Accusations that Israel employs diabolical and sometimes even secret weapons against its enemies are not new.
Back in October 2006, Robert Fisk was given the front page of the UK’s Independent to spread the libel that Israel had used uranium-based weapons in southern Lebanon. The charge was debunked yet Fisk and the Independent have never, to this day, retracted this libel.
In 2006, Norwegian radical anti-Israel doctor Mads Gilbert was given a platform by the world’s media to charge Israel with the following:
“There’s a very strong suspicion I think that Gaza is now being used as a test laboratory for new weapons,” Mads Gilbert told reporters at Oslo’s Gardermoen airport, commenting on the kinds of injuries he and his colleague Erik Fosse had seen while working at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
The two medics, who were sent into the war zone by the pro-Palestinian aid organisation NORWAC on December 31, said they had seen clear signs that Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME), an experimental kind of explosive, were being used in Gaza.
“This is a new generation of very powerful small explosives that detonates with an extreme power and dissipates its power within a range of five to 10 metres (16-98 feet),” said Gilbert, 61.
“We have not seen the casualties affected directly by the bomb because they are normally torn to pieces and do not survive, but we have seen a number of very brutal amputations… without shrapnel injuries which we strongly suspect must have been caused by the DIME weapons,” he added.
Fast forward to the present day and the Irish Times has published the following, written, incidentally, by Robert Fisk’s ex-wife, Lara Marlowe:
Doctors and an ambulance officer believe Israel tested new weapons during its July 8th – August 26th assault on the Gaza Strip.
Ambulance officer Ibrahim Abu Kas of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has worked through the last three wars between Israel and Hamas. “In this war, I saw things I never could have imagined,” he says. “The five children from the al-Jaal family in Zeitoun were the strangest thing I ever saw in my life.”
The room where three girls and two boys were sleeping was hit by an Israeli tank shell while their mother, father and grandmother sat in another room. “Their bodies were hot. Their hair and skin were black liked charred wood. When their parents arrived at the hospital, they didn’t recognise them,” Abu Kas continues. “But there had been no fire, only white smoke.”
The unsubstantiated rumors and innuendo continue:
Doctors at Shifa hospital heard rumours of chemical weapons or gas. “I saw a man whose limbs were jerking and he could not breathe before he died, but he had no wounds,” Abu Kas recounts. Earlier, he had picked up people who were suffocating but survived.
While he makes no accusations of this nature, it’s no coincidence that Mads Gilbert is once again on the scene:
Whatever new weapons Israel may have used, “The worst illegal weapons are the siege, which is illegal collective punishment, the disproportionate use of force and the lack of discrimination between civilian and military targets,” says the Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert, who worked at Shifa during the war.
Perhaps most interestingly is the input of Dr Sobhi Skaik, chief surgeon and medical director at Shifa hospital, in the Irish Times story. For Dr Skaik was also making almost identical accusations in 2006:
What is happening is frightening. It’s possible the Israeli army was using Gaza to experiment militarily.
. . .
Local doctors say a number of both widespread and unusual injuries may indicate that new types of weapons were used on the Gaza population during the war. Health officials are seeing wounds they have never seen before, or at least not on such a massive scale.
“There has been a significant loss of life here in Gaza for reasons that are unexplainable medically,” said Dr. Skaik.
That Israel has advanced weapons that are capable of causing immense destruction is not a surprise. Neither is it a surprise that the same politicized medical professionals should be promoting a story that Israel is employing weapons that are so diabolical as to be like nothing ever used by any other conventional army.
Lara Marlowe’s story is based on already discredited “eyewitnesses.” Had she looked into the history of these types of libels, perhaps she would have approached her story with a healthier degree of skepticism. However, based on a series of one-sided pieces from Gaza written by Marlowe since the beginning of the month, it is more likely that she was only too willing to believe the latest weapons libel to emerge from Gaza.
