Beber Vaknin, In Extremis

The magnificent photo essay at boston.com from December 31st, Israel and Gaza, like a subsequent one, Scenes From the Gaza Strip, is singular in many ways beyond making the case for "The Big Picture." Picture Number 23, for instance, is captioned:

A medic crouches over the body of an Israeli man after he was killed in a rocket attack launched from the Gaza Strip and hit the southern Israeli town of Netivot on December 27, 2008 following Israeli bombardment on the Palestinian coastal strip. The rocket attack killed one man and wounded four others, according to the Magen David Adom, Israel's equivalent of the Red Cross. (HAIM HORENSTEIN/AFP/Getty Images)

Although unnamed as being the single fatality in the Netivot attack, the man in the photograph is Beber Vaknin, the reclusive bachelor, who rather than going to his safe room as instructed when a warning red code was sounded, went instead to stand in his apartment doorway, where he was said to have been struck in the heart by shrapnel from a rocket hitting the third-story of an apartment building across the street.

Reconciling that lobby scene of Vaknin's death, with the following photograph, published by Time magazine, said to be the site of the first-ever, third-story missile hit in Netivot, whose shrapnel killed Vaknin standing in his doorway across the street, is next to impossible given that Israel is a theocratic society well within her rights to keep community-wide public relation's secrets---ignoring even, the obvious anomalies surrounding all of these isolated un-attended deaths. But it behooves the rest of the world to dig for the truth because Israel is willing to kill 1,200 souls on trumped up charges of aggression against their state, in my exceedingly humble opinion.

One thing---it goes to show what happens to the powerless in this world, as distinct from the alternate scenarios. It would be useful to have a similar picture of Irit Shitrit published, since we are told that the Magen David Adom, was on the scene at both attacks, then perhaps they journalists were allowed there too. We are told the Vaknin attack wounded four others and I wonder were they in their safe room on the third story of the apartment that was hit, or outside with Vaknin?

Since Hamas in Gaza lacks rockets with long enough range to strike Netivot, we must attribute Vaknin's death to a conspiracy of Israeli officials willing to pick out victims and execute collateral damage within the civilian Jewish population of Israel for political purposes. May God rest Vaknin's soul.

OK. May I call a storyboard continuity resolution meeting please everybody?

If in the Getty image above we are told that Vaknin was D.o.A. in the lobby---um, "A medic crouches over the body of an Israeli man after he was killed in a rocket attack," is how Haim puts it there, so why we do we see the medics hoofing it outside a short while later as they tear across the walkway? Just look at their feet kick-starting off the ground, and then look at the fat one huff as he hoofs. Are they scared of more rocket attacks maybe? Than why aren't these two guys in short sleeves wearing a helmet like the first guy in a long sleeve undershirt kneeling above is wearing? Speaking of which, go back to that first image and check out the extremely discrete code of a one-color band, either in piping but I've also seen a discrete piece of duck tape used across a bicep on an army nurse who figured into the Father Stephen McGraw medical vignette images from about 9:50am at the Pentagon, taken by Mark Faram. You lose strips in the Magen David Adom as you move up the ladder, but you gain accessories?

If a code, this is to indicate exactly what to whom?

So, what do you think are the chances that the AP reporter who captured the period of Vaknin's expiration, Haim Horenstein, was also on hand two days later to capture the death of Warrant Officer Lutfi Nasraladin from a mortar attack on a military base (some people like to call it a kibbutzim instead) near Nahal Oz---or at least its aftermath, at the Soroka hospital in the Southern Israeli city of Beer Sheva?

"Israeli soldiers wheel an injured comrade at the Soroka hospital in the Southern Israeli city of Beer Sheva on Monday, December 29 after he was wounded by Palestinian rocket fired from the Gaza Strip to the Nahal Oz army base. (Haim Horenstein)"

I wonder...do you think there's any chance that Horenstein could be as ideologically driven and morally corrupt as the hundreds of professional photographers whom I've identified, working in New York City and Arlington, Virginia on September 11th?

Proportionality

An Israeli firefighter stands at the scene of a rocket attack in the southern city of Beersheba, Jan. 11, 2009.

Palestinians inspect a crater caused by an Israeli air strike at a police station in Gaza City on December 29, 2008. MAHMUD HAMS AFP Getty Images

"Beersheba is threatened! Oh me! Oh my!"

This map came with the following distances:

White Line-- Mortar shells – 3 kilometers
Green Line-- 115 mm rockets (Qassam 2) – 6-7 kilometers
Yellow Line-- 90 mm rockets (Qassam 1) – 9 kilometers
Red Line-- 115 mm improved rockets – 11-12 kilometers
Orange Line-- Future Qassam development – 12-14 kilometers
Brown Line-- 122mm standard Katyusha rockets (Grad) – 20.4 kilometers
(JCPA)

As you will notice, even after these many stages of improvements to Hamas' ability to import (smuggle in) professional grade munitions from (Syria? Iran? China? All via Egypt?) a world-class arms exporter, Ashdot is still well out of range of missile fire. Even if the shot that killed Irit Shitrit really came from an independent Hamas opponent of Israel, no gauge munition would be capable of such a shot.