Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, September 02, 2014

09/02 Links Pt1: Richard Kemp: Hamas was Defeated, Can’t be Trusted; Which side is UNRWA on?

From Ian:

Military Expert: Hamas was Defeated and Can’t be Trusted, ISIS Threatens New 9/11

In an interview on Israel’s Channel One television news the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan said that Hamas was defeated during Operation Protective Edge.
The key achievement was to defeat Hamas, and that’s effectively what has happened, although Hamas, as you would expect, have had their victory celebrations and parades. Of course the truth is far different from that. …. Hamas has been defeated. They haven’t been destroyed, they haven’t been annihilated, but they’ve been defeated, in as much as they have had to accept the terms of a ceasefire, which had been offered to them right at the beginning of the conflict. So they have been responsible for perpetuating the conflict that has killed a large number of their civilian population when they could have accepted these terms before. But they’ve now been forced by Israeli military action … to stop their offensive against Israel. And of course the other achievement, as well as stopping the rockets, is the destruction of all those attack tunnels, which were designed to come in and massacre, murder, kidnap, drug Israeli citizens and to take some of them back into Gaza. So two major, major achievements.

Why Europe Must Not Be Trusted to Monitor Hamas

Hamas would likely resort to violence to thwart any attempts to disarm the group. It is therefore highly unlikely the Europeans would confront Hamas in any meaningful way.
Spanish intelligence agents met secretly with Hezbollah operatives, who agreed to provide "escorts" to protect Spanish UNIFIL patrols. The quid pro quo was that Spanish troops would look the other way while Hezbollah was allowed to rearm for its next war with Israel. Hezbollah's message to Spain was: mind your own business.
If the European experience with Hezbollah in Lebanon is any indication, not only will Hamas not be disarmed, it will be rearmed as European monitors look on and do nothing.
What is clear is that European leaders have never been committed to honoring either the letter or the spirit of UN Resolutions 1559, 1680 and 1701, all of which were aimed at preventing Hezbollah from rearming.

Elliott Abrams: Which side is UNRWA on?

Which side is UNRWA on? Its supporters would say "on the side of Palestinian ‎refugees," but instead the agency appears to be on two other sides: its own, always ‎expanding its own empire and responsibilities, and on the side of Hamas.‎
Any transition to UNHCR would need to be slow and careful, but it should begin. ‎One good way to start is to demand independent studies and planning for such a ‎step (independent because you obviously can't leave this work to UNRWA itself, nor ‎should all of it be conducted within the U.N. system). For example, a plan might start ‎in one country (such as Jordan or Lebanon) rather than in Gaza. Or it might start by ‎redefining "refugee" the normal way. The United States should begin, after a set ‎future date, to move funding from UNRWA to UNHCR. If UNRWA or the U.N. ‎refuse, so be it: let those who insist on retaining UNRWA, its pernicious definition of ‎‎"refugee," and its ties with Hamas pay the freight.‎
Such a transition will be extremely difficult and take years. That's clear -- but it's time ‎to begin. The Gaza war has illuminated once again the ways in which Hamas has ‎been acting as a parasite feeding on this U.N. agency -- to which the United States is ‎the largest donor. Time for a change.‎

We Used Palestinian Rhetoric To Express A Zionist Point Of View. You’ll Never Believe How It Turned Out

Jerusalem, September 1 – Israeli efforts to shake off the yoke of Muslim occupation of Jewish land continued today in the form of an announcement that the government intends to appropriate nearly 1,000 acres of uninhabited territory in the Etzion Bloc of communities south of Jerusalem.
The move comes after Occupation forces kidnapped and murdered several Israeli teens in July, sparking a series of violent attacks that culminated in the launching of thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians. To drive home the point that the Resistance will not be defeated by such war crimes, the government decided to initiate the largest appropriation of land in Judea and Samaria in decades.
“Our noble Resistance has shown that the anti-Zionist enemy is only thwarted by measures that demonstrate the futility of his continued attacks,” Minister of Housing Naftali Bennett. “Through farming and development we shall liberate you, Judea and Samaria,” he continued, using a common Resistance slogan.

