We missed this story last week, and it’s important. The New York Times‘ Isabel Kershner reports Israel’s response to Palestinian stone throwers. It might have to shoot them!
The government of Israel said on Wednesday that it was considering sharper measures against Palestinians who throw stones and firebombs, including allowing more use of live ammunition
Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch promptly tweeted:
Israel is wrong to suggest lethal force unless last option to stop imminent lethal threat.
Kenneth Roth is a leading expert on international law, which governs this conflict. But you never heard Kenneth Roth’s voice anywhere in the article. The piece left out the human rights law issue entirely, while tacitly treating Israel’s army as just about the most moral one in the world, able to police itself:
Standing orders are said to limit the use of live ammunition by soldiers to situations that they deem to be life-threatening. It was not clear what changes to those rules might be under consideration.
Deemed “life threatening” is not “last option to stop imminent lethal threat.”
Kershner quotes the Israeli army spokesperson, respectfully. And this hat tip to Israeli code:
The idea of loosening regulations on the use of live fire appeared at odds with current Israeli policy in the occupied West Bank, where the military has tried to avoid fanning tensions.
Not till way way down in the story, paragraph 13, do we get a human rights group.
Palestinian officials and human rights groups denounce what they view as an already excessive use of live fire by Israeli forces. Al-Haq, a human rights organization based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, has said the killing of Palestinian civilians is the result of a “climate of impunity granted to Israeli soldiers.”
Why do human rights groups think there’s excessive force? In paragraph 15, Kershner provides this choice fact from B’Tselem:
According to B’Tselem, 12 Palestinian minors were shot and killed by Israeli forces during protests and clashes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2014.
Twelve minors already shot and killed, and now these orders might be further loosened? Why is the Times burying these essentials? And why can’t they find an expert in international human rights law such as Ken Roth to put in their article?
Source Article from http://mondoweiss.net/2015/09/illegal-palestinian-stonethrowers
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