Israeli Military Backs Off U.N. Claim

[cal04]

The Israeli military on Tuesday backed off its claim that Palestinian militants used a U.N. vehicle to transport a homemade rocket, a charge that led to a high-profile confrontation with the world body.

The military pulled a video from its Web site, saying it was reevaluating the footage, which showed a Palestinian throwing an elongated object into a U.N. ambulance. Officials of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in Gaza have said the object was a stretcher, not a rocket.

``The Israeli Defense Forces are reviewing the original analysis of the footage, in which UNRWA vehicles are seen involved in suspicious activity in the combat zone in Gaza,'' an army statement said.

The blurry footage was taken in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, the main target of an Israeli military offensive aimed at stopping Palestinian rocket fire at Israeli border towns and Jewish settlement.An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said further study of the video indicated the object could have been a stretcher.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-UN.html?oref=login

[Trajan]

1. Im SURE that one, J Post-advocating ...

Likud-supporting poster will GLADLY withdraw his similar assertions here in DU very soon ......

Right ? ...

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Djinn]

3. nah...too busy posting

the original bullshit story repeatedly :eyes:

[Scurrilous]

4. Israel is undermining its credibility

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/485518.html

<snip>

"The State of Israel, via the Israel Defense Forces, the intelligence community and the Foreign Ministry, and with the encouragement of the prime and defense ministers, has become entangled in and embarrassed by the affair of the Qassam-or-stretcher in Gaza. In its eagerness to show that the Palestinians will stoop to any means, Israel behaved with reckless haste and injured its pretensions to superiority over the Palestinians with regard to credibility. This has implications not merely for public relations, but also for diplomacy, and is even liable to weaken Israel in the legal arena."

<snip>

"It is possible that the Palestinians who were filmed putting a long object into a UN vehicle were, indeed, handling a Qassam rocket. Possible - but that is an insufficient level of probability. Israel did not prepare in advance for the presentation of an alternative explanation, such as a stretcher (something that could reasonably be expected to be found in the hands of a medical crew summoned to treat casualties), and therefore it could not refute it. After four years of promises by the army and the intelligence agencies about how carefully their personnel cross-check information before tagging someone for a targeted killing, the defense establishment has demonstrated hasty amateurism. Now, it will have to work much harder to prove its claims.

Any idiot would have assumed that before publishing such a weighty charge against the UN, the IDF spokesman, the chief of staff, the head of the Foreign Ministry's public relations department and the responsible ministers, including Sharon, would have examined the entire chain of actions committed by the alleged gang - from placing the object in the vehicle to unloading the rocket or even firing it at the Negev. At the same time, the intelligence agencies should have gathered supplementary information to make certain of the license plate number and the identities of the men who were filmed. But reliable military sources have admitted over the last two days that none of this was done.

No blood was spilled in the Qassam-or-stretcher affair, but it was the verbal equivalent of friendly fire. It must not be allowed to pass in silence. The chain of failures must be investigated, and personal and systemic conclusions must be drawn."

[tinnypriv]

5. "Any idiot"

Damn straight.

[gottaB]

6. agreed

I took these allegatations seriously, but it appears as if IDF were simply deflecting righteous criticism, and too eager to assail the credibility of UNRWA. In future, I won't be giving the IDF the benefit of the doubt.

my 2 cents.