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The foolishness of trying to hide deadly mistakes

The Israeli state appears to be doing the same thing that the British state does when it accidentally shoots the wrong person. The latest horror in which a Palestinian family were hit by a shell whilst on a beach is a case in point. The Israeli military is now claiming that it was not a naval shell that had caused the unintended deaths but rather some unexplained mine or old buried shell in the sand which just happened to go off at or about the same time as an Israeli gunboat was shelling a terrorist target in the Gaza strip.

Well that story is coming unravelled and it is a marvel that they thought any reasonable person would believe that during a bombardment from the sea over the heads of the innocent victims, this explosion just ‘happened’ by complete coincidence.

Any critical observer should realise that the Israeli military had no interest in killing the hapless Palestinians who died when one of their rounds went short, so why not admit it was a terrible error and move on?

All concocting fairy tales does is confirm the prejudices of those who see the official Israeli line as being fundamentally untrustworthy. Hamas and their useful idiots in the west will not believe anything done by the Israeli state is not done out of pure malevolence regardless of the facts, so they can be ignored. Israel’s ethno-nationalist cheerleading squad will just assume anything Israel does under any circumstances is completely justified regardless of the facts, so they too can be ignored. However between those two poles of mindless unreason exists a large group of people who tend to judge things on the basis of ‘reasonableness’ and the likely facts.

What the Israeli military spokesman should have said was: “Whilst firing on a legitimate terrorist target, one of our shells went short. It is unclear if this was due to a firing error or a defective round, and as a result some innocent bystanders were killed. We are truly sorry that happened and we wish like hell that the sons of bitches we really were trying to kill did not keep putting us in the position of having to do things like this”.

Mistakes happen and in war, mistakes cost lives. Admit the truth and move on because in the long run it actually helps your cause if people have reason to believe what you say.

51 comments to The foolishness of trying to hide deadly mistakes

  • “so why not admit it was a terrible error and move on?”

    Because it’s looking more and more like the “terrible error was a “Palestinian work acccident,” caused by a Pali rocket attack gone wrong.

    The Israeli “shelling” was pretty phenomenal, since the “shell” exploded far from the firing boat, 45 minutes later and in a different direction than the boat was known to have been firing.

    The mistake was on the part of the spokesman, who let Israel take responisibility for something that is looking more and more like a Hamas operation.

  • And my guess is that cirby falls into this article’s second category of people who can be ignored.

  • Vicky

    It does look like an Israeli screw up with even fairly pro-Israel papers carrying stories like this.

  • Vicky – still, I think it would be wise to reserve judgement. The “American munitions expert” quoted in that article works for Human Rights Watch who seemed unusually anti-Israel long before details of the incident came to light…

    I have a feeling this is a “wait and see” issue.

  • I find anything Human Rights Watch or the Palestinians say inherently suspect, that is, outright lies. Ditto the Guardian, which also has to mention the Mohammed Dura death, which has been analyzed to show that the fatal shot was not from Israeli guns. More important, even if the shell was from an Israeli gun, it is the Palestinians who both motivated the response and purposely, repeatedly use their civilians as shields and celebrate civilian Jewish deaths. Was it an accident that the targets of the shells were “just over the heads of the innocent victims”? But there is still no objective evidence to show that an Israeli shell killed these people. And if the final analysis does show it was the Israelis’ fault, I have every confidence they will climb down, as did the British police. The Palestinians never would.
    Perry says, naively, “Any critical observer should realise that the Israeli military had no interest in killing the hapless Palestinians”. But that is exactly what the Guardian and many others who consider themselves “critical observers” do think, that Israelis purposely and malevolently kill innocent Palestinians, which is a lie. And that is exactly why they cannot be believed without more than I see here.

  • M4-10

    It seems prudent to me to wait for the cycle of argument and counter-argument to run its course on this rather than fix on a conclusion. I believe this is a big part of rationality.

    Unless this isn’t a quest for truth, but rather a quest for the most expedient and least damaging way to deal with a bad situation. In which case it may (or may not) be the best course of action for the Israelis to simply confess whether they did it or not so the issue goes away faster. This would be similar to settling out of court instead of going to litigation.

  • I’m reminded of the Serbian claims that the deaths in a Sarajevo market caused by a Serbian mortar (which in turn lead to NATO airstrikes on Serbian artillery positions in the hills around Sarajevo) were in fact caused by the Bosnians shelling their own people. That was cobblers (though much beloved by Chetnik fantasists) and the Israeli claims are no doubt complete bollocks as well

    Like the author implies, anything to do with Israel seems to produce something like Bush Derangement Syndrome in otherwise sane people (on all sides of the political divide).