[sc:bottomsignup ]Image: CC BY-NC-SA Jared Rodriguez/Truthout (via flickr
15 Comments
Mads Gilbert is perfectly right, there indeed is a a secret weapon in Gaza that transforms supposedly adult human beings into blithering, drooling, coprophagous, retarded, idiots; Once upon a time Mr. Gilbert might have been something of a person, but today this is waht the secret weapon did to him…tsss…tsss…tssss… poor poor little creature! GROW UP MR. GILBERT – YOU’RE JUST ABOUT AS USEFUL AS A PIECE OF DOG CRAP ON THE SIDEWALK! GET BACK UP ONTO THE LORRY FROM WHICH YOU FELL OFF!
Libels against “diabolical” Jews. So, what else is new? Why, the Jews must haunt the very dreams of these people.
Is there no Jewish lawyer that has the guts to sue them for libel ??
Weren’t the Irish just praising us a couple hours ago for helping to rescue their UN soldiers?
WHAT INCREDIBLE IMAGINATIONS THESE PEOPLE HAVE. THEY ONLY SPEAK THIS WAY AGAINST ISRAEL. H
Clearly, all of these assertions are made to besmirch Israel in the international arena. However, I would like to ask a question here. If Israel has developed some new effective weapon, and it’s not gas , or radioactivity, or something else which is “outlawed” by the Geneva Conventions (which the Arabs conveniently ignore anyway) why is Israel “required” to share this new technology with the rest of the world and get their approval of it before it is used.
The lead bullet, shot from a gun (whether large or small) is the predominant technology, but that should not limit the potential. I wish that Israel had some new and innovative technology which would disable (temporarily) without killing the opponents. That would be the ideal. So for now, I guess we have to rely on the tried and true…….
Hope the heck Israel DOES have “secret weapons,” and KNOW they’re not afraid to use them if attacked. Wish the USA were the same…
ISRAEL DOIT REPRENDRE LE COMBAT D URGENCE PLUTOT QUE DE SE FAIRE TUER PAR LES CALOMNIES DESTUCTRICES MONDIALES – AVEC L AIDE DE D ISRAEL DOIT SE RELEVER
What a surprise. Israel has a secret weapon. And if they really have one and they announce it to the world will it still be secret? Did Germany announce that they had V1 and V2 bombs before they bombed England with them. Did America publish notes on atomic bombs before dropping 2 of them on Japan. How unfair of them not to disclose information like that. Maybe that idiot Navi Pillay is right when she says Israel should share Iron Dome technology with hamas. Next thing you know Israel will be asked to help hamas save money by launching Israeli rockets on themselves. There have always been anti-semite bastrookim out there and probably always will be. You know the Robert Fisks of the world. Remember (in the days when we didn’t have secret weapons) how we Jews used to poisen wells. And then we killed Christian children so that we could use their blood for making Matzah. Seems like the more things change the more they remain the same
Don’t forget the Christian blood required for a happy Passover, those generous monthly checks from the International Jewish Conspiracy, and three cheers for the Dearborn Independent – which had the second largest circulation of any U.S. newspaper by 1925 (900,000). Hating Jews seems erstwhile.
I wish Israel had a ray that would cause all Hamas explosives to blow up where they are stored. The good news is that Hamas would be disarmed. The bad news is that every mosque, hospital and school in Gaza would be destroyed.
The only libel that’s missing is the medieval blood libel. Have such accusations been leveled at any other nation? Probably not, but then this is Israel, so no suprises
Some people are so useless in every way that they lie thrum they theth to get a front page fame, as Israel is always on the front but not the real atrocities committed by Muslims to Muslims and if they did thay might have to hide from them n fear of they life, while Israel have never threatened anybody so my as well use Israel to make some money and get famous,sick people.
We all know IDF tests weapons on Gaza. Great experiment, imprisoned in a tiny strip, with no real army to fight back.
In fact Israel had a arms show soon after latest onslaught in Gaza.
Key selling preposition, tested in real life situations.
Palestinians are also Guinea pigs
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