Evidence of Israeli 'cowardly blending' comes to light

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/3185/81/


Click Name for Bio of Jonathan Cook
Friday, 04 January 2008
by Jonathan Cook in Nazareth

It apparently never occurred to anyone in our leading human rights organisations or the Western media that the same moral and legal standards ought be applied to the behaviour of Israel and Hizbullah during the war on Lebanon 18 months ago. Belatedly, an important effort has been made to set that right.

A new report, written by a respected Israeli human rights organisation, one representing the country’s Arab minority not its Jewish majority, has unearthed evidence showing that during the fighting Israel committed war crimes not only against Lebanese civilians — as was already known — but also against its own Arab citizens. This is an aspect of the war that has been almost entirely neglected until now.

The report also sheds a surprising light on the question of what Hizbullah was aiming at when it fired hundreds of rockets on northern Israel. Until the report’s publication last month, I had been all but a lone voice arguing that the picture of what took place during the war was far more complex than generally accepted.

The new report follows a series of inquiries by the most influential human rights groups, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, to identify the ways in which international law was broken during Israel’s 34-day assault on Lebanon. However, both organisations failed to examine, except in the most cursory and dismissive way, Israel’s treatment of its own civilians during the war. That failure may also have had serious repercussions for their ability to assess Hizbullah’s actions.

:popcorn::popcorn:

I think I saw this in Haaretz too, but here is Ynet:

Dec 11, 2007: Arab group: Israel committed war crimes during Lebanon war

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3481639,00.html

why the Arab casualties were so disproportionately large as compared to the Arab population of Israel or 20% of the population accounting for 47% of the total casualties?

the distribution of the Arab population in Israel is not homogenous. I don't know what the number is exactly, but the proportion of Arabs in the population northern Israel is significantly greater than 20%.

In addition, the Arab towns were not as well prepared as the Jewish ones. In some cases, this was the government's fault, due to underfunding; in other cases, contractors didn't build the shelters required by law* and bribed the local municipal authorities' inspectors to cover it up - presumably believing that those towns would never be targeted by Hizbullah.

*Since 1996, every building being constructed must have a "protected space"

Also, are those Arabs not Israeli? Do you understand why I asked such a question?

note that I stated the Arab population of Israeli, that would make them Israeli Arabs, oh I did not specifically state that, sorry if you misunderstood.
However more exact stats
as of 2006
Israel's population-
Jewish 75.79%
Arab 19.96%
other or unaffiliated 4.35%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_Israel#Population

I was off by 0.04% on Arabs so sorry

I was asking you where you got the stats for this statement:

"I had wondered both during and after the war why the Arab casualties were so disproportionately large as compared to the Arab population of Israel or 20% of the population accounting for 47% of the total casualties?"

According to Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 43 civilians have been killed, out of which 18 were Israeli Arabs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_2006_Lebanon_War#Foreign_civilian_casualties_in_Israel

18 Israeli Arabs out of 43 civilians killed is 41.8 or 42% rounding off.

Also according to Wiki,



Since the rockets from Lebanon only hit in Northern Israel and I assume all the civilian casualties from that war occurred there. If that's the case, then

Arab Israelis suffered 18 of the 43 casualties, which was 41.8% of the total mortalities while holding 52% of the population.

Non-Arab Israelis suffered 25 of the 43 casualties, which was 58.1% of the total mortalities while holding 48% of the population.

This seems to indicate that an Arab in N. Israel during this war was less likely to die (mortality rate = 18/1,200,000 = .0000150) than a non-Arab in N. Israel (mortality rate = 25/1,200,000 = .0000218). Another way to say this is that,

for Arabs, the mortality rate was 15 per million. The non-Arab mortality rate was 21.8 per million.

Or, Arabs were only 68% as likely to die as non-Arabs. (15.0/21.8)

Or, non-Arabs were 145% more likely to die than Arabs. (21.8/15.0)

It looks like those Israelis really screwed up their "cowardly blending". But, who would have thought that the article would be misleading - taken from such an unbiased source as the "Atlantic Free Press" - that bastion of truth about the ME conflict. And written by such an unbiased author too.

