Sunday, June 11, 2006
I haven't commented yet on the explosion on the Gaza beach. I'm not inclined to follow early reports with either rely completely on Palestinian Arab testimony (something notorious for being inaccurate and creatively self-serving), or news reports which range from utterly credulous to such claims without including any explanation of context (most of it), to at best including some formulaic "cycle of violence" rhetoric (the Boston Globe included this gem: "Near-daily Israeli artillery barrages over the past month have come in response to near-daily rocket launches from Gaza into Israel.").
The Israelis better figure out what happened, fast, and refrain from prostrating themselves with premature apologies that not only accomplish nothing but harm them. Barring the unlikely possibility of an individual soldier acting unlawfully, this tragedy is the fault of those who have made sure that Gaza remains a war zone by launching rockets from it. Period.
Meanwhile, some people are keeping a close eye on things. Richard Landes is cautiously using the expression "Pallywood" with regard to some aspects here, and has a post well worth looking at.
It looks at this point like there has been a tragedy, including deaths on the beach. Who's weapons caused them, where they came from, why (was the a Qassam crew there before the shells fell?), how there happened to be a camera crew there to take very effective photos so quickly...all of this remains a mystery, and the Palestinians are refusing to cooperate with the Israeli investigators. If this sounds like cynical thinking, you're right. Blame it on the fact that we're dealing with a society known for using the tragedy of innocents for propaganda purposes, and caring little for the lives of those innocents if the propaganda value is high enough.
Update: Judith Apter Klinghoffer notes that Israel is, in fact, denying any reponsibility:
Hamas, which leads the Palestinian Authority parliament, blamed the deaths on Tel Aviv as its military branch resumed attacks on Israel for the first time in 16 months.
But Israeli Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant said Sunday the military can prove it wasn't Israeli fire that hit the beach in Gaza, killing eight people.
Galant, who commands Israel's southern command, said Israel stopped firing 15 minutes before the explosion...
She also notes that the BBC has been calling Qassam rocket attacks "symbolic."
Update2: Gissin: Don't blame Israel first
"We are repeating the same mistakes of the past in taking responsibility when there are other possibilities about who is responsible," Gissin said.
He said that Friday's tragedy on the Gaza beach may indeed be similar to the shooting of Mohammed al-Dura in 2000, the "Jenin Massacre" in 2002, and the killing of 21 people at the Jabaliya refugee camp last September. While the Palestinians originally pinned the blame for all these incidents on Israel, it has since turned out that al-Dura may have been killed by Palestinians, that there was no "Jenin massacre," and that the deaths in Jabaliya were caused when Hamas activists "mishandled" explosives at a mass rally.
Gissin said that Israel should immediately have raised doubts after Friday's incident about the Palestinian version of events that placed the blame squarely on Israel.
"We jumped to conclusions before the evidence, and we immediately assumed that it was probably an Israeli shell," Gissin said. "But we don't know that for a fact. The Palestinians moved in and destroyed all the evidence. People should be asking themselves, 'why?' "
Just as Israel is conducting an investigation, Gissin said that the international community should also be demanding that the Palestinians conduct an investigation. But rather than doing that, he said, the Palestinians are removing evidence from the scene.
"We look at the area as a battle zone," Gissin said, "while the Palestinians view it as a crime scene, and are interested in making the evidence look like Israel carried out an atrocity," he said.
Gissin said that the evidence "didn't add up" in Jenin to equal a massacre because there were not enough bodies, and in Jabaliya there were too many witnesses to what happened to buy the Hamas line that the explosion in 2005 was the result of missiles fired by an IDF helicopter.
"But now we have a classic case where there is no real evidence, and all we have is a picture of a crying girl on the beach," Gissin said of Friday's incident in Gaza. "Nobody knows how the people there were killed. If it was an Israeli shell, why didn't the Palestinians invite the press to see the remnants of the shell, why have they been so quick to remove the evidence?"
Gissin bemoaned a situation where he said that instead of waiting for the investigation, the Israeli press jumped to the conclusion that it was an errant Israeli shell and reflexively began calling for an end to artillery fire on Gaza...
Update 3: Israel News Agency reports:
"Shortly after we stopped defensive firing at Hamas rocket launch pads which were deployed behind Palestinian human shields, members of Hamas scrambled to fire more rockets at our positions," said Col. M. "We have eyes on every meter of Gaza, from the sky, from the ground and from the sea. One of their rocket tripods collapsed inadvertently setting off an explosion of a stockpile of Qassam rockets. The Palestinians killed their own children. And this was not the first time."
Hamas terrorists fired rockets and mortar bombs from a crowded Gaza beach at southern Israel. Some of the rockets fell near the Israel city of Ashkelon. Some 17 rockets were fired between Saturday and Sunday morning. A man at a school in the Israel town of Sderot was wounded, Israel officials said.
Israel Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant said today that the Israel Defense Forces has additional evidence that it wasn't Israel artillery that hit the beach in Gaza. Galant, who commands Israel's southern command, said Israel stopped firing 15 minutes before the explosion. It's all on secure videotape from both sides of the conflict. Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he was sorry about the deaths, which included three children...
...The Israel Colonel who confirmed that a Hamas explosives stockpile killed innocent Palestine children on a Gaza beach, added: "It should be noted that the Hamas rockets which killed those kids came from Iran. For many in Palestine, Iran and Syria, those children are now merely good "martyrs" and serve as blood food for the Islam terror propaganda machine."
I'd like to hear or preferably see some more about that proof. UAV video footage of the beach would be nice. It's going to take some pretty solid stuff and a united, firm, prompt and loud response on the part of the Israeli authorities to break through the din of repetition already building. Oh, and it has to be accurate, too. No, it's not fair, but that's the way it is.
Meanwhile, Richard Landes is updating with emails from Second Draft readers.
We have been discussing the issue on a thread not directly related to the topic:
http://www.sandmonkey.org/2006/06/10/this-is-why-me-loves-cindy/#comments
We've discovered a few different copies of the video and we have noticed several anomalies. One copy of the video from CNN seems to show the injured man at the end is carrying some sort of firearm, like a submachine gun or maybe even an AK-47. In another, the arm of the dead man changes positions. It is possible the arm was moved, but doesn't seem likely. There is no impact crater in any of the videos - something you would expect in the event of an artillery strike. Etc. Etc.
Taking off on some of the links in that thread...if this was staged for effect (and it does look likely), it's certainly garnering the desired results.