Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Save the Gazans (new EoZ video)

The terrible living conditions in Gaza, captured on video.

h/t to Suzanne for finding the original raw video and jhrhv for pushing my mind in this direction...

Quick fisking of Richard Falk

This article by veteran Israel-basher Richard Falk in the Huffington Post is ripe for a full, line-by-line fisking. As it is, I will only show the more egregious falsehoods and bias.

During the ceasefire the Hamas leadership in Gaza repeatedly offered to extend the truce, even proposing a ten-year period and claimed a receptivity to a political solution based on acceptance of Israel's 1967 borders. Israel ignored these diplomatic initiatives, and failed to carry out its side of the ceasefire agreement that involved some easing of the blockade that had been restricting the entry to Gaza of food, medicine, and fuel to a trickle.

It would have been nice if Falk would give a date, or a name, to whomever in Hamas supposedly offered a truce extension. Proving a negative is impossible. My recollection is that some noises were made to the Western press from anonymous "Hamas sources" floating ideas of possibly agreeing to not attack Israel for ten years if Israel first withdraws to the exact 1967 borders, and even then not recognizing Israel. To anyone who is the slightest bit even-handed, this is a non-starter.

Beyond that, when the actual chance of extending the then-fictional truce came up in early December, while Israel was more than receptive to the idea, Hamas rejected it outright, in no uncertain terms. Falk is being incredibly dishonest here by blaming Israel.

Israel indeed increased the amount of aid to Gaza during the truce by a huge amount, closing the crossings only in response to attacks (and sometimes for Jewish holidays.) It also increased the types of goods sent to Gaza, including building materials that were then used by Hamas to build underground bunkers for weapons caches, instead of allowing Gazans to build.

The truce also stated that Hamas would not be allowed to smuggle weapons into Gaza, something it ignored completely.

Falk here is cherry picking half truths to paint Israel as being guilty and Hamas as being righteous.

Clearly, prior to the current crisis, Israel used its authority to prevent credible observers from giving accurate and truthful accounts of the dire humanitarian situation that had been already documented as producing severe declines in the physical condition and mental health of the Gazan population, especially noting malnutrition among children and the absence of treatment facilities for those suffering from a variety of diseases.

Even when Gaza was closed to journalists - after Hamas started it volleys of rockets into Israel during the "truce" - it had plenty of people reporting the situation there, from the Free Gaza members to the Reuters and AP stringers in Gaza to the UNRWA. It is laughable that Falk is claiming that no news was allowed out of Gaza when one could see daily wire-service photos. If anything, according to Falk's logic below, Israel was keeping out the "pro-Israeli" Western press!

As always in relation to the underlying conflict, some facts bearing on this latest crisis are murky and contested, although the American public in particular gets 99% of its information filtered through an exceedingly pro-Israeli media lens.

See?

Hamas is blamed for the breakdown of the truce by its supposed unwillingness to renew it, and by the alleged increased incidence of rocket attacks. But the reality is more clouded. There was no substantial rocket fire from Gaza during the ceasefire until Israel launched an attack last November 4th directed at what it claimed were Palestinian militants in Gaza, killing several Palestinians. It was at this point that rocket fire from Gaza intensified.

In the first two months of the "truce" there was still substantial missile fire, although Hamas did appear to try to stop it. Falk purposefully leaves out that Israel's attack was directly towards a tunnel meant to kidnap Israeli soldiers. The IDF didn't know where in Israel the tunnel was leading so it had to bomb the Gaza side, its first major operation in Gaza in months. Hamas' forebearance on missile attacks is something to be congratulated, according to Falk, but Israel's reluctance to act on solid intelligence is taken for granted.

Notice how he refers to the Hamas terrorists killed as "several Palestinians" - even though Hamas brags about its members' martyrdom. Also notice his use of the passive voice, "rocket fire from Gaza intensified," as if rockets have a mind of their own. This is a hallmark of bias.

Also, it was Hamas that on numerous public occasions called for extending the truce, with its calls never acknowledged, much less acted upon, by Israeli officialdom.

When? Where? What were the circumstances and the details? As I wrote above, the proof of this being a lie is what Hamas actually did when the truce timeline was ending.

