Israeli war criminal: General Yoav Gallant

Editor's Note: Mass murderer Yoav Gallant is not being sought as a war crime suspect anywhere in the West and he is hardly even known outside of Palestine.

Man responsible for Israel's cruelest wars only attracts praise

By Gideon Levy | Haaretz | July 16, 2009

A huge weight has been lifted off our chests: Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant will stay in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Although Gallant was not named deputy chief of staff, Defense Minister Ehud Barak publicly declared that he views him as a candidate to succeed Gabi Ashkenazi as chief of staff. The military correspondents, those who only spoke glowingly of Gallant during the entire appointments commotion, put their minds at ease. And the brainwashed public, which shows no interest in learning what our soldiers did in Gaza, were also put at ease.

The fact that this feted general is directly responsible for two brutal military operations in Gaza which have no equal - Summer Rains and Cast Lead - did not even warrant a mention in the public forum. While more and more suspicions and well-founded allegations over the IDF's behavior in Gaza, especially during Operation Cast Lead (December 2008 - January, 2009), surface all over the world, here a general of this "war" - really a brutal assault on a helpless population - only attracts praise.

Suspected war crimes? Violations of High Court rulings? No mention of those at all. Gallant has always been in favor of large operations in Gaza. He kept pushing for more strikes and more destruction, as much as possible. In the summer of 2006, his wish was granted and he took command of Operation Summer Rains. The result was 394 Palestinian deaths and a thousand wounded. The lone power station in Gaza was bombed along with the university and a number of bridges. A grand success.

At the time, nobody wondered why all this killing was necessary and who benefited from all this destruction. What was the reason for bombing a power station, except for meting out collective punishment, which has long proven to not only be a criminal act, but also a foolish one? Gallant emerged from "Summer Rains" unblemished.

He had the same success following Cast Lead. A war with almost no Israeli deaths is always a success, without commissions of inquiry and with no questions asked. To hell with the horrible price exacted from the other side, including the hundreds of women and children killed and the thousands of homes destroyed. Gallant commanded the most cruel war in Israel's history. In order to understand what happened in Gaza, it is worthwhile to read the report issued Wednesday (July 15) by the (army) reservist group "Breaking the Silence." The group recorded 54 testimonials of 30 combat troops that should come to represent the dark period in history that was this war, a war over which a blacker-than-black flag flies.

From the "neighbor procedure" of using people as human shields, which is a gross violation of a High Court ruling, a public scandal in itself; to the spirit of words uttered by a commander who is quoted by a number of the soldiers as saying that was preferable to harm bystanders than to hesitate in hurting the enemy. "If you are not sure, shoot," one of the soldiers quoted him as saying. The soldier added, "The firepower was insane ... In urban warfare, everyone is an enemy. There is no difference between innocent civilians and enemies."

It is for this that Gallant is responsible. He orchestrated a war in which there were almost no instances of combat, all the while inculcating an awful attitude within the IDF, one that says it is permissible for us to do anything: to drop thousands of bombs, shells, and missiles in addition to phosphorus shells and flechettes; to kill whole families and to sow destruction on a horrific scale while considering it all a success.

"They didn't set a goal for us," one of the combat soldiers said in the report, which recounts the destruction the soldiers wreaked just for its own sake. "I don't know what the objective of the war was."

Our Southern Command chief is a hero against the weak. While he rose through the ranks at sea, where his resumé is full of top-secret missions, his stint on land is nothing to write home about. He always makes sure to be photographed wearing dark sunglasses, his personal weapon while "on duty." In the meantime, the deep baritone voices of the military correspondents on television shower praise upon him in light of his grand achievements. But the truth is that this is a joke, a sad military joke that is drenched in blood. It was one of the most advanced arsenals of weapons in the world against those who launch empty pipes; hundreds of tons of smart and stupid bombs against factories and schools; precision-guided unmanned aerial vehicles that killed children; the tiny few of our dead, many from friendly fire incidents. In summation: military heroism on the cheap.

