Posted under Interventionism & Israel
Amnesty International is calling on the UN for an embargo on arms sales to both Israeli and Palestinian groups following the Gaza Conflict which killed around 1,300 Gazans and 13 Israelis in a mere 22 days of fighting.
Amnesty International came across many white phosphorus 155mm artillery carrier shells throughout Gaza with markings M825 A1 – a US-made munition.
Since early December 2008, the US Military Sealift Command has been organizing three large deliveries by sea of military ammunition and high explosives, including explosives with white phosphorus, from the US base at Sunny Hill, North Carolina, to an Israeli port near Gaza.
What did the Gaza Conflict have to do with US interests?
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Amnesty International has found indisputable evidence that Israeli forces used white phosphorus, which has a highly incendiary effect, in densely populated residential areas in Gaza, putting the Palestinian civilian population at high risk.
During the same period, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups continued to fire indiscriminate rockets into residential areas of southern Israel, killing three civilians.
Direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, disproportionate attacks and indiscriminate attacks are war crimes.
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The organization’s delegates found white phosphorus still burning in residential areas throughout Gaza days after the ceasefire came into effect on 18 January – that is, up to three weeks after the white phosphorus artillery shells had been fired by Israeli forces.
When each 155mm artillery shell bursts, it releases 116 wedges impregnated with white phosphorus which ignite on contact with oxygen and can scatter, depending on the height at which it is burst (and wind conditions), over an area at least the size of a football pitch.
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Recommendations
Impose UN SC arms embargo – Impose immediately a comprehensive UN Security Council arms embargo on Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups until effective mechanisms are in place to ensure that weapons or munitions and other military equipment will not be used to commit serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. This must include ensuring that alleged violations are thoroughly and impartially investigated and accountability, with any persons who are found responsible being brought to justice in fair trials.
Suspend All Arms Transfers – Act immediately to unilaterally suspend all transfers of military equipment, assistance and munitions, as well as those which may be diverted, to Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups until there is no longer a substantial risk that such equipment will be used for serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights abuses. The suspension should include all indirect exports via other countries, the transfer of military components and technologies and any brokering, financial or logistical activities that would facilitate such transfers.
Kirt Higdon on 23 Feb 2009 at 3:25 pm #
The US should end all aid and arms transfers to Israel or any other foreign country or entity immediately and permanently. In addition, the US should withdraw from troops from all foreign countries and downsize its armed forces to only what is needed for justified self-defense. The use of white phosphorus, while extremely cruel, is only one small aspect of a foreign policy which routinely uses brutality for grabbing more power.
But in all of human history, I have never heard of a country which ceased from wars of conquest simply because its rulers had an attack of conscience and, given what US rulers are like, I don’t think the US will be the first. Only military catastrophe is likely to end this binge. Economic catastrophe is already well underway and the Obama regime’s response is to bring on more war.
Weaver on 23 Feb 2009 at 3:51 pm #
Continued from the same report:
Weaver on 23 Feb 2009 at 3:57 pm #
This is the most indefensible example of Israeli war crimes that I’m aware of.
I guess the Israelis figured: “if the US can use it in Iraq, then we can use it here”, but Gaza is tiny and densely populated. There’s no way to spin these attacks.
The fog of war seems to hide a lot of rumoured war crimes, but the fog appears very thin here.
American rulers will listen to the peasants if the peasants threaten them with the ballot box.
RonL on 23 Feb 2009 at 6:31 pm #
“Paleo-Conservatives” giving credence to anti-American socialist groups like AI, and the UN. Oh, I’m sorry, logic and consistency go away when dealing with Israel. It is all about grievances with neoconservatives, so who cares about damage to America that occurs with accepting internationalist lies.
Use of White Phosphorous as illumination and/or smokescreen is standard operating for many countries and is entirely legal under international law. The tranzis create new standards to attack Israel and/or the US. Why do you fall for a lie, that would be easy cross check? Or did I answer that above?
The irony is that other than WP, the most controversial weapon from the US has been the Small Diameter Bomb. That Israel used this, and not their indigenous 500lg bomb to MINIMIZE CASUALTIES is ignored. That if the leftists had suceeded, more Gazans would have died is irrelevent. Arab blood is not the point. Deligitimizing Israel and the US is. So why fall for it?
I’m all for ending US military and foreign aid, but the predicate here is preposterous.
Kirt Higdon on 23 Feb 2009 at 7:43 pm #
The Korean War and arguably the Vietnam War were ended due to the regime in power being chastised at the ballot box, although in the latter case it took several years and the getting out cost more lives than the getting in.
In both those cases, a combination of conscription and relatively high casualties undermined popular support for the war. The US no longer has nor needs conscription and its technological edge is such that it can inflict casualties on the enemy by ratios of 100 or 1000 to one. This leaves economic cost as the only persuader to mobilize the peasants and so far they seem to draw no connection between the cost of constant war and occupation and the impoverishment of the imperial heartland. Bankruptcy and collapse of the regime at home might force the withdrawal of forces from abroad as it did in the case of the Soviet Union. But the US might also simply bully other powers into submission and surrender of their resources by the threat of nuclear attack.
roho on 24 Feb 2009 at 12:42 am #
Good story Weaver!……The internet is filled with photos of Palestinian children and citizens running from the “Airburst Above” of white phosphurus shells raining down on them like “Hell Fire And Brimstone”.(Water will not even put it out as it burns deeper into human flesh over a 48 hour period!)…..And they, in their arrogance were busted even using it against the U.N. observers at the U.N. school where children were seeking shelter?
