Oh no, the little man speaks:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked US lawmakers Wednesday to help fend off Palestinian claims that his country engaged in “war crimes” while defending itself against attacks from Gaza, one top lawmaker told The Post.
The Israeli leader later told international reporters that his country employed “extraordinary measures” to avoid civilian deaths in the nearly month-long conflict.
As a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas held for a third day, Netanyahu met with a group of US legislators, including Rep. Steve Israel (D-LI,) to discuss the country’s tense security situation and some fissures in US-Israel relations.
Netanyahu asked the delegation to help Israel stay out of the International Criminal Court, where its attacks on Gaza could come under scrutiny — even while responding to Hamas rockets fired at Israeli urban centers.
cont..
“The prime minister asked us to work together to ensure that this strategy of going to the ICC does not succeed,” Rep. Israel told The Post by phone from Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu “wants the US to use all the tools that we have at our disposal to, number one, make sure the world knows that war crimes were not committed by Israel, they were committed by Hamas. And that Israel should not be held to a double standard,” the congressman said.
(update:) "Tariq "Street Fighting Man" Ali weighs in on this issue today via the BBC:
Writer and broadcaster Tariq Ali has attacked Israel at a demonstration in London's Hyde Park.
Protesting against Israel's operation in Gaza, he told the BBC's Mark Sanders: "Israel started this war when three people were kidnapped, not by Hamas, but by some rogue group, so they carried out a war against Gaza to destroy Hamas as they've attempted before....
"When you see images of Israeli citizens standing on the mountains and applauding the bombing, you realize how degenerate Israeli society has become."
(Tariq, stop "attacking Israel", and their tiny, small man leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Your strong words may be too forceful on this topic, they could end up injuring someone, and they may consider you a terrorist for saying (or even thinking) any of that. Especially in Great Britain, that place is totally ass-backwards on some things, like freedom of the press, etc..)
*(update #2) We have a stout crew here fighting the powers from inside Israel:
More than 150 Israelis protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday against a Gaza war entering its second month, in defiance of a police ban on the assembly that cited military restrictions on public gatherings in cities within range of rocket fire.
Leftist Israelis, objecting to the bloodshed and civilian casualties caused by the fighting, have complained of feeling silenced by the patriotic fervor pervading much of Israel during the war. They have also cited threats published on social media pages in past weeks to assault or even kill dissenters.
The private Israel Democracy Institute think-tank found in a survey late last month that as many as 95 percent of Israelis supported the war, and only 7 percent were opposed.
Heavy civilian casualties and destruction during Israel's campaign in packed residential areas of the Gaza Strip have raised international alarm over the fighting.
**
(update#3) Super-badass Socialist
Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant has just
teamed up with Seattle's vocal Jewish anti-war community on this issue:
Dear Seattle City Council members,
As the Seattle chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), we want to express support for Councilmember Sawant’s letter calling on Obama and Congress to condemn both Israel’s ongoing collective punishment of the people of Gaza and Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket fire into Israel. We, as Jews, vocally and visibly work against the Israeli occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
cont..
Israel has committed war crimes in the recent attack on Gaza–crimes that would not be possible without the backing of our government. According to an August 3rd statement by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Israel is in “gross violation of international humanitarian law, which clearly requires protection by both parties of Palestinian civilians, UN staff and UN premises, among other civilian facilities.” By controlling Gaza’s borders, Israel has ensured that 1.8 million Palestinians have nowhere to run or hide as they are attacked.
When people of conscience take a stand and condemn Israel for carrying out atrocities against Palestinians, they are too often accused of anti-Semitism. This accusation is meant to intimidate and paralyze critics from calling out injustice when they see it. It cheapens the concept of anti-Semitism, which still exists, by applying it falsely to those who are appalled by the Israeli state’s policies of apartheid and violence, and their devastating results. Falsely naming anti-Semitism as an excuse for inaction on this issue is an insult to our ancestors who were persecuted for being Jewish.
cont..
This past Monday, Councilmember Licata reminded the City Council that the council has passed resolutions about foreign policy in the past. In fact, the council has an impressive track record of standing on the side of justice: divesting from apartheid South Africa (Resolution 27220), speaking out against the Iraq war (Resolution 30969), and more recently divesting from Sudan.
Judaism requires us to speak out against injustice, and so we ask you to continue to ensure that our city stands on the right side of history. We ask you to sign onto Councilmember Sawant’s letter calling on our government to issue a formal statement denouncing Israel’s siege and blockade of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, and calling for an immediate end to all U.S. military aid to Israel.
Sincerely,
Jewish Voice for Peace-Seattle
(if at all possible, the people who voted here today should send money to these left-wing Israeli groups trying to fight this stuff, OK, this Bibi guy is an Far-Right extremist fruitcake..)
Hey this is a Democratic Party website, ill take a poll on all this: