Gaza & Israël: Tous les articles importants - Série no.9

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Gaza & Israël: Tous les articles importants - Série no.9

Les crimes de guerre et contre l'humanité se confirment. Israël en est responsable de plusieurs. L'état de siège se poursuit et continue de causer la misère et de semer la mort. Les règles de la guerre ont été transgressées ainsi que le lois internationales. C'est sans équivoque. Israël s'en lave les mains et l'ONU avec le reste de la communauté internationales font semblant que ne s'est produit à Gaza; sans parler de l'occupation militaire de la Palestine depuis 60 ans, des démolitions de maisons, du vol des terres palestiniennes, de l'agression des Palestiniens au quotidien et du reste de l'infamie qui s'y poursuit toujours. Voici la dernière liste des nouvelles et articles les plus important dans cette série sur Gaza & Israël.

Encore une fois, ce n'est pas parce que les médias ont cessé d'en parler que cela signifie que la situation s'améliore pour les Palestiniens. L'horreur se poursuit, en silence...

Israel accused of indiscriminate phosphorus use in Gaza

Israel's military fired white phosphorus over crowded areas of Gaza repeatedly and indiscriminately in its three-week war, killing and injuring civilians and committing war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.

Israel's Phosphorus Bomb Use Violated "Rules of War"

Israel Guilty of War Crimes; Palestinians are Winning the Legitimacy War

Finally is the issue of the tactics and weapons that were used. There is a lot of eye-witness evidence that prohibited targets were struck, including several UN buildings; that civilians were deliberately targeted in an act of vengeance, apparently; and that legally dubious weapons were used in contexts where civilians were exposed to them, such as phosphorous bombs and a weapon called DIME, which involves a very intense explosive power that makes surgical and medical treatment impossible. So there's a whole bunch of issues that together create quite an inventory of violations of the law of war as well as violations of the UN Charter.

ISRAEL: GUILTY AS CHARGED!

American Lawyers in Gaza: Evidence that Israel Violated International Law, U.S. Domestic Law Implicated

Incriminating Evidence Of Israeli War Crimes

Again, the evidence is clear, unequivocal, overwhelming, and conclusive that high-level Israeli government and military officials planned and willfully committed systematic crimes of war and against humanity of such gravity that justice demands they be held to account in an international court of law - either the ICC in the Hague or a special International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI).

Israeli military in PR offensive to explain civilian deaths in Gaza

The Israeli military has moved to deflect a mounting barrage of criticism over the deaths of hundreds of civilians during its 22-day offensive in Gaza.

The public relations drive by the Israeli Defence Force has been given impetus by allegations made by some soldiers that permissive rules of engagement failed to protect civilians.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Israel went into Gaza secure in their belief that they could control the narrative of what the rest of the world saw; that Israel could prevent anyone from inside Gaza from getting information and images out, and that the owned and subservient corporate media would feed the public Israel's lies as truth.

But the corporate media no longer has a monopoly on the flow of information. The high ground in the war for the minds of the world is here in the blog-o-sphere. Israel didn't understand that, and as a result, Operation CAST LEAD exploded in their face and wrecked Israel's carefully crafted image as perpetual victim. Now they are trying to get it back, again trusting that if they only spend enough of the American Taxpayer's money on the problem, the world can be made to forget the images of dead Palestinian children.

UN to hush up report on Israel conduct?

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon may not release the findings of a report he ordered into the Israeli war on Gaza, Press TV has learned.

On Thursday, a spokesperson for Ban cast doubt on whether a report ordered into the three weeks of Israeli military operations in Gaza was meant for public use.

"No. As I said, (the secretary general) is going to first examine the report and decide what to do about it then. This is a report directed to him," said spokeswoman Michele Montas, answering a question posed by a Press TV correspondent.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Ban must be compromised in some way.

Israel is Changing the Rules of War

The extent of Israel’s brutality against Palestinian civilians in its 22-day pounding of the Gaza Strip is gradually surfacing. Israeli soldiers are testifying to lax rules of engagement tantamount to a license to kill. One soldier commented: "That’s what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn’t have to be with a weapon, you don’t have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him."

What is less appreciated is how Israel is also brutalizing international law, in ways that may long outlast the demolition of Gaza.

