H/T Elder of Ziyon
Hey, guess what, the Israeli army contains proud Israelis who are Muslim.
Who would have thought it.
That Apartheid system must be really bad for Muslim Bedouin to join up and be proud to serve.
Update:
I made a mistake in confusing Arab with Bedouin. As has been pointed out to me there are very few Arab Muslims in the IDF and those in this video are Bedouin.
Apparently, many Arabs want to serve but their leadeship prevents them.
Continue reading about Muslim Israeli soldiers and proud of it
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I have often written about the plural nature of Israeli society and how it confounds those who would label Israel an ‘apartheid’ state.
Look at this story in ynetNews of an Guinean whose original name was Ibrahim and who now considers himself as ‘a Jew in every way’.
He was sold to slave traders who smuggled him into Israel. How this worked or who benefited from his flight to Cairo and then into Israel via Eilat I cannot work out. I believe the person who had bought his air fare to Cairo expected him to send money back to Guinea. This is hardly slavery as we understand it but the obligation he felt and his fear of return were a kind of slavery.
However, he was never a slave. He found himself as an illegal in Tel Aviv and soon found other black Africans who advised him to apply for refugee status.
When this was turned down he was almost deported but a kind family took him in, sent him to school and eventually persuaded the authorities to give him Israeli citizenship. From there it was a short step to army service.
On Tuesday he is set to complete his officers’ course and will then be promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant. “I really do feel like someone who is making history,” he says with pride. “Who would have believed that I, who arrived in this country with nothing, sat in prison and was nearly deported, would become an IDF officer and serve at the IDF adjutancy helping Israelis integrate into the army?”
Please name any other country in the Middle East where such opportunities, especially for black Africans, are possible. In some Gulf states black Africans are literally slaves. Read this article about Saudi Arabia. In Libya, the vaunted rebels, are attacking black Africans indiscriminately because Gaddafi is using black African mercenaries. See here an article in FrontPage Mag for a report on this behaviour.
Meanwhile Israel has been a haven for Somalis and Sudanese fleeing war and persecution.
As I have often said: so much for Israeli Apartheid.
Continue reading about From Guinean slave to Israeli soldier – the amazing story of Avi Be’eri
Further to my last post, the IDF has come out with a truly amazing statistic. Tamara Shavit reports:
Humanitarian dilemmas are a recurring issue in the Judea and Samaria region. A terrorist fires at IDF soldiers, is shot and gets wounded. Is an IDF medic to be called to treat him? A building is about to collapse in the heart of Ramallah. Does the IDF enter? Does it jeopardize its soldiers’ lives, or does it call the International Red Cross and risk losing precious time?
To Israel, the answer to these questions is clear. According to Division Medical Officer, Lt. Col. Michael Kassirer, “The treatment of the Palestinian population is first and foremost a moral and professional obligation for every one of us.” Do we treat them? There is no question about it. But what happens in the long run and how? Where do international organizations fit in? How will an independent Palestinian medical body be established and how does coordination between bodies happen in life? These are the real questions.
Shavit reports on a Palestinian doctor, Tawfik Nasr, who explained at a conference at the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem that, although the situation in Judea and Samaria has improved, there are many challenges due to accessibility problems and the ability to move freely from the West Bank into Israel.
But despite these difficulties, there are also many successes.” He cites as an example of patients coming from Gaza, treated in Jerusalem sometimes over a period of three to four months. They receive a special permit from the director allowing them to stay in Israel so they won’t have to go back and forth and are housed in a special hotel in the Mount of Olives. “All these things are ultimately coordinated by the Israeli Civil Administration. Therefore I want to take this opportunity to thank you. It is particularly important for me to express my deep gratitude to Dalia [Basa, the medical co-ordinator for the Territories], who is responsible for organizing everything.”
And here’s the statistic:
Last year, 180,000 Palestinian citizens entered Israel to receive treatment. 3,000 emergency patients were transferred from Israeli to Palestinian ambulances using the “back to back” method, without warning.
So much for genocide.
Continue reading about Israel and the Palestinians – more hope through medicine
I was alerted to this YnetNews article by pro-Israel Bay Bloggers. The original article can be found here.
The soldier in question is a Muslim Arab Israeli.
What’s more, he comes from a very pro-Hizbullah, Arab town, Sakhnin. Where, evidently, Israel allows its citizens to demonstrate their support of the enemy.
