Richard Falk calls rockets towards Jerusalem "survival cries"

Richard Falk outdoes himself again with his embrace of terrorists and seething hatred for the Jewish state.

In a November 18th article he wrote for - where else? - Al Jazeera, Falk liberally sprinkles lies on top of a serving of half-truths to come up with conclusions that would be universally considered the ranting of a lunatic if the object of his vitriol would be anything besides Israel.

It is too tedious to fisk completely - I've done that many times, and life is way too short to spend on someone as already thoroughly discredited as Falk - but for those late to the game of exposing this United Nations Special Rapporteur, here are some quickies:

Referring to Israel's attack on Ahmad Jaabari, Falk writes:

Such an extra-judicial killing...remains an unlawful tactic of conflict, denying adversary political leaders separated from combat any opportunity to defend themselves against accusations...

Yes, Falk is saying that the leader of Hamas' terror wing, the Al Qassam brigades, is a "political leader." Falk knows this and lies.

Gaza, which is one of the most crowded and impoverished communities on the planet...

People living in Egypt, only a few miles away, are far more impoverished. As are large swaths of Africa, Asia, and South America. Gazans have malls, supermarkets, luxury hotels, plenty of food, tons of goods, nice cars and more. Not to mention that the "refugees" get free medical care and education. Falk knows this and lies.

Israeli removal of troops and settlements [in 2005] was little more than a mere redeployment to the borders of Gaza, with absolute control over what goes in and what leaves...

Two words: Egypt and tunnels. Falk knows this and lies.

From an international law point of view, Israel's purported "disengagement" from Gaza didn't end its responsibility as an Occupying Power under the Geneva Conventions...

Wrong. Very wrong. Falk knows this, and lies.

600,000 armed settlers

Really? every man, woman and child in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem is armed? Falk knows this is a lie, and lies anyway.

The top Hamas leaders have made it abundantly clear over and over again that they are open to permanent peace with Israel if there is a total withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the arrangement is supported by a referendum of all Palestinians living under occupation.

Hamas has never, not once, even implied a permanent peace with Israel. Ever. And its terms for a truce include the destruction of Israel by allowing millions of fake "refugees" to flood it and become citizens.

Falk knows this, and lies.

But even if you can excuse a UN representative for his constant lies, his anti-semitism, his embrace of Hamas terrorists - just check out how he describes medium range Iranian rockets, with 100 kg. of explosives, being fired at population centers of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem:

It is truly alarming that now even the holiest of cities, Jerusalem, is threatened with attacks, but the continuation of oppressive conditions for the people of Gaza, inevitably leads to increasing levels of frustration, in effect, cries of help that world has ignored at its peril for decades. These are survival screams! To realise this is not to exaggerate!

Yes. Shooting rockets at women and children aren't mere war crimes, but they should be understood to be survival screams. 

What a reprehensible excuse for a human being Richard Falk is.

He fits right in to the UN.

(h/t Real Jerusalem Streets)

Read More

UK pulls Sodastream ad - because of Pepsi or BDS?

From Globes:

SodaStream International Ltd. (Nasdaq: SODA) insists that the ban of its new global advertising campaign in the UK is absurd, and censors the company for trying to save the environment.

Clearcast, the organization that pre-approves UK television advertising and is jointly funded by the UK's major broadcasters, notified SodaStream that the ad campaign would not be allowed to air in the UK. The decision was made just before the commercial's premier in the UK on November 22. Although the ad is already aired in the US, Sweden and Australia, Clearcast deemed it inappropriate for UK audiences.

The ad shows different scenes of soda bottles disappearing instantaneously as people use the SodaStream soda maker, delivering a powerful message about waste and sustainability. The spot closes with commentary of 'with SodaStream you can save 1000 bottles per year.'

Clearcast said, "The majority decided that the ad could be seen to tell people not to go to supermarkets and buy soft drinks, instead help to save the environment by buying a SodaStream. We thought it was denigration of the bottled drinks market."

"This decision is absurd, and the explanation given is totally unreasonable," said SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum. "Are we really being censored for helping to save the environment? This might be the first time in the world when an environmental approach has been shut down by the media to protect a traditional industry. Of course we're competing with bottled beverages, but why is offering a game-changing approach denigrating? It is like saying that iPod ads denigrate the Walkman or that car ads denigrated the horse and buggy. Clearcast's decision is disappointing and disturbing for any democratic society."

The reasons given are nothing short of ridiculous. Would Clearcast say that ads for electric cars denigrate gas guzzlers?

But I'm sure that some BDS idiots will regard this as a victory since Sodastream is an Israeli company they constantly call to boycott, with manufacturing in a Jerusalem suburb that Arabs claim is theirs.

