UNHRC Report on Israel Uses Disproportionate Accusations

 

Very few would argue that Israel has friends to spare or even that other nations are publically lining up to declare good and open supportive relations with Israel and if anything, exactly the opposite is the situation. Despite such a guarded prospective being openly displayed, underneath the radar and far from sight there are many nations who willingly cooperate and even work towards similar goals with Israel. Some act simply to protect Israel from those who stand poised to destroy Israel by small steps, by a million cuts or by a single stroke of the sword beheading her as one would a raging monster. There are claims that Israel has designs on ruling the Middle East from the position of a ‘Greater Israel’ which would extend from the Mediterranean Sea to the two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. They quote the liberation of Judea and Samaria as the initial step where after Jordan joined the war to annihilate Israel in June of 1967 believing the Egyptian and Syria broadcasts of their easy and unstoppable successes and their imminent approach on Tel Aviv from both the northeast and from the south, Israel was forced to divert troops heading to reinforce the efforts in the Sinai Peninsula against Egypt to address the newly opened from Jordan in the east. That diversion made steady advances pausing to pray upon the liberated Western Wall and Temple Mount which brought forth an emotional attachment renewed that overwhelmed these Israelis with the gift of being the ones who liberated the most holy of grounds to all Jews. They subsequently liberated the rest of Judea along with Samaria reforming the proper and legal border with Jordan as the Jordan River. The liberation of Judea and Samaria was not an attempted conquest and was a response to an attack and reclaiming the lands stolen by Jordan during the wars to destroy Israel immediately after her founding in 1948 through early 1949. Even this small patch of land which by treaties and promises are lands which legally are an important and vital part of Israel being once again attempted to subvert and steal through the invention of a nation which claims to have been attacked and overrun by Israel though nobody can find the war or military operations which produced such a result. This is a crucial test of whether the United Nations, European Union, and all the world’s nations and their international agencies, alliances and partnerships will respect their promises to the Jewish Zionists to permit and support their return and rebuilding of their ancestral homelands on a tiny strip of land nestled at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea which measures merely a size about equal to the State of New Jersey, smaller than El Salvador, Belize, Djibouti and even Macedonia. The map shown below depicts the proportional insignificance of the land claimed for the Jewish homelands compared to the lands of nations claiming a Muslim heritage of which a significant number claim to be Islamic States observing Islamic Sharia which specifically defines Muslim Code of Law and concerning all practices, rituals, interactions and obligations for all Muslims to surrender in their devotions to Allah and defining the place of their nation, of Islam and their interactions between them and other nations all included and codified in Sharia.

 

Display of the Muslim Nations of the World in the Middle East, Asia and Northern Africa in Green with Israel depicted in Red

 

This past week Israel was presented with two reports of which only one can be valid as they are diametric opposites. The one which the media has obsessed over was issued by the United Nations Human Rights Council deliberating over the commission of potential war crimes, crimes against humanity, criminal acts under the Geneva Conventions and any actions the committee found to be of particular interest of which disproportional use of force appeared to be their major area of emphasis with a subcategory viewing what can only be described as seeking reasons for the disparity in injured, murdered, rendered homeless and other material damages and the other was a review of the and the steps taken to prevent inflicting or receiving injury of death of civilians and efforts to minimize collateral damage as well as any efforts to use protected structures, numbers of individual noncombatants in attempts to protect military hardware and positioning military sites of importance within civilian structures and targeting parameters. This military review was conducted independently of the United Nations and included eleven high-ranking military officials who visited Israel back in May as part of this High Level International Military Group on a fact-finding mission for reviewing Operation Protective Edge. As reported in an article in Arutz Sheva their conclusions included:

 

“We examined the circumstances that led to the tragic conflict last summer and are in no doubt that this was not a war that Israel wanted,” the report states. “Israel sought to avoid the conflict and exercised great restraint over a period of months before the war when its citizens were targeted by sporadic rocket attacks from Gaza.”

“Once the war had begun, Israel made repeated efforts to terminate the fighting,” it continued. “The war that Israel was eventually compelled to fight against Hamas and other Gaza extremists was a legitimate war, necessary to defend its citizens and its territory against sustained attack from beyond its borders.”

