Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Over a Dozen Hamas Terrorists Admit to Use of Hospitals, Kindergartens and Mosques for Military Activity
A number of Hamas operatives who were arrested and detained by Israel during Operation Protective Edge admitted to the use of civilian establishments, such as mosques, schools and hospitals, as covers for terrorist activity, according to a report released on Monday by the Israel Security Agency (ISA).IDF hits Gaza school used in mortar attack that killed 4-year-old
The report cites extensive and detailed testimony from the Hamas members to support Israel’s long maintained assertion that the group operates behind human shields, which often accounts for civilian casualties as it exchanges blows with the Jewish state.
The report came as the Hamas controlled Gaza religious affairs ministry claimed Israeli fire throughout Monday destroyed four mosques, raising to 71 the alleged total number of mosques targeted over the past seven weeks.
Khan Yunis native Muhammad Alqadra told ISA that mosques in his hometown were used to conceal war material such as RPGs, heavy PKC machine guns and AK-47s. Additionally, he confirmed that local schools and hospitals, including the Nasser and Halal hospitals, are used as weapon arsenals. It is also well known that senior Hamas leaders and their armed bodyguards, who usually wear police uniforms, use hospitals as hideouts, he said.
According to Alqadra, guards are stationed at the admission department in the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis. He also believes the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip, including senior official Ismail Haniyeh, is hiding in Gaza City’s Shifa hospital in an area closed off to civilians and guarded by plainclothes armed men.
A Gaza school cited as the source of mortar fire that killed an Israeli 4-year-old was hit by Israeli forces early Tuesday.David Horovitz: On Day 50 of war with Hamas, much diplomatic ado about nothing
The Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday that it hit over 15 targets in the Gaza Strip during overnight airstrikes, and Palestinians said two high-rise apartment buildings were hit and badly damaged by airstrikes.
The IDF said it targeted several Hamas command and control sites, including two schools in the central and northern Strip. Terrorists had been firing rockets at Israel from within the compounds.
On Friday, Daniel Tragerman, 4, was killed when a mortar shell exploded near his home on Kibbutz Nahal Oz, near the Gaza border. The army said the mortar was fired from inside a Gaza school.
A delegation led by retired US Marines Gen. John Allen is in Israel, meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. Since Allen is the man who drew up American security proposals designed to enable an Israeli withdrawal from much of the West Bank under a peace accord — proposals publicly and privately castigated by Israeli leaders – his visit has sparked speculation of a renewed push for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority as part of the endgame for the current conflict.
The sense of imminent drama was enhanced by PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s mysterious promise, in an Egyptian television interview on Sunday, that he would shortly unveil a “surprise initiative” to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that it would be one the Americans — and thus, by extension, Israel — wouldn’t like.
Various unnamed Palestinian officials have been quoted intimating that this initiative, timed to capitalize on Abbas’s return to center stage as a potential key player in resolving the Gaza conflict, will involve seeking a UN-mandated timetable for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 lines, with the threat of filing war crimes allegations against Israel at the International Criminal Court if the Palestinians’ demands are not met. The Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported on Tuesday that Abbas “has made clear to all sides that he has no intention of taking any responsibility for Gaza unless there is a simultaneous diplomatic process aimed at culminating in a two-state solution based on the ’67 lines.” According to this report, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is backing Abbas’s bid to utilize the Gaza crisis in order to advance a new, comprehensive diplomatic bid.
All very dramatic, and all firmly played down in Jerusalem.
Times of Israel Live Blog: Massive barrage as open-ended truce takes effect; Israeli killed in mortar strike
Hamas pounded southern Israel with over 100 rockets on Monday, and Israel struck at targets in Gaza, amid reports of progress toward a new Egyptian-proposed truce. Late Monday also saw new rocket fire on Israel from Lebanon. A poll showed a drastic fall in support for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s performance in recent days.Resident ‘Disgusted’ by Anti-Semitic Flyers Distributed to Jewish Homes in Bondi, Sydney
Residents of a predominantly Jewish street in Bondi, a suburb of Sydney, Australia were “disgusted” to awake to anti-Semitic flyers slipped under their doors on Monday morning, The Algemeiner has learned.Security officials paint picture of Gaza street seething and Hamas in disarray
The pamphlets were hand delivered in mail boxes and included classic tropes about Jews controlling the media and being responsible for “race mixing” and “drug abuse.”