The joke is on them, because the publicity is worth more than the ad itself.

The timing for SodaStream could hardly be better. The Israeli company has dramatically improved distribution over the past year with a series of high profile retail partnerships. The holidays are upon us, and the company is promoting a new, easier to use carbonator – the SodaStream Source. While the SodaStream ad campaign is not running in the UK, an appeal could put it back on the air next week, and it’s already running globally. Media attention over the clumsy UK move will only help SodaStream build awareness.

Of course it’s difficult to argue that a product whose entire existence is based on the premise that traditional soft drinks create unnecessary waste is not denigrating to the existing industry. But that’s hardly the kind of denigration that deserves censorship. And in any case, the unintended consequence of this ban will be to give little SodaStream another injection of PR adrenaline to power through the holidays.

Read More

Video: Spectacular precision bombing of a Gaza house

Obviously, the residents of this Gaza house were warned that it would be bombed, so someone set up a video camera to watch the fireworks:



Note how well the bombing was calibrated to only destroy the house, and little else.

And the cameraman- less than a block away - knows this quite well, with no fear of filming out an open window.

(h/t Yoel)

Read More

Hamas bears legal responsibility for EVERY civilian death in Gaza.

I just came upon a quick review of the Laws of Armed Conflict written at the beginning of Operation Pillar of Cloud, written by David French, an expert in that topic.

It should be required reading for every single reporter, pundit, politician and critic who opines on Israel's actions.

The fundamental aim of LOAC [Laws of Armed Conflict] is to prevent unnecessary casualties and destruction within the context of military conflict. In pursuit of that goal, three principles govern: necessity, distinction, and proportionality. In general, “necessity” requires that combatants only attack targets necessary to accomplish military objectives. “Distinction” requires that combatants not only distinguish between civilians and combatants, but they also distinguish themselves from civilians (through the wearing of uniforms, use of clearly identified military vehicles, etc.). Finally, “proportionality” requires a combatant to use only that force necessary to accomplish the military objective. It does not require you to use the same force as your enemy (you can bring a JDAM to a gun fight). Applying these principles to the Gaza conflict, three truths emerge:

1. Every Hamas rocket attack is a war crime. Hamas rocket attacks — which are aimed directly at Israeli civilians — clearly violate the rules of necessity and distinction. In fact, it’s difficult to discern any true military purpose for attacks that are more likely to hit schools and homes than they are military targets. Worse, there’s no indication that Hamas even tries to aim its rockets at military targets. But there’s an additional, less obvious manner in which these rocket attacks constitute war crimes: Because they’re conducted from civilian areas by men wearing civilian clothes, Hamas violates its obligation to distinguish its own noncombatants from combatants. Wearing civilian clothes and blending in to the civilian population is a violation of the laws of war. In fact, the wearing of civilian garb is a war crime even if Hamas attacks only military targets.

2. Hamas’s use of civilian buildings changes the status of targets from civilian to military. It is vital to understand that obligations under LOAC are not unilateral and unconditional; they are often reciprocal and conditional. For example, a civilian object can be converted to a legitimate military target when used for military purposes. Even buildings specially protected under international law — including mosques and hospitals — lose their protected status when used for military purposes. So when Hamas fires a rocket from a school, or reinforces its fighters by transporting them in ambulances, that school and those ambulances become legitimate military targets. They are no longer “civilian” in any meaningful sense.

3. Hamas bears legal responsibility for civilian deaths in Gaza. Unless there is evidence that Israel clearly and intentionally targets civilians, Hamas is responsible for the civilian deaths that result from its decision to wear civilian clothes and launch rockets from civilian buildings even when Israel makes mistakes. In other words, but for Hamas’s decision to use human shields, those civilians would not be in the zone of conflict or subject to military targeting. Any other legal construct would only further incentivize Hamas’s violations of laws of war by placing on Israel an impossible burden — the burden of certainty in the face of illegal obfuscation.

For some time the international community has viewed the laws of war as a one-way ratchet — always tightening Israeli (and American) rules of engagement even as they’re deemed irrelevant to terrorists. This is the essence of “lawfare” — the abuse of international legal norms to accomplish otherwise unattainable battlefield objectives — and it only prevails when Western governments and militaries allow it to prevail. Even in the fog of war there can still be legal clarity, and it is clear that the criminal entity in Gaza is Hamas, not the Israeli Defense Force.

Every time an anti-Israel activist talks about the number of civilian casualties in Gaza - which were historically low given the number of Israeli airstrikes and the locations of the legitimate targets - the proper response is that every single civilian death is the result of war crimes committed by Hamas, and Hamas has legal culpability for each and every one.

