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Tue, Nov 23, 2010 | By Rob Harris

Cliona Campbell (left) during her stint with the IDF (source: Sar El)

Cliona Campbell’s Claims and Wall’s Wily Whitewash

Cliona Campbell, a University Student, did two months of voluntary work for the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) this year.^[1] This act was unusual for a number of reasons. Was she a Jewish volunteer? No. Was she a member of an Israeli religious minority or a Christian evangelical? No. She came from the distant land of Ireland.

Many observers will know that Ireland is a significant source of pro-Palestinian sympathy^[2], for example Irish Republicans see the Palestinians as their spiritual brethren and the IRA had very close ties with the PLO. Since the new millennium Irish pro-Palestinianism has gathered to a fever pitch. One manifestation is the very distinctive over-representation of Irish nationals on the Gaza flotillas. In an environment of intense Pro-Palestinian sympathy, it is quite remarkable that this young woman, with no political axe to grind, not only sympathises with Israel but actually lifted her head above the parapet and volunteered to do work for the IDF, probably the most hated army in existence.

Cliona Campbell wrote an excellent article^[3] in the Evening Echo on the 16th July about her experience with the IDF. Before long her story made the national press in Ireland^[4] due to the abusiveness her article provoked from many pro-Palestinian sympathisers. The story also made an impact in Israel^[5] and internationally, such as in the Huffington Post.^[6] One example of the criticism she endured in Ireland is an extremely unpleasant article written by Bryan Wall entitled “Israel, Ireland and The Irish Girl”. It was published first in the Cork Student News on the 18th of August. It was removed from the site but was republished in the virulently pro-Palestinian website Indymedia^[7] and an extremist conspiracy site.^[8]

Wall’s article criticised a number of Cliona Campbell’s assertions in the Evening Echo. His response is interesting because it has two distinct motives. Firstly, it is obvious attempt to attack her personally. For example he stated “Most, if not all, of the facts contained within Miss Campbell’s article were either completely wrong or skewed in such a way as to obfuscate the truth of the matter.” “Obfuscate”, a rather grand word, means “to confuse, bewilder, stupefy”. Essentially he claims she attempted to mislead by lying most deceptively. Secondly, it is a further effort to demonise Israel by repeating a number of quite common pro-Palestinian misrepresentations. Wall focuses primary on three claims in her article, which he set out numerically to refute. His structure is retained for this counter refutation.

Cliona Campbell’s Claim 1:

“I had seen the Israelis suffer incessant rocket attacks from terrorists and, when they eventually retaliated, be castigated when the same terrorists placed their own civilian people in the line of fire as ‘human shields’.”

Mr. Wall responded: “Rockets are indeed fired into Israel on a regular basis. For example, during 2008, just over 3,000 rockets were fired from the Gaza strip into Israel. Most of these rockets, however, are rather crude and/or completely obsolete with most of them doing little or no damage at all. …” It is said that the rockets fired into Israel were home made or merely flares. In fact the rockets were Grad supplied by Iran and simpler TNT loaded Kassam. They have basic guidance systems but are still of a military grade. 100’s falling in towns a week prior to the Israeli response made life there unsustainable.

Regarding the 2009 conflict in Gaza, Wall wrote “… somewhere between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinians were killed…” The death toll has been steadily rising to 1,400 the past year. Whatever the figure, there can be no doubting that the price Gazan’s paid by electing Hamas was high indeed, for in 2006 Hamas publicly swore they would continue to make war on Israel. He compares this death toll with the small Israeli civilian death toll as if all the Palestinian deaths were civilian! Separating civilian and combatant deaths is critical but clearly difficult with terrorist organisations. The IDF stated at least 709 casualties were combatants. Call it propaganda but even the data of casualties produced by aggressive anti-Israeli NGO, Palestinian Center for Human Rights, shows that demographically around 70% of Gazan’s killed were males of the most relevant age for combat. This does not support claims of indiscriminate killing.^[9]

Mr. Wall continues: “Any civilian death is contemptible but the actions of a well funded, well armed and well oiled military power far outweigh the actions of a group of Palestinians whom are victimised on a daily basis.” As is commonly seen with apologists, he conflates the abusive ruling organisation, Hamas, with the Palestinians living there. Thus it sounds rather like a justification of Hamas’ activities.

