Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Fake Civilians 2014

Showing posts with label Fake Civilians 2014. Show all posts

Thursday, January 12, 2023

A fun Twitter thread with a human rights "expert" trying to defend Ken Roth

Sunjeev Bery is the Executive Director at an NGO called Freedom Forward. He was advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) at Amnesty International USA from 2011-2017. he's been interviewed on TV as some sort of expert.

For the past few days, Bery has been tirelessly tweeting his support for Ken Roth in the Kennedy School story - and going after Roth's critics.

Including me.

Which makes for some very entertaining reading.

Roth tweeted, "Harvard's Kennedy School says it 'welcomes new ideas—even unpopular and controversial ones." Its curriculum "encourages students and faculty to talk openly and effectively about difficult and highly charged issues.' Except for Israel, Dean Elmendorf?"

I responded to Roth, "Perhaps @Harvard @Kennedy_School has a policy against hiring obsessive liars? In 2014 I compiled a list of Ken Roth's Twitter lies over just a few months, and documented why they were wrong. He of course never corrected [any of] them. See for yourself," linking to a list of dozens of lies and distortions that Roth tweeted during and after the 2014 Gaza war.

Sunjeev Bery was very upset, apparently, at the tone of my list. "I started reading your "document" @elderofziyon, and it became clear within 10 seconds that it's a flimsy prop that enables you to just claim that people are liars. You are selling something that is far less than it actually is and using it for propaganda purposes."

Not knowing (or caring) who he was, I answered, "You are invited to tell me where I am wrong."

Instead of doing that, Bery wrote, "Many of the statements you make in your documents are simply claims and represent your beliefs. You seem to be adopting the posture that your claims are The Truth, and that those you disagree with are The Liars. Your intent is propagandistic."

Ah, so it isn't my facts - but my intent - that offends him. Good to know that human rights professionals are as little interested in the truth on Twitter as they are when they write their reports.

Then he hit me with what he considered his real zinger - which he used on other critics of Roth on the thread. "But here's the real question that tests your intentions: What are YOUR human rights criticisms of israel?"

It was already clear now that he was playing a game and had no interest in any semblance of truth, so I said I was done with the conversation: "So you cannot find a single example where Roth was correct and I was wrong. Out of several dozen. And then you want to accuse me of being disingenuous? Bye."

But this human rights professional brought out his inner teenage troll and kept trying to goad me. "Nice try buddy. Again @elderofziyon, what are YOUR criticisms of Israel?." I ignored him.

Another tweeter answered him, "He asked you a question in direct response to your criticism and you still didn’t answer. You should answer his question before you move on."

Bery answered him or her, "Wrong, buddy. If he can't say anything critical of Israel then he is ultimately a propagandist and a pro-government partisan arguing in bad faith."

I gave in and finally responded:

I'm not here for your amusement. I don't pretend to be anything but a pro-Israel site; I provide a tiny bit of counterweight to the tsunami of anti-Israel information out there. I am not a newspaper that pretends to be balanced. That being said, I strive to be 100% truthful.

To me, "bad faith" is accusing me of something and not being able to back it up, and instead changing the subject. THAT is a propaganda technique that the anti-Israel crowd does all the time; reframing the conversation instead of admitting mistakes.
I don't play those games.

After repeating himself for some reason, he gave me his one example of where my criticism of Roth was off-base to him with this screenshot:

By your own admission, you say that Ken Roth uses "the best available data" but because he doesn't include the caveats, you claim he is lying.

This is a totally bad faith argument on your part, and it is one of many many such examples in the document.

And so your overall document @elderofziyon lacks the substantive content necessary to justify your overall claim.

My reaction to the content of your document is that it serves the purpose of creating a propagandistic and misleading headline.

That is why I ask if you have any criticisms of Israel's policies that you are willing to state here publicly?
This is the test for differentiating an honest critic from a propagandist. A propagandist promotes a government and avoids mentioning any criticism whatsoever.

OK, at least he said something specific, even if it made no sense. I responded:

My 2014 article says "dozens of them were flat-out false, and others were knowingly deceptive." Your example is one of the deceptive ones - Roth stated the statistics AS FACT without saying "reportedly" or any other word newspapers would use.

Of course, he never corrected.

To defend that, and to cherry pick that out of all my examples that show how Roth DID lie multiple times, shows that YOU are the one who is being a propagandist. Is this the standard you accept for a human rights leader you have defended so energetically? That's pretty sad.