Despite the obvious social repercussions of his actions, he was determined from an early age to serve his country.
Lt. Hisham abu Varia appears to understand very well that Israel is his country and he and other Arabs should strive to improve it and themselves.
“The army is the entry pass into the Israeli society,” Hisham explains. “The Arab sector thinks it’s second rate here, but to get privileges one has to give and not just receive. The state protects its citizens even if they don’t serve – my parents live off income support. You must contribute to the country you live off. What other country would have an Arab Knesset member, who is being paid by the state, promoting the interests of the Islamic movement and screwing the promotion of the sector it is supposed to represent?”
This brave young man has managed to see beyond the Arab victimhood narrative and learn for himself.
He received his BA in Hebrew and Middle Eastern Studies. He has learned about Judaism and even lectured on it. This is some guy, no?
And to top it all he took a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau where he prayed in Arabic and ‘asked G-d to have mercy on the victims’.
I kept asking myself where was everyone? Where was the United States, the Arab countries? If the Germans had won the Arabs would have been murdered as well. I saw the photos of the victims and felt part of them. There was a Holocaust survivor with us who showed us where she was raped, where all her family had been murdered before her very eyes. She cried and we cried with her. It was a life altering visit.”
Now he is working for his Master’s in anthropology. I’m sure he’ll get it.
Surely Hisham’s story demonstrates that Arabs can integrate and become valuable members of Israeli society, taking advantage of opportunities and becoming better educated and informed so that they can ensure fair treatment and be equipped to meet discrimination head-on.
And just as importantly, they can tell their fellow Arabs the truth about Israeli and Jewish history.
People like Hisham show us that there is yet hope for peace, reconciliation and mutual respect and recognition in Israel and a future Palestine.
*picture credit YnetNews
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When I saw that Panorama, one of the BBC’s longest running investigative programmes, was being fronted by Jane Corbin, I was not sure that Israel would get a fair hearing. The last time I saw Ms Corbin in action on this programme was to report on evictions and demolitions in Jerusalem which ultimately failed to deliver a lot of context.
This time Corbin managed to tell the Israeli side for a change and also interviewed key players on the IHH side. The IHH being a Turkish humanitarian organisation that behaved in anything but a humanitarian way and has links to Islamist groups, including Al Qaeda. There are calls for its being proscribed in the USA and Europe.
The programme did an excellent job of piecing together video into a timeline. This was interspersed with interviews of IDF soldiers who actually took part, received injuries and fired on their attackers.
Interviews with the IHH were predictably disingenuous, representing their actions as defensive and claiming the IDF fired first.
The accusation of firing first was, perhaps, the only disappointing feature in this documentary. Jane Corbin said there were conflicting accounts. In other words, she sat journalistically on the fence. She did say, however, the the IDF could not have fired a weapon and rappelled on to the deck at the same time. The IHH claimed that the IDF shot first so their attack with knives, iron bars, captured pistols and, according the the Israelis, another firearm not used in the IDF, was purely defensive.
This claim is demonstrably nonsense. Firstly, if you are standing on a deck waiting for soldiers to come down a rope and they are somehow managing to fire at you, and you are so defenceless, wouldn’t you get the hell out of the way? If you do not have firearms and someone is shooting at you, would you just wait to attack with iron bars and knives? It’s ludicrous.
The IDF admitted that once they had seen there was strong resistance they should have regrouped and considered more carefully their next move. Instead, they decided to land on the deck even though they had already seen that this would meet with violence. This was a blunder and the current enquiry in Israel will surely further reinforce that fact, already admitted by the military. Israeli intelligence as to the nature of the threat failed miserably. The Mavi Marmara was hijacked by about 40 IHH activists and their plans to attack the IDF, clearly shown from their own videos, were unknown to the majority of activists on the ship who were completely innocent of any intentions other than, perhaps, passive resistance; and this was what happened on all the other boats.
The conclusions any sensible person would draw are these: you may not agree with the boarding of the Mavi Marmara, but it was clearly demonstrated that the Israelis were using paintball guns before they landed on deck and that this was their ‘weapon’ of choice as a non-lethal crowd controller. Handguns were only used when the attack on them became lethal.
