Gordon Robinson | Stop the slaughter of innocents

At the outset of this Israel versus Hamas conflict I wrote it wouldn’t be solved by “picking sides” (October 15; Cleaning up the border mess).

Those “sides” are Israel and Hamas who have been at each other’s throats for decades. Before that Palestinian Authorities and militant groups were at odds with Israel for 50 years. Picking one of those two “sides” and supporting it as blindly as Labourites and Comrades champion JLP and PNP is as much an exercise in global counter-productivity as are the political games Jamaicans play on the Rock.

But there’s a “side” very much involved in this war to which every right thinking human should give full throated support. Innocent civilians in Israel have been and, in Gaza, are being, slaughtered. More than 1,200 Israeli civilians were killed and approximately 240 taken hostage in Hamas’ October 7 incursion. Since then 15,000+ Palestinian civilians (including 4,500 plus children) have been killed. An unusually high number of working journalists have also been killed. At time of writing (Wednesday) a record number of nearly 60 journalists/members of the Press have been killed in seven weeks. As a yardstick, 69 journalists were killed in World War II (lasted six years). In the two-decades-long Vietnam War 63 journalists were killed.

Too many of the children massacred by the incongruously named Israeli Defence Forces’ (IDF) relentless, targeted bombing were patients in hospitals especially Northern Gaza’s main Hospital, Al Shifa. Some were premature babies huddled together in Incubators without fuel to keep them working. This insufferable, inexcusable, inhuman destruction of Palestinian future is being blamed on Hamas’ alleged use of these hospitals as military bases.

Israel first tried to sell the idea that a hospital was struck by a missile launched by Hamas from inside Gaza. Soon it retreated to alleging, based on “intelligence”, that Hamas was operating from tunnels under Al Shifa (and others) and using medical staff and Palestinians seeking shelter as human shields. So, Hamas shot at its own military base?

IDF levelled Al Shifa indiscriminately killing many of the “human shields”; is now in full control of the rubble; but unable to produce any credible evidence of these military bases. Official IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari narrated a video (received over 7.7 million views) showing a paper stuck on the wall of a tunnel under Rantisi Hospital. Hagari specifically alleged it was a list of names of terrorists and times as “proof” that Hamas was organizing terrorist “shifts” for guarding hostages in the hospital.

The video spread on social media platforms like COVID-19 in the Rose Garden. Israeli and western media ran wid it without the crudest attempt at verification. That lie travelled around the world long before the truth even woke up much less started putting on its shoes. It turned out the paper was an Arabic calendar listing days of the month and didn’t include any name of a human being. Hagari was even “reading” the document the wrong way (based on his hand gestures). Arabic is read right to left NOT left to right as Hagari was pretending to read it.

It’s no secret Hamas has operated out of and built a series of underground tunnels throughout Gaza. There are any number of tunnels from which it could be operating. Maybe that document was created by Hamas. But, whether it’s a Hamas document or a simply hospital Rota/planning schedule remains unknown. What’s certain is that it’s NOT what Daniel Hagari claimed it was.

The misinformation was debunked by independent media so IDF posted a follow-up (two million views):

“Beneath the Rantisi Hospital in Gaza IDF forces found a room where Israeli hostages are believed to have been held.

The calendar found in the room marked the days since October 7 Massacre with the title ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Hamas’ name for their horrific attack on Israel”

So, it’s a calendar now is it? Where did the list of names go?

It reminds me of a ditty we sang in Fred’s Army (lol) while marching into Berlin in 1945. It’s sung to the tune of The Colonel Bogey March by Lieutenant F.J. Ricketts (pen name Kenneth J Alford):

Hitler has only one right ball

Goering has only one left ball

Himmler has something simmler

But Goebbels has noebbels at all

For those born yesterday, Josef Goebbels was the Nazi Party’s Minister of Propaganda. It’s ironic that, 85 years later, an Israeli Information Spokesperson is using Goebbels’ propaganda techniques with a “simmlerly” ballsless approach to exposed misinformation.