Bery:

No, I pointed out one example of many lies within your document in response to your request. There are many more examples of similar exaggerations.

But once again, you have failed to answer my question:

What are YOUR criticisms of Israeli policies?

The answer seems to be none.

Obviously he did not point out a single mistake or lie of mine. But I decided to answer his main question:

I defend my family publicly. I criticize them privately.

Everyone has biases. Every media outlet does, too. I admit mine -and the goal of my writings - upfront. Call it propaganda if you want, but I insist on honesty and transparency - which is much more than most media.

To Bery, this was the smoking gun! After a rehash of earlier arguments, he wrote, "Here's the reality, @elderofziyon. You are self-admittedly engaging in pro-Israel propaganda. You clearly state that you avoid making any public criticism of Israel, and that your only public comments on Israel are to defend its policies. "

Uh, yeah.

Yes. It is no secret. Wikipedia calls me a pro-Israel blogger. Not sure why that bothers you.

Ken Roth is also a propagandist, as I proved. But he insists there is no bias, which I have comprehensively shown he has.

And you are cool with that.

Bery's response to this graphic is priceless:

I bet many of Ken Roth's tweets regarding Israel are because he feels pressure to respond to propaganda accounts like yours constantly flooding Twitter with false claims.

So the only reason Roth treats Israel like the worst violator of war crimes is because people like me bother him!

Only then did I look Sunjeev up - and propaganda is his middle name.

Pot, meet kettle.

Sunjeev worked at Amnesty USA during the 2014 Gaza war. AI-USA said that Amnesty would correct any errors in their "Gaza Platform." I pointed out SCORES of them, calling terrorists "civilian." They ignored it.

Who is a propagandist?

His hilarious response was to paste my tweet where I admitted that I am a pro-Israel blogger. So damning!

Then I noticed that this "human rights professional" "Liked" a tweet that was pretty much at his maturity level:

So....it is propaganda when I defend one side, but it is perfectly OK to pretend to be an objective head of an NGO while "Like"ing tweets that say "Zionists love smelling their own farts"?

Bery then fell apart - yet defended it!

1. Zionists and Jews are not the same thing. It is anti-Semitic to conflate the two.

2. There are Christian and Hindu zionists. There are Jewish anti-zionists.

3. You are part of an organized troll strategy of amplifying your propaganda tweets, which I do liken to flatulence.

The guy who was trolling me for hours says I'm the troll!

I responded with my own numbered list:

1. Your Like proves that you are not the least bit objective. Just like your hero Roth.
2. If you don't know what objectivity means, then your defending Roth as objective is far funnier than a fart joke.
3. I wrote a book describing how today's anti-Zionism is a modern form of antisemitism.

4. This thread has proven to any observer that you have zero intellectual honesty.

He then said that I didn't answer him, presumably his non-sequitur that Zionists and Jews aren't the same: "Once again, you didn't respond to anything that I said. But that's cool. Keep up the propaganda! 👍 Your audiences are getting smaller and smaller 😊"

So I finished him and the thread off:

I never once claimed that Jews and Zionists are the same. Your reading comprehension is about the same level as your objectivity.
This thread will make a great post, though. Making a fool of a supposed human rights expert to the entire world is always fun!

His final response after bring proven a hypocrite with not the slightest interest in truth?

The troll couldn't handle being made a fool of.

But the most bizarre part is that while it is obvious that he said nothing at all to contradict a single one of my facts, ... he thinks he won!

Bery's entire argument is that to have any credibility, every Zionist must criticize Israel publicly and constantly. Obviously, he has no similar criteria insisting on "balance" for the anti-Israel zealots he admires and quotes.

I'm actually complimented that he keeps calling my writings "propaganda." Here is his response to the 2009 NYT op-ed by Robert Bernstein decrying how the organization he founded, Human Rights Watch, had gone off the rails by going after democracies like Israel that have checks and balances and downplaying the evil of the real human rights violators of the world:

I'll gladly share the insult with a true human rights giant.

The NGO Bery currently heads, "Freedom Forward," says it "seeks a world in which all people have the benefit of living in societies that are anchored in democracy and respect for human rights." It doesn't appear to actually do anything besides create "campaigns" against Israel and US Arab allies.

I wonder who funds it. The site is not very transparent about that.

Bery himself seems to have a soft spot for that bastion of democracy and human rights, Turkey.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Know How to Answer, part 18: "Israel targets civilians"

Latest in the series...

