Whitewash Protocol: The So-Called Investigation of Operation Protective Edge

Summary, Sept. 2016

Two years ago, in the summer of 2014, another "round of fighting" between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip took place. Israel called it Operation Protective Edge. In term of harm to Palestinians, it was the deadliest and most destructive bout of hostilities since 1967. During Operation Protective Edge, Israel killed 2,202 Palestinians (500 children) [twice the number Hamas terrorists killed on 10/7], hundreds of them in their homes. Sixty-three percent, or 1,391, did not take part in the fighting, including 526 minors. It is estimated that 18,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged and that more than 100,000 Palestinians were rendered homeless.

This extensive harm raised grave concerns that Israel had breached international humanitarian law (IHL). The only official body in Israel supposedly investigating these concerns is the Military Advocate General's Corps (MAG Corps), which announced that it had begun its investigations before the fighting ended. However, much like investigations into previous rounds of fighting, once again, there are no investigations of the true culprits: Neither government officials nor senior military commanders, who devised the policy, were responsible for the orders and made operational decisions during the fighting - were ever investigated by any official body nor held to account for their responsibility for the devastating effects of their decisions.

The ruins of the al-Haj family home where 8 family members were killed. (Photo: Muhammad Sa'id, B'Tselem, 10 July 2014)

Two years after the fact, there has been no investigation of policy issues, including the policy of targeting inhabited homes, which resulted in the Israeli military killing hundreds of people; the policy of indiscriminate artillery fire at inhabited areas; and the policy of destroying farmland and thousands of homes.

Settler violence and .... "price tag" acts of attrition | 972+ Mag - 11 June 2011 |

I abhor all murderous acts by any means. Young promising lives taken ... these too are civilians, lives taken for some personal revenge? Should we call it a "price tag" act in the words of illegal settlers on the West Bank and East Jerusalem?

The alleged killer referred to personal memory of Operation Protective Edge.

A very nice summary published by B'Tselem in 2016

Whitewash Protocol: The So-Called Investigation of Operation Protective Edge

Personally I have written much covering these events and expressed my horror ... the United States has a responsibility to act ... see the R2P principle of regime change in the 21st Century of Pax Americana.

Some headlines from 2014 ...

PM Netanyahu embattled with discontent within his cabinet and a threatening 3rd intifada when some of his settler supporters went on a rampage in Greater Jerusalem, decided to punish the Palestinians collectively.

Rabbi Shalom Shlomo Lewis of Congregation Etz Chaim in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, Georgia gave a sermon on September 29, 2014, Rosh Hashanah, one of the High Holy Days in the Jewish religion, to call for the genocidal slaughter of Muslims.

Hasbara is a dead language

Atlanta Rabbi Shalom Lewis Calls for 'Holy Crusade' Against Radical Islam

"They are all the same," he said. "Hezbollah. Islamic Jihad. Al Shabab. Muslim Brotherhood. Boko Haram. Al Qaeda. Taliban. Iran."

Lewis declared, "The fury of ultimate evil is upon us and we must act -- not to contain it. Not to degrade it. Not to manage it. Not to tolerate it, but to exterminate it utterly and absolutely."

The rabbi defined this war a "holy crusade," and referred to adherents and sympathizers of these groups in terms that appeared to place them outside humanity.

"We are dealing with a moral species that eats its own, kills its young and celebrates innocent death as homage to God," he said. "These Islamist criminals are unlike us in the most basic of ways and we have yet to accept and understand their total immersion in moral debauchery."

Jihad is Jihad ... Terror in its most ugly form ... Holocaust and Nakba ethnic cleansing 1948-2025