Beyond this, attributing all the rockets to Hamas is not convincing either. A variety of independent militia groups operate in Gaza, some such as the Fatah-backed al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade are anti-Hamas, and may even be sending rockets to provoke or justify Israeli retaliation. It is well confirmed that when US-supported Fatah controlled Gaza's governing structure it was unable to stop rocket attacks despite a concerted effort to do so.

Here Falk again plays on Western ignorance about Gaza. Every rocket shot from Gaza since November has been claimed by some Palestinian Arab terror group. True, Hamas did not participate in most of the November rockets, but it wasn't Fatah either. It was the Hamas-linked PRC, and Islamic Jihad, with the PFLP and DFLP doing some others. The point is that Hamas managed to control the rockets relatively well during the truce and decided not to from that point on. This "Fatah" theory is purposeful disinformation, nothing less.

What this background suggests strongly is that Israel launched its devastating attacks, starting on December 27, not simply to stop the rockets or in retaliation, but also for a series of unacknowledged reasons.

Here he goes on to the usual conspiracy theories about Israeli elections and the Israeli psyche and so on. Of course, he ignores and obfuscates the basic facts:

* The truce was broken in November.
* When the deadline came up to extend it, Hamas refused.
* Israel waited to see if there would be a "de facto" truce anyway.
* Hamas then intensified its rocket attacks as the truce expired, making the lives of the residents of southern Israel a living hell again.
* Israel decided that enough was enough, after giving weeks of warnings.

These things all happened in the past few weeks, and are well documented. Falk is trying as hard as he can to spin this to support the terrorists that he clearly has an affinity for.

Secondary explosions - another shortcoming of international law

Anyone who has seen the IDF aerial videos of airstrikes in Gaza has seen the initial IDF charge explosion, followed by (often much larger) secondary explosions from the bombs and weapons that were stored in the targeted facilities. Here's one from a terror mosque that was targeted today:

And this one was from an attack at an underground rocket storage facility:

The problem is that it appears that international law would prohibit Israel from targeting these clearly military objectives - because while Israel believes that they house explosives, and the IAF can calibrate their bombing to the minimum amount possible, there is no way to know how large the secondary explosions will be. And the secondary explosions often kill more people than the primary explosions, judging from the relative sizes of the explosions in the video.

Under international law, Israel must be careful when targeting facilities in civilian areas. Geneva Protocol 1 par. 48 states:

In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.

Paragraph 51 includes details of what is not allowed:

4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are: (a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective; (b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or (c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol;

and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.

5. Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate: (a) an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects;

and

(b) an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

So while the legality of a military target illegally placed in a civilian area is proportional to its importance, its legality as a target seems to be inversely proportional to the size of a resultant secondary explosion affecting the neighboring civilians. And there is no way to know how large the secondary explosion will be, so there is no way to know ahead of time whether a target is going to blow up the entire neighborhood.

Israel is trying to do everything possible to minimize this problem - sending text messages to residents before a bombing raid so they can get out of the way, and now using sound bombs to startle them into leaving. While this is laudable (perhaps to the point of being foolhardy) there will still be some civilian casualties that "impartial" jurists could interpret as being the result of illegal actions under para 51.4(c) - effects that cannot be limited, because of terrorist action.

As we have seen before, international law needs to catch up to the age of terrorism. The blame for casualties caused by secondary explosions in mosques and private homes used as weapons caches must go squarely to the terrorists who placed them there (endangering residents even when not at war.)

UPDATE: Commenter Amy points to an excellent treatment of fighting terrorists in Gaza and international law. My point is not that Israel is in clear violation, but that Geneva can be interpreted against Israeli actions, which would give terrorists an advantage.

Bloggers' block

After a week of seeming non-stop blogging, I cannot find any stories today that aren't being covered well by other pro-Israel blogs. Or maybe I'm just tired.

There are plenty of great things to read out there, at Daled Amos, Meryl Yourish, Soccer Dad, Israel Matzav (possibly the best place to find videos), and now even the IDF Spokesperson Blog. These are besides the liveblogging I've mentioned before from Israellycool and The Muqata and the coverage from Mere Rhetoric.

My "If the IDF made Hamas-style videos..." video is still doing well on YouTube, with over 3000 views. It also is adding interest to my older Hello Martyr, Hello Fatah video. You can see most of my videos, the serious and the funny, on the Elder of Ziyon YouTube channel.