The officials then note that Hamas “deliberately and indiscriminately targeted Israeli civilian population centers” through rocket attacks and digging terror tunnels – both of which they conclude are unequivocally considered as “war crimes.” The officials then note that Hamas “deliberately and indiscriminately targeted Israeli civilian population centers” through rocket attacks and digging terror tunnels – both of which they conclude are unequivocally considered as “war crimes.”

The report then contrasts Hamas’s use of human shields with Israel’s attempts to save lives.

“Hamas launched attacks against Israel from the heart of its own civilian communities in Gaza and positioned its munitions and military forces there also, including in schools, hospitals and mosques,” it says. “As well as carefully documented IDF evidence of this, we have viewed international media footage confirming several cases and are aware of senior Hamas officials’ own claims to have used human shields.”

“A recent report by the UN Secretary General confirmed that in some cases Hamas even used UN facilities for storing munitions and launching attacks.”

“Each of our own armies is of course committed to protecting civilian life during combat,” it continued. “But none of us is aware of any army that takes such extensive measures as did the IDF last summer to protect the lives of the civilian population in such circumstances.”
“Our overall findings are that during Operation Protective Edge last summer, in the air, on the ground and at sea, Israel not only met a reasonable international standard of observance of the laws of armed conflict, but in many cases significantly exceeded that standard,” the report concludes. “We saw clear evidence of this from the upper to the lower levels of command.”

“A measure of the seriousness with which Israel took its moral duties and its responsibilities under the laws of armed conflict is that in some cases Israel’s scrupulous adherence to the laws of war cost Israeli soldiers’ and civilians’ lives.”

 

The report also affirmed the Israeli investigated finding that the ratio of Civilian-to-Military casualty ratio was 1:1, well above the world average of 3:1 and far higher than the ratio set as acceptable targeting. The fact that Israel was able to attain such a low ratio was all the more remarkable when one considers that it was the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist fighters intent carried through with deliberate actions to place rocket launchers, command and control centers, mortar positions, stores of rockets and ammunitions and other war equipment and manned positions in, on or near to civilian centers, private residences, hospitals, schools, health clinics, refugee centers and other protected structures. There was an actual in use UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) health clinic which had been evacuated as the fighting inched closer and when a squad of IDF soldiers entered the building it was detonated. Further inspection of the structure and the manner in which it exploded revealed a number of items of concern. First was that the clinic was also concealing multiple entrances to tunnels in its floors and the second and most condemning find was the placement of the explosives which by all measure were found to have been built into the structure as it was erected in anticipation that it could be detonated at some future point during an operation such as Operation Protective Edge. That trap killed three IDF soldiers and injured others. At this point we would like to request you visit the article titled Gaza, Hamas, Corrected Falsehoods, Frightening Realities written on September 15, 2014 which contains additional information and links plus the original use of the video shown below of a Hamas rocket launcher site being set up directly outside the window of a reporter from India who filmed and documented the entire procedure, something for which he would very likely have had an accident had this come to light while he was still reporting from within Gaza. I do not know for sure if he remained in Gaza, but either way, the man had great integrity, nerves of steel, a steadfast standing for truth and a great heart full of love of life. Below is his video and further reporting at link above.

 

 

One Israeli method to clear a rooftop or building which was being used as a launch site on its roof or from numerous balconies or out of windows of which Israeli drones had detected such fire operations they would first, a few minutes before the actual strike, drop small, very loud, fragment-free, low explosive charges which operate as a large flashbang grenade, called knockers as they were the knock on the ‘proverbial door’ before kicking that ‘door’ in, in order to cause the people to flee the structure before it was struck, something unheard of by these reviewing military officers, something considered completely inconsistent with attempts to maximize even the casualties of the combatants as well an civilians. Such a tactic as well as the radio broadcasts, phone calls, leaflet drops, SMS messages to individual phones and other undisclosed methods for warning the civilian population to leave the area and despite it also gave the combatants to flee still allowing for the destruction of the launchers and depriving them of a preferred and planned firing location. Firing locations which have been preplanned have a tactical advantage in that they are in a set point and the operators have a set of dialable targets where the precise settings for the strike are known while taking up a random or alternate location often either forces the operator to make their best computation (often referred to as best guess) and may also place numerous targets beyond reach, blocked due to locations of larger structures or other obstacles. This is the reason such locations need to be eliminated as otherwise enemy combatants can return and continue to utilize their advantageous locations and the firing data. Also included in this report were the three Israeli teens kidnapped and murdered by Hamas operative in Judea and the ramping up of numbers and increased ranging of rockets which inevitably led to the Israeli response. Also noted was the fact that much of the destruction was restricted to within two miles of the Gaza-Israeli border as this was also the location of the majority of the ground fighting which is far more intense and thus the destructive force increases exponentially to the level of opposition and follows the front lines as each side attempts to clear an area in order to advance in comparative safety.