Oh look, he just published a book, His first book, entitled "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State". That sounds like a real scholarly effort.



Instead of "Evidence of Israeli 'cowardly blending' comes to light."

The title of the article should have been,

"Evidence of British author's cowardly antisemitism comes to light."

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

anti-Israel equates to antisemitism, but do go on if it gives you comfort to think that.

Outright lies and fabrications that slander a whole people equate to antisemitism.

I'll leave it to you and others here to explain what supporting and apologizing for outright lies and fabrications that slander a whole people - equate to. It seems obvious at this point that you had no idea what this person was even talking about - but you did notice that "Israel's Cowardly Blending" was in the title.

I guess that's enough for you to admire the guy and defend him over and over in this thread - even after several people have carefully explained why both you and the author are full of it.

Well that surprises me,
the context was different then that of pro Israel people who want them confined to a small area that works for them, I simply stated the math was right that was all I had to do and I knew that, the attacks came fast and furious after that each more nasty then the last as I knew they would, then all kinds of things are read in to them that are not there as I knew they would be,
Where were the lies and fabrications? And the one thing I could get called on was that I stated to Pelsar that the links included Jerusalem and the West Bank it should have some of the links, it was the omission of a word and I have corrected it but for you this this libels every Israeli or as you would prefer Jew?
All in all the thread has been an attempt to silence me by insult and intimidation, and the very fact that one stat would be so quibbled is laughable at best, truly sad at worse

Where have I "admired" Jonathon Cook? in fact I agree with VC and Bemildred in that he is biased

And one more thing as I stated during the Lebanon campaign I noticed the Arab death rate was out of portion with the Arab population, what I have not said till now is that I took the Arab population of Northern Israel into account as part of, however because of the way I was corrected I found drawing out the style of attack used(with the exceptions of Eyl and Oberliner) that being insult and attempted intimidation (to keep me from posting) to be more useful, thanx for playing

. . but if you think I was accusing you of outright lies and slander - I was not. I was accusing the pos author of the article.

The fabrications were pointed out to you - as well as how offensive such lies would be to Israelis.

You chose your own response to the lies in the article when they were pointed out to you. As you are doing now.

as for lies they were not lies the numbers right the context was wrong, as to the articles lies lets see according to the article the total death count was 44 according to wiki it was 43, according to the article the total Israeli Arab dead was 21 according to wiki 18, hardly earth shattering, but any port in a storm right?
As for my post let me paraphrase for you the last paragraph
I knew in July of 2006 that the reason the Arab death toll might be higher was that more Arabs lived in the Northern part of Israel, however I find the attack dog, mudslinging,, shrill, accusatory with no attempt at discussion style that has taken over this forum to be so offensive that I simply decided to play it out, so with out saying much either way other then my numbers were right, hours were spent with the increasingly nasty and insulting not to mention spun out of all proportion comments from the so called proIsrael side as I said before the exceptions would be Eyl and Oberliner. You have shown the nature of game now go ahead insult accuse and attack away it is meaningless to me, you have preformed well already.

so lets see.....................
if you work it out
44 * 47%=20.68
44 * 48%=21.12

So you're right I was wrong it is actually closer to 48%, but I admit I guesstimated the first number

. . are not cited, how then is it that 52% of the population (Arab) only suffered 48% of the mortalities? And how is that 48% of the population (non-Arab) suffered 52% of the mortalities?

At the very least this shows that Arabs were no more likely to die, actually a little less likely to die (as a percent of population in N. Israel) than non-Arabs.

I guess now you will apologize to the Israeli members of this forum for suggesting that they (their state) caused greater Arab deaths in this war than non-Arab deaths as a proportion of population - by deviously locating their military installations near Arab villages. I know how anxious you are to be fair about these things.

