Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, July 25, 2014

07/25 Links Pt1: Israel and the Burden of Being Right; Depravity at the UN Human Rights Council

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: UN probe of Israel will only encourage Hamas war crimes

There you go again," as Ronald Reagan said to Jimmy Carter. Once again the United Nations Human Rights Council has voted – with the United States dissenting – to conduct a so-called "investigation" of Israel's military responses to Hamas's double war crimes. Once again Israel will have to decide whether to feed the kangaroos that make up this court by cooperating with yet another phony investigation whose outcome is predetermined. Yet again Israel is presented with a Hobson's choice: If it refuses to cooperate, it will blamed for denying the investigatory commission relevant information; if it cooperates it will lend credibility to a conclusion that has already been reached.
This Hamas-inspired investigation is an important part of Hamas's double war crime strategy: By firing its rockets from civilian areas and buildings – even Ban Ki-moon acknowledges that it does – Hamas seeks to have Israel kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible. This Hamas-designed body count, and the accompanying photographs, inevitably leads to the kind of one-sided investigation in which the UNHRC specializes. The resulting one-sided condemnation, which Hamas can always count on, then helps it win support in Europe, South America and other parts of the world, as well as in the media and universities.
By joining in this Hamas strategy, indeed becoming a central part of it, the UNHRC encourages Hamas to repeat its rocket fire against Israeli civilians, its tunneling into Israel to kill and kidnap Israelis and its placement of rockets and tunnel entrances in civilian areas. The countries voting for this investigation are fully aware of what they are encouraging. They have the blood of future innocent Palestinians and Israelis on their hands.

Anne Bayefsky: Depravity at the UN Human Rights Council

The UN Human Rights Council held a special session in Geneva on July 23, 2014 to declare effectively that Israelis do not have human rights.
The session ended with a resolution that launched an "investigation" into what the Council decided in advance were Israel's violations of Palestinian rights. The vote was 29 in favor, 1 against and 17 abstentions.
The Obama administration voted against – after joining and legitimizing the virulently anti-Jewish Council for the past five years, and now feigning disappointment for American cameras.
The Europeans abstained because they did not want to upset their violent Muslim minorities, and with their sordid past, the resolution's message wasn't too foreign in any case. A few cowardly countries that Israelis have magnanimously befriended over the years also abstained.

Israel and the Burden of Being Right

Generally when someone says they “hate to say I told you so,” it’s fair to doubt they really hate saying it. But in Israel’s case it’s believable. The current conflict with Gaza is proving Israel correct about its various claims with regard to Hamas, and the result is the treacherous urban warfare the world is currently witnessing.
As Evelyn Gordon wrote earlier, the vast tunnel networks prove Israel was right about letting in dual-use items that Hamas would only appropriate for its terror war against Israeli civilians. The West should, in fact, be embarrassed by its enabling of those tunnels: pressuring Israel to let in those materials was the international community’s way of using Israeli civilians as guinea pigs in a grand experiment. They didn’t believe Israeli predictions, and wanted the premises tested. Now they have been, and innocents are paying the price.

Hamas Mega-Attack Planned through Gaza Terror Tunnels

Hamas had apparently been preparing a murderous assault on Israeli civilian targets for the coming Jewish New Year Holiday, Rosh Hashanah, which begins on September 24, according anonymous sources in the Israeli security services, as reported today by the Israeli daily Maariv.
The Hamas plan consisted of what was to be a surprise attack in which 200 fighters would be dispatched through each of dozens of tunnels dug by Hamas under the border from Gaza to Israel, and seize kibbutzim and other communities while killing and kidnapping Israeli civilians.
Israeli soldiers already frustrated a surprise assault by Hamas through one tunnel from Gaza into the Eshkol district of Israel on July 19. The Hamas fighters escaped back into the tunnel, but the clash cost the lives of two Israel Defense Force [IDF] troops.

Has Fatah officially declared a third intifada?

The Fatah Facebook page published this today:

The caption says "The decision came from Fatah for revolt, revolution, O free."

This comes after an announcement from the same group claiming that they carried out a shooting attack against the IDF south of Hebron last night.

And the Al Aqsa Brigades claimed that during the massive demonstration/riot at Kalandia yesterday that they shot weapons at the checkpoint.