 

The United Nations report from the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) omitted mention of the three Israeli teens kidnapped and murdered and made only minor mention of increased rocket fire both in numbers and ranges and instead concentrated on a few limited points which can be defined by one simple phrase, disproportional force and results. There was little mention of the protective shield that the Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted well over ninety percent of the rockets fired into Israel in determining by the systems’ computers and radar tracking information where the rocket, mortar or artillery would strike and even higher percentage shoot down of those projectiles computed to be heading to strike within populated areas. This prevented literally tens of thousands of Israeli casualties a majority of which would likely have been fatalities as the Iron Dome did work to almost one-hundred percent of projectiles heading for central Tel Aviv and its skyscraper towers. The Iron Dome system is the perfect example of the price Israel places on individual lives as each anti-missile-missile costs tens of thousands of Shekels and were used to intercept rockets which at most cost hundreds of dollars to make. The main point made repeatedly by the UNHRC report referred to the casualty numbers and basically posed the identical question which many reporters posed during Operation Defensive Edge, where were the Israeli casualties, the Jewish casualties (one reporter was caught asking the exact question of why were there no Jewish deaths while so many in Gaza were killed). The preoccupation with Israeli casualties has reached ghoulish levels and casts the pale of anti-Semitic origins for such a line of reasoning. The answer was easy to see, Iron Dome and the fact that Israel was not only willing but gladly invested the millions of Shekels and thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands of hours and prototypes, testing, writing software code and rewriting when necessary and simply editing (as if editing code is ever simple) and finaly perfecting a system that provided the protection desired, nearly perfect protections and the rest we depended upon the hand of Hashem. The absolute proof was made evident by a multiple miss by an Iron Dome system tasked with protecting Tel Aviv and was tracking a missile headed directly to downtown central Tel Aviv and three intercepts missed before what was insufficient a breeze resulted in the missile being swept aside and out into the Mediterranean Sea where it exploded harmlessly. We covered this report in our article How to Fight Terrorist Fanatics Unless You’re Israel which was published with links on September 26, 2014. Somehow this miraculous incident did not appear in the UNHRC report and also omitted was the purported report that when being asked by a senior Gaza government official (read Hamas commander) how come his rockets were not striking in Israel and killing the Israelis the officer replied, “They keep shooting them down and even when they miss their G0d simply swipes them away harmlessly.”

 

The point driven home by the scant accusations in the document against Hamas are dwarfed to the point of near absence compared to the claims and vile and putrid twisting of the facts in order to convict Israel in the court of anti-Israel and anti-Zionist with potential to classify it as anti-Semitic venomous bile coming from the most base hatreds imaginable. The fact that the initial person selected to be the chair of this investigation was forced to resign because of a proven record of anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist positions and that he was employed by the PLO to render favorable interpretations and provide defense and Jurist William Shabas was replaced with Judge Mary McGowan Davis who was a member of a panel appointed to follow-up on the Goldstone Committee which investigated presumed Israeli infractions in a previous war with Hamas. That report was later revealed for its biases and inaccuracies by the man who sat as the chairman, Judge Richard Goldstone, and who refuted his own report in an article for the Washington Post. One has to believe at some point that the UNHRC has some problems when it comes to all things Israel. One last bit to end on hopefully a slightly brighter note, there was a rumor which I sincerely pray was meant as a joke and not an actual fact that the UNHRC was required by its own bylaws to open every session with a motion denouncing Israel and the discussion would simply be to include the particulars for that denunciation. The only problem such a joke would face is that it might be taken as fact and not one bit of humor be found within.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Will it be a Happy New Year?

