Robbie Sabel is a lying piece of shit

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This offence to humanity has a CiF piece up trying to defend Israel's brutality in Gaza at the start of the year with lies, misrepresentation and dissemblement. I did my best to reveal this but I just lost heart at the end. You just know this sort of scum can't be convinced with rationale arguments.

Robbie Sabel dissembles, misrepresents and outright lies to defend Israel's war crimes. Let me tell you how:

>> "Hamas knowingly and deliberately targeted civilians and civilian targets in Israel and based itself in civilian areas, but this does not exempt Israel from having to apply the rules of war to its hostilities with Hamas."

The argument of "two wrongs don't make a right" is easy to apply here. Irrelevant of Hamas's conduct, the rules of war still apply to both the IDF and Hamas. You can condemn Hamas all you want but that doesn't excuse your own war crimes.

>>"the report should surely have explored why a military force needed to take action against an enemy in a built-up area at all."

No, it shouldn't . That is completely outside of the report's remit, as Sabel should know.

>>"The undisputed fact – that Hamas was deliberately operating from such areas to launch attacks on Israeli civilian targets – is simply ignored."

Another classic old chestnut. Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth. Its an enormous challenge NOT to operate from civilian areas. Doing so makes you easily visible and vulnerable to attack from Israel's drones flying overhead. The Hamas fighters aren't stupid.

>> "It might also have been instructive for investigators to examine how far the staff of Unwra, which is composed mainly of local Palestinians from Gaza, was working with Hamas, whether out of fear or ideological belief."

Why would this have been instructive? Hamas is the democratically elected government of Gaza. Why would UNWRA not have been working with them? Sabel is trying to imply that the Gazan staff of UNWRA were conspiring to use UN facilities to aid Hamas' military operations. A lie the Israelis repeat ad nauseum despite the admissions of their own officers that the alleged gunfire they were retaliating against when the IDFshelled UN buildings in Gaza was fabricated.
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/1054009.html

>> "The Israeli army took unprecedented steps to avoid civilian casualties. "

This is such a breath-taking lie that I can hardly bring myself to continue. As reported by Media Lens and the LA Times many IDF soldiers have reported being given orders that explicitly advocate ethnic cleansing of occupied Palestinian territory, including the use of lethal force.
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/09/090330_children_of_darkness.php
http://tinyurl.com/cl7wtq

>> "The ICRC has confirmed that there was no evidence that these [white phosphorus] shells had been used in an illegal way."

This is another breathtaking piece of dissemblement. The ICRC did not make the statement that Sabel quotes. Peter Herby, head of the Arms Unit at the ICRC, made the observation that white phosphorus was not illegal IF IT WAS USED "to create a smokescreen or illuminate a target". The IDF seized upon this statement and repeatdly quoted it in defence of their use of white phosphorus as an antipersonnel weapon and in civilian areas, which is clearly prohibited under international law. Even after the ICRC clarified their position in subsequent press releases the IDF spokescum, Mark Regev, continued to lie to the press.
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/81726/section/6

I'm sorry, I can't bring myself to go any further with this. Sabel's chutzpah is simply overpowering. I hope I have opened a few people's eyes to the nature of Israeli propaganda and the inhumanity of monsters like Sabel.

Addition:

LOLcomment.



Addition:

The fucking moderators have deleted it! WTF?

I have emailed the following to Georgina Henry:

Dear Georgina,

I posted a comment at 10:32am on to Robbie Sabel's Cif article of 7th May with the text in italics below. A moderator deleted this post and I would be grateful if you could share the reason for this with me as I felt that the comment was neither offensive nor irrelevant? I took some time and went to considerable lengths to research the evidence contained within the post and was disappointed to see it deleted, particularly as it garnered six recommendations in the short period of time that it was 'up'.

Grateful thanks,

Addition - 10/05/09:

Reply from CiF moderator:

Dear - - --,

Your message was forwarded to me by Georgina.

As our community standards state, we do not permit any abuse of community members, either above the line authors or below the line commenters.

Although you say you felt your comment was not offensive, you did describe the author as a "monster."

Best wishes,

Adam

Community Moderator

I think this is pretty fair, actually. I stated that I felt my post wasn't offensive. What I should have said is that my post wasn't overly offensive. Calling Robbie Sabel a monster is like calling the sea wet. That is what it unequivocally is; as Sabel- with his lies and misrepresentation of the murder of civilians- unequivocally is a monster.

Anyway, I'm sure he relishes having such epithets directed at him so more fool me for lacking the restraint to refrain from tacking that on to the end of my post.