    Perry, I’d bet good money that you’ll soon be accused of being both an apologist for Israeli crimes against Heroic Palestinian Freedom Fighters and an Israel hating anti-Semitic racist for daring to suggest the IDF might make mistakes or be less than perfectly truthful.

  • brett

    Oh, come on. You ask people not to prejudge the situation, yet you do exactly the same thing? That article is pure speculation – “It takes about a half an hour to get from the beach to the hospital..” What a load of crap. Very disappointing from this blog.

  • Aretaic eudemonics:

    Your snide little comment aside, the article above seems to have been written about two days before anyone actually got any real info. The blogosphere has been looking at the event, and it’s looking more and more like someone was doing something stupid on the beach, blew themselves (and a number of others) up, and took the standard “blame Israel” line. Luckily for them, they had a dumbass Israeli military spokesman who went for the apology before finding out if there was anything to apologize for.

    It’s not my fault you and Perry fell for it.

  • Eric

    Perry,

    It seems a bit early to be dismissing the Israelis’ explanation. Clearly the Palestinians have blamed every self-inflicted incident on the Israelis in the past, so there’s ample reason to doubt both versions of the story.

    I looked at the video that’s been circulating in the aftermath of the explosion. It really does have the “made for TV” look to it, which lends credibility to the Israelis as far as I’m concerned.

  • the manxome foe

    My money is on the military wanting to hold their hand up for this, which explains the early admission and apology (based on what is obvious to anyone looking at this in good faith), but the government did not want to take the heat and so ordered them to come up with a daft story, which explains the backtrack.

    They know that the people they care about (such as their important US supporters) will believe almost ANYTHING they are told if it makes Israel not look bad. Face it, no one ever lost US support by accusing the Palestinians of something (given their astonishing history of mendacity and deception, the Palestinians are an easy target).

    The Israeli military is very professional and famously self-critical (which is why they are so effective): the Israeli government, like all governments, is full of professional politicians, who are of course all liars. The IDF is under civilian control…It’s not hard to see the dynamics at work here unless you are wearing blinkers.

  • Since when is throwing artillery into civilian areas “legitimate”? People die and all you care about is that the fascist state of Israel should be more believable? Its ok for Israel to murder people just as long as they are honest about it? When the occupation of Palestine is ended, then and only then will people stop dying.

  • It seems a bit early to be dismissing the Israelis’ explanation

    I am not, it is just that I believe the first one they gave.

  • Its ok for Israel to murder people just as long as they are honest about it?

    So let me guess… you think the people behind the slaughter of Israeli civilians by design, not accident, are morally superior, eh?

    Oh, I see your link is to Indymedia. Quelle surprise.

  • jrdroll

    “When the occupation of Palestine is ended, then and only then will people stop dying.”

    Gazaland isn’t occupied moron. Update your BS talking points.

  • Pete_London

    Yep, it still remains to come out in the wash. If an IDF shell killed those people on the beach then of course Perry’s view is the reasonable one. However, when you take the word of the Jew-bashers at the Guardian and Human Rights Watch you’re taking the word of those who reported that Mohammed Dura was killed by the IDF and the word of those who reported that there was a massacre at Jenin. They did that because in both cases they wanted it to be true. When it comes to Israel the MSM is the last place you go to for the truth.

  • Sure Pete, and but for the initial IDF acceptance of blame I might agree in this case too. But it does seem a bit of a stretch that Hamas could have orchestrated this at such short notice unless they were clairvoyant enough to know the Israeli navy was going to be shelling someone just then.

    Is it possible that it was not an Israeli shell gone astray? I suppose so, but that does not seem the most likely explanation.

  • “but it does seem a bit of a stretch that Hamas could have orchestrated this at such short notice unless they were clairvoyant enough to know the Israeli navy was going to be shelling someone just then.”

    Considering that they had a camera crew on site, “short notice” is probably not the best description. There’s enough gunfire at various places in the vicinity that they can blame pretty much anything on anything. I’d also like to point out that it took 45 minutes from the “shelling’ to the time the explosion happened. It probably started out as a “look at this great anti-Israel operation,” and devolved into “they shot at innocent beachgoers” once the rocket blew up.