So, again, where did you get:

"I had wondered both during and after the war why the Arab casualties were so disproportionately large as compared to the Arab population of Israel or 20% of the population accounting for 47% of the total casualties?"



It seems is you made up your "fact" based on the numbers of deaths, not the actual number of civilian casualties, 4305. Not that you would know, but where did Cook gets his death stats? According to oberliner's link, the death toll was 43/18 meaning 42%. However, the very simple fact is that 43 ISRAELIS were killed by Hizb'allah! Also, 83-84% of all missle attacks were against JEWISH communties.





See, it is very simple...
Between 660/3970 (17%) and 660/4228 (16%) landed on 20 Arab communites. Therefore, 83% to 84% landed in Jewish communites (though that may be off slightly because I haven't seen breakdowns on every other community hit), or, very slowly for you here...100% of ISRAELI communities were hit by Hizb'allah rockets!

I used casualties instead of killed, I stand corrected on that one and only that one fact.

The sheer desperation in the posts here change nothing, the the numbers are the numbers, and the numbers that will not change are that Israel's civilian casualties outnumber Lebanon's by over 1,000.
even using Wiki numbers which are 43 Israeli civilians vs 1191 Lebanese civilians speak for themselves and no amount of weasle words graph and charts, or parsing will ever change that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_2006_Lebanon_War

The only desperation here is yours! The article and you assertions were about the Arab ISRAELIS killed during the war, not the Lebanese death and/or casualty rate. Not one poster, NOT ONE, claimed the civilian death rate of Israel was greater than Lebanon's! And, no amount of back-peddling, strawmen, distortions, or post moving will change the fact your original assertion was flat out WRONG!

I am not trying to prove or disprove anything, can you say the same? I realized at the time the number of Arab dead and wounded was higher then the population total would suggest they should be, the OP gave a possible reason why that was.

;)

One other thing I've noticed after reading this train-wreck of a thread (with the exception of Eyl's reply to you, which was informative and not abusive at all) is that as well as not being desperate, yr not prone as others are of launching into tirades of condescending abuse. Kudos to you for yr patience, but I don't think yr going to get a civil discussion happening in this thread...

You are trying to change what you said and pretend you didn't. You are also trying to prove something, perhaps you need a review? It would seem so, because you continue to perpetuate something you have yet to substantiate!

Review:



I responded in post #8



Your response in post #9



You are trying to prove you had the right stats about the Arab population in Israel, even though that wasn't the stat in which I was interested. When I make it clearer for you as to which stat peaked my interest (post #10), you posted:



This is your second attempt to prove what you stated originally was correct. At this point, I have yet to try and prove anything! I finally had to spell out for you that "casualty" was not only those killed, but those injured, as well. You never substantiated your post, then, after getting a correct definition of the word and admitting you were wrong because you used a word incorrectly (thus, drawing an incorrect conclusion based on facts in evidence), you post the same assertion again in the post to which I am responding! After you were corrected on the meaning of 'casualty', you said "it changes nothing," clearly indicating you don't know of what you speak, because it did change the meaning of your original response. Then, you go on to introduce something which had nothing to do with the OP or the questions following and that would be the casualty toll from Lebanon versus that of Israel. This is called "moving the goalposts."

Finally, you fail to realize the error of your use of statistics. Two posters have pointed out that while the Arab population of Israel is just under 20%, a larger percentage of Arab Israelis live in the north of Israel. Do you not understand the relevance of this fact?

So, yes, you are the one who is desperate. You are trying to back-peddle due to your misuse of a word, add irrelevant information (changing the subject), and paint an inaccurate picture.

quoting my posts you left out the part where I corrected my use of casualty. As to not trying to prove anything I defended my numbers that is all, while you have gone into near frenzy to prove Israel innocent of wrong doing or something as I pointed out to Pelsar even taking total deaths from all Israeli civilian in the summer campaigns of 2006 into account the figure for Israeli Arabs dead is still at twice the rate as their presence in the total population would suggest.

" note that while quoting my posts you left out the part where I corrected my use of casualty."