“Jews have been kicked out of countries 109 times through history,” the flyer claimed, “Could it be that having them in a European country is harmful to the host?”
The mail concluded with an invitation to join Squadron 88, a local white power group. The ‘About’ section on the hate group’s Facebook page reads: “squadron 88 is a NSW based group , the …… man was the tiller of the soil, this is our land. FIGHT FOR YOUR KINSMEN AND NATION”.
As Operation Protective Edge enters its eighth week on Tuesday, Hamas has taken a severe military and morale blow, but its military arm is preparing for another round of fighting believing the price its people are paying is tolerable as long as its goals are achieved.'Hamas set classic humanitarian trap,' IAF officer says
This is the assessment of senior Israeli security officials who nevertheless say there is growing skepticism among Hamas operatives about whether the fighting continues to be worthwhile considering the number of Hamas fighters who have been killed, the destruction of key military installations, the hit on the rocket manufacturing capabilities, and the destruction caused to the terror tunnels, which Hamas viewed as its “Day of Judgement” weapon.
According to these assessments, the IDF attacks in Gaza -- including damage to the homes of senior Hamas commanders -- the killing of commanders as well as damage done to the more junior military level led in many instances to a breakdown in Hamas’s chain of command, and even the abandonment of the rank and file on the battlefield.
According to these assessments, in some cases, mid-level commanders – concerned that their homes would be destroyed – preferred to flee with their families from the areas of fighting. As a result, those fighters who remained often felt abandoned and lost the will to continue to fight.
Hamas set a "classic humanitarian trap" and attempted to get the air force to kill Gazan civilians when it fired medium-range rockets from sensitive civilian buildings, in Gaza's Shati region, a senior IAF officer said Monday.IsraellyCool: Further Analysis Of “Gaza Crisis Atlas 2014″ Damage Clusters
On Saturday, rockets were fired from northern Gaza at Israel's Shfela region, south of Tel Aviv. The rockets were fired from rooftops, and from launchers next to several buildings; the Shuhada medical center, a basketball court and two schools, named by the IDF as Iben Sina and Salah Halef.
The schools were used as an evacuation center for Gazan civilians at the time of Hamas's attack, the official said.
On Sunday, the IDF evacuated the region, and dispatched a fighter jet to strike the rocket launchers. "It is a very sensitive area. You can see that Hamas set up the launchers on top, and next to the structures. This is a classic humanitarian trap. Last night, we struck the launchers with precision strikes after evacuating the area," the source said.
My first post about the assessment of the “Gaza Crisis Atlas 2014″ was a “big picture” analysis. Now I’m going to analyse damage clusters in a more detailed way.North struck by rocket fire again, Gaza belt under continued mortar barrage
The least severe OCHA damage classification “Crater/Impact” is most probably an air strike or detonation of a launcher. They are predominantly mapped in open areas like fields, sand dunes and other empty lots around the Gaza Strip.
As it turns out, they also plot several of the Hamas terror tunnels dug from Gaza to Israel that were used for terror attacks and kidnappings. These appear as linear clusters of severity level 1 damage points, at a right angle to the Israel-Gaza border, and heading toward Israeli civilian communities.
The IDF struck more than 70 targets across Gaza on Monday, including two operatives who had fired projectiles at Israel, as well as the launcher.IDF Strikes Al-Qaeda-linked Gaza Terror Cell
The air force also hit a rocket launcher located near a school in northern Gaza.
By the evening on Monday, 115 rockets and mortars had been fired into Israel, not counting a salvo on Ashdod around 9 p.m., according to figures from the IDF Spokesman’s Office. A mall in the city was hit by shrapnel from a rocket the Iron Dome intercepted. The shrapnel lodged in the mall’s glass ceiling. No injuries were reported.
Like in recent days, mortar shells made up the majority of the projectiles fired, and the areas most frequently hit were in the South, near the border with the Gaza Strip.
Israeli fighter pilots bombed operatives in Gaza from the Jaish Al-Islam terrorist organization on Monday afternoon.Jordanian Terror Attack on Israeli Embassy Foiled
The air strike, which resulted from a joint Shin Bet – IDF operation, eliminated a terror cell that was planning an attack on Israel in the near future, according to security sources.
The IDF also targeted a concealed rocket launcher placed within a school in the Shujaiyya neighborhood in Gaza City, used to fire missiles at Israel earlier in the day.