    Of course, the fact that the “victims” cleaned up all of the shrapnel and made it disappear throws a bit more contrast on the issue. It’s going to be interesting to see what sort of fragments are recovered from the one or two people who went to Israeli hospitals…

  • jrdroll

    Who was filming this might be interesting to know?
    Oh bye the way: Is anyone cocerned about the rockets fired from Gazaland into Israel?

  • How many innocent Jews grievously wounded by Palestinian suicide bombers have been treated at Palestinian hospitals? Anyone? Bueller?

  • I’d also like to point out that it took 45 minutes from the “shelling’ to the time the explosion happened.

    Not according to the hospital report.

    Oh bye the way: Is anyone cocerned about the rockets fired from Gazaland into Israel?

    Terrorism based in Gaza is why I described the shelling as directed at legitimate terrorist targets, so how is that relevent?

  • Pete_London

    Perry

    I don’t regard it as a bit of a stretch that Hamas could have orchestrated this at such short notice. The Palestinians have a history of slurring the IDF and I’d be surprised if they didn’t keep stockpiles of evidence to roll out at the right time. From what we know I admit I haven’t a clue what was the most likely chain of events. I don’t know if Gaza beaches have been mined, I don’t know if families are in the habit of strolling on them, I don’t know what the odds of rogue Israeli shells are nor what the odds are of the IDF having indisciplined gunboat commanders.

    I simply smell a rat at this point because I do know that the Palestinians have plenty of previous when it comes to lying. They have plenty of previous in using their own children as human shields in firefights with the Israelis and then parading their bodies to a grateful press. Strapping your child into a semtex waistcoat is the height of ambition for many in this society. I just don’t believe a word they say, they lost the right to have their word believed at face value a long, long time ago.

    The Guardian, the BBC and Human Rights Watch piling in on the side of the serial liers reminds me of Jenin. Until the full facts are known and the IDF justifiably condemned I won’t believe a word of the Palestinians.

  • rosignol

    Sure Pete, and but for the initial IDF acceptance of blame I might agree in this case too. But it does seem a bit of a stretch that Hamas could have orchestrated this at such short notice unless they were clairvoyant enough to know the Israeli navy was going to be shelling someone just then.

    That depends.

    IIRC, it’s standard procedure for the Israelis to take some action against places that the radar track indicates a rocket, mortar, etc came from. Hamas would know this (along with just about everyone else in the West Bank), and it’s quite possible that Hamas did something provocative and had camera crews on hand to record the retaliation. Why would they do this? Simple- they need to shore up public support, and distracting everyone from their incompetent administration by manufacturing an incident with the evil Zionist oppressors ™ is an easy way to do it.

    I’m going to withold judgement on this one until more facts are known. While I don’t think the Israelis would deliberately kill civilians, anyone can screw up, and the Palestinians have repeatedly demonstrated a penchant for stretching, folding, spindling, and mutilating the truth.

  • Sporklift Driver

    Somewhere around here I’ve got an article on clearing minefields with artillery fire. So it’s not impossible that a mine was detonated by concussion from nearby shelling. Of course if the target was THAT close to the blown up bystanders an errant shell becomes likely. Was the beach where this happened close to the target? Did this happen during, or sometime after the attack?

  • Alice

    It would be easier to get worked up over this if the BBC and the rest of the usual suspects would get similarly exercised when Palestinians kill Palestinians — which seems to be a daily, albeit under-reported, phenomenon. Factional violence; suspected “collaborators” pulled out of their homes and murdered in the streets, without the benefit of legal process; ordinary but widespread criminality.

    So dead Palestinians are of no concern to our moral guardians — unless they can blame the Jews. And if they can’t blame the Jews, they lose interest. Seems like a reasonable example of anti-Semitism.

    Interesting that our Mr. de Havilland should take up the BBC line in this. Is this a demonstration of clear-headed even-handedness, or a teetering step onto the slide towards political correctness caused by prolonged exposure to London life? Maybe we need a word for that unfortunate phenomenon –Camerooned, perhaps?

  • Something smells about the whole row. And yes its tres worrying to see Perry take the Beeb “always blame it on Israel” line.

  • lucklucky

    The Guardian has ZERO credibility for this kind of analysis. HRW the same, they didnt even ever issued anything about Qassam rocket launching against Israel.
    Palestinians even less for their staged cameras use.

    That said it can be like Perry says and i agree with is opinion or like Israel, they indeed probably by reflex accepted (The Prime Minister even wrote to Abbas appologising) but then something changed. I find a little bit strange to apologise and then cover up.

    As a side note:
    I would very much like to know the non edited video of that tape.

