IRIS' Israel Blog

Analyst David Bedein of Israel Resource Review writes that a January, 2010 “United Nations’ Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict” clears allied coalition forces of culpability for civilian casualties in their war with Taliban in Afghanistan. Bedein notes that the UN report reveals its dual standards in assigning military culpability to Israel in the 2006 Lebanon War and in Operation Cast Lead in 2009:

The UN report explained that the Taliban frequently attacked coalition forces in densely populated areas and did not blame the United States army or its allies for deaths of civilians who were non combatants who live near the areas from where Taliban launched its attacks, using the civilian areas as a collective human shield.

The UN Afghanistan report stands in stark contrast to a recent report issued by a United Nations’ Human Rights Council’s investigative team, headed by Judge Richard Goldstone, …which conducted an inquiry into Israel’s January 2009… military incursion into the Hamas- ruled Gaza Strip.

[Instead of blaming Hamas for its systematic use of civilians as human shields when attacking Israel, the Goldstone report instead blamed Israel for the deaths of non-combatants when defending itself.]

In direct contrast to the Goldstone Report from the same United Nations, the UN holds the Taliban terrorists directly responsible for collateral deaths in Afghanistan, at the same time that the UN alleges that Israel engages in “intentional attacks against the civilian population and civilian objects,” even though Hamas terrorists openly use homes, schools, hospitals and mosques as their protective place of operation…

Significantly, more non-combatants have been injured or killed in Afghanistan by allied troops than by IDF forces in Gaza.

Former British commander in Afghanistan, Col. Richard Kemp, told the BBC that he did “not think there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when any army has made more effort to reduce civilian casualties and deaths of innocent people than the [Israel Defense Forces] is doing… in Gaza.”

Using human shields and fighting from structures with non-combatant status such as mosques, schools and hospitals are both clear war crimes. Hamas does that for 2 reasons: 1) to make it harder for Israel (who apparently cares more for Arab civilians than the Hamas fighters hiding behind them) to fight Hamas, and 2) to get Israel blamed for causing the inevitable civilian deaths. As long as the UN, the media, and others continue to reward Hamas by playing along and blaming Israel for Hamas’ despicable behavior it is certain to continue.

The New York Times reports that an Afghan immigrant plead guilty to charges concerning a bombing plot in the New York subway:

The Afghan immigrant at the center of what the authorities described as one of the most serious threats to the United States since 9/11 pleaded guilty Monday to terrorism charges in what he said was a Qaeda plot to detonate a bomb in the New York subway.

Najibullah Zazi admitted that he came to New York last year… to kill himself and others on the subway using a homemade bomb.

He characterized the plot as a “martyrdom operation” that he was just days away from executing when he realized he was under government surveillance.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said… : “This attempted attack on our homeland was real, it was in motion and it would have been deadly.”

Zazi told the court he went with friends to Pakistan in August 2008 to join the Taliban in fighting the U.S. in Afghanistan.

While in Pakistan, he received training in making bombs, and was persuaded by Qaeda operatives to return to America to be a suicide bomber. They discussed possible targets, including the New York subway system.

The BBC reports that Colonel Richard Kemp, a top British military officer, noted that the ‘UK combat doctrine has been Influenced by IDF.’ The BBC report stated:

Col. Kemp said the advice he received from the Israeli armed forces on how to tackle Afghan suicide bombers had been invaluable, and formed the basis of official army guidelines used by soldiers on the ground there.

He added that UK soldiers did not have to deal with the same amount of criticism from the international community as does the IDF.

“When we go into battle we do not get the same knee-jerk, almost Pavlovian response from many, many elements of the international media and international groups, humanitarian groups and other international groups such as the United Nations which should know better… of utter automatic condemnation. We don’t have to put up with that.”

Col. Kemp, previously cited on the IRIS blog here and here, was reported to have spoken the above comments cited by the BBC while speaking out yet again for the Israel Defense Forces, this time at a UK Zionist Federation dinner on Sunday in London according to this report from The Jerusalem Post:

“I was a professional soldier for 30 years in the British army and it was my honor and privilege to work alongside the IDF on a number of occasions during that time,” he said.

“I found in my time that the British forces and British government had no stronger ally than Israel and the IDF.”

The former commander… said he wrote the British army’s doctrine on suicide bombing based on help he received from an Israeli army expert on the issue.

“I went to Afghanistan to take over the British forces in 2003 and it was the first time I found myself in a situation where we faced suicide bomb attacks.

“I found that no one in the British forces had worked out a means to try to tackle suicide bomb attacks and how to train our soldiers to handle that situation,” Kemp said.

“…I spoke to a friend at the Israeli embassy and asked if he could help. I thought he would have me meet the defense attache’ at the embassy, but within days a brigadier-general, the top expert the IDF had on suicide bombing, came from his base in the Golan to London specifically to spend about four hours giving me a full briefing on the subject.

“As a result I devised a policy that subsequently became the British forces’ doctrine for dealing with suicide bombing,” he said…

The colonel said that some of the challenges British forces face in Iraq and Afghanistan are comparable to the challenges Israel faces in Gaza and Lebanon…

Comparing the predicament of British forces currently fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan to what Israel is up against, he said, “They fight among the people, they use their own population as weapons of war and that was certainly true of Hamas in the Gaza conflict. They deliberately sacrificed their own people, deliberately did their best to lure Israeli forces to attack their civilian population, and the same thing happens in Afghanistan.

“Taliban forces use the same tactics of trying to draw our forces onto their civilian population that they pretend to protect.”

The colonel repeated his opinion that the IDF went to considerable lengths to protect human life during Operation Cast Lead.

During the Gaza conflict Kemp said… that the IDF was going out of its way to save Palestinian lives, while Hamas were deliberately using civilians as human shields. He also said the IDF was a world leader in humane warfare that seeks to protect civilian lives as much as possible.

“Israeli forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare,” Kemp told the UN Human Rights Council last year.