Iranian general calls on Muslims to "remove" the US and Israel

From Iran's Fars news agency:

Commander of Iran's Basij (volunteer) force Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi described the US and the Zionists as the main stumbling block standing on the way of the Islamic civilization, and called on the world Muslims to take action to remove these barriers.

"Today, the materialization of the Islamic civilization is our great cause and the biggest obstacle standing on this path is the US and the Zionists and therefore, there needs to be a serious stream created to move and exclude this obstacle," Naqdi said, addressing Basij and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) public relations officials in Tehran on Tuesday.

He underlined that all the protest rallies which are being held in Pakistan and Yemen should change the direction of their protests from Islamabad and Sana'a to the holy Quds since the root cause of all the regional problems and divisive plots is the usurper Zionist regime, stressing that the Muslim countries can talk to each other to annihilate this regime and settle their problems.

So the Muslim world cannot become civilized as long as the US and Israel exist!

I'm sure this is just a mistranslation. After all, Iran is now the US' de facto ally in the war on Islamic terrorists. Iran now has a "moderate" president. The US is negotiating with Iran in good faith.

This must be just one big mistake.

"Human Rights" activist supports war crimes

On Sunday I revealed that three people killed in Gaza who were considered ambulance workers by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights were in fact members of the Al Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad.

One response to my tweeting about it is quite instructive:

@elderofziyon @ngomonitor May the souls of these courageous members of Palestine Resistance rest in peace. God bless Palestine #FreeGaza
— Mary Hughes-Thompson (@Mariapalestina) September 2, 2014

Who is Mary Hughes-Thompson who considers terrorists to be "courageous members of Palestine resistance"?

She describes herself as a "Human Rights Advocate, co-founder Free Gaza Movement."

Using an ambulance with the intent to deceive an enemy is considered a particularly heinous war crime under international humanitarian law.

This means that a self-described "human rights advocate" advocates for war crimes.

I have never seen a single human rights NGO criticize the Free Gaza movement - which is an offshoot of the International Solidarity Movement - for supporting terrorism.

This is how low the "human rights' community has sunk.

How liberal! São Paulo Art Biennial dissociates itself from Israel

A followup to this story from Sunday, from Hypoallergic:

After registering objections from 61 participating artists that were supported by the entire curatorial delegation of its 31st São Paulo Biennial, the Fundaçao Bienal São Paulo has agreed to “clearly disassociate” Israeli funding from the general sponsorship of the exhibition. The agreement, announced this morning in a release from the Biennial’s objecting participants, has the Israeli consulate’s logo appended only to the presentations of the Israeli artists who received its direct financial support.

The deal was struck in negotiations with Biennial administrators last night, a source close the discussions tells Hyperallergic. The number of participant signatories to the original letter was also up to 61, from the original 55, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency wire service. The curators’ statement of support, released one day after the August 28 artists’ letter, was unanimous, though Israeli curator Oren Sagiv “stressed” to Ha’aretz “that he did not support the letter but rather the artists’ right to protest.”

The three Israeli artists with whom the sponsorship is associated are Yohai Avrahami, Leigh Orpaz, and Nurit Sharett. A fourth Israeli artist, Yael Bartana, was a signatory to the letter of protest; the other three were not. Agence France Presse reports that Israeli funding comprised approximately $40,000 of the Biennial’s $10.5 million budget.

The exhibition actually had guards stand in front of the Israeli logo to protect it from being defaced by these oh-so-progressive artists and their fans. We wouldn't want the audience to be subjected to something that is clearly too extreme for a group of people for whom placing images of religious figures in urine is already passe.

The person who spearheaded the anti-Israel campaign is Tony Chakar, a Lebanese artist. He writes about how Israel supposedly oppresses Palestinians but has not a word to say about how his own country treats Palestinians far worse than Israel could ever be accused of. He lives in a country where Palestinians are discriminated against by law, where they cannot build, buy land, work in many jobs or become citizens.