People who refuse to accept that argument are people who have revealed their disinterest in real justice.

Read More

New evidence Iran working on nuclear weapon piling up

From AP:

Iranian scientists have run computer simulations for a nuclear weapon that would produce more than triple the explosive force of the World War II bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, according to a diagram obtained by The Associated Press.

The diagram was leaked by officials from a country critical of Iran's atomic program to bolster their arguments that Iran's nuclear program must be halted before it produces a weapon. The officials provided the diagram only on condition that they and their country not be named.

The International Atomic Energy Agency — the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog — reported last year that it had obtained diagrams indicating that Iran was calculating the "nuclear explosive yield" of potential weapons. A senior diplomat who is considered neutral on the issue confirmed that the graph obtained by the AP was indeed one of those cited by the IAEA in that report. He spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue.

The IAEA report mentioning the diagrams last year did not give details of what they showed. But the diagram seen by the AP shows a bell curve — with variables of time in micro-seconds, and power and energy both in kilotons — the traditional measurement of the energy output, and hence the destructive power of nuclear weapons. The curve peaks at just above 50 kilotons at around 2 microseconds, reflecting the full force of the weapon being modeled.

The bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima in Japan during World War II, in comparison, had a force of about 15 kilotons. Modern nuclear weapons have yields hundreds of times higher than that.

The diagram has a caption in Farsi: "Changes in output and in energy released as a function of time through power pulse." The number "5'' is part of the title, suggesting it is part of a series.

The IAEA recently released its latest report on Iranian nuclear activities. It included this:

39. Previous reports by the Director General have identified outstanding issues related to possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme and actions required of Iran to resolve these.41 Since 2002, the Agency has become increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.

40. The Annex to the Director General’s November 2011 report (GOV/2011/65) provided a detailed analysis of the information available to the Agency, indicating that Iran has carried out activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. This information, which comes from a wide variety of independent sources, including from a number of Member States, from the Agency’s own efforts and from information provided by Iran itself, is assessed by the Agency to be, overall, credible. The information indicates that, prior to the end of 2003 the activities took place under a structured programme; that some continued after 2003; and that some may still be ongoing. Since November 2011, the Agency has obtained more information which further corroborates the analysis contained in the aforementioned Annex.

42. As indicated in Section B above, since the November 2011 Board, the Agency, through several rounds of formal talks and numerous informal contacts with Iran, has made intensive efforts to seek to resolve all of the outstanding issues related to Iran’s nuclear programme, especially with respect to possible military dimensions, but without concrete results.

43. Parchin:...information provided to the Agency by Member States indicates that Iran constructed a large explosives containment vessel in which to conduct hydrodynamic experiments;45 such experiments would be strong indicators of possible nuclear weapon development....the Agency notified Iran of that location in January 2012. Iran has stated that “the allegation of nuclear activities in Parchin site is baseless”.46

44. As previously reported, satellite imagery available to the Agency for the period from February 2005 to January 2012 shows virtually no activity at or near the building housing the containment vessel. Since the Agency’s first request for access to this location, however, satellite imagery shows that extensive activities and resultant changes have taken place at this location. [to remove evidence - EoZ]

54. Contrary to the Board resolutions of November 2011 and September 2012, and despite the intensified dialogue between the Agency and Iran since January 2012, no concrete results have been achieved in resolving the outstanding issues, including Iran having not concluded and implemented the structured approach. The Director General is, therefore, unable to report any progress on clarifying the issues relating to possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.

But all this evidence is apparently nothing, because Iran's Supreme Leader issued a fatwa forbidding the development of nuclear weapons. And he would never, ever, ever lie.

Unless he wants to.

(h/t CHA, Andre)

Read More

WaPo, while not perfect, much fairer than NYT in Gaza article

The Washington Post has a feature article about some innocent victims in Gaza.

Even though the reader is naturally empathetic with the stories of those killed and injured, the article did note that Israel takes pains to avoid civilian injury - a critical point that is too often ignored in articles like these. It also notes that Hamas benefits from every civilian death, although it falls short on reporting the fact that Hamas intentionally places military targets in crowded neighborhoods.

The Israel Defense Forces often calls the militants in Gaza whose homes it intends to strike minutes before doing so, a way of minimizing the deaths of any women and children who might be inside.

For Israel, the warnings have a logic that is both moral and strategic: Even a successful operation against a senior militant can be overshadowed by the outrage — among Palestinians and around the world — that can ensue over civilian deaths.

