What Israel has done

The US inaugural festivities did what the Israeli administration and military planners hoped they would do.

Take the limelight off Israel.

Fortunately, the BBC is still on the job. Their reporter, Jonathan Miller, has a report that is appalling in the level of destruction.

As ThinkProgress noted on Jan. 8th:

Last night on The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC correspondent Richard Engel discussed Israel's refusal to let reporters into Gaza. "I've called everyday and said 'when are we going to be allowed in?'" he said, adding that one Israeli official "had an interesting explanation" for the situation. The official told Engel that Israel doesn't want reporters in Gaza documenting the humanitarian situation or revealing military tactics. Israel is trying to "manage the image" of the war, Engel reported, adding this:

ENGEL: This official told me he expects this operation, while negotiations are taking place, will last several more days. And that after that, reporters would eventually be allowed in. But at that stage, Israel is assuming the United States will mostly be focused on all of the coverage around the inauguration, and that viewers simply won't care at that point.

Miller quotes one man he interviewed as saying "the people who did this never want peace". He goes onto point out that over 50% of the population in Gaza is under the age of 14 and that such wanton killing and destruction has sown hatred in another generation.

Combine this destruction with the deaths of Dr. El-Aish's children and all of the other children and civilians' deaths which were not caught on camera or audio and an appalling picture emerges.

Diarist Inky99 pointed out this evaluation from human rights expert Richard Falk:

UN human rights expert and retired Princeton law professor Richard Falk said today that there is compelling evidence that Israel violated the laws of war by "conducting a large-scale military operation against an essentially defenseless population."

"There needs to be an investigation carried out under independent auspices as to whether these grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions should be treated as war crimes," the professor said, adding that he believes "that there is the prima facie case for reaching that conclusion."

"This is the first time I know of where a civilian population has been essentially locked into the war zone, not allowed to leave it despite the dense population and the obvious risks that were entailed," Falk pointed out, "the civilians in Gaza were denied the option of becoming a refugee."

Who is going to hold Israel to account?

U.S. tax dollars paid for so much of the overwhelming equipment and munitions that were used to destroy Gaza. Seems to me our government has some culpability in this result.