@Airwars takes a chapter from @Amnesty - creating a database that declares terrorists to be "civilians" (@DigFind_)

In 2015, Amnesty International created a website called the Gaza Platform, created with Forensic Architecture, that claimed to identify every casualty in the 2014 Gaza war and the circumstances around the incident.

As I showed at the time, the database was filled with inaccuracies, and many of the people that they claimed were civilian were in fact terrorists. Amnesty was aware of my research showing terrorists in their uniforms with guns that they called "civilian" and chose to keep the lies in the database - which is still available, today.

Airwars is another NGO that purports to document the innocent victims of war, and they do just what Amnesty did - they are calling legitimate military targets "civilians."

This is a Twitter thread by open source researcher DigFind on this:

Our investigation finds that award winning non-profit company @airwars is whitewashing terrorism with the help of high profile donors.

Airwars' interactive map project detailing the "civilian casualties" in Gaza was nominated for @amnesty media awards 2022.

Airwars is based at Goldsmiths, University of London @GoldsmithsUoL. Chris Woods @chrisjwoods is the founder and until yesterday the director. Chris also sits on Forensic Architecture @ForensicArchi's Advisory Board. 

Previously, Amnesty International @amnesty and Forensic Architecture @ForensicArchi teamed up to create the "Gaza Platform", an online data visualization app that describes many known Palestinian terrorists as civilian casualties of the 2014 Gaza War.

Mohammed Barham Abu Draz (محمد برهم على أبو دراز) was a member of Al Qassam Brigades - a terrorist organization. He is listed as civilian casualty.
gazaplatform.amnesty.org/#1528

Same for Alaa’ Jamal Barda (علاء جمال بردع). He was a field commander with the same terror group.

https://gazaplatform.amnesty.org/#1528

Airwars receives funding from Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust @jrct_uk, Open Society Foundations @OpenSociety, Stichting Democratie en Media, Reva and David Logan Foundation, and J. Leon Foundation. 

On Airwars' Advisory Board are anti-Israel boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS)supporting Raed Jarrar @raedjarrar and Chris Cobb-Smith @CobbSmith. Both also linked to Amnesty.

@NGOmonitor background information on the two:

ngo-monitor.org/amnesty-usas-n…

CNN Cites Consultant Who Teams Up with NGOs to Bash IsraelOn May 24, 2022, CNN published an article alleging that evidence suggests that Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces. This inflammatory charge, which was vehemently denied …https://www.ngo-monitor.org/cnn-cites-consultant-who-teams-up-with-ngos-to-bash-israel/

Amnesty-USA’s Newest Anti-Israel HiresAmnesty International and its various country branches systematically hire researchers and campaigners with histories of anti-Israel activism. These employees write analyses on Israel that are both in…https://www.ngo-monitor.org/amnesty-usas-newest-anti-israel-hires/

Some examples of "civilian casualties" that were actual Hamas, Fatah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists.

Ezz El-Din Mohamed Helles (عز الدين محمد حلس) - member Al Qassam Brigades

Muhammad Yahya Abu Al-Atta (محمد يحيى أبو العطا) - field commander al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Muhammad Saeed Abu Al-Atta (محمد سعيد ابوالعطا) - field commander Al Qassam Brigades.

Osama Ashraf Abu Rida (اسامه اشرف ابو ريده) - Activist Fatah youth. Fatah Movement Eastern Region referred to him as their martyr hero.

Zaher Atya Anbar (زاهر عطية عنبر) - member of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - Nidal Al-Amoudi Brigade, a Gaza based armed group.

Yasser Al-Masry Abu Musab (ياسر المصري ابو مصعب) - Commander of the Deir al-Balah Brigade in Saraya al-Quds. Recently he died of injuries sustained in May 2021. Airwars' assessment of the IDF strike on Al-Masry - "civilian harm"

I'd like to add that when someone is misidentified as a civilian, it not only affects the raw statistics of the victims. If the IDF has a legitimate target that was of a high enough value, then under the laws of armed conflict they are allowed to attack it even if there are civilians that will be harmed. This is not a carte blanche to attack anyone without regard to civilians, but if the target is someone or something that is important enough, some collateral damage is acceptable according to the principle of proportionality.