  • lucklucky

    This piece by The Guardian also shows the lack of imagination to show the news.
    Where are the photos that show the attacked zone? A 155mm shell even exploding in the air makes a big hole in the sand. Where are all the data. The unedited cam video?

  • Jacob

    Like Perry and all other commenters here and in the media, I, too, don’t know the exact facts of the case.

    Still my guess is the opposite of Perry’s.

    There have been in the past more than a few incidents of accidental death caused during military operations. Israel has always accepted responsibility and apologized. Seems implausible that it would suddenly change course and try to lie.
    It’s more likely that the military people think they have evidence that proves their case.

    As I said, I don’t know the truth, but based on past patterns of behaviour, I would not dismiss the Israeli explanation. ( I, of course, can’t claim to be unbiassed myself…).

  • And yes its tres worrying to see Perry take the Beeb “always blame it on Israel” line

    Not at all, I just do not subscribe to the “never blame it on Israel” line either. I am not particularly pro- or anti- Israel, though I do sometimes see the Israeli state in “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” terms.

    The second official explanation just smells fishy and the hospital reports contradict the ‘revised’ timeline now offered by the Israelis. Israel is just a state like any other modern western state (and it is a western state) and those lie all the time when things go bad.

    The fact that the various Palestinian factions are famously dissembling is not relevant however. Sure, the Jenin fantasy was fabrication on a truly epic scale but that is not what we are discussing.

  • Michael Taylor

    Shocking lapse of scepticism on Perry’s part on a nexus (the BBC and Israel/Palestine) where scepticism is most absolutely necessary. Even a glance at the footage should have alerted Perry to this one. What happened?

    Should do better, IMHO.

  • I have just received an email (posted on my blog) from the surgeon who operated on one of the victims. He said he pulled Hamas mine fragments out of her body.

  • lucklucky

    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3264158,00.html

    German paper doubts Gaza beach reports

    German newspaper casts doubt on Palestinian claims that IDF shell killed seven family members on Gaza beach. How come Hadil Ghalia was seen wearing dry clothes after the Gaza beach attack when she was reported to have been swimming?

    (…) Many more in the link.

  • Frequent Flypaper

    Perry, Perry, Perry, why are you bothering? Your attempts to draw the obvious conclusions (a goof during an IDF gunboat shelling leads to Palestinians killed on beach), just like the IDF did before they were told to change their story, was never going to fly with the IIAC (Israel’s Internet Amen Chorus).

    Very soon VAST quantities data and claims and “proof” are going to burst forth in order to so completely fog everything that the truth (whatever it is) just gets lost in the sound and fury. The mere fact you treat Israel as just another state run by liars just like every other state rather than taking “Israeli Exceptionalism” as a given means that the IIAC already think you no doubt have an SS uniform in exactly your size hidden somewhere in your house. And of course the hospital logs showing that the timing fits the initial conclusion will get buried under all sorts of “new data” and in any case, everyone knows that people who work in hospitals that look after Palestinians cannot every be trusted to tell the truth because they must be BLEEDING HEART LIBERALS!

    Your article is PAINFULLY fair and you don’t even contest the right of Israel to fire shells into Gaza, which is why I find it so damn funny (yes I really do) that people are shocked, shocked, that you are departing from the Official Good Guys(tm) party line that Israel does not make mistakes and if they do, it was a Palestinian trick.

  • Andrew Parle

    Perry,

    It may have been a stray Israeli artillery round from land-based artillery, but it couldn’t have been a gunboat.

    Gunboats don’t carry 155mm artillery. You want to be a light-to-medium cruiser to have that. That’s 6″ in imperial measure.

    I haven’t come to a final conclusion, but considering the source I think HAMAS is most likely responsible, probably by accident although I wouldn’t rule out a deliberately manufactured incident. A telling point, to me, is HAMAS cleaning the site up before independent investigators could see it.

  • lucklucky

    “Your attempts to draw the obvious conclusions (a goof during an IDF gunboat shelling leads to Palestinians killed on beach”

    That shows the limits of your knowledge. Like Andrew above says and i add there is no 155mm operational gun in any warship in the world. There are tests in USA and Europe now that Littoral operations are more considered. Israeli ships have a 76mm gun that have a 6kg round. For comparison a 155mm round weights 44kg.

  • Frequent Flypaper

    Gunboats don’t carry 155mm artillery.

