The Canadian Jewish News
Editorial
Thursday, 09 July 2009
Last week, the human rights organization Amnesty International issued a report on the war late last year in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. The 117-page document is entitled Operation "Cast Lead": 22 days of death and destruction. The title says it all. . The document, almost in its entirety, targets Israel. Of the six chapters and 117 pages in the report, one chapter - comprising 11 pages - discusses the Palestinians" role in the conflagration.
In a breathtaking dismissive sweep of the hand that typifies the human rights agency"s long-standing approach to the predicament of the Jewish state, the report states: "Amnesty International has seen no evidence that rockets were launched from residential houses or buildings [in Gaza] while civilians were in these buildings."
To be sure, Amnesty said that the rocket attacks from Gaza against Israel "constitute war crimes." But this is an easy, non-controversial statement for Amnesty to make, because there can be no denying, either in fact or in law, the plain, simple truth of deliberately launching rockets at men, women and children in their homes, schools, daycare centres and synagogues.
It is clear, however, from the layout, tone, emphasis and weight of the rest of the report that Amnesty only had Israel and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in its gun sights.
Amnesty accused the IDF of killing hundreds of unarmed Palestinian civilians, destroying thousands of homes, using civilians, including children, as human shields and of perpetrating random attacks on civilians, of breaching the laws of war and committing war crimes.
The IDF responded to the attack from Amnesty as it does to most attacks against the Jewish state: swiftly and with vigour.
"We find it both questionable and objectionable that a well-respected and ostensibly objective international organization such as Amnesty could produce a report on Operation Cast Lead without properly recognizing the unbearable reality of nine years of incessant and indiscriminate rocket fire on the citizens of Israel. The slant of their report indicates that the organization succumbed to the manipulations of the Hamas terror organization," the IDF said.
The IDF emphasizes a point that Amnesty tends to diminish: "The terrorists" military infrastructure was hidden in and around civilian homes and dispersed to locations scattered around the Gaza Strip, home to an estimated more than 1.4 million people, one of the most densely populated areas on earth."
The war to uproot the terrorists and their infrastructure was justified and necessary. It was, as the IDF said, conducted with great effort "to minimize as much as possible harming uninvolved, noncombatant civilians." But such was the nature of the terrorists" plan, performance and purpose that, despite the best efforts of the IDF, Palestinian civilians were indeed killed - regrettably so, terribly so, but unintentionally so.
Amnesty downplays this critical aspect of the war to the point of dismissing it. Amnesty so unfairly, so determinedly targets Israel that it makes of their report an international travesty.
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