But the phone calls are no guarantee that innocents will be spared. No single event galvanizes support for Gaza’s armed groups like mass civilian killings by Israel’s military, and despite what Israel describes as exceptional caution, the recent conflict featured several of them.

On the night of the 19th, [PIJ member] Azzam did not answer his phone, according to several family members who recounted the incident this week. Moments later, when the buzz of an Israeli drone sounded above his family home in the Zeitun neighborhood, Azzam gathered the dozen people who were inside and fled into the street.

Within minutes, a drone strike, followed by an Israeli military jet’s bombing run, demolished the Azzam home and at least four others around it. Among them were two that belonged to the Abu Zor family, whose members say they had no affiliation with Gaza’s armed groups, chief among them Hamas. Two young mothers, Sahar and Nisma Abu Zor, and a 3-year-old named Mohammed perished in a blast meant to kill someone else.

“We were blown into the streets,” said Hana Abu Zor, Mohammed’s grandmother. “The house just came down around us.”

The details and aftermath of the airstrikes in Zeitun show how Israel, even while attempting to avoid civilian casualties, plays into the hands of its enemies in the cramped conflict here. Although there is lingering anger toward the Azzams, who say they did not have enough time to warn their neighbors before the attack, the survivors ultimately blame Israel.

Meanwhile, Hamas, which faced rising public discontent before the eight-day confrontation with Israel, has reaped the benefit of such attacks and has emerged in perhaps its strongest political position since taking full control of the Mediterranean enclave five years ago.

One major problem with the article, though, is that they rely on the lying Hamas health ministry for statistics of how many women and children were killed:

Of the 174 Palestinians killed in the conflict, 43 percent were women, children and seniors, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. More than half of the 1,400 people wounded fall into the same categories.

This is easily disproven. Ma'an, among others, has a tally of victims, and the real percentage of women, seniors and children killed is 31% - 54 out of 174. And Ma'an is including at least one child who was killed by an errant Qassam rocket. (Ma'an also includes two terrorists as journalists, and does not even note who the militants are.)

In other words, the Gaza health minister is converting 21 male adults into women and children, which is hardly a rounding error.

It is a shame that journalists who cover the region don't have the basic knowledge, proven during Cast Lead,  that some purveyors of statistics are not to be trusted.

(h/t EBoZ)

Read More

"What I saw during Pillar of Defense" - must read

From American Thinker, by Nira Lee (excerpts):

...When I moved to Israel and enlisted, I joined a unit called the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which is devoted to civilian and humanitarian issues.

As an International Liaison Officer in the Gaza office, my job primarily entails coordinating transfers of goods, aid, and delegations into Gaza. I work closely with representatives of the international community, and although our perspectives may differ, we maintain relationships of mutual respect born of a common goal; I am here to help them succeed in their work improving the quality of life in Gaza.

...Had you told me four years ago that there were IDF officers who stayed up all night under a hail of rockets, brainstorming ways to import medical supplies and food to the people of Gaza, I am not sure I would have believed you. But I can tell you it is true because I did it every night.

What amazed me the most was the singular sense of purpose that drove everyone from the base commander to the lowest ranking soldier. We were all focused completely on our mission: to help our forces accomplish their goals without causing unnecessary harm to civilian lives or infrastructure.

It is harder to explain the emotional roller-coaster -- how proud and relieved I felt every time a truck I coordinated entered Gaza, and how enraging it was when we had to shut down the crossing into Gaza after Hamas repeatedly targeted it. Or how invigorating it was help evacuate two injured Palestinians from the border area, only to be informed minutes later that a terrorist had detonated a bomb on a bus near my apartment in Tel Aviv.

...In my position, I see the surgical airstrikes, and spend many hours with the UN, ICRC, and NGO officers reviewing maps to help identify, and avoid, striking civilian sites. One of our pilots who saw a rocket aimed at Israel aborted his mission when he saw children nearby -- putting his own civilians at risk to save Gazans. At the end of the day, what these "disproportionate numbers" show is how we in Israel protect our children with elaborate shelters and missile defense systems, whereas the terror groups in Gaza hide behind theirs, using them as human shields in order to win a cynical media war.

What's really behind the headlines and that picture on the front page? Every day, I coordinate goods with a young Gazan woman who works for an international aid organization. Last month we forged a bond when we had to run for cover together when Hamas [or Islamic Jihad  -EoZ] targeted Kerem Shalom Crossing -- attacking the very aid provided to its own people. During the eight days of Operation "Pillar of Defense", not one passed without a phone call, just to check in. "Are you ok?" I would ask. "I heard they fired at your base. Please stay safe", she would reply. And every night I made her promise to call me if she needed anything. These are the things that the media fails to show the world, just as they underplay how Hamas deliberately endangers civilians on both sides of the border -- by firing indiscriminately at Israel from Gaza neighborhoods.