IDF ends Gaza probe, says misconduct claims are 'rumors'

Webmaster's Commentary:

White hot flaming rumors incinerate a Gaza residential neighborhood.

Gaza offensive: Israeli military says no war crimes committed

The Israeli military has concluded that no war crimes were committed during its recent offensive in the Gaza Strip, dismissing as "hearsay" the testimonies of soldiers who allegedly admitted intentionally killing Palestinian civilians.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"And anyone who doesn't believe is is just a filthy anti-Semite, already!" -- Tel Aviv

THE SIEGE OF GAZA IS FAR FROM OVER

There has been talk in the Western Press the past week of President Obama’s intention to keep the embargo on Cuba. There has been no talk of the continuing embargo on the Gaza Strip. America is as much responsible for that embargo as the one on Cuba.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"DO WHAT WE WANT, OR WE STARVE YOU!!!!" -- Official White Horse Souse

(ahem)

Cuba has survived 47 years of the US embargo. If embargo was going to work, it would have done so by now. All continuing the embargo does is make the United States look petty, vindictive, and mean, not to mention afraid of a tiny Caribbean island.

Three patients die in Gaza due to the ongoing siege

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip reported on Sunday that three patients died in Gaza hospitals after being barred from leaving the area for medical treatment abroad, and added that the number of patients who died due to the siege has now reached 311.

Israel slams UN rights report on Gaza

Israel on Tuesday slammed as "one-sided" a report by a UN human rights investigator which said its three-week war on the Gaza Strip was possibly a war crime.

"Unfortunately this is a further example of the very one-sided, unbalanced and unfair attitude of the (UN) Human Rights Council," government spokesman Mark Regev told AFP.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"I mean, in fairness if the United Nations is going to report every time Israel drops white phosphorus onto a Gazan school yard, they should report an incident of the Gazans dropping white phosphorus on an Israel school yard! Yes, I know the Gazans didn't actually do that, but it would be fair for the UN to say that they did!!!!" -- Tel Aviv

(Ahem) Israel, you are raising on a busted flush on this one. Quit while you still have some dignity ... never mind.

U.N. reports say Israel targeted civilians in Gaza

United Nations investigators said on Monday Israel violated a range of human rights during its invasion of Gaza, including targeting civilians and using a child as a human shield.

The accusations came in reports to the U.N. Human Rights Council which also called for an urgent end to Israeli restrictions on humanitarian supplies to Gaza and a full international investigation into the conflict.

"Civilian targets, particularly homes and their occupants, appear to have taken the brunt of the attacks, but schools and medical facilities have also been hit," said one report by Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"Bias! BIAS! Biasbiasbiasbiasbiasbiasbiasbiasbias ... oooooh they are just a bunch of anti-Semites over there at the United Nations and NOBODY should ever listen to anything they say about Israel!!!" -- Official White Horse Souse

Soldier says rabbis pushed "religious war" in Gaza

Rabbis in the Israeli army told battlefield troops in January's Gaza offensive that they were fighting a "religious war" against gentiles, according to one army commander's account published on Friday.

"Their message was very clear: we are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land," he said.

U.S. Military Aid to Israel

In these days of economic crisis, budget overruns, earmarks, and multi-billion dollar bailouts, when Americans are being forced to tighten their own belts, one of the most automatic earmarks—a bailout by any measure—goes to a foreign government but is little understood by most Americans. U.S. military aid to Israel is doled out in annual increments of billions of dollars but remains virtually unchallenged while other fiscal outlays are drastically cut.

Webmaster's Commentary:

There are two areas under US law in which this aid is partially illegal.

First, military aid is supposed to be for defense only, that is to protect Israel from invasion, Clearly the 2006 Lebanon invasion and the attacks on Gaza following Israel's breaking of the cease fire on November 4th do not qualify as "defense."

And, under the 1976 Symington Amendment to the Foreign Apprpriations Bill of 1961, the United States is forbidden to give ANY financial aid to nations developing nuclear technology outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel has never signed the NNPT, which is why President Obama did the "Potomac Two-Step" when Helen Thomas asked him directly what nations in the Middle East currently have nuclear weapons.

Israelis react with fury to British boycott call

Israeli scientists and officials reacted angrily yesterday to calls by more than 400 British academics for the Science Museum to cancel educational workshops planned to promote Israeli science tomorrow.

