Thomas Wictor

A Jewish reader sent me a link to the Amnesty International (AI) report Operation “Cast Lead”: 22 Days of Death and Destruction. It wasn’t until recently that I learned of the Durban Strategy, the global plan to criminalize, isolate, and delegitimize Israel. AI’s report is a perfect example of the Durban Strategy.

In debunking this dishonest report, I’ll speak mainly about munitions, ignoring Palestinian claims. For the sake of full disclosure, Operation Protective Edge pushed me over the edge. I now reject everything Palestinians say. They’ve simply lied too many times. NGOs and the press accept all Palestinian accounts as truthful, but I don’t.

AI says that two-thirds of the 1400 killed in Operation Cast Lead were civilians. We know that this list would include people counted twice, those killed accidentally by Hamas, those murdered by Hamas, those killed in domestic disputes, those not killed at all, and those who died of natural causes.

Hamas finally came clean, an admission discreetly overlooked by Amnesty International.

The Israel Defense Force put the total number of known combatants killed at 709 and the number of known civilian deaths at 295, with 162 (mostly men of fighting age) “unknown.” Such a ratio, if true, would be far better than that achieved by any other nation in a comparable conflict. Not surprisingly, Israel’s enemies initially disputed this ratio and claimed that the number of combatants killed was far lower and the number of civilians far higher. The United Nations, the Goldstone Report, various “human rights” organizations and many in the media automatically rejected Israel’s documented figures, preferring the distorted numbers offered by Hamas’ and other Palestinian sources.

But a statement recently made by a Hamas leader confirms that Israel was correct in claiming that approximately 700 combatants were killed.

I also automatically disbelieve accounts of anonymous “Israeli soldiers.” Amnesty International claims that Israeli soldiers told them they were ordered to kill indiscriminately.

So why didn’t they? The casualty figures never bear out these alleged “Shoot everything that moves!” orders. There’s a reason why this is.

Because the “Israeli soldiers” are lying. No heaps of corpses, no indiscriminate killing. The end.

Now the lies of Amnesty International.

Graffiti

Here’s what AI claims.

There’s no evidence whatsoever that Israeli soldiers did that. It may surprise AI, but sometimes Muslims fake hate crimes in order to gain sympathy. Unless you have film of IDF soldiers spray-painting this stuff, I don’t believe it.

Homes bombed for no reason

There’s always a reason, so that’s a stupid accusation.

AI says that their “delegates” found 1) fragments of an AGM-114 Hellfire missile that hit the first floor of this building, and 2) “evidence” that a “large bomb” dropped by an F-16 hit the side of the house.

There’s no fragmentation damage on the ceiling of the first floor. Impossible if a Hellfire and an explosive bomb were used. All the outer walls are gone, and the two palm trees in the front have lost their leaves. These are signs of a pressure wave. It’s clear that one or more IEDs were detonated, possibly accidentally. I’ve never seen a house look like that before. The only sure thing is that Israeli munitions didn’t create that nightmarish, Daliesque image.

Israelis didn’t do this either.

That’s shrapnel damage. Shrapnel is metal balls; Israeli missiles create fragments. That house was hit by a Hamas rocket. Little round holes are the giveaway. Here’s an Israeli car destroyed by a Hamas rocket.

The idiots at Amnesty International don’t know shrapnel from shell fragments. I understand that plenty of you don’t either, but you’re not calling yourselves “delegates” and writing fraudulent reports that demonize an entire nation based on your prejudices and ignorance. You don’t pretend to be experts.

White phosphorus

This is deliberate deception.

The Israelis fired the M825A1 smoke shell, NOT WHITE PHOSPHOROUS.

It has 116 wedges made of felt inside it. These wedges are impregnated with white phosphorus. Watch with your own eyes how fast they burn out, even when the fuse is set to explode the shell close to the ground.

At 0:39, you’ll see machine-gun fire going from right to left, directly where the felt wedges landed. That means the Hamas terrorists were UNHARMED.

Amnesty International is conflating smoke shells and weaponized white phosphorus shells, which are incendiary weapons. The Israelis didn’t fire incendiary shells into Gaza.