Maybe stories such as these make for less exciting headlines, but if they received more attention there would perhaps be more moral clarity, and thus more peace in the Middle East.

Read the whole thing.

(h/t Omri)

Read More

Tuesday links

From Ian:

---

Stand with Us: So, you think you know a lot about HAMAS?



Israel was planning to hit Haniyeh, went for Jabari instead, Kuwaiti report says

[Sorry, but Kuwaiti media simply make things up. All the time. I have never once seen a Kuwaiti "scoop" pan out. I cannot believe they still get any attention in YNet or TOI. - EoZ]

How the World Saved Hamas 20 Years Ago

"The expulsion of top Hamas leaders from Israel would have made it difficult for the terrorist group to continue its operations in Gaza and the West Bank. It would have dampened their strategic use of terrorism and made it easier to implement a peace plan. Only a madman would have objected to it.
Or so one might think."

Satire: 2016: Palestinian Diary

"Sometimes—even most of the time—being a leader means having to pretend. I had many differences with Raouf, but when he became “Arafat” he showed me and others just how far you could get by talking out of both sides one’s mouth. He was invited to the UN, and he got a Nobel Peace Prize for tricking the Zionists into thinking he actually wanted to make friends with them. He was a genius, that Raouf. And he was never even coached and trained the way the Russian KGB taught me. He was a natural dissimulator. Perhaps that is the reason he took the nickname “Abu ‘Amaar,” recalling ‘Amaar, the first Muslim to practice taqiyya, the art of Islamic deception."

Shame on Anyone Who Ever Thought Mohammad Morsi Was a Moderate

"Washington ought to have known by now that “democratic dialogue” is virtually impossible with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is now mobilizing throughout Egypt to defend Morsi’s edict. The reason is that it is not a “democratic party” at all. Rather, it is a cultish organization that was never likely to moderate once it had grasped power."

Egypt’s top Islamist expects assassination of liberal figures

"A senior member of Egypt’s former militant Islamist group al-Gamaa al-Islamiya has warned that liberal politicians and intellectuals who oppose President Mohammed Mursi’s latest constitutional declaration could face a campaign of targeted assassinations starting from December."

Americans in Israel Sue Clinton for US Funding of Arab Terror
Two dozen Americans in Israel are suing Hillary Clinton for negligence in allowing the US to fund the PA, which used money for terror.

BBC’s Donnison May Lose Press Credentials After Blaming Israel for Syrian Child Victim in Tweet

"Walla news reports that Israel’s Information Ministry is exploring the possibility of denying Jon Donnison press credentials. According to the report Donnison has been invited to a hearing on Wednesday at the Government Press Office."

[This was verified by BBCWatch.] 

CAMERA: PBS Gaza Coverage Partisan, Shoddy, Unbalanced

Huffington Post Falsely Claims More Than Half of All Gaza Victims in Recent Conflict Were Children

BBC Watch: Examining the BBC’s portrayal of Operation ‘Pillar of Cloud’ as Israeli electioneering

"In other words, the BBC’s ‘it’s all because of the Israeli elections’ theme was clearly based on its promoters’ personal perceptions of specific Israeli politicians rather than on fact-based analysis and an understanding of the Israeli political scene."

BBC Radio 4 dances with the ‘apartheid’ trope

"Instead – as we have seen happen on various BBC outlets with increasing frequency of late – it provided a platform for an anti-Israel activist, supporting what is ultimately a racist cause, to spout factually incorrect propaganda posing as an ‘opinion’ – unchallenged. "

Operation Pillar of Defense Brings Out the Crazy
Jewish communities across the globe see protests, vitriolic chants

Vienna protesters call for 'death to Jews'

Following Gaza's Ceasefire, Cleveland Rally Calls For the Destruction of Israel

Montreal radio host suspended over caller’s anti-Semitic statements
Jacques Fabi didn’t correct remark that Holocaust was a ‘beautiful thing’

Italy’s Jewish leaders denounce mounting anti-Semitism
Unusually assertive public statement takes on soaring increases in vandalism, hate speech
and outright violence

Top English soccer team investigated for anti-Semitism
West Ham fans heard hissing — imitating the sound of gas chambers — at a match against Tottenham, which draws a large Jewish fan base

Dutch TV spoofs Netanyahu speech about targeting Gaza civilians
Satirical video shows prime minister bragging to Hillary Clinton about killing innocents

Exposé: the Vatican Welcomes Iran
"Hizbullah's officials, the Shiite terrorist group based in Lebanon, were hosted in Rome by the Vatican during the recent ceremony for the election of six new cardinals. Among the new cardinals is the Lebanese Patriarch, Bechara Boutros Rai."

