If using white phosphorous in a crowded urban area is not a war crime, then nothing is.

How can one put into words the feelings you get when you see videos of white phosphorous bombs exploding above a crowded city? White phosphorous burns people to death in a most horrible way. If it gets on you it burns deeply into your body. But that is preferable to inhaling it, in which case it burns you up from the inside out.

You can see doctors with white phosphorous burn victims here.

You can see video of white phosphorous bombs expoding over the urban skyline here.

If using white phosphorous in a crowded urban area is not a war crime, then nothing is.

If the Israeli leadership was doing that in the Balkans instead of Gaza, they would surely wind up on trial the The Hague.

Really I cannot my express my horror and anger at such a thing. Fortunately, I can instead refer to the statement just made by Sir Gerald Kaufman, a senior British MP who was brought up as an orthodox Jew and Zionist.

My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town .. a German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.

The spokeswoman for the Israeli army, Major Leibovich, was asked about the Israeli killing of, at that time, 800 Palestinians. The total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that '500 of them were militants'. That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants.

The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.

It is time for our Government to make clear to the Israeli government that its conduct and policies are unacceptable and to impose a total arms ban on Israel.

It is time for peace - but real peace, not the solution by conquest which is Israel's real goal but which is impossible for them to achieve.

I find his comparison to the Warsaw ghetto to be politically courageous and directly to the point, and extend my thanks to Sir Kaufman for making it so eloquently.

Since his speech, his Wikipedia page has been repeatedly vandalized. The current headline on the page reads:

The Right Honourable Sir Gerald Kaufman IS A NAZI BASTERD.

Prior to that the headline read:

The Right Honourable Sir Gerald Kaufman WAS A JEW NOW NO WAY CAN U BE CLASSED AS 1 U R DISGUSTING !! NAZI

Comments

[cherry33]

I wonder if we will ever come to admit we were wrong in staying silent about this. Even today we have yet to fully acknowledge our sins during the slave trade.

[oxi]

"If the Israeli leadership was doing that in the Balkans instead of Gaza, they would surely wind up on trial the The Hague."

I take offense to that comment. You make it sound like the Hague is some honorable institution? Well it's not!

It's an anti-Christian, anti-Serb Western funded operation the ICTY that NEVER has even lifted a finger to investigate NATO war crimes let alone KLA ones!

Israel is like all Western nations, above international laws and treaties, human rights and the Geneva Conventions. Those are meant for the enemies of the West. When was the last time a Western nation or its leaders indicted for war crimes? Where are the war crimes courts for Iraq and Afghanistan?

You better wake up to the realities of this world. That is if your from a Western nation, you can do as you please with no fear of accountability or being subjected to war crimes prosecution. Geneva Conventions? Why bother. Human rights? It's for other nations to follow and respect and it is to be used for political leverage by the U.S. State Dept.

[Jelperman]

You can see Kaufman's speech here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8

His speech was short, direct and brilliant. I wish we had legislators like him in the US. Instead we have congressmen who are little more than IDF camp followers.

[Paladine]

Thank you for writing this...

[altohone]

Meanwhile, the corporate media is silent on this.

They go along merrily reporting that 13 Israelis have died in the fighting (without mentioning that 9 were killed in friendly fire accidents).

The defenders of the Israeli actions are grasping at straws and belittling themselves as they spin words you can see even they don't believe.

Olmert's "statement of apology" to Ban Ki Moon in which he "promised" the bombing of the UN was justified due to militant fire was later contradicted by the official Israeli Army statement which said the fire came from nearby.

We must face the fact that the neocons have successfully redefined both "war crimes" and "torture" to exclude anything on their agenda. With the media silent or complicit, and both parties clearly complicit, who is going to do anything about it?

These people are lying with the impunity only those who know they won't be held accountable can muster. They don't care we know they're lying either.

[Tikker]

And if the HAMAS didn't continue, even while their innocent brethren are being killed, to launch Rockets into Israel there would be no killing (by Israeli’s) there at all.
After you have had rockets and mortars launched at you once, you would probably want retaliation; what would you do if this had continued for 8 long years?
My family too was exterminated during the holocaust; I have no cousins, aunts, or uncles.
I do have friends in Israel and I want them to live and thrive.
If Israeli's don't respond it is seen as weakness by the Arab community - if they do respond they are monsters. The monsters are people that use movable rocket launchers to launch rockets from highly populated areas so they can show how evil the opponent is.

[altohone]

So, war crimes are justified?

That seems to be what you are saying.

I hope not.

[lysistrata]

What does the holocaust have to do with the caged people in Gaza?

[cherry33]

Tikker-

I have Jewish family members who endured WW2 in Germany. Your thirst for eye-for-an-eye is childish and serves to gratify only momentarily. Now is the time to stop being so reactionary.

[8aphrodite]

Mr. Bob,
Many of us feel sad, angry, desperate with this kind situation. We're hopelessy wait just want to know what is Our next president would said on Jan 21, 2009. The day after inaugural. I don't have anyhope for him too. I was probably scared to know the fact that every president of US already sold out to Israel interested. Their blind sided support for Israel put American citizen in danger and nothing has been done so far.
We are all deperate!!!!!!!!!!

[charlietuna11]

it will only be a war crime when and if the main stream media lose there fear of being labeled an anti semite for reporting on this ugly issue. this weapon peels the skin right off ones body and again who in the american govt. or press dare bring this up. fact is this comment might not make it thru huff post and they are the most courageous of all current bloggers..

[jfor]

Why stop there hold the governments that produce it and sell it responsible as well. The planet has weapons of mass destruction already and doesn't need any more help from us. Tsunamis, earthquakes, fire, tornado and hurricane all kill quite easily and none of us can do anything to stop it from happening.

[TheIndependenceParty]

nurns = burns

[TheIndependenceParty]

The type of weapons the doctor is describing seem particularly designed to kill and maim it victims. Schrapnel that enters through a small entry wound, even through the skull, then wreak havoc on internal organs in the chest, the abdomen and brain. The massive organ damage renders the victim nearly incapable, by reports of this cardiothoracic surgeon from Egypt, of being saved even when they are treated swiftly in the ER and OR.

The White Phosphorus nurns are familiar from our (US) use of those same weapons in the seige of Fallujah in Iraq. Corpses seared black, as if in a volcanic flow, were evident in Fallujah, but of course Israel will not allow reporters or photographers in to see the Gazan victims of those same weapons.

I have written elsewhere of the similarity between the suffering of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and the Assault by Israel on the Gazans. I am proud of PM Kaufman for speaking the truth. Israel had garnered so much respect and for so long into the 1960's. Now she runs amok in her aggression, as we have. This atrocity must end!