Mr. Wall really stretches credibility by stating: “… it is worth noting that Miss Campbell brushed over the documented fact that the IDF regularly uses Palestinians civilians as human shields. This has been well documented with Amnesty International issuing a report in the wake of Operation Cast lead… In the same report Hamas was also criticised for its various violations of human rights but they “found no evidence Palestinian fighters directed civilians to shield military objectives from attacks…” To add further weight to the above, the Goldstone Report… also came to the same conclusions.” The truth is that Hamas are justifiably notorious for using human shields and taking battles into civilian areas for it has been a tactic by Hamas, Hizbullah and the PLO for many years. There are numerous clips of Gazan TV broadcasts featuring Hamas’ leaders saying they use human shields, e.g. to quote from a broadcast from 2008: “For the Palestinian people death became an industry, at which women excel and so do all people on this land: the elderly excel, the Jihad fighters excel, and the children excel. Accordingly [Palestinians] created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the Jihad fighters” [palwatch]^[10]

The February 2009 Amnesty report to which Wall refers, accuses Israel of war crimes based on flimsy evidence, such as weapons found on streets, school playgrounds, hospitals and homes. Yet these were the areas where thousands of Hamas’ rockets were also launched! NGO Monitor has found their reports knowingly “use false claims, rely on unreliable eyewitness reports, and omit evidence that contradicts their ideological goals.” NGO Monitor added “[They] are not professional forensic investigators bound by industry guidelines and standards; they are not military experts, nor are they privy to targeting and battle information; Amnesty does not reveal its research methodology (if any)…” They did not contact the IDF for information relating to objectives etc. often required to make determinations of war crimes.

As with the Goldstone report, Amnesty shamelessly repeated the verifiably false claim that 41+ people were killed in a UNRWA school in Jabaliya.^[11] Actually twelve were killed outside the school (nine were combatants), which the UN acknowledged. Amnesty has long been hostile toward Israel. They attacked Israel over the faked French TV report featuring the claimed murder of Mohammad al-Durrah. A report late last year falsely accused Israel of water apartheid, without even contacting Israel’s water authority! Very recently the director of the Finnish branch called Israel a ‘scum state’ and wouldn’t name another.^[12]

The Goldstone Report Mr. Wall cites has many problems. It was a UN equivalent of the Star Chamber, with a predetermined outcome: Israel committed war crimes. Before the mission began, three of its four members were shown to be partisan after having strongly criticised Israel. While in Gaza they were led by Hamas officials and witnesses couldn’t speak privately. Any chance of obtaining evidence against Hamas was lost; an obvious outcome as Hamas have a reputation for dealing with dissent very brutally. Brief criticism of Hamas is found in a few parts of this Report, seemingly as a ploy to appear balanced.^[13]

Cliona Campbell’s Claim 2:

“Israeli commandos came bearing mere paintball guns and handguns to control the mob. The Turks responded by setting upon them with metal pipes, knives and stun grenades, beating the soldiers.”

Mr. Wall replies: “… the commandos did not come “bearing mere paintball guns and handguns”. Live ammunition had been used before they boarded the ship with at least one of the victims having been shot from the air according to eye witness accounts.” He may perchance be relying on unreliable evidence. One high profile Flotilla passenger, Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Colonel and member of Code Pink, accused the IDF of the “murder” of “nine innocent civilians.” She claimed she was an eyewitness to the raid on board the Mavi Mariner. This raised a few eyebrows as she was a passenger on another ship a distance away, in the depth of night. She subsequently admitted in an interview with IMRA that she didn’t actually see the clash. This is one example of the reliability of the Flotilla “eyewitnesses”.

He goes on: “This was confirmed by a forensics report … which it stated that “some of the bodies were found to have wounds consistent with a bullet entering through the head from a high angle.” Now I am no forensics expert but couldn’t bullets entering from a high angle occur on a relatively large ship with several decks? This is more plausible as the clash occurred on several levels within the ship. Thus there is no immediate conflict justification for the violent response from the passengers. He mentions the use of rods. Subsequently, the captain claimed the rods were cut from the decking of the ship at a prior time with angle grinders. Anyone with doubts should see the videos where descending Israeli troops were battered around like rag dolls by a large mob wielding Iron bars. The simple fact of the matter is that if the Israeli’s fired on the crowd they would have anticipated a panicked violent response. They did not.^[14]

Wall states: “No firearms belonging to the humanitarians were found on board.” He fails to mention the presence of several handguns in his list of goods, and more revealingly, money belts containing very large sums of money (probably for Hamas) and bullet proof clothing. Is this not peculiar luggage for human rights activists? He also neglects to mention the grave injuries to the IDF boarding party and the refusal of the Flotilla organisers to deliver letters and parcels to Gilad Shalit upon his father’s request.

