Selective Indignation

Remember Israeli General Gadi Shamni? He is the former commander of the IDF in Gaza, who expressed outrage at the alleged (and unfounded) case of a Palestinian gunman said to have carried a child as a human shield during a recent Israeli attack on Sejaiyya in the Gaza Strip, saying:

"It is impossible to say that we have not harmed innocent people... but when you see a photograph of an armed terrorist who is lifting up a Palestinian child and is crossing the road with him as a 'human shield,' during the most recent action in the Sejaiyya neighborhood, you understand with whom we are dealing."

As a outspoken champion of the rights of the Palestinian child, I am sure he will be positively apoplectic about this photo, taken on 15 April 2004 at the demonstration against the construction of the Separation Wall in Biddu:

(via Eli at lefti on the news, 22 Apr 04)

Four arrestees, including a 12 year-old boy, RHR Executive Director Rabbi Arik Ascherman, an additional Palestinian and an ISM activist, were used as human shields in Bido yesterday, Thursday, April 15. After local Palestinians and Israeli activists saw a young boy being beaten by border police, the boy's mother sent a Palestinian man to try and help him and Rabbi Ascherman also approached the police. Both were arrested, along with a Swedish ISM activist.

The boy, crying, shaking from fear and eventually cold, was sat on the hood of a jeep and tied to the bars protecting the glass. The other three arrestees were bound and placed in front of a second jeep...Rabbi Ascherman repeatedly requested over the next few hours that they not be used as human shields, that the boy receive medical attention, and that the officers identify themselves. He also asked to lend his coat to the child and to stand in front of the child to protect him from stones. All these requests were met with physical and verbal threats, orders to "shut up," and/or derision.

(Originally reported at Centres des medias alternatifs du Quebec)

Over to you, General Shamni. Tell us again about the kind of people with whom we are dealing.