08-04-2014, 01:53 AM
(08-03-2014, 03:08 PM)Duchess Wrote: AND...the deaths of the three teens that prefaced all of this, Hamas denies kidnapping & murdering them, they were found on land that Israel controls and Israel is who said Hamas is responsible. Again with the, Israel says.
The kidnapping and murder that was used to justify escalation of military action by Israel is pretty murky. Israel has never submitted any evidence to back up Netanyahu's very public accusations. Weeks after the fact and under pressure for evidence to back those accusations, Israeli police acknowledged that the boys were not kidnapped and killed on direction of Hamas.
Israeli police spokesperson, Micky Rosenfeld, told the BBC that the men who killed 3 Israeli teens were from a lone/rogue cell, loosely Hamas affiliated but not operating under its leadership. This is not in line with Netanyahu's declarations immediately after the boys went missing. The boys were killed shortly after being abducted and it's been reported (but not confirmed) that Israeli officials knew that quickly into the investigation.
Today it was disclosed that the Israeli soldier who was reported captured during the scheduled humanitarian pause on Friday (the one that Obama demanded be returned) was actually never captured and was killed immediately, along with two other IDF soldiers, at a Gaza tunnel (by a Palestinian suicide bomber). I don't know if Israeli officials were misinformed or if they intentionally characterized the incident wrongly to drum up more support.
Anyway, Israel's credibility is under global scrutiny on many fronts at this point, IMO. I think the "it's so because Israel says it's so" philosophy is going by the wayside.
Refs:
http://us.cnn.com/2014/08/03/world/meast...?hpt=wo_c1
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/201...r-all.html