It is also clear there was considerable confusion and fear amongst the soldiers, some of whom were taken below and one reported that he believed he would be killed. One of the Turkish activists protected him and probably saved his life. In this respect, his actions are praiseworthy. Other activists seem to have tried to treat the injured Israelis.
There was still no explanation of how and when and where the 9 activists were killed. The fact that 50 were also injured demonstrated, to me, that the soldiers, in fear of their lives, with good reason (some had already been bludgeoned, thrown off deck rails, stabbed and even shot) did what any soldier would do, namely use enough force to stop the immediate threat and discourage further attack. One IDF soldier, when asked if he killed anyone, said he shot at his assailants’ legs and this was then reinforced with video of an injured activist with leg wounds.
I believe that the soldiers went for non-lethal shots, but as they feared being overwhelmed and being killed they used lethal force. Maj Gen (Ret) Giora Eiland, who carried out the IDF investigation, made the remark that, under the circumstances, casualties were low. He didn’t elaborate why, and such remarks don’t play well with international audiences. This was not a well-judged remark, but at least it was honest.
Jane Corbin herself concluded, having seen the remnants of the aid, that the whole flotilla was a political provocation, not a humanitarian one. The Mavi Marmara carried no aid whatsoever (a point not made in the film) and other items were of such little importance to Hamas that they either did not let them through as a form of protest, or they were out-of-date medicines. You can see details of the aid carried by the other boats and what the Israelis did with it on a previous post of mine here.
No doubt apologists from the Free Gaza Movement will simply say that the whole incident would not have happened had it not been for the blockade, the Israelis are liars etc. But I ask you, if the Beeb can’t find anything with which to beat Israel up then maybe the IDF did indeed enter a trap and protected itself from lethal force with lethal force.
Continue reading about Panorama – Death in the Med – credit where credit is due
The State of Israel has begun its own blog.
It will run a ‘Faces of the IDF’ feature.
First up is Corporal Eleanor Joseph, or Elinor Yosef, a female Arab Israeli from near Haifa who is following in the boot-steps of her father. She strikes a very winsome pose on the website. But behind the obvious PR exercise of having attractive Arabs serving in the IDF, (she also happens to be Christian) lie some contradictions and issues of being an Arab in a Jewish state.
The eye2israel website tells us:
Eleanor Joseph is a true Israeli Patriot, she sings the Israeli national anthem Hatikvah, and feels proud and excited to see the Israeli flag fluttering in the wind – “it’s always windy during military ceremonies,” she says with a smile. “I don’t have any other country” is a line from the well known Israeli song written by one of the most esteemed poets, Ehud Manor and is also Eleanor’s motto. This line was written for her by her commander and she keeps it in her pocketbook – it’s always with her. Eleanor doesn’t have any other country; she is a true and a proud Arab Christian Israeli.
But ElderofZiyon reveals that:
Al Arabiya has a lengthy and flabbergasted Arabic article on Jozef. When asked if she would kill Arabs if necessary, she answered that she would hardly be the first Arab to kill other Arabs.
She also said that while she doesn’t celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut, she doesn’t sit and cry either.
Isn’t there a contradiction between singing HaTikvah which speaks of the hope of 2000 years that Jews return to Zion and yet not celebrating Israeli Independence. Logically, it should be the other way round, no?
Such are the contradictions and issues of loyalty or nationhood if you are an Arab Israeli. The sub-text of “I don’t have any other country” is, surely, one of resignation and making the best of it. This further implies that she doesn’t feel that, ultimately, this is her country or at least, her choice of country.
Or maybe it’s just that her enthusiasm for Israel and the IDF has to be tempered in the context of her ethnicity and the history of Israel with its contradictory narratives of expulsion and redemption.
But compare with the UK. Muslims serving in Afghanistan are proud to be British and serving their country whilst some of their co-religionists consider them to be sell-out pariahs.
Is there really much difference?
Let’s hope Elinor is the first of many Israeli-Arab women to show their pride in their country by serving as paratroopers.
Continue reading about First Israeli Arab female paratrooper
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Yesterday, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that disciplinary action had been taken against a number of army officers and soldiers for their conduct during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip between December 2008 and January 2009.
Following Israel’s campaign to severely reduce the power and potential of the Hamas regime to attack targets in Israel using daily rocket fire, the United Nations condemned Israel and then launched a fact finding mission headed by South African judge, Richard Goldstone.