The cancellation call and claims that Israeli universities are "complicit" in the occupation of Palestinian territories and this year's "disastrous" offensive in Gaza, reported in The Independent yesterday, were condemned as "absurd" by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Its spokesman, Yigal Palmor, said: "These calls cannot but be motivated by extreme blindness and silly ideology. This of course does not promote the good causes which the boycotters are presumed to promote – not peace, understanding, nor compromise."

Iran opens international Palestine summit

An international conference in support of Palestinians, which is to focus on Israeli war crimes in Gaza, has begun in the Iranian capital.

Toys For Gazan Children Denied Entry Into Gaza

Webmaster's Commentary:

Sometimes, Israel is just downright mean.

Paul V Rafferty: Editorial; The ways of the Law are strange, indeed.

Nevertheless, there are moves to bring Israel before the ICC, on charges of War Crimes allegedly committed during the recent war on Gaza. (6)

Now, the ICC, in accordance with a request by the U.N. Security Council, has issued an arrest warrant against President Al Bashir of Sudan. (1)

While one can have little or no sympathy for either Israel, during its war on Gaza, or President Al Bashir for the atrocities of Darfur, one may wonder, “What are the new foundations of International Law ?”

We can only wait and see if Justice will “be seen to be done”.

Mauritania tells Israel embassy to leave

Mauritania has ordered staff at Israel's embassy to leave the country within 48 hours after freezing ties with the Jewish state over its invasion of Gaza, a senior Mauritanian official said on Friday.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"MAURITANIA IS FILLED WITH AL QAEDA! MAURITANIA IS FILLED WITH AL QAEDA! INVADE! INVADE NOW!!!" -- Israel

US offers $0 for Gaza reconstruction

Twenty months after becoming Middle East envoy for the Quartet, Tony Blair visited Gaza for the first time on Sunday. His visit came a day before international donors gathered in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for a conference on the Gaza reconstruction effort.

Although the Obama administration is pledging $900 million (Dh3.3 billion) of aid, none of the money will go to rebuilding Gaza, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In an interview with the BBC's Jeremy Bowen, Mr Blair was asked: "How can Gaza be reconstructed if Israel doesn't allow things like steel, glass, concrete - all the other things you need to rebuild a place?"

Boycott Israeli Goods Listing

Webmaster's Commentary:

Don't learn the whole list, just find one product you use and start buying an alternate brand.

Boycott of Israel is Starting to Bite

It’s often difficult for activists to guage the effect of what they are doing and it is easy to become disheartening. However it is clear that the growing level of support for Boycott in the trade unions and similar organisations, coupled with a consumer boycott and individual businesses also refusing to trade with Israel is making its mark.

The Israeli Jerusalem municipality hands out demolition orders for 36 Palestinian families

The Israeli Jerusalem municipality handed out demolition orders for 36 additional Palestinian families in the city on Thursday. The families live in two buildings located at the Al Abasiya neighborhood just out side Jerusalem's old city.

The orders gave the families 10 days to evacuate their homes. On Wednesday when the Israeli municipality issued orders to demolish 55 more homes, owners of the homes near the old city set up a protest camp.

Israeli jets pound Gaza, kill 2

Gaza homes destruction 'wanton'

The Israeli Defense Forces said they operated in accordance with international law during the conflict.

However, the use of mines to destroy homes contradicted this claim, the head of the Amnesty International fact-finding mission to southern Israel and Gaza, Donatella Rovera, has argued.

Israeli troops had to leave their vehicles to plant the mines, indicating that they faced no danger and that there was no military or operational justification, she said.

Two Palestinian fishermen attacked by Israeli gunboats

Two Palestinian fishermen were wounded when Israeli gunboats opened fire at their boat off the coast of city of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on Saturday, Palestinian medical sources said.

Israel to demolish a mosque, six homes near Nablus

Israel plans to demolish six homes and a mosque in the villages of A’qraba and Kherbet At-Taweel, both south of the West Bank city of Nablus, residents said on Sunday.

Israeli War on Palestinian Olive Orchards

Palestinians say hundreds of thousands of grown olive trees were destroyed and uprooted by Israel in the past few years.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I takes ten years before a newly planted olive tree will bear a crop.

