Friday, August 29, 2014
Sarah Honig: Another tack: Genuinely knocked for a loop?
The fact is that Britain had been exporting jihadist terror for years while pompously upholding its pluralist posture.A Pro-Hamas Left Emerges
Two British Muslims also paid a lethal visit to Israel in April, 2003. Asif Muhammad Hanif, the suicide-bomber who took three innocent lives at Mike’s Place on Tel Aviv’s sea front was a London lad. His absconded accomplice, Omar Khan Sharif, came from Derby, where he attended posh private schools and enjoyed all the best that the UK could offer.
But in their case, there was no British shock or shame. Atrocities against Israelis can always be explained away and even forgiven. The ultimate expression of this mindset was enunciated by Cherrie Blair, then-resident at 10 Downing Street, as Tony’s better half. Her husband keeps himself busy after his retirement from the premiership by serving as the Quartet’s special envoy to the Middle East and he serially churns out plans for peace and for Palestinian rights.
Mrs. Blair argued during the bloodiest days of the Second Intifada that suicide-bombers are driven by utter desperation. Israeli occupation, she intoned, had rendered the poor, hungry, direly oppressed Palestinian masses, straining piteously under Israel’s brutal yoke, so hopeless that they were ready to detonate themselves.
Cherrie had nothing to say about the bombers’ victims and she vehemently denied that she was making excuses for terror, stressing – with just the right tone of righteous indignation – that we need to examine what made young people despair so.
Efforts by the literary scholar Judith Butler several years ago to include Hamas in the camp of the global Left illustrated a lack of historical knowledge that is simply not acceptable among professional historians. But Procrustean distortion in the name of a cause is apt to overwhelm any fealty to professional standards among ideologues of all stripes. In every sense of the word, Hamas is an organization of the extreme Right and rejects all of the values that at one point defined leftist politics ever since the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and large parts of the secular Left of the 20th century. This summer, the "Hawblog" group statement has offered support to an organization that has attacked the values that used to define the Western Left and made hatred of the Jews as Jews and the destruction of the Jewish state its primary goals. If these scholars have any criticisms of Hamas at all, they did not voice them at a time when doing so mattered.Israeli Liberals’ Advice to Diaspora Jewish Counterparts: Grow Up
It was probably only a matter of time before seven decades of leftist antagonism to Israel would lead to waging political warfare in support of an organization known for terrorist attacks against civilians, religious fanaticism, and anti-Semitism of a most foul and familiar sort. In summer 2014, that moment has arrived.
While Strenger didn’t elaborate, another Israeli professor and dedicated leftist, Michael Gross, did exactly that in a guest column for Haaretz two days earlier. Rhetorically asking what standard Diaspora Jewish liberals use to evaluate Israel’s liberalism or lack thereof, he continued, “Do they mean a well-functioning public health care system, expansive reproductive rights, gun control, a ban on the death penalty or inexpensive higher education?”Would Beinart have supported the Klan in 1964?
Gross obviously knows the big issue for most liberal Diaspora Jews is “the occupation.” His point is that like any real country, Israel is multi-faceted. And if you examine the real Israel in all its complexity, rather than treating it as a cartoon character with no existence beyond the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, then on many trademark issues to which liberal Jews accord great weight in their own countries, Israel is actually closer to the liberal ideal than America is.
Essentially, both men were making the same argument: If liberal Diaspora Jews would look at Israel as a real country, rather than as a projection of their fantasies, they would see it was neither as perfectly good as they once imagined it nor as irredeemably evil as they imagine it today. Like any other country, it has real problems, and like any other country, it deals with some problems better than others, but its positive qualities are no less real than its flaws.
And if Diaspora Jewish liberals are incapable of seeing the real Israel through the cloud of their adolescent fantasies, then that isn’t Israel’s fault. It’s their own.
The ‘peaceful protests’ that Beinart refers to center around attempts to destroy the security barrier that protects Israel against the infiltration of terrorists, as occurred during the Second Intifada when hundreds of Israelis were murdered by suicide bombers. They have a secondary purpose of trying to provoke police and soldiers into responses that can be used as weapons in the propaganda and legal wars being waged against Israel.
The idea that the Palestinian national movement, whose objective is the destruction of Israel and the murder or expulsion of its Jewish residents, is anything like the US civil rights movements of the 1960s is not just entirely wrong but an obscene inversion of reality.
To Beinart’s rejoinder that I see Palestinians only as “haters and killers” and not as human beings, that is insultingly false. But the political movement and ideology that Beinart wants us to support is one of hating and killing.