Nearly six years ago I gave a lecture at Yeshiva University on how to answer anti-Israel arguments. Since the lecture was over an hour and twenty minutes, I decided to break it up into 20 sections, one each to answer one popular anti-Israel argument.

Here is part 18..

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.3

Proven liars at Amnesty say my research is not credible without pointing out a single error

An EoZ reader wrote to Amnesty International with a series of questions. An excerpt:

I can see that the information provided in the [Gaza] platform has been collected from Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and yourselves. Could you not at least have pretended to be in any way balanced by providing input from the most left-leaning Israeli groups such as B'tselem when putting this data together? If you really had wished to take an impartial look at these incidents, you could have also included data from the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre who have looked through various war crimes allegations in Gaza last year and provided a different version of events to what Al Mezan and the PCHR have claimed. I must also refer you to the Elder of Ziyon blog which has consistently highlighted claims of war crimes on “innocent civilians” (many included in the platform) where it is known that terrorists were present at that location and time. Here are some of these documented cases:

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/todays-amnesty-deceptions-and-lies.html
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/bashing-israel-amnesty-has-app-for-that.html
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/amnestys-true-colors-revealed-with-fake.html
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/amnestys-blood-libel-against-idf.html#.VaLdTNJVhBc
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/another-lie-by-amnesty-international.html

In short my questions are:
1) Why has Amnesty decided to spend so much time and resources focusing on the Jewish state, but are unable to pass a resolution focussing on combating antisemitism in the UK?
2) Why is Israel implicated by yourselves as having systematically committed violations without any conclusive evidence?
3) Why is Hamas not mentioned at all in your press release here?: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/07/launch-of-innovative-digital-tool-gaza/
4) Why have you based the platform only on information from Palestinian groups who cannot be trusted to reflect the full picture of what happened?

I think I already have the answer, but I would be only to happy to have a response from you with your answer.

Looking forward to your response.

Here was some of their response (sent a couple of weeks ago):

Our latest report that you have seen documents Israeli attacks last year that caused huge loss of civilian life and destruction of civilian infrastructure.

A further report is due to be issued tomorrow on intensive attacks on Rafah, in the South of the Gaza strip, from 1-4 August last year, in which 135 Palestinian civilians including 75 children were killed, during a massive bombardment of civilian areas following the capture of an Israeli soldier.

Amnesty's findings are in accordance with those of other human rights organisations, including B'Tselem, and I'm not sure why you would quote B'Tselem as if their findings were different from ours. B'Tselem's findings on Israeli violations are very much in line with our own, eg see here: http://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/gaza_201407_operation

We would not deem elderofziyon a credible source.

Amnesty's response did not address the research done by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre which exhaustively documented hundreds of terrorists, many of which Amnesty's Gaza Platform called "civilian." The UNHRC quoted the Meir Amit Center a number of times in their report but apparently it is too unreliable for Amnesty.

B'Tselem also noticed militants that Amnesty pretended didn't exist. I documented one, Ahmad Sahmoud, here, Although the Gaza Platform did count him as a militant, Amnesty quoted family members as saying that there were no militants in the area without pointing out that they were lying - and Amnesty knew they were lying.

But there are other examples of B'Tselem being more honest than Amnesty:

Amnesty says Amjad Zaher Moussa Hamdan was a civilian. B'Tselem reported he was a militant. (GP event 1190)
Amnesty says that Mohammed Mahmoud al-Maqadma was a civilian. B'Tselem knew he was a militant. (GP event 2264.)
Amnesty said that Yazid al Batsh was a civilian. B'Tselem reported him as a militant. (GP event 1619.) Six other from that family were also terrorists, as I have shown.
Amnesty said Wissam 'Abdul Raziq al-Ghannam was a civilian,. B'Tselem knew he was a militant. (GP event 1405.)
Amnesty says Ashraf Mahmoud Al Astal was a civilian. B'Tselem knows he was a terrorist. (GP event 2584.)

(There were a couple of others that B'Tselem identified that I couldn't find immediately in Amnesty's Gaza Platform.)

So the letter writer was right - Amnesty ignored even B'Tselem's reports that shows some of their "civilians" were terrorists.

All of this information was published by B'Tselem over a year ago. Amnesty's researchers did not deem it important enough to incorporate into their Gaza Platform.

Now, Amnesty's dismissal of my research is interesting. In order for them to say I'm not credible, they must have read my research and pretended that my facts, all with supporting evidence in the form of links to source materials in militant websites or videos, are not true.

