Headlines, Interpretations
Troops Accused of Shooting At Women is the incendiary caption over the story. "Israel insists sniper fire targeted Palestinian gunmen" the smaller captioned headline over the story itself. And, yet again, another caption in case there are readers too lazy to read the entire story: "2 dead in Gaza". Fact is, there are many readers, too many who read captions only and don't progess to the story for the facts as presented.So, reading the story what do we learn. We learn that Kassam rockets are an ongoing threat to Israeli communities close to the Gaza border town of Beit Hanoun, that the Palestinian Authority knows well what the situation is, that these rockets fall frighteningly close to Israeli town schools and terrorize the communities, but they refuse to monitor and defuse the situation, insisting that Palestinians have the "right" to defend themselves against the "occupiers".
Neighbourly dissents and disagreements. The thing of it is, people get kind of tired of being terrorized, never knowing when and where the next Kassam will hit and who will be taken to the undertaker's for swift burial. People hate losing their children. People will complain, they will insist that they have the right to be protected from the deadly enmity of their implacable neighbours. Neighbours can be like that, especially in the Middle East.
Israel dispatched the Israeli Defence Forces to rout out the unfriendly neighbours bent on mayhem, destruction and death as a means of demonstrating their disaffection with their neighbours. The result of the IDF incursion was that some 60 or so Kassam-lobbing Palestinians found refuge in an ancient mosque and returned fire overnight. Palestinian women were urged to become human shields for these men; terrorists to the Israelis, husbands, brothers, fathers, uncles to the women - or just friendly neighbours.
Many of these Islamist-faithful women brought with them women's garb to be made available to the men holding out within the mosque, encircled by the IDF. The women came in droves, in various large groups, vastly outnumbering the IDF soldiers, and certainly confusing the issue by their presence. With the predictable result, despite knowing that IDF soldiers, unlike Palestinian suicide bombers, do not normally fire upon women and children.
Men, garbed as women, and mingling in the crowds with them, served to add to the confusion and the deadly outcome that resulted. Now, isn't that just typical? Haven't we seen this play before? The use of civilians as cover for deadly assaults, drawing fire from those assaulted, causing the death of innocents, and the terrorists invoke accusations against those whom they seek to murder, those whom they have drawn into the cycle of violence against their own. In the words of Israeli Prime Minister Olmert in Cabinet today:
"Unfortunately, even under these circumstances, [the terrorists] use innocent people as human shields, and as a result, there are cases in which civilians who are not involved are hurt. The instructions given to the IDF forces are to make supreme efforts and to act cautiously and with sensitivity to prevent unnecessary deaths..."Meanwhile, Hamas warns Israel that if the IDF offensive (which has been forced to do the job the PA should be doing in the interests of maintaining peace) continues, it will endanger Corporal Gilad Shalit. Hamas insists on a prisoner exchange; one thousand Palestinian terrorists in Israeli detention for one single kidnapped Israeli soldier. The list of one thousand was drawn up by the prisoner leadership of incarcerated terrorists. Hamas bridles at Israel's insistence of perusing the list of potential releasees.
Headlines, check. Interpretations, please?
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, November 05, 2006
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