From Ian:
'IDF is a moral army fighting in an immoral neighborhood'
Good Enough for the EU: Hungary to Build Anti-Migrant 'Wall'
'IDF is a moral army fighting in an immoral neighborhood'
Israel Defense Forces Capt. (res.) Matan Katzman spoke Wednesday before the Human Rights Subcommittee of the European Parliament in an effort to counter recent testimony by Breaking the Silence, an organization dedicated to exposing alleged wrongdoings by the Israeli army.Israeli Soldier Testifies to EU Human Rights Committee
"The IDF is a moral army fighting in an immoral neighborhood," said Katzman, who serves in the Givati Brigade and was speaking on behalf of StandWithUs, an educational organization for Israel advocacy, and the My Truth initiative, which gathers IDF soldier testimonies.
Katzman co-founded My Truth with fellow soldier Avichai Shorshan in response to a damning report released by Breaking the Silence about IDF conduct during last summer's Gaza conflict. When the group sought to export their testimony to European audiences, the My Truth organizers felt something needed to be done about the unfair portrayal of the IDF.
"Behind every Israeli soldier there is a human being, a human being that has to go out and defend his country, although he faces the complexities of war," Katzman said to the EU subcommittee.
Describing Operation Protective Edge, Katzman said,"During last summer's war, the Israeli army aborted and cancelled multiple missions from air and from ground in cases where Palestinian civilians were present, or we even thought they were present."Our policy is so concrete and clear that Hamas is an expert on it and uses it to their advantage. They place snipers in schools and hospitals, they stock weapons in homes. U.N.-funded medical clinics are used to booby-trap and to harm soldiers."
Good Enough for the EU: Hungary to Build Anti-Migrant 'Wall'
In Israel, the security fence has done an effective job of keeping Palestinian Authority Arab terrorists outside of Israeli communities – and other countries are learning from Israel's success. The latest is Hungary which, although it does not have the problem of Serbian terrorists sneaking over the border to carry out terror attacks in Hungarian supermarkets and coffee shops, is building 16 foot (4 meter) high fence anyway – to keep job-seekers from Serbia out.New video exposes provocation leading up to IDF soldiers beating Palestinian man
Hungary is part of the Eurozone, and is signed onto the visa-free Schengen program – and thus provides an excellent gateway for workers from Serbia, which is not a part of the Schengen zone, to enter Europe and look for work in the more affluent areas of central and western Europe.
Tens of thousands of migrant workers filter through the border with Serbia each year, and the EU – and Hungary – have had enough, according to Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, who at a press conference in Budapest Wednesday said that “immigration is one of the most serious problems facing the European Union today.” To prevent the migrants from coming in, he said, Hungary would build a fence with a four meter fence stretching for 175 kilometers (110 miles).
Hungary isn't the only EU country building an anti-immigration fence. Bulgaria has is building one along its border with Turkey to workers from the Arab world. In recent months, Turkey has taken in millions of refugees from Turkey and Iraq. Although most of them are restricted to border areas, reports say that thousands have managed to infiltrate the rest of the country, with many attempting to enter neighboring Bulgaria in order to find work in the EU.
A new video posted Tuesday exposed the full scope of events, including provocations, leading up to an incident on Friday in which four soldiers struck and verbally assaulted a Palestinian man during a violent disturbance in the village of Jalazun.
The unsettling video shows individuals, as well as those with press vests, repeatedly approaching the group of Kfir Brigade soldiers even after being repeatedly told to leave. Swarms of press photographers followed the soldiers constantly, waiting to catch the perfect moment, as firebombs are hurled at the soldiers.
The 10-minute-long video, posted by a group calling itself the International Solidarity Movement, shows this back-and-forth of provocations which culminated in a man being beaten. The much shorter video circulated by Palestinian media shortly after the incident, showed only the beating itself, without context.
An army investigation concluded on Sunday said that the situation occurred in the course of a lengthy violent disturbance that lasted for several hours, during which rioters hurled firebombs and large rocks at soldiers. A platoon commander was injured by a rock thrown at his face and suffered a suspected eye socket bone fracture.
The Palestinian man seen in the video approached the soldiers and attempted to create a provocation, the investigation found. “After ignoring calls by soldiers to stop, and grabbing the weapon of one of the commanders, commanders decided to utilize force to arrest him,” the army said.
















