Col. Richard Kemp on the U.N. Goldstone Report

UN Watch Oral Statement
Delivered by Colonel Richard Kemp, 16 October 2009

UN Human Rights Council: 12th Special Session

Thank you, Mr. President.

I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Governments Joint Intelligence Committee.

Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.

Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.

The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.

The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy’s hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.

Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.

More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.

Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets.

And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Thank you, Mr. President.

BBC Trust slams mideast editor for anti Israel bias

As the UK’s Telegraph reports:

Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle East editor, breached the corporation’s guidelines on accuracy and impartiality in reports on Israel, an official report has found.

After years of ignoring complaints it seems like some people in the UK had enough of the BBC bias. Honest Reporting reports:

In a piece Bowen wrote for the BBC website last June under the headline “Six days that changed the Middle East,” about the Six Day War, which was criticized at the time by HonestReporting UK, Bowen referred to “Zionism’s innate instinct to push out the frontier”. He also wrote that Israel showed a “defiance of everyone’s interpretation of international law except its own” and that its generals felt that they were dealing with “unfinished business”, left over from the 1948 War of Independence. These references were deemed inaccurate or lacking impartiality by the BBC Trust:

“Readers might come away from the article thinking that the interpretation offered was the only sensible view of the war,” it said. “It was not necessary for equal space to be given to the other arguments, but … the existence of alternative theses should have been more clearly signposted.”

The second finding related to a broadcast Bowen delivered on From Our Own Correspondent on BBC Radio 4 in January 2008, in which Bowen said the US government considered the Israeli town of Har Homa on the outskirts of Jerusalem as illegal.

The committee found the assertion was inadequately sourced: “The Middle East Editor had stated his professional view without qualification or explanation, and that the lack of precision in his language had rendered the statement inaccurate.” It ruled the report had partially breached accuracy guidelines.

More on this story:

Great analysis from Melanie Phillips : The facade cracks

Ynet:   BBC report: Mistakes in Israel coverage

JPost: Complaints of BBC bias partially upheld

Times online: Jeremy Bowen breached BBC impartiality rules in Middle East coverage

Anarok News: BBC Admits Bias Against Israel

BBC

The Palestinian Authority punishes a band for playing in front of Holocaust survivors

The NYT reports:

JERUSALEM — Palestinian political activists from the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Sunday condemned a camp youth orchestra’s performance for Holocaust survivors in Israel last week, and said they were banning the orchestra’s director, an Israeli Arab woman, from entering the camp.

Shocking? Surprising? not really, considering that the Palestinian Authority is led by a Holocaust denier

Turkey’s tourism industry stunned by an Israeli boycott

The EU media is full with stories about an alleged boycott over Israeli goods in the EU. While no actual numbers are presented in the media the evidence of such a boycott is weak.  However. Little is said about the massive boycott of Israelis over Turkey, A boycott that seems to gain more and more power over the past few months and is a direct result of Truky’s PM verbal attack on Israel in Dabos. The Hurriyet reports:

Possibly as a result of the Davos incident, there has been a considerable decline in Israeli tourist bookings as the Jewish Passover holiday approaches.

Tourism sector members are frustrated by the cancellations of nearly 10,000 Israeli tourists who usually come to Bodrum as soon as the season starts.

Some 40 flights from Israel to Turkey have been canceled as Israeli tourists have started to prefer Crete Island and Varna for the eight-day Passover holiday, it was reported.

The relations between the two countries have been strained since Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan harshly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Peres for Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.

Erdoğan stormed off the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and said Peres’s statements were false.

A Turkish hotel managing director sums it up:

“The Davos incident caused many hotels to close their doors before even opening them. We hope that we have learned our lesson from such mistakes,” he said.

UNRWA changes it’s tone, Threatens to fire Hamas, Fatah Gaza Employees

In light of recent allegations of war crimes that were commited by UNRAW’s employees in Gaza, the orgaznization now threatens to fire it’s employees who are members of both Hamas and Fatah. According to Aruz Sheva:

the agency’s management has warned it may fire employees who violated the organization’s nonpartisan policy by affiliating with political factions in Gaza such as Fatah and Hamas.

In the past UNRAW and UN officals admitted that the organization has Hamas terrorists on it’s payroll and insisted that these employees should not be fired.

UNRAW’s change of tone may be a result of the organization’s fear that it will be charged with war crimes due to it’s employees possible involvement in terror attacks.

Palestinians and Arabs united in support of Darfur’s mass murderer

Washington post’s editorial quotes Mahmud Abas’s speech from the recent Arab summit:

“We must also take a decisive stance of solidarity alongside fraternal Sudan and President Omar al-Bashir,”

A short reminder:

the United Nations has reported more than 300,000 civilian deaths in Darfur as a result of the genocidal campaign sponsored by Mr. Bashir.

Hilarious! Dubai Bans Copies of SI Swimsuit Issue

This is a really great piece from The Sportman’s Daily:

DUBAI (Sportsman’s Daily Wire Service) Twenty-four hours after denying Israeli tennis pro Shahar Peer a Visa, prohibiting the world’s 45th ranked player from participating in the Dubai Tennis Championship, Dubai officials ordered the confiscation of all copies of the 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, which features Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli on its cover.

we are a Muslim country. A beautiful Jewish temptress beckoning vulnerable Arab shieks from the cover of a glossy magazine – an idealized, Hebraic goddess beyond our wildest dreams and check-books – this is not something we could tolerate.

Gaza War Crimes – Hamas firing from the foreign press building in Gaza

Another evidence of Hamas shooting from buildings populated with civilians, hoping Israel would strike those buildings back.

They tried shooting from hospitals, schools, UN and UNRWA facilities,in this incident they shoot from a building populated manly with news reporters. Al Arabia caught the action live but chose not to air the clip in fear that it would support Israel’s agenda.

An Arab view on Hamas use of children

In this very interesting clip, a guy who seems to be of an Arab origin comments about Hamas use of children and civilians for suicide bombing.

Intifada Baby Armor