Israel refused to assist with the Goldstone enquiry on the grounds that it was quite capable of conducting its own investigations. Members of the team that put together the report had announced their view that Israel had committed war crimes even before they began their investigation.
The report found Israel and Hamas probably guilty of war crimes and insisted that both Israel and Hamas conduct their own investigations. Nevertheless, the UN seemed intent on indicting Israel and tainting the Israeli government of the time and the Israeli Army with accusations of war crimes.
Israel rejected the Goldstone report on the grounds that it was factually inaccurate, one-sided, did not take full account of the asymmetric nature of the conflict or the gross violations of the rules of armed conflict, the Geneva Convention and just about every international and civilised code of conduct by Hamas.
Notwithstanding Israel’s rejection of the report and the UN’s singling out, yet again, of Israel for condemnation when countries such as Sri Lanka do not merit any similar international condemnation or investigation despite strong evidence of state sanctioned war crimes, Israel had already begun its own internal investigation of its own conduct, and this has now led to both a change in its rules of engagement in the West Bank and the indictment of a number of its soldiers.
Some of the incidents reported by Goldstone and investigated by the IDF have led to indictments but the Ministry report stresses:
the report of the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict (i.e. the Goldstone Report) was published in September 2009, presenting 30 specific incidents related to the IDF, most of which were already familiar to the IDF and were in various stages of examination prior to the report’s publication.
It is interesting to note that the Goldstone Report took mere weeks whilst the IDF has taken over a year. This is comparable to any similar investigation carried out by the United States or Great Britain, for example.
When the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal broke in April 2004, convictions took place in January 2005 of Charles Graner and Lyndie England when the documentary evidence was a lot more clear cut and had taken place outside of any military conflict. It was not until March 2006 that the investigations and convictions were concluded. It should be noted that there was no call for a UN enquiry.
The UK launched a second major enquiry into the Iraq war in June 2009. One year later, this is still ongoing and it will be 2011 until it is completed.
The Goldstone Report effectively began in April 2009 and delivered by September. The IDF has understandably taken a little longer than the rush to judgement required by the UN and delivered by Goldstone. Apparently its investigations are ongoing.
The specific of the indictments of IDF soldiers are as follows:
1. Complaint by Majdi Abed-Rabo:
An investigation into a claim that a Palestinian man was used as a “human shield” was opened by the Military Police Criminal Investigations Division, in accordance with the investigative policies of the IDF, which require that a criminal investigation be opened regarding claims of this kind. (my emphasis)
However, when you look at what actually happened, it is doubtful that any other army in the world would indict:
The investigation found that a battalion commander authorized the sending of a Palestinian man into a house (adjacent to his own) sheltering terrorists, in order to convince them to exit the house. The battalion commander, not present on the scene, authorized the order following reports that the Palestinian man asked the soldiers if he could do this so as to prevent the destruction of his house if a battle were to transpire.
The Military Advocate General indicted the battalion commander because he deviated from authorized and appropriate IDF behavior, and the Israeli Supreme Court jurisdiction regarding the use of civilians during operational activity, when he authorized the Palestinian’s request to enter the house.
2. Complaint by the Hajaj Family:
The original investigation into the incident was based on a claim, which also appeared in the Goldstone Report, that fire killed two women on January 4, 2009, in the neighborhood of Juhar Al-Dik. It was claimed that the women were part of a group of civilians, some of whom were carrying white flags.
This was one of the most notorious incidents until now only reported from the Palestinian side. There was enormous scepticism amongst supporters of Israel who could not believe such a thing could happen.
After reviewing the evidence, the Military Advocate General ordered that an IDF Staff Sergeant be indicted on charges of manslaughter by a military court. This decision is based on evidence that the soldier, who was serving as a designated marksman, deliberately targeted an individual walking with a group of people waving a white flag without being ordered or authorized to do so.
Well, apparently it did. You shoudl note the last sentence where the report says that the soldier was indicted for firing on individuals with a white flag without being ordered to do so.
This may seem an indictment in itself; why should any officer ever require that his men would shoot at someone carrying a white flag? The answer is simple and damns Hamas as much, or even more than it dams the IDF soldier responsible. The reason is that there were documented incidents recorded by the IDF of Hamas operatives forcing civilians to leave houses carrying a white flag whilst they hid amongst or behind them. One such video can be seen here, for example:
This explains the last sentence quoted in the report above and why an IDF soldier might have to shoot at someone with or behind a white flag. However, thi scannot condone the actions and hence the indictment.