 

Here we are just beyond the cusp from the old year to this New Year and all our hopes and fears are possible if only things play out as we all hope and believe they will. Perhaps we can help by attempting to spell out some of the trends and events we believe are likely including politics, sciences, automations, artificial intelligence, international relations, government intrusions, healthcare, and other odds and ends. These predictions are nothing more than suppositions, guesses and hypothetical potentialities. There are no guarantees and are intended for amusement and should not be used in order to make financial, healthcare, social, political or other life functions as there are no guarantees nor are these commentaries constituting an actual view of future realities. With the warnings and other legalese protecting us here at BTC from any legal actions from people who claimed they used these predictions as a basis for their future actions or investments, we can continue with the regular postings.

 

Just as the twentieth century was the century of electronic and information technology, the twenty-first century will be largely the century of medical technology advancements. Physicians have already built a replacement skull by constructing it to fit perfectly after being programmed and having it printed by a 3-D printer utilizing a plastic compound and implanted it into a young woman replacing her diseased skull which was growing thicker and placing pressures and stresses on her brain making her incapable of living a normal life. These 3-D printers have already been utilized to ‘print’ prosthetic eyes at such a rate as to make them commercially viable. There has been the utilization of a heart from a cadaver which had been harvested within the first thirty minutes and then perfusion-based machine to supply the heart with oxygen, and to keep the organ fresh, it is inject it with a preservation solution allowing the transplant of the organ into the recipient using the organ from a cadaver even after a short period. This procedure will permit the use of organs from a wider number of donors and save more lives. We will very likely begin to see cures for more cancers using less invasive methods including using nanobots (microscopic robotic units) which will be capable of identifying the cancerous cells and destroying them by attaching the nanobots containing a few atoms of gold inside the cells which will allow a directed RF-signal (radio frequency) which will cause the gold atoms to heat and destroy the cancerous cells without harming surrounding tissues which are not diseased. There will be detection methods for detecting diseases earlier making them more readily treated as well as potentially preventing pandemics by screening passengers before they board flights thus containing the disease. There will be advances in extending the life expectancy potentially possible of extending the human term of life to centuries rather than merely decades. There will come the manufacturing of replacement organs using one’s own stem cells derived from regular skin cells using the 3-D printers which will be capable of printing organs replete with blood vessels crossing the final hurdle. There will be discoveries permitting the implantation of augmentation devices creating superior human beings possessing what might be described as super powers. Finally, there may be found the use of hybridized replacement organs and limbs making the production of cybernetic bodies using just ones actual biological brain allowing a form of immortality within a purely robotic body, a kind of Brain in a Bot. The coming advances in medicine will be so mind-boggling that basically anything one can imagine may become reality. Many of the most advanced inventions will provide enhanced augmentations in the areas of understanding the mind and abilities to read thoughts simply by taking a scan of one’s brain and potentially finding ways of using telepathy. Another main area where advances will be felt further into the future but have traced their origins to the present will tend to be around DNA research and experimentation which is not quite yet at the stage for use with humans. These areas also leave us with a threat whose warning should be taken to heart by all on the leading edges of technology, make sure that the containment is secured and please be careful not to develop life with which mankind cannot survive. The areas for advancement are near endless.

 

