As reported last night here at Antiwar.com, the Israeli military is finally confirming today that British-Israeli soldier Lt. Hadar Goldin, claimed at the time by the military as “kidnapped,” died yesterday, and was never in Hamas custody.
Speculation of Lt. Goldin’s “abduction” centered on the belief that he was taken by Hamas fighters during an Israeli attack on a tunnel, though the putative “kidnappers” were actually slain in heavy Israeli bombardment that immediately followed the tunnel fight, making it probable that, whether by Israeli fire or in battle, the soldier was slain during the ensuing incident.
The Times of Israel later offered a similar assessment, in a front-page article this morning they noted that the claims Hamas would be denying a kidnapping they actually did were not credible, as Hamas normally publicizes capturing Israeli soldiers.
Faced with this and a growing number of similar reports, the Israeli military finally today announced that they ruled Lt. Goldin killed in action, and that a military rabbi, under halachic law, declared him to have “died in combat,” regardless of the specific circumstances surrounding his death.
The Israeli military, certainly privy to all the same details of the media outlets covering the story, maintained the false narrative of a kidnapping for over a day, and it was only in the face of growing coverage to the contrary that they finally admitted to his death.
The false hope this gave to his family was devastating, and his family are still clinging to the “kidnapped” story they inexplicably were offered, unwilling to accept his death.
The use of the “kidnapping” in the official narrative toward escalation yesterday also looms large in this story, leading the Times of Israel’s Avi Issacharoff to offer an assessment heretofore unprecedented for the paper.
It should be noted that Hamas really is interested in a ceasefire. This is not a cautious assessment, or an Israeli misjudgment. Hamas itself is making this clear at every opportunity. Its representatives had even agreed that Israeli forces would remain inside Gaza during the 72-hour truce — something it had firmly opposed just a few days earlier. The situation in Gaza is getting worse by the day, and with it the pressure on Hamas to stop fighting.
As for Secretary of State John Kerry’s ceasefire work: One can only praise the effort he is making, but the 72-hour truce agreement, as published, did not specifically deal with IDF activities to find and demolish the Hamas tunnels. It did allow for Israel to leave the IDF in place in Gaza for the 72 hours, but did not talk of tunnel demolition. Thus, while Israel insisted that the IDF’s work on destroying the tunnels would continue during the truce, Hamas has stressed repeatedly that it did not agree to this. The lack of clarity in the ceasefire agreement on this issue may have been a factor in everything that played out subsequently.
Another lie by the parasitic worm Benjamin Netanyahu, who knew all along that the soldier was dead, killed by the barrage of artillery fire from the IDF. Obama now can apologize to the Palestinians for his quick rush to blame Hamas, but I guess he won’t that would make him look like a complete jackass.
Why did Ban Ki Moon and Obama come out with their strongest statements yet on the conflict condemning the capture of the soldier . This without any proof or verified evidence. Their statements helped provoke Israeli commanders in the field to wanton killing and destruction in Raffah. Not only is collective punishment a crime but Palestinians in order to protect themselves are fully entitled to take prisoners.
Why do valiant dedicated UN staff put up with the worst ever UN chief. He has done nothing of note but has enabled numerous conflicts to expand. His statements seldom show any support for UN ground personnel but if a minor idiot somewhere is accused of anti semitism he is in there like shot with his worthless advice.
Unfortunately, there is a man behind the curtain (or country behind the curtain) that is controlling things, and the UN chief must follow.
So now it is unlawful for the Palestinians to take prisoners, I just wonder what Israel would say if instead of taking a Prisoner, they just without a trial executed them! damned if they do and damned if they don't! Of course it would only be possible for Israeli soldiers to be captured if they are inside Gaza, and that means that they are the invaders!
Question how many Palestinians have been captured? Now that is a serious Question, we haven't heard how many have been captured is Israel working on execute on the spot policy?
How can you say an attacking soldier, in a one-sided slaughter that they are trying to pass off as a war, when he gets taken prisoner, is "kidnapped!?"
This implies that the soldier is innocent! Walking along, minding his own business, then kidnapped! Like a helpless little lamb child, the poor dear!
And we all know what a load of crap that is. He's a prisoner of WAR! What idiots would call him kidnapped with a straight face, expecting us believe it?? Who else but the holier-than-thou, bloodthirsty, narcissist israelis?
The weasel language and euphemisms employed to describe anything about this whole bloodbath, as well as the jewish Israelis overall, is not only sickening, it's pathetic and insulting.
We stupid cows are expected to revere them as almost god-like among mere men, their every move we are commanded to accept wholly without question or criticism.
