Shooting child with machine gun is OK, says Israeli army

[buddha]

if it was purely an issue of nationalism i would expect that the problem would have been solved by now. 

I don't know about that, look how long the French and English fought over some soggy piece of land.

[coloroflaw.org]

It is too bad there isn't a channel in the middle east.

[mukhia]

Amarain, you are absolutely right about American news media missing/omitting/failing to report half the world news due to political or "fashionable to care now" bias.  If I didn't have the BBC channel or website access to other world papers, I would not know the truly sad state of our world affairs.

[buddha]

I get a good chunk of my news from shortwave radio broadcasts.  Americans should wake up and listen to the rest of the world once and a while.  Besides Radio Sweden is the best.

[cascagrossa]

for the most part, i hate cable news channels.  who gives a @#!* about lacy peterson?!?!  i HATE seeing bull like that reported when we are in the middle of a fricking war and heading towards the probably the most important election of our lifetime.

[amarain]

YES, cascagross, thank you. I totally agree. Although at this point I'm sick and tired of hearing about the election too. Well not the election, but I'm fed up with hearing "news" which consists of people giving their opinions about the election. I love Jon Stewart's answer when asked about this:

Q. How do you see the election shaping up?

A. Any pundit asked what's going to happen should answer the same way: "I have no f---ing idea." They don't, you don't, I don't.

It's strange how completely different CNN and CNN International are. You'd hardly think they were the same company. I worked for CNNI, and I honestly believe it's a far superior network to CNN domestic (not just because I'm biased). CNNI only get 7 cents of every dollar that CNN spends. Of course, the audience is much different, but still, I think it's a shame that CNN has taken to pandering to the lowest common denominator just to compete in the ratings race against Fox (which is a losing battle - CNN consistently gets beat by Fox on a daily basis).

[amarain]

By the way, the man who did this has been cleared by the Israeli army, which, incredibly, has managed to reach a new low in moral standards:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3748054.stm

While Iman was lying, wounded or dead, about 70m from the Israeli guard post, the platoon commander approached her and fired two bullets from close range at her head, the soldiers said.

He then went back a second time, put his weapon on the automatic setting and - ignoring their objections on the walkie-talkie - emptied his entire magazine into her body.

But the army says it accepts the commander's claim that he fired into the ground near the girl after coming under fire in a dangerous area.

It has not explained why the officer shot into the ground rather than at the source of the fire.

 
"The investigation did not find that the company or the company commander had acted unethically," an army statement said.

[amelus]

i probably will regret even posting anything here, but i cant help but be amazed at the intensity of the discussion despite the clearly minimal understanding of the entire conflict.

the only points i'll express are
1)  before taking a side on any serious issue you should really ask yourself how much you know about the issue.
2)  an elderly native american overhead a fellow native amercian saying "those native americans disgust me, i will never associate myself with them anymore."  the elderly native american asked the disgruntled man what led him to say such an awful thing.  the man relayed the following story.  a man once met a group of native americans all in forced labor.  they of course had very little food and many starved to death.  one of the men had a little charm, an item they used to pray to their diety.  yet he refused to share it with anyone unless they gave up some of their portions of food, which they did.  the man said, "that is why i can never belong to such a group, how in such a time could a person be so selfish, and with a religious item of all things."  with a grin, the elderly man responded, "why do you look at the one awful person who refused to give up his charm without compensation, insead of the dozens ready to forgoe their food for their beliefs."

my point with that long story is merely to ask you why it is you look at the one or two awful stories (as your story clearly is) and then summarily judge the entire group based on it??  how skewed and awful that is of you.

[amarain]

Wait, where did I make summary judgments based on these two stories? Any judgments I am making are based on having studied the region and its history and having followed the news for quite a while. To me these two stories are just more in a long line of similar ones.

What bothers me the most about this is that the Israeli army, which is supposed to be an official, accountable government organization that is carrying out the policies of its government (and by extension its people, as we are constantly told that Israel is a democracy), acts with complete impunity. It takes this horrific act, says "well, it's OK" and that's it. This girl's family has no recourse whatsoever. Even if every other nation in the world says "This is despicable, Israel must be held responsible" it makes no difference, as the US will support Israel regardless and veto any UN resolution that condemns this act (or any other action of Israel). 

There are plenty of issues in the world that I do not understand well enough to draw educated conclusions about, but this is not one of them. Even if I knew nothing about this conflict, I don't need a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern Studies to understand that shooting a wounded child with a machine gun is morally reprehensible, no matter what side you are on. I do not believe that is skewed or awful.

[amelus]

i already regret posting here b/c zero chance, no matter how clearly i put e/t down, you'll accept what written.  just hope those more open minded do look at it clearly.
(of course that incident was awful, and dont need a PhD to know that (your sarcasm is noted) i think i was quite clear on that.  my point was that you took the story and decided it exemplified the isr. side of the conflict, as opposed to illustrated an awful exception.  if you knew more on the matter you'd know that it is an exception, albeit an awful one).

w/o getting into an entire discussion on the region and just focusing on the article at hand

about the first story it says that people were shooting at the soldiers and firing mortars from the schools!  what on earth would you do if shot at from anywhere?  would you go "oh it's a school, i'll just have to hope the bullets dont hit me?"  look, whether you wish to accept it or not, it is well known that many pal. there place THEIR OWN children in harms way, just to make the isr. look bad. 

do you understand that?  they put children specifically amdist them while they attack and shoot at soldiers so that when fired upon some children will inevitably get killed.  i dont know how ppl could do such an awful thing, but they do, as the article says.

as for the second topic in article--that goes back to my point.  yes isr. is a democracy (do you know of another state in the region that jews/chr/arabs all live in the state with even some freedom?) and the soldier was repremanded (you can argue if it was strong enough or not, fine) and soldiers have been put in jail often, while this never happens with pal. auth. or if it does it is merely a revolving door.

i've already written more than i want to.