Mr. Wall really maxed out his own credibility when he wrote: “There has been no evidence that the humanitarians and those killed were terrorists or affiliated with terrorism in any way. The only thing that has come out thus far is hearsay and sheer propaganda.” The Mariner was owned by a group called IHH, a Turkish Islamicist NGO. Germany has recently decided to ban the IHH at a time when its own criticism of Israel is increasing.^[15] Non-Israeli sources (including Turkish) going back to the 1990’s state they are connected with Al-Qaeda and other jihadi organisations. A well known clip from an Al-Jazerra broadcast shows passengers on board talking about reaching Gaza or becoming martyrs, and chanting [Arabic] “Remember Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Muhammad will return”, a famous battle cry referring to Khaibar, a Jewish town in Arabia which Mohammad’s forces enslaved and slaughtered.^[16] Ken O’Keefe, an ex-US marine who became an Irish and Palestinian citizen, was on the Mavi Mariner. In the BBC Panorama documentary about the incident, he openly admitted that he had helped prepare certain passengers to violently resist the prospective IDF boarding party, and then took part in the fight.^[17] Serious violence only occurred on this ship. Mr. Wall would have us believe this is a mere coincidence.

Cliona Campbell’s Claim 3:

“The Gazans are far from needy. During the last 18 months, more than one million tons of humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from Israel, equalling nearly one ton of aid for every man, woman and child.”

Wall cites Mary Robinson to back up his assertion there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Is this by any chance the same person who presided over the Durban I anti-Semitic hate-fest? The US delegation is on record stating she facilitated these haters almost ‘til the end. He also cites Minister Micheál Martin. This was the same man who said a short time after the news of the shootings on the Mavi Mariner broke that the actions by Israel were unnecessary and was very critical of Israeli comments about those who ran the Mavi Mariner. Unless there is a crystal ball or some other predictive device at the Foreign Office, Martin’s strong comments couldn’t possibly have been based on any verifiable facts at the time.

It is indeed a fact that 15,000 tons of aid is transported from Israel to Gaza each week by a near continuous convoy of trucks. Conditions are clearly unpleasant for Gazan’s. Entry to Gaza is restricted as are building materials. No one is pretending otherwise. Yet can we call it a “humanitarian crisis” with sufficient justification? The answer is no. While serious, it simply isn’t serious enough. It is in fact a humanitarian concern. Recall the frequent claims of starvation in Gaza that have since been dropped, since they were unsustainable in the face of images of markets laden with food. Mr. Wall’s use of facts is also extremely misleading. In the past Israel offered to repair parts of Gaza’s infrastructure, relating to critical utilities. Such offers were declined by Hamas since they don’t want their mortal enemy doing anything remotely positive for Gaza. The issue relating to electricity is mainly a result of an argument with the Palestinian Authority over service payments.^[18] Fuel is not a problem either with vehicles a very common sight on the streets. Oh yes and Israel supplies Gaza’s electricity and adequate water supplies. Some of Mr. Wall’s claims are really quite astonishing: “About 30-40 million litres of sewage flows untreated into the sea every day”. Jokes aside, surely it’s an extraordinary figure for 1.5 million people!

He claims “… the list of forbidden items includes such things as concrete and other building materials. The reason for this is that the Israeli government claims that any building materials will only be used by Hamas to construct bomb shelters for themselves.” This is an outright untruth. Israel allows in building materials. They did even before the Flotilla Incident albeit in limited quantities with UN supervision. Since then the supply has very significantly increased. Israel has every reason to suspect Hamas’ motives since they have requisitioned goods in the past and continue to express jihadist intent.

