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Apr-07-2010 20:47printcommentsVideo

The Noble Deeds of Israel's Military

I can understand sometimes why so many are willing to give their lives in an effort to kill their enemies. Some you could say, are probably not going to find a more rewarding use for their lives.

Huda Ghalia
Huda Ghalia went for a swim at the same time the Israeli Navy attacked her family on the beach, during a picnic in June 2006.
Courtesy: RafahToday.org

(GAZA / SALEM) - As we publish reports about Israel's increasing likelihood of engaging neighboring countries in acts of war, it seems a good time to pause and reflect upon the treatment Israel reserves especially for the treasured people of Palestine.

Israel was established in the years following WWII, in what was then, Palestine. As the years passed Israel's strength increased, and so did the amount of Palestine they occupied.

In recent years the threat against Israel has greatly subsided. Israel has shown definitively, what type of reprisal they are capable of inflicting when attacked. So Palestinians have backed off, reconsidered, and now simply hold non violent demonstrations, which are violently attacked by Israeli Defense Forces routinely.

A regular contributor to Salem-News.com, former Duke and Yale Professor Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, has been keeping our viewers apprised of the situation. As we have learned, nobody is immune from the hostility and aggression brought about by the peace demonstrations.

It is a logical time for reasonable agreements, time to give the people who have survived horrible warfare a chance to coexist; but instead Israel keeps beating its war drum. It is a sickening sound, a warped beat that never makes sense.

So here is a video about Israel's kindness to the Palestinian people.

It seems Israel, the "friend of America" according to top U.S. politicians, decided to go to the beach on a beautiful day, the same day; 23 July 2006, that a Palestinian girl, Huda Ghalia, went to the beach with her family to have a picnic.

Call it her luck or her fate, but this young teenage girl had decided to go for a swim, when an Israeli Navy gunboat opened fire on the beach, literally destroying a Palestinian family with what Israel lamely called "an errant shell".

It brings us back to the idea that Israel is trying and accomplishing, the elimination of the remnants of a nation they stole with the help of U.S. and England in 1947 and 1948. Israel has never done the U.S. any favors, of any kind, but they have openly attacked a U.S. Navy ship killing dozens of American sailors, and they have given Americans plenty of shame.

Here is what Rafah Today published 6 June 2006, about Israel's unique way of crashing a beach party at Gaza:

Injured children in Gaza

BLOODY WEEKEND: Here is the place of the crime, the time was simply in a beautiful sunny day when a family decided to go for a beach picnic to enjoy themselves, the victims were a family laying down on the Gaza beach enjoying their happy moments, and then, all the time enjoying themselves, all the children, father and mother have been killed together, their bodies has been scattered into the sand of the beach. A sunny day at the shore turned suddenly tragic for Palestinians picnicking in the northern Gaza Strip Friday, when an apparent errant Israeli shell fire tore through a group of beachgoers, killing seven, wounding over 40 people.

Broken camping tables, childrens' sandals and lumps of flesh lay on the sands of Gaza's Sudania beach Friday after the Israeli shelling of a picnic party left seven dead. The death of family and the crying of the 12 years child girl have been shown in all TV channels, such photos of the child whom was enjoying her time and then an Israeli rocket hit all her family leaving all their bodies scattered into many parts. Such videos made the spokesman of the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas cry while he was on the live interview at Palestine TV. The videos of the child trying to wakeup her father, her mother and all sisters was shocking enough to make people weep, as a result of this promotes the military wing of Hamas to declare an end to its 16-month-old voluntary cease fire.

Eyewitnesses in the area said:" it's the Israeli warships which shelled the family while they were enjoying themselves on the Gaza beach".

Israel's way of crashing a family beach party, or committing genocide, you pick...

PBC News reported at the time: "This evening seven citizens were martyred and 30 others were severely wounded, including dozens of women and in a new Israeli massacre, when Israeli war speed boats, shot at beachgoers on the coast at the Gaza beach in the Sundanea area Northwest of Gaza City. Most were the children of Ali Ghalia, his wife Rye Ghalia who was 26. Sabrina 8, Haitham 1, Zebren 8, Anadia 2, Ilham 7, and Halia 15.

The newscaster whose Arabic words are translated to English, concludes the story by saying, "Glory and eternity to our glorious martyrs."