Whether I find a second wind or not, thanks for visiting and have a pleasant and peaceful Shabbat!

A letter from Jerusalem - a spiritual response

EoZ friend Yerushalimey, who should really be enjoying his first week with his new bride rather than emailing me, forwards an email from a friend named Steve in Jerusalem for a proper Jewish response to the impending ground battle.

Good Shabbos, Good Shabbos,

Hi to everyone -- in the name of, towards the zchus [merit] of my son Yitzhak Avrohom Chaim ben Shabtai Moshe and Rena Bracha, (he should live and be well) who is now stationed and ready with his fellow soldiers to defend our land -- to ensure (as much as we can ensure) that we here in Israel are safe, b'ezrat Hashem..in his name i would like to offer this thought.

(the following dvar torah is also in response to the questions from outside - other people - and from inside -- How am I / How are we doing -- with Yitzhak "on the front" so to speak...so, I'm answering that question, as well...)

In times of disaster, hard times, times of stress - times of WAR - It seems natural to ask, What can I do? (or on a community level - what can we do?) What extra can I do to help fix the situation?...and this happens, i think, on both the physical and spiritual planes...and specifically regarding the spiritual plane, the answers that most often come up (in my humble opinion/ experience) are that we often decide to learn more, to undertake an extra stringency of practice, to say extra tehillim [Psalms], or to have group tehillim readings, to pray with more fervor -- and other similar actions. And all of these are holy actions and I am sure they make their mark in Heaven, and bring down extra heavenly goodness, in the proper proportion. I am not going to disagree with any of that.

However, I think i found another answer - another way to answer the question: "what more can I do?" -- another way, which is actually, perhaps, "The Way", all along -- nothing extra, nothing beyond what we are already doing.

It was in davening [prayer] today that a phrase in Tachanun jumped out at me, and I realize that this was an answer -- that saying Shema is the answer -- and that saying Shema is the one thing that as long as we continue saying Shema, we will be zocheh (we will warrant) G-d's protection.

Let me explain:

In Tachanun it says:
"שומר ישראל, שמור שארית ישראל, ואל יאבד ישראל - האומרים שמע ישראל".
O Guardian of Israel, protect the remnant of Israel, let not Israel be destroyed -- those who proclaim - Hear O Israel . (those who say the Shema.)

That's it! We say the Shema, we become one of Israel who says the Shema, one who warrants G-d's protection.

So that's it. Not to suddenly say Shema in order to warrant protection. Just to say shema, as prescribed -- 3 times a day, and to understand that in saying Shema we are taking on the Yoke of Heaven -- we are proclaiming that G-d is our G-d and that G-d is one -Master of the Universe --

and that's what we need to do: Daven it -- take it seriously -- connect with the Creator of the Universe -- and know that this connection and proclaiming G-d is One is what merits our protection.

"שומר ישראל, שמור שארית ישראל, ואל יאבד ישראל - האומרים שמע ישראל".
"Shomer Yisrael, shmor shearis yisrael, v'al yovad yisroel, haomrim. shema yisroel."

May all of Israel be blessed with peace - safety - with the understanding that G-d runs the world and that G-d is One, and that our safety is in His hands.

May Yitzhak be safe.

Good Shabbos, Good Shabbos
steve

Israeli leaflets urging Gazans to cooperate

From Ma'an:

Israeli airplanes dropped leaflets calling for Gazans to inform the Israeli military of the whereabouts of projectile launchers in return for aid and assistance.

The papers were found by the thousands all over Gaza Friday morning, and bear the signature of the Israeli military forces.

The leaflet reads:

Dear people of the Gaza Strip,
Bear the responsibility for your fate!

The Projectile launchers and the terrorist elements pose a threat on you and your families.

If you wish to provide help and assistance to your people in the sector, call the number below to provide us with the needed information.

The future of the massacre is in your hands
Don’t hesitate!

We will be glad to receive any information you have and it is not necessary to give us your personal information.

We will keep it as a secret.
Call us at the following number:
02-5839749
Or e-mail us at:
Helpgaza2008@gmail.com

To provide us with any information on the terrorist factions.

Note: To protect your safety we ask you to be secretive when you call us.

Head of the Israeli Defense Forces.

