Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Indonesian Muslims to the rescue!

Israel’s prolonged strikes against Gaza have prompted Muslims worldwide, including in Indonesia, to seek to help Palestinian citizens.

The Aceh chapter of the Islamic Defenders Front, or FPI, will recruit Muslims to fight in Palestine, chairman Yusuf Al-Qardhany said.

“The recruitment of jihadis to Palestine will start [today],” he said. “At present, 13 applicants wishing to become jihad fighters have already registered.”

Speaking from Banda Aceh, Yusuf said that at least 60 fighters from Aceh would go to Palestine via Egypt.

Prior to their dispatch, they would receive a week-long military training in Aceh, he said.

Registration for potential recruits would be open for two weeks.

All applicants would have to fill out a form which included parental approval for them to go to Palestine, he said.

“As a manifestation of Muslim brotherhood, we are ready to become martyrs to help our Muslim brothers in facing the brutality of the Israeli forces,” he said.

Since Egypt won't let them through Rafah, they might have to go to Plan B - using the newest Free Gaza boat. I have no doubt that they have a much better chance to get to Gaza that way.

Gettin' Mighty Crowded (New EoZ video)

How crowded is Gaza, anyway?

Previous humorous videos:

Save the Gazans!
If the IDF made cheesy Hamas-style videos....
Rachel Corrie: the song parody
Hello martyr, hello Fatah

Free Gaza: "We're not an aid group, we are a resistance group"

A new email from the Free Gaza movement to its mailing list, not published on their website, proves again what the organization's goals are. Here are excerpts:

On Monday, December 29 we sent our small ship, the DIGNITY, to besieged Gaza in an act of civil resistance against Israel's ongoing massacre and blockade....

Free Gaza is neither a "protest group" nor an aid agency. Our mission and our work are political. We are a Palestinian and international effort dedicated to the principle of non-violent direct action. We are engaged in active, civil resistance against the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine, and the violence this occupation uses to sustain itself.

We do bring medicine, supplies, and doctors to besieged Gaza as we can, but this is utterly insufficient. Although humanitarian aid is very much needed, especially now in Gaza, focusing on humanitarian efforts alone is a form of complicity in Israel's malevolent quest to destroy the Palestinian people.

The Dignity is currently in Lebanon. It is estimated that it might take between one and two months to repair the Dignity. It looks like the frame is warped, and the blows by the Israeli warship are deeper than we first believed. Repairs to this ship are also going to cost much more than originally expected (over $50,000 USD).

We have located an alternate ship, which we're currently working on procuring. It's probably not the perfect boat for the Free Gaza Movement, but it's the most suitable and affordable one that we could locate in the short amount of time that we're trying to work in. Our new ship will carry about 30 passengers and 10-15 tons of cargo. We intend to leave for Gaza as soon as is possible, sometime within the next two weeks.

We will give priority for places on the boat to doctors, journalists (preference going to major media outlets), and political figures or other high profile people. We will try to take 2 or 3 long-term human rights workers in on this voyage as well.

Once we set sail, we do not plan on turning back. We will stay at sea, insisting on access to Gaza, until we succeed or Israel gravely attacks or arrests us.For continued updates from Palestinians and