Harrowing archive footage from Israel/Palestine

[shamrock_uk]

Link.

This is a PBS documentary about the risks facing journalists in the Occupied Territories.

I've only watched Part 1 so far, but these journalists have dug out their personal footage to show the American journalist, the stuff that doesn't make it to the news. They're mostly Palestinian journalists so the violence against them was by Israelis, this may change for the last two parts if she meets Israeli journalists.

So far I've seen two cases of journalists being attacked by Jewish settlers. In the first one it was just children throwing stones etc (remind you of Palestinian children anyone? [img]tongue.gif[/img] ) In the second case, the journalist was beaten unconcious by a mob of settlers when he tried to stop children taking his camera.

Oh, and there was the journalist who just lost his front teeth a few days earlier when an Israeli soldier punched him in the mouth.

The worst (and this is only in 6 minutes) was a journalist who was just filming at the side of the street. There had been a disturbance earlier when some gun-wielding Jewish settlers had tried to march down Palestinian streets and the Israeli army pushed them back (and kudos for it).

After all this was over (and the road is empty in the immediate area) the cameraman is waiting by the side of the road, deciding about going home. He's just got his camera idly filming, showing the wall on the other side of the street. We see two Israeli soldiers running up the far side of the street. Then they suddenly stop and shoot him in the head. The camera has been rolling for some time before this, so it is clear there is no provocation.

The cameraman is now lying on the ground, screaming, holding his head, blood on the ground. (the cameramen have a pact that if one gets attacked, the others film it, so a different cameraman takes over) This is not enough apparently, and about 10 seconds later he's shot in the stomach.

All the journalists are shouting and screaming (in both Hebrew and Arabic) that they are journalists and to stop shooting. The guy struggled to his knees for a moment, then collapses on the floor again.

About twenty seconds after the second bullet, he's shot again, this time in the back. At this point, he is dragged to safety.

The bullets are apparently nominally rubber ones, but the ones used by the Israeli army have a solid steel core, hence the blood and serious injuries.


I'm almost dreading watching the other two parts if all that was shown in just six minutes!

[shamrock_uk]

Part 2 now, and in the interests of balance she's moved on to interview Israeli journalists. The first one tells his tale of how a (real) bullet only just missed killing him, missing the main artery to his legs by 2mm.

Unfortunately, considering I was expecting Hamas to be up to their dirty tricks, he was shot by an Israeli soldier too (!), who apparently didn't realise he was an Israeli as well. The photographer was standing in a group of Palestinian journalists so I guess that makes the shooting understandable. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

In the words of this Israeli (who himself served in the army): "the soliders hate Palestinian photographers..." It was only after being dragged across to the Israeli side that the solider realised that he'd shot someone who had the same religion and had served in the same army. "That's when it hit him, because as long as it was an Arab, he didn't really care".

She's just off to speak to foreign reporters now, but it looks like evening has arrived in America because the video has slowed to a crawl to the point where it is unwatchable. From the audio, it looks like this Westerner, who's standing in a clearing wearing a great big blue civilian flak jacket and talking to a camera is just about to get shot by the Israeli Border Police. But the video is moving at about 1 frame every 5 seconds so I shall resume on the morrow.

Sobering stuff!


It will be interesting to see if the trend of Israeli soldiers tending to be involved continues, because it would tie in with the fact that the United States has also been responsible for the vast majority of deaths of journalists in Iraq.

I was watching a delightful film only today where a journalist from Al-Arabiya was covering an explosion that had occured in Baghdad. It looked like a vehicle was burning on the far side of the street, but obviously it had occurred some time ago as there was no particular congregation around it. Cars were driving past, people were walking past (in between the cameraman and the burning vehicle) and then two passing US helicopters decide to fire rockets at it.

Cue lots of civilian deaths, including our cameraman. A nice film of blood spattered on the lens, a dropped camera and him shouting "I'm dying, I'm dying" in Arabic.

And we wonder why we don't win hearts and minds...

[ 05-15-2005, 08:16 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Timber Loftis]

Okay, it's time for me to interject a little dark honesty. If I could shoot a journalist and get away with it, I would. Wouldn't you?

[shamrock_uk]

Absolutely. I'm just in a grrr anti-war mood at the moment, seen too many random people getting blown up for one day!

My dad told me a story once - there was a chemical accident in his workplace involving a hydrochloric acid spill. Lots of people breathed in the fumes and there were some deaths.

