As you guys all know, Sen. Kerry was the highest ranking U.S. official to visit the Gaza strip back in February, following the brutal war there:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5goYpXaJ5UaOiAK5F7fEh2iTLd3Kw US Senator John Kerry on Thursday made a rare visit to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, but stressed this did not reflect a change of policy towards the territory's Islamist rulers listed by Washington as a terror group.
The visit "does not indicate any shift whatsoever with respect to Hamas," said Kerry, who heads the Senate's powerful foreign relations committee.
His first stop in the impoverished Palestinian enclave was the American school left in ruins by the deadly 22-day Israeli offensive that ended on January 18.
Talking to a Palestinian lawyer amid the dust and rubble, Kerry defended Israel for responding to almost daily rocket attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups.
"Your political leadership needs to understand that any nation that has rockets coming into it over many years, threatening its citizens, is going to respond," Kerry told Shar Habeel al-Zaim.
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"There is nothing in a visit that changes anything," said Kerry, who is also scheduled to visit Syria as part of his tour of the region.
"What has to change is behaviour. What has to change obviously is Hamas's consistent resort to instruments of terror," he said in the Israeli city of Sderot before entering the Palestinian enclave aboard a UN vehicle.
"We feel very deeply that no one should have to live under this threat," he said after he and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni inspected rockets fired by Gaza militants that are exhibited in Sderot police station.
Notice what he said to each party. To the Palestinians, he said "this is your fault for firing the rockets" while saying little about the destruction. But while in Israel, he has the full sympathy for the Israeli people, who suffered few casualties, about the rockets being fired from Hamas. Now, to be clear, it was wrong for Hamas to fire those rockets, and perhaps a retaliation was warranted. But something proportional under Just War principles. We are now learning that is not what happened:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072040.htmlDuring Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians under permissive rules of engagement and intentionally destroyed their property, say soldiers who fought in the offensive.
The soldiers are graduates of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military preparatory course at Oranim Academic College in Tivon. Some of their statements made on Feb. 13 will appear Thursday and Friday in Haaretz. Dozens of graduates of the course who took part in the discussion fought in the Gaza operation.
The speakers included combat pilots and infantry soldiers. Their testimony runs counter to the Israel Defense Forces' claims that Israeli troops observed a high level of moral behavior during the operation. The session's transcript was published this week in the newsletter for the course's graduates.
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Another squad leader from the same brigade told of an incident where the company commander ordered that an elderly Palestinian woman be shot and killed; she was walking on a road about 100 meters from a house the company had commandeered.
The squad leader said he argued with his commander over the permissive rules of engagement that allowed the clearing out of houses by shooting without warning the residents beforehand. After the orders were changed, the squad leader's soldiers complained that "we should kill everyone there . Everyone there is a terrorist."
The squad leader said: "You do not get the impression from the officers that there is any logic to it, but they won't say anything. To write 'death to the Arabs' on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can. I think this is the main thing: To understand how much the IDF has fallen in the realm of ethics, really. It's what I'll remember the most."
These are soldiers coming forward to tell the truth about what happened in Gaza. And yet, I hear American politicians too scared to talk about what went on. I do support a lot of Kerry's ideas in bringing about peace:
http://www.brookings.edu/events/2009/~/media/Files/events/2009/0304_leadership/0304_leadership.pdfBut his reaction to the Gaza war? Well, I found it troubling, and unlike how he usually talks. I just think part of being Israel's friend is showing them tough love, and American politicians are simply unwilling to do that. It is not enough to say things behind closed doors, if that is what happened. I find America way too timid in regards to Israel to the detriment to both countries.