All these factors will not hold up Gallant's promotion. They will be credited to him as sparkling successes on his way to the top. And it is only the soldier who gave the 54th testimonial in the "Breaking the Silence" report who understood what the general who is a candidate for chief of staff did not: "I didn't leave there with a feeling of heroism or great sacrifice. Just plain disgusted, bored and stupid. I did not feel I did anything significant. I convinced myself, 'Okay, I was in Gaza, I can tell my buddies.'" Like him, Galant also told his buddies, and the buddies bought it with giddiness and blind admiration.

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Israelis Threaten to Holocaust Gaza

Israel Warns Gaza Of "Shoah"

By REUTERS | Filed at 5:33 p.m. ET | February 29, 2008

GAZA (Reuters) - A year-old Palestinian girl and a senior Hamas bombmaker were killed in the Gaza Strip on Friday as Israel pressed home air strikes after a senior official warned Gazans they risked a "shoah" if rocket fire did not stop.

With the Palestinian death toll at 35 in three days, aides insisted the deputy defense minister used the Hebrew word not in its common meaning of holocaust but only as a term for disaster.

But the strength of his language reflected mounting anger after an Israeli was killed by a rocket on Wednesday and the government debated whether to mount a major ground offensive.

Hamas, which organized rallies in Gaza, held the comment up as proof their enemies were the "new Nazis."

Friday saw fewer air strikes. One, which the army said had targeted a rocket squad, killed Eyad al-Ashram. Hamas said he was one of the Islamist group's senior munitions experts.

Doctors said one-year-old Malak al-Kafarna died in hospital from a shrapnel wound to the head after a missile exploded near her home, wounding four other civilians. Hamas officials said it was an Israeli surface-to-surface missile. Residents said some rockets fired by militants also fell short, landing inside Gaza.

Political sources said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was wary of launching a major ground offensive and Israeli public radio stations quoted security sources saying that, while plans for an assault were being prepared, such an invasion was not imminent.

The United States, whose Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due next week to visit Olmert and Palestinian leaders in the occupied West Bank, urged Israel to "consider the consequences" of its action. Bloodshed could derail Washington's hopes of a peace deal this year before President George W. Bush steps down.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has shared Israel's hostility to Hamas since they routed his forces in Gaza in June, called Israeli threats "dangerous." Even Palestinians who want to see Hamas defeated are outraged that at least 16 civilians, including children as young as 6 months, were among the 35 dead.

"A BIGGER "SHOAH

Israel's deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai told Army Radio: "The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger 'shoah' because we will use all our might to defend ourselves."

The word "shoah" is rarely used in Israel beyond discussions of the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews but government spokesmen said Vilnai had employed the word only to mean "disaster."

Israeli leaders said rockets from the blockaded territory may leave them no choice but to launch a broader offensive into the crowded coastal strip, which is home to 1.5 million people and which Israel occupied for 38 years until 2005.

Though rocket fire has long disrupted life in small Israeli border towns since then, the killing of an Israeli on Wednesday, the first such death since May, has increased public pressure on Olmert's already unpopular coalition government to act.

Hamas has also raised the stakes by firing Soviet-designed Katyusha missiles, more powerful and accurate than improvised Gazan Qassams, to strike the much larger city of Ashkelon.

Visiting there, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said an Israeli response was "required" and that "Hamas bears responsibility for this deterioration and it will also bear the results."

Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who was Abbas's prime minister until June, told supporters: "This is a proof of Israel's pre-planned aggressive intentions against our people. "They want the world to condemn what they call the Holocaust and now they are threatening our people with a holocaust."

According to Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Barak has sought to prepare the way for an offensive by sending confidential messages to world leaders, including Rice. "Israel is not keen on and rushing for an offensive, but Hamas is leaving us no choice," Barak told them, Yedioth said.

However, chastened by his 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Olmert is wary of an operation that would incur more casualties when Israel is reluctant to re-occupy Gaza long-term.

Rice has voiced concern for Palestinian civilian deaths but stopped short of calling for Israeli restraint. Officials say she will make clear support for Israel's right to defend itself.

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