That’s the headline of a PressTV report on a recent Channel4 interview given by Israeli government spokesman and Jew from Down Under, Mark Regev, a man who could do PR for any multi-death supercorp of his choice but chooses to work for the mother of all multi-death institutions. You can click the headline to read the report, but the clip itself is definitely worth the time to view.

Wow. Isn’t it great to see a journalist have an evildoer on the ropes like that? Isn’t it creepy to watch the evildoer just not care?

A couple of weeks ago, most of the world had never even heard of white phosphorus. Now, most of the world knows what it is, and we have Israel to thank for that. Or maybe Hamas. Just kidding. But the Orwellian instinct of the Israeli regime is no joke. It might serve them well in the upcoming war crimes trials (also no joke) or, on the other hoof, it might totally backfire. Do war crimes tribunals look for remorse in defendants?

If you think offhand that there is no way Israel is gonna be held accountable for their crass, murderous, and potentially epochal military attack on a seiged territory, then you should try to be more optimistic and read this superb story by Jonathan Cook for The National (UAE).

Israel acts to block war crimes charges (January 25)

Mounting fear in Israel that the country’s leaders face war crimes charges over their involvement in the recent Gaza offensive pushed officials into a frenzy of activity at the weekend to forestall legal actions abroad.

The urgency was underlined after rumours last week that Belgian authorities might arrest Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister, if she attended a summit of European counterparts in Brussels on Wednesday. In an indication of how seriously the matter is judged, Ms Livni’s advisers were on the verge of cancelling her trip when the story was revealed to be a hoax. Nonetheless, officials are braced for real attempts to arrest senior political and military figures following a warning from the country’s chief law officer, Menachem Mazuz, that Israel will soon face “a wave of international lawsuits”.

The rats are scared it seems. At the top of many people’s lists of war crimes charges that might stick is the use of white phosphorus. WP bombs scatter burning pieces of felt that produce a noxious, thick smoke. The burning felt is extremely hot, and sticky too. It will burn through clothes and skin leaving often fatal wounds. And the stuff tends to set buildings on fire, which is maybe why they used it on the UN aid distribution center. And the UN school on the last day of the offensive.

Mobile phone footage from Gaza shows the moment on 17 January when a UN school in Beit Lahiya was hit by shellfire. (video with story)

It seems as if Israel was using phosphorus, like, everywhere.

A stone’s throw from the fence with Israel (January 24, Amnesty LiveWire)

On a cold and misty morning, we travelled to the south-east of the Gaza Strip, to the town of Khuza’a, east of Khan Younis, only a stone’s throw from the fence that separates the Gaza Strip from Israel.

The Khan Younis area was less affected than some of the places in the north, where we have been working in the past week, but the patterns are all too similar: extensive use of artillery and white phosphorus in residential areas – which predictably caused death and injury to civilians and large-scale destruction of civilian homes and agricultural land – seemingly for the purpose of expanding the no-go area along Gaza’s eastern perimeter.

Things took a turn for the worse on 10 January, when Israeli air strikes and shelling began in earnest in the area. We found evidence of widespread use of artillery; the area is littered with 155mm white phosphorus carrier shells and we examined pieces from more than a dozen of them.

Several of these caused damage to homes and, in at least one case, produced a fatal injury. Lumps of smoking phosphorus felt wedges could still be seen lying in the streets.

The head of the hospital in Khan Younis told us that after the heavy bombardment of Khuza’a 100 people were admitted to hospital in 10 minutes suffering from shrapnel wounds, phosphorus burns and breathing difficulties. Doctors and nurses were overwhelmed.

Is it an open and shut case, or what? Hamas has already indicated it might be the first government to file war crimes charges against Israel at the ICC.

The Israeli leaders were supposedly thinking too much about election posters, and now they get WANTED posters — made by anonymous Israeli activists.

VISIT: www.wanted.org.il

So, apart from launching an internal investigation that found at least 20 WP shells were used and most definitely within the rules of war, Israel has taken some other interesting actions. More headlines anyone?

Names of commanders to be kept secret as Gaza weapons inquiry begins (January 22, Times)

...the army decided not to divulge the names of the battalion commanders who oversaw the battle in the overcrowded slums and cities of Gaza for fear that they could face arrest and prosecution for war crimes if they travelled abroad.

The army appointed an artillery officer, Colonel Shai Alkalai, to investigate a reserve paratroop brigade accused of firing the munitions…

That is a fantastic Times story that even gives a timeline of Israel’s backtracking on the WP incidents. And this BBC story could be called war crimes by numbers:

Israel forms war crime defence team

Daniel Friedman, the Israeli justice minister, has been appointed to lead a defence team should war crimes charges be brought following the 22-day war on Gaza.

... Eight Israeli human rights groups have called on the Israeli government to investigate allegations of war crimes given the scale of the casualties, describing the number of dead women and children as “terrifying”.

Richard Falk, a UN human rights expert, said on Thursday that there was evidence that Israel violated humanitarian law by conducting the offensive “against an essentially defenseless population“.

A total of 53 installations used by the United Nations Relief and Works agency (UNRWA) were damaged or destroyed during Israel’s Gaza campaign, including 37 schools – six of which are being used as emergency shelters – six health centres, and two warehouses.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, demanded on Tuesday that those responsible for bombing UN buildings in the Palestinian territory be made accountable and accused Israel of using excessive force.

Well, there you have it. The world is truly offended and pissed at Israel for acting like a ‘psychotic ptate’. American Jewish scholar and specialist on the Middle East, Norman Finkelstein argues that was always one of Israel’s objectives. He calls it a ‘satanic’ and ‘lunatic’ state.

But if you’re an Israeli, you should still feel proud, or so your leaders would have you believe. And if you committed war crimes for your country, your race, your cowardice or whatever reason, just relax. Ehud’s got you covered.

Israeli PM in war crimes pledge (January 25, BBC)

Any Israeli soldiers accused of war crimes in the Gaza Strip will be given state protection from prosecution overseas, the country’s PM has said.

...“The commanders and soldiers that were sent on the task in Gaza should know that they are safe from any tribunal and that the State of Israel will assist them in this issue and protect them as they protected us with their bodies during the military operation in Gaza,” he said.

And finally, here is a frank interview with Finkelstein about the recent Gaza massacre:

Shalom

(Originally blogged by me at  my blog, Debating Depleted Uranium, hosted at GNN.tv.)