Israeli war crimes?

Of course, the way the media portrays Israel's war on Gaza, you might think the Israeli's are purpertrators of the Geneva Convention. The Wall Street Journal on January 10 published an article entitled "Israel is Committing War Crimes” by George Bisharat, who wrote that "Israel's current assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by self-defense. Rather, it involves serious violations of international law, including war crimes."

Just for those of you who are wondering, Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention defines war crimes as follows: "Willful killing, torture, or inhuman treatment, including...willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health,...taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly."

What war crimes have they committed exactly? Bombing houses where they had explicitly given warnings to the residents to evacuate? Maybe we can accuse Israel of war crimes for bombing mosques. Surely that is a blatant war crime, even when that mosque was used to store weapons and supplies used to terrorize Israeli lives, and its only occupents were terrorist themselves. Wait a minute! I know what the liberal media is convicting Israel of. They bombed the UN HQ in Gaza. Again, wait a minute, what they failed to mention was that the bomb hit near its headquarters, and that nothing was actually destroyed (which by the way, had terrorist holding hostages, and firing rockets from the building). In fact soldiers went in on foot, risked their lives, and freed the UN HQ from terrorist. As far as I can tell, Israel did not commit any war crimes, as stated by the Geneva Convention.

Maybe we can accuse Israelis of war crimes for bombing buildings where civilians live. Even though, again, they were warned. Thing is, most Gazan citizens stand behind Hamas. Obviously, because they elected Hamas into power over the rival, Fatah, in 2006. Another important fact to take into consideration, that isn't mentioned by the media (which is leftist in itself, and despises Israel, and will use and abuse any facts to fit their biased agenda), is that these civilians willingly put themselves into harms way. Instead of evacuating or going underground, they became human shields for Hamas militants. They know that by doing this it will create an international uproar against the Israelis, and ultimately help in destroying the "Evil Zionist regim."

The world fails to see this however. We live in a politcaly correct society that contradicts itself. As mentioned before the media is leftist. They hate anything conservative, and of course will do anything to make people see their biased agenda (the conservative media does the same). However, all I ask is that the facts be presented. No conservative or liberal agenda. Fact #1: Hamas has called for the destruction of Israel.
Fact #2: For over 8 years, rockets have been fired into Southern Israel (Sderot, and the Negev), making no distinction between civilians and military personel.
Fact #3: Hamas makes no attempt to hide their desire to destroy Israeli life. Hamas TV (al-Aqsa TV, December 28, 2008) recently showed pictures of Hamas fighters shooting at Israel with skulls dripping with blood in the background. Captions for the program included "Let them Taste Violent Death” and "Send Them Hell, Qassam Missile."

These facts are disturbing. Again I ask, why then is Israel labeled as the Warmongers? It seems to me that most of the warmongering comes from the extreme Islamic party of Hamas (sorry for all the PC people out there, yes I do believe extreme Islam is a problem, and have no problem in calling it how it is. I speak the truth, and will not sugar coat anything.) All Israel has done is tried to protect their civilians, which any sovereign nation has a right to do. They have not tried to colonize or expand to other nations, as other countries have done. They simply want to live peaceably, however, they are prevented in doing so by Islamic radicals.

Here are some more facts for you to chew on (these facts are taken from an excerpt of Rotem Yacobi's article in the Ynet news, titled "Citizen of the Free World.")
"I ask myself the following questions: does the world know that the IDF calls and warns civilians before it strikes their homes, used as Hamas arms caches?
Does the world know that in response to this, Hamas men place women and children on the roofs of buildings, because they know the IDF won't target them? Does the world know that the IDF takes care of humanitarian needs and supplies medicine, food, and medical services to the Palestinians? Does the world know that Hamas men fire from within population centers and turn civilians into human shields?
Does the world know that while we fight for our legitimate right to live in peace and security, Palestinian patients receive dedicated treatment at Israeli hospitals? Did the world hear about the 20 cases where Palestinians exploited their health problems in order to attempt to carry out terror attacks? I ask myself, where was the world more than a year ago, when Hamas men massacred Fatah men and innocent members of their own people?" (end of excerpt)

I ask that the truth be told. While there may have been individual cases of mishaps and mistakes that were made during the Gaza invasion, do not label Israel's decision to go into Gaza to stop the attacks, a war crime. Defense is not a war crime. If you want an example of war crimes, look at Ahmadinejad's Iran, Saddam's Iraq, the genocide in Darfur, or the Sandinista's actions against the citizen's of Nicaragua.

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