    And I kinda doubt Hamas has any 155mm or 76mm guns in Gaza either, so clearly Garlasco got that bit wrong no matter who did it and luckylucky’s remarks are irrevelent. But the timing still indicates it happened during the bombardment which still makes it most likely that it was an Israeli shell gone wild.

    But who cares anyway? The only people who died were A-rabs and they don’t matter and everyone knows that Israel never lies and The Choosen People never makes mistakes.

  • lucklucky

    “And I kinda doubt Hamas has any 155mm or 76mm guns in Gaza either, so clearly Garlasco got that bit wrong no matter who did it and luckylucky’s remarks are irrevelent.”

    Well my point was relevant to show you didnt know what you were talking about. Thanks to reinforce it again.

    Just Google about palestinian IED/Mines that are used to destroy/disable israeli tanks . They have around 50kg.

  • Jacob

    “people are shocked, shocked..”

    No, people are not shocked at all. We just beg to differ. Ignorant as we all are about the actual facts (that ignorance includes the reporters on whose stories we rely for evidence), all are free to guess as they feel inclined. That different people have different guesses isn’t shocking at all.

  • Since when is throwing artillery into civilian areas “legitimate”?

    When artilley shells (in the form of rockets) come out of those areas. Let’s face it. The Pals fire behind diapers and skirts to get casualaties for propoganda value.

  • Frequent Flypaper

    Well my point was relevant to show you didnt know what you were talking about.

    How’d you figure that? According to the hospital the timing fits and I never said anything about what caliber of artillery anyone was using, so what are you talking about? The Palestinians have explosives and the Israelis have artillery. And this is news?

    What happened was a vessel was shelling a target and people just happened to die on a beach. I realise you are desperate for people to think Israel is not responsible and there’s no link between these two events but that’s not the most likely explanation.

  • Well if that proves to be true that it was an unexploded round that had laid buried in the sand, I am happy to admit I was wrong.

    The change of story made me very skeptical of the Israeli claims and just because the Palestinians have a staggering history of fabrications and falsehoods, Israel is not above doing the same either. If that was not the case this time, well fair enough.

    However I make no apology for my default assumption that when things look fishy, the state is usually lying… and Israel is just a state.

  • lucklucky

    I said in my initial post i dont know. I also hinted that i put more crebility in IDF findings than in HRW or the Guardian ones. So i was balanced more to israeli side this reinforced by the movie.

    “What happened was a vessel was shelling a target and people just happened to die on a beach. I realise you are desperate for people to think Israel is not responsible and there’s no link between these two events but that’s not the most likely explanation.”

    If you support the HRW argument , they only refered to finding what appears to be a piece of a 155mm shell. See why it has a meaning to know what kind of gun the israeli warships have? Since they have a 76mm Gun…

    Unless you have some new theory that the Guardian or HRW dont support but you didnt explained the only conclusion i can take is that you didnt bothered to read
    the HRW or The Guardian text.
    Maybe because you didnt needed…you already had an opinion and you dont need details…

  • No, I just tend not to believe all the details when the ‘big picture’ seem to point elsewhere. The timing (astonishing coincidence that it happen on a beach during a bombardment from the sea) and the real clincher, the sudden change of story.

    Plus the fact that states lie whenever they think they can get away with it.

  • Garlasco admits he cannot disprove Israeli findings! See my blog.

  • The explosion didn’t happen “around the same time Israel was shelling terrorist targets”.

    The investigation shows the explosion occurred 8 minutes after the last shell was fired.

    There are heaps of doubts about the news footage of the beach too .. where was the crater, how come the girl who said she was in the water at the time of the explosion is perfectly dry, etc ?

    Its definately a “wait and see” situation.

  • One other thing I’d like to add – I wouldn’t generalise and say that this is an example of a state trying to hide deadly mistakes.

    After the initial news-flash of the explosion and resulting casualties, I was quite shocked to hear Israel gives its version of events and plainly admit that a naval vessel was indeed firing shells before the explosion. They didn’t deny anything at first, just said that an investigation would take place.

    Contrast that with what you might expect from North Korea or Cuba.. they would probably deny any naval vessel was in the area, that no shells were fired, and blame US propaganda for the accusations 🙂

  • Garlasco admits he cannot disprove Israeli findings! See my blog.

    You don’t quite “get” the whole bloggy etiquette thing, obviously. Link back to your own blog, sure, but “See my blog”? Sheesh.

  • Heh. Especially when it’s been covered only a few posts earlier.

  • lucklucky

    Perry, the quote i was answering isnt yours. So i wasnt commenting your post.