Jordanian military prosecutors on Monday charged eight suspects, including a Syrian fugitive, with plotting to attack US soldiers and Israel's embassy in the Hashemite kingdom, as well as trying to recruit people to join the Lebanese- based terror group Hezbollah.IAF Destroys Two More Gaza High-Rise Buildings
"State security court prosecutors accused the eight men with plotting to carry out terrorist acts, including attacks against US soldiers in 2006 and the Israeli embassy in Amman," a court official told AFP.
"The suspects, seven Jordanians and a Syrian fugitive, also recruited to join Hezbollah," he said, adding that the group was arrested in May last year.
Israeli air strikes took down two of Gaza's tallest apartment and office buildings overnight between Monday and Tuesday.Nahal Oz to Name Neighborhood after Little Daniel
In one case, a building that housed seventy families, as well as offices and a shopping complex, was demolished. It was known as the Italian Compound, or Little Italy. The blasts wounded 20 people, Gaza health officials said.
Al Jazeera said that the IAF fired three warning missiles before the nighttime air strike on the Italian Compound.
The 13-story building contained 11 floors of residential units and two floors of commercial offices and a coffee shop. Those floors also host the offices of the Ministry of Public Works and offices belonging to the political wing of Hamas movement, reported Al Jazeera.
Witnesses said that residents had fled the building after the Israeli army sent them pre-recorded warning messages.
The southern kibbutz community of Nahal Oz will name a new residential neighborhood after Daniel Tragerman hy”d, the four-year-old murdered by a Hamas mortar shell Friday.Letter From an IDF Soldier in Gaza
The neighborhood will include 40 housing units.
Doron and Gila, Daniel's parents, recounted their version of events during a noon press conference Monday.
The following is a letter written by Jonathan, a 24-year-old who grew up in suburban Maryland, to his family. He is currently in Israel serving in the Israeli Defense Forces as a sergeant in the Givati Brigade. He is one of hundreds of American volunteer soldiers known as “lone soldiers.” His unit has served in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge.Dozens of People Donate Platelets for Injured Soldier
August 9th, 2014
I’ve wanted to write this since I left Gaza.
Since I came out of Gaza I have stopped reading the international news. Some say we act disproportionately and with disregard for Gazan civilian life, and some outright say we are monsters and commit genocide.
I’m not sure what Israeli army the BBC, CNN, the U.N., EU, and many people around the world are talking about.
I am proud to fight for the most moral army in the world.
The parents of Shahar Shelo, a Paratrooper who was badly injured in the first days of the ground offensive in Gaza, asked the public to help save his life earlier this week - and the public responded.From V-2s to M-75s, Israel’s Blitz survivors dodge rockets again
Shahar, a resident of Alonei HaBashan in the Golan Heights, was injured when an IED laid by terrorists in Khan Younis on July 23 exploded near his postition.
Shahar has been hospitalized at Rambam Hospital in Haifa since then, some four and half weeks ago. The same explosion also killed three of his fellow soldiers - Lieutenant Paz Eliyahu, 22, from Evron; Sergeant First Class Li Mat, 19, from Eilat; and Sergeant First Class Shahar Dauber, 19, from Kibbutz Ginegar, hy"d.
Some 4,000 rockets from Gaza have been launched into Israel over the past 50 days.Gaza attacks trigger Israeli exodus from border
For many Israelis, especially those living along the Gaza border, the fighting with Hamas has changed the way they feel about their own security. In Israel’s major cities, residents are listening for sirens, running for shelter, and figuring out how to help their children cope. Tens of thousands of Israelis have evacuated border communities and headed north, away from the mortars and Kassam rockets. For those living through it, especially the children, it’s an experience they won’t soon forget.
But there are some Israelis for whom this summer’s fighting is a bookend on a life whose formative years were also spent finding shelter from bombs and rockets, albeit on an entirely different scale.
Those immigrants who grew up in London during World War II witnessing German dive bombers and V-2s again find themselves scanning the heavens for rockets, taking shelter, and observing how a nation deals with bombardment. Not surprisingly, they have strong opinions on their experiences in both conflicts.
Four immigrants who survived World War II in England shared their thoughts with The Times of Israel, notably on leadership, stoicism, and the Iron Dome.
With the school year fast approaching, the government began offering assistance to residents Monday in the first large-scale voluntary evacuation in nearly eight weeks of fighting.Ariel to Host Hundreds of Residents Fleeing Rocket Fire
Officials estimate that 70 percent of the 40,000 inhabitants of the farming communities along the Gaza border have left over the course of the fighting, including hundreds on Monday. Some went to stay with relatives and friends, while others are staying at hostels or were taken in by strangers who want to help fellow Israelis.