From the post to which you responded: "You never substantiated your post, then, after getting a correct definition of the word and admitting you were wrong because you used a word incorrectly..."

Defended/proved, the same damn thing! You tried to prove, in defense of your statement, your numbers were correct.

Lie: a deliberate misstatement of the truth; a falsehood.

"....while you have gone into near frenzy to prove Israel innocent of wrong doing..."

Where have I tried to "prove Israel innocent of wrong doing?" As for "near frenzy," that is your own hyperbole. The only 'near frenzy' is your own goalpost moving and poor attempts to substantiate your "facts." Perhaps you were not lying, but mistakingly misrepresented what was said (or not said).

As for "something as I pointed out to Pelsar even taking total deaths from all Israeli civilian in the summer campaigns of 2006 into account the figure for Israeli Arabs dead is still at twice the rate as their presence in the total population would suggest."; well, that wasn't the original statement, now was it? No, it was:

"I had wondered both during and after the war why the Arab casualties were so disproportionately large as compared to the Arab population of Israel or 20% of the population accounting for 47% of the total casualties?"

It is also obvious, you don't understand statistics. Eyl and other posters have pointed out, that while Arab Israelis comprise almost 20% of the Israeli population, they represent quite a bit more in the north part of Israel.

was the death toll from all of Israel during the summer of 2006 not just the north. That total was 7% lower from my original which was taken solely from the numbers stated in the article.
Now then seeing as how you want to claim that Arabs make-up such a higher percentage of the population of Northern Israel, then it would make sense that that IDF installations were near or in Arab villages or will you deny that too, it was the original subject of the post

You really have no clue about statistics.

"Now then seeing as how you want to claim that Arabs make-up such a higher percentage of the population of Northern Israel, ..."

Not my "claim," that is fact.

"...then it would make sense that that IDF installations were near or in Arab villages or will you deny that too, it was the original subject of the post"

Pathetic! Just fucking sad!

I never disputed IDF instillations were near Arab villages. You can't stay on target because you don't have a clue as to what you are trying to say.

bta, is there a possibility you could try to discuss issues without flinging abuse?

btw, if you read the post you were replying to, you'd see that you weren't accused of disputing that IDF instillations were near Arab villages. You were merely asked if you'd deny that too...

as so they mean something other then what the numbers suggest, and yes I do understand the war with Lebanon was fought in predominately Arab areas.
What is truly pathetic is that you can not deny the original post so instead you chose to attack me for stating how the numbers work out, I never denied that the area was not predominately Arab although I did question if the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, and/or the West Bank were included, but just kept repeating the bald numbers including two different sets without denying any thing and watched you resort to increasingly nasty attacks, please do keep going it's quite entertaining.

You are so worried about abuse, but you have done the same thing. I never attacked you. I asked where you got your stats for your original statement, and when you finished tap-dancing all over the thread, you still have yet to admit your statement was wrong, not because you couldn't understand statistics (that came later), but because you used a word incorrectly (which you did admit) and that changed the meaning of your original statement (which you claimed doesn't matter). You just can't admit you were wrong. The only thing here that is entertaining is your playing the wounded bird after having your statement shredded by more than one poster.

and near jewish communities...since they are all side by side, as its written in the original report....."or will you deny that too?"

but once again the drive to disagree overides.

As to detecting patterns however your tendency to call embarrassing facts nonsense and to center on one so called "error"has been noted,it is a common tactic used for distraction.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x194440#194694

i thought this rather amusing, as your caught AGAIN...can we call the corrections of your initial post here of yours trying to show how racist the israeli society is "another distraction"?
___

i realize your trying awfully hard in your attempts to show how racists we are, perhaps reread my post of where to find real racism within israel (ethiopians, or even the the messianic jews, they're a real political hot potatoe to play with if you would like)...it will make your posts far more accurate.

citing numbers from the OP and breaking them down into percentages, righttttttt. Arabs are about 20% of Israels population?

