Palestinians Are Being Used as Human Shields — By ISRAEL
Why Zionists need to condemn Hamas for allegedly doing what the Israeli Defense Forces have been practicing for decades.
Ever since Israel launched their genocidal attacks on Gaza last year, we have been bombarded by Israeli propaganda, what the Zionists call “hasbara”, which is to say lies and distortions designed to achieve two basic results:
First, the Israeli propaganda narrative must make the Israeli Defense Forces look like the “most moral army in the world”, and the Israeli government and its people must be portrayed as democratic crusaders, fighting on the front lines against barbarism.
Secondly, the Zionist hasbara narrative must depict the Palestinians to be subhuman, cruel, and entirely without morals, ethics, or even simple human compassion; they must show Hamas to be bloodthirsty barbarians bent on world conquest and the destruction of not just Israel, but all of Western civilisation.
The Zionist “human shield hasbara” narrative
The entire subject of human shields is much broader and more comprehensive — and more powerful — than just the simple story of a despicable battlefield tactic. The human shield narrative is a cornerstone of the overall hasbara strategy I described above. It is even a popular subject of IDF official videos.
The human shields narrative is a major component of the moral superiority argument that Zionists always deploy: “we are God’s Chosen People, of course we are moral; of course we do what is right and just, even if it hurts us”, is how the chorus goes.
This was first encapsulated in a deeply cynical, criminally propagandistic quote uttered by Golda Mabovitch, a Ukrainian Jew from Kiev who became Israel’s fourth Prime Minister using the fake name “Golda Meir”.
“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children”.
This is the very essence of the human shield hasbara narrative.
But the quote continues. Having established the moral superiority of the Zionist state, she now proceeds to further condemn the Palestinian “Arabs” as inhuman monsters who do not even love their children, who disregard and sacrifice their kids, like reptiles or snakes who abandon their progeny once they hatch:
“We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us”
How hasbara works
Hasbara is what the Israelis use to “communicate directly with citizens of other nations to inform and influence their perceptions, with the aim of garnering support or tolerance for the Israeli government’s strategic objectives”.
This highly specialised form of propaganda is deployed by not just every Israeli government and media figure, or the phalanx of pro-Israeli journalists, but also by every Zionist who gives an interview, or holds forth at a dinner party, or interacts with us online.
It is a mighty weapon in the so-called “information war”. The memes alone are impressively coordinated:
Why the human shield story is so important to Israel
The fact is that Israel NEEDS the “Hamas uses human shields” story in order to cover up and/or justify its genocide of the Palestinians.
The sad and terrible truth is that what’s going on now in Gaza is nothing new. Israel started attacking Gaza immediately after they pulled out from the Strip, and those attacks only escalated when Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006.
For decades, Israel has been repeatedly slaughtering hundreds and thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians in operations that they cynically refer to as “mowing the lawn”.
This is because Israel needs to periodically destroy Gaza and kill hundreds or thousands of Gazans in the process, to keep the Palestinians in their place: fearful and traumatised.
To the Zionists this is, in a way, like lawn maintenance: if you let it go too long, it gets unruly and out of control. And Israel needs to maintain total control over the Palestinian population.
So every few years we see a bombing campaign in Gaza that the Israelis “christen” with poetic names such as Operation Autumn Clouds (2006), Operation Hot Winter (2008), Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), Operation Returning Echo and Operation Pillar of Defense (2012), and Operation Protective Edge (2014).
Thousands of Gazans have been killed and injured during these “operations”.
Moreover, as Neve Gordon, an Israeli human rights researcher, told Al Jazeera in 2014, 60%-80% of the civilian casualties from Israeli airstrikes consisted of members of the same families, which indicates that these civilians WERE KILLED IN THEIR HOMES— they were not out acting as “human shields” to guard a Hamas missile battery, small arms cache. or one of those seemingly ubiquitous “Hamas HQs”.
If this truth were widely known — namely that Israel was killing entire families in their homes, possibly while they slept — it would be very damaging for Israel’s image worldwide, and it would make life difficult for Israel’s backers like the US.
And so Israel came up with the “human shields narrative”. This really helped Israel and the US to justify Israel’s mass slaughter of civilians, and also served to legitimise the American “blank cheque” financial and military support for Israel and the IDF, the “most moral army in the world”.
