Everything We Wish Wasn't True About Israel Part-2

Plastic Shrapnel

First image shows rocket's deadly guts deposited on the family property.

(Begins with excerpt from my 7 July 2011 article: Plastic isn't Fantastic When Used as Invisible Shrapnel ) Working in Gaza with Bassam Elmassri, Mousheera Jammal and Noor Assan, as interpreters, our Correspondent Ken O'Keefe, visited a Palestinian home shortly after it was targeted and attacked by Israel last February.

Even though the rocket that killed and severely wounded several female members of this family was manufactured in the USA, and in spite of the fact that Ken himself was born and raised in America, this family, those left, welcomed both Ken and his camera and his friends. They shared in depth, a tragic story. Ken said at the times that they were willing to talk because they believed it would make a difference.

The rocket came when the men were at prayer. Only women were home and were killed and maimed. One of the daughters of Ebrahim Qudih, was preparing to get married. The women were picking out designs for the special ceremony which would never happen. Framing the incredible video that Ken produced and quickly delivered from Gaza via YouTube, Bonnie King wrote about this egregious attack on the Qudih family, 29 April 2011, in the article, 'Israeli Drone War Crimes Exposed' 

WATCH THE VIDEO REPORT PRODUCED BY KEN O'KEEFE:

It began with air strikes on April 7, when five Palestinians were killed in raids hitting targets that the Israeli military described as 'positions where projectiles had been fired from'. Two women and an elderly man were killed in separate strikes near Khan Younis, and two unidentified men were killed near Gaza City. The two women were a mother and daughter, who were sitting in their back yard, planning details of the girl's upcoming wedding.

Three younger sisters were there also, and they had all spent the day baking bread and preparing for the big event. The men of the family were away, attending Friday prayers. Suddenly, and without warning, an Israeli rocket exploded between the women, killing them both. One sister was seriously injured and remains hospitalized, in a coma. The youngest daughter, five years old, was far enough from the blast to remain uninjured, but unfortunately she was first on scene. First to see her dead family members. She and her older sister, and all of the remaining family are suffering from PTSD. To read the article by Bonnie King, visit: Salem-News.com

 

This is the plastic that the rockets send flying into people; doctors are unable to find it and we're told people are dying due to this specific use of 'x-ray proof' plastic shrapnel.

Seemingly accepting of this military brutality as a fact of life, father Ebrahim Qudih asked, "Why this family... why this house?" "If I don't have safety in my house, where can I find it?" "How do they (pointing to photo of daughters) make any danger to Israel?" Mr. Qudih added.

The rocket attack would strike most human beings as a reprehensible method for dealing with national security in the first place; annihilating family homes, etc. To object to this is not a criticism of religion, it is simply to decry the behavior. Israel supporters typically reply with, "Well they are terrorists, or connected to terrorists, it was their choice", and this thinking, most of humanity would firmly and unequivocally reject. Fathi Qudih, Ebrahim's brother, explained that the tragedy is beyond description, and his niece was left in a coma with terrible injuries. In regard to this event, Salem-News.com officially asked questions of the Israeli Defence Forces that they failed to address with any satisfactory answers.

The IDF's claim the home of this family was tied to Hamas. It was not, but God help us all for any nation's tolerance of Israel's in-your-face war crimes that are not allegations but hard, deadly facts. Attacking a family home with only the women home? Hamas is not a terrorist organization anyway, that is a phrase of convenience for western and Israeli governments that are thus able to dis involve Palestinians from any real representation in Gaza. As an organization, Hamas has committed far less terror and claimed a minuscule fraction of the lives Israel has snuffed out in their quest for an exclusive Jewish state.

Qudih family daughter who was severely injured in the rocket attack on their home. Here, weeks after the attack, she is still in a coma. We are seeking contact from Gaza doctors who can tell us more about these terrible plastic shrapnel injuries.

Translating the words of this grief-stricken family, Bassam Elmassri learned about the shadowy side of Israel's munitions.

Manufactured in the USA, the rocket that struck the Qudih family home, contained the usual deadly ingredients, but also something that doctors in Gaza are reported to be seeing more of: undetectable plastic shrapnel that becomes embedded in the flesh of these victims.

Bassam Elmassri explained: "Small pieces come out from the rocket, it's like plastic pieces because when they take the injured people to the hospital to do the x-ray on them, it's not working. So they can die, because this makes it more difficult to remove the pieces from the body.

The plastic pieces are not seen on the x-ray". I have been in contact with doctors in Gaza before and that is one present goal, I encourage anyone reading this who is familiar with plastic shrapnel or has contact information to medical crews in Gaza, to write and share what they know. It is imperative that this is researched and exposed so that doctors can at least treat civilian victims injuries in a reasonable way.(Write to: tim@salem-news.com)

Asking for metal shrapnel instead of plastic seems the strangest request, no more bombs would obviously be a preferable scenario; but anyone in the chain of command responsible for this inhumane choice should be investigated for possible war crime violations. It seems clear that the plastic is seeing its intended purpose, this should not be deemed an acceptable practice.

Amputation by Severe Heat?