One of his friends was critically ill in the hospital and my dad overheard these two journalists having a conversation. One asked the other

Do you think he'll die in time for the evening papers?

I'll be first in line behind you Timber.

But, there are an awful lot of people in this world that I would enjoy shooting. Unfortunately, I value my liberty more than the satisfaction I'd gain pulling the trigger. I just have to remind myself daily that not all journalists are that bad. Probably.

In any case, they just happen to be the subject of all this unseen footage, I would be equally outraged if they were Irish nuns getting mowed down in the North Pole by militant Inuit

It is nice to get rants out of the system though

[ 05-15-2005, 08:57 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Black Baron]

I believe that i had adressed the issue of rampaging soldiers before, but i am willing to do so again. These soldiers are a minority that journalists like to record. Since that everyone cries out loud when such things happen, you think that we have lots of it. Surprise we do not. More over, such cases (in percentage) are far less than the percentage of cases in USA Army. Our army has a very sophisticated and advanced code of honour, and code of behaviour. Mainly due to the fact that we cannot allow ourselves what USA Army can allow to itself.

Now to another point. Why does it happen?
True, we have some number of maniacs and lunatics.
In a war when you have HC involved (hostile citizens) apart from the main fighting force (Hamas, jihad etc), you as a soldier face constantly great strain. You know that any second you may get a bullet into your head from any direction (compare to a battle field when you are protected from the rear, and you know that the guys in green are friends and in grey are enemies). Every little kid (My captain had told us that once he was shot at by a 5 year girl while being in Tul-Karm. Considering the propoganda that the palestinians constantly feed to their children and youth, it is not that impossible) can produce a pistol and shoot you. A kid big enough to carry rpg may shoot you. But hey! Unless they show some weapon, you may not shoot them. The constant asking -Who is he/she? is he/she a terrorrist or a civilian?-bores into ones mind untill soldier goes nuts. Then he shoots just to relief himself of the strain

The same thing was by the way in vietnam. USA soldiers did not have that code of honour, so the percentage of soldiers wiping out villages (which we do not do) and soldiers killing civilians was much higher.

If you wish to understand how soldier truly feels, when he faces such a situation, talk to some vietnam veterans. One may compare PLO cities to vietnam in that aspect.

[shamrock_uk]

Thanks for the reply BB.

For those who haven't seen the indoctrination of Palestinian children that is referred to, look at some TV clips from here, here and some schoolbook extracts can be found here.

All of those links have broken you out of frames, you'll find the main TV index here. Just click the 'home' button if you want to browse the rest of the site.

[ 05-16-2005, 04:44 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Timber Loftis]

Black Baron, I think you're mistaken about your take on the US forces. To the extent you are talking about current practices, I don't think our soldiers routinely shoot cameramen and reporters with rubber-lined metal core bullets. I'd like to see you offer up some offer of proof for such spurious allegations.

Even if that is the case, "Hey, they do it too" has never been a good defense for any action.

[shamrock_uk]

There was the famous 'lets bomb the hotel thats reserved for journalists' moment however

[Black Baron]

May i mention the bombing of a mosque? Or an attack at a wedding party that shot in the air?

One was tragic incident. The other was deliberate.

Please understand, i do not accuse USA Army of being devil incarnate, or giving free reign to its commanders. I merely point out that:

1) Since that USA is superpower it can bomb mosques (and other important civilian places like schools) where terrorists are hidden, and rightfully so. We alas may not.

2)Our code of behaviour is too complex and restraining. If it was simplier, life could have been much better.

[shamrock_uk]

Originally posted by Black Baron: 2)Our code of behaviour is too complex and restraining. If it was simplier, life could have been much better.

I don't really see the point to having such a restrictive behaviour code (looking at it from the Israeli perspective).

It's probably fair to say that there isn't much (any?) goodwill towards Israel from the Arab world as it is, therefore there isn't really much to be gained by acting restrained...

The international community already condemns Israel and would be toothless in the face of the military expulsion of remaining Palestinians to allow consolidation. When push comes to shove, America will always stand with Israel, and its not as if Israel would lose a war with surrounding states, doubly-so with a nuclear capability.

Is it a security thing? The notion that its better to have low-level 'simmering' of the conflict than another war? Or is it for humanitarian reasons, from a desire to avoid another Palestinian exodus?

I would be interested to hear your thoughts [img]smile.gif[/img]

Oh, and as a sidenote, do many people speak English in Israel or is it mainly Hebrew?

[ 05-16-2005, 05:19 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]