Khaled Abu Toameh tweeted this:

Fatah's armed wing, Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, says its men carried out 3 shooting attacks in West Bank in past 48 hours.
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) July 25, 2014

Putting this all together, plus the march itself which was clearly organized and hardly "spontaneous," it appears that Fatah - not Hamas, but the "moderate" Fatah - is trying to start a third intifada. Explicitly.

Fatah, of course, has a leader, Mahmoud Abbas, the darling of the West for his peaceful ways. And he is not stopping his own people from declaring a new violent uprising.On the contrary - he is essentially supporting Hamas rockets, as we've seen.

I'd be surprised if Abbas explicitly lends support for a new uprising. More likely he is encouraging it more quietly to use as leverage to threaten Israel to get his demands.

That's what his hero Yasir Arafat would have done.

Is Human Rights Watch really biased against Israel, or is it merely that they are zealous about protecting everyone's human rights and Zionists are sensitive to their criticisms of Israel?

HRW chief Ken Roth clearly wants the world to believe that it is the latter. As he wrote a couple of days ago in this sarcastic tweet:

People accept @HRW reporting as fair & accurate around globe but when it comes to poor, helpless, defenseless #Israel we're suddenly biased.
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) July 22, 2014

If what he says is true, then we would expect HRW to be just as energetic in uncovering human rights abuses from Gaza terror groups as it is for attacking Israel.

Yet here is what he tweeted last night:

#Hamas is putting civilians at risk but "no evidence" it forces them to stay--definition of human shields: @NYTimes. http://t.co/9yvh1cRSer
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) July 25, 2014

Roth chooses to refer to a NYT article in order to defend Hamas.

What exactly did The New York Times write that Ken Roth finds so wonderful as to defend Hamas?

Nothing is ever so clear in the complex and often brutal calculus of urban warfare. There is no evidence that Hamas and other militants force civilians to stay in areas that are under attack — the legal definition of a human shield under international law. But it is indisputable that Gaza militants operate in civilian areas, draw return fire to civilian structures, and on some level benefit in the diplomatic arena from the rising casualties. They also have at times encouraged residents not to flee their homes when alerted by Israel to a pending strike and, having prepared extensively for war, did not build civilian bomb shelters.

Guess what? The New York Times is wrong.

The Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols do not use the words "human shields" anywhere. But the ICRC article on customary international humanitarian law has a fairly comprehensive description:

Rule 97. The use of human shields is prohibited.

State practice establishes this rule as a norm of customary international law applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts.
International and non-international armed conflicts

In the context of international armed conflicts, this rule is set forth in the Third Geneva Convention (with respect to prisoners of war), the Fourth Geneva Convention (with respect to protected civilians) and Additional Protocol I (with respect to civilians in general).[1] Under the Statute of the International Criminal Court, “utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations” constitutes a war crime in international armed conflicts.[2]

...The prohibition of using human shields in the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I and the Statute of the International Criminal Court are couched in terms of using the presence (or movements) of civilians or other protected persons to render certain points or areas (or military forces) immune from military operations.[18]

...It can be concluded that the use of human shields requires an intentional co-location of military objectives and civilians or persons hors de combat with the specific intent of trying to prevent the targeting of those military objectives.

While various military manuals do have specific prohibitions against forcing civilians to act as human shields, international law considers any situation where military targets (weapons tunnels, caches, rockets launchers) are deliberately placed near civilians to be cases of human shielding.

Under international law, even if Hamas doesn't force civilians to be in a certain area, they are considered human shields according to the ICRC. Israel is right, and the NYT is wrong.

Ken Roth could have chosen to attack the New York Times for narrowing the definition in such a way as to downplay Hamas culpability for this war crime - which is what a zealous human rights defender would be expected to do. Instead, he went to bat for Hamas against the civilians of Gaza he supposedly cares so much about. Even the Times article says explicitly that "Experts in international law say that...Hamas is legally obligated to minimize its operations near civilians" yet Roth doesn't want to highlight how bad Hamas is, but to emphasize Hamas is not really that bad. Roth is giving a terror group the benefit of the doubt that Israel has never received.

The New York Times article was written before yesterday's events at the UNRWA school, but Roth's tweet was written after details already were being published. And already at that time it was known that Hamas did force civilians to stay in the UNRWA shelter even as Israel was trying to get the civilians evacuated. As Washington Free Beacon recounts the events:

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness had similarly accused the IDF of preventing a civilian evacuation.