This proves that Amnesty is familiar with my articles and cannot argue with them. They cannot find any fault in my facts. So they try to discredit me without giving an iota of proof.

This letter proves that Amnesty is not interested in the truth, and that they will defend their lies even when they know that they are lying..

I've proven that Amnesty is not credible with transparent research that anyone can check. They call me non-credible without a single example..

Now a new clock is ticking. Will Amnesty correct the Gaza Platform for the five people I just documented that B'Tselem identified as terrorists? After all, Amnesty-USA claims that they would correct any errors. Sure it's been a week since I sent some to them, but maybe photos of terrorists with RPGs and uniforms isn't enough proof for Amnesty. But surely B'Tselem's research should be enough to force them to correct their platform, right?

We'll see.

The letter writer followed up pointing out how poor Amnesty's answer was and how my facts were backed up by easily verified facts. He never received a response.

(h/t RS)

Amnesty-USA tells a whopper

I just found out about a specific Amnesty-USA Twitter account dedicated to nothing besides Israel and the the "occupied Palestinian territories."

Amnesty International USA team on Israel/OPT/State of Palestine: Edith Garwood, Country Specialist, and Alicia Koutsoulieris, Case Coordinator.

When Amnesty came out with the Gaza Platform, this Twitter exchange occurred between Yitzchak Goodman and AI-USA:

This is as baldfaced a lie as is possible, since I documented many "civilians" in Amnesty's Gaza Platform who weren't civilian. Such as Zakariya Alaa Subhi al-Batsh and six of his relatives in the same house, all of whom were militants and all of whom Amnesty called civilian:

Or Ibrahim Jamal Nasser, reported by Amnesty to be a 13-year old boy:

But maybe AIUSA just wasn't aware of these people. So I tweeted them last night:

OK, @IOTPA, here's one. Let me know when you correct it. Clock starts now. @yitzgood @amnesty pic.twitter.com/zDd77FrrIc
— ElderOfZiyon (@elderofziyon) August 12, 2015

And here are a couple more to add to their list of corrections that must be made that I took from the Meir Amit Center that I verified the Gaza Platform calls "civilian.":

Hey, Amnesty says that they correct errors. Let's see if they are telling the truth.

Even though I proved that they count fewer terrorists killed than even Hamas does.

The "human rights" terrorist supporter that Amnesty missed

Yesterday, I noted that Amnesty International ended its three day streak of not writing an anti-Israel tweet. I assumed that the victim that they mentioned, a worker for the Al Mezan NGO, was targeted by accident.

#BeitHanoun Israeli drone fired at workers repairing pipeline, 1 bystander died: http://t.co/mx667hkltn #50Days4Gaza pic.twitter.com/a6NFtQLhmY
— AmnestyInternational (@AmnestyOnline) August 10, 2015

As Bob Knot researched, this is far from clear. Israel didn't target the workers, as Amnesty assumed. It apparently targeted the "human rights" worker, Anwar Za'anin.

This is him - a member of the PFLP terror group:

The PFLP was behind the 2014 Jerusalem synagogue massacre as well as the drive-by shooting of Israelis in a car in June 2015.

And Zaanin was a proud member of this group.

I don't know if he was an armed member of the PFLP, but chances are that Israeli intelligence identified him as a valid military target. The pipeline workers were not.

Later that same day, Ahmed Sami Ahmed Al Za'anin was targeted and wounded on the same street. PCHR admits that he was a militant. Chances are very good that Ahmed was this "human rights" worker's relative.

Another Ahmed Za'anin from Beit Hanoun who was also a member of the PFLP and had been killed by the IDF in January 2014 for shooting rockets.

Amnesty doesn't know the whole story by a long shot. Anwar was probably helping the PFLP's Mustafa Brigades, which bragged that it fought valiantly but did not admit any "martyrs" as far as I can tell. He certainly was a terrorist sympathizer, which would be considered strange for a "human rights" activist anywhere else in the world.

But there is no evidence that Israel targeted civilians for no reason, as Amnesty (and PCHR and Al Mezan) is saying.

Today's @Amnesty deceptions and lies

As Amnesty continues to add to the anti-Israel rhetoric accompanying its "50 Days for Gaza" campaign, we will continue to expose their deceptions and lies.