Fields that once yielded vegetables and flowers are barren and pockmarked by Palestinian mortar shells. Streets are empty and most homes eerily silent.
Hundreds of people have evacuated southern and Gaza Belt region communities, Israeli news outlets began reporting this week, as rocket fire from Gaza has escalated dramatically.Gaza Rocket Strikes Kindergarten - Again
To help ease the lives of the displaced, a special program has begun through the city of Ariel and Ariel University in Samaria to host the evacuees and their families in the university dormitories, a release revealed Monday.
More than just an overnight stay, the municipality has organized activities for the displaced adults and children, as well as tours of central Samaria, it added.
A rocket struck an empty kindergarten playground in Ashdod Tuesday afternoon, causing damage but leaving no injuries.Ashkelon Man Tells of 'Miraculous Escape' from Rocket Strike
This is the fourth strike on a school in six weeks, and the third on a playground in seven days.
The previous rocket strike barely missed a packed kindergarten in Ashkelon; less than 24 hours earlier, a rocket wounded a 33 year-old man as he heroically was protecting children from the missile with his own body.
The owner of a house which suffered a direct hit in a rocket attack in Ashkelon this morning, has told of his "miraculous" escape.Israel returns fire after rockets shot at Galilee from Lebanon
Yuval Cohen said his family was sleeping when the air raid sirens sounded, and says it was a miracle they had not been killed.
"We were in our bedroom when the alarm started. We ran to the children's room to wake them and while we were running with the kids, the rocket exploded in the bedroom," he told AFP.
"Luckily, we escaped by a miracle. We didn't even make it to the shelter."
21 people were injured in the attack, however, with dozens more hospitalized for shock.
“At least one rocket fired from Lebanon hit the Upper Galilee,” the army said in a statement. The rocket was reported to hit outside a community near the town of Kiryat Shmona.Three Children Wounded in Eastern Jerusalem Rock Attack
The IDF said a second rocket was fired, but did not detail an impact site.
Israeli media indicated the rocket hit near the ceasefire line, possibly on the Lebanese side.
Israeli artillery returned fire, toward the source of the launch, the army said.
Three children were wounded on Monday evening in a rock attack in the Wadi Joz neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem.Beitar Illit Man Barely Escapes Arab Lynch Mob
The attack occurred when a 22-year-old Arab terrorist threw rocks towards a vehicle that was travelling in the neighborhood.
Undercover police officers arrested the masked rock thrower, who tried to resist arrest by throwing rocks at the officers.
He was taken for questioning, and admitted to several incidents of rock throwing. The investigation is ongoing.
A Beitar Illit resident just barely escaped a lynching attempt Tuesday, after Palestinian Arab thugs from Husan attacked his vehicle.Search for Yeshiva Student Continues as Abduction Fears Grow
The Arabs attacked the resident near the entrance to Beitar Illit, reports say, and began dragging him into nearby Husan. According to 0404 news, during the attack the Arabs pelted his vehicle with rocks, as well as the driver himself.
According to the 0404 report, the incident began after the driver approached the entrance to Husan, to pick up some goods he had ordered from local Arab businesses.
Four days have passed since the disappearance of Aharon Soffer, a 23-year-old hareidi yeshiva student from America who was last seen last Friday around noon in the Jerusalem Forest.U.S. Drafts UN Resolution on Gaza Ceasefire
Soffer's family members expressed their great anxiety for his welfare, an anxiety has been heightened by rumors that he may possibly have been abducted. Three Israeli teens were abducted and murdered by Hamas terrorists on June 12, and fears over potential copycat crimes have remained since.
Those fears were heightened after the revenge killing of an Arab youth soon after the murdered boys' funeral in July. Mohammed Abu-Khder's body was discovered in the Jerusalem Forest the day after he went missing.
U.S. officials and diplomats from other UN member states said that Washington had presented a small group of countries with its own draft elements for a Security Council resolution after Jordan offered one last month and Britain, France and Germany wrote another ceasefire proposal last week.ZOA Lashes Out at Obama for Proposed Hamas-Israel Equation
"The U.S. has come up with its own draft," said one UN diplomat, who declined to be named. "It's quite different from the two others. Now they're working to combine the drafts and come up with a common text."