“Over the course of the day UNRWA tried 2 coodinate [sic] with the Israeli Army a window for civilians 2 leave & it was never granted,” UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness tweeted, following the strike.

However, in an unusual move late Thursday, multiple IDF sources rejected UNRWA’s claims and characterized them as outright falsehoods when reached by the Washington Free Beacon.

“For two days we were trying to move people out of that school in particular and the Beit Hanoun area in general,” said an IDF official who was involved in the interactions between the IDF, UNRWA, and International Red Cross (ICRC) leading up to the incident.

The official continued: “This morning we sought a cease-fire in the area and a humanitarian evacuation of civilians, but Hamas refused—because they wanted to keep civilians in the area to protect their fighters who were firing on the IDF,” the source said. The claim by Gunness and UNRWA that the IDF did not respond to their request to evacuate civilians, the source said, is “a flat-out complete and total lie.”

Who is telling the truth? I see no reason to doubt the IDF version of events. But the issue is that Ken Roth, whose very job is to prevent war crimes against civilians, chooses to ignore any evidence of Hamas war crimes - in this case, of using human shields even according to the falsely restrictive definition in the New York Times!

If Roth's only bias was towards human rights, then why does he go out of his way to excuse and minimize Hamas war crimes - war crimes under any interpretation of the Geneva Conventions?

The only explanation is that Roth is biased, all right - but not for defending Gaza civilians' human rights from Hamas.

Which tells you volumes about Ken Roth.

(h/t Seth Miller)

This war may have prevented a huge planned terror attack

I've been seeing unsourced rumors like this one (via email):

From the 48 Hamas prisoners that have been captured, the intelligence have been interrogating them and the most terrifying, and horrific picture is being built.

They are being investigated about the many tunnels that have been found and dug under many kibbutzim that surround Gaza. The most terrifying detail is being uncovered that Hamas had a plan to attack all the settlements and kibbutzim in the area this year on Rosh Hashanah with an invasion of over 200 terrorists into almost all the settlements in the area. The tunnels went under the kibbutzim under the kindergartens and dining rooms and other areas within the kibbutz perimeters. They planned to occupy the whole area and kill as many Israelis as possible.

This could have been the worst terror attack in the history of terrorism. Thousands of people, including women and children would have been slaughtered in this planned attack.

Could this be true?

According to NRG, Bibi said something like this in a cabinet meeting yesterday, although without some of the more specific details like the "Rosh Hashahah" timeframe::

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed yesterday (Thursday) that the intent of the organization (Hamas) was to use dozens of tunnels simultaneously.

In the cabinet meeting, Netanyahu told ministers that "these tunnels were meant to allow the enemy to attack simultaneously and perform mass attacks on Israeli citizens."

Security sources stress that if the political leadership wants to eliminate the problem of the tunnels, the IDF needed more time because we are not even halfway done. They say this unplanned war with Hamas prevented a disaster on the order of the Yom Kippur War, which would reduce the State of Israel to its knees.

(UPDATE: A later article did mention the Rosh Hashanah scenario.)

Bibi also alluded to such a mass attack in a speech a few days ago:

"More tunnels were discovered during last night's action, tunnels that are added to the many others we have found, some of which had already reached Israeli territory. Hamas invested years of work and vast capital in them in order to perpetrate large-scale terrorist attacks and carry out abductions. We found handcuffs and sedatives. There is no question here. This was a strategic network for Hamas in which it had installed fortifications, electricity, cables, all in order to infiltrate, carry out large-scale attacks and kidnap [Israelis]."

We do know that there were several tunnels into Israel that were in close proximity to Israeli communities, or on their way, possibly with multiple exits on the Israel side that would facilitate such an attack:

The size (both length and height/width) and sophistication of the tunnels suggest a larger operation than just snatching a person.

The idea of simultaneous attacks by Islamists against civilians is not exactly novel.

(h/t Yerushalimey, YMedad, Josh Korn)

As Gaza sends rockets to Israel, Israel sends food and fuel to Gaza

Major media still refers to Israel's "siege" of Gaza.

Yet not only hasn't there been any sort of "siege" by any definition, there isn't even a siege today during wartime.

In the entire history of warfare, never has a nation given so much aid to the enemy as Israel does right now.