Are the numbers incorrect?
Well lets add Israeli civilian casualties (dead) from the 2006 Gaza campaign in too then shall we?
That number would be 2 bring the total to 45 and using Wiki 's lower number of Arab dead 18 that is still an overall death count of

45 total 18 Arab and 27 Jewish
the percentage is 45 * 40%=18

And yes you "caught me" by using different numbers, I used the ones cited in the OP, but still and none the less the number of Arab deaths are still at twice the percetage as the Arab population as a whole in Israel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israel-Gaza_conflict

percentage of the Arab population out of the entire population is completely irrelevent. The important statistics are the percentage of Arab deaths versus the percentage of Arab population in the area under attack.

during the summer of 2006, are you denying this? It should also be noted that the northern part of Israel in the links posted here included the Golan Heights and in some cases the West Bank or Jerusalem which would bring the percentage of Arabs up a bit.

explain my argument and just how I shot it down.

I should know - I was there. The north was under attack. Jerusalem was not under attack. A few missiles reached as far as Jenin (if I remember correctly) which is in the northern west Bank.

So your saying that was not under attack, thanks for clarifying

Hizbullah rocket attacks; Gaza has nothing to do with that.

aren't you busy fighting stats you don't like, that I did not disagree with except to say my numbers were not wrong, again keep going maybe you'll wear me down afterall there are 4 or 5 of you right now and 1 of me.

Why don't you explain, since we're obviously not understanding you, what you think it means that the percentage of Israeli Arabs killed in Hizbullah rocket attacks was greater than their percentage in the total population, why you're using that percentage for comparison instead of the percentage of Arab population in the areas affected, and what Qassam rockets (which AFAIK did not result in any Israeli fatalities in the time in question anyway) have to do with all this.

which propagated a sh*tstorm of denial or my numbers were wrong or something or it "looked bad", however I realized at the time (2006) the numbers were disproportionate in fact some of the Israeli or pro-Israel people here were rather gleeful about that fact. Now a question every demographic I have come across for Northern Israel includes Golan and/or East Jerusalem and West Bank where little to no fighting was going but there are significant numbers of Arabs in the latter 2 and some also in the Golan Heights area so that would render those stats also inaccurate, but in a way favorable to Israel.
To be truly accurate it would have to be broken down village by village, something I am not sure is even possible.
As to the OP are we to believe that IDF given a choice between operating out of and there by possibly drawing enemy fire would choose a Jewish village over an Arab one?
Or is the fact that the article states that Hezbollah may well have been aiming at military targets what the problem is, but not being able to disprove that instead chose to disprove one stat? What does it prove either way? That more Arabs were killed because more were present? Did I disagree or was more read into my original post
Why can there never be peace? If this thread is a clue it is because once an enemy has been targeted as such by Israel supporters any thing will be spun to mean something that can be used to justify attack.

...and this is another one......

every demographic I have come across for Northern Israel includes Golan and/or East Jerusalem...did you even look at a map?...E.Jersualem is not Northern israel...perhaps some accurate links to those demographics your looking at?

or how about this one:
but there are significant numbers of Arabs in the latter 2 and some also in the Golan Heights

no arabs in the golan...druz yes, but not arabs.
___

so how would you describe someone who posts with so many mistakes?....perhaps ask before you type?....not only will your posts be more accurate, there will be less time correcting you and more time learning.

once again. The Golan Heights-



http://www.watsonblogs.org/sali/2007/11/salvaging_peace_with_syria.html

Now it does not say specifically Arab, it says Muslim so perhaps they are non-Arab Muslims?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_District_(Israel)

now I asked a question, and got attacked, accused, insulted thanks for at least keeping with the usual, quite the learning experience

your link to the definition of the N. District does not include Jerusalem...as you stated earlier....(and which is not in the north obviously), so that should be cleared up.

i've never come across any 'muslim arabs in the golan...you link says they exist.....perhaps they do....

maybe you should "quit" while your ahead...