Amnesty tweeted this:

#KhanYounis: 9 Palestinian civilians killed watching World Cup in local café: http://t.co/OPAUqae5zh #50Days4Gaza pic.twitter.com/P2NT3JFkYB
— AmnestyInternational (@AmnestyOnline) July 9, 2015

Here's the event that they are linking to:

At approximately 23:00 on 9 July 2014, 9 Palestinian civilians were killed while they were in a beach coffee shop watching a match of the Football World Cup as Israeli warplanes bombarded the coffee shop. The victims were identified as: Ibrahim and Mohammed Kahlil Qannan, 24 and 26; Suleiman and Ahmed Saleem Mousa al-Astal, 17 and 18; Mousa Mohammed Taher al-Astal, 15; Mohammed Ihsan Farawana, 18; and Hamdi, Ibrahim and Saleem Sawali, 20, 28 and 23.

This is a lie. There were not 9 civilians. The cafe was hosting a gathering of the Fatah Abu Rish Brigades. Two brothers, Mohammed and Ibrahim Qanan, as I documented here.

Three other brothers from the same group listed in this "martyr's" poster, Hamdi, Ibrahim and Saleem Sawali:

And Mohammed Ihsan Farawana has another Fatah martyr's poster:

Civilians?

Amnesty lied again.

Amnesty silently changed the blood libel video we first reported. They changed the video of a "roof knocking" to a different one, that can be seen here in full from YNet:

While the video does indeed show less than a minute between a small explosion and the one that destroys the house, what Amnesty doesn't tell you is that the target was Hamas rocket unit head Ayman Siam. And Amnesty's own Gaza Platform tells us that there was a much earlier warning that allowed all five families who lived in that house to escape well before either of these explosions. They number this as Incident 1475:

At approximately 10:22 pm on Friday, 11 July 2014, an Israeli warplane fired three missiles at a house belonging to Mohammed Mohammed Abdul Hadi Siyam (70 year old), located next to UNRWA clinic in Al-Shate’ refugee camp, west of Gaza. The attack has completely destroyed the 4 storey house, which was inhabited by 5 families (30 individual), including 15 children. IDF soldiers informed the owner of the house before they attacked targeted the house.[sic]

SOURCE: Al Mezan

(h/t Bob Knot)

HRW again gives benefit of doubt to Saudis for airstrikes on civilians

Last month I showed the striking differences between how Human Rights Watch treated Saudi and Israeli airstrikes that kill civilians.

Here is another example of the differences between the wording of a recent HRW report on a Saudi airstrike in Yemen versus a similar report from last Just about an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.

Note how HRW is bending over backwards to not directly accuse the Saudis of doing anything illegal, only suggesting that there might be problems and asking for an impartial investigation, while noting that the Houthis are placing military targets near civilian structures.

As opposed to Israel where they immediately accuse the IDF of violating the laws of war, purposeful targeting of civilians for no reason, and including sarcasm about Israel's "precision" strikes.

HRW communique April 16, 2015 17 days after the Saudi airstrike in Yemen	HRW Communique July 16, 2014 7 days after Israeli airstrike in Gaza

Yemen: Factory Airstrike Killed 31 Civilians Saudi-Led, US-Backed Attack Raises Laws-of-War Concerns Airstrikes by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition that hit a dairy factory in Yemen on March 31, 2015,killed at least 31 civilians and wounded another 11. The governments that participated in the attacks should investigate the airstrikes, which may have been indiscriminate or disproportionate, in violation of the laws of war. Forces of Ansar Allah, known as the Houthis, and other opposition forces, also appeared to put civilians at unnecessary risk. Area residents told Human Rights Watch that the Yemany Dairy and Beverage factory, a multi-building compound 7 kilometers outside the Red Sea port of Hodaida, was about 100 meters from a military air base controlled by Houthi forces. Military units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh were at another nearby military camp. “The coalition's repeated airstrikes on a dairy factory show cruel disregard for civilians, as does the deployment near the factory by Houthi and pro-Saleh forces." said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “The attack may have violated the laws of war, so the countries involved should investigate and take appropriate action, including compensating victims of unlawful strikes.” While civilian casualties do not necessarily mean that the laws of war were violated, the high loss of civilian life in a factory seemingly used for civilian purposes should be impartially investigated, Human Rights Watch said	Israel/Palestine: Unlawful Israeli Airstrikes Kill Civilians Bombings of Civilian Structures Suggest Illegal Policy Israeli air attacks in Gaza investigated by Human Rights Watch have been targeting apparent civilian structures and killing civilians in violation of the laws of war. Israel should end unlawful attacks that do not target military objectives and may be intended as collective punishment or broadly to destroy civilian property. Deliberate or reckless attacks violating the laws of war are war crimes, Human Rights Watch said. “Israel’s rhetoric is all about precision attacks but attacks with no military target and many civilian deaths can hardly be considered precise,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Recent documented cases in Gaza sadly fit Israel’s long record of unlawful airstrikes with high civilian casualties.” Human Rights Watch investigated four Israeli strikes during the July military offensive in Gaza that resulted in civilian casualties and either did not attack a legitimate military target or attacked despite the likelihood of civilian casualties being disproportionate to the military gain. Such attacks committed deliberately or recklessly constitute war crimes under the laws of war applicable to all parties. In these cases, the Israeli military has presented no information to show that it was attacking lawful military objectives or acted to minimize civilian casualties. On July 9, an Israeli attack on the Fun Time Beach café near the city of Khan Yunis killed nine civilians, including two 15-year-old children, and wounded three, including a 13-year-old boy. An Israeli military spokesman said the attack was “targeting a terrorist” but presented no evidence that any of those at the café, who had gathered to watch a World Cup match, were participating in military operations, or that the killing of one alleged “terrorist” in a crowded café would justify the expected civilian casualties.