The end of the effectiveness for the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons will change the balance of power around the globe as the ability to build deliverable devices equivalent to some of the most powerful nuclear weapons held today by a relatively small and exclusive group of nations. There will be an ever increasing possibility for a nuclear armed nation to annihilate the population living in major cities of a rival enemy nation resulting from fear of attack triggering the release of a preemptive attack aiming to deliver a knockout to their enemy. This may even lead to an escalation triggering an even broader use of nuclear weapons escalating in much the same fashion as World War I spread except these wars will be single strike and retaliatory strikes leaving a world of destroyed countries laid waste as the result of a single action. The next world encompassing war will not be over oil but over an even more precious resource, water. There will continue to be the threat of war to gain land and expand one’s influence or potentially simply to reapply control over areas which were previously part of one’s national influence. One such instance threatening the world currently is Russia which is threatening its immediate neighbors, particularly those which were part of the Warsaw Pact of nations. There is the potential for China to act on the areas she claims with Taiwan being the largest threat to trigger a greater conflict. Then there is the Middle East which is always a threat for war and even the use of weapons of mass destruction. Add the potential for nuclear terrorism and you have the perfect storm possibility. Then there is always the possibility for what is referred to as a failed state getting their hands on nuclear weapons and utilizing them to settle an internal problem such as what is currently destroying Syria.

 

Cyber wars will escalate with the potential for a cyber-attack to take out an adversary’s electrical grid potentially causing the death of millions. The danger of such an attack coming from a terrorist group or even from a sole individual who would perceive committing such an assault as deserved and the consequences for innocents to be harmed would not even enter their thoughts or be an intended part of the assault. What is even more deadly is the interception of such an attack and even before the actual culprit is identified that a return strike is perpetrated which actually begins an actual war having potential horrors possible are impossible to imagine. Cyber-attacks or other assault which takes away the advanced systems of any nation would be a catastrophe beyond measure and such an attack could trigger a greater response even before the actual culprit could be identified. A recent example was recently in the news over the Sony cyber-attack which was initially identified as an attack from North Korea and then some suspected Russia and then the attentions were tuned on a disgruntled ex-employee who was recently let go by Sony.

 

Towards the end of this year the race for the White House will significantly ramp up as the primary season will thus be upon the United States. This election cycle will start even earlier than usual as neither the Democrats or the Republicans have an actual frontrunner despite all the hype of a Clinton-Bush electoral battle attempting to suck the air out of the room making any outside threat potentially impossible, but there are always those few who find a way through the cracks and make the primaries become an open field where anybody can win. Basically, both of the major two parties have frontrunners whom their most vocal base are displeased with and desire new leadership. It would be a safe bet that at least one of the major parties to witness the breakoff of a new party which would take significant numbers of votes away from its parent party. Contrary to the ever-present concept that the Tea Party might split from the Republican Party is unlikely as they have no candidate to coalesce around as do those Democrats, who are so far to the left that some of their ideas sound almost Tea Party-like ideas, in Elizabeth Warren, a candidate who can stir up and excite those who may find the main party candidate to be insufficiently liberal enough in their view and they simply might form their own party out of frustration at their establishment candidate. Whatever the end results, the process for reaching those results will be even more excited and contested than ever; are you ready?

 

Another area which is drawing close to making it beyond the cusp and introducing a new concept is the automotive industry. It may be a revolutionary new battery which will allow for taking lengthy trips by automobiles powered solely by the new batteries which will be readily rechargeable such that even a multiple day cross country or continent trip can be realized. Hopefully any such battery system would have a prolonged lifecycle that would last well beyond seven to ten years making such an investment worth the money. Having a vehicle whose power plant which becomes useless and must be replaced every decade at a cost of three-quarters the price of the vehicle when it was new makes investing and buying such a vehicle problematic as the batteries need be replaced after a decade at a harsh price rivaling the original price of the vehicle. Maybe there are not any drivers who buy a vehicle and drive them until the wheels come off of it and only then trade them in after twenty years. The other area which will have a huge effect on the automotive industry is the new oil and gas finds in the eastern Mediterranean, the north above the Arctic Circle, the Canadian tar sands, the Dakotas in the United States and who can predict the next great deposit which will drive the price of energy back to more reasonable rates. This is not entirely the reason for the current low price for crude oil though it is a part. The current drop, as if going over a cliff, is largely due to Saudi Arabia taking on those they fear are threats to their oil wealth. These include the sabre rattling coming from Iran and due to supporting Iran, Russia, have been the main perceived threats on the Saudi Arabian oil fields themselves, and also the fracking being used in the Dakotas. Saudi Arabia can afford to sell oil at a significant loss by making up for such loss of revenue through backing their sales with their personal wealth or even take out loans as they have no or minimal debt currently. The low prices take into account for the fact that at anything under approximately seventy-five dollars a barrel the Iranians are selling their oil at a loss, something they are incapable of doing so for any prolonged period. This same financial picture is true for many of the western finds such as the Canadian tar sands and the Dakota finds in the United States as the Canadian tar sands produce some of the lowest yields per dollar and despite the refinement costs being minimal yield from the tar sands making them unprofitable while in the Dakotas the problem stems from the initial investment in specific equipment to meet their specific requirements thus making them too in the camp requiring a higher price for a greater return. The effect on Russia has already been made evident with the drop in worth of the Ruble and we can assume the problems are similar in Iran.

