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Special Report
Human Shields
A paying proposition for terrorists.
As hostilities in Gaza wind down for who knows how long, a postmortem on the world’s response and its effect on terrorism globally becomes pertinent.
The ratio of combatant to civilian deaths in Gaza — about 3 to 1 (900 combatants out of an approximate 1,200 fatalities), compares favorably to even less exacting interventions: NATO’s 1999 air offensive against Serbia killed 670, of which 500 were civilians, a ratio of about 1 to 3.
Few would argue that NATO was reckless or malign in its operations against the Milosevic regime. Nonetheless, much criticism was directed Israel’s way on the morally inverted basis that, as Israel was retaliating against incessant Hamas rocket attacks, Israel, rather than Hamas, was responsible for the deaths of civilians among whom Hamas deliberately embedded its forces.
That single fact points to the growth of an alarming international development — the successful use of civilians as human shields by terror organizations.
This tactic has become routine and — in terms of public relations — successful, because recent years have witnessed indulgence of its practitioners and sharp censure for those confronting them.
In 2002, Palestinian terrorists screened themselves with nuns and priests by holing up in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity to elude Israeli forces which they knew to be loath to enter after them. The terrorists were evacuated after a stand-off and lived to fight another day, while the Israelis received much opprobrium for besieging a church.
The Lebanese terror group Hezbollah took the strategy one step further in its 2006 war with Israel by embedding a large proportion of its army in densely populated civilian areas. Bombs and ammunition were stored in mosques, rockets fired from civilian homes, rocket launchers set up beside hospitals, gunmen operated from behind U.N. posts, and so on. Errant Israeli shells that killed civilians in a building brought enormous criticism upon Jerusalem, yet comparatively little for the terrorists who had deliberately chosen this spot to launch missiles into Israel.
The effectiveness of this strategy emboldened others to use it. In October 2006, NATO units were involved in urban fighting by Taliban forces holed up in civilian houses in Afghanistan’s Panjwayi district. The result was as many as 80 civilians killed and widespread regional criticism for NATO.
In November 2007, Hamas introduced a further innovation: the use of willing human shields. When its gunmen were cornered at a mosque in Gaza’s Beit Hanoun by Israeli special forces, Hamas used radio to call upon local women to flood the scene of the armed stand-off so as to enable the gunmen to escape, which they did. No government or international organ condemned Hamas for the use of this tactic while apologists applauded it.
This scenario was repeated in all particulars only weeks later when an American priest and a nun become voluntary human shields within the house of Mohammed Baroud, leader of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), one of the terror groups firing rockets and shells into Israel from Gaza.
Indeed, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni testified, indirectly, to the success of the use of human shields at the time: “We prefer to attack an empty building which is being used to manufacture rockets, even taking into consideration that the terrorists will leave the place.”
When a nation prefers missing its targets rather than inadvertently hitting civilians, it has lost the ability to defeat terrorists who use human shields. That of course, was always the terrorists’ aim — to make the specter of civilian losses so terrible that those equipped with a conscience and rule book would give up the fight.
Jamila Shanti, who pioneered the successful human shield campaign in Beit Hanoun two years ago said at the time, “We consider it a new kind of resistance, highly successful, one that will serve us well against the Israeli enemy.”
New it may be; highly successful it certainly has been, until now; and it may indeed serve Hamas and others well enough to enable them to fight another day. But it was unlikely that the Israelis would be permanently deterred from preferring the preservation of Palestinian civilians lives to that of their own.
About the Author
Daniel Mandel is a Fellow in History at Melbourne University and author of H. V. Evatt and the Establishment of Israel: The Undercover Zionist (Routledge, London, 2004). His blog can be found on the History News Network.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (33) | Leave a comment
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Pingback| 2.18.09 @ 7:59AM
Gaza » Blog Archive » Human Shields links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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Topics about Music » Human Shields links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Marc Jeric| 2.18.09 @ 11:20AM
When an Al Qaeda chief surrounds himself with his 4 wives and 30 children - I say kill them all and blame the jihadist for the deaths.
There was a well-preserved medieval town in Alsace called Ammerschwier; when the American soldiers approached it in early 1945, their mayor came out with the white flag ensuring the Americans that here would be no resistance and therefore no need to damage the town. Americans then marched in , led by their lieutenant. A sniper killed him, the sergeant took command, retreated and called for bombers; the town was substantially erased. Imagine that our "engagement rules" then called for interruption of hostilities until the population was supplied with food, medicines, and fuel like they were requested by the United Nations and "human rights" groups. Unthinkable - right?
Crusader| 2.18.09 @ 11:29AM
The Serbian air war was an unjust war on a Christain nation which posed NO national security threat to the US of A. In fact, they were our allies in the 2 previous WWs.
Imagine if Canada bombed US civilians so Mexico could annex Atzlan (what mexicans call the SW USA). That was Srbia in a nutshell.
Sons Of Sam | 2.18.09 @ 3:05PM
kudos to you Marc. We need to start defending ourselves by wiping out those who have been assaulting us for years. That includes terrorists, the sawed off little criminals running the inner cities and EVERYONE making excuses for them -- we used to call those guys TRAITORS.
They need to die so that the rest of us can breath.
S.O.S.
http://www.geocities.com/samadamssos/
Indiana Alex| 2.18.09 @ 3:19PM
In the air war over Serbia the primary targets were critical infrastructure; power, water, electricity, desigened to turn the people against Milosevich.
That is why the civilian casualty ratio would be so high.
I wonder how many former KLA are now at Gitmo.
Alan Brooks| 2.18.09 @ 10:35PM
i wish Sheik Mohammed the Hirsute was with his 72 baby prostitutes right now.
we executed McVeigh-- why not the Sheik?
ruth| 2.19.09 @ 2:12AM
Who else would you expect Clinton to attack; our enemies? Hell no, he let Bin Laden go 8 times. He makes me retch.
GreginOkinawa| 2.19.09 @ 11:07AM
Marc Jeric correctly said "When an Al Qaeda chief surrounds himself with his 4 wives and 30 children - I say kill them all and blame the jihadist for the deaths."
If we only kill the terrorist father and let the kids live...I am certain they will LOVE us for our compassion...NOT.
Better to get them all at once!
GreginOkinawa| 2.19.09 @ 11:08AM
In the article it said "When its gunmen were cornered at a mosque in Gaza's Beit Hanoun by Israeli special forces, Hamas used radio to call upon local women to flood the scene of the armed stand-off so as to enable the gunmen to escape, which they did."
Okay, so what's the problem...if the ignorant Palestinian want to martyr themselves so bad...let's honor their request!
Marc Jeric| 7.2.09 @ 5:47PM
Let me finish the story of Ammerschwier. When I visited the town some 30 years ago, it was a brand new medieval town rebuilt by American money. Original materials and work methods were used - macadam streets, grey slate roofs, manually formed stones, brickwork, etc. Same thing happened with the French medieval town of St. Malo in Normandy, substantially destroyed when the Germans resisted the Amrerican troups; rebuilt after the war with American money, using original materials and work methods.
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weddingdress | 7.12.11 @ 5:26AM
Marc Jeric correctly said "When an Al Qaeda chief surrounds himself with his 4 wives and 30 children - I say kill them all and blame the jihadist for the deaths."
If we only kill the terrorist father and let the kids live...I am certain they will LOVE us for our compassion...NOT.
Better to get them all at once!