Gaza as Seen by a Progressive Zionist
Many progressives, who share my strong preference for peace over war and rarely, if ever, find a legitimate reason for Israel (or the United States for that matter) to use force, somehow justify Hamas shooting rockets into Israel. The fact is that since Hamas assumed power, they have fired almost 15,000 rockets, killing dozens and injuring almost 2,000 Israelis. No other nation in the world would be expected to tolerate this.To Win Or Not To Win; This Is The Question!
Perhaps we could all have some faint hope that the recently announced open-ended cease-fire will result in some progress in addressing the concerns of all sides. I understand that progressives feel the Palestinian people have legitimate grievances, and it seems to me that the negotiating table is the place to address them. But there is no grievance that would justify Hamas' deliberate targeting of civilians, which is a war crime. And there is no progressive principle which would require Israel to silently endure countless attacks on its people.
We all have political heroes. As a progressive, I find my inspiration in the words of Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. These great, progressive leaders all achieved far more for their people than the rocket-launchers and suicide-bombers of Hamas have for theirs. I would hope that in time, the progressive community can come closer to speaking with one voice in condemning the sort of terrorism and genocide that can be found in the Hamas charter. If we as progressives really care about the suffering of the Palestinian people and peace, we have no other choice.
It transpired after the second Lebanon war. At its conclusion, Israel did not look like winner. Hezbollah came out chanting triumphant tunes. The UN blamed Israel for war crimes. Dan Halutz, the IDF chief of staff was pushed out and forced to resign. Accusing fingers were pointed at government leaders. The conflict is believed to have killed at least 1,191–1,300 Lebanese people, and 165 Israelis. It severely damaged Lebanese civil infrastructure, and displaced approximately one million Lebanese and 300,000–500,000 Israelis while it was being waged.Obama’s Irrational Animus for Israel
Israelis were bitterly disappointed with the outcome of the war. The IDF with the exception of its air force failed to impress the Jewish nation. It performed far below expectations, and failed to deliver a fatal blow to the enemy, or so it seemed at the time.
Then again, looking back judiciously, devoid of the emotions and the negative adrenalin stemmed from the frustrating experience, it does seem that the outcome of the second Lebanon war has produced eight years of tranquility for Northern Israel. The IDF was able to focus all its vigor on the Hamas front during the three Gaza wars that have taken place during that 8-year period with no need to dilute its focus and spread its energies along the Lebanese border at the same time.
According to the Jerusalem Post,Obama’s anti-Israel extremism
Speaking extensively on US relations with Jerusalem since the end of the latest round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians last April, and throughout Operation Protective Edge, a candid [former US special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations Martin] Indyk said at times US President Barack Obama has become “enraged” at the Israeli government, both for its actions and for its treatment of his chief diplomat, US Secretary of State John Kerry… Gaza has had “very negative impact” on US-Israel relations, he continued. “The personal relationship between the president and the prime minister has been fraught for some time and it’s become more complicated by recent events.”
Think about this for a moment. In a neighborhood featuring Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, just to name a few of the actors, President Obama was “enraged” at … Israel. That’s right, Israel–our stalwart ally, a lighthouse of liberty, lawfulness, and human rights in a region characterized by despotism, and a nation filled with people who long for peace and have done so much for so long to sacrifice for it (including repeatedly returning and offering to return its land in exchange for peace).
Wehner concludes that there is “something sinister” in Obama’s attitude toward Israel. I agree, and this time we can’t blame it on the Saudis, who also want to see Hamas crushed.Daniel Gordis: Hope you’re having a good summer
Many analysts have written that American foreign policy seems wacky, with erstwhile friends being treated as enemies and vice versa. Towards Israel it has been consistently negative, from the period just before Obama’s inauguration when incoming officials pressed Israel to withdraw from Gaza without concluding Operation Cast Lead, through his Cairo speech in which he compared Palestinian statelessness to the Holocaust, and including his various attempts to force Israel to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines, his humiliation of Netanyahu at the White House, and on and on. A complete catalog would require several more paragraphs.
Obama is careful and controlled in his public statements about Israel, but his actions suggest that his thinking has more in common with the hysterical anti-Israel demonstrators on campuses and in the streets than with any prior American president.
Summer? What summer? Of the entire above-mentioned list, it was the discovery of the tunnels (which the army and government had known about, but most Israelis had not) that changed everything.John Bolton: Opinion: The Middle East’s Problems Are Ours
We were used to rockets, even if not in these quantities, and we feel largely protected by a virtually miraculous Iron Dome system. But the images of tunnels so well-constructed that Hamas terrorists could ride motorcycles in them – that was something different.