No wonder the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs reported proudly:
“Addressing an audience in New York on November 6, 2014…General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that Israel went to “extraordinary lengths” to limit civilian casualties and collateral damage during its Operation Protective Edge in July-August 2014"
But the General went on to add:
“It should be borne in mind that during this time the rulers of Gaza were engaged in a parallel effort to maximise the exposure of their own civilians to the dangers of the conflict…”
Indeed, the “study” conducted by the Pentagon concluded that there was
“…a widespread and openly-declared strategy employed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad to use the civilian population of Gaza as human shields against IDF attacks”.
I would like to see that “open declaration”, but I guess it’s not available. What we do know is that around 2,500 Gazans were killed during the campaign, and an additional 12,000 were injured, including 3,400 children. Additionally, over 1500 children were orphaned.
Notably, 18,000 housing units were destroyed in whole or part, and 142 Palestinian families had three or more members killed in the same incident.
These people and these families all died together because they were used by Hamas as “human shields”, according to Israel and the United States.
I suppose they would have us believe that being human shields for Hamas is a family activity, like bowling?
The truth: Israel uses human shields
As with so many things surrounding Israel, the truth is actually the exact opposite of what we are led to believe by the Zionist controlled media and politicians.
“Every accusation a confession”
For those who are familiar with my work, or with Israeli hasbara in general, it will come as no surprise that, with regards to human shields, Israel is accusing Hamas of something that they themselves do on a regular basis.
Hamas, does not, in fact, use “human shields”. They would not enjoy 90% support among the Palestinian population if they did. Moreover, their Muslim faith precludes using women and children in war. In fact, it is difficult to find any photographic or other evidence of Hamas using civilians as human shields.
Neve Gordon, the Israeli human rights researcher, explained to Al Jazeera that he performed an exhaustive search for evidence of Hamas using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and he was only able to find ONE INSTANCE of such a case.
Given the Israeli drumbeats about Hamas human shields, one would think that there would be evidence galore.
There is not.
On the other hand, there is plenty of photographic and eye witness evidence that Israel uses Palestinians as human shields, and that it is, in fact, standard IDF practice to do so.
Israel has been condemned for using human shields
What everyone seems to be forgetting is that Israel has been found guilty of using human shields and condemned by the United Nations an international human rtights groups for doing so. Not just once, but dozens of times, dating back to at least the early 2000's.
A damning report issued by Amnesty International in 2002, entitled “IDF violations in Jenin and Nablus”, found that:
“Several Palestinians interviewed by Amnesty International…said that they had been compelled to take part in military operations and as “human shields”. These practices violate international humanitarian law. Although the IDF announced through the State Attorney on 24 May 2002 that it would not use civilians in military operations, Amnesty International has continued to receive reports of cases in which Palestinians were used by members of the IDF during military operations, including as ‘human shields’”.
IDF ignores the Israeli high court ruling
Indeed, the Supreme Court in Israel did rule in 2005 that the IDF could no longer use Palestinians as human shields.
During the court’s deliberations, the Israeli Defense Forces admitted to the court that they had made use of ‘human shield’ procedures on 1,200 occasions over the previous five years, and claimed it was a necessary tactic to “protect the troops”.
The court, however, ruled that the IDF had to cease the practice of using human shields: “It is forbidden to exploit the civilian population for the army’s military needs,” wrote Supreme Court President Aharon Barak.
The Israeli Defence Ministry, however, continued to defend the practice and refused to implement the ban. Even in 2010, Prof. Asa Kasher, author of the IDF’s code of ethics, was publicly defending the use of civilians as human shields.
Think about that. The IDF “ethics guru” says it’s OK to use human shields.
The United Nations condemned Israeli abuse of children
In 2013, a United Nations report from the “Committee on the Rights of the Child” was clear in its condemnation of the IDF’s continuing practice of using Palestinian children not just as informants, but as human shields on the battlefield:
“The Committee urges the State party [Israel] to immediately…take active measures to prevent the use of children as human shields and informants, effectively enforce the prohibition to use of children as human shields and informants and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice and punished with sanctions commensurate with the gravity of their crimes.”