The line that Ma'an translates as "The future of the massacre is in your hands" seems wrong; the autotranslation from Firas Press is "With a tragedy has become a present to you" which sounds to me that the real translation is more like "You have the opportunity to be part of the solution to this tragedy."

As we have seen, the intelligence from Gaza has been very effective - reports indicate that Israel only destroyed weapons smuggling tunnels and not the ones that were used for consumer goods, and the videos of the air strikes on mosques showed secondary explosions that proved that they were stockpiling weapons, for example. There are plenty of Gazans who do not want to live under Hamas rule.

Egyptian aid compared to Israel's

Yesterday, Egypt allowed 9 trucks of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. This aid is coming from all over the Arab world (with the exception of Jordan), flying in to the airport at El Arish.

Also yesterday, Israel allowed - while under attack - 60 trucks, with 1360 tons of aid. These came from Jordan and many Western countries, as well as from NGOs.

Sounds like the Arabs don't care as much about Gazans as the West does!

Now is a good time to backup your blog

Since YNet got hacked this morning, it appears to be a prudent time for pro-Israel bloggers to backup their blogs, which is what I've been doing this morning instead of posting.

I was only able to research how to backup Blogger blogs, so here is how:

If you have Windows, simply download the Blogger Backup Utility for free. It quickly downloads your Atom feed posts to your hard drive and it can do incremental backups as well as restores.

Another much uglier way is to simply go to your blog's URL in this way:

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/search?max-results=6000

where yourblogname is, um, your blog name and the number at the end is the number of posts you want to see. This will create a huge, single page with all of your posts that you can save. Unfortunately, restore from such an archive would be really time consuming and ugly, but it is better than losing everything.

The late Sheikh Rayyan: political or military?

Was Sheikh Rayyan a "political" leader or a "military" leader?

For some reason the West likes to distinguish between the supposedly hard-line "military" terrorists and the supposedly more peaceful, pragmatic "political" terrorists.

Here's how the media has been reporting his role.

Reuters:

...a 49-year-old cleric regarded as one of Hamas's most hardline political leaders.

RTT News:

Nizar Rayyan, considered a political leader by Hamas, had close ties to the military wing of Hamas.

The National (UAE):

He often served as a spiritual adviser to both the Hamas political and military wings and would often co-ordinate the group’s political and military operations, according to people close to Hamas.

Bloomberg:

Rayyan was a go-between for Hamas’s political and military wings.

Arab News:

The 49-year-old Rayan ranked among Hamas’ top five decision-makers. A professor of Islamic law, he was known for his close ties to the group’s military wing and was respected in Gaza for donning combat fatigues and personally participating in clashes against Israeli forces.

The now-exploded spiritual leader is proof positive that there is no real distinction in Hamas between the "political" and "military" wings.

Hopefully, the media will start understanding this.

While the Hamas alqassam.ps website is down, its message board site called www.almoltaqa.ps (hosted somewhere in France, apparently) is still up and running.

I was just glancing through the site, seeing pictures of today's martyr Sheikh Rayyan , here showing his peaceful, political nature.

What struck my eye was a posting in the English section of the site. It contains an interview with Hamas' English-language spokesman, Abu Obaida, from a year ago. Here's one Q&A:

What is the justification behind the martyrdom operations against the " Israeli" civilians?

There is no justification for targeting civilians. It is against Islam to deliberately kill unarmed civilians during jihad. In addition, our doctrine is to target the enemies army, security services, and support apparatus. But it is known that Zionist society is a militarized society. Service in the army is mandatory; and reserve duty continues past the age of 40. Our determined stance is that unarmed persons on both sides of the conflict should be left out of the fighting. However, we will not accept giving the enemy a free hand against our civilians.

The unarmed residents of Beersheba, Sderot, Netivot, Ashdod, Kiryat Gat and Ashkelon can now rest easy - Hamas isn't targeting them!

It is interesting that this interview, which is "sticky" on top of the News and Politics forum in the English message board, is completely absent from the Arabic message board.

Hamas al-Qassam website is down

One of my favorite websites on the Internet has seemed to have mysteriously disappeared.