In other words, he is a typical hypocrite that naturally becomes a darling of his hypocritical friends.

The Biennial itself did not release a statement as far as I can tell, but it changed its "partners" page to delete all international partners, not just Israel.

Before:

Now:

It looks like the Brazilians are trying to give in to the demands of the artists without appearing to cave all the way. In other words, they have no principles either.

The other sponsors should be speaking up as well. Perhaps a word from Bloomberg Philanthropies can sway the Biennial organizers.

Saudi op-ed reiterates how evil Jews are

Perhaps stung by the fact that Saudi Arabia and Israel have been on the same side in many regional conflicts, the official Saudi news agency Okaz published an op-ed to ensure that Saudi readers will never think warmly of Jews.

Written by Abdullah al-Sultan, the article touches on many of the classic manifestations of Arab and Muslim antisemitism, the bigotry that no "human rights" group wants to admit exists.

Some lowlights from the article:

After World War II, the Jewish-controlled media started concentrating on making Arabs and Islam look bad.
"Much of the culture of mutilation practiced by Jews against Arabs comes through movies, books, newspapers, magazines and entertainment programs on satellite channels."
Jews ruthlessly used 9/11 to incite the West against Muslims.
Israel publishes false copies of the Kora n to make it look evil and bigoted.
Jews love to kill others and to seize their property and possessions and honor, not to mention how they are the killers of prophets.
Jews are known for breaking their covenants and conventions.
As the Koran says, Jews are in the forefront of treachery, fraud and extortion.
Jews make themselves look moral, but Judaism allows them to cheat and steal and kill with complete impunity.
This is because they think they are God's chosen people, and this makes them feel greatness and superiority over others.
In conclusion, while the Jews were able to outwit the world for a while, they will not be able to continue to do so forever.

Articles like this never have any negative repercussions. There are never any outraged letters to the editor or comments and the articles are never considered controversial in the mainstream Arabic press. When anything remotely anti-Muslim is written in Israeli newspapers there are instant condemnations from all quarters and anguished responses written to distance the responderfrom the noxious article - but in the Arab world, virulently antisemitic articles written for state media doesn't cause the slightest consternation.

In fact, if you want to make Arabs sit up and notice an article, write one that is complimentary to Jews and Judaism - and watch the outrage that results.

This simple test shows the huge difference in morality between the Arab world and Israel. In one side, hate is encouraged and co-existence is derided, and the other side is the exact opposite. But pointing out that self-evident fact is not something that the media or human rights groups are comfortable with.

So they pretend it isn't there.

09/01 Link Pt2: UK Rally against anti-Semitism; Guardian runs debunked "Jews only, red roofs" story

From Ian:

Thousands rally in London against rising anti-Semitism

A year after his gala installation as British chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis told a crowd of up to 4,500 that he could not have foreseen needing to rally against anti-Semitism.
In response to the rise of recorded instances of anti-Semitism in the United Kingdom, Sunday’s rally was held outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
“We demand zero tolerance of anti-Semitism,” Mirvis said. After the murder of the three yeshiva students in the West Bank, “little did we realize that anti-Semitism would reach high levels around the world and here in the UK as well.”
Calling for an end to all forms of prejudice including Islamophobia, Mirvis noted the “deep esteem” in which the Jewish community of Britain is held.

Douglas Murray Speaks At #NoToAntiSemitism

Diversity, hope and strength: Why I'm proud to be Israeli

I am proud to be Israeli. I'm proud that, in Israel, a bacon-eating Jew and a beer-drinking Muslim can sit in the same parliament as devout co-religionists, and everyone can speak their minds.
I'm proud that Israel, like Australia, is a place where journalists, academics and everyone else can air their grievances without fear of retribution. Oh, they might involve themselves in an argument, but they won't be gaoled or tortured or shot.
Two weeks ago in this paper, an anonymous Israeli declared shame in her citizenship. I'm proud that she has the right to do this, and can do so safely, both here and in Israel. However, her anonymity was insulting. Australia and Israel is not Gaza or Nazi Germany. Israelis and Australian Jews can, and do, criticise Israel.
Although I'm sad that it has been forced to do so, I'm really proud that Israel has invested billions of dollars on bomb shelters and air-raid sirens and radars to detect incoming rockets and missiles to shoot down those rockets, all in the name of protecting its people.
I'm proud that I could do my small part in protecting other Israelis by serving in the army. The army consists of people just like you and me; people who would prefer to start their adult life earlier, but understand the importance of defending their country. That said, I hated the idea of fighting Palestinians.