 

The private exploration of space has been slowly growing though much of the advances have yet to be publicized. That is very likely about to change and the advancements are going to be completely astonishing. More and more NASA launches will be performed by mostly private companies. The same will apply for companies who require orbital launch capabilities such as communications companies and surveillance requirements such as those utilized for weather predictions and assisting farmers. It would not be overly surprising to have one of the private space exploration and eventual colonization, mining, power production and eventually deep space exploration to announce their intents to build a space dock orbiting the Sun directly behind or ahead of the Earth which they hope to open to space tourism which will grow as the prices become more reasonable with time. There is the possibility for another space race back to the Moon with one critical difference, this time mankind intends to stay establishing a lunar space colony and habitat. This is the frontier which offers the greatest chance of making a breakthrough which will completely alter the future of mankind be it a warp drive engine, a hydrogen fueled fusion powered engine or other mind-boggling invention opening up space exploration to even distant stars.

 

There is one front which has not been defeated, terrorism in all its manifestations. Terrorism will continue for as long as there are those who feel their cause, religion, nation, or grievance gives them the right to utilize violence against targets both strategic and innocents in order to force a critical reckoning whereby their beliefs, they and those who agree or provide the tools for the terror, will gain some advantage. Terrorism is far from something new as it has been used as an effective weapon since the dawn of human attempts at civilization. Terrorism and the terrorists who find it necessary to resort to such means mostly are produced in places where individual freedoms are few if any and the governance is not representative nor are the rules made by the people or for the people but rather, like those who rule, the rules are pressed upon the people and their acquiescence is demanded and any divergence is quickly and violently suppressed. It makes little difference that violent terrorism is mostly counterproductive and will eventually turn away those who might have supported your struggle but are repulsed by the brutality which always accompanies terrorism. Terrorism will very possibly attain new and more destructive levels and may turn to weapons of greater destruction and potentially contamination by chemical, biological or even nuclear radiation which are all classified as weapons of mass destruction (WMD). There is not a great risk that such terrorism will develop into open warfare beyond those places which have mostly are currently dealing with terrorism. Proof exists that there are two major sponsors which finance and train the majority, Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood (الإخوان المسلمون al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn). The main bodies financed by Iran are those Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG) operatives worldwide along with sleeper cells and Hezballah and their worldwide operatives and sleeper cells. Iran has been financing Hamas mostly so they can open violence and conflict on both the northern and the southern borders but this financing and training is intermittent and often comes with directions and demands. The Muslim Brotherhood has spawned nearly countless groups which include but are not limited to al-Qaeda, Taliban, Hamas, al-Nusra Front, International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT), Muslim American Society (MAS), and numerous other associations, groups, societies, plus numerous Muslim and Islamic groups on college campuses throughout the Western World. In many instances the Muslim Brotherhood would open two groups in any major university city registering both with the university or college such that they could use one predominantly in their demonstrations taking things to extremes including intimidation and shouting down any dissenters. If and when, and it was often when, their first group faced censure or even expulsion from the campus, the other group would step up its activities and give much of the structure from remaining the same. It is not a problem for the Muslim Brotherhood to use deceit as the Quran instructs the adherents to Islam to use deceit to fool the unbeliever. There is a word for such deceit, Taqiyya, and it is a concept woven into the fabric of Islam and is why any nonbeliever must not, and by all forms of logic, cannot believe or completely trust the information provided unless it has been verified by a second source which is verifiably unaffiliated with any groups or individuals from an Islamic influence.

 

Beyond the Cusp