When the IDF killed Hamas men who had come through the tunnels and found them equipped with weapons, handcuffs and injectable sedatives, it was clear that the movement’s intent was to kill as many Israelis as they could, then kidnap others and take them to Gaza. That, more than anything, struck horror so deep into the hearts of Israelis that, for the most part, internal politics have disappeared.
Yes, there is a left-wing fringe that wants to end the war, but most Israelis know that’s absurd. And there’s a right-wing fringe that wants to retake Gaza, but Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has made it clear he has no interest in that. But the fringes are small, and Israelis are united as almost never before. The petty fighting that often consumes us is now a luxury we simply cannot afford.
Yet as Middle Eastern disorder grows, America has remained largely passive. Indeed, President Obama previously trumpeted that he was “pivoting” from the region toward Asia. Accordingly, his administration had withdrawn our military forces from Iraq, and is poised to do so in Afghanistan.Countdown to Israel’s Destruction
Instead of actively working to protect U.S. interests across the region, Obama focused on two delusions: First, trying to negotiate Iran’s ayatollahs out of their nuclear-weapons program; and second, believing that a stable and secure peace was possible between Israel and Palestinians dominated by Hamas terrorists and the corrupt, incompetent Palestinian Authority.
In pursuing these unachievable, unrealistic goals (while displaying inept diplomacy), one might say Obama has been fiddling around. One can certainly say that the Middle East and North Africa are burning.
What the United States should do first is expunge the notion that we have the luxury of pivoting anywhere. Whether Obama appreciates it or not, America’s interests are global and our attention span and capabilities must be global as well.
If you think United States President Obama is lukewarm towards Israel, the day will come – and it’s not far – that Obama will look like a right-wing Zionist compared to the people who will sit in the White House. A new president shall come, who grew up on CNN and was educated on virulently anti-Israel campuses. He will not just hold back missiles, he will arm Israel’s enemies.US missiles to be released ‘soon’ — whatever the Hellfire that means
This is not science fiction. This is science. If the world sees you as a genocidal state, its leaders will seek your destruction. What’s “fiction” is the world that Israel’s leaders live in. Netanyahu’s world – where anti-Semitism is not a factor, where America has Israel’s back and where Hamas is really a loser despite the mass celebrations on Gaza’s streets – is a figment of his imagination.
Netanyahu and some of his Cabinet ministers – Naphtali Bennett is a good example – believe that going on CNN and sparring with Christiane Amanpour is what good media is all about. They don’t understand that these appearances – and the “high-fives” they get from their entourage – are useless. They can’t fight a war in Gaza by parachuting a couple of cabinet ministers into the fray. Neither can they fight a media war by showing off their command of English on CNN. Put simply, if it doesn’t start fighting this war, Israel will become more vulnerable than ever before. And this will happen in the next few months – just as Iran becomes a nuclear power.
So here’s my message to Israel’s leaders and supporters: it’s not too late. Start fighting the media war or we will go down in defeat – soon.
What is clear is that two weeks after the revelation that the US had added an additional level of scrutiny to resupplying the IDF with weapons, business was anything but usual regarding the military-to-military relationship upon which Israel relies.US reportedly pushing Gaza demilitarization at UN
The administration in Washington is hunkered down tight on the transfer of Hellfire missiles to the IDF — a transfer that would most likely have been routine until the additional level of scrutiny was applied. And, despite optimism that the transfer would soon go ahead as planned, no such action has been confirmed by Washington.
Details on the timeline for the release of the Hellfires have proven elusive. Even on Capitol Hill, the sense is that the missiles will be released “soon” — a word repeated in numerous off-the-record conversations on the subject — but neither the timeline, nor the mechanism for their release, is clear.
The US government is reportedly working toward presenting to the UN Security Council a comprehensive proposal for the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, according to Lebanese media.‘We will never disarm,’ vows Hamas chief
Diplomatic sources in the UN told reporters from the Lebanese newspaper an-Nahar that the proposal calls for the disarmament of all militant and terror groups in the Hamas-controlled enclave, leaving the Palestinian Authority the only armed force. Under the terms of the proposal, all tunnels between the Gaza Strip and both Israel and Egypt will be destroyed as well, Israel Radio reported.