The mud slinging Mr. Wall engages in is rather shameful: “… it appears that the above claim that Miss Campbell makes was plagiarised. Whether it was intentional or not, this writer does not know, but it is worth noting that the above claim is a direct quote, verbatim, from the website of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” “…she should know that the above quote/claim should have been placed within quotation marks…” Firstly, it could have also been a typo especially as the article appeared in a local paper. Such publications are often under-resourced. Google searches of the quote reveal the only MFA entry that appears is Dublin.mfa.gov.il which err… features her article! Thus, Mr. Wall has harmed her reputation based on nothing more than an abjectly lazy research effort.

Wall states “obvious misrepresentations and downright obfuscations that Miss Campbell included in her piece… This is the main reason for much of the criticisms of her over recent days and weeks. It is not racist, ignorant or any other litany of ridiculous claims…” Wrong again Mr. Wall. She has been attacked in a most personal fashion as the interview she gave to the Sunday Tribune indicates. She has received very many abusive phone calls and texts. Does Mr. Wall consider that legitimate discussion? Personal attacks and threats are an all too common pro-Palestinian tactic to silence disagreement. Pro-Palestinians said in several places on the Internet that Ms. Campbell has in effect lost her neutral Irish citizenship and they now classify her as a “terrorist”. This can easily be considered a threat to her life.

Mr. Wall’s article ends by stating the obvious “What is relevant are the facts.” Yes indeed, the facts are relevant. Yet for one who places such emphasis on the evidential, it is a disappointment that Mr. Wall doles out the usual demonising propaganda to support his own claims, which like that of so many other pro-Palestinians, are absurdist in their extremism. Israel can do no right. I would like to suggest Mr. Wall consult his own conscience rather than critique Ms. Campbell for the accuracy of her statements.

Mr. Wall adds “She acts on the courage of her beliefs and whether that is good or bad, is something else altogether.” Mr. Wall, acting with courage is a good thing in itself. Courage includes the capacity for self-criticism and the ability to stand up to orthodoxy’s like the pro-Palestinian narrative. Courage can be motivated by misguided assumptions but her beliefs, as illustrated here, are far from ill advised.

Notes:

[1] Sar El.

[2] Allied in Anti-Semitism and The Irish-Palestinian Connection.

[3] My Stint with the Israeli Army.

[4] People See Me As a Terrorist.

[5] Despite Reaction, Irish Student IDF Volunteer Would Do it Again.

[6] Anti-Zionists Plumb New Depths: Cliona Campbell’s Story.

[7] Indymedia.ie.

[8] Info-wars.org.

[9] Fathi Hamad, the Hamas administration’s interior minister, revealed that as many as 700 Hamas military-security operatives were killed during Operation Cast Lead. The number, consistent with Israel’s examination, is significantly higher than the biased numbers given in the past by Hamas and used by the Goldstone Report to defame Israel, [CrethiPlethi, Nov 03, 2010]; Read also “Cast Lead” Casualties Report by the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism; and Majority of Palestinians Killed in Operation Cast Lead: Terror Operatives.

[10]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTu-AUE9ycs

[11] The Truth of the UNRWA School.

[12] The head of Amnesty International’s Finnish branch, Frank Johansson, told in an interview that he stands by his statement that Israel is a “scum state.” Writing earlier in his blog, which appears on the Web site of Finland’s third largest newspaper Iltalehti, Johansson wrote on Monday that ‘Israel is a scum state.’ [Jpost, Aug 24, 2010].

[13] Read or download the following comprehensive analysis’ of the Goldstone Committee and the Goldstone Report: 1. A detailed and critical analysis of the Goldstone report and its Methodology by Alan M. Dershowitz (Lawyer and Author), at Case Against Goldstone; 2. A study which examined how the Goldstone Report dealt with the nature and activities of Hamas in the Gaza Strip before and during Operation Cast Lead based on a vast amount of intelligence information and written by a team of researchers at the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), at Response to the Goldstone Report.

[14]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYjkLUcbJWo

[15] For more information on the IHH (one of the organizations participating in the Gaza flotilla) as a radical Islamic organization and linked to al-Qaeda, read or download “The Role of Islamic Charities in International Terrorist Recruitment and Financing” about the contemporary radicalisation and support to terrorism by the NGO’s community. See page 14-18 and 21.

[16]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3L7OV414Kk

[17] Ken O’Keefe in part 1 of the BBC Panorama clip: BBC Panorama: The Story of the Mavi Marmara, who nonetheless led the campaign to discredit the documentary in the UK.

[18] UNRWA criticizes Palestinian infighting.