‘Anything that happens to the Jews they will exaggerate’

What do average Palestinians think about the Holocaust, if they know about it at all? Amateur Israeli filmmaker Corey Gil-Shuster, who moved to Israel from Canada 15 years ago, set out to the West Bank to find out as part of his YouTube series, “Ask an Israeli, ask a Palestinian.”
The results, unscientific though they were, weren’t especially encouraging.
There were three types of answers that surfaced during his interviews: lack of knowledge about the Holocaust, the view that the Holocaust happened but was exaggerated or is what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians now, or the idea that Adolf Hitler was right for killing Jews.
The question “Palestinians: What do you know/think of the Holocaust?” was sent in by “Jason from Canada.” Gil-Shuster and his translator filmed on his $180 Best Buy camera mainly in Ramallah while this summer’s fighting in Gaza was still ongoing.

Palestinians: What do you know about the Holocaust?

"Moderate" PA prime minister spins a conspiracy theory

One of the things that the West simply cannot understand is that even the most "moderate" Palestinian Arabs will spout nonsense.

Rami Hamdallah is the prime minister of the PA, and formerly president of An Najah University. No one has anything bad to say about him.

But no Western media will publish the things he says that are ridiculous.

From the official PA news agency Wafa:

Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah discussed Monday with President of the Democratic Socialist Party in the European Parliament Gianni Pittella preparations for Gaza reconstruction, said the Palestinian Government Media Center in a press release.
During a meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Ramallah, Hamdallah briefed Pittella on the latest political and economic developments as well as on the preparation for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

Hamdallah confirmed that Israel is exploiting the Gaza Strip as a pretext in order to continue with its violations against the Palestinian people and prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital.

The accusation is clearly insane. Israeli leaders don't sit around all day discussing pretexts for attacking Palestinian Arabs out of the blue.

But it also reveals a deep psychosis that affects Palestinian Arabs as a whole. They really think the world revolves around them. Even the most moderate, Western-educated Palestinian leader truly cannot think that Israel ever acts in self-interest, but can only believe that Israel makes all its decisions based purely on how they will affect Palestinian Arabs.

This is another facet of the narcissism of the Palestinian Arabs that we discussed recently. Even the president of a major university does not have the ability to look at the world through someone else's eyes. Everything revolves around him and his people.

PA economy in the toilet, but they will pay salaries to terrorists anyway

From Ma'an:

Palestinian Authority minister Shawqi al-Ayasa said the West Bank-Gaza unity government is working on a "deteriorating" budget after not receiving money from donors as scheduled.

"The government's budget is below zero, and it's starting to borrow from banks to move forward, because only less than third of donor funds that were scheduled to be received this year arrived," Al-Ayasa told Ma'an in a television interview.

"The US has not provided a single penny since Jan. 1, and Europe and Arab states only provided a third of what they were scheduled to give," he said.

Before the war the biggest issue between Fatah and Hamas was about salaries in Gaza. Since 2007, the PA was paying its Gaza workers to sit home and not work, as Hamas took over all the jobs. With the unity government, the PA tried to reinstate the Fatah workers and not to pay the Hamas workers who supplanted them. Hamas workers were unhappy and there were some tense scenes and violence outside Gaza banks.

So now that the PA has severe financial trouble, what is it going to do?

The Palestinian Authority will pay Hamas civil servants in Gaza on Wednesday, ending a months-long salary crisis following the announcement of a unity government.

Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouq said an agreement was reached between Hamas and PA officials on Sunday.

Yes, the cash-strapped PA will pay for double the workers that Gaza needs!

And of course the money that goes towards Hamas workers and institutions will be subject to being diverted to some other purposes.

Of course, the PA will continue to pay salaries to terrorists in prison, families of dead terrorists and to freed prisoners, since they are the top priority of the "moderate" PA government.

(h/t Yoel, even though I found it first :) )

09/01 Link Pt1: Richard Kemp: Post-war, Israel must be supported; The UN, an empty presence

From Ian:

Richard Kemp: Post-war, Israel must be supported

The US and the EU in particular, as well as regional states, should be pressuring Qatar, Turkey and Iran to end their support for Hamas.
Responsibility for reconstruction in Gaza should be removed from the UNDP and UNRWA whose work has helped further Hamas’s aims.
Internationally controlled mechanisms, approved by Israel, must be put in place to ensure that materials supplied for reconstruction are not again diverted into engines of war.
All 28 EU foreign ministers have demanded that Hamas and other Gaza terrorists disarm, and it looks likely that the US will table a UN Security Council resolution along these lines.
If the EU and the US are to be taken seriously they must consider carefully the extent of any aid provision to Gaza in the absence of compliance with their demands. Improving the lot of the Gazan people should be demonstrably linked to removal of Hamas’s terrorist capability.
Hamas’s arsenal has been seriously depleted. The international community must ensure it stays that way. As I recommended in my April paper, international military and intelligence forces should work to monitor and interdict efforts to re-supply Hamas such as we saw with the Klos C weapons shipment from Iran that was destined for Gaza earlier this year.
Israel should also be supported in its own actions to prevent terrorist attacks from Gaza. Responsible nations should accept the need for Israel to control materials coming into the Strip, and should refrain from patently false accusations of illegal blockades or an illegal occupation.
These irresponsible allegations suggest an equivalence between Israel and Hamas and encourage and legitimize terrorism.
The UN Human Rights Council’s Schabas Commission is about to commence its investigation into the Gaza conflict. This looks set to be a re-run of the now discredited Goldstone investigation into the 2008-09 conflict in Gaza. Judge Goldstone’s report – falsely accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity – encouraged Hamas to continue and refine its rockets, tunnels and human shields strategy. Too many UN members supported it or abstained. Any country that does not vigorously reject a similar report by Schabas will have blood on its hands if there is another round of fighting in Gaza.

Chloe Valdary: Hamas and Hypocrites

If you come across anyone in America who calls for an end to aid to Israel for allegedly persecuting Gazans, feel free to use the below as a model response:
Notwithstanding your faulty premise, let us play along. You are American. Your tax dollars also goes to UNRWA which provides aid to Gaza all of which is pocketed by Hamas’s gang of bandits all of whom just so happen to be mostly millionaires. This money is used to maintain Hamas’s dictatorship which entails the persecution of political minorities in Gaza, the murder of gays in Gaza, the murder of so-called collaborators in Gaza, the torturing of political dissidents in Gaza, the persecution of Christians in Gaza, the teaching of martyrdom in Gaza, the conscription of 12 year olds in gaza for the sake of martyrdom, child slave labor vis-a-vis building tunnels in Gaza (wherein, according to Palestinian Arab sources, 160 children were murdered in the process) and the sanctioning of honor crimes by Hamas (and other groups) in Gaza, just to name a few. Therefore by your own standard, you must not only protest aid to Israel, you must also protest aid to Gaza since it is stolen and mismanaged (thats a nice way of putting it) by Hamas.
Moreover, these human rights abuses committed by Hamas dispels your entire premise. The idea that a blockade of Gaza which, ostensibly, persecutes Gazans is the reason why Hamas launched rockets against Israel makes no sense, when you consider that Hamas engages in ACTUAL persecution of Gazans, which you seem to be sinisterly silent about. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you have been largely innocent of this fact. I await your condemnation of Hamas and your subsequent call to end all aid to Gaza based upon the standard that you have set forth.

