The Great Task of the Israeli Defense Forces

Regarding the assault on Gaza, the Israeli Army has learned "to take the operation slowly in a manner that will not only safeguard Israeli troops to the degree that you can, but also minimize the number of civilian casualties on the other side." Additionally, "keeping those civilian casualties less than excessive, as you would say, is the great task of the Israeli Defense Forces and I think up to this point we are doing very admirably in that way."

It must be true because I heard it on NPR this morning - and from a "scholar of military history in the Middle East" no less. I would definitely agree that NPR favorite, and war criminal spokesperson Michael Oren is certainly doing an admirable job with his assistant Ari Shapiro.

Shapiro goes along for the ride even as Oren proudly claims that of the slaughtered Gazans "well over three quarters have been armed gunmen and that is a percentage which is very rarely attained in urban warfare." Armed gunmen? Well over three quarters? As if one quarter of the dead being women and kids is just hunky dory - for God's sake.

It is disgraceful that NPR again and again gives unchallenged coverage to such Israeli government propagandists when that same government bars independent reporting from the inside Gaza.

BTW, see earlier posts on Oren (May 2008 and Nov. 2006).