[hat tip to Mondoweiss]
Image taken from here Prepared by UNITAR Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT)
Wrote this together with Tovah Lazaroff
A satellite photograph showing a 60-meter Star of David carved into a Palestinian field during the offensive against Hamas in Gaza last winter, slid under the army’s radar screen when it examined the Goldstone Report’s allegations of misconduct against the IDF.
When quizzed by The Jerusalem Post, the IDF said it was unfamiliar with the incident and said the Foreign Ministry should be contacted for an official comment.
The star can be seen in a satellite photograph provided to South African jurist Richard Goldstone by the United Nations last July.
According to a report by the UN Institute for Training and Research that accompanied the photograph, the satellite image was shot some time between January 3 and 10, 2009.
The UNITAR report states that the photograph of the Palestinian field showed “ground signatures” that “include tank tracks across cultivated fields and paved roads,” as well as a “Star of David measuring 60m. in diameter carved into the soil likely by IDF vehicles.”
It is posted on the UN Web site. UN satellite imagery is also referenced in the 575-page report published in September by the UN fact-finding mission into Israeli activity in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, which was chaired by Goldstone.
But no reference to the Star of David in the Palestinian field is made in the Goldstone Report, which accuses Israel of possible war crimes in Gaza.
It has also not surfaced in any of the hundreds of stories written about the Goldstone document.
The photograph of the Star of David was first circulated last week on the Mondo Weiss blog, which belongs to US investigative journalist Philip Weiss, who describes himself as an anti-Zionist. In spring 2009 Weiss traveled to the Gaza Strip and joined a Code Pink: Women for Peace contingent.
IDF sources said it was possible the Star of David was carved into the ground to mark the location – for the air force – of soldiers who were operating nearby. The diameter of the star’s lines was relatively small, the sources said, leading to the conclusion that the star was carved not by a tank but perhaps by a jeep.
Sarit Michaeli of B’Tselem-The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, which itself has studied Israeli activity in Gaza, said she had not heard of the photograph.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said he did not believe that the alleged IDF tracks damaged the field.
“If no one complained about it and no one even noticed it, then I would say this is a non-event,” said Palmor.
The IDF is preparing an in-depth rebuttal of the Goldstone Report, which called on both the Israel and Hamas to hold their own investigations into their military actions last winter.
Already on Friday the IDF released a 48-page paper to document the steps it has taken to investigate its actions during Operation Cast Lead.
At the end of this week, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is expected to inform the General Assembly of investigatory steps Israel and Hamas have taken.
Yaakov Katz contributed to this report.
yuck
Photoshop, says I.
As much as you might disagree with the UN, they would probably not stoop to doctoring photos. Unfortunately, it come straight out of the support materials for the Goldstone report and is probably real.
Please keep us posted on whether or not this is a doctored image
I am astounded by how sensitive we have become. So, a soldier gets artistic with a tank… this proves what about Israel? I mean, I’m not a political expert… or a psychologist, but it just doesn’t seem like such a big deal to me.
Apa:
A significant portion of UN workers in the West Bank and Gaza are also members of Fatah and Hamas. If it came from the Goldstone report, that document also relied largely on information provided by the PR wing of Hamas, an organization whose precise name I do not recall at the moment. Hezbollah made ample use of fauxtography during the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006 and I’m sure Hamas would do no less.
Well, the nationalism is becoming kind of excessive in Israel. I am not shocked if this is true. It doesn’t reflect Israelis per se, but there is a lot of apathy in terms of what the IDF does to Palestinians and its conduct in wars. I don’t think it’s photoshopped. I doubt someone would have been so creative to think of the idea just to defame Israel. Young soldiers are going to misbehave. Their commanders are responsible for their conduct and the state is responsible to ensure they follow the rules of engagement and making a star of david with a tank is not an appropriate use of a religious symbol anymore than forming a menorah. It’s an insult to many pious Jews and Palestinians if this was done.
re Lynne T:
this is a satellite photo, even if hamas or fatah had UN employees in gaza or WB, they can’t take a photo from outer space.
also this:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=116482§ionid=351020202
These Israelis are such monsters! If they had beheaded several Arab men or raped several Arab women, they could be forgiven. But such a cruel, barbaric, and heinous crime as carving a 60m Star of David on the soil, NO! such a crime can not remain unpunished!!
The carving of a Star-of-David by battle tanks in Palestinian farmland is more than an Israeli political statement.It ruins what meager crops that are grown there,ruts the land on an almost permanent basis because it will take a tiller bigger than an Abrams battle tank to till tha compacted soil.One must not forget that Gazan farmland has been”seeded”with unexploded ordinance dropped during”Operation Cast Lead.”There’s a great risk in farming this land because of them and land mines.
Israelis don’t allow any farming inside an arbitrary”no mans land”that varies at their whim.A 500 meter buffer?One day they allow you onto your land,the next day,they kill you,even when you’re outside their limits.
It’s part of a pattern of disruption that has served the Zionist cause,to intimidate and conquer Palestinian land by deception.
Some of us are not deceived.We see that it is what it is:a Zionist plan of murdering,conquering and deception.
Bla-bla-bla
I always tried to keep an open mind when it comes to wars. But this is a picture of hate to the palastinians. Hate for their relegion, their land and every thing they stand for. It is the kind of hate that inpregnate and breed more hate. Not that what happens in war is humane, but this raking it to a completly different level. I would not be surprised if every kid in that area becomes a suicide bomber. I would think with everything the jewish people went through, they wouldn’t want that to happen to anyone. It seems they are performing their own version of the holocaust on the palistinian.
I agree, rapping their women would have been considered a lesser war crime. Soldiers all throughout history commited unthinkable crimes. I recently watched another version of the unthinkable cres committed against Jews. It heart braking to see that young and women were infused with such degrading and condissending feeling towards what they consider their enemies. My understanding is that all isralis have some form of military traing or reserve training. If this thought of second class Arabs is being pumped into them. So long humanity. Welcome, extinction. Shame on the world if it stands and watch.
Che:
Not only do you not understand as how easily photographs are doctored before distribution whether through publication in newspapers or posting on websites, you apparently don’t know who owns and operates Press TV and why they’d be motivated to distribute this kind of material.
Michael:
The problem with ironic humour is that most of Israel’s detractors aren’t intellectually capable of recognizing the same, let alone questioning how a tank can be manovred so as to cut two neat, interlocking triangles resembling a Star of David into a field.
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