TylerMC/humanitarian

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

What you're witnessing is the usual denials, obfuscations and cognitive dissonance. Israel's got a PR disaster on their hands. They're attempting to minimize it. A lot of stories are floating around about the beach attack. People that I work with were on the beach when this happened and saw the whole thing. They also got pictures. They said it was a artillery (missiles or shells rather than IED's) and believed it came from the ship, but maybe not. The findings of Mr. Garlasco, who has nothing to gain or lose with his investigation, are also compelling. The shell is determined not to be the type typically used by naval ships (Too large for a naval ship it is said). Where it came from is unknown, but the Palestinians do not have equipment that can fire a shell of this size, 155mm.

What we do know is a family was killed. We know the explosion, based upon forensic evidence came down, not up from the ground and we know that governments will do anything to deflect criticism like the US does in Iraq and Israel does in Palestine.

QUOTE: As the military investigation team insisted that artillery fire had stopped by the time the explosion occurred and suggested it had been caused by a bomb planted in the sand, Amir Peretz, the Defence Minister, declared: " The accumulating evidence proves that this incident was not due to Israeli forces."

But the official interpretation was strongly challenged by a former Pentagon battle damage expert who has surveyed the scene of the beach explosion. He said yesterday that "all the evidence points" to a 155mm Israeli land-based artillery shell as its cause.

Marc Garlasco, who worked in war zones including Iraq and Kosovo during his seven-year stint in the US Department of Defence....Mr Garlasco said that most of the serious injuries of the victims in the Gaza hospitals that he had visited were to the torsos and heads, which were inconsistent with a land mine or of a bomb embedded in the sand. "If this had been a landmine I would have expected to see serious leg injuries," he said. Mr Garlasco said that while he could not rule out the theoretical possibility that Palestinian militants had rigged up an unexploded 155mm shell to make an explosive device of their own, that too would have normally produced many more severe leg injuries.

Mr Garlasco produced a four to five-inch, mainly blackened shell fragment which he collected about 100 yards from the scene of the explosion and in which the figures 55 and the letters "mm" are clearly discernible. While acknowledging that this was not itself definite proof that the shell had killed the Palestinians he said some fragments and shrapnel which the Palestinian police explosives department say they took from the scene where the victims were killed were definitely from a 155mm shell.
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This is the photo album of the event described in Marlin and Sally's story below. Extremely compelling.
Remember, each settler house is made possible by US funds. They are illegal and each family is given the equivalent of $30,000 to move into these illegal homes. The settlers are the most extreme and deadly. Thou a small portion of Israeli society, they command 50% of Israel's government through representation. They are the #1 problem and road block to peace in the Middle East.

Marlin and Sally Vis are two of the most amazing people I've ever met. They're living in East Jerusalem for the next 4 years working with the Palestinian Christian and Muslim communities.

This story about the struggles to just get to school for Palestinian children demonstrates the increasing violence by the settlers but also highlights a few brave Israeli Occupation Force soldiers who stopped looking the other way. Humanity does exist in Israel, even in the IOF. Sometimes it is hard to remember that. Excellent story.

This is an excellent example of why equating Zionism with Judaism is a bad idea. The political movement Zionism focuses on racial/theological supremacy and entitlement. Judaism is obviously a faith centered on a single God that does not when it stays true to the Mosaic laws. This article speaks of the censorship of Palestinian Art detailing the oppression in the Occupied Territories at an exhibit which was pulled by a non-denominational Jewish college. The art was brought in at the REQUEST OF JEWISH STUDENTS...who obviously do not follow or accept the political movement of Zionism and wanted people to see what is happening, often in the name of their faith.

Good job kids! Way to go!

I met with Alison Weir about a month and a half ago and was speaking to her about the 39 American citizens killed by Israel which I documented in the article "Where American Lives Do Not Count". couplescompany.com/Features/Politics/2006/SacraficeAmericans.htm [couplescompany.com/Features/Politics/2006/SacraficeAmericans.htm]

Suffice it to say, I was shocked to learn that Israel regularly imprisons and tortures American citizens and our Government ignores it. According to statements by our own officials, they do not even know how many Americans are currently being held in Israeli prisons...because Israel isn't required to follow the 48 hour notification of detention we require all other nations, (and other nations also expect) to follow. This article details some of those cases.

Meanwhile in Israel the "War against Terrorism" involves the arrest of a five year old boy.

This statement by the arresting soldier sums it up:
"Israel does not separate between children and adults," the officer told Samer. "All Palestinians are terrorists!"

God help us if Americans adopt this mindset.

Will someone please explain to me how a five year old can possibly be a terrorist? For throwing rocks at heavily armed military equipment that doesn't even dent with an aggravated lob. Throwing rocks is now terrorism. Who places pre-schoolers in jail in the first place? What kind of people supports such things? Look in the mirror. Americans pay for this and make it possible. We put pre-schoolers in jail. This is how insane this entire agenda has become, and how far away from the values we as a nation think we expose, we as a nation have wandered.

WARNING: This short film contains very graphic images of the slaughter of an Iraqi family (11 people) by US forces on March 15, 2006. Our military reported that a man, one child and a couple women were killed. Five children were killed, some found tied up. This reminds me very much of what the Israeli Occupation Forces do in the Occupied Territories right down to the midnight raids, summary executions and terrorizing of families who's only crime is being Arab and living on land someone else feels they are entitled to. It continues to become harder to criticize Israel because over the past five years, the US has stooped to Israel's level in everything from killing civilians, hooding prisoners and terrorizing people in the name of security. It's easy to understand once seeing this short film why the Arab world sees no distinction between the US and Israel. We have become the worst of each other and discarded the best.

Let the film download for a minute or two before playing. Just be prepared. It is very hard to look at and be prepared to be really angry afterward. This is what the rest of the world sees as "American Values".

About the writer of this film: Chris Floyd is an American journalist. He writes the weekly Global Eye political column for The Moscow Times and St. Petersburg Times. His work also appears in The Ecologist, The Nation, CounterPunch, Christian Science Monitor, Bergen Record, Columbia Journalism Review and elsewhere around the world. He is the author of the book, Empire Burlesque: The Secret History of the Bush Regime. His columns are featured each week on Bush Watch. He has been a writer and editor for more than 20 years, working in the United States, Great Britain and Russia for various newspapers, magazines, the U.S. government and Oxford University.

Fisk is one of my all time favorite journalists and one of the few who brings up difficult issues like the Armenian Genocide of 1916 or the British occupation of Fallujah in the 1920's. Excellent piece here which takes its title from one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs.