Official Israeli video footage on youtube depicts an apparent atrocity

The BBC has done an important story on Israel's use of youtube to propagandize its surgical war. The other day it posted dramatic footage of a missile hitting a truck with a lot of men around it.

The YouTube video has a large caption on it saying "Grad missiles being loaded onto the Hamas vehicle." As of Saturday morning UK time, more than 260,000 people had watched it.

It turned out, however, that a 55-year-old Gaza resident named Ahmed Sanur, or Samur, claimed that the truck was his and that he and members of his family and his workers were moving oxygen cylinders from his workshop.

This workshop had been damaged when a building next door was bombed by the Israelis and he was afraid of looters, he said.

The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem put Mr Sanur's account on its website, together with a photograph of burned out oxygen cylinders.

Mr Sanur said that eight people, one of them his son, had been killed. He subsequently told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: "These were not Hamas, they were our children... They were not Grad missiles."

Friends of mine had pointed me to this story a couple days ago. Apologies. But it will soon be picked up in the American press. Not!

Comments

[America]

What next? The BBC reporting that suicide bombers are actually performance artists? Phil, the most gullible, idiot inthe world wouldn't buy that story. Falling for it makes you less worldly than george a bush!

[Israel]

No, America, Phil is not gullible, you are.

[Eurosabra]

If true, they had the misfortune of trying to save oxygen canisters that would look like missiles to a drone's camera and any observer. For the Middle East, this is pretty much a Darwin Award moment, anyone with adequate foresight would have written the canisters off, tried to get them out of the workshop before they burned, and carted them--while waving as many white flags as possible--into the nearest empty field, where they would either combust from the effects of the damage to the workshop or be bombed as apparent missiles. Loading anything that looks like a missile on a truck in a war zone is idiocy.

Lots of people keep talking about "reasonable person" and "forseeable risk" tests, and frankly, those tests are not only obligations on the Israeli side.

[BLG]

this is pretty much a Darwin Award moment, anyone with adequate foresight would have written the canisters off, tried to get them out of the workshop before they burned, and carted them--while waving as many white flags as possible--into the nearest empty field

Damn that guy for trying to save his economic livelihood in a walled off Ghetto under a blockade. Lets all laugh at his means to save his way to provide for his family then callously ignore the civilian ramifications.

[Eurosabra]

The objects are also obviously too short to be Grads, and too wide and without tapering to be Qassams, which can be seen clearly as the men load one sideways to the truck's bed and then turn it lengthwise. Obviously none of the observers bothered to check against a standard "recognition card" for Grads. Ironically, Israeli Defense Forces troops on the ground would not have made this mistake--and the error is also partly a function of Hamas's upgrading its weaponry (which meant that Forward Observers saw "Grads" and not oxygen tanks) and control over Gaza (where no Israeli can tread to see oxygen tanks.) So this is an unfortunate side effect of the Moqawwamma's (Resistance's) success. Why aren't Hamas voters happier?

Leave the tanks in the workshop, if they're stable. Moving them is not worth the risk.

[Rowan Berkeley]

Euroanimal, do you ever look in the mirror, and see your own eyes? Do you ever look right into your own eyes and see what's hiding behind them? The rest of the world can see the wild beast within, you know.

[Americansabra]

Gee, those stupid camel jockeys, trying to avoid keeping their families alive. More American taxpayer dollars for drones are obviously needed to squelch the innocent Pals' desire to live.

[Jim Haygood]

Are you sure they weren't extra long puppy dog containers?

[Eurosabra]

Also, Phil, "war crime" is a defined legal category, while atrocity is not. As far as ius in bello is concerned, an honest recognition error is not a war crime. This is a misidentification of an industrial good as a weapon made possible by the transportation of clandestine real rockets from industrial buildings, unmounted and unidentifiable as weapons, by non-uniformed combatants. Hamas camouflaged these men to death.

I would use any amount of power available to subtract Israelis from the judgement of any kangaroo court so ill-informed in military and civil defense matters (and my background is in Civil Defense emergency medicine) as to regard this as an "atrocity."

[Eva Smagacz]

I wonder what this kid did that allows us to blame him for his own death.
Maybe his pram looked a bit too much like a missile?

[Eurosabra]

Tsk, Rowan, it's like watching a motorway accident. Had I been there I might have saved some of them, as I did on the three occasions I was personally blown up, when Palestinians made damn sure I got to live like an animal for a while. I can't deal with the judicial non-fallout of what the laws of war might call an honest mistake, were Israelis not always already adjudged guilty sinners, unworthy of a homeland.

[Swords, etc]

That photo is from Iraq! Really, even your pogrom-starting grandpa wouldn't have resorted to that!

[Eurosabra]

When did "The World" ever do anything but try to kill Jews?

[Eurosabra]

Too close to the wrong place at the wrong time, not deliberately targeted to send a message like the Israelis in the café across the street from the Prime Minister's residence in March 2001?

There are better ways of fighting rockets, but no one has yet made them practical.

[Americansabra]

Those poor, innocent Israelis in their crappy pizza parlors, look what
you've done to them! When did the World ever do anything but to try to kill Jews?

Now that Jews have the power, we see the symmetry. The test of virtue is power--better hope the goy American masses stay uniformed.

[Americansabra]

uninformed, that is, given the big lie a la Shecky Goebbelstein.

[daga]

@WEurosabra

Your assertion:

Loading anything that looks like a missile on a truck in a war zone is idiocy.

Would everywhere else be regarded as pure lunacy. But taking place adjacent Funny Farm Israel you might have a point.
Paranoia is a common phenomenon in the psychopathology of superiority complex. And I thank you for your demonstration of my diagnosis: Blaming errors and defeat on other people is pathognomonic for your condition.

See Folie des grandeurs.

Delusions of persecution may be intrinsically related to - and the flip-side of - delusions of grandeur in that the very idea that one is being persecuted by a complex of conspirators involves a sense of greatly elevated self-importance.

[Eva Smagacz]

Yes, and in Iraq mothers wrap their dead babies in the Palestinian colours and pose for pictures just to spite Israeli hasbara efforts.

And the picture below
must be from ...... Madagascar....?

[Eurosabra]

They were loading 6ft metal cylinders onto a truck in a war zone where non-uniformed men routinely transport rockets on flat-bed trucks.

Idiots. Or knowingly suicidal. Or maybe they were mujahadin.

In areas where the conflict is NOT characterized by small-scale rocket warfare, like the Syrian Golan, they would have been safer, as the image would have AT LEAST been passed around for evaluation. That's 'cause the Syrians move their rockets on marked military vehicles using uniformed men, with discernable rocket mounts on the vehicles.

Hamas's clandestine tactics killed these men.

[Swords, etc]

Daga Quisling is right. Israelis have no reason to believe they are being persecuted. Those rockets are projections of their fantasies--just like the Holocaust. It never happened, right Vikdun?

[Jim Haygood]

Nobody likes killing children, but those deaths are 100% the fault of Hamas. They could have been avoided. Maybe if the Palestinians had celebrated every suicide bombing, hadn't launched 6,000 missiles at Israeli children, these attacks wouldn't have happened?
Eva--if Russia launched 6,000 missiles at Poland (because they thought they have a right to Krakow) would you suggest Poland accept it?

[daga]

Pseudo Jim Haygood-Eurosabra-Daga Quisling.

I smell a rat here. A Dissociative identity disorder-rat.

My advice to you is less discussion and heavier medication.

[Eurosabra]

Uh, no, there's only one of me.

The cylinders on the Btselem web page carry the notations (in Hebrew) "2-3 atmospheres must remain" and "Maximum inflation [illegible]." So those are obviously min/max pressure markings on an industrial oxygen cylinder.

If they had been, say, tomato farmers, or if Hamas used marked military vehicles and uniformed personnel, they'd still be here.

[MM]

You're right, Eurosabra. Serves them right for being welders.

Don't they know that Zionism DEMANDS no Palestinian industry, no economic growth opportunity, no entrepreneurship?

Christ, when are Palestinians going to be more sensitive of "what's good for the Jews", and stop forcing Israel to commit war crimes?

I hope that when Israeli generals end up at The Hague, Eurosabra is there to defend them. That should get a laugh out of those normally humorless Dutch.

[Rowan Berkeley]

" ... were Israelis not always already adjudged guilty sinners, unworthy of a homeland ... when did "The World" ever do anything but try to kill Jews?"

This is an excellent statement of the effect that the psychopathic pseudo-deity JHVH has had on his followers, and their fellow travellers, who may not think of themselves as 'religious' at all, but simply 'Jewish', throughout recorded history.

[Eva Smagacz]

Eva--if Russia launched 6,000 missiles at Poland (because they thought they have a right to Krakow) would you suggest Poland accept it?"

Russia did think it had right to Poland, or at least a good chunk of it (Austria and Prussia believed they have a right to Poland, too).

Between three of them, they parceled out Poland into three neat pieces and occupied us for well over the century.

Poland did not "exist".

Germans used methods almost identical to those of Israel to prize out land from polish ownership to that of their own citizens and colonized with all their strength (settlement buildings, subsidized housing in settlements, you name it, they did this first).

Russians tried to wipe out polish identity with assault at polish education and with bureaocracy that Civil Administration would be jealous of and internment practices that would make Shin Bet look like children.

Poland raised twice in bloody intifadas against the oppressors and occupiers and paid dearly in blood of its freedom fighters.

So forgive me if I don't see your analogy: those 6000 quassam rockets were dismissed by Zbigniew Brzezinski as nuisance, provocation and harassment.

If Israel was that concerned with the saving lives of 8 Israeli in 8 years they should have put up more speed control cameras on the Israeli roads.

[Jim Haygood]

"Poland raised twice in bloody intifadas against the oppressors and occupiers and paid dearly in blood of its freedom fighters."

What a fantasy of Polish history that is!!!! The Soviet Army stopped the German occupation. Period. Poland had long since prostituted itself to Germany. Then, after five decades of sucking-up to Russia, the regime collapsed. The "Intifada" (1950s, 1980) against Russia started out bravely, but, like everything in POlish history, soon degenerated into cowardice and duplicity.
The Polish nation is well-served in its role today, fixing the toilets and cleaning the houses of the rest of Europe.

[stevieb]

No you've got it wrong man. Israel killed those people. They fired those missiles, and dropped them bombs.

Israel is 100% responsible, factually speaking.

Killing lots and lots of innocent people too.

And the whole world is like, - want's wrong with those jews man?

Killin' and lyin'.

Killin' and lyin'.

Killin' and lyin'.

Yep.

[stevieb]

I think I'm gonna write me a song.

[daga]

@SOG
You wrote:

Daga Quisling is right. Israelis have no reason to believe they are being persecuted. Those rockets are projections of their fantasies--just like the Holocaust. It never happened, right Vikdun?

NO . The Zionists have no reason to feel persecuted. They are the persecutors, not the persecutees. And no , the rockets are real (pain in the Zionists ass) a wee bit more dangerous than fireworks, but compared to IOF' hellfire rather harmless. I wish they had better defense so they could aim at the War criminals in IDF and the colonialists on the West Bank. Maybe you and I should sponsor a few Stingers ?
And yes Holocaust happened. Some 55-60 million people died because of Nazism. 30 mill Russians, 3-4 mill Jews. 450 000 Gipsy's. Terrible. But how can that justify the genocide of the Palestinian people ? The "Holocaust-account" is long since emptied. Its time Israel is held responsible for her actions. And for heaven's sake, stop wallowing in ethnocentric self-pity. We Europeans have committed genocide on three Continents, and persecuted all other religions for over 1500 years.

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." : Samuel P. Huntington

[Glenn Condell]

'Also, Phil, "war crime" is a defined legal category, while atrocity is not. As far as ius in bello is concerned, an honest recognition error is not a war crime.'

I find this dreadful hair-splitting almost as offensive as the atrocities themselves. When Israel gets it's own Nuremburg hearings, it will be interesting to see how such amoral evasion fares.

[LanceThruster]

Damn that guy for trying to save his economic livelihood in a walled off Ghetto under a blockade. Lets all laugh at his means to save his way to provide for his family then callously ignore the civilian ramifications.

Posted by: BLG | January 03, 2009 at 11:27 AM

Very well put.

My sides are still hurting from the laughter.

Why didn't they just get their local banking institution to float them a loan to restock their business? I heard they're recently flush with cash./snark-off

[Glenn Condell]

Anyone remember those cute young Israeli girls in a photo from the Lebanon war crime, writing nice little notes on missiles, like 'from Israel with love'?

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/07/18/image-of-the-day-chi.html

Now imagine Israel was engaged in a fair fight with an opponent of equal strength, equiped with the same super-power provided military hardware. Those girls would fair game Eurosabra, wouldn't you agree? Speshly since what they were handling weren't things that loked a bit like missiles, they fucking well WERE missiles.

Would we get the standard world-weary shrug of the shoulders that we see from you and your disgraceful cohort when Palestinians die from such 'errors'? Would legalistic nonsense such as your effort above excuse the 'mistaken' massacre of Jewish girls rather than Arab men?

A one-word, evasion-free answer will suffice.

[daga]

@SOG
You wrote:
Daga Quisling is right. Israelis have no reason to believe they are being persecuted. Those rockets are projections of their fantasies--just like the Holocaust. It never happened, right Vikdun?
------------
NO . The Zionists have no reason to feel persecuted. They are the persecutors, not the persecutees. And no , the rockets are real (pain in the Zionists ass) a wee bit more dangerous than fireworks, but compared to IOF' hellfire rather harmless. I wish they had better defense so they could aim at the War criminals in IDF and the colonialists on the West Bank. Maybe you and I should sponsor a few Stingers ?
And yes Holocaust happened. Some 55-60 million people died because of Nazism. 30 mill Russians, 3-4 mill Jews. 450 000 Gipsy's. Terrible. But how can that justify the genocide of the Palestinian people ? The "Holocaust-account" is long since emptied. Its time Israel is held responsible for her actions. And for heaven's sake, stop wallowing in ethnocentric self-pity. We Europeans have committed genocide on three Continents, and persecuted all other religions for over 1500 years.

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." : Samuel P. Huntington

[Eva Smagacz]

I was talking of Polish history in 19th century not twentieth century, my dear "Jim". Of uprisings in 1831 and 1863.

Please don't embarrass yourself presuming you know Polish history better than me.

Poland has more similarities with Palestine that you could possible imagine.

[Eurosabra]

Tee-hee, MM. If that day comes, "the suitcases are heavy"--Avraham Stern.

I would love it if hypocritical Europe, never anything but the eternal charnel house of the Jewish people, ever dares to pull Israelis in front of their kangaroo court. Certainly it will be a message to the last Jews to get out, if they're still alive.

[Eurosabra]

Glenn.

Those girls are already targeted by Hezbollah, no matter where they are, because Hezb uses unguided weapons. When Hamas uses guided weapons, human bombs, they often strike civilians deliberately. You carry water for terrorists. End of story.

The welders died because they were mistaken for terrorists, because the terrorists clandestinely move rockets that resemble industrial goods. If the GRADS were on rocket trucks, the Israeli observer would have noticed the Mercedes flatbed as a civilian vehicle.

But it's nice that you've inadvertently revealed what you want to do to Israeli girls. Says a lot about you.