F.J. Ricketts was a British Army bandmaster who published his compositions under a pen name because the army discouraged outside professional lives. The Colonel Bogey March is a tune for whistlers that first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1938 movie, The Lady Vanishes, starring Michael Redgrave (Vanessa and Lynn’s father) and Margaret Lockwood.

There’s no proof any Hamas operations are based beneath hospitals. Israel’s cruel practice of bombing first then asking questions later is based, it says, on “Intelligence” which USA, manufacturer/seller of bombs to Israel, “confirms”. This “Intelligence” hasn’t been shared with us ordinary folk but, if it was produced by Mossad, the same “Intelligence” Agency that allegedly knew nothing in advance of the October 7 Hamas attack, it’s probably suspect.

So we’re not taking sides as between Israel and Hamas. But we are mos def taking sides with children and other innocents being indiscriminately slaughtered especially in hospitals. We’ll never know the true story behind Israel’s hospitals-as-military-bases theory because the few western journalists in Gaza are all embedded with IDF. Not even the currently shaky “temporary truce” has improved that scenario as no additional journalists are allowed into Gaza under the terms of the truce.

Despite Israeli ham-fisted propaganda to include deliberate half truths and exaggeration, I’ve no problem believing Hamas might be operating from tunnels below Al Shifa hospital (and others). It’s Terrorism 101. What’s incontrovertible is Israel believes this to be true.

None of the above justifies the relentless bombing of Al Shifa and the consequential brutality to innocents. There are effective military alternatives, requiring patience and planning, to deal with any Hamas operation centres under Gazan hospitals. But this bull-in-a-china-shop haste to level everything Gazan suggests a different kind of plan. This plan appears to involve more ethnic cleansing than elimination of one organization prone to terrorist methods.

The precision and ruthless execution of Palestinian civilians’ mass genocide helps me think this might be even a more Machiavellian plan than simple counter-attack. This horrific spectre long ago flew past “self defense”.

The British slang “sent to Coventry”, (meaning ostracised socially) originated from a World War II strategy employed by Winston Churchill. After years of trying, Britain finally broke Germany’s code used for secret communications. The first intercepted message revealed a plan to bomb Coventry. Churchill gave the order not to alert anybody because it would tell the Germans their code had been broken. Coventry was bombed. Many lives were lost. But the ability to receive and send signals using the German code eventually helped win the war for the Allies.

Sometimes I wonder if Mossad’s advance cluelessness regarding Hamas’ attack was deliberate. Since then, Israel has used that attack to justify a brutal eradication of Palestinian life in Gaza well beyond any concept of “self-defense” or proportionate retaliation.

As a horse racing pal would say “Sump’n inna sump’n”.

Use of hospitals as cover for military operations, if true, would be unconscionable. Destroying those hospitals with targeted unrelenting bombing causing unimaginable loss of life including sheltered homeless, women, children, premature babies, patients, doctors, nurses and medical staff is criminal. We must always grieve the loss of innocent lives. We must always condemn the killing of civilians as a first resort whether they are being used as human shields or not.

Meanwhile I recommend everyone involved in this latest maniacal slaughter of innocents reflect John Lennon’s lyrics:

Imagine there’s no countries!

It isn’t hard to do.

Nothing to kill or die for

and no religion, too

Imagine all the people

livin’ life in peace

You

You may say I’m a dreamer

but I’m not the only one.

I hope someday you’ll join us

and the world will be as one

This madness must stop. Temporary truces even accompanied by prisoner exchanges, aren’t an answer. USA’s lazy “Two-State solution” is a proven failure. These two can never co-exist as neighbours. The only way forward begins with a cessation of USA arms sales to Israel followed by permanent ceasefire. This should create an environment in which the parties to negotiate a feasible solution as equals.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. There are too many wrongs committed by too many countries here to even approximate a right.

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com