On June 18, a lone Intelligent Bomber hit another bus, “Egged bus no. 32A” traveling from Gilo to the center of Jerusalem. The damage was devastating, killing a reported 19 “persons” and injuring 50, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs not too candid report. We have come to call this official agency of the Israeli military the Ministry of Orwellian Truth (MOT for short). It has once again shouted “terrorism,” propagandizing what is no more or less than an effective one-man military attack in an all out, life and death war for the Palestinians culture. Israel claims they have no culture.
As Ted Turner, founder of CNN and now a Vice-President of Time Warner, correctly pointed out in an interview with the London Guardian on the same day as the bombing, the Palestinians are making war with the only weapons they have–their bodies. Turner correctly observed that the Palestinians are no more terrorists than the Israelis are themselves. His simple, logical statement brought out a hailstorm of condemnation against the 64-year of billionaire from America’s prostitute media.
CNN LIES:
The June 18, 2002 bus bombing, like almost all those we have studied, was not terrorism; it was a military attack by the inmates against the prison guards who cage them in and rule over their lives. This time the lie is that the bus was a school bus carrying children. As
usual, the Israelis have not told us how many military persons were on the bus traveling to their duty stations, nor have they said whether any of the 50 wounded “people” were in the military. The wounded are only identified when it benefits MOT propaganda to do so, for instance, when a child or pregnant woman is wounded it is usually announced. Otherwise, they remain nameless. Two of those killed in the explosion were students–too young for Israel’s war machine. The rest were adults, some of military age. This is standard propaganda procedure in this war, and it goes unchallenged in the U.S. press.
WHTT readers should already know that buses in Israel almost always carry military personnel, and the majority of Intelligent Bombs target buses. And it should be equally obvious that buses are chosen to get at the military personnel that can be anticipated
to be on board, just as air transport planes would be obvious targets if missiles were available. It should also be a reasonable deduction that Israeli riflemen aim at children because they have hit hundreds of children in the heads, often directly between the eyes.
Israel is using the latest bus bombing as another excuse to call for savage revenge. This time Ariel Sharon has announce he will confiscate Palestinian territory in retribution. George Bush and those he can intimidate are supporting this call for more violence.
WHTT has studied and written extensively about bus bombings, as well as the bombing of late night military hangouts, the third most popular target for Intelligent Bombs. For example, We Hold These Truths documented this June 5, 2002 incident:
–17 people were killed and 38 injured when a car packed with a large quantity of explosives struck Egged bus No. 830 traveling from Tel-Aviv to Tiberius at the junction near Afula. The bus, which burst into flames, was completely destroyed. The names of 16 of the victims have been released and 13 were Israeli Defense Forces, three of whom were women. We have previously published their name and ranks, but not one American in a hundred knows the bus was carrying about 75 armed military persons, and no one except those who read out reports know that women soldiers are routinely killed in bombings. This fact is never released in the U.S. Press.
The record of past bus bombings is available to all who will look. Bus 32a listed two school-age children among the dead. It also listed four military-age persons, without defining their military status. In Israel, all men serve three years in the military and a long reserve term, so every young male over 18 can reasonably be considered to be either active or reserve military. Women are also drafted.
While bus bombings do kill civilians, almost all the more than 2,000 Palestinians killed by Israelis in the last 18 months were civilians, and over 400 were children. On one day, May 8, nine-year-old Tamar Abu Sirreye of Tulkaram refugee camp was shot to death by Israeli troops while protesting the Israeli presence in the camp with other children. He was hit twice in the chest. In an unrelated killing the same day, Israeli military shot to death Fatima Zakarna (32) and her two children, Basel, age five, and Abir, age three. All were hit in the head and upper body by fire from a military vehicle while playing in a field in Jenin. Obviously a rifleman does not hit a childs head without aiming, and it is impossible for the sniper not to know he has a three-year-old in his scope.
A DEEPER LOOK AT DECEPTION
An examination of the entire list of “547 people” (Israelis) who are alleged by the MOT to have been “killed by Palestinian violence and terrorism since September 2000” reveals that only 52 children under “enlistment” age (18) were reported killed by Intelligent Bombers. Using the Israeli official military website numbers, less than 10% were
under compulsory military age. Furthermore, the Ministrys own figures are fraught with obvious distortions designed to deceive. Yet the Israelis have the nerve to claim the Palestinians target children.
How can the MOT claim with a straight face that these 547 are the victims of terrorism, when the Israelis own news releases clearly show that at least a third of all those killed are active duty military, and others are of mandatory reserve age? When is it “terrorism” to
kill your enemy? Israel and Palestine are at war, are they not? Palestinian civilians die every day. Tens of thousands have been wounded, maimed, arrested, abused, tortured, detained or imprisoned without being charged with anything. When a Palestinian is killed–even a child shot deliberately by an Israeli soldier–that is “war” or “self protection.” But when a Palestinian bombs a transport bus full of Israeli soldiers, or expected to be full of soldiers, it is called “terrorism.” This is the impact of Israeli propaganda supported by the US press.
Israel’s official records are available for your examination. In most cases there are military casualties. In a few cases only civilians may have been killed or injured–in other cases no one at all has been killed. From my own observations provided elsewhere in this series, the majority on board buses are usually military; it is a reasonable expectation for a bomber.