Notice how HRW took far less time to "investigate" Israeli actions and declare them guilty than they spent to tell us that they don't quite know what happened in Yemen.

There is another difference.

The dead Yemenis are not even worth naming in HRW's dispatch, but HRW went into details of the lives of the victims of Israeli airstrikes, humanizing them.

For example:

Relatives and survivors said the victims frequently went to the beach café. Khaled Qanan, 30, told Human Rights Watch that the attack killed two of his brothers, Mohammed, 25, a master’s degree student in Arabic, and Ibrahim, 28, who sold fish. Ramadan Sabbah, 37, the two victims’ brother-in-law, said:

They went to the beach café all the time, including every day since this operation started [on July 8]. They said they felt safer there than they did in Khan Yunis. But there was nothing to shelter them; it was just chairs and fabric. When we found the bodies, they didn’t have visible injuries. Ibrahim had only a small cut, but we found his body almost 200 meters away. Mohammed was found on the asphalt. The road is cracked from the explosion.

Too bad that HRW couldn't figure out that the Qanan brothers were terrorists.

As the Meir Amit Center documents, they were both members of the Fatah Abu Rish Brigades.

But HRW said, flatly, that these soccer-loving terrorists were civilians. And HRW used that as a reason to accuse Israel of war crimes.

Once again, HRW's bias against Israel is unmistakable.

Two more of those "children" killed in Gaza

Today, Islamic Jihad published a memorial for two twin brothers who were both fighters for them during the Gaza war.

Their names were Anas and Saad, and I don't think their surnames are published. They were both killed on July 20, 2014.

Here they are:

What is interesting is that the article says that they were born on December 5, 1996 - which means that they were 17 when they were killed - and considered "children" by NGOs. Furthermore, we are told that they joined Islamic Jihad's Al Quds Brigades in late 2012, which would have been around their 16th birthdays.

Of course these martyr photos and videos were created months before they were killed.

I noted last year that 70% of th e children killed in Gaza between the ages of 9-17 were boys. The ratio goes up the older the teens are, from 62% of those 9-11 to 79% of those between 15-17. Given that we have evidence (same link) of children as young as nine being used by terror groups, a significant number of the "children" killed in Gaza must have been helping out Hamas or other terror groups.

The Meir Amit ITIC, in their latest report on how Gaza terror groups recruit children, says "An examination of the names of Gazan fatalities in Operation Protective Edge indicated adolescents who served in the military-terrorist wings of the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip. The extensive recruitment of young men and the intention to use them as auxiliary forces for the regular military-terrorist units is liable to increase the number of those killed and wounded in future confrontations between the terrorist organizations and the IDF, serving Hamas as propaganda material to use against Israel."

It may be far worse than that. Documentary filmmaker Pierre Rehov wrote last year in Gatestone:

When making one of my documentaries, the Palestinian who was leading my crew offered me a scoop. As I was French, he trusted me to be on the Palestinians' side. "You know," he said, "what pays well? When an Israeli soldier kills a child. Are you interested?" he continued. "We can arrange that. For $10,000, I can organize everything." Was he talking of a staging, or the real killing of a child? I did not dare to ask. I still nurture hope, despite the facts, that people would not willingly sacrifice children just to promote a show.

Sacrificing children is part of thee war strategy for these sick organizations.But that idea is so heinous that Westerners just don't want to believe it.