Israelis 'firing live rounds' at West Bank protesters

Israel troops admit Gaza abuses

"The climate in general... I don't know how to describe it.... the lives of Palestinians, let's say, are much, much less important than the lives of our soldiers," an infantry squad leader is quoted saying.

An Israeli military college has printed damning soldiers' accounts of the killing of civilians and vandalism during recent operations in Gaza.

One account tells of a sniper killing a mother and children at close range whom troops had told to leave their home.

Another speaker at the seminar described what he saw as the "cold blooded murder" of a Palestinian woman.

The soldiers' testimonies also reportedly told of an unusually high intervention by military and non-military rabbis, who circulated pamphlets describing the war in religious terminology.

"All the articles had one clear message," one soldier said. "We are the people of Israel, we arrived in the country almost by miracle, now we need to fight to uproot the gentiles who interfere with re-conquering the Holy Land."

"Many soldiers' feelings were that this was a war of religion," he added.

"I still say we have the most moral army in the world. Of course there may be exceptions but I have absolutely no doubt this will be inspected on a case-by-case basis," he said.

Medical authorities say more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed during Israel's 22-day operation, including some 440 children, 110 women, and dozens of elderly people.

The stated aim was to curb rocket and mortar fire by militants from Gaza. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians were killed.

U.N. rights envoy sees Israeli war crimes in Gaza

A United Nations human rights investigator said on Thursday that Israel's military assault on densely populated Gaza appeared to constitute a grave war crime.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Call your congresscritters and tell them you will not be forced to pay for Israel's war crimes any longer. Enforce the Symington Amendment to the 1961 Foreign Appropriations Bill. No more money to Israel until they sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and submit to inspections.

Israel's dirty secrets in Gaza

Army veterans reveal how they gunned down innocent Palestinian families and destroyed homes and farms

Israeli troops admit abuse of Palestinians in Gaza (video)

Webmaster's Commentary:

Israeli troops admit what we were telling you all along. War crimes were committed against the Palestinians.

If the Jewish state is justified as necessary for the safety of the Jewish people (even though the Nazis are dead and gone) then a Palestinian state is justified as necessary for the safety of the Palestinians ( who face a present-day genocidal threat from Israel).

Israeli soldiers report abuses in Gaza

The reports in a military institute's newsletter resembled accounts given by many Palestinians during and after the winter offensive. In gripping language cited by two Israeli newspapers, they appeared to support contentions by some human rights groups that Israel had violated the laws of war.

Gaza devastated by the israel war criminals

Marking from the USA war machine on the bullets and shells
The indiscriminate use of white phosphor is still making victims.
Children with out shoes are walking on it.
Just glimpse of the horror that israel imposes on the world.

Did Israeli soldiers kill unarmed civilians?

'The most moral army in the world' killed civilians without cause

Webmaster's Commentary:

Note the obvious Israeli "Megaphonies" in the comments section.

IDF in Gaza: Killing civilians, vandalism, and lax rules of engagement

During Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians under permissive rules of engagement and intentionally destroyed their property, say soldiers who fought in the offensive.

Webmaster's Commentary:

War crimes.

Time to believe Gaza war crimes allegations

Ashkenazi reacted like most Israelis - as though the reports, including those in Haaretz and Maariv, were the first about the Gaza offensive that were issued by someone other than the military spokesman or the military reporters, who rely on him for their information. But ample information was available from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports, based on statements collected from hundreds of people in the Gaza Strip in January and February.

Ashkenazi, like other Israelis, could have read the Red Cross' protest during the offensive, that the IDF prevented medical teams from reaching wounded Palestinians by shooting at them. He or his aides could have gone to the Web site set up by Israeli human rights organizations, which was full of reports and testimonies.

UN expert 'biased' on Israel's Gaza offensive: US

The United States Monday said UN expert Richard Falk was "biased" in calling for an investigation on Israel's January offensive in the Gaza Strip on grounds it could be construed as a war crime.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Here we have Israeli soldiers admitting they committed war crimes in Gaza and the US Government still continues to act as Israel's whore at the United Nations.