This means that any civilians who were effectively used as human shields by the terrorists cannot be treated as if they were killed far away from any target. Unlike how NGOs like Amnesty and HRW frame it, their deaths are legal. Only if there was no military gain from the attack does it violate the laws of war. When NGOs pretend that every civilian is a victim of Israel, they have it backwards: they died because Hamas and other terrorists hid behind them.

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Is the US Holding Israel’s Iron Dome Hostage to an Iran Nuke Deal? (Guest post by Dave Bender)

Is the US Holding Israel’s Iron Dome Hostage to an Iran Nuke Deal?

While President Biden, Senate, and Congress slow-walk and bicker over replenishing Jerusalem's dwindling defensive missile shield supplies, PM Bennett says his country won't be bound to any rickety renewed nuke deal - nor stand idly by to Iran's increasingly genocidal threats

By Dave Bender, northern Israel

Administration and Capitol political horse-traders and ideologues are holding hostage the lives of some two million Israelis -- specifically the Gaza Envelope and northern border areas. Their domestic foot-dragging endangers Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, and Bedouin citizens, alike.

This, while P5+1 group (US, UK, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the EU) reps wrangle with Iran in Vienna through - so far - no less than eight contentious sessions over terms of restarting the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

But Jerusalem doesn’t trust the Viennese diplomatic waltz nor Iranian double-crossing promises; they’re preoccupied with Tehran’s ruling and military leaders’ incessant, bellicose threats to “turn Tel Aviv and Haifa into dust,” “wipe Israel off the map,” and taking note of videos of simulated strikes against Israel’s cities, military targets, and reputed nuclear facilities.

“...the Zionist regime has forgotten that Iran is more than capable of hitting them from anywhere,” the Tehran Times histrionically boasted in a December 2021 front-page article, entitled, “Just One Wrong Move.” https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/tehran-times-publishes-targets-iran-will-attack-in-israel-688785

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, told the Knesset parliament’s crucial Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee that, “Israel is not a party to the agreements,” and warned that the Jewish State “is not bound to what will be written in the agreements if they are signed,” according to a JNS report. https://www.jns.org/bennett-sends-message-to-iran-vienna-talks-wont-tie-israels-hands/

And so, Israel is “investing in security rearmament,” to the tune of an immense NIS 60 billion ($19.2 billion) due to what Bennett called an “[Iranian] octopus that constantly threatens Israel.”

Military analyst Seth Frantzman at The Jerusalem Post breaks down the tentacled threat matrix:

“Both Hamas and Hezbollah maintain large stockpiles of ballistic rockets, in addition to mortars, anti-tank missiles, and other munitions. While Hamas does have Iranian-made weaponry, a significant amount of its arsenal has historically been indigenously made, as a result of the ongoing blockade against the Gaza Strip. Hamas has produced several types of rockets, notably the Qassam series. Hezbollah’s stockpile has in the past consisted of former Soviet models, including Grads and Katyushas, but, like Hamas, now has Iranian-made heavy and long-distance rockets like the Fajr series.

“Estimates of Hezbollah rocket stockpiles vary from 150,000-200,000, while Hamas’ is estimated to be around 10,000.”  https://www.jpost.com/tags/rocket-attack-on-israel

Additionally, the Alma Research and Education Center, reports that Iran has deployed a wide array of “medium-range and long-range surface-to-surface missiles inside fortified shafts,” at a site near Palmyra, in eastern Syria. https://israel-alma.org/research/

“The missiles we mentioned above can threaten almost the entire territory of the State of Israel: Northern Israel (distance of about 186 miles, about 300 kilometers, from Mount Muhammad Ben Ali by air), Haifa area (distance of about 223 miles, about 360 kilometers), Tel Aviv area (distance of about 261 miles, about 420 kilometers) and even threaten the area of ​​the city of Beer Sheva and south of it.”

But while last summer's unfulfilled promises to resupply crucial defensive measures remains a vital concern to Israelis, the regional conflagration the delay could yet ignite apparently remains - seriously and serially - misjudged and maybe even selectively ignored by the US Administration and its cohorts.