The proposal is set to be presented to the Security Council following negotiations over key issues between Israeli and Palestinian representatives, which are scheduled for next month in Cairo, according to Israel Radio. The issues include Hamas’s demands for a wider lifting of the blockade on the Gaza Strip — imposed by Israel and Egypt to prevent Hamas importing weaponry — as well as for a port and an airport, and the release of prisoners, as well as Israel’s calls to demilitarize Gaza.
Mashaal adamantly rejected the calls to disarm the Gaza terror group.Careful examination of Palestinian casualties showing 46% were terrorist operatives.
“The weapons of the resistance are sacred and we will not accept that they be on the agenda” of future negotiations with Israel, he said.
Israel has consistently linked the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, parts of which were devastated during the 50-day war with Hamas that ended on Tuesday, to the territory’s demilitarization.
But Mashaal insisted that Hamas will not lay down its arms.
“The issue is not up for negotiations. No one can disarm Hamas and its resistance,” he stated.
Misinformation on the number of Palestinian civilian casualties in Hamas' latest war on Israel has characterized the UN-Palestinian campaign to demonize Israel and to undermine the Jewish state's right of self-defense. The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center has therefore undertaken a project to "ascertain the identity of the Palestinians killed during Operation Protective Edge, to determine which of them are terrorist operatives and which are non-involved citizens, and to examine the ratio between them."Rocket attack victim dies, raising Israeli death toll to 71
On August 25, 2014 the Center issued the latest update of its examination of the names of the Palestinians killed in Operation Protective Edge.
The Center reports that it has "examined a total of 667 names of those killed" so far [about 30% of the Palestinians killed to date] and "273 of those killed were terrorist operatives ...316 of those killed were non-involved civilians ... The identity of 78 people who were killed is unknown at this stage... Of the 589 dead who could be identified on the three lists that were examined, terrorist operatives constitute approximately 46% of the names."
Operation Protective Edge has taken the life of another Israeli victim: Netanel Maman, 22, who has been fighting for his life since his car was hit by shrapnel in a rocket attack near Ashdod a week ago, died on Friday, raising the Israeli death toll to 71. Maman died three days after Israel and Hamas agreed on a cease-fire in Gaza.The perils of Israel’s ‘Follow Me!’ ethos
Maman, an IDF soldier, had been fighting in Gaza during the recent campaign, and last Thursday came home for the weekend. He and his younger brother, Tamir, who serves in the Israeli Air Force, decided to make a quick run to a gas station near their home in Gan Yavne to buy cigarettes. Their father, a member of the Gan Yavne municipal council, tried to dissuade them from going, but they insisted.
Leading from the front during Operation Protective Edge, soldiers in command positions accounted for 44% of IDF deaths. Is that cost inevitable?“Nothing Else Matters”: How a Father Protected his Family from Hamas’ Rockets
These figures are not unusual, said Maj. Uzi Ben-Shalom, the head of research for the Concept, Doctrine and Training Department of the IDF’s Ground Forces Command.
He turned toward Shakespeare’s Prince Hal in order to explain the rationale, and the need, for leading from the front. “For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother,” he said, quoting “Henry V.” That declaration, he said, underscores the fact of “shared danger.” Every soldier knows that his commanding officer will demand of himself, at bare minimum, that which he demands of others.
“There is no other way,” said Col. (ret) Gabi Siboni, the director of the Military and Strategic Affairs Program at the INSS think tank and a former commander of the Golani Brigade’s reconnaissance unit.
An officer commanding his soldiers “Forward!” rather than yelling “Follow me!” he said, would never work. “I don’t need to see research or a study about such things,” he said. “It’s something you understand from your stomach. It’s totally intuitive.”
The other half of the rationale, he said, relates to the nuts and bolts of leadership, the access to information. Positioning yourself at the front, he said, “allows the commander to understand the battlefield firsthand.”
Global coalition needed to destroy Hamas, all Islamist terror, Steinitz tells US lawmakers
Hamas in Gaza must be seen as being part of the greater phenomenon of the militarization of Islamist terror groups that stretches from Iraq in the East to the heart of Africa in the West, Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz told a delegation from the House Armed Services Committee in Jerusalem on Friday.Americans' Support for Israel Strong, Poll Shows
"All of these Islamists act against the 'heretics' in the countries where they are present: against the Christians, the Yazidi minority, moderate Muslims, the Kurds, and of course the Jews and the Jewish state," Steinitz said.
The minister called for global cooperation to defeat Islamist terror.