Its safe to say that if you throw a rock
into a pigpen the hog that squeals is probably the one you hit. Its equally
safe to say that, judging from the Israelis own casualty records, the
Palestinian Intelligent Bombs target buses, bus and train stations, and bus
stops because that is where they are most
likely to hit military personnel.
Other lies become apparent upon reading the
Israeli reports about “terrorism.” The MOT even called it terrorism when 13
armed IDF soldiers were killed while conducting house-to-house searches and
arrests in Jenin! The Israelis also lied when they
listed 28 dead “people” as the result of the <st1:date
style=”BACKGROUND-POSITION: left bottom; BACKGROUND-IMAGE: url(res://ietag.dll/#34/#1001); BACKGROUND-REPEAT: repeat-x”
tabIndex=0 Year=”2002″ Day=”27″ Month=”3″>March
27, 2002, “terrorist” bombing
of a hotel party. A casualty list obtained from the MOT shows that among those
killed were two sergeants, but no mention is made of how many military were
present in all
In other words, the MOT makes you figure out
for yourself that they are scamming you by trying to make the bombing an
all-civilian event, when it was not. Where two IDF soldiers were killed, how
many more were present, and how many soldiers does it take to make a war
target?
The MOT also referred to a successful
Palestinian attack on a military academy on <st1:date
style=”BACKGROUND-POSITION: left bottom; BACKGROUND-IMAGE: url(res://ietag.dll/#34/#1001); BACKGROUND-REPEAT: repeat-x”
tabIndex=0 Year=”2002″ Day=”7″ Month=”5″>May 7,
2002, that killed four
18-year-old military students. Is this an act of “terrorism?” Is not a military
academy run by the military? Who runs <SPAN
style=”FONT-FAMILY: Arial”>West Point<SPAN
style=”FONT-FAMILY: Arial”> or the <SPAN
style=”FONT-FAMILY: Arial”>Air<SPAN
style=”FONT-FAMILY: Arial”> <SPAN
style=”FONT-FAMILY: Arial”>Force<SPAN
style=”FONT-FAMILY: Arial”> <SPAN
style=”FONT-FAMILY: Arial”>Academy<SPAN
style=”FONT-FAMILY: Arial”>, and what do they teach but war? Of course, a
military academy is a military target. But the Israeli Ministry of Foreign
Affairs calls any attack on any military personnel
“terrorism.”
On June 20, Haaretz reported, “A mother,
three of her children and a man were killed, and eight people were wounded
Thursday evening when Palestinian terrorists infiltrated a home in the northern
West
Bank settlement of <SPAN
class=SpellE>Itamar, near <SPAN
class=SpellE><SPAN
style=”FONT-FAMILY: Arial”>Nablus<SPAN
style=”FONT-FAMILY: Arial”>.” The wounded mentioned included two soldiers who
reportedly killed the attackers. It turns out there was a one hour fire fight so
there is no way for us to know what shots killed the children, but we will
assume the partisan Israeli report is accurate.
We agree, the death of any child is tragic;
including an unborn one, but what you are not told is that a “settlement” in
which this took place is actually a hostile armed camp. Palestinians do not
consider “settlers: to be civilians, but criminal. Settlements are actually
squatter camps inside the west bank on land stolen from some Palestinians, who
have probably been displaced to a refugee camp. The Squatters are criminals in
the eyes of the Palestinians who are invariable armed and protected by the IDF,
as in this case. Every one of the so called settlers knowingly chooses to raise
his children in a war zone. These children are exposed to risk by their own
parents, and the Israeli government, in effect pay them to squat on contested
property. “Settlements” are at the very root of the
conflict.
What American farmer or homeowner would
allow an armed, hostile squatter settlement to be planted on his land? WHTT
report on the 120,000 illegal squatters in <SPAN
style=”FONT-FAMILY: Arial”>Palestine<SPAN
style=”FONT-FAMILY: Arial”> is covered in detail in an excellent report, <I
style=”mso-bidi-font-style: normal”>Are <A
href=”https://whtt.org/rpr/020426.htm”>Settlers Squatters by Ellen
Cantarow.
The MOT offers a graduate course in fairy
tales on its website. One of them is called “Why are Palestinian children being
wounded in the conflict?” What about
those killed? The title itself brands the story a lie, for those around the
world who, like ourselves, are concerned about the thousands of wounded, are
much more concerned about the deliberate face-shot assassinations of over 400
Palestinian children, as recorded by numerous Palestinian, European and Canadian
doctors who tend the casualties. It is a lie for the Israelis to suggest they
only wound
children.
The MOT explanation is a transparent pack of
lies about children being “caught in crossfire,” being used as “human shields,”
and being “trained” in mosques and schools to throw rocks. None of these
apologies explains why snipers shoot children in the face with high-power
rifles, sometimes at long range. Are we to believe the Israelis are trying to
convince their enemies not to use children as human shields by shooting children
in the face? Those who do not know what to believe should read the <SPAN
class=SpellE>MOTs own scandalous propaganda pieces. Nothing better
exposes a liar than its lies.
(Search our website for suicide or human
bombs for mare about this topic.
Search for Gaza for our series on life in occupied
Palestine)