Car Bomb Found Near Crowded Israeli Mall

Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said that the car had been stolen from East Jerusalem and that officials are trying to determine the source of the explosives and the route traveled by those responsible. The fact that the explosives-laden vehicle was able to enter a major civilian area deep inside Israel without detection constituted a major breach of Israel's normally tight security system.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Meaning that this was a staged false-flag attack to justify Netenyahu's plan for new wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

Zionists Bearing Gifts?–Israeli Soldiers Admit To Religious Reasons for Recent Gaza Genocide

“Israel was most clever in keeping Western media out of the conflict zone. No pictures means no lasting story, and no lasting story means no consequences…”

…or so the Jewish state had hoped…

Webmaster's Commentary:

…or so the Jewish state had hoped…

Incriminating Evidence Of Israeli War Crimes

Throughout its history, Israel has willfully and repeatedly committed crimes of war and against humanity, always with impunity. Yet under customary legal standards and norms (including Geneva, Hague, the UN Charter, S.C. and G.A. resolutions), it's lawless, a serial abuser, a threat to the region and humanity, mostly as an oppressive occupier. Attacking Gaza is the latest episode in its six-decade reign of terror satisfying the definition of genocide against defenseless Palestinian civilians.

'IDF troops used 11-year-old boy as human shield in Gaza'

Israel Defense Forces soldiers used an 11-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield during the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a group of UN human rights experts said Monday.

IDF troops ordered the boy to walk in front of soldiers being fired on in the Gaza neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa and enter buildings before them, said the UN secretary-general's envoy for protecting children in armed conflict.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Moral army, eh?

PROOF: Israel DID use Human Shields in Gaza

IDF officer: Testimonies of lax moral standards in Gaza are 'exaggerated'

"The reports were exaggerated and any deviations from the IDF's moral standards will be dealt with," GOC Home Front Command Major General Yair Golan said during a panel discussion at the Institute of National Defense Research in Tel-Aviv.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"We were very moral when we poured white phosphorus on those children. after all, they would have grown up to be terrorists, so that makes it okay!"

Israel opens fire on Gaza

Israeli army launched several air attacks on the Gaza Strip. Khan Younis City mid of the occupied Gaza Strip faced heavy Israeli bombings from the naval forces in the western part.

Israel's navy fires on Gaza shore; fisherman injured

The head of Emergency and Ambulance Services Dr Mu’awiyah Hassanein said that the Israeli ships fired on fishing boats at the Gaza City shore.

Gaza war crime claims gather pace as more troops speak out

Although Breaking the Silence's report is not due to be published for several months, the testimony it has received already suggests widespread abuses stemming from orders originating with the Israeli military chain of command.

IDF ceased long ago being 'most moral army in the world'

What shock, what consternation. Haaretz revealed grave accounts by officers and soldiers describing the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians during the war in Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces Spokesman was quick to respond that the IDF had no prior or supporting information about the events in question, the defense minister was quick to respond that "the IDF is the most moral army in the world," and the military advocate general said the IDF would investigate.

All these propagandistic and ridiculous responses are meant not only to deceive the public, but also to offer shameless lies. The IDF knew very well what its soldiers did in Gaza. It has long ceased to be the most moral army in the world. Far from it - it will not seriously investigate anything.

Israeli army denies charges over phosphorous use

The Israeli army denied on Thursday charges by a human rights group that its bombardment of heavily populated areas of Gaza with white phosphorous munitions violated international law and could constitute a war crime.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"We LEGALLY set fire to those school children!!!" -- Tel Aviv

(Ahem)

What Israel does not seem to grasp is that their denials present an image of an Israel which is totally unrepentant of any crime it ever commits. People are willing to forgive and grant redemption in the face of genuine contrition, but a callous insistence that one's criminal actions are not criminal reveals a nation without shame, without remorse, and without a soul.

Oliphant's cartoon (see further down) is accurate.

Oliphant Israel-Gaza cartoon called 'hideously anti-Semitic'

"Pat Oliphant's outlandish and offensive use of the Star of David in combination with Nazi-like imagery is hideously anti-Semitic," Abraham Foxman said in a statement released Wednesday. "It employs Nazi imagery by portraying Israel as a jack-booted, goose-stepping headless apparition. The implication is of an Israeli policy without a head or a heart."

Webmaster's Commentary:

Seems bang spot on to me!

If they walk like Nazis, sound like Nazis, and act like Nazis ...