SAINTS, every last one of them…each a fragile treasure to be exalted above all others. So special they can never do any wrong that can't be covered up or explained away.
They pushed it too far over the top, for too long now. The World According to The Chosenites routine and eternally negative press they can't seem to wash clean is wearing thin. Israel worship has finally jumped the shark.
There's a dynamism to this that defies reason, which means that tasteless things like jumping the shark are called great art in the world we live in. It means that a man who appears at the UN with a squinty face like a cartoon villain with his poster of a time bomb is taken for a dignified national leader.
Despite the truth you point out, as has been proven, it works. The Israelis know that if they control the words, they win. That's why they're almost always out front with their spin before anyone else has even taken a deep breath. It also allows their pets in the US Congress and the US media to take the talking points and run with them…which they do.
In Boston, the eleven o'clock news on WBZ, CBS Boston did some real hand-waving on this, in the service of the original narrative that the killing of the soldier was the cause of the end of the ceasefire. Juxtaposed with pictures of the flattening of whole blacks in Gaza was a very positive picture of Netanyahu talking about how Hamas will be stopped by whatever it takes. There was a scene of a service among friends of the dead soldier at a synagogue at his former university, the mention he'd been posthumously promoted to lieutenant, and a scene of his parents looking very determined even in the face of his loss. In short, the story was very detailed and very positive on further bombing by Israel, without a single photo of a "telegenic" Palestinian kid writhing in pain in a hospital.
Since we have provided Israel with all the arms it could possibly want, there need be no moral weighing of the situation in the balance. I see there is a big contrast with the "Troubles" in another foreign country, Northern Ireland, where each side got a listen, even though Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were great friends. I don't see any warmth between Netanyahu and Obama, but the machine which provides the Israeli leader with his war toys keeps churning them out. To ask why is to ask the unspeakable.
The act of new fascism don't understand colors or positions of that or this man, but they act their nature when they feel their superiority. Hitler was a fascist when he was born, yet he didn't act as one until he got to have position to show that he was a fascist. So goes for Netanyahu and the rest.
How ironic that 66 years ago, after the massacres and torture marches of Palestinian Arabs from Lydda and Ramle in July of 1948, some Jews favoring a just binational solution pointed out that this inhuman treatment of refugees was all too reminiscent of what some of them had witnessed in Europe during the “final solution.” And indeed Moshe Sharett had described this new crime against humanity as a “lasting and radical solution” to the “problem” of indigenous Palestinian Arabs.
Today Palestinian sumud or steadfastness, an unwillingness simply to disappear, had led to such dehumanization among the Israeli Jewish elite — and I say this as Jew in the Diaspora — that they are evidently willing not only to kill “enemy” children, but their own soldiers as a better alternative for them than prisoner of war status.
Like denial of the Right of Return for Palestinian Arab refugees (including the many refugees of 1948 who live in Rafah or Raphia and elsewhere in Gaza, the Land of “Absentees”), killing one’s own soldiers to prevent their capture or prisoner of war status is a total negation of international law, and a crime against the law of nations as well as the basic sense of humanity and decency which that law represents.
Compare this inhumane practice with that of the great Kurdish and Islamic leader Salahuddin, whose generosity and hospitality to prisoners won him renown even in the anti-Muslim realm of Latin Europe. It is noteworthy that Salahuddin’s honored physician was the Rabbi Maimonides, whose problems while in the Holy Land stemmed not from Palestinian Arab (Muslims, Christians, and Jews), but from the Crusader occupation. Similarly the brutal ethnic cleansing carried out by the State of Israel over the last 66 years, from Deir Yassin and Kfar Qasim to Gaza today, must not be confused with the values of the Jewish people.
Warmonger Ban Ki Moon was installed by Amerika. That's all you need to know about this horrid situation.
In war soldiers "surrender" or get "captured". But "abducted" or "kidnapped"? Get real MSM. The Lindbergh baby was kidnapped. An IDF officer is not an infant. One supposes Luntz did a focus group on words that resonate and this was the best he could come up with to hide the reality of war vis a vis the ever innocent Israelis. Now it appears that the soldier is dead, probably by friendly fire and the IDF propaganda arm wrapped him in a diaper instead of a shroud. It is pathetic and insulting to his mourning family.
Good point. I wonder how many IDF soldiers have been killed by friendly fire?
Kidnapped???? The guy was part of a murdering, pillaging, army of usurpers, so hapless that he was captured by the almost helpless Gazans. He was lucky to have been captured alive. Innocent Palestinians are routinely murdered, beaten to death, and even burned alive by Israeli civillians and army /police in the Occupied West Bank. And that, is in peacetime".