3. Ibrahim Al-Makadma Mosque
The report explains that initial investigations could show no air strike on this mosque. Several independent reports insisted that the mosque had been hit and this provoked further enquiry. The air strike was in fact near to the mosque where a a Hamas operative was firing rockets. As a result of the air strike shrapnel penetrated the mosque injuring people inside. It should be noted that the operative himself was not concerned that he was operating near a place of worship where people were gathered.
Again, look at NATO reacting to one of its strikes that went wrong.
But Israel acts thus:
The investigation also showed that the officer who ordered the attack had failed to exercise appropriate judgment. Therefore, the Chief of the General Staff ordered that disciplinary actions be taken against the officer, and that he would not serve in similar positions of command in the future. The officer also stood trial for negligence before the Commander of the Ground Forces Training Center, Brig. Gen. Avi Ashkenazi, who rebuked him for his actions.
But
The Military Advocate General decided that the attack did not violate international laws of warfare because the attack did not target the mosque, rather it targeted a terror operative, and when the attack was authorized, no possibility of harming civilians was identified. According to this assessment, the Military Advocate General decided that legal measures were not necessary.
Finally, the report reminds us:
It should be noted that the IDF conducted the operation after eight years in which Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians living in the southern communities surrounding the Gaza Strip. Despite the fire and the injuries suffered by Israel, Israel practiced a policy of restraint for a long period of time. Since Hamas’ takeover of the Gaza Strip, the terrorist organization has implanted its military system and terrorist infrastructure in the heart of urban areas while using the population as human shields. Operation Cast Lead was limited in the scope of fire and forces used. IDF soldiers operated in crowded urban areas while Hamas made deliberate and cynical use of the Palestinian population, creating a complex security situation. Hamas operated from within civilian homes, schools, kindergartens, mosques, hospitals and UN facilities while the population in the Gaza Strip was made hostage.
Israel has acted and continues to act no differently and perhaps to even more stringent rules than most western democracies in similar circumstances.
Continue reading about Israeli Military Justice – without the need for the UN
A new Facebook page has been created called The IDF – Not Only Shooting.
Its aim is to show that there are aspects to the IDF that you may not know about.
It’s mainly in Hebrew but the photos speak for themselves.
As the majority of Israelis will serve in the Israeli armed forces, it’s hardly surprising that its members represent a vast range of people, beliefs, attitudes and cultures.
The IDF’s recent humanitarian project in Haiti after the earthquake shows the resources and also the ethos of the IDF.
But the Palestinians have a different view it seems. Palestinian Media Watch reports on the demonisation of soldiers – and Jews. In a Palestinian Authority TV program for children whose fathers have been imprisoned by Israel, there is the following exchange:
PA TV host Manal Seif interviews the young sister of prisoner Qussai Husam Radwan, who was sentenced to 13 months in prison:Host: “Do they bother you, the Israeli army, the soldiers there [when visiting at the prison]?”
Girl: “Yes.”
Host: “They’re wild animals, right? Aren’t they wild animals?”[PA TV (Fatah), June 21, 2010]
PA TV host Manal Seif interviews the four-year old son of prisoner Shadi Shbeita, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison:Host: “Ibrahim, you know – you’re cute and sweet. You have a nice shirt and nice pants. You’re cool. Where’s Daddy? Where’s Daddy? Daddy Shadi – where is he? Where is Daddy Shadi?”
Boy: “In prison.”
Host: “Who put him in prison? Who is it that put him in prison?”
Boy: “The Jews.”
Host: “The Jews are our enemies, right?”
[Boy nods in agreement.]
As the reporter points out, it is ‘the Jews’ who are the enemies, not ‘Israelis’ not even Jewish soldiers, but ‘Jews’.
This Facebook group shows the IDF in a different light.
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The irredeemably flawed Goldstone Report, which was produced at the behest of UN Human Rights Council, came to the conclusion that both Israel and Hamas probably committed war crimes during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip between December 2008 and January 2009.
Both Israel and Hamas were charged with responding to the allegations in the report and conducting their own investigations into it to be presented to the UN Security Council.
