the Office of the Prosecutor and introduced into evidence when he appeared in Court today…

Mr. Zecevic testified that, when he heard on television that authorities were unable to determine the source of the projectile, he offered his services as an expert to the judge investigating the incident. Working with two colleagues, their analysis revealed the direction from which the shell was fired and six possible locations from which it could have been fired (5 under VRS control and 1 under ABH (Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina) control). The site under ABH control was clearly visible to UNPROFOR personnel, who reported that no shell was fired from that position. The type of stabilizer fin (part of the projectile) found at the site was produced in one of two places, both under control of the VRS at the time. As a result of this and other technical measurements, Mr. Zecevic concluded the shell could only have come from one of the positions under VRS control.

At:
http://www.cij.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewReport&reportID=495&tribunalID=1&print=true
 

World News



The Times June 14, 2006


Israelis deny slaughter in Gaza
From Stephen Farrell in Gaza City and Ian MacKinnon



ISRAEL denied responsibility yesterday for the explosion on a Gaza beach last week that killed eight Palestinian holidaymakers, but failed to offer an alternative explanation for the tragedy.
Speaking shortly after another airstrike left 11 Palestinians dead, including two children, Amir Peretz, the Israeli Defence Minister, said: “The accumulating evidence proves that (Friday’s) incident was not due to Israeli forces.”



Flanked by Dan Halutz, the Chief of Staff and Major General Meir Kalifi, Mr Peretz was presenting the results of the official inquest into last Friday’s carnage on the beach.

After showing slides and detailing Israel’s version of the timings, Major General Kalifi, who led the investigation, said that the blast took place between 4.54pm and 4.57pm, a few minutes after Israeli artillery finished firing.

He also said that the size and shape of the blast crater, according to aerial photography, was not consistent with Israel’s 155mm artillery, and that shrapnel recovered from Palestinian victims in Israeli hospitals cleared Israel: “The probability that one Israeli shell hit at this point is close to nothing.”

One military official suggested that the most likely cause was a Hamas beach mine, planted to foil Israeli commandos.

However, sceptics noted that the Israeli team did not visit the site. They also pointed out that a mine would have had to remain intact for hours on a beach trampled by Palestinian holidaymakers, only to explode after Israel began shelling the area.

Numerous onlookers said that the fatal shell was the third in a series of about five, the first two landing just north of the picnic site and prompting the Ghalia family and other bathers to begin packing up.

The Times found two other identical fresh craters nearby, roughly where the witnesses indicated. After carrying out an independent inspection, Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst with Human Rights Watch, said yesterday that he was “quite certain” that the Israeli findings were wrong.

Mr Garlasco, a former Pentagon official and specialist in battle damage assessment, produced shrapnel that he recovered from the beach marked “55MM”.

“It is highly likely that it was an artillery-delivered 155mm shell,” he said. Mines tended to cause lower body injuries, whereas most of the victims suffered head and upper torso wounds, he added.

“We have to look at all the possibilities, but all the evidence points to a 155mm shell fired by the Israelis as what killed the Palestinians on the beach.”

-So now former Pentagon officials are also'Liars'.

Sorry son - I don't care who your sympathies lie with but the large blockage in your noddle makes your comments and thus your blog useless - Wipe-off time.
Back in a few years to see if you've grown up and developed some kind of nose for the truth. Cheerio.
 

Meanwhile, back on the beach…

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1089712.ece

The Independent examines the timings of the Israeli Intelligence report and concludes:

Hospital casts doubt on Israel's version of attack that killed seven Palestinians

‘…the written hospital admission registration book at Kamal Odwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, where the dead and some of the most seriously wounded victims of the explosion were taken, times the arrival of the first eight victims as being at 5.05pm, 10 minutes earlier than when the army said last week the first ambulances arrived at the scene.’

The Guardian at

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1799835,00.html

Points out the effect of this:

The [Israeli] army concluded that the deadly explosion occurred between 4.57pm and 5.10pm based on surveillance of the beach by a drone that shows people relaxing until just before 5pm and the arrival of an ambulance at 5.15pm.

But hospital records, testimony from doctors and ambulance men and eyewitness accounts suggest that the military has the timing of the explosion wrong, and that it occurred while the army was still shelling the beach.

So it increasingly looks like Israel was indeed responsible for the incident and that no Palestinian conspiracy is required to explain it. By the same token, no-one in the British media appears to be saying that the shelling was deliberate. Is all the sound and fury above necessary to support the notion that the Israelis never make a mistake and that such mistakes should not be reported?
 

Im[plicit in this is the assumption that the Israeli army are intinsically less accurate in recording timing than Palestinian hospitals & presumably that Israeli institutions are not run with the general high standards of competence of Palestinian ones. While this is obviously the default position of the Guardian, Independent etc I would require some evidence that it is truthful.

Once again your sources have chosen to censor any suggestion that the muntions were Palestinian or even to ask what happened to the fragments your well run hospital removed from the bodies. This, yet again, proves my point.
 

Wrong Mr North, I am not Ken Waldron, or Daniel Lam or the Man in the Moon.

My point is that Mr Craig’s original posting alleged that this story was not reported in the British media when in fact it had been. Rather than check his facts he wanted to allege a conspiracy which is easily disproved.

As to the credibility of the Guardian, the weight of evidence that Omarska and Trnopolje existed and that non-Serbs were murdered there is overwhelming. There is a long list of books, articles and witness testimony to prove it. The Guardian is only one source among many. The articles published in ‘The Emperor’s Clothes’ are mendacious trash. Your capacity to ignore the bulk of the evidence and argue about a fence is puzzling but speaks more eloquently about the quality of your thought than I ever could.
 

Fair enough Norman (since you ddon't deny being he). We both accept that these allegations represent the very highest journalistic standards of the Guardian etc. We both accept that the photos the Guardian titled as showing Trinoplje & Omaraka camps represent their closest attempt at the truth. Our differenceis only that I believe that the fact that
the same photo was used for both camps cannot be truthful & you believe it is.

As a purveyor of "mendacious trash" you may be able to point to a single issue on which Emperor's Clothes have proveably been non-factual. Indeed if you are attempting to be remotely honest this time Mr Fraser, you must be able to.
 

As usual Mr North, much bluster and few facts. 'Moderation' permitting I continue this dialogue of the deaf under the 21 June posting on Trnopolje and Omarska.