"The US and the Western democracies, together with Israel and the moderate Arab regimes must create a broad coalition to destroy Hamas in Gaza, The Islamic State in Iraq, al-Nusra, Boko Haram and others who operate in the Middle East and around the world.
Steinitz thanked the eight-person US delegation for their consistent and unequivocal support of Israel during Operation Protective Edge.
Most Americans say they sympathize “a lot” (34%) or “some” (32%) with Israel, while roughly a quarter sympathize with Israel “not much” (15%) or “not at all” (12%), according to a new USA TODAY/Pew Research Center PollPA wants foreign nationals in IDF investigated for war crimes
There is less public sympathy for the Palestinians: 11% sympathize with Palestinians a lot, though 35% have some sympathy for them. Nearly half say they have little (20%) or no sympathy (27%) for the Palestinians.
The new national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted August 20-24 among 1,501 adults, finds little change in opinions about how President Barack Obama is handling the situation in the Middle East. Currently, 49% say Obama is striking about the right balance in dealing with the situation in the Middle East; 22% say he is favoring the Palestinians too much and 13% say he favors Israel too much (13%). These views are little changed from April.
Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki called on foreign governments whose citizens serve in the Israel Defense Forces to investigate them for war crimes in Gaza.Islamic Jihad: 121 of our fighters killed in Gaza
Malki sent a letter to the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada, South Africa and five Latin American countries on Tuesday, as well as to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, reminding the countries that under international law they are required to investigate their citizen’s alleged violations of international law, the British newspaper The Guardian reported Wednesday.
He also called on the countries to warn their foreign nationals that they could be investigated and prosecuted.
Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Jihad said Friday that 121 fighters from its military wing, the al-Quds Brigades, were killed during Operation Protective Edge in fighting with IDF soldiers in Gaza.Hamas leader says Gaza only a 'milestone to reaching our objective'
In a statement to the Palestinian Ma’an news agency, the organization further claimed that it had fired over 3,250 Fajar and Buraq rockets and mortar shells throughout the 50-day operation. (Israel says a total of over 4,500 rockets were fired at it during the conflict.)
Islamic Jihad claimed to have fired at Netanya, Tel Aviv, Dimona, and Jerusalem. It also said it fired at IDF positions and vehicles.
Hamas will not cease its resistance against Israel until all its demands are met, the group's overall leader Khaled Meshaal said on Thursday, adding that the latest conflict over Gaza was only "a milestone to reaching our objective".Mashaal Says Israel 'Carried Out a Holocaust Double Hitler's'
Speaking at a news conference in Doha, where he lives in exile, Meshaal said the group would never give up its arms as part of any deal. He also said the group's military commander, caught earlier this month in an Israeli air strike, was "fine".
"You cannot contain the resistance, because the resistance is in our thoughts and in our souls....our resistance will continue until all our demands are met and we are getting closer to victory and al-Quds (Jerusalem)," he said.
"This is not the end. This is just a milestone to reaching our objective. We know that Israel is strong and is aided by the international community. We will not restrict our dreams or make compromises to our demands," Meshaal said.
The call for a disarmament is the lone demand Israel made in the ceasefire deal Tuesday, and will be discussed in a month along with Hamas's demands for a sea and airport, as well as a swap of terrorists for the bodies of two fallen IDF soldiers.Abbas Advisor: Hamas Should Admit Defeat
Mashaal went on to make an outrageous comparison, saying "the enemy (Israel) harmed everyone - women, children and the elderly, those who sought shelter at UNRWA schools and hospitals. The enemy leaders committed a Holocaust double that of (Nazi leader Adolf) Hitler."
The mention of Hitler comes after Mashaal on Monday likewise compared Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to Hitler, while calling on US President Barack Obama to help "lift the siege" on Gaza.
Mahmoud al-Habbash, a senior adviser to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, suggested that Hamas should admit defeat in its latest conflict with Israel.Egyptian Islamic Leader Bassem Khafagy Rebukes Hamas for Betraying the Muslim Brotherhood
In a post on his Facebook page, al-Habbash, who recently served as the PA’s minister for religious affairs, compared the Gaza war with one fought between the Prophet Mohammed and “polytheists” in 625 CE in Medina, a conflict widely considered by Muslims to be a defeat for the prophet.
“The Muslims admitted their defeat [in Medina],” al-Habbash, who defected from Hamas several years ago, said in a message meant to encourage Hamas to do the same, The Jerusalem Post reported.