“Disproportionate focus” on Israel?

Author and former AP correspondent Matti Friedman gives Brian Stelter his take on media coverage of the conflict in Gaza. (h/t dabney)

The Islamic Jihad Terror Ambulance

On August 2, the "human rights" NGO PCHR - one of the sources considered reliable by the UN - wrote:

At approximately 15:30 (August 1), Israeli warplanes bombarded an ambulance of the Ministry of Health. As a result, 3 health workers were killed: 'Aatef Saleh al-Zameli, 42, the driver; Yousef Ejmai'an al-Zameli, 33, a nurse; and Yousef Jaber Darabih, 25, a volunteer paramedic.

Israel attacked an ambulance! War crime!

Except for one thing: All three people killed were Islamic Jihad terrorists.

Here is the martyr poster for 'Aatef Saleh al-Zameli:

The name of the "nurse" killed was actually Yousef Ahmad Sheikh al-Eid. Here is his Islamic Jihad martyr poster:

The "paramedic" Yousef Jaber Darabih was also a proud member of the jihadist terror group:

Darabih was also a "scout leader." I wonder what he was teaching his young charges?

If these three terrorists were using an ambulance as a means to protect themselves and weapons from attack - and given that every single one of them is a member of Islamic Jihad, this seems likely - then they were the ones performing war crimes. It also indicates that the Gaza Ministry of Health was not only working closely with the Al Qassam Brigades to use their ambulances to transport terrorists and probably weapons, but they also worked with Islamic Jihad.

Not that the UN or any "human rights" NGO will investigate that.

(h/t Johnny)

Most of Ken Roth's most popular tweets are anti-Israel lies

From MyTopTweet:

MyTopTweet.com analyzes any Twitter account to show you their most retweeted tweets! We look at the past 3200 tweets sent by the account to show you their top 10 tweets.

I decided to check what the most popular tweets of Human Rights Watch's Ken Roth.

Surprise! Not only are 8 of his top ten tweets anti-Israel, but most of those are lies!

Number 1 with nearly 9000 retweets:

This Washington Post graphic helps us visualize the death toll of the current #Gaza fighting. http://t.co/GUHqRFZm3X pic.twitter.com/JM8jZ7wyhN
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) July 22, 2014

#5 was the same graphic with the text "Israel precision fire killing 4.9 times as many #Gaza civilians as fighters. Who's the target?"

#10 was again the same graphic, with this text:
Palestinians killed: more kids (129) than militants (86). 4.7x as many civilians as militants.

All of these are lies. The ratio of civilians to fighters is closer to 1:1 than 4.7:1, and Roth's insinuation that the IDF was targeting civilians with their precision weapons is beneath contempt.

His other anti-Israel tweets in the top ten:

#2:

"I saw no evidence during my week in Gaza of Israel’s accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields": BBC http://t.co/toMBmyhip8
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) July 24, 2014

While perhaps the BBC correspondent didn't see anything, Ken Roth knows that under the definition of human shields accepted by international humanitarian law, Hamas uses human shields.

#3:

US is shamefully alone in opposing UN rights council investigation for #Gaza. It passes anyway, 29 to 1; 17 abstain. pic.twitter.com/2cpLl6EoRV
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) July 23, 2014

There is nothing shameful about opposing the disgraceful targeting of Israel by the UNHRC, which spends more time on Israel than every other country combined. Just like Ken Roth!

#7 was this gem:

Remember when #Israel insisted Hamas was behind kidnap-murder of three West Bank teens. Oops, turns out it wasn't. http://t.co/Ltbfbi0kvk
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) July 27, 2014

Oops indeed. Hamas has since admitted multiple times that it was behind the kidnapping, and Roth never corrected his false (and condescending) tweet.

#8:

The "two-state solution" as seen from besieged #Gaza. pic.twitter.com/H2c4p1iVy6
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) July 24, 2014

Ah, the old "Gaza as prison" slander. The prison with beaches, shopping malls and water parks. Funny how no one is concerned over Egypt's allowing fewer Gazans to cross their border than Israel allows to cross into Israel. This is a perfect tweet for liars like Ken Roth!