The U.S. officials and other diplomats declined to speak about details in the U.S. draft, though several said it was not acceptable on its own.
"We'll work on coming up with a single draft," another UN diplomat said, according to Reuters. "What's important is that the Americans are engaging and there's a new momentum in pushing for a ceasefire resolution in the Security Council that would be better than previous ones."
The Zionist Organization of America expresses "appall" at the Gaza resolution under UN Security Council consideration – and especially at the US for apparently agreeing to it.U.S. Opposes Abbas's 'Withdrawal Deadline' Plan
The proposed ceasefire resolution does not specifically condemn Hamas by name, but rather equates Hamas terrorism and the Israeli response to it. The resolution wording condemns "all violence and hostilities directed against civilians, as well as indiscriminate attacks resulting in civilian casualties, and all acts of terrorism." No differentiation is made between the "indiscriminate attacks" launched by Hamas and intended to kill unarmed civilians, and the Israeli counter-attacks designed to kill only terrorists who hide behind civilians.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said yesterday, "We are appalled that President Obama has chosen to join this initiative to pass a UN Security Council resolution that would grant a tremendous victory to Hamas -- a practical victory, in terms of easing the blockade on Hamas-controlled Gaza, and a moral one, by having the military action of both Israel and Hamas condemned as if they were of equal moral quality."
The resolution under UN consideration was framed by British, French and German diplomats. It was learned yesterday that the U.S. had also joined the initiative.
The United States said on Monday it was against Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas’s plan to go the United Nations and ask it to set a deadline for Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria.UN Watch: UN names Mary McGowan Davis to Schabas Commission on Gaza
“We support President Abbas’s objective to achieve a two-state solution, but we believe that if the Palestinians resort to the ICC, it will badly damage the atmosphere with the very people with whom they ultimately need to make peace,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
“And so our focus remains on achieving a sustainable ceasefire, not by resorting to unilateral actions in international fora. And that’s why we remain focused on the efforts the Egyptians are leading and also working with our counterparts in the UN,” she told reporters in a briefing.
Biographies of the members of the Commission of InquiryUN finds another anti-Israel judge for its kangaroo court on Gaza after George Clooney's fiance backs out.
Mary McGowan Davis (United States of America) served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York and as a federal prosecutor during the course of a 24-year career in the criminal justice sector in New York City. She also has extensive experience in the fields of international human rights law and transitional justice. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Association for the International Commission of Jurists and the International Judicial Academy, and serves on the Managerial Board of the International Association of Women Judges. Justice McGowan Davis also served as a member and then Chair of the UN Committee of Independent Experts tasked with following up on the findings of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza conflict occurring between December 2008 and January 2009.
Though Goldstone himself later retracted the slander, McGowan Davis championed it wholeheartedly.Hamas Official: Executions Are Carried Out to “Satisfy the Public”
McGowan-Davis is also on the board of the American Association for the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).
Throughout her tenure as a board member, the ICJ has been repeatedly connected with the Human Rights Council's campaign to vilify Israel over the 2009 Gaza war, the Goldstone report, its follow-up and the latest inquisition created by the Council on July 23, 2014.
During the Council's July 2014 Special Session, the ICJ called for the establishment of the new commission, and accused Israel of "disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks" in Gaza as well as "breaches of international humanitarian law" and "gross violations of human rights law" - the very issues McGowan-Davis is now charged with investigating.
Her evident lack of neutrality is exactly why she was selected to participate in Goldstone II.
During the interview, Abu Marzouk was asked whether “the information regarding the 18 informers (was) based on real time information, or did you already have the information at hand without conducting the execution, but the decision (to execute) was made today?”Analysis: End of the Line for Hamas?
The Hamas official’s answer was surprising: “No, basically there were already sentenced to death, but the execution was done collectively today (Friday).”
“It is possible that this step was taken to satisfy the public in this matter, without considering other legal measures that should have been taken,” Abu Marzouk added.
Hamas is in trouble. Eventually, barring some cataclysmic event or full-scale Israeli invasion, one of these serial cease-fires will more or less hold and the 2014 Gaza War will sputter to an end. And, sometime thereafter, Hamas will fall from power.IPT: Hamas: Israel's Destruction Remains Ultimate Goal
That may seem unlikely with Hamas currently having a firm grip on Gaza. But the deck has never been stacked against Hamas like it is now – militarily, diplomatically, and politically.