Most of Israel was under attack during the summer of 2006

no.......a single missile flew over Zichron Yaacov and landed near Hadera....that was a south as they came.....that kind of means that most of israel was in fact NOT under attack. (including jerusalem).

border with Gaza was not under attack? Israel invaded so as to retrieve one soldier worked well didn't it?
And why should I quit because you proclaim me wrong and in doing so admit Israel killed 402(280 "militants" and 122 civilians) Palestinians unnecessarily. thank you for that, you make a far better case then I would dare,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israel-Gaza_conflict#Casualties

wasn't under attack by Hizbullah.

Why is this a difficult concept?

however I included Gaza when recalculating my own stats, which came out a bit more in Israels favor albeit not much. Did not see ant complaining about that.

parts of what is called northern Israel including Jerusalem and the Golan area was not under attack but those areas are included in the "Northern area" population figures.

the proportion of Arab population in the regions in question (Northern+Haifa Districts). Going by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, it seems they form about 39% of the population.

Now this seems significantly lower than their part in the fatalities, as per the article. But even if the article's numbers are correct (which they may very well not be), you have to remember that you're dealing with a very small sample size, which means statistical "noise" - e.g., dumb luck - can greatly change the results. Change just 4 fatalities from Arab to Jewish, and the percentages will correspond quite nicely.

The furthest south any missile came was Hadera, IIRC and that was rare. Jerusalem certainly wasn't under attack, nor was the West Bank to any significant degree (bar the very occasional stray rocket in its northern part). As for the Golan AFAIR there were very few rockets which landed there, though I may be misremembering on that point. Southern Israel certainly wasn't under any attack.

in fact received some missiles.....nothing much to report as its not very populated (had a relative in the reserves in the golan during the war)

but do keep going please

I stated that Israel tends to put new immigrants no matter where their from,in more dangerous areas, I never said no Sabra's live in or near those same area's, where does race apply? I also posted that in American history the same thing occurred with the old family (mostly WASPs) living on the east coast and new immigrants (white European) living in the western frontier area's.
How is that racist? Classist maybe.

Because there is nothing in the post you replied to that suggests they're trying to show how racist Israelis are....

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/arabreport/

The HRA is aware that Jewish locales were also surrounded with military installations.
Moreover, some of the military installations documented by the HRA indeed surrounded Arab locales, but were also extremely close to neighboring Jewish locales.

However, this report, which is based on primary sources, clearly shows that the temporary and permanent military installations were positioned in close proximity to the Arab locales attacked during the war; this fact, in itself, endangers the Arab citizens living in these locales.
In the north of Israel , almost every Arab locale neighbors a Jewish locale
____

the summary is that israeli military installations are near civilian locales.....oh....i hadnt realized that this was a secret, probably has to do with israel being a small country, but thats just geography....

"Cowardly blending" or "human shields" don't mean much unless there is some expectation that they would offer protection against attacks, and there is little sign of that being true.

the author wants to blame israel for having military bases etc near arab communities so as to blame israel for using arabs as human shields, yet his source is very clear that for every arab community there is a jewish one next to it....so those same military bases are also next to jewish communities.....which kind of ruins his claim.

so since the author of the OP is obviously trying to make israel guilty of something that its not.......well, what shall we call that kind of dishonesty?

racist or merely biased?

given the fact that this article is not even truthful......

I don't think he's a racist, but he is extremely one-sided and often inaccurate. Not generally regarded as an objective source.

I haven't read much from him, but he does come across as being very one-sided....

Ought to fit in quite well here ...

But the reruns are fun too.

of the pro-Israel side shows the desperation to prove anything wrong and certainly wins you no friends.But please never change your psuedointeullectual rephasing of "might makes right" and suggestions that Arabs be indoctrinated to "democracy" as they show the very spirit of the pro-Israel set here, which I am happy to say is not representative of most Israeli's I have met.

What I am unhappy to say is that a few Israelis I have met in the past year and half are hesitant to say they are Israeli or well yes I lived there for a while but really I'm Russian or something of the sort.