White Phosphorus

I want to see what the War Nerd from Fresno thinks about this, but he seems to be too busy to do anything but post old classics about war subjects that are still too timely and that Americans don't like to think about anyway, because it's just too damned uncomfortable (like the upcoming demise of the aircraft carriers).

Of course, it's hard to blame the UN for being pissed off about Israel's admission regarding what everyone already knew was true anyway. No matter. What the War Nerd admired most about last year's Gaza operation was it's honest, straight-forward brutality:

Buried in paragraph 108 of the Israeli foreign ministry's report to the UN on Gaza is the key fact of the document.

Two senior officers - one the commander of the Gaza ground operation, no less - were reprimanded for failing to follow their own rules of engagement.

The document was slipped out late on Friday night in an attempt, presumably, to minimise its impact.

But it is no surprise that this morning one Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, is leading on the story and others give it prominence.

This is an explosive admission, especially after Israel had said earlier - after an investigation by a senior general - that white phosphorus was not misused during the Gaza conflict.

As Ha'aretz says, this is the first time that Israel has acknowledged, at least in part, allegations by the UN and other international organisations that civilians were jeopardised by the misuse of artillery near the UN warehouse in Gaza City.

And this is in relation to one of the most notorious incidents of the conflict, the burning of the main UN warehouse in Gaza City with white phosphorus shells.

UN officials are, though, privately sceptical of the process by which this admission of wrongdoing emerged.

"This is the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] investigating the IDF," said one UN official who was in Gaza at the time.

The two officers have just been disciplined - they apparently keep their rank and pay - and will not face criminal prosecution.

That is something the Israeli political-military establishment is desperate to avoid.

They fear it would be disastrous for morale and would damage the ability of Israel's army to fight the next war.

However, Israel's problem is that if its own investigations appear to the outside world to be a whitewash designed to avoid action in the courts, the UN is all the more likely to order a special tribunal at The Hague.