Israel, so vilified in so many demonstrations and articles and clueless newscasts, is providing food, fuel, medicines, setting up a field hospital, allowing patients to go to hospitals in Israel, and even helping fix the infrastructure that is being damaged by Hamas rockets!

The IDF's COGAT is even giving instructions on how people around the world can get their own humanitarian supplies into Gaza.

Here is their summary as of Thursday morning:

Usually, the Kerem Shalom crossing is closed on Friday - but the IDF is opening it for industrial fuel, diesel and cooking gas.

This is, of course, all but ignored by the media intent to paint Israel as targeting children.

It's amazing how so many reporters in the region can miss so many stories.

Yesterday, Israellycool made the interesting discovery that many of the names of the Gaza casualties listed by Al Jazeera (which gets its names from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry) were listed more than once.

He counted about 33 names that were listed twice, out of less than 600 listed with known names.

I just looked at the list myself, and I count even more - some 42 names out of 592 are listed more than once! They usually have different spellings but it is clear they are the same names.

Even worse, two people are listed as being killed three times! And by sheer coincidence - they are both children!

8 or 9 year old Yaseen Ibrahim Dib al-Kilani was also listed as Yaseen Ibrahim Dieb Alkilani and Yaser Ibrahim Dib al-Kilani.

13 or 14 year old Hiba Hamed Mohammed Alshiekh Khalil/Hiba Hamid Alsheikh Khalil was also listed three times, the second spelling done twice and noted as a duplicate in the list, but still there and counted separately.

This means 7% of the names being solemnly offered to the world media are double or triple counted.

By contrast, I only counted 5 duplicates in the PCHR list of the over 1400 names listed after Cast Lead.

Of course, this list doesn't list the other lies - people who were killed by Hamas rockets, people who were executed as "collaborators" (reportedly 9 of those,) and those who may have died of natural causes that are being counted as casualties. Hamas doesn't exactly have a great track record of being honest.

My only question for the many reporters still using Hamas numbers: Once it is proven that a source is a liar, is it standard practice to continue to trust it?

You know, I'm not a professional journalist, only a mere blogger. Perhaps I don't understand the rules as well as the guys who get paid to do this. I'm willing to learn. After all, if I start loosening my standards, blogging the news will become a whole lot easier.

07/24 Links Pt2: A salute to lone soldiers; Col. Kemp: Hamas has commmitted War Crimes

From Ian:

Richard Kemp Analysis: The war crimes have been committed by Hamas

Hamas have learnt many lessons from their defeat in the two previous Israeli operations in Gaza. They are better at concealing their rocket launchers and have developed a vast complex of concrete lined underground tunnels using resources that could have been spent on alleviating the plight of their hapless civilian population.
These tunnels protect their munitions from air attack and allow rockets and launchers to be moved about the battlefield immune from air attack. Their commanders also skulk underground while their fighters and civilians die in the mayhem above.
Because of this, only so much can be achieved from the air. The current Israeli ground assault is restricted to locating, clearing and destroying attack tunnels that threaten civilians across the border. If Hamas do not agree to cease their rocket fire, the IDF may well have to expand the operation to take on the network of rocket launchers and command bunkers deep inside the Gaza Strip.
I have spent time in the last week speaking to IDF soldiers on the Gaza border. Their job is extremely dangerous and they know it. Yet, like their British counterparts whom they so closely resemble, every one was stoical, good-humoured and ready to close with the enemy to defend their families at home.
I pay tribute to the more than 30 soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice. They have made the greatest contribution to their country that is possible. We owe them our support. Not just out of respect for their courage and sacrifice but because their war is our war, too. They are fighting the 21st century scourge of Islamist terrorism at democracy’s front line.
Col Richard Kemp was Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan (h/t Yoel)

'IDF does more than any other army to prevent civilian deaths'

INTERVIEW: Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, talks to Ynet about Israel's military and moral superiority over Hamas, and says Israel should hit Gaza harder and faster.
Israel's military makes more effort than any other army to prevent civilian casualties, but should be more aggressive in Gaza, says Colonel (ret.) Richard Kemp CBE, the former commander of the British armed forces in Afghanistan and fierce international advocate for the IDF.
"I would like to see the IDF operating much faster, going in perhaps harder and faster, that's what I would like to see," Kemp told Ynet on Wednesday.
"But having said that, I recognize - as you recognize - the pressures on Israel from all around the world to absolutely minimize the number of civilian casualties they're causing", he added. "I believe that on the basis of everything that I've seen, that everything the IDF does to protect civilians and to stop the death of innocent civilians is a great deal more than any other army, and it's more than the British and the American armies." (h/t Yoel)