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10320.shtml
But, it’s worse as they chose to turn Gaza into a “Human Target Experiment” area with a new technology called “Dime Weapons”!
These are weapons that use small pelets of tungston the size of sand to amputate the legs of anyone within a certain radius of the explosion, and then cause cancer if they survive! Hospital surgeons said that they have never seen anything quite like it?
http://wideeyecinema.com/?p=837
But, our “Military Industrial Complex” knew that they were getting their asses in over their head with the U.N. running from the bombs themselves!
http://www.gaurdian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/15/pentagon-munitions-israel-gaza
Does a nation with 300 Nukes really think that the world feels their pain when they continue to kill people for the simple reason of real-estate expansion?……..”Holocaustianity” and Jewish flim-flam games have really ran their course.
Weaver on 24 Feb 2009 at 11:17 am #
RonL…
white phosphorus may not be used on compact civilian areas.
Only a propagandist could claim white phosphorus was justified in Gaza.
Similarly napalm is deemed immoral.
roho on 24 Feb 2009 at 1:58 pm #
Here are more articles on the “DIME” weapon systems being tested on the Gaza citizens:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10236.shtml
and
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10176.shtml
As I understand this new weapon, it works like a powerful sand blaster that literally sand blasts your body to ablivion in an instant! It doesn’t damage infrastructure or buildings, but simply eliminates the existing human resident making room for more settlers.
Weaver on 24 Feb 2009 at 4:48 pm #
Roho,
that looks like propaganda.
Kris on 24 Feb 2009 at 8:26 pm #
Israel is the albatross around America’s neck. I hope Israel’s aggressive actions don’t get America nuked someday.
roho on 24 Feb 2009 at 8:31 pm #
Weaver……..No….It’s an anti-personal weapon just like cluster bombs. The Israelis also used “Fletchets” which are “Darts” rather than shrapnel releasing bombs, that do not have the penetrating power of fletchets.
The purpose of a “Dime Weapon” is to control the kill zone radius like exploding sand. It may destroy all human flesh in a 50 foot circle and never break a window at 50 yards? Tungsten is heavier than lead or steel which is why many duck and geese hunters shoot tungsten shot in waterfowl hunting.(#3.4,5, shot etc, but when you bring the shot size down to a grain of sand in an explosion, it’s devastating in a controled area.)
Think of it like the farmer that’s tired of teenagers stealing his strawberries and loads his shells with salt instead of lead and shoots them at a distance? Had he shot them at 5 feet he would have killed them vs setting their butts on fire. (You may be too young to have ever been shot with salt, but I bet Red and HB2 have been shot in the fifties or sixties? Ha-Ha!)……I was and dropped my strawberries!
Same principle……The tungsten grains are so much heavier than salt that it is devastating.
Weaver on 25 Feb 2009 at 12:32 am #
RonL,
Israel is Israel’s business up until the US is financing it. Then it becomes an issue Americans should complain about.
The problem is too few speak out against this incompetent and anti-American government of ours.
With regard to foreign policy: if there’s a way to end the American occupation of the world while saving face, I’m all ears. Israeli and American interests conflict on this matter up until America ceases to be involved.
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Roho,
RonL has a point: would you prefer the larger diameter bombs?
A better argument is probably made that the bombing itself was unjustified.
And the infrastructure might have been less damaged, but it was hit hard nevertheless.
Ron’s right in that there is a lot of propaganda against Israel and America, but some of what he labels propaganda appears true, such as this use of WP.
roho on 25 Feb 2009 at 1:48 pm #
Weaver………They eventually bulldoze everything to make new settlements anyway? Many of these weapons are launched by drones, and camera capability to look at the very people being targeted like a video game.(And almost all were civilian targets.)
Please understand that I also have issues with both the Dresden and Tokyo firebombings of WWII. (Gen. Curtis Lemay himself said, that had we lost the war he would have been tried for war crimes.)
Weaver on 25 Feb 2009 at 3:18 pm #
I was just pointing out that the small diameter bombing itself doesn’t appear to be malicious, since in theory they were going after military targets.
Bruce on 25 Feb 2009 at 4:08 pm #
Zero Israelis had been killed by rockets fired from Gaza in the preceding 12 months.
Israel had been planning their invasion for months.
Israel broke the cease fire by killing six Palenstinan civilians. The rockets were in response to these murders by the Israelis.
Does Israel belong to any Nuclear Agency ? Have they signed any nuclear treaties yet ? Does Israel allow international inspections of their 500 nuclear bombs ? Or does Israel still pretend they do not have atomic, chemical, and biological weapons ?
roho on 26 Feb 2009 at 4:41 pm #
Bruce……Their position is not admit, deny, or discuss. As “Perez” said “Nobody judges Israel!!”
It is a position of pure arrogance.