WAITING TO ENTER GAZA

If there is a single act that characterizes the plight of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation, it is waiting: waiting in lines to pass through the hundreds of checkpoints scattered across the West Bank, waiting for Israel to issue an identification card, waiting for permission to travel to the next village or out of the country, waiting for loved ones languishing in Israeli prisons to be released — waiting for peace, waiting for justice.

And for nearly two months, I found myself sharing the experience of waiting — for Israel to allow me into Gaza.

Gazan fishermen protest against Israeli Navy attacks

On the 2nd of April, dozens of fishermen from the Salateen area in Beit Lahiya in the far north of Gaza, staged a march towards the coast to protest against recent Israeli naval attacks. The demonstrators were joined by the Director of the General Syndicate of Marine Fishers, Nizar Ayash, as well as Palestinian activists from the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative. The demonstration was supported by volunteers from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), amongst them two international activists abducted by Israeli naval forces last November.

Racist and sexist Israeli military shirts show the mindset that led to war crimes in Gaza

Ha'aretz is continuing to divulge soldier testimonies from Gaza. You can find the fullest report yet here. The messianic fervor that fueled the Israeli policy of collective punishment is laid bare.I'm not going to comment on it yet, just go read it.

There is another report in today's Ha'aretz that I do want to comment on. Uri Blau's article "'No virgins, no terror attacks'" describes the practice of Israeli soldiers getting custom clothing printed with their unit's insignia along with graphics and text. Below are some examples of shirts that were printed, along with some of the images. These images only appeared on Ha'aretz's Hebrew-language website:

• A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription "Better use Durex," next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him.
• A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills."
• After Operation Cast Lead, soldiers from that battalion printed a T-shirt depicting a vulture sexually penetrating Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh
• A "graduation" shirt for those who have completed another snipers course depicts a Palestinian baby, who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult, with the inscription, "No matter how it begins, we'll put an end to it."
• There are also plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages. For example, the Lavi battalion produced a shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, "Bet you got raped!"
• A few of the images underscore actions whose existence the army officially denies - such as "confirming the kill" (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim's head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants.
• "Let every Arab mother know that her son's fate is in my hands!" had previously been banned for use on another infantry unit's shirt. A Givati soldier said this week, however, that at the end of last year, his platoon printed up dozens of shirts, fleece jackets and pants bearing this slogan.
• "It has a drawing depicting a soldier as the Angel of Death, next to a gun and an Arab town," he explains. "The text was very powerful. The funniest part was that when our soldier came to get the shirts, the man who printed them was an Arab, and the soldier felt so bad that he told the girl at the counter to bring them to him."
• In 2006, soldiers from the "Carmon Team" course for elite-unit marksmen printed a shirt with a drawing of a knife-wielding Palestinian in the crosshairs of a gun sight, and the slogan, "You've got to run fast, run fast, run fast, before it's all over." Below is a drawing of Arab women weeping over a grave and the words: "And afterward they cry, and afterward they cry." [The inscriptions are riffs on a popular song.]
• Another sniper's shirt also features an Arab man in the crosshairs, and the announcement, "Everything is with the best of intentions."
• A shirt printed after Operation Cast Lead in Gaza for Battalion 890 of the Paratroops depicts a King Kong-like soldier in a city under attack. The slogan is unambiguous: "If you believe it can be fixed, then believe it can be destroyed!"

These shirts have to get the approval from IDF commanders and are a military tradition, although the explicit nature of these shirts seem new. Bar-Ilan University Sociologist Dr. Orna Sasson-Levy is quoted as saying the shirts are "part of a radicalization process the entire country is undergoing, and the soldiers are at its forefront." Israeli anti-militarism activist Sergeiy Sandler, who works for the important organization New Profile, emailed this article out saying the shirts are "a long-standing tradition in Israeli military units; you see those shirts, although usually with less outrageous designs, on the streets all over the place. A picture's worth a thousand words, isn't it?"

I don't imagine these types of shirts are unique to Israel. I bet there are similar ones created by US soldiers in Iraq. But the shirts do point to an environment where mass war crimes can be carried out. They reflect a mindset where Palestinian life is disdained, when it's even acknowledged. One of the soldiers says it best in their testimony describing the killing of a mother and her two children: "the atmosphere in general, from what I understood from most of my men who I talked to ... I don't know how to describe it .... The lives of Palestinians, let's say, is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers. So as far as they are concerned they can justify it that way."