AI found lumps of white phosphorus burning after two days? You just saw the video of the M825A1 smoke shells exploding. How long did the felt wedges burn? If AI found lumps of burning white phosphorus, that means it was Hamas firing mortar shells. It doesn’t matter if the AI “delegates” found Israeli smoke-shell fragments at the school. The Palestinians had two days to doctor the scene.

This is a smoke shell.

Amnesty International wants you to believe that this is weaponized white phosphorus used to burn things, but that’s a lie. Do you see any evidence of burning around that shell? The plant looks pretty healthy.

Here’s al-Quds Hospital.

From the report.

Al-Quds Hospital, located in the Tal al-Hawa neighbor-hood[sic] in the centre of Gaza City, was repeatedly struck from morning to night on 15 January by white phosphorus lumps, white phosphorus artillery shells and tank shells, eventually forcing medical staff and patients to evacuate the facility.

Total fabrication. The building shows no damage from artillery or tank shells, and the IDF doesn’t use white-phosphorus shells in urban warfare. Since we know that all Gazan hospitals are Hamas weapons depots and combat posts, there’s no way of knowing what caused the fire.

The only thing we can be sure of is that the IDF didn’t start it with white-phosphorus shells, because the IDF doesn’t fire white-phosphorus shells. It fires smoke shells that can’t set buildings aflame.

Flechettes

These are small steel darts packed into a tank shell. Amnesty International says that each shell contains between 5000 and 8000 flechettes. Photos never show more than two or three stuck in a wall.

I find it extremely hard to believe that the IDF fires flechette shells in urban combat. The Israelis have a policy of not commenting on what weapons they use; the only “evidence” of flechettes are Palestinian claims and photos of two or three metal darts that could easily have been hammered into place. If up to 8000 darts are unleashed, surely there would be pictures of more than two or three stuck in a wall.

Flechettes are direct-fire antipersonnel weapons. You generally use them against formations, not individuals. Since Hamas never operates in groups larger than twenty, there are far more effective weapons than flechettes to use against them. And you can see for yourself that they aren’t any good against enemies inside buildings.

“Human rights” organizations are obsessed with Israeli flechettes, to the point that they see them everywhere. When Palestinian cameraman Fadel Shana and eight others were killed on April 16, 2008, the Palestinians claimed that an Israeli tank had fired a flechette round.

It’s clear from the damage that it was actually an Anti-Personnel/Anti-Material Multipurpose Tank Round M329 Kalanit, called the APAM-MP-T (M329).

Flechettes don’t wreak so much havoc. Look at the jeep: It’s been torn in half.

Allegedly X-rays were produced that showed flechettes in Shana’s body. This is why I no longer believe anything the Palestinians say. They had to take what was already a tragic case of mistaken identity and make the Israelis seem even more reprehensible by accusing them of firing flechettes. Palestinians never miss an opportunity to exploit suffering.

This photo from the Amnesty International report is a bare-faced lie.

The flechette shell contains 8000 steel darts. Do you see even one little pinprick in that ambulance? The edges of the hole are bent outward, and the windshield is shattered. What happened was the Hamas explosives they were carrying went off.

Hellfire missile

I’ve come to despise Palestinian “paramedics.” They’re a disgrace to the entire profession. This image really takes the liar-cake.

According to Amnesty International, they’re gazing in sorrow at part of a blown-up stretcher and pieces of the Israeli AGM-114 Hellfire missile that killed three paramedics and a child.

One problem: That Hellfire is a fake. It’s a mockup. Here are real Hellfires.

See how the front of the fins connect to the missile body in a diagonal line? Now look at the front of the fin in the AI photo, marked with a green arrow.

The front edge of the mockup fin is curved. And they screwed up the rudder of the fin too. The top edge should be angled, not square.

In the photo above, the red arrow shows what’s supposed to be the exhaust cone.

It’s the wrong shape, and it’s too long. Also, the yellow stripe on the fake Hellfire—identified with the light-blue arrow—is more than twice as wide as it should be. Finally, nothing on that stretcher matches the insides of a real Hellfire, the casing of which is made of steel, not tin.

Amnesty International is as corrupt as Human Rights Watch, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and all the others. Israelis and Jews should just ignore Amnesty International.

They betrayed your trust.