JPost Editorial: A salute to lone soldiers

There has been an overwhelming outpouring of solidarity over the three lone soldiers (in Israel without close family) killed in clashes with Hamas in the Gaza Strip over the weekend.
Tens of thousands attended the Jerusalem funeral on Wednesday of St.-Sgt. Max Steinberg, 24, who grew up in California. On Tuesday night, there was a massive turnout for the funeral in Ashkelon of St.-Sgt. Jordan Bensemhoun (Ben-Simon), 22, who was born and raised in Lyon, France. And the previous night, a spontaneous social media campaign led to masses attending the Haifa funeral of Sgt. Sean (Nissim) Carmeli, 21, who was raised in Texas by Israeli parents.
All three young men were, by all accounts, exceptional human beings, Jews and Zionists who made aliya in the prime of their lives and joined the IDF’s elite Golani Brigade.
They excelled during their service and made the ultimate sacrifice during Operation Protective Edge. We offer heartfelt condolences to their families.

30,000 attend Mount Herzl funeral of US-born IDF soldier

Sgt. Max Steinberg, a U.S.-born Golani Brigade soldier who fell in battle in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, was laid to rest on Wednesday on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
Around 30,000 Israelis attended Steinberg's funeral, making it one of the largest in the history of the Mount Herzl military cemetery.
Steinberg, 24 at the time of his death, was born and raised in Los Angeles. In June 2012, Steinberg, joined by his younger siblings Jake and Paige, visited Israel for the first time on a Taglit-Birthright Israel trip and fell in love with the country. After the trip was over, Steinberg decided he would move to Israel and enlist in the Israel Defense Forces.

Who says there is no unity?

Mahmoud Abbas, faced with a decision to support or oppose Hamas terror, decided that terror is the way to go. He praised the Hamas "resistance" - which means he is praising rockets to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Here is the official announcement from the PA leadership (translation by MEMRI):

The Palestinian leadership, headed by Mahmoud 'Abbas, held an emergency meeting tonight to study the recent developments in the national activity, as part of its confrontation with the criminal terrorist aggression being carried out by Israel against our steadfast people in the brave Gaza Strip.

The leadership heard the announcement by President Abu Mazen at the beginning of the meeting, and expressed its appreciation for the efforts that he has made on the international and regional level and for [his efforts] to connect with the leaderships of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. [The leadership] stressed the importance of continuing these efforts, and of continuing the coordination and the joint activity on all levels. This comes as part of strengthening the Palestinian national unity under the flag of the PLO, our only legitimate representative.

[The leadership] praises the steadfastness of our people in its courageous resistance against the occupation army that is carrying out ongoing massacres and crimes.

The leadership has stressed that our entire people, both in and outside the homeland, stands assertively alongside Gaza and alongside its bleeding people, at every hour, in defense of the Palestinian homeland, the rights of the people, and the national Palestinian enterprise.

The heroic Gaza is today [our] defensive shield, because it heads the ranks to protect our land, our rights, and our steadfast and sacred goals of liberation, return, and independence.

The Palestinian leadership has called on our people to take the most extensive and ongoing popular action in order to express steadfastness alongside the heroic Gaza and its courageous resistance and against the army of aggression and its ongoing crimes. We are certain that Gaza will not break as long as it [enjoys] the cohesion of our entire people...

Likewise, the Palestinian leadership has called for expanding the campaign of international solidarity with the brave and steadfast Gaza, for calling on all the international organizations and bodies, for condemning the crimes of the occupiers, and for acting intensively to prosecute its leaders and senior officials in international courts for these crimes. Also, it calls on the entire world to reject the misleading propaganda being spread by the government of the occupation and the aggression."

Gaza's demands for a halt to the aggression and the removal of the siege, in all its forms, are the demands of the entire Palestinian people, and it is to the implementation of this goal that the Palestinian leadership is devoting all its capabilities."

Abba Eban famously said that Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. In this case, though, a different rule is in effect:

Arabs, no matter how much they hate each other, will always hate Israel more.

Nothing is going to change that.