The very idea of asking an organisation such has Hamas (which not only brutally represses its own people and murders its political opponents, but is also intent on the genocide of the Jewish people and the destruction of Israel as is written into its own charter and its many public broadcasts), to present a response to the UN is as mind-boggling as it would be for the UN to ask the Taliban to present a report on its actions in Afghanistan.
Whereas Hamas boasts of its war crimes and comes up with a ludicrous response to the UN, Israel, at least, has spent thousands of hours, conducted hundreds of interviews, brought dozens of indictments against its own soldiers and is still in the process of producing a 1000 page response to the Goldstone report.
This is what Hamas has to say, as reported by Ha’aretz, and so condemns itself from its own mouth:
The Hamas report will be submitted to the UN later this week, said the official, Mohammed al-Ghoul. Its argument is that rockets fired from Gaza were meant to hit military targets, but because they are unguided, they hit civilians by mistake. (My emphasis)
Anyone with even a minimal smattering of law and logic can see not only the contradictions in this last statement but must also see that this lie is so patent and so crass that were Mr al-Ghoul (and what an appropriate name that is!) a wooden puppet his nose would stretch from Gaza City to al Quds!
IT IS A WAR CRIME TO FIRE MUNITIONS WHICH CANNOT BE GUIDED TOWARDS AREAS OF POPULATION. PERIOD.
And if they are unguided, how can they possibly be meant to hit military targets!? This is the organisation and these are the people who are being legitimised by the UN just by treating them on an equal footing with a member of the UN. This is moral equivalence of the most pernicious and degrading kind. But Ban says, according to the Jerusalem Post,
he was uncertain whether Israel or the Palestinians had met UN demands to undertake “credible” investigations into allegations that they deliberately targeted civilians during last year’s Gaza offensive….
He said he hoped the assembly’s resolution will, in fact, result in probes “that are independent, credible and in conformity with international standards.”
But, he added that “no determination can be made on the implementation of the resolution by the parties concerned.
Eh? He may be uncertain about Israel but he must surely be god-damned bloody positive that Hamas targeted civilians because, apart from the overwhelming evidence AND their ongoing operations (e.g. barrel bombs along Israel’s coastline this week), THEY ADMITTED IT AND BOAST ABOUT IT. What the hell does he mean ‘he’s uncertain’? He’ll be wanting an investigation into Copernican heliocentricity soon.
The Ha’aretz article quotes al Ghoul as saying:
Palestinian armed groups have repeatedly confirmed that they abide by international humanitarian law, through broadcasting in different media that they intended to hit military targets and to avoid targeting civilians,” the Hamas report stated, citing casualties from “incorrect (or imprecise) fire.
What planet, indeed, what specie are these people from? The only media broadcasts I know about are vicious, Jew-hating, genocidal, blood-libelling filth.
This is what Israel has done according to the Jerusalem Post:
Israel released a 46-page paper last Friday documenting the steps it had taken to investigate IDF actions during Operation Cast Lead, stressing that its military judicial system was independent and came under civilian review, and dismissing four of the 36 allegations of war crimes found in the Goldstone Report.
The document also revealed that disciplinary action had been taken against two top officers – a brigadier-general and a colonel – for permitting artillery fire near a UN compound in a neighborhood in Gaza City…
The IDF, meanwhile, is continuing preparation of an in-depth, point-by-point rebuttal of the Goldstone report, which is expected to number over 1,000 pages and be ready within a number of weeks.
A subtly different response to Hamas.
It is true that Israel neither co-operated with the Fact Finding Mission led by Goldstone nor does it appear to be intending to have an independent judicial enquiry. Ban appears to be saying that such an enquiry may not be necessary because he has not dismissed the Israeli army enquiry as being an inadequate response; all he says is that response is incomplete, which is self-evident since they have not yet delivered the 1000 page document. Hamas’s report is incomplete because it is a risible heap of bovine excrement and the Palestinian Authority which decided it should have a report to (it can’t let its rival Hamas have all the glory) only began at the end of January!
It’s not the credibility of Israel that’s is being highlighted here but the credibility of the UN itself and its ridiculous playing out of the farce of a ‘credible’ report from Hamas and giving them the respectability of playing out that farce as if they were a responsible national entity and not a bunch of murderous genocides intent on spreading their obnoxious, pathological hatred of Jews.
Ban ki-moon? Ban ki-rupt more likely.
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