This information comes from the Website Palestine Outcry. It is the intro to the story, First, Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) 

In mid-October 2006 a team of investigative journalists at RAI Italian television reported that Israel had been using a new weapon in the Gaza Strip, similar to DIME – dense inert metal explosive. The report was produced by the same journalists who claimed without foundation that the US used White Phosphorus (WP) against civilians during attacks on Fallujah. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, the weapon was launched from drones in the summer of 2006, most of them in July, and led to "abnormally serious" physical injuries.

Physicians in the Gaza Strip noted the pattern of wounds they were treating were unusual, with severed legs that showed signs of severe heat at the point of amputation but no metal shrapnel. The American version is still in a testing stage and had not been used on the battlefield at that time. It has not been "declared an illegal weapon", though the weapon was claimed [without described basis] to be "highly carcinogenic and harmful to the environment". Keep reading this article at: paloutcry.org in Jerusalem.

 

If Just One Israeli is killed...

The average American who listens to mainstream channels will inevitably come away with one conclusion; that a group called 'Hamas' in Gaza, Palestine, is a terrorist organization that frequently fires rockets at innocent Israelis. This is not true.

While it still happens sporadically, there is one very important fact to know, 28 Israeli people have died in these attacks, which actually began in the early 1990's.

They are unguided rockets, very different from what Israeli planes and drones continually use to attack the residents of the coastal Gaza Strip, and they are high inaccurate, unlike the Israeli killing weapons, many of which are illegal under international law, not that it sways Israeli politics.

So the reality of the Palestine/Israeli conflict, is that the Israelis kill at will, they do so with American weapons and planes and they never apologize. They almost always kill innocent victims when they strike a so-called 'terrorist' who are often elected or high-ranking officials with Hamas, which was legitimately elected as the political leadership of Gaza years ago. If just one Israeli died this way, either an official, or a person who died as collateral damage, the world would erupt in anger, and with the media under the full spell of Israel, the murdered and broken innocents of Gaza are never shown to western viewers.

All we are told is that they are the enemies of Israel, and it is an unjust situation. The fact that Hamas remains an armed group in support of Gaza is an intrinsic reality and no government has a right to deem this group 'terrorist' and thus reject it from the political bargaining tables.

As the struggle continues, we look at the people who are continually attacked and frequently killed by Israeli Defence Forces. We see the fishermen who the Israeli navy attacks with patrol boats; that was the project of our writer Vittorio Arrigoni who was murdered in Gaza last year. We see the children shot for collecting rocks to build roads, we know farmers are shot tending to their own fields by trigger-happy Israeli snipers who kill purely for fun, even outside of Israel's own laws and rules, because they know no Israeli soldier will ever be held accountable for killing a Palestinian civilian.

These soldiers who shoot people who are different from them, Arabs who so many Israelis are raised and culture to hate, are like dogs and pigs from the lowest moats of existence; like any people who kill other people for fun and without justification, they have no right to walk around and enjoy their privileged lives, paid for by the hard-earned tax dollars of American citizens.

Lest we forget, Gaza is only one part of what remains of Palestine, there are the West Bank and Golan Heights. A story of two Palestinian brothers who were activists, is a classic example of how terrible things have become, how Israeli soldiers attack and torture people with impunity, at will, but if a little Palestinian girl videotapes one of their acts, then look out... there will be a banging on the family door late at night, just the way the Nazi's did it

Two Palestinian Brothers

Bassem "Phil" Abu Rahmah, was killed by Israel's military during a peace protest. He was unarmed and had no violent intent of any kind, in fact he was begging the Israeli soldiers in Hebrew not to fire directly at them, they did anyway, and struck Bassem squarely in the chest.

His brother Ashraf was shot by IDF soldiers while bound and blindfolded a few months earlier. He survived to learn that in the case of his brother's death, all charges against the IDF were excused yesterday by an Israeli judge, leaving the trigger happy soldier, Brian Ross, in the clear.

An Israeli coined the phrase regarding the Jews in the Holocaust, that is that there were not six million murders, there was one murder, six million times.

This logic is appropriate and damaging when viewing the Israeli record of murder, endless deaths with no reprisal possible. I don't know if it is immunity, or impunity, but the Israeli military has adopted a policy of immediately firing tear gas and worse at any peaceful political protesters. The world is in peril as long as Israel exists in its current state.

Americans have to broaden their understanding of this complex issue and they need to learn to see through the propaganda. I was one who lived in the dark for years, but I found my way out of the trap, so can others.

Hypocrisy 101 is our national program, and Americans are only one step removed from Israel's deadly military, because their tax dollars are used to pay for Israel's arsenals. The video below shows Bassem Abu Rahma who was shot in the chest by an Israeli gas bomb. It is extremely similar to video shown on the left, of Israel's military firing at Al Jazeera Reporter Jacky Rowland, who was missed by inches, while reporting live. The in-your-face approach and total lack of restraint, allows the IDF to use tear gas as a lethal weapon.

They fire the canisters at people, fully aware of the danger. I think it would be more than fair if the protesters had the ability to wage this same type of warfare right back into the ranks of the Israeli forces, they deserve it.

