OLMERT SAYS GOVERNMENT STANDS BEHIND SOLDIERS ACCUSED OF WAR CRIMES IN GAZA

Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert declares that Israel will protect any of its soldiers against international war crimes indictments. Given Olmert's assertion, there can hardly be any doubt that Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) engaged in horrible and cruel war crimes in their attacks against the Palestinians in Gaza

The BBC reports:

"Any Israeli soldiers accused of war crimes in the Gaza Strip will be given state protection from prosecution overseas, the country's PM has said.

"Ehud Olmert said troops should know Israel would keep them safe after they acted to protect their country.

"Palestinians say 1,300 people died during the offensive, and UN officials want independent probes into whether war crimes were committed."

This response by Olmert reminds me of Bush and Cheney claiming that no one in the U.S. government engaged in torture, but if they did, the Congress should pass a law granting immunity.

Consider the use by the IDF of shells that disburse white phosphorous. When it falls on flesh, it is near impossible to get off and its burning goes right through the bone. Or how about the shooting of three Palestinian sisters who were with their grandmother in the street? Or the shelling of the U.N. school sheltering several hundred Palestinians whose homes were targeted by Israeli war planes?

The IDF and every member of the Israeli government has a lot to fear from world opinion and from having to face and defend charges of committing war crimes.