I have never been given an order to shoot an unarmed civilian. I have never heard such an order being given to somebody else. Quite the opposite: the orders we received ALWAYS stressed that civilians must NOT be harmed.
Throughout my military activity, I have never targeted an unarmed civilian. I have never seen any IDF soldier who did.
Relationships with the civilian population in the West Bank were often (though not always) tense, full of mutual mistrust. Neither myself nor any of the IDF soldiers I saw have ever purposefully mistreated or unnecessarily humiliated Palestinians. Sure, we were soldiers and not social workers. Often, we were concerned with our own security, with the job we have been given and with maintaining our authority in front of people who were constantly testing us and pushing against the limits. But I am proud to say that we have always kept our humanity. Confronted with the need to check that Palestinian civilians did not carry weapons or bombs past check posts IDF brought female soldiers to check Palestinian women. Yes, to spare these civilian women the embarrassment of a male soldier moving an electronic wand along their bodies, we have placed our own 19-year-old female comrades in the harm’s way. Does Mr. Lowenstein know this? Would he even care if he did?

Let’s analyze it line by line: “How is the conflict reported in Australia?”

The Austrian Prmime Minister and the majority of the government praised Israel. Antony brings a minority opinion of 1. This peddler of trief tripe writes: “but one Labor backbencher dissented. Julia Irwin could not “congratulate a nation which commits human rights abuses each day and shows blatant disregard for the UN.”

“What is the role of the Jewish and Arab communities in the debate?”

Diplomatic dialogue between the participants to the dispute Jews and Arabs. We Jews call the lands captured following the 6 Day War as “Administered Territories” the Arabs call them “occupied territory.” Antony calls too emphatically declares them “occupied territory.” This is trief tripe. 2 Jewish Kingdoms historically ruled over these disputed lands. Never once in all recored history has a Palestinian people ever ruled these lands. The Arab armies that conquored these lands from both the Romans and Christians were not Palestinians. This Arab successful invasion occured around 700 CE. An Arab empire who’s capital was in present day Iraq ruled these lands. Later non Arab Turks conquored these lands and established the Ottoman empire in 1400s. The Sultan was not a Palestinian, there did not exist a people called “Palestinians” during the entire Ottoman reign over the Middle East! Antony’s Arabist declarations as if they were undoubtably true, that’s really trief tribe!

Richie its obvious to me that either you don’t know how to read beyond what you see in newspapers and reactionary blogs like this. Please stop pretending that your knowledable on this subject because every word you write only convicts you for being an utter fool.

This noise only reveals the barking of a dog. This tripe blog as a rule give “uncritical support of the so called Palestinian cause”. Reading this unJews’ opinions a person might think that Arabs never even fart.

The origin of this claim started with the Attorney General Meir Shamgar who constructed the legal argument. But Shamgar always fell short of stating which ones of the provisions are “humanitarian” and of course Israel finds itself at odds wit the Red Corss (the guardian of the Fourth Geneva Conventions) which regards all of the items as humanitarian.

Shamgar also made two legal “innovations” although he allowed the Palestinians to appeal to the Supreme Court, it neglected their status as citizens. So they would get the (selective) benefits of the Fourth Geneva Conventions, but would not get the rights of citizens, which made it easy to grab vast swabs of land from them.

The facts on the ground are clearly different than the actual Geneva convention text:

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm

Pretty much every guarantee from Article 3 has been violated by Israel during its occupation of the West Bank.

The fact that Palestinians can appeal to the Supreme Court has given people the illusion that “the Palestinian rights have been safeguarded and that the occupation was legal”.

This particular myth is discussed in detail in Jonathan Cooks’ “Disappearing Palestine” book and contains both references to the policy making and the Knesset resolutions from 1967.