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Obama Inc. Rejects Joint Chiefs of Staff Defense of Israel

Posted By Daniel Greenfield On November 8, 2014 @ 7:37 pm In The Point | 77 Comments

Who exactly appointed Psaki to speak for the administration? In a dispute between the military and the State Department, it’s strange that Kerry’s official hand-holder is the one who speaks with the voice of Obama.

Or maybe it’s not so strange considering who is in the White House.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs defended Israel’s actions during its campaign against Hamas terrorism and even said that the military was learning from Israel’s attempts to prevent civilian casualties.

“I actually do think that Israel went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties. In fact, about 3 months ago we sent, we asked [IDF Chief of Staff] Benny [Gantz] if we could send a lessons learned team – one of the things we do better than anybody I think is learn – and we sent a team of senior officers and non-commissioned officers over to work with the IDF to get the lessons from that particular operation in Gaza.”

“To include the measures they took to prevent civilian casualties and what they did with tunneling, because Hamas had become very nearly a subterranean society. And so, that caused the IDF some significant challenges. But they did some extraordinary things to try to limit civilian casualties to include calling out, making it known that they were going to destroy a particular structure. Even developed some techniques, they call it roof knocking, to have something knock on the roof, they would display leaflets to warn citizens and population to move away from where these tunnels.”

“But look in this kind of conflict, where you are held to a standard that your enemy is not held to, you’re going to be criticized for civilian casualties. So I think if Benny were sitting here right now he would say to you we did everything we could and now we’ve learned from that mission and we think there are some other things we could do in the future and we will do those.”

“The IDF is not interested in creating civilian casualties they’re interested in stopping the shooting of rockets and missiles, out of the Gaza Strip and in to Israel, and its an incredibly difficult environment, and I can say to you with confidence that I think that … they acted responsible.”

State Department spokeswoman Psaki however countered that the administration still hates Israel.

State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki said that Israel “could have done more” to prevent civilian casualties during the 2014 Gaza War.

Psaki’s comments contradict Gen. Martin Dempsey’s statements on Thursday that Israel went to “extraordinary lengths” to limit civilian casualties and “did what they could” to avoid them.

“It remains the broad view of the entire administration that they could have done more,” Psaki said during a press briefing Friday. “And they should have taken more feasible precautions to prevent civilian casualties.”

AP reporter Matt Lee pointed out that, according to Dempsey, Israel had lived up to the “high standards” to which the Obama administration holds Israel. Still, Psaki said, Israel’s efforts were not enough.

So who is a better expert on preventing civilian casualties in combat… Obama, Psaki or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?


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