I Coulda Predicted This—Hey, I Did!
I let you down.
I predicted this, but I didn’t get around to writing it up (damn kids—always on the computer!):
Who killed the Palestinian driver of an aid truck and wounded two others as their convoy made its way into the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing during Thursday’s “humanitarian cease-fire?”
According to the foreign media, who based their information on UN sources, IDF tank shells blasted the truck. According to the Magen David Adom medic who claimed to have taken the Palestinians to an Israeli hospital, the truck actually came under Hamas sniper fire.
The medic, who asked not to be named, said he got his information from soldiers in the field, but by press time - some eight hours after the incident - the IDF Spokesman’s Office was still unable to provide a response or to establish contact with the relevant sources in the field.
Adding to the confusion, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said it had evacuated the victims, but the MDA medic said soldiers told him they had gone in, at great personal risk, to evacuate the wounded Palestinians.
“The fog of war” applies to everyone else, it seems, except the UN and its view of Israel. How are they always so sure?
Well, when pressed, they’re not:
John Ging, the director of operations in Gaza for UNRWA, said via video link that “the verbal assurances have run out in terms of credibility.”
“We cannot rely on firm commitments given from the Israeli side,” Ging told reporters. “To have Israeli forces on the ground firing at and now hitting convoys that have been specifically cleared - this is real-time clearance?”
Ging acknowledged, however, that he could not be absolutely certain that the attacks came from IDF forces, telling a reporter who asked whether other combatants may have been responsible, “There is a conflict going on.”
Give this man a cigar!
You know what else happens in “conflict”? Shooting and, quite often as a consequence, killing. I’m really sorry about that, but it’s not exactly a news flash.
Carol said,
January 9, 2009 @ 1:54 pm
I won’t claim to have actually predicted this, but does it count if my thought process went like this: Upon hearing “The UN says,” my brain says “what a crock” and goes back to sleep.