This happens every time Israel kills another Palestinian; a tremendous loss revered as a martyr, but still the Palestinians remain non violent, and still they are slaughtered. This is not a defense of Islamic militarism; it is about families being slaughtered by trigger happy Israeli sailors during a day at the beach. Western people, Americans more than any others, would never put up with it if they really knew how heartless Israel is toward the Palestinian people on a daily basis.

I can understand sometimes why so many are willing to give their lives in an effort to kill their enemies. Some you could say, are probably not going to find a more rewarding use for their lives. If that was my family on the beach, and I had survived to see that, I believe I would go to great length for the sake of revenge. Is that terrorism? In Israel it is, yet the act of attacking a family on the beach is not... it defies all logic.

The YouTube user who posted this video, sirine28, deactivated the comment option on the video about Palestine, because there are silly people who made really insolent comments about Islam. With respect to that sentiment, we will not allow disrespectful comments about this unfortunate family. Don't bother wasting your time. All comments that are respectful will be considered.

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Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines.

Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several others including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com




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Mark G Kirshner,Esq May 14, 2010 8:20 pm (Pacific time)

mv7Antisemitic bullcrap. The Palestinians are pawns in intranet Arab politics. The IDF is an ethical army acting to safeguard the state from terrorists and their fellow travels like the author. There are more than a million Arab citizens of Israel. Yet the Arabs drove all Jews from areas they controlled at the time of the 1949 armistice. Jews and Christians couldn't worship in Jerusalem under Jordanian rule. Under Israeli rule all are allowed freedom of worship. No sympathy for the terrorists you love so much. There will always be some accidental loss of innocent life in any war especially when the enemy embeds itself with civilians ashuman shields.If you were a US Marine I thank you for your service -- now just shut up before I ask how much collateral damage you mat have caused.

Tim King: Mark, what are you trying to get away with here?  "If I was a Marine" is kind of funny; the fact that you have to begin with something close to profanity is the most predictable tactic in the world.  Again, another really generic attempt to justify Israel's genocide.  The thing is, the IDF is not a disciplined or moral force by any account.  I wonder how any group where every member is there by conscription, could be what you describe.  I think it is hardly a military force at all, other than the guns and the ratty, torn up disgraceful uniforms they are allowed to wear. (sandals?)  I could laugh with that and see it as cool if they weren't an army of oppression.  This very story, as simple as it gets, is testimony that this is anything but an idea moral military force.  No doubt there are good people in the ranks, and that is a good thing.  Every now and then we hear about these really cool IDF soldiers and commanders who give Palestinians a break and some respect.  Believe me, they notice.  If that single thing could increase, hope follows exponentially.  The history is documented, yes Arabs pushed back, I would have too, but in all fairness if I were a Jewish person in this period, I am sure I would have been in Israel.  So, let's concentrate on what has to change, seek resolution and a reduction in violence, if you are in Israel, write to your elected officials and tell them to allow the peace marches to happen without arrest.  Tell them to stop building settlements, and at least honor the two state solution idea, not that many believe that is possible any longer.  Finally, I to great fortune did not go to war as a Marine, all of my time in war has been as a correspondent and news photographer.  

Arabs are Arabs, Zionists can also be terrorists, there is no factual way to deny it.  We want peace for this part of the world, Long live Palestine!


Oregon Reader April 8, 2010 3:29 pm (Pacific time)

Were these people in the video running so fast because they were afraid they would be targeted next by the Israeli "security" forces? This is one of the saddest things I have seen!


Tariq Khan April 8, 2010 7:53 am (Pacific time)

Thank you for posting this video. I was aware of this incident but had not seen the images. the video brings home the criminality of the "most moral" military in the world.


gp April 8, 2010 3:48 am (Pacific time)

I don't recall seeing this story in the press at the time, though it may have been. However, we never, ever miss out on the "free press" telling us of terrorist rockets (some useless weapon made in a garage by a teenager usually) that were shot into Israel and harmed no one. Then we hear all about frightened Israeli children who had to go to a bomb shelter. There is no shelter for Palestinian chlidren, they have no place safe to go. Their whole life is a slaughter. What is the world waiting for, 8,000 men and boys murdered like Srbrenica?

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