Of course, Hamas has no love for Fatah and Abbas. Their idea of "unity" has always been imposing their own, Islamic supremacist worldview on the more "moderate" factions. Abbas happily goes along with this, because deep down there is no ideological difference between his party and Hamas, just he is more sensitive to Western pressure.

Assuming that Israel is less moral than Hamas is pure bigotry

It started this morning with a tweet from UNRWA head Chris Gunness:

It spread like wildfire, with over 1200 retweets.

Gunness piled on, urging his followers to retweet his messages about supposed Israeli atrocities:

Soon it was in the news:

CBS:

NBC:

The Washington Post's headline was "Israel shells UN-run school in Gaza Strip." (since changed.)

The New York Times (since changed):

Even the Jewish Telegraphic Agency joined the bandwagon:

I had written at the outset of this war that the number one mistake reporters were likely to make is assuming that all Gaza casualties are the result of Israeli fire.

And that is exactly what happened.

As usual, the IDF was slow to respond. And they still have not responded definitively. But here's what we know so far from them, facts that Chris Gunness and Hamas are unlikely to admit:

Times of Israel adds the latest:

Errant Israeli shell, Palestinian rocket may have hit school — Channel 2An Israeli mortar shell may have hit the UNRWA school in which 15 Palestinians are said to have been killed today, Channel 2′s Ehud Ya’ari says, citing Israeli military sources. It was one of nine shells fired at a Hamas target — but went off course, “possibly” hitting the school instead.
Ya’ari adds, however, that a Palestinian rocket also hit the compound, and indicates that UNRWA officials have acknowledged this. Two hours ago, UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness tweeted that Hamas rockets were falling in Beit Hanoun, where the school is located, earlier today.

So either someone fired from the school and the IDF responded - unlikely, based on how careful the IDF was to ensure the Wafa hospital was empty before firing at it - or Hamas rockets hit the school, killing the innocent, or there was a mistake on Israel's side with an "errant shell."

Whatever the truth is, to make a blanket assumption that Israel is at fault is not reporting, but advocacy.

The media across the board assumed that this was an Israeli strike, based on sources known to lie and to be consistently biased.

I tweeted these questions out to the world.

If it wasn't an airstrike, why does the media think it is more likely that Israel shelled a UNRWA school than Hamas? Is it more inconceivable that Hamas would attack its own people than Israel deliberately attacking civilians? Who gains from such an action?

The only explanation for the headlines is that, to the world media, Israel is a bloodthirsty nation.

The logic is sickening.

On the one hand there is a professional army, with mountains of guidelines and layers of lawyers all for the purpose of ensuring that their wartime activities are legal under international law. An army that has weapons that can be aimed carefully and precisely. An army that can destroy a car of terrorists while leaving people a few meters away unhurt. An army that warns the enemy populace to leave so they don't get hurt.

And, an army with huge disincentives to kill innocent civilians.

On the other side are - terrorist organizations, in the purest sense of the word. Groups that purposefully put their people in harm's way. Groups that shed their uniforms and purposefully place themselves and their weapons among civilians. Groups that shoot their own fellow Arabs because of feuds, or suspicions, or honor. Groups that have killed dozens of their own people this year from assassinations, work accidents, and rocket misfires.

Not to mention that these are groups that are frustrated that they have not managed to kidnap any Israelis, and frustrated that their best fighters are being killed by the dozen.

And even more importantly - groups whose major strategy is to influence world public opinion by maximizing deaths among their own population.

Forget the likelihood of this being an accidental Qassam rocket or mortar volley. How unlikely is it that Hamas would purposefully fire into a UNRWA building - a building that symbolizes the entire world community - in order to deal a crushing blow to Israel's ability to wage war against it? Who has the most to gain from the deaths of dozens of civilians?

If the media was remotely objective, there is no way that they would assume that the IDF had fired those shells. On the contrary, they would have been asking these questions of Chris Gunness within minutes of his first tweet, instead of slavishly retweeting it themselves (as many did.)

The IDF isn't perfect, but if the IDF was as bloodthirsty as the headlines imply, then Gaza would have 70,000 dead by now, not 700.

There is no objectivity here. The a priori assumption of IDF guilt is evidence that the media truly thinks that the IDF is a sickeningly depraved army, the exact opposite of what has been seen over and over again even during this conflict (for those who care about the truth.)

Assuming that the IDF is morally depraved and at the same time not even entertaining the idea that Hamas, which brags that it targets civilians, could be behind this incident is proof positive that it is the media that is depraved and immoral.