'Russia supplying arms to Syria under old contracts'
Medvedev says Moscow is neutral on Syrian conflict; Russia also printed banknotes for Syria, dispatched via Iranian airspace.

French consulate hosts terrorist who planned to kill top Israeli rabbi
Salah Hamouri, who spent seven years in prison for his part in a plot to assassinate Ovadia Yosef, was a guest of honor at Jerusalem function

Seventy years after the Donau, what has Norway learned?
On the anniversary of the country’s largest transport of Jews to Auschwitz, a Norwegian journalist ponders the history and future of a tiny, endangered minority

French Writer-Filmmaker Explores Region Where Chinese and Korean Children Learn Yiddish (VIDEO)

Cracking a codebreaker’s birthday code
Three Israeli kids — one of them just 9 — sifted through a half billion 0′s and 1′s, and came up with a birthday present that would have made master cryptanalyst Alan Turing proud

Sesame synchrotron is a flash of unity in Middle East
"The plan is for a multi-million-pound synchrotron particle accelerator, known as Sesame.
It has backing from several Arab nations, together with Turkey, Pakistan, Cyprus, Iran and - astonishingly - Israel as well."

Israel in the frame (II)
Ten of the world’s top Instagramers take on the Holy Land

Read More

The Abbas bus (video)

Posted, surprisingly, on the Israeli Embassy US YouTube account:



The video has already made it to Al Arabiya.

Read More

Follow the energy

Some intriguing news items:

Egypt would consider importing natural gas from Oman and Equitorial Guinea, Petroleum Minister Osama Kamal said on Monday.

Egypt imports gas to meet developmental need targets as established by the government, Kamal said, adding that there is a growing need for gas in Egyptian power stations.

But Egypt also exports gas - to Jordan (and formerly to Israel.) The supply has been disrupted both because of Islamists bombing the pipeline to Israel and because of Egypt's own shortages. As a result, Jordan also suffers a gas shortage.

That shortage, and Jordan's decision to end subsidies on fuel, helped spark the deadly riots that Jordan has been suffering from.

And Iran might be trying to leverage this to its advantage:

The Iranian ambassador to Amman Mostafa Moslehzadeh declined the rumors about Iran's readiness to supply Jordan with free energy resources for 30 years, the Mehr News Agency reported.

The Jordanian newspaper Ammon News on November 22 quoted Moslehzadeh as saying that Iran is ready to supply free crude oil and other energy resources to Jordan for 30 years in exchange for some products which are in demand in Iran, as well as for expansion of religious tourism in Jordan.

Moslehzadeh has reportedly made the remarks during a televised interview with a local TV station. Later, the Iranian ambassador said that Jordanian media has misquoted him.

During his interview, Moslehzadeh said that Iran is seeking to strengthen relations with Jordan in the fields of economy, energy and diplomacy and will consider exporting oil to Jordan in exchange for some items.

Earlier Moslehzadeh had told reporters that Iran is interested in exporting gas to Jordan and to this end Tehran will soon send a formal proposal to the country.

In turn, previously the official representative of the Jordan Energy Ministry Mahmoud Al-Ees told Trend that Jordan is seeking to diversify its gas sources and is therefore interested in the purchase of Iranian gas.

"The Jordanian side has not yet received an official offer from Iran for gas supply to the country, but if the proposal is made, Jordan will consider this option," Al-Ees said.

The two "moderate" Arab states that made peace with Israel are both suffering gas shortages that threaten their economies.

Israel, of course, is sitting on hundreds of billions of cubic feet of natural gas in the Mediterranean.

While the fields are not yet operational, Israel could be providing gas to its neighbors.

Yet, as I discovered recently, Israel did offer to provide gas for Jordan - and it was considered politically unfeasible for Jordan to have a gas pipeline from Israel.

Egypt would be at least as bad.

And Iran is waiting in the wings, ready to rescue their Muslim brothers both from fuel shortages and from the ignominy of buying fuel from Jews (all while easing their own isolation.)

The energy story is going to be the real driver behind Middle East politics for the coming decades. Israel has to play it smart, and if it does, natural gas can do more for peace than any politician could ever hope to do.

Read More

"Thank Iran" billboards in Gaza

Palestine Today reports that billboards to "Thank Iran" for Gaza's "victory" have been popping up all over Gaza.

An analyst interviewed about these billboards (almost certainly paid for by pro-Iranian terror groups like Islamic Jihad) pretends that these are somehow spontaneous expressions of thankfulness by Gazans of Iran.

