Actuality | WORLD CONFLICT

These are the questions any journalist should ask the Israeli army
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Of Tossi Gurvitz
These are the questions any journalist should ask the Israeli army
Source: Comedonchisciotte
As these lines are written IDF snipers have killed more than 40 Palestinians near the Gaza barrier and injured others 2,200, a dozen are believed to have been mortally wounded. At the same time you read these words, the numbers have probably already gone up. IDF spokesman used to claim his snipers were 'in danger'. When you hear these words, think aboutoperazione Speedy Express.
Speedy Express was flown by the US Army's 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta in 1969. The US military claimed to have killed 10,899 opposing fighters. He just suffered 244 losses. Being in Saigon, a young genius called Alexander Demitri Shimkin, a veteran of civil rights marches, he perplexed his fellow journalists with a strange pastime: he took the trouble to actually read the official press releases and tabulated what was written.
After a few months, Shimkin put together a strange statistic: the 9th Division claimed to have killed 10,899 fighters but had only captured 748 weapons. Shimkin's conclusion was simple: the disparity between deaths and captured weapons means that the majority of those killed in Speedy Express were not combatants but civilians. It was problematic for Shimkin to find a publisher willing to publish this first example of data journalism and Newsweek published it only in 1972. Nonetheless, the publication caused a political firestorm, with the US military forced to take refuge in the desperate claim that “many guerrilla units were not armed with weapons”. Read More

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Actuality | Non-fiction

The Israeli earthenware vessel among the Western and Eurasian iron vessels
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This site adheres to ashtags #iostoconassad e #iostoconputin
Of Alastair Crooke
The Israeli earthenware vessel among the Western and Eurasian iron vessels
Source: Aurora site
The recent series of events leads Israel to retreat; the almeno, to a profound existential reflection, on the seventieth anniversary of the foundation. The depth of this rather anxious introspection became explicit in the discussion hosted by Yediot Ahronoth, the most important Israeli newspaper, among six ex-chiefs of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. The most direct eruption into this gloomy mood was the declaration to Knesset(parliament) according to which the population between Jordan and the sea was exactly balanced, 6,5 million on each side, between Israelis and Palestinians. Right, demographic equality would have occurred at some point, everyone knew it. It is therefore not a surprise; but it's a slap in the face of reality, nevertheless. These figures were published by the IDF and are therefore difficult to dispute. This moment of reality thus reduces the ability of certain Israelis to persist in the wishful thinking that the Palestinians are much less. This hugely symbolic twist is here, it has arrived. The question of what kind of state Israel will be is no longer theoretical. One of the six former directors of the Mossad, Pardo, answered the question what is it, according to her, the worst threat to Israeli national security?: “The worst threat, it is the fact that between the sea and the Jordan River there are almost identical numbers of Jews and non-Jews. The central problem from 1967 to date it is Israel, for the entire political leadership, it hasn't decided what country to be. We are the only country in the world that has not defined its borders. All governments have avoided it... If the State of Israel does not decide what it wants, in the end there will be a single state between the sea and the Jordan. This is the end of the Zionist vision“. Read More

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