A video published today by the B'Tselem human rights organisation shows an unarmed, handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian being shot by an Israeli soldier at very close range with a rubber-coated steel bullet (not, as some would have it, a "rubber bullet").

By Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Dennis O'Neil
[reposted with authors' permission from Znet]

Once again, there's a lot of serious attack-on-Iran talk going around. We've both been following this, admittedly with no deep expertise, for several years now. During that time a number of media/blogosphere storms declaring such an attack imminent have whirled up and then blown away. (Of course, we oughtn't to forget that in the old children's story, the wolf eventually does come and eat the shepherd boy who produced the false alarms.) So we decided to sketch out these few points.

1  No matter how much Bush and his coterie may want it, we give no more than 10% odds on an attack actually taking place, and that's mainly just covering ourselves.

2  The furor is not a calculated bluff by the administration to put pressure on Iran. Neither is it a planned distraction to weaken opposition to the continued occupation of Iraq. It's the public face of a tense struggle within US ruling circles, concentrated in the state apparatus.

When it comes to Palestinian children in Gaza, CNN, "the most trusted name in news," is unable to put out a headline that reflects the reality of the situation on the ground. Seven Palestinians have been killed in a raid by the Israeli army in the northern Gaza Strip, including four children and an elderly man.

The Winograd Committee today released its full, 610-page investigation into Israel's political and military conduct during the 2006 Lebanon war. The interim report was published last May (I wrote about it here), and judging from reports in the Israeli press the complete version makes similar points.

"Only in Palestine is it still possible for liberals to cheer cowboys gunning down the Indians or pushing them back into the badlands."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/...

http://www.haaretz.com/...

Occasionally I hear that, had there been a military draft in America, BushCo would have a much harder time doing all they did.
Perhaps.

But if you advocate a universal draft, Be careful what you wish for.

Recently, Israel's IDF reported an increase in draft evasion, sparking a heated media "debate" - like in American MSM, the "debate" consists of ignorance, superficiality and hysteria. And draft evasion is conflated with conscientious objection.

Which prompted CO support groups such as Yesh Gvul to step into the fray. I volunteered to write a text about it (Hebrew;  English below).

See: missing from the "debate" is the nature of the military experience itself. Is it something we should be glad to put our kids through, generation after generation? Or sigh, "There is no choice" and look the other way?

So I decided to out my own military experience.

By the way, note this sentence in my text:

The IDF experience described here is not necessarily worse than in other armies.

Text with some extra comments below.

Human Rights Watch today published the second of three detailed reports on last year's war between Israel and Lebanon. The first dealt with the illegal use of rockets to attack civilian populations by Hezbollah and the third will deal with "Israel’s unlawful use of cluster munitions in Lebanon during the 2006 conflict". Unlike the first, this new report makes specific recommendations about US policy towards the region.

I wish this courageous couple success in their quest for justice from the corporate Giant Caterpillar. A Caterpillar bulldozer maned by Israel's IDF ran over U.S. protester Rachel Corrie in 2003 while destroying a swath of Palestinians' homes.

They say it much better than I ever could.

July 7, 2007
Dear Friends,

On Monday, July 9th in Seattle, the U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, will hear oral argument to decide whether to let the case Corrie et al., v. Caterpillar proceed.  You will recall that this case was brought in 2005 by us and, also, four Palestinian families whose family members were killed or injured when Caterpillar bulldozers were used by the Israeli military to demolish their homes on top of them.  The case alleges that Caterpillar sold the D9 bulldozers to Israel even though it knew they would be used to unlawfully demolish homes and endanger civilians in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza.  The case was dismissed in November 2005 by a judge in the Western District, and the current appeal will determine if it can go forward.  The hearing with oral argument on the matter will be held at Park Place Building, 21st Floor, 1200 6th Avenue at Seneca Street, in Seattle...

continued

IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, widely unpopular after the failed war against Hizbullah last summer, has resigned tonight after barely 1.5 years  in office (intead of the customary 3-4 years).

Here's the Ha'aretz link.

And a link to his resignation letter.

In it, he sends one last dart towards Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, saying

It is the nature of people not to be overjoyed serving in a system that is unappreciated and unprotected by those it represents.

Halutz was also widely unpopular in human-rights circles for other reasons, starting with the July 2002 air bombing in Gaza that killed 14 civilians, following which Halutz told a Ha'aretz interviewer:

...if you nevertheless want to know what I feel when I release a bomb, I will tell you: I feel a light bump to the plane as a result of the bomb's release. A second later it's gone, and that's all. That is what I feel.

Here’s another Occupation ‘non-item’, of the type rarely reaching mainstream eyes overseas.

Rumors that this directive is about to take effect, have circulated in Palestinian and Israeli human-rights circles throughout 2006. In late May my friends have inquired about it via an intermediary, and received the following answer:

The answer is that "as for today" there is no such military order.
I called and asked what does it mean "as for today", and I was told that the idea has come up, and maybe in the future there will be such an order but until today there is no order that prohibits driving Palestinians.

Well, "today" has turned into "tomorrow", and beginning January 19, Israeli residents traveling in the West Bank will be prohibited from taking Palestinian riders (except by specific permission). Eight Israeli human-rights organizations are taking the IDF to task, and have filed a Supreme Court appeal yesterday.

Details of the directive - and what you can do about it - below the fold

Hello.
I am a newcomer to DailyKOS. I write here as I once considered myself liberal, and still have a few of those streaks left in me.
I am an Israeli, and served in the IDF from late 1999 until 2005 . I am still a reservist and "get around", so to speak.
I write here because I want others to know what I have experienced, and to tell about the day to day of the conflict.
I hope you will enjoy your read.
Eyal

In bad news for the apologists for Israel who reflexively declare that because their favorite nation can do no wrong, and therefore any use of cluster munitions by the IDF in Lebanon was perfectly legitimate according to international law -- oops.  It seems the IDF is now Shocked!  Shocked!  to discover that these weapons were in fact used against civilian areas, contrary to international law.  In other words, the IDF did commit a war crime, not once, but thousands of times during the war.

UPDATE: I would like to thank the participants in these comments for making this discussion a civil and productive one, free of flames, unpleasantness, and the Ususal Suspect Trolls.  While the people here tonight may have disagreed, they have been able to do so while respecting each other's opinions.

"We saw legs, we saw heads, we saw hands scattered in the street".

Those are the words of Attaf Hamad, resident of the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun which today has suffered the single deadliest Israeli attack on the Palestinians in four years. Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) artillery shells killed at least 18 Palestinians, wounding dozens more.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, all of those killed and wounded were civilians. Eight children and seven women were among the dead and 18 of the victims were from the same family.

Physicians for Human Rights recently wrote to Isreali Defense Minster Peretz, asking for information on the apparent use of a new, US-developed, weapon (still officially untested) that has killed and injured hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza over the course of the Summer.

Palestinian doctors began seing injuries of a type they had never seen before: The doctors reported an exceptionally large number of wounded who lost legs, of completely burned bodies and injuries unaccompanied by metal shrapnel. Some of the doctors also claimed that they removed particles from wounds that could not be seen in an x-ray machine.

According to those who testified, the wounded were hit by munitions launched from drones, most of them in July.

Someone will have to go down for this.  The in-fighting in Israel is going to be brutal, as everyone moves to blame everyone else.  Already, the battle has started.