Specifically, Iran created "Quds Day," an annual bashfest against Israel; they provided Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 rockets to the terrorists, most of which were shot down but which they still claim is the source of their faux victory; and Iran provided training for the terrorists of Gaza.

The analyst noted that Arab countries were not nearly as helpful as Iran, and hoped that they would start actively funding Gaza's militants.

Read More

Today's fake PCHR "civilian"

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights wrote:

At approximately 09:00, an Israeli drone fired a missile in the vicinity of Dabbour farmland in Jabalya. As a result, Mustafa Awadh Mustafa Abu Hmaidan, 23, was killed.

They did not identify him as a member of an "armed group," meaning they assumed he is a civilian and apparently counted him as such.

Here is a photo of Mr. Hmaidan:

And here is his obituary from Hamas, where his Jihadist life is displayed and he is revealed to have been killed while in an act of "jihad." Interestingly, he joined the Al Qassam brigades while attending a UNRWA school in Jabalia.

This is the first obituary on the Al Qassam website from Pillar of Defense. Hamas does not want the world to know how many of the "civilians" were terrorists, and (as with Cast Lead) they will only reveal them in a trickle over the next few months. Their assumption is that by the time the numbers are added up and we can prove that the majority of those killed were terrorists, the damage from the lies by PCHR, the Gaza health minister and others will have already been done.

Read More

NYT journalist has a laughable defense of his anti-Israel libel

After I wrote my critique of David Carr's slimy article claiming that Israel targets journalists yesterday, other media outlets cited the evidence I used to show that the "journalists" were in fact terrorists. Among them were Tablet and Commentary.

Now Carr - a journalist, mind you - is using proof by assertion to double down that the people targeted were nothing but innocent journalists themselves:

New York Times media reporter David Carr defended his Monday column accusing Israel of killing journalists in Gaza on Monday, after Israeli officials and their allies accused him of conflating Hamas operatives and reporters.

"The three men who died in missile strikes in cars on Nov. 20 were identified by Reuters, AP, AFP, and Washington Post and many other news outlets as journalists," Carr told BuzzFeed in an email. "The Committee to Protect Journalists, which I treat as a reliable, primary source in these matters, identified them as journalists. (as did Reporters without Borders.)"

"I ran my column by reporters and editors at our shop familiar with current events in the region before I printed it," Carr said. "And I don't believe that an ID made by the IDF is dispostive or obviates what the others said. Doesn't mean that I could not have gotten it wrong, only that the evidence so far suggests that they were journalists, however partisan."

Now, I posted a photograph of one of these "journalists" - Mohamed Abu Aisha - in uniform, clearly showing the logo of Islamic Jihad on his beret, from the Al Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad website, where he is described as a member of their military.

I also showed that another one was described in a Hamas forum as a "mujahid." (I am not certain that he is the one the IDF said was the leader of Hamas in southern Gaza. He might be, but Hamas is not yet releasing the names of their "martyrs" the way Islamic Jihad is. Since IDF statements are not believable according to Carr, I am sticking with evidence from jihadist sources only.) 

Carr is asserting that that the IDF is making up their accusations that these people were militants out of thin air. I show incontrovertible proof that one of them is a terrorist and evidence of a second.

Here we have a journalist whose idea of "evidence" is to cite other journalists, and willfully ignore real evidence!

Is this how a journalist acts? To ignore anything that proves him wrong and to cling to the authority of people in his profession as infallible? 

How many of these other journalists even spent five minutes to research the lives of those the IDF targeted?  

After all, they were on the ground in Gaza. If they had attended the funeral of their fellow "journalists" they would have heard the leader of the Al Quds Brigades praising Aisha as a jihadist and burying him next to his brother, Imad, who was also an Islamic Jihad terrorist. 

There is also the complete blindness to the fact that terrorists have day jobs. After all, 75% of Gaza policemen killed in Cast Lead were also members of terror groups. The same lack of logic that caused Goldstone to call them civilians is the one we are seeing here. One can argue that the IDF doesn't have the legal right to target them when they are not in uniform, but Carr isn't making that argument - he is saying that the IDF targeted them because they are anti-Israel journalists.

Real journalists are supposed to be skeptical. They are supposed to be spending their time uncovering the truth. They are supposed to be honest enough to admit when they are wrong, to revisit the story when facts indicate they are mistaken, because the real story should be more important than their egos. 

This is not just an indictment of Carr. This is a systemic problem in the entire profession. The smugness that they are infallible, and the groupthink that they can rely on others' work without double-checking it, all indicate that there is some significant daylight between how many journalists do their work and what the truth really is. 