(h/t Pilpula, Yenta)

Fake "Child Victim" of the Day

On July 30, PCHR reported:

- At approximately 18:30, an Israeli drone fired a missile at a motor cart in Bani Suhaila. As a result, 4 Palestinian civilians, including 2 children, were killed: Mohammed Shawqi Mustafa Abu Hammad, 26; Ahmed Ismail Mohammed Abu Hammad, 31; Mohammed Mustafa Ismail Abu Hammad, 14; and Muhannad Ashraf Ismail al-Qarra, 17.

Muhannad al-Qarra was, of course, considered one of the "children" killed mercilessly by Israel during the war.

I turns out that he was an Islamic Jihad terrorist, whose obituary was just published.

In that obituary we find that he eagerly became a member of Islamic Jihad's Saraya Brigades even though he was under 18. His family had many mujahadeen members.

During the war al Qarra transported weapons to the terrorists in different areas of Gaza.

His brother Mohammed reminisces how much Muhannad would talk about ejecting all the Jews from the land.

Notice how the terror groups have been only slowly admitting how many of their members were killed, waiting until months after the meme of Israel killing mostly civilians was embedded in the world's consciousness. This is exactly what they did during Cast Lead as well, and I predicted on the first day of the war that it would happen again.

(h/t Israellycool and Judge Dan)

Fake civilian of the day

Islamic Jihad just released a fawning obituary of Eyad Radi Abu Raida, a mujahid killed in Khuza'a east of Khan Younis.

Notice in the second photo Abu Raida is playing with his weapon in a mosque. This photo was taken in September 2013, not during wartime, in case anyone doubts how Gaza terrorists use mosques.

There was also a seemingly privately made video honoring him released last month.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights called Abu Raida a "civilian."

As in the past, terror groups are still releasing names of their "martyrs" months after they were killed, as one of the goals of the war was to maximize the number of seeming civilians killed. Now that the meme of "vast majority of those killed were civilians" has been accepted as fact, the organizations can be more up front about their casualties, but only one at a tie.

Today's fake PCHR "civilian"

I have not been actively looking for these lately, but today Islamic Jihad put out an obituary on one of its members killed during Operation Protective Edge, Abdul Majeed Abdullah Abdul Majeed Aidi.

Look how devout he is!

Aidi was described as a civilian by the PCHR on July 26: (they say 13 out of 18 killed in Gaza City that day were civilians and he is not listed as one of the five militants.)

At approximately 20:30, a number of Israeli artillery shells hit a house belonging to ‘Abdullah Ibrahim Abu Leila, 51, in al-Zaytoun neighborhood. As a result, Avu Leila was killed together with 3 other persons who were in the house: Abdul Majid ‘Abdullah al-‘Aaidi, 36; Mohammed ‘Abdul Nasser Abu Zaina, 22; and Yousef Kamal Mohammed al-Wassifi, 23.

The strangely aged "14-year old" martyr

On July 13, the Gaza Ministry of Health announced the death of 14-year old Hussein Abdelkader Muheisen, who died of his wounds suffered a few days earlier.

It was published in a number of Arabic sites, including Palestine Today.

His death was not mentioned by PCHR.

Today, Palestine Today celebrates the young man, who actually was 24 years old:

Islamic Jihad claims that Muheisen led a team that ambushed elite Israeli soldiers, killing several. That is not true, since the first Israeli casualty was on July 15.

The Meir Amit Terrorism Center so far has identified 354 terrorists, 49%, out of 751 Gaza dead that they identified positively. They note that many of the terrorists killed were not listed in various NGO reports, so when PCHR was claiming a high percentage of civilians killed, one reason it was exaggerated was because they ignored some people they knew were terrorists.

3 more fake "civilians" of the day

On July 14, PCHR said that Adham Mohammed 'Abdul Fattah 'Abdul 'Aal, 29, was a civilian.

The Fatah Al Nidal Brigades calls him a "mujahid martyr."

On July 20,PCHR implied, and Al Mezan said, that Mohammed 'Abdul Rahman Mahmoud Abu Hamad, 24 was a civilian.

Fatah's Nidal Brigades also call him a "mujahid martyr."

PCHR said on July 30 that Mohammed Mahmoud al-Astal, 25, was a civilian.

The same Fatah page describes him also as a "martyr mujahid."

His home had one of the families that B'stelem claimed Israel wiped out for no reason; B'Tselem did not identify him as a terrorist and his family as human shields.