The May conflict with Gaza saw over four thousand rockets fired at metropolitan areas, and some 16 Hamas-Hezbollah rockets fired south out of southern Lebanon into civilian areas later in the year, with the Iron Dome successfully downing some 90 percent of them.

However, 12 Israeli civilians and an IDF soldier were killed, and over 300 wounded, and millions of dollars in economic damage was sustained in the 11-day operation, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Terrorism/Palestinian/Pages/Operation-Guardian-of-the-Walls-10-May-2021.aspx

In Gaza, the IDF said some 460 misfired rockets fell short within the coastal enclave, killing and maiming an unclear number of reported non-combatants. Hamas-affiliated medical officials reported some 260 deaths to the UN and Human Rights Watch, although Israeli researchers say almost 50 percent of them were affiliated with terror groups.

So without freeing up funding (which is invested in American jobs to design and construct the strictly defensive interceptors), recalcitrant US lawmakers need to plainly know: your foot-dragging is likely to get many more people killed.

We in Israel see you and we hear you, and the results, if not intent, of your deeds - and misdeeds - are clear to us:

If the State of Israel is hit in any future conflict by volleys of even more thousands of incoming rockets or payload-carrying UAVs and cannot respond sufficiently due to a lack of Tamir interceptors, the government and IDF will have no other choice but to respond with far more kinetic firepower than anything seen so far - and at targets very near and very far - in order to suppress and stop the deadly salvos aimed at heavily-populated civilian areas and strategic facilities.

And even at that, despite the “standalone measure that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support,“ but still withheld in the Senate, rebuilding the supply of interceptors takes time, due to the relatively slow manufacturing process, with cost (and likely Covid) being an inhibitor.

On the other hand, Hamas and PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] use less sophisticated - but no less deadly - rockets that are manufactured quickly, at a much lower cost.

In order to stop them before they are even launched, the sanctimonious caterwauling over previous IDF pinpoint strikes on terror targets on and cross-border will be deafened into silence by the unleashed fury out of Zion.

Speaking as a nearly-two-decade IDF artillery NCO and infantry grunt (St.Sgt.- ret.) who served in and around Gaza, and as a two-decade reporter in Israel please understand: the howling existential threats uttered by Iranian-financed, trained, and led regional proxies and their determination to eradicate us will not deter us, but the countdown to the next steel rainstorm is ticking very loudly in our ears these days.

So forgive us for being distracted by the growing chorus calling for our demise; beyond the virtuous, virtual moral Disneyland of “knowing what's best for us" hectoring, "America first!" jingoism, and unrequited "tough love" missives penned from six thousand miles away - we’ll bleed real blood and treasure due to those withheld projectiles.

And so, in order to defend our families and the sole Jewish homeland against sworn foes bent on our collective destruction - despite an unspoken defensive arms embargo - don’t be too surprised by the justified ferocity and extent of Israel’s response.

And our lack of apology for stopping our would-be killers and their murderous plans.

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Dave Bender is a US-born, four-decade Israeli immigrant and self-described, two-decade “ever-recovering reporter,” in Israel, and was an award-winning reporter at two NPR affiliates in the States. Since then, he’s developed a photography/videography career and would, mostly, just as soon be beekeeping with his wife, and enjoying his kids and grandkids.

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Military experts agree: Israel didn't break international law in Gaza, but Hamas did - and the media failed to report it

JINSA, the Jewish Institute for National Security in America, created a Gaza Task Force to go to Israel and report on what they found out about the Gaza conflict last May. 

The members of the task force are:

LTG Robert Ashley, USA (ret.), Former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency 

LTG John M. Bednarek, USA (ret.), Former Senior Defense Official in Iraq; former Chief of Office of Security Cooperation in Baghdad 

LTC Geoffrey S. Corn, USA (ret.) Former Chief International Law for U.S. Army Europe 

Lt Gen Jon Davis, USMC (ret.) Former Deputy Commandant for Aviation 

LTG Karen Gibson, USA (ret.) Former Deputy Director for National Intelligence for National Security Partnerships 

LTG Stephen Lanza, USA (ret.) Former Commanding General of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis McChord