Hamas once enjoyed domestic and foreign popularity for its being able to threaten Israel with its rocket arsenal, thousands of fighters, and fiery ideology. But it is now a militarily compromised force: its rocket stockpiles, already shown to be largely useless, are shrunken; its terror tunnel network has been destroyed; and with some 1,000 of its fighters killed, including senior commanders, its military personnel have been weakened.
To hear some Palestinian advocates, if Israel simply lifted its blockade on Gaza – aimed at curbing weapons smuggling into the Hamas-controlled territory – then peace could be enjoyed by all.Our News Show - Hamas or ISIS? (Humor)
One of the main Hamas spokesman made it clear in an Aug. 17 speech that those advocates are misguided.
"The time has come for us to say that our true war is not aimed at opening the border crossings. Out true war is aimed at the liberation of Jerusalem, Allah willing," Sami Abu Zuhri said in a speech aired on Hamas' Al Aqsa television. It was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) in a video report.
Abu Zuhri also invoked the infamous anti-Semitic rallying cry radical Islamists often chant when calling for the elimination of Israel.
"Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad has begun its return."
Exposing The New York Times’ Top Man in Gaza
New York Times readers have reason to wonder how Jerusalem Bureau Chief Jodi Rudoren, its primary Gaza war reporter, has gained access to the Palestinian civilians whose tragic plight she has so incessantly recorded. Ms. Rudoren has acknowledged that she cannot speak Arabic, which inevitably raises questions about her access to the sources she cites.How Huffington Post Could Test Out its Advice to Israel
The answers are entwined in the identity of the Times’ primary Gaza journalist, who only recently shared a by-line. Until then he was invariably described as having “contributed reporting” from Gaza. He is Fares Akram, described by Rudoren as “brave, committed, talented . . . indefatigable.” He may be all of these, but there is more to his story, and to Times coverage, than that. Indeed, living in north Gaza City, Akram’s life among Gazans, within the framework of his own family history in Gaza, have decisively molded – and distorted – Times coverage.
Hey Arianna! Tear down your “borders,” first!AJAM and HRW’s Roth Team up to Accuse Israel in Gaza Conflict
Given all these facts, it’s worth asking:
Would Arianna be willing to tear down her own “borders,” to share her personal space, property and resources with a gang of sociopathic murderers — just as her publication is urging Israel to do, with Hamas and Fatah (and the Palestinian civilians who support their terrorism)?
After all, according to the editorial to which Arianna gave such prominent coverage, if only Israel would “get rid of its borders” with “Palestine” it would benefit by “allowing free movement and access to land, resources and economic opportunity for the citizens of both states.”
As neither Hamas nor Fatah have a strong presence in the Western hemisphere yet, though, to test her theory on herself, Arianna would have to find a gang that employs similarly barbaric violence to achieve its objectives. One gang that certainly fits this bill is Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).
Al-Jazeera America's program Talk to Al-Jazeera has aired several repeats of a mid-August half-hour conversation between program host Tony Harris and Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch (HRW) executive director. HRW benefits from what NGO Monitor Executive Director Gerald Steinberg has termed 'the halo effect" implied by its self-description as a human rights organization. But like others of its ilk, especially Oxafam and Amnesty International, it subjects the Jewish state to an inordinate degree of scrutiny and consistently casts it as a villain while being far less critical of terrorist groups Hezbullah and Hamas. As a result, Roth's accusations defaming Israel fit well with Al-Jazeera America, a sort of Trojan horse in American news media, whose owner/operator, the wealthy Middle East nation of Qatar, is a prime financer of Hamas whose reason for existence is to destroy Israel and kill Jews.Shocking Claim by BBC Journalist
The BBC’s Orla Guerin makes the shocking claim that there is “no evidence” that Hamas is using human shields. Yet there is overwhelming evidence that Hamas uses schools, hospitals, and residential areas as launching grounds for rockets aimed at Israel.Shocking Claim by BBC Journalist
ISM propaganda film update: What being killed by a sniper really looks like
(Here’s an edited version of the latest installment from Thomas Wictor, fisking a widely reported ISM video purporting to show the ‘killing’, by an unseen IDF sniper, of Salem Shemaly in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya on July 20th – A.L.)Guardian cartoon juxtaposes ISIS and Netanyahu
In the past twenty-four hours, I’ve gotten dozens of messages from Jewish Britons, telling me that the fake Gaza sniper video is suddenly coming up over and over in the UK.