But this is not what they do, though the Palestinian demonstrators are constantly labeled as "terrorists" by Israel. In the deadly incident one year ago, the Israeli army claimed that Abu Rahma and other protestors were throwing stones at the soldiers.

But the video footage, included in this report, shows that they were not. Israel's courts have the integrity of a Nazi review panel; it is nonexistent and fake. The video footage clearly shows Phil shouting at the soldiers asking them not to open fire. He calls out in Hebrew, "rega, rega, catzin". "officer. officer. wait.. listen..."

Murder is a powerful weapon of control and when people learn that they can increasingly get away with it, they lose control. Of course this is a miniature version of what Israel has been doing on a world scale for many decades.

The Israeli court's choice to disregard the facts and close all investigations in the issue, ignores the fact that the soldiers did not have to open fire at the protesters to start with as they were not under attack, and the nonviolent protesters were on the other side of a barbed-wire fence installed by the army.

Bil'in in the place where non violent protests take place every Friday, right on schedule, the scene of weekly nonviolent protests against the illegal Israeli Annexation Wall and settlements, and Israeli violence against the peaceful Palestinians and their increasingly growing, worldwide network of supporters. Israeli and International peace activists join the residents in their protests in Bil'in and in several other Palestinian villages in the West Bank.

The good people of Israel who oppose the murderous political violence are as at risk, as are Christians and Muslims. Bassem's brother said that the court's decision does not surprise him, and added that "Israel's Justice System provides cover for the soldiers to continue their crimes".

Ashraf was detained by Israeli soldiers during a nonviolent protest in July of 2008, in the nearby village of Ni'lin, and after he was cuffed and blindfolded a soldier, standing next to him, pointed his gun at his leg and shot him with a rubber-coated bullet.

The shooting of Ashraf was also caught on tape by a young Palestinian girl, it is a story that Salem-News.com covered. Israeli soldiers kidnapped the girl's father later on as a punishment just for exposing the crime.

There is no reason for any people in any place to follow laws when this is the sanctioned example. It's too late for Phil Abu Rahma; he followed the law and paid with his life.

No Liberty for you

Israel is the US and UK-backed government that first attacked its creators, the British, in the late 40's. Then the Israelis decided to teach the Americans a lesson in 1967 by attacking the U.S.S. Liberty one day for hours on end, trying very hard to do more than just murder almost 40 Americans, but actually send the ship to the bottom of the sea.

But the Americans are and were idiots, and they allowed their forces to be killed by an extended Israeli military operation and didn't so much as slap their hand in return. Had it been an Arab country, the retribution would have been unimaginable.

I can qualify that very easily. When the Liberty came under attack by unmarked Israeli jets in 1967, the first thing the Jewish militants did was knock out the ship's communication towers, then an Israeli/American in the Pentagon relayed information to President Johnson, that the country attacking the U.S.S. Liberty was Egypt, a nation that was engaged in a conflict with Israel at the time called 'The Six Day War'. So Johnson launched a nuke for Cairo, seriously. This is easily verified with many important details.

At the last moment, the Americans realized it was Israel that was attacking their sailors and Marines, and in that very last moment, the alert aircraft was called back and no nuclear bomb was dropped on the ancient city of Cairo, but the Israelis almost pulled it off. Rather than attack the country attacking the U.S. ship, Johnson settled the matter because he didn't want to "embarrass Israel".

Too bad his legacy is such a stinking embarrassment in our own political landscape. Israel's Deadly 1967 Attack in U.S. Ship

Regarding the U.S.S. Liberty, Debbie Menon wrote: "It is like Grace Halsell says it was, “what we did not know, and were shocked to learn….”

But, finding out and telling about it, are horses of different colors, uphill battles, seldom won, which she describes as part of the problem and amongst those things we 'did not know.' It is interesting that she wrote these years ago, during the Clinton Administration.

And, that she was once a speechwriter for Lyndon Johnson of USS Liberty infamy! "A review of the USS Liberty story explains a lot of how and why we have arrived at the state and conditions in which we currently find America and its governance!

The video on your left is part of a continuing series of YouTube posts that are very interesting and educational first-hand perspective reports. "The obvious incident is the deliberate Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1967, in which out of 200 American sailors and Marines on board, 34 were killed and the rest wounded, and rescue attempts by carrier-based aircraft were halted by McNamara & Johnson personally. I’m not sure most Americans would know all the details of this incident.

Listen to the chilling accounts of survivors in this video.

As it turns out, it would take until September 2001 for the Israelis to develop a way to really send the U.S. unto a destabilizing Middle east war against Israel's perceived enemies, which continues today with the constant calls for war against Iran. Shocking?

Perhaps, as a reporter who has spent three months of my life in Afghanistan and Iraq, I can tell you what is shocking, that is what the U.S. is willing to do to a sovereign nation over bad information. For the record, the U.S. is possibly the largest war crime nation on the face of the earth, with regard to Iraq. Until all of us are willing to be critical of our own governments, the suffering continues. God said do not kill.

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Tim King in 2008, covering the Iraq War

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Tim is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from The Associated Press the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs, Electronic Media Association and The Red Cross.

In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005. Serving readers with news from all over the globe,

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