But what do I know? After all, I am not a journalist, and real journalists apparently know that all they have to do is cite their fellow journalists' lack of research as proof and ignore what mere bloggers say. 

Because we are not - journalists.

Read More

Hamas' "proof" that they shot down an IDF plane

Palestine Today has video of the "wreckage of a plane shot down by Palestinian resistance:"



In fact, these are external fuel tanks that are routinely dropped from F-16s for various reasons. This one was obviously dropped in the Mediterranean. (They come in various sizes.)

This must be part of the "fedayeen of truth" that Ismail Haniyeh praised Gaza journalists for yesterday.

(h/t CHA, Ian)

Read More

The UN really, really wants to reward Hamas aggression

Robert Serry, the UN envoy to the Middle East, proves yet again what a complete waste of space the UN is.

In this case, he is doing everything he can to pretend that Hamas is a moderate, peace-loving group:

The United Nations envoy to the Middle East acknowledged in an interview with McClatchy Sunday that he has maintained quiet contacts with the Islamist group Hamas for “years,” despite the international community’s official policy to isolate the group.

Robert Serry described his office’s contacts with Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, as “quiet engagements”...

“Because we are on the ground we have our informal contacts with Hamas. How could we not?” he said. “We also have our quiet engagements with Hamas to work for a calm. In the last years I have been working to pass on messages to Hamas.”

Officially, the international community has no direct contact with Hamas. The U.N., the United States and other Western governments formally renounced any dialogue with Hamas after the Islamist group, which has never acknowledged Israel’s right to exist, won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006.

In a statement that year, then-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said that the international community would only accept Hamas if it showed, “a commitment to the principles of non-violence, recognition of Israel and the acceptance of previous agreements and obligations."

Everyone knows that Hamas rules Gaza and that some level of indirect communications must be maintained. Even Israel must communicate with Hamas. But Serry is obviously granting this interview in order to push the idea that the UN should publicly meet with Hamas, and that Hamas shoul dbe mainstreamed as a virtual state, effectively rewarding Hamas for firing over 1400 rockets into civilian areas of Israel.

Serry then goes off into fantasyland:

Serry noted that Hamas has still not met the U.N.’s demands that it recognize Israel and renounce violence. But he said that Hamas officials have recently made statements suggesting that they were willing to moderate their position on some key points.

In an interview this weekend with CNN, Hamas political head Khaled Mashaal said that his group was willing to accept a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, “or 22 percent of ‘historical Palestine.’”

He also suggested that his group would be willing to recognize Israel once progress was made toward the establishment of an independent Palestinian State.

If you actually read the transcript of the interview, Meshal says:

CNN: you say that you would accept a two-state solution, but that you will not recognize Israel's right to exist.

Is that still the case?

MESHAL: ... I accept a Palestinian state according to 1967 borders with Jerusalem as the capital, with the right to return.

...The resistance is not a goal. The resistance is a means to an end. The end game is to end occupation but the international community is not enabling us to do this. They are biased toward Israel.

[NOTE: I have proven many times that Hamas calls all of Israel '"occupied,"so when he says the end goal is the end of occupation he means it is the end of Israel. CNN's Amanpour, of course, is too dense to know this.]

...Palestine, from the river to the sea, from the north to the south, it is my land. And the land of my fathers and grandfathers, inhibited by the Palestinians from a long time ago. This is my land, my right.

But because of the circumstances of the region, because of the keenness (ph) to stop the bloodshed, the Palestinians today, and in the past, and Hamas, have agreed about a program, a (INAUDIBLE) program that accepts the '67 borders. But the Israelis don't accept. So it is all about - up to the Israelis.

Nowhere does Meshal say or imply that he would ever recognize Israel. He says, explicitly, that the "1967 borders" are the initial goal, the "right of return" is not negotiable to destroy Israel demographically, and even then he says nothing about recognizing Israel afterwards, with the unspoken assumption that the two Palestines would end up combining (and, eventually according to the Hamas charter, become part of a larger Islamic 'ummah that excludes any Jewish nationalism.)

Meshal throws around words like "peace" but it is obvious he means a world without Israel. Yet Robert Serry, who knows all of this, is working overtime to humanize the Hamas terrorists and to pretend that their idea of peace is similar to what most Westerners say peace means.

One other thing. Meshal didn't say anything about "22% of historical Palestine." This is a standard Palestinan Arab talking point, one that obviously Serry has adopted as the truth so much so that he uses the phrase on his own.

And it is also a complete lie.

Robert Serry shows in this interview that the UN is bending over backwards to reward Hamas - and to accept easily proven lies, as long as they are against Israel.

Read More