British Jews are being called murderers. Does that make sense on any level? Am I now allowed to call all Arab-Americans in Detroit murderers because of the atrocities committed by the Islamic State? So, I’m going do something I wanted to avoid. Let me show you the harsh reality of being killed by a sniper.
Don’t watch any of the videos if you’re sensitive. I’ll describe them so that you don’t have to subject yourself to the imagery and sounds if things like this are too hard for you to take.
First, note the cartoon’s placement of evidently equally abhorrent “savages” – the ISIS jihadist, Netanyahu, the Hamasnik, Russia’s Putin, Egypt’s al-Sisi, Syria’s Assad, President Obama, Saudi’s King Abdullah and (possibly) Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau.BBC News absolves Hamas of truce violation, amplifies its propaganda – and refrains from naming its victim
Moreover, let’s remember one thing. This is the Guardian, and their cartoonist’s decision to place the Israeli Prime Minister right next to the ISIS jihadist is certainly not an accident.
Indeed, the mere absence of overt Judeophobic calumnies does not lessen the injurious editorial impact of Rowson’s graphic agitprop: by blurring the profound moral distinctions between antisemitic extremists and the Jewish target of their hate, it is hostile to the most elementary understanding of what opposing antisemitism means.
Condemning antisemitism in the abstract while failing to name, shame and condemn actual anti-Semites is the anti-racism of posers and cowards.
Normally based in Dubai, Middle East business correspondent Mark Lobel appears to be the latest BBC reporter to have been ‘parachuted in’ to provide backup to the Jerusalem Bureau team covering events in Israel and the Gaza Strip.Thinly disguised promotion of anti-Israel activism on BBC WS ‘Boston Calling’
On August 22nd, Lobel produced a report for BBC television news which was also promoted on the BBC News website’s Middle East page under the oddly punctuated title “Israeli child ‘killed by rocket fired from Gaza’“. Whether those inverted commas were intended to convey to audiences that the BBC is not sure that four year-old Daniel Tragerman was killed or not convinced that the mortar (rather than rocket) which caused his death was actually fired from the Gaza Strip is unclear. However – as was the case in the BBC News website’s written article purportedly relating to the same incident – Mark Lobel presented his entire report without mentioning Daniel’s name.
Why the editor of this BBC World Service programme found it news-worthy to advance a conspiracy theory promoted by anti-Israel activists and cooked up by someone widely held to be a lobbyist for the Iranian regime is a mystery.Mira Bar-Hillel falls for phony ‘IDF’ tweets ‘admitting’ to murdering children
No less notable is the fact that Estrin’s account fails to clarify to listeners the political motives behind the ‘camaraderie’ of the Palestinian activists he cites: the attempt to paint Palestinian rioters and African-American demonstrators in Ferguson as mutual victims of racist policies. That motive can be easily discerned in the statement of solidarity signed, among others, by two of the people quoted in his report – Mariam Barghouti and Linah Alsaafin – which includes the following in its preamble as it appeared on Electronic Intifada.
Mira Bar-Hillel wants so badly to believe that Israel murders children that she was willing to believe this absurd hoax tweet.Unpopular Front For Liberation Of Palestine Not Causing Trouble (satire)
Tell us again why Bar-Hillel continues to pen op-eds for British newspapers (on the topics of Israel and antisemitism!) and lands interviews with the BBC and Sky News, on similar topics, as a ‘representative’ of the British Jewish community.
Israeli experts note that the Unpopular Front has had difficulty recruiting new members to its ranks for some time. “In the early 1980′s there was a brief period when the Unpopular Front became popular, coinciding with the arrival of the movie Revenge of the Nerds in Middle East theaters,” said Colonel Rick Moranis of the Israeli Counterterrorism Institute. “But that proved short-lived, and even the newer arrivals such as Hamas have been able to muscle the UFLP off the stage.” Hamas was founded in the late 1980′s.
While the familiar green flags of Hamas fly all over the Gaza Strip and in parts of the West Bank, observers have not seen the yellow banner of the Unpopular Front, with its characteristic logo of Kalashnikov rifles forming a pair of black-rim glasses held together by masking tape. Longtime Khan Younis refugee camp resident Ahma Bulli said that the few UFLP members he had known over the years did not seem capable of handling weapons with any competence, and certainly not the bravado necessary for membership in the other, more prominent resistance organizations. “They tend to be loners, and they’re less likely to look at the girl walking by in a flattering hijab than they are to be working on some puzzle or technical project.”