#9:

Gaza civilians aren't deserving of protection because they elected Hamas?! That's the logic of terrorism. http://t.co/iRp2pwqAKZ
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) July 25, 2014

To take this apart would require an entire post of its own, but suffice it to say that Roth is quoting The Atlantic which implies that Israel uses a calculus to kill civilians that was in fact written by a New York professor in the WSJ in a flawed pro-Israel op-ed. It doesn't.

These are only the tip of the iceberg. Roth has been attacking Israel regularly and giving Hamas every benefit of the doubt. It has nothing to do with human rights and everything to do with Roth's psychotic need to demonize the Jewish state (which means to downplay Hamas war crimes.)

Interestingly, if you look at Human Rights Watch's most popular tweets, not one of them is about Israel or Gaza. Roth seems to have a singular appetite for targeting Israel - often using sarcasm and condescension that proves his disgusting bias.

Male:female ratio of deaths in Ukraine similar to Gaza, but UN comes to different conclusions!

An August 11 article by the head of statistics from BBC News looked at the ratio of men to women being killed in Gaza:

Its recent report said that as of 10 August, 1,948 Palestinians had been killed and 66 Israelis and one Thai national since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on 8 July.
...
So there were 226 members of armed groups killed, and another 709 men who were civilians. Among civilians, three times as many men were killed as women, while three times as many civilian men were killed as fighters.
...
[T]he proportion of civilian men over 18 killed seems high and it is not immediately obvious why.

To help understand this conundrum, the BBC asked the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights if they had any clue:

Matthias Behnk, from OHCHR, told BBC News that the organisation would not want to speculate about why there had been so many adult male casualties, adding that because they were having to deal with a lot of casualties in a short time, they had "focused primarily on recording the casualties".

"As such, we have not at this stage conducted a detailed analysis of trends of civilian casualties, for example in relation to the reasons why different groups are affected and the types of incidents, but hope to carry this out at some point in the coming future," he said.

Another UN official, Chris Gunness, was incensed that an earlier version of this BBC article included this line:

If the Israeli attacks have been 'indiscriminate,' as the UN Human Rights Council says, it is hard to work out why they have killed so many more civilian men than women.

Even after the BBC pulled that quote, Gunness tweeted:

@bbcworldservice pulls offensive quote condoning killing of civilian men in #Gaza Ask @rajandatar #OverToYou why it was there in1st place RT
— Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) August 12, 2014

Israellycool chart of male/female Gaza victims and ages

Clearly, UN officials either didn't want to speculate about why the ratio of adult men to women killed in Gaza was so lopsided, or they were angry at anyone who attempted to come up with a reasonable explanation for this phenomenon.

Let's fast forward a week.

On August 17, this same UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report on the human rights situation in the Ukraine.

Just as in Gaza, there have been over 2000 killed. Just as in Gaza, there have been far more males than females killed - about 12% of Gazans killed, about 11% of Ukranians killed.

And what did the UNHRC say about that in the Ukraine?

Reports of medical establishments from the areas under the control of the armed groups do not distinguish between civilian and military casualties. A gender imbalance of casualties reported by these establishments (as of 11 August, women comprised 11% of killed and 13% of wounded in the Donetsk region) may indicate that members of the armed groups who are predominantly male constitute a considerable part of these casualties.

Yes - in nearly identical situations in terms of casualties and ratios, among equal accusations of indiscriminate firepower that cannot distinguish between men and women, UN officials come to radically different conclusions. In the Ukraine, the imbalance seems to indicate that a large portion of the casualties are, in fact, combatants.

But in Gaza, such a conclusion cannot be countenanced. The very idea that the IDF is in fact killing lots more combatants than the UN is counting cannot possibly be raised.

The rules to evaluate behavior in the rest of the world is quite different from those that are used to judge Israel.

(h/t Nurit Baytch and CiFWatch)