From Ian:
Richard Kemp: Post-war, Israel must be supported
Richard Kemp: Post-war, Israel must be supported
The US and the EU in particular, as well as regional states, should be pressuring Qatar, Turkey and Iran to end their support for Hamas.Chloe Valdary: Hamas and Hypocrites
Responsibility for reconstruction in Gaza should be removed from the UNDP and UNRWA whose work has helped further Hamas’s aims.
Internationally controlled mechanisms, approved by Israel, must be put in place to ensure that materials supplied for reconstruction are not again diverted into engines of war.
All 28 EU foreign ministers have demanded that Hamas and other Gaza terrorists disarm, and it looks likely that the US will table a UN Security Council resolution along these lines.
If the EU and the US are to be taken seriously they must consider carefully the extent of any aid provision to Gaza in the absence of compliance with their demands. Improving the lot of the Gazan people should be demonstrably linked to removal of Hamas’s terrorist capability.
Hamas’s arsenal has been seriously depleted. The international community must ensure it stays that way. As I recommended in my April paper, international military and intelligence forces should work to monitor and interdict efforts to re-supply Hamas such as we saw with the Klos C weapons shipment from Iran that was destined for Gaza earlier this year.
Israel should also be supported in its own actions to prevent terrorist attacks from Gaza. Responsible nations should accept the need for Israel to control materials coming into the Strip, and should refrain from patently false accusations of illegal blockades or an illegal occupation.
These irresponsible allegations suggest an equivalence between Israel and Hamas and encourage and legitimize terrorism.
The UN Human Rights Council’s Schabas Commission is about to commence its investigation into the Gaza conflict. This looks set to be a re-run of the now discredited Goldstone investigation into the 2008-09 conflict in Gaza. Judge Goldstone’s report – falsely accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity – encouraged Hamas to continue and refine its rockets, tunnels and human shields strategy. Too many UN members supported it or abstained. Any country that does not vigorously reject a similar report by Schabas will have blood on its hands if there is another round of fighting in Gaza.
If you come across anyone in America who calls for an end to aid to Israel for allegedly persecuting Gazans, feel free to use the below as a model response:“Disproportionate focus” on Israel?
Notwithstanding your faulty premise, let us play along. You are American. Your tax dollars also goes to UNRWA which provides aid to Gaza all of which is pocketed by Hamas’s gang of bandits all of whom just so happen to be mostly millionaires. This money is used to maintain Hamas’s dictatorship which entails the persecution of political minorities in Gaza, the murder of gays in Gaza, the murder of so-called collaborators in Gaza, the torturing of political dissidents in Gaza, the persecution of Christians in Gaza, the teaching of martyrdom in Gaza, the conscription of 12 year olds in gaza for the sake of martyrdom, child slave labor vis-a-vis building tunnels in Gaza (wherein, according to Palestinian Arab sources, 160 children were murdered in the process) and the sanctioning of honor crimes by Hamas (and other groups) in Gaza, just to name a few. Therefore by your own standard, you must not only protest aid to Israel, you must also protest aid to Gaza since it is stolen and mismanaged (thats a nice way of putting it) by Hamas.
Moreover, these human rights abuses committed by Hamas dispels your entire premise. The idea that a blockade of Gaza which, ostensibly, persecutes Gazans is the reason why Hamas launched rockets against Israel makes no sense, when you consider that Hamas engages in ACTUAL persecution of Gazans, which you seem to be sinisterly silent about. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you have been largely innocent of this fact. I await your condemnation of Hamas and your subsequent call to end all aid to Gaza based upon the standard that you have set forth.
Author and former AP correspondent Matti Friedman gives Brian Stelter his take on media coverage of the conflict in Gaza. (h/t dabney)






