 RADM Brian Losey, USN (ret.) Former Commander of Naval Special Warfare Command 

Lt Gen Richard Natonski, USMC (ret.) Former Commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Command 

LTG Raymond Palumbo, USA (ret.) Former Deputy Commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command 

GEN David Rodriguez, USA (ret.) Former Commander of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) 

Lt Gen Thomas Trask, USAF (ret.) Former Vice Commander of United States Special Operations Command 

Gen Charles Wald, USAF (ret.) Former Deputy Commander of United States European Command (EUCOM)

I'd say that this group has orders of magnitude more expertise in the laws of armed conflict than the entire staffs of Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, the UN Human Rights Council and Oxfam combined.

They released their report last month, with nearly no coverage in the media. And no wonder: they prove that the media and the NGOs they adore have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to international law.

The report does not only discuss what Israel did right. It also expands on Israel's missteps, mostly with messaging (the bombing of the Al Jalaa media building and the apparent deception to the world media that a ground operation was starting, for two.) It describes how Hamas learned lessons from previous wars and how they attempted to gain specific advantages. It discusses what lessons other democracies can learn from how Israel fought terrorists who are willing to make their own people human shields.

The report emphasizes how Hamas and its allies used the media to spread lies about the laws of armed conflict. Two examples of egregious ignorance about the laws of war from two popular comedy news hosts are given:

Trevor Noah, The Daily Show 
On May 11, 2021, Trevor Noah did a segment on The Daily Show in which he argued that, because Israel is more militarily capable, it should refrain from defending itself: “If you were in a fight where the other person cannot beat you, how hard should you retaliate when they try to hurt you?”
 John Oliver, Last Week Tonight 

Oliver’s viral May 16, 2021, segment about Israeli actions included the unfounded accusation that it “targeted the al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan,” and that the IDF’s strike on a multi-story building in Gaza used by Hamas “sure seems like war crime, regardless of whether you send a courtesy heads-up text.” Oliver dismissed Hamas' firing of rockets at Israeli civilian population centers because “most of the rockets aimed toward Israeli citizens this week were intercepted.”

Both of these examples were multiplied, subtly or not, by mainstream media coverage that amplified Hamas' and its supporters' lies that every civilian killed in a war is a war crime. 

Two of the members of the task force wrote an op-ed in the New York Post today that summarized the findings and what it means for America in the future:

In its conflict with Hamas in May, Israel endured a barrage of rockets — as well as war-crime accusations. Iron Dome intercepted most of the former. The latter are more dangerous, for Israel and even the United States.

After reviewing the Israeli Defense Forces’ operations during the Gaza conflict as retired senior US military officers, we find these accusations spurious — fed by Hamas’ disinformation and a widespread misunderstanding of the Law of Armed Conflict, or LOAC. These dynamics could soon feature in conflicts involving the US military.

Delegitimizing Israeli operations — not military victory — was one of Hamas’ main objectives in this conflict. “The real crimes,” Hamas’ spokesperson told the media, “were committed by [Israel] targeting civilians … killing more than 100 children and women and demolishing buildings.”

With such false claims, Hamas casts any civilian casualty as illegal. Unfortunately, many in the media and public embraced this false narrative.

“Destroying a civilian residence sure seems like a war crime,” comedian John Oliver opined on his show. Seeming like a war crime and being one are quite different.

LOAC requires militaries to distinguish between — and only attack — military, not civilian, targets. Commanders are obliged to make a good-faith effort to take all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian risk.

These rules do not preclude unavoidable civilian casualties. It is a sad but undeniable reality of war that international law tolerates harm to civilians if it’s not deliberately inflicted, caused by indiscriminate attacks and avoidable with feasible precautions.

In our professional opinion, Israeli actions in Gaza reflected a consistent and good-faith commitment to respect and implement these LOAC principles.

As we've noted numerous times, modern wars involve messaging no less than munitions. The report shows that Israeli officials are almost resigned to the fact that the world will report unfairly anyway, but that doesn't mean they should give up improving how they get the truth across. The spokespeople should be involved nearly as much as the lawyers are in determining how to target and what information needs to be available instantly after an operation.

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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..

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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

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