A Palestine boy used as a human shield by Israeli Occupation Soldiers, click the image to enlarge it.
By Abu al-Sous (Salah Mansour)*
During the Israeli war on Gaza, Western media propagated Israeli propaganda that the Palestinian resistance have been using their family members as human shields. Sadly, Israeli propaganda is often presented in Western media as facts, and the Israeli version has been accepted with little verification. The goal is simple: dehumanise the Palestinian by showing that he does not care about his family members, and once that is done it becomes much easier to accept him as a legitimist target.
This dehumanizing campaign is as old as the Zionist movement; it was articulated by Golda Meir (a former Israeli Prime Minister) when she said: Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us. This racist and derogatory comment is often propagated in Western media without a second thought to its dehumanizing consequences. It paints the Arab as a sub-human creature, who has neither affection nor love towards his or her children. When I first heard this racist comment from an American, I felt as if he was telling me: “you are not much of a human as I”!
To this date, the Israel Occupation Army (IOF) still refuses to comply with orders from the Israeli Supreme Court to stop using Palestinian civilians as human shields (click here for a BBC article about this subject). If the IOF is a “professional army” as it claims and it treats Palestinians according to International Law, then:
- I wonder why Israel’s highest court would issue such an order?
- I wonder why IOF refuses to stop using Palestinians as human shields?
It has been an Israeli strategy from the start to use civilian target as a strategic weapon. Israeli leaders assume this would cause the civilian population to pressure Arab leaders to submit to Israeli dictates. Sadly, this Israeli tactic has been historically effective with the corrupt and unpopular Arab leaders who are more interested in protecting their corrupt regimes than defending their countries. The reader should be reminded of the “Grape of Wrath” agreement between Hizbullah and Israel 1996 which restricted both sides from hitting civilian targets. This agreement signaled the end of the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon, and as a result a new era in the Arab-Israeli conflict have begun where Israel’s deterrence power suffered a major setback. It should be noted that Israel has been determined not to fall into this trap again; that would explain why Israel rejected signing similar agreements with Hamas.
A Palestinian killed by Israeli Occupation Soldiers used as a trophy.
The allegation that Palestinian resistance use their own family members as human shield has been concocted by Zionists to delegitimise any Palestinian resistance, and to deflect from the war crimes that are being perpetrated on the people of Gaza. Palestinians are no different than other colonized people; they’re simply defending their homeland from foreign aggressions. The following list of pictures, articles, movies, and Israeli quotations will conclusively prove that the Israeli Occupation Army is the one who use civilians as human shields.
- Video Clip: Kids Used as Human Shields in Balata Refugee Camp
- Video Clip: Israeli Army continues to use Palestinian civilians as human shields
- Video Clip: BBC: Palestinian boys used as a human shield during an Israeli operation in Nablus
- Video Clip: Israeli shoots Palestinian with hands bound point blank
- A Picture of a Palestine boy used as a human shield by Israeli Occupation Soldiers
- Ha’aretz: ‘Human shield’ dies as Hamas man is killed by troops
- Ha’aretz: Envoys say they saw IDF fire at children
- Ha’aretz: 27 Israeli pilots to refuse missions in West Bank, Gaza
- Israeli Quotes: Collection of quotations from Israeli leaders legitimising targeting civilians.
* Salah Mansour is the founder and editor of PalestineRemembered.com, the largest Palestinian online community.
--MORE--"Related: Israel Uses Gazans as Human Shields
