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http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/01/lie-you-werent-supposed-to-bel...=


Let's be clear about this. On 6 January, three UN-run schools in Gaza we=
re
attacked by Israeli forces, not just one. What is more, the previous day=
 an
Israeli bombing of a UN school had killed three members of the same fami=
ly.
This sort of killing can usually be dealth with in a perfunctory fashion=

('we regret all loss of innocent life, but the responsibility belongs to=

those who use terror and hide among civilians...'). However, the massacr=
e of
43 people in a UN school bearing flags and insignia and housing some 350=

refugees from the fighting (many of whom had fled on orders from IDF
leaflets dropped on the towns and cities), demanded a more considered
explanation and justification. I just want to take a quick look at the
explanations offered by Israeli spokespeople and its military.

The IDF's initial justification for the attack on the Al-Fakhura school =
was
that Hamas had used the building to fire mortars from, and its tanks had=

responded. Implicit in this was an admission that they had targeted the
school on purpose. The tank shells, presumably shot from quite nearby, w=
ere
fired by soldiers operating under orders from command centres equipped w=
ith
detailed targeting intelligence. As is now known, the Israeli military h=
ad
the GPS coordinates not only of this UN school but of the other UN schoo=
ls
that it attacked. And the first thing the IDF let us know is that it was=

done on purpose. Their excuse was barbaric, of course. The idea that an
invading force may attack a building filled with hundreds of terrorised
civilians just in order to kill two of those resisting the invasion is
nothing short of grotesque. But the fact that it was barbaric was part o=
f
the point: rather than bluntly condemning a war crime, you were invited =
to
focus on whether Hamas would be so evil as to attack Israel's brave boys=

from within a civilian building. Because it is so frequently repeated yo=
u
might be predisposed to assume that Hamas did indeed position its
'infrastructure of terror' among unsuspecting citizens but, whether you =
are
so predisposed or not, you are already drawn into the macabre calculus o=
f
the murderer if you even get involved in that argument. You have tacitly=

accepted the logic in which war crimes are not merely acceptable, but
actually appropriate, if the enemy really is as evil as Israel says. The=

usual suspects, of course, immediately embraced Israel's excuse: Israel'=
s
killing, they expostulated, merely demonstrates the ruthless, diabolical=

genius of Hamas. If anything, they added, the IDF was admirably restrain=
ed
in its action. But it is doubtful that many others were taken in.

The second thing that the IDF claimed was that there were Hamas troops
hiding inside the building, nestling among the refugees, thereby forcing=
 the
Israelis to slaughter the innocent. This is quite a different claim, and=
 the
first thing that would occur to any reasonable observer would be that th=
e
sudden embellishment reflected some sort of dishonesty ('the elaboration=
s of
a bad liar', as Hannibal Lecter would put it). Or perhaps there had been=
 a
failure by everyone to get their stories straight and stick to them. At =
any
rate, the logic of the astounding claim that Israel acted in self-defens=
e
remained as tortuous as it had been. But Israel claimed to have identifi=
ed
the bodies of Hamas members, and even fed two names to the media, (so on=
ce
again you were invited to get bogged down in the merits of Israel's clai=
m
rather than decide on an appropriate response to the slaughter).

The next part of the story is the most interesting. In order to get arou=
nd
the absurd idea that Hamas military operatives had sneaked into the buil=
ding
and launched mortars without anyone in the school noticing, Israel's
spokespeople claimed that Hamas gunmen had taken over the UN building, t=
aken
the civilians hostage and used the base to fire mortars at Israeli soldi=
ers.
Mark Regev said it was a "very extreme example of how Hamas operates". S=
uch
a claim was obviously checkable in a matter of minutes. Any UN personnel=

present in the school at the time could easily say whether in fact they =
had
all been suffering under Hamas captivity until Israel 'liberated' the
building. The UN produced an emphatic denial, based on its own
investigations, that there was ever any Hamas fighter in the building. B=
y
now, the fact that Israel has never provided any real evidence for its
claims, which continue to shapeshift, comes into sharp focus. Moreover,
since Israeli troops didn't visit the building or have access to the rec=
ords
of the deceased, it would be highly improbable that they would be able t=
o
not only name two of the dead, but also gather intelligence that proved =
they
were members of Hamas' military wing, within such a short space of time.=


So, the Israeli government topped that brazenness with a stroke of
effrontery that is somehow not adequately captured by the word 'chutzpah=
'.
Israel announced that as it was lodging a complaint with the UN for allo=
wing
the building to be secretly used by Hamas. Now it appears that Israeli
diplomats admit that no rockets were fired from the school. They are now=

briefing that there was some mortar fire, but that it came from outside =
the
school. Now, there is no evidence that there was any mortar fire at all,=
 but
perhaps you aren't really supposed to believe it. Actually, you were nev=
er
supposed to believe any of it. There was no way that you were ever expec=
ted
to be taken in by this pitiful subterfuge. They didn't even present a ve=
ry
convincing lie, or a very good case. What they did was tell you up front=

that they attacked a clearly marked UN school building filled with civil=
ians
on purpose, and then follow it up with a flimsy cover-story followed by =
an
even more flimsy revised cover story and an outlandish allegation agains=
t
the UN that they have dropped in a matter of hours in such a way as to
undermine their previous cover-stories. This is obviously contemptuous, =
but
it isn't just a sensational flip-off to 'world opinion'. They are saying=

they killed civilians on purpose, that nowhere in Gaza is safe, and that=

they reserve their right to do it again and offer the same risible
mitigations and alibis as before =


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