GUEST WORDS-As a representative of LA Jews for Peace, I urge City Council to reject resolution 14-0002-S85 that "denounce[s] the use of civilians as human shields by Hamas and other terrorist organizations in violation of international humanitarian law."
LA Jews for Peace commends the LA City Council for condemning the use of human shields because it is inhumane and a violation of international law.
This resolution would be worthy if it did not refer to the current war between Israel and Hamas, because the accusation that Hamas engages in using human shields is questionable.
We don't know what is happening in the current war with respect to human shields. But we do know what happened in Israel's 2008-09 assault on the Gaza Strip commonly called Cast Lead. In that conflict Israel accused Hamas of using human shields. But when the war ended, those accusations were investigated by B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights NGO, international human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and the U.N. Goldstone Commission, and all found the accusations to be false.
In fact, the several investigations found that Israeli soldiers used Palestinian boys as human shields by forcing them to enter houses that may have been booby-trapped.
Considering Israel's history of false accusations against Hamas, and the documented false accusation of Hamas using human shields in the 2008-09 attack, it seems likely that the accusations that Hamas is using human shields in the present war are also false.
LA Jews for Peace urges the Los Angeles City Council to reject resolution 14-0002-S85 that is likely based on false accusations.
● Resolution 14-0002-S85 is on the agenda for the Rules Committee this Friday, Aug. 15, at 9 AM.
(Jeff Warner is a representative of LA Jews for Peace. He lives in Los Angeles. LA Jews for Peace can be reached at [email protected].)
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CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 66
Pub: Aug 15, 2014