The report was comprehensive in its condemnation of Israel for all sorts of abuses against children, including forcing them to act as human shields. At the time, the UN report garnered a lot of attention in the mainstream media, but it was subsequently memory-holed through a tsunami of Israeli hasbara — just like the other negative stories about Israel.
Outrageous examples
The advent of smartphones has led to the publishing of ever more shocking examples of Israelis using Palestinians as human shields. In one case that appears to be inspired by a “Mad Max” movie, IDF soldiers shot and wounded a young Palestinian named Mujahid Abadi, then tied the bleeding man to their vehicle to be used as a human shield.
Using Palestinians as booby-trap bait
The current conflict in Gaza has yielded shocking examples of Israelis using Palestinians not just as human shields, but as “human drones” to explore buildings for booby traps before the IDF troops enter.
Israeli lives are “more important”
A recently published exposé by the major Israeli news outlet Haaretz uses video footage published by Al Jazeera that shows soldiers ordering Palestinians, wearing Israeli army uniforms with body cameras attached to them, to enter buildings and tunnel openings ahead of the soldiers.
“Random Palestinians have been used by Israeli army units in the Gaza Strip for one purpose: to serve as human shields for soldiers during operations.”
“Our lives are more important than their lives,” soldiers were told. The thinking is that it’s better for the Israeli soldiers to remain alive and for the “shawishim” to be the ones blown up by an explosive device.
As the Haaretz story explains, these Palestinians are dressed in IDF uniforms so as to fool potential Hamas snipers into shooting them instead of the Israeli soldiers.
“But if you look more closely, you see that most of them are wearing sneakers, not army boots. And their hands are cuffed behind their backs and their faces are full of fear. The soldiers call each of them a “shawish”, an obscure Arabic word of Turkish origin meaning sergeant.”
Israel is committing war crimes every day
The IDF’s use of Palestinian civilians as human shields and booby-trap bait is a war crime, according to Haaretz, and it is one that IDF soldiers are committing every day in Gaza and the West Bank.
Moreover, it is a crime that Israeli forces use as standard practice, as the Haaretz article exposes — a practice that is sanctioned at the highest levels.
“Of course, there were those who supported [the use of human shields]…mostly the commanders who were afraid to deal with the more senior commanders.”
This despite the denials of the IDF. As Haaretz reports:
“For its part, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said: “IDF instructions and orders prohibit the use of Gazan civilians caught in the field for military missions that pose a deliberate risk to their lives.”
It has been going on for years
As I mentioned above, the IDF has been using human shields for well over 20 years. Below is a documentary that Al Jazeera made about human shields and other abuse of civilians by the IDF in 2014:
The facts expose Israel’s “Big Lie” about Hamas
Israel keeps telling us that the Palestinians are “barbarians” and “subhumans” who do not care about life, do not value their own lives or the lives of their loved ones, let alone the lives of other Palestinians.
AND YET THE IDF USES HUMAN SHIELDS AGAINST HAMAS, KNOWING THAT HAMAS FIGHTERS WILL NOT SHOOT IF A PALESTINIAN CIVILIAN IS PRESENT.
The Haaretz article further exposes the Big Lie, in that the Israelis have to dress up their Palestinian human shields as IDF soldiers in order to “trick” Hamas fighters into firing on them and thus revealing their positions.
If what Israel says about Hamas were true, then the IDF would not use Palestinian civilians to shield themselves from Hamas attacks.
“Every accusation is a confession”
I will close where I started: every time the Israelis accuse Hamas or Iran or anyone of doing something bad, it is because they themselves are doing that very same bad thing.
Do not be fooled.
#End.
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Good article but you wrtote wrong about operation casted lead, as it started in 2008 and was the most brutal till now, as they used tons of white phosphor to bomb cities, refugee camps and UN schools “for months”
Also worth mentioning that the Hannibal directive is still employed by the zionazi militia to massacre the Israelis “including their own troops” along the side of the Palestinians.
Any how here my latest
https://mywisdom.substack.com/p/the-palestinian-genocide-turned-holocaust
Thank you for sharing
War is horrifying and inhumane. This is worse.