Why I’m Unsubscribing to the New York Times
I am a lifelong Democrat, a political liberal, a Reform rabbi, and for four decades, until last week, a New York Times subscriber. What drove me away was the paper’s incessant denigration of Israel, a torrent of articles, photographs, and op-ed columns that consistently present the Jewish State in the worst possible light.New York Times Calls 60-Year-Old Israeli Border Community a 'Settlement'
This phenomenon is not new. Knowledgeable observers have long assailed the Times lack of objectivity and absence of journalistic integrity in reporting on Israel. My chronic irritation finally morphed into alienation and then to visceral disgust this summer, after Hamas renewed its terrorist assaults upon Israel and the Times launched what can only be described as a campaign to delegitimize the Jewish State.
The Middle East conflict is complex, but the root cause of Israel’s confrontation with Hamas is not. Committed by its charter to “obliterate” Israel and kill all Jews everywhere, Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S., Britain, and the European Union, a designation substantiated by its raining rockets down on Israel’s civilians and tunneling under its border to kill and kidnap, indisputable war crimes.
The August 28 print issue of The New York Times dismisses several established Israeli farming communities, terming them "settlements" as if they are somehow an impermanent incursion into the territory near Gaza.Why did the BBC downplay years of Hamas extrajudicial killings?
Sporting a headline that reads "In Israel’s South, Families Worry About the Future of Settlements Near Gaza," the August 28 article in the print version of the paper talks of how Israelis that live in the farming town, or kibbutz, of Nahal Oz are worried by the current actions between their country and the terrorist group Hamas just over the border in Gaza.
Yet using the dismissive term "settlement" to describe Nahal Oz near the Gaza border is a bit much for a town that was established more than 60 years ago. After all, how many decades does it take before the Times deigns to consider a town a real town and not just a "settlement?"
Nahal Oz also has history. The town features prominently in Israeli history, having become a symbol of national pride when Egyptian soldiers briefly invaded the community in 1956, killing farmer Ro'i Rutenberg. Rutenberg's funeral served as the stage for one of Israeli leader Moshe Dayan's most famous orations.
The BBC has a dismal record on reporting abuses of all kinds by both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and it is therefore all the more notable that these two reports came about only when Hamas wanted to publicise the executions of suspected collaborators for its own purposes.Facebook takes down anti-Semitic group's page after flyer outrage
It is also remarkable that neither report ventured beyond limited reporting of the incidents themselves to inform audiences with regard to the issue of the absence of due legal process before those killings and their implications given that the Gaza Strip is – officially at least – now ruled by the Palestinian Unity Government rather than the “armed movement” as Sommerville so quaintly dubs an internationally recognized terrorist organization.
But despite the complaints, Facebook refused to take the page down.Media Mulling Not Bothering To Report Calls For ‘Restraint’ Anymore (satire)
"Thank you for taking the time to report something that you feel may violate our community standards," the website responded. 'We reviewed the page you reported for containing hate speech or symbols and found it doesn't violate our community standards."
Mr Grimm said he wasn't surprised.
"I expected they wouldn't. I knew from stories I had heard from friends, online and on the news that Facebook's Community Standards are controversial and they very rarely take down pages that are actually offensive."
Facebook's initial response to complaints about Squadron 88's page.
Both he and Ms Kubowicz encouraged more friends got on board and complain to Facebook about the page.
As of yesterday (Wednesday) evening, it had been taken down.
A spokesperson for Facebook today confirmed to SBS that the page had been removed for promoting hate speech and violating the site's community standards.
In the wake of numerous violent incidents in the Middle East recently, leaders such as UN Secretary-General Ban -Ki-Moon and US President Barack Obama initially responded to those events with a plea that the aggrieved party or parties exercise restraint. However, in not a single case has any party to those conflicts paid attention to those words of caution, leading editors and correspondents to the realization that they should probably not bother reporting when those admonitions are issued.
The question arose again this week when terrorists fired rockets into Israel from Lebanon, and when loyalist soldiers and Syrian rebels in the Syrian-controlled section of the Golan Heights fired artillery and tank shells into Israeli territory. Soon afterwards, the Al-Qaeda-linked rebels drove the Syrian army out of the Quneitra border crossing and took 43 UN peacekeepers hostage.
UN Secretary-General Ban immediately called on “all sides” to “show restraint” and called on the Al-Nusra Front to release the hostages, who are mostly from the Philippines. Predictably, says Washington Post Editor-in-Chief Bob Woodward, no one of consequence paid any attention to those statements, and that non-event has prompted the media to reconsider whether it should bother mentioning such pronouncements in the first place.
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