De Israelische Oorlogsmisdaden 74

In tegenstelling tot joods-Israeli's die voor de mensenrechten van de Palestijnen opkomen, is rabbijn Soetendorp opvallend stil nu namens zijn geloof de mensenrechten worden geschonden. Hij is doodstil terwijl hij toch het gewicht van de thora met zich meetorst.

'Miami Herald
March 20, 2009
Israeli soldiers say army rabbis framed Gaza offensive as religious war
As investigations continue into the killing of Palestinian civilians during the Israeli military's latest incursion, testimony has surfaced that troops were told their actions amounted to `a religious mission.'
BY CLIFF CHURGIN
McClatchy News Service
JERUSALEM -- Rabbis affiliated with the Israeli army urged troops heading into Gaza to reclaim what they said was God-given land and "get rid of the gentiles" -- effectively turning the 22-day Israeli intervention into a religious war, according to the testimony of a soldier who fought in Gaza.
Literature passed out to soldiers by the army's rabbinate "had a clear message: We are the people of Israel, we came by a miracle to the land of Israel, God returned us to the land, now we need to struggle to get rid of the gentiles that are interfering with our conquest of the land," the soldier told a forum of Gaza veterans in mid-February, just weeks after the conflict ended.
A transcript of the testimony given at an Israeli military academy at the Oranim college on Feb. 13 was obtained Friday by McClatchy Newspapers and also published in Haaretz, one of Israel's leading dailies. The soldier, identified as "'Ram," a pseudonym to protect his identity, gave a scathing description of the atmosphere as the Israeli army went to war.
"The general atmosphere among people I spoke to was ... the lives of Palestinians are ... let's say far, far less important than the lives of our soldiers," Ram said. The religious literature gave "the feeling of almost a religious mission," he said.
Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit, the Israeli army's chief prosecutor, on Thursday announced the first criminal investigation into the killing of Palestinian civilians during Israel's military incursion.
He issued the order after the Haaretz and Maariv newspapers published an account from the Oranim forum of how an Israeli sharpshooter killed a Palestinian woman and her two children when they inadvertently took a wrong turn after being released from detention in their own home.
There are growing questions about the Israeli Defense Force's commitment to prosecute war crimes and burgeoning criticism of the operation itself.
According to Haaretz, the army first learned on Feb. 23 of the Oranim forum allegations and obtained a full transcript on March 5. The army told McClatchy on Thursday that it had received the transcript that day, but on Friday a representative said it had received the document "a few days ago."
Some 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the operation, more than half of them civilians, according to Palestinian human rights groups.
SOLDIERS' TESTIMONIES
Danny Zamir, the head of the Yitzhak Rabin military academy, which organized the soldiers' forum, said the Gaza operation was "an unusual military action in the IDF's history that established a new, unknown norm in the IDF's ethical code."
The testimonies indicated that the army, despite repeated claims that it was protecting civilian lives, was not instructing its troops to that effect.
One soldier, identified only as "Aviv," said he was bothered by open-fire orders given to his unit for an operation that was later canceled.
"We were supposed to go in with an armored vehicle called an Ahzarit, break into the door and start to shoot inside and simply go up floor by floor. ... I call this murder ... to go up floor by floor and every person that we see we were to shoot," he said. "Aviv" served as a squad leader with the Givati unit in the Gaza neighborhood of Zeitoun.
"At first I said to myself, `How is this logical?' Higher authorities said this was permissible because everyone left in the area and in the city of Gaza is condemned, is a terrorist, because they didn't run away."

Zie: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/world/AP/story/960403.html