07/24 Links Pt1: Hamas Uses Humanitarian Aid for Evil; Who is responsible for the suffering in Gaza?

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Abbas Endorsed Hamas Demands

Evidently, Abbas has reached the conclusion that unless he hurries up and declares his support for the Palestinian "resistance" groups in the Gaza Strip, his people will march on his office and force him to quit.
That prospect is probably why Abbas decided this week to send his wife and grandchildren to stay at the family's residence in Amman, Jordan. According to various reports, members of Abbas's families left Ramallah "secretly" and headed for Jordan amid increased criticism of the Palestinian Authority president.
Witnesses said that security has been intensified around the home and office of Abbas in Ramallah out of concern for his safety.
Abbas's fear of a Palestinian revolt against his regime has driven him into the open arms of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Another reason for the unexpected change in Abbas's policy could be related to a promise he received from Qatar to provide the Palestinian Authority with financial aid. If true, this would strain relations between Abbas and al-Sisi, who is despised by Qatar -- the largest funder of Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Alan Dershowitz: How selective body counts incite more violence

During a two day period this past week while dozens of Palestinians and several Israelis were killed, the media failed to report that in neighboring Syria, 700 Arabs and Muslims were killed in just two days of fighting. This constitutes only a tiny fraction of the 160,000 people killed in Syria during the ongoing civil war. According to the Britain-Based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 53,978 civilians have been killed including 8,607 children and 5,586 women. Many if not most of these deaths were deliberate—part of calculated efforts on both sides of the conflict to maximize civilian casualties.
Yet this body count has received little notice compared to the far smaller body count in Israel and Gaza. Why is this? Is it because when Arabs and Muslims deliberately kill other Arabs and Muslims, that deserves less attention than when Israelis kill Arabs and Muslims, even in self-defense and in an effort to prevent the murder of their own civilians? If so, this is racism pure and simple, and the application of a noxious double standard. The lives of all human beings have worth, and the death of Arabs and Muslims at the hands of other Arabs and Muslims deserve as much media coverage as the deaths of Arabs and Muslims that are caused by Israel's efforts to protect its own civilians.
The media's exclusive focus on the death toll in Gaza—without explaining that it is largely Hamas' fault and part of its media strategy—incites hatred and anti-Semitism around the world. It has incited violence against Jews and Jewish institutions in many cities. Much of this violence comes from radicals on the hard left and from radical Islamists. But a recent incident in Italy shows that bigoted hate can come from the mouths of intellectuals as well as the fists of rabble rousers. Gianni Vattimo, who has been called Italy's most famous philosopher, recently announced that he would personally, "like to shoot those bastard Zionists," calling them "a bit worse than the Nazis". He said he was planning to launch a fundraising campaign to buy better rockets for Hamas so that this Jew-hating group can kill more Zionists, by which he means Jewish Israelis. He urged European volunteers to join Hamas and fight alongside of them against Israel, as volunteers fought against Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

The U.S.-Israel Alliance: No Apologies Necessary

First, there is no change in U.S. policy toward Israel that will win any true allies in the Muslim world, no matter what its leaders claim. They often assert that only if we would solve the Palestinian-Israeli problem first, relations would improve. This is a tactic. These leaders employ it simply to divert Western officials from making demands on them instead of on Israel. The reality is that most Arabs view the U.S., its European allies, and Israel with ineradicable contempt.
No Arab state has recognized the legitimacy of a Jewish -- or often even a pluralistic -- state in Palestine. Egypt and Iraq have been persecuting their Christians, only because the Jews were all forced out already; and many Muslim countries cannot even abide each other, as seen every day in the Shia-Sunni conflict, still under way after centuries.
This struggle between Israel and the Palestinians is not about land. If it were, there would have been a two-state solution long ago. Former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat would have said yes to the Camp David Plan offered by President Clinton and former Israeli Prime Minister Barak. The current strife between the Hamas terrorist movement and Israel is just another stage in the permanent state of Arab hostility towards the existence of a Jewish state in the region.

Stand with US: Who is responsible for the suffering in Gaza?