The alqassam.ps website of Hamas was acting a bit shaky earlier this week, redirecting itself from the Palestine domain to the .cc domain - which is in the Cocos Islands but is pretty much available to anyone. But now, alas, I cannot access the lists of martyrs and the hostile propaganda that I so looked forward to perusing now and again.

At the moment, attempts to get to the site are sometimes making it to a 3Com SuperStack Switch. If you should try to access it and see a Username and Password prompt, try "manager" and "manager" (the default.) If you are lucky you wil get to the switch interface, but so far my connectivity has not let me get past a skeleton of a page for that. A good network professional might have a lot of fun with full access to Hamas' Ethernet switch.

Not that I would advocate anything like that. No, hacking Hamas' web site and domain would be really, really wrong.

UPDATE: It is back up, on a new host.

Help Israel

Standing Together helps cheer up IDF soldiers, bringing them food, music, and even charging their cell phones for them.

PizzaIDF likewise delivers pizza, burgers and other foods to IDF soldiers in the field.

Zaka is the amazing first-response organization that treats many injured citizens from terror attacks.

ARMDI - Israel's equivalent to the Red Cross.

Please comment on your favorite relevant Israeli charities that directly help soldiers and terror victims, along with their URL and what they do.

UPDATES:

Operation Take-a-Break for Sderot families to take day trips up north.

Lemaan Achai, helping families all over Israel, has a program for those under attack.

Hamas spiritual leader forced his kids to die with him

JPost:

Sheikh Nizar Rayyan, a senior Hamas leader and cleric was killed along with several others on Thursday when an IAF aircraft dropped a bomb on his Jabalya home, the IDF said.

Channel 10 reported that Rayyan was the "mufti" of Hamas's military wing and had replaced Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as the organization's top clerical authority after Yassin's assassination in 2004.

In addition, the IAF bombed the homes of three senior Gaza terrorists.

One of the homes belonged to Mohammad Baroud, a top Popular Resistance Committees operative. The army said that there were anti-tank missiles, rockets and bombs in the home.

Another of the homes destroyed belonged to Hasim Drili, a northern Gaza Hamas operative. The army said that he had a manufacturing plant in his home for rockets, mortar shells and missiles.

The third home belonged to Tafik Abu Raf, a Hamas terror operative in the central Gaza Strip. The IDF said that he had a weapons laboratory in his house.

Palestine Today says that Sheikh Rayyan knew very well that his house was a target:

Over the past two days, Israeli aircraft bombed a number of the homes of Hamas leadersin the Gaza Strip, but most of the houses were empty

While aware of that, our Sheikh Rayyan refused to come out of his house and remained firm there with a number of his children.

Palestinians have long advocated that the homes threatened by Israeli bombardment should be protected by human shields, and it appears he chose for himself this fate.

Ma'an adds:

Local witnesses told Ma’an that Rayyan had not evacuated his house despite a warning from the Israeli military.

As sickening and twisted as the sheikh was, one can grudgingly admire someone who chooses not to hide from certain death. But when he purposefully sentences his children and (one of) his wives to the same death - or he uses them as human shields to protect himself - he proves himself to be pure, unadulterated evil.

Gaza aid update: The despicable UNRWA

The World Food Programme has informed Israeli authorities that it has a full 2 week supply of food and does not want Israel to send any more food to them in Gaza.

In other humanitarian aid news, Israel allowed some 12 Gazans in yesterday for medical treatment. 2 of them were kids who were injured - by a Qassam rocket that fell short.

The UNRWA, as is to be expected, spins facts to make Israel look as bad as possible:

The power plant shut down on Tuesday because Israel has blocked fuel delivery through the main pipeline since Dec. 26, U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said Wednesday. This has forced hospitals to use generators, which have limited fuel supplies, and left many of the 650,000 people in central and northern Gaza with power cuts of 16 hours a day or more, he said.
"The situation remains alarming," Holmes said. "Hospitals are obviously still struggling very much to cope with the number of casualties. We have continued to get some medical supplies in and to help them cope, but this remains difficult and fragile."

Israel has, every day for the past few days, scheduled to open the Nahal Oz crossing for transferring fuel. And every day the Palestinian terrorists that the UNRWA refuses to mention have shot mortars at that very crossing - on Sunday, with fatal results. The despicable UNRWA is blaming Israel for "blocking" fuel shipments and cannot say a single word to their hosts in Gaza about stopping mortar attacks.

