Atrocities That Pass in Silence

[B-Man]

By ARNOLD AHLERT

May 5, 2004 -- THREE days ago, a pregnant Israeli woman and her four young daughters were shot to death at point-blank range by two Palestinian murderers. Each child - ages 11, 9, 7 and 2 - received another bullet to the head, and the mother was shot again directly in the abdomen.

It is useful to remember this incident and compare the dead silence it has elicited from those same human-rights organizations, media outlets and America-bashers involved in the feeding frenzy accompanying the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. The disparity of outrage is quite revealing.

The feeding frenzy demonstrates that even those who hate America - and never miss a chance to express that hatred - expect us to adhere to a certain standard of decency. The dead silence demonstrates that no similar expectations apply to societies that produce baby killers and homicide bombers, or use women and children as "human shields" in combat.

Why? Because behind the "high-mindedness" of "universal" human rights is a hypocritical prejudice which allows certain cultures more "leeway" when it come to murder and mayhem.

The United States has expressed regret over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal - even as several Palestinian militant groups wanted credit for murdering a pregnant women and her four young daughters.

[nicky g]

In what way has this atrocity passed in silence? It has been all over the media and roundly condemend by just about everyone. Meanwhile, several dozen Palestinian civilians have been killed in the past few months. They have received next to no coverage in the Western press, unlike this atrocity. Hundreds of Iraqi civilians have been killed in circumstances that only frigne media bothers to report. You wouldn't even know the manin hospital in Falluja was destroyed by US bombarment if you relied on the mainstream press.

The human rights groups this gentleman refers to routinely denounce the targetting of civilians on both sides, despite the fact that their focus is primarily on government abuses, as governments can be held accountable. When they criticise Palestinian attacks on civilians noone hears about it because noone outside of those groups seriously disagrees or takes issue with them. When they criticise Israel for targetting civilians they get jumped on by the Israeli proaganda machine and a million apologists.

Human rights groups are there to speak for the voiceless, for people tortured in jail or abused in closed military zones while the world looks the other way; to bring abuses to light that people would otherwise ignore (as the Pentagon was inent on doing with its own report into Abu Gharib). They aren't there to join the chorus of condemnation for obvious crimes that noone seriously defends. They exist to investigate and publicise abuses that the state condones and covers up. They have no need to firther publicise an atrocity that has been on front pages around the world and which will no doubt be not only investigated but brutally and illegally avenged by Israeli security forces.

The continued use of the "human shields" argument by the pro-Israeli right is really astounding given that the IDF openly admits it has used Palestinian civilian human shields in the occupied territories. You don't have to look to Arab dictatorships for 1984, it's right here.

[Dilbert]

Murder and mayhem happens all the time. Save a word like "atrocity" for the serious stuff like the mass murders of Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot.

No one in the Middle East cares about one family getting offed, except for the political public relations value of it.

[nicky g]

Witness Amnesty International's devestating silence:

Israel/Occupied Territories: AI condemns murder of woman and her four daughters by Palestinian gunmen

[Gamblor]

The continued use of the "human shields" argument by the pro-Israeli right is really astounding given that the IDF openly admits it has used Palestinian civilian human shields in the occupied territories.

Labelling both techniques as using "human shields" severely distorts the actual action being taken.

On the Israeli side, the "human shields" are actually referred to as the "friendly neighbour" method of arrest. When arresting a wanted terrorist for trial, in an impartial court of law, the friendly neighbour technique requires the IDF to have the neighbour of the terrorist knock on the door and ask the wanted man to surrender, in the hopes that the terrorist's racist mentality will minimize the chance that he'd open fire on a fellow Arab. The neighbour is given a face shield as well as a bulletproof vest for his safety.

On the Palestinian side, the terrorists hide in civilian areas, hoping the IDF will be forced to engage in a heavily populated area. The civilians used as human shields range from innocent women and children caught in crossfire during an attempted terrorist arrest, to willing martyrs so far brainwashed by Arafat and his propaganda machine that they'd much rather die for Arafat than live. It's simple, really:

Poor, dead people elicit world sympathy for your cause, and for Arafat, nothing is more important than his cause, not his life, not the lives of others. He wants to be King of Palestine, and anything in his way dies.

[nicky g]

Don't you feel embarrassed that your compulsion to defend Israel no matter what forces you to write such utter garbage and defend such abhorrent abuses? I suspect you actually do.

I asked you before, why is it racist to prefer to fire on an enemy solider come to arrest or kill you than on a neighbour? The answer it, it isn't. Such practices are completely illegal and depraved and giving someone a face mask doesn't make them less so.

You are right that the practices are different. On the one side you have resistance fighters who live in overcrowded refugee camps that the ISraelis forced them into when they stole their homes, defending them from attack when the IDF decides to invade, which is construed as "deliberately placing themselves among civilians". Where the hell else are they going to go? On the other you have invading IDF soldiers kidnapping civilians and forcing them at gunpoint to act as their human shields, forcing them to enter possibly booby trapped houses and using them as firing positions. So yes, there is a huge difference.

[Gamblor]

Because these terrorists, sent by Fatah (which is run by Arafat), apologize for killing innocent Israeli Arabs, but cheer when they kill innocent Israeli Jews.

Fatah's Apology - Drenched in Blood

[nicky g]

From B'Tselem:

During the al-Aqsa intifada, IDF soldiers have used Palestinian civilians as human shields. This practice has been most common during IDF operations in Palestinian population centers, such as Operation Defensive Shield.

The method is the same each time: soldiers pick a civilian at random and force him to protect them by doing dangerous tasks that put his life at risk. For example, soldiers have ordered Palestinians to:


enter buildings to check if they are booby-trapped, or to remove the occupants


remove suspicious objects from roads used by the army


stand inside houses where soldiers have set up military positions, so that Palestinians will not fire at the soldiers


walk in front of soldiers to shield them from gunfire, while the soldiers hold a gun behind their backs and sometimes fire over their shoulders.

The soldiers in the field did not initiate this practice; rather, the order to use civilians as a means of protection was made by senior army officials
Background info on human shileds

[MMMMMM]

Still a very different use of "human shields" and one that typically has a very different result.

It is essential to differentiate. Lumping such things into the same category is obfuscating (I don't think you are doing it intentionally, though). Also the results of both techniques are markedly different. One tactic is intended to save lives; the other to cost lives. Huge difference.

[nicky g]

That has got absolutely nothing to do with the question. "Uh, it's racist to prefer to fire on an enemy soldier rather than your next door neighbour because someone else did something else that was racist."