(h/t Bob Knot for Hamad poster)

Fake Gaza "civilian" of the Day - plus photo of Gaza boys pretending to execute a girl (update)

On July 21, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said that Alaa’ Jamal Barda, 35, killed by an IDF strike, was a civilian (they named all the members of armed groups they counted.)

Here he is, in a poster with the Hamas Al Qassam Brigades logo:

I also found these two photographs. The first one was shared on Twitter and Facebook as an example of how Gaza children have hope, as a boy pretending to be a militant gives a girl some flowers:

The second one, with the same girl, is a bit more disturbing:

Maybe she spurned the flowers, so she deserved it for dishonoring the boy.

UPDATE: No martyr poster, but Islamic Jihad describes Mohammed al-Najjar as a "mujahid" who was killed on his way to dawn prayers July 25. PCHR seems to identify him as a civilian.

Other members of the al-Najjar family were killed the same day but at their house, and we already showed that at least one - and maybe more, based on their burial shrouds - were terrorists (h/t Bob K)

Fake Gaza Civilian of the Day

PCHR on July 12 said that "civilian" Haitham Ashraf Zo'rob was killed.

Here he is in his Hamas and Al Qassam Brigades martyr poster:

Interestingly, Zo'rob was also apparently a member of the Palestinian Authority security services, based on logo in his beret and poster here:

Relative of Dutch "righteous gentile" was a Hamas terrorist

Last month there was a major news story about a Yad Vashem Righteous Gentile who returned his award to Israel after the IDF bombed a house with his innocent relatives inside.

As a front-page New York Times story said then:

On Thursday, Mr. Zanoli, 91, whose father died in a Nazi camp, went to the Israeli Embassy in The Hague and returned a medal he received honoring him as one of the Righteous Among the Nations — non-Jews honored by Israel for saving Jews during the Holocaust. In an anguished letter to the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, he described the terrible price his family had paid for opposing Nazi tyranny.

...Dr. [Hassan al-] Zeyada (older brother) said last month that none of his family members were militants.

al-Maqadama

I reported here that one of the people in the house, a "guest" named Mohammed Mahmoud al-Maqadma, was actually an Al Qassam Brigades terrorist - a fact noticed by B'Tselem. This is something that the New York Times reporters should have checked out, but didn't.

PCHR reported, without qualification, that the entire family (as well as Mohammed al-Maqadamah) were innocent civilians. the NYT reported, without question, that none of the family members themselves were militants. An earlier story also quoted Hassan al-Zeyada as saying that none of them were militants:

He said two of his brothers were in Palestinian police forces — one a municipal officer employed by the Hamas administration and the other under Fatah, the rival faction that was sidelined when Hamas took over in 2007. Police forces have often been Israeli targets, but his brothers were not militants, he said — and anyway, “I am not looking for justifications.”

And neither did the New York Times.

It turns out that Maqadama was not the only member of Hamas in that house.

Meet one of Hassan's "not militant" brothers. Omar Ziyada was a field commander of Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades.

Here's a screen shot from a 19-minute Qassam martyr's video that was just released in memory of Omar Ziyada.

Here's a shorter version of the video.

Both the poster and the video were posted on the Facebook page of Omar's older brother, Saad. He obviously knew Omar was a terrorist - but he didn't write anything about that during the war, following Hamas' social media guidelines. Only now, weeks later, is the truth revealed.

Omar's sister Salma happily posted the martyr video as well.

If Omar's brother and sister knew he was a terrorist, so did his brother Hassan - happily lying to the New York Times about how supposedly innocent Omar was.

Now we know that there were at least two terrorists in the Ziyada house. During a war, this strongly indicates that the house was in fact a command and control center of some sort, if not a weapons cache. The IDF actions appear to be more and more justified.

No doubt the surviving relatives know exactly what the house was being used for - and they are keeping mum. The New York Times' Anne Barnard didn't bother to research that, because their reporters are credulous enough - and reflexively anti-Israel enough - to accept the words of Gazans without skepticism.

No matter how many times they lie.

The Economist and others used this story as more proof that Israel was monstrously murdering Gazans for no reason.

And because the New York Times and Haaretz were so keen on reporting on the apparent irony of a "righteous gentile" turning against Israel, they didn't do basic fact checks that might ruin such a good story. They missed the real irony:a person who saved Jews from Nazis ended up being related to modern Nazis who want to finish Hitler's job.

When will we see this reported in the NYT?

(h/t Bob Knot)