The daily Nahal Oz attacks are no longr even mentioned in the media, because mortars are so much more plentiful than Qassams and not as newsworthy as Grads. The Popular Resistance Committees have been the main terrorists to fire at Nahal Oz.

The UNRWA continues its one-sided blame game:

Karen Abu Zayd, commissioner of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which helps Palestinian refugees, told reporters by video link from Gaza that the agency has not distributed any food for two weeks because of the shortage of supplies and the Israeli bombardment.
"I think that means that 20,000 people a day have been without food that they expect — and probably is the bulk of what they get," she said. "So people are doing pretty badly. Everyone we know is sharing whatever they have, not just with their families but with their neighbors."
"We haven't seen widespread hunger. We do see for the very first time ... people going through the rubbish dumps looking for things, people begging, which is quite a new phenomenon as well," she said.

Aby Zayd is using anecdotes to do everything she can to blame Israel, but cannot really explain why there is "no widespread hunger" in Gaza.

And the UNRWA had food before the war - but refused to distribute food to Gazans because they didn't have enough flour. They did have rice, cooking oil and other goods. Now they are blaming Israel for their own pride.

Holmes said the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel was open, with 55 trucks of food and medical supplies and five ambulances getting into Gaza on Tuesday, and about 60 trucks on Wednesday. That compares to 125 truckloads a day in October 2008 and 475 truckloads a day in May 2007, just before Hamas took control of Gaza, he said.

The real numbers were 93 trucks each day. He may be referring only to trucks meant for UNRWA.

Obviously, his comparison with October (when there were almost no rockets) and May 2007 (when all the crossings were still under control of the PA and Israel could easily coordinate the logistics) ignore the danger to Israelis put themselves in to send over humanitarian aid.

Some medical supplies, ambulances and generators also got into Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, he said.

Yet he pointedly does not ask Egypt to increase its trickle of aid - only Israel. Isn't that interesting.

Abu Zayd stressed that her U.N. agency needs 100 trucks of flour a day to meet the needs of refugees.

And yet, after months of much lower numbers of trucks on the average, there is still "no widespread hunger" in Gaza in her own words. Still no one has starved to death. It is a miracle!

But she said Israel has closed down the Karni crossing, the main gateway for cargo into Gaza where it is normally delivered, for security reasons.
She said UNRWA was told by the Israeli humanitarian coordinator that all other crossings aren't open because "there is intelligence about serious preparations for security operations."
"We wonder if it's serious enough to really keep things completely closed and to keep people on their edge of subsistence," she said.

She wonders? While Israel coordinates with multiple aid agencies and countries, arranges to open crossings as much as possible at the same time as it is being attacked every few minutes with rockets, while her hosts brag about the effectiveness of their "resistance" and the number of fancifully named missiles they shoot towards these very crossings - she "wonders" if Israel is really trying hard enough? She "wonders" if perhaps Israeli lives are worthless and whether Israel should sacrifice a dozen or so people so she can get her aid to people who are not dying for lack of aid? Let's parse her colleague's next sentence:

Holmes said "the major needs, apart from medical supplies, remain ... grain and wheat flour and fuel — also cash would be very helpful to enable people to buy supplies."

Way down in their statements, after most people stop reading or listening, Holmes just happens to mention that, oh yes, they have plenty of medical supplies! [UPDATE: The English is ambiguous; a commenter mentioned that they probably mean that they need medical supplies. - EoZ] And guess what - there is access to other goods in Gaza - another miracle - but they just need money to buy it! I guess that the families that are sharing what they have, as Abu Zayd said, are not being as generous as the UNRWA says? Or perhaps Hamas is hoarding flour and then selling it at inflated prices - something that the UNRWA is silent about?

As usual, the UNRWA is being deceptive and it is spending more time blaming Israel for everything rather than actually trying to solve the root problems. Which is why it should be dismantled and replaced with something more effective and honest.

Happy New Year!

Thanks again to all my readers!

My visitor count in 2008 was more than double that of the previous year, and December was my highest month ever, averaging over a thousand visitors a day for the first time. I really appreciate that so many of you read my posts and come back, and especially those who contribute to the comments and make the blog into an intimate community as well.

Here is to hoping that 2009 is a great year for all of us!