Hamas Al Qassam offices are next to the emergency room at Shifa Hospital (UPDATE)

French-Palestinian journalist Radjaa Abu Dagga tells of his harrowing experience with Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades in Liberation:

Correspondent Radjaa Abu Dagga for years divided his time between Paris, where his wife and son live, and Gaza, where his parents live and where he works. On 18 June, when he wanted to cross the Rafah border, an officer banned his way and took his passport like all Palestinians trying to cross into Egypt that day.

After four blocked attempts to leave Gaza without explanation over weeks, the Palestinian journalist was summoned by the security services of Hamas on Sunday. "I received a call from a private number. They summoned me to Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza City center, " explains Radjaa. He carried with him his two phones, his press card and a small camera.

A few meters from the emergency room where the injured from bombings are constantly flowing, in the outpatient department, he was received in "a small section of the hospital used as administration" by a band of young fighters. They were all well dressed, which surprised Radjaa, "in civilian clothing with a gun under one's shirt and some had walkie-talkies " . He was ordered to empty his pockets, removing his shoes and his belt then was taken to a hospital room "which served that day as the command office of three people."

A man begins his interrogation: "Who are you? Who do you call? What are you doing?" "I was very surprised by the procedure," admits Radjaa, who showed him his press card in response. Questions came. They asked if he speaks Hebrew, he has relations with Ramallah. Young Hamas supporters insistently ask the question: "Are you a correspondent for Israel?" Radjaa repeated that only works for French media and a chain of Algerian radio.

It was then that the three men deliveed this message: "This is yours to choose. We are an executive administration. We will carry the message of Qassams. You have to stay at home and give us your papers. " Stunned to be covered by the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, Radjaa tried to defend himself and especially to understand why such a decision was taken against him. In vain. "It is impossible to communicate with these people," laments the journalist.

He is not the first to undergo this kind of pressure and combatants in front of him did not hide. "They are enraged against the presidency and accused me of collaborating with Mahmoud Abbas," he says. Reporters Without Borders confirms that this is not an isolated case. The organization has indeed been alerted by the threats of Hamas against Palestinian and foreign journalists for their professional activities.

There are many journalists that have been hanging around Al Shifa hospital. Very few have mentioned that the terrorist wing of Hamas is even present, let alone set up next to the emergency room.

Is it because they are pro-Hamas? Is it Stockholm syndrome? Or is their hate of Israel so deep that anything that supports the IDF's assertions of Hamas war crimes is considered off limits?

But this is the fundamental story of the conflict: Hamas is using the entire population as human shields for their terror, ad they deliberately choose hospitals to ensure that either they are not targeted or that any Israeli actions will look barbaric.

The sad thing is, judging from many of the reports we have seen, most journalists are complicit in this.

My headline here should be a front page story. Dozens of journalists in Gaza know it is true from their own experience. And this story is being buried by the people the world depends on for their information.

(h/t Yoel)

UPDATE: The article has been taken down at Dagga's request.

The Jerusalem Post reported today that journalists who were writing things that Hamas doesn't like were being threatened. Since Dagga's parents are in Gaza, this seems very possible.

The article was copied here.

(h/t JudahE)

Egypt foils two attacks against Israel

Ma'an reports:

Egyptian military sources said that Egyptian troops killed a "suicide bomber" who tried to approach the Israeli border near Kerem Shalom military base on the border on Wednesday night.

The sources told Ma'an that the army also destroyed a vehicle loaded with Grad missiles shortly before they were launched towards Israeli territory.

The vehicle was spotted in Sheikh Zuweid in the North Sinai district before it was hit by artillery shells, killing two individuals inside.

According to the sources, the "suicide bomber" carried an explosive device in addition to an explosive belt on his body.

He was shot dead while running towards the border with Israel south of Rafah in what they said was an attempt to reach an Israeli military base in Kerem Shalom.

Egypt's rhetoric has been anti-Israel but its actions have shown that it hates Hamas much, much more. They have repeatedly banned foreigners from sending aid and doctors through Rafah, although the Egyptians themselves sent a token amount of medicines.

From Ammon News:

Egyptian authorities have denied on Sunday the entry of a Jordanian medical delegation into Gaza Strip via Rafah crossing.

The delegation includes five Jordanian doctors who reached Cairo on Friday en route to Gaza to participate in the treatment of the growing number of injuries as a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the besieged enclave.

The delegation was carrying medical equipment and devices offered by the Jordanian Committee to support the health sector in the Gaza Strip.

The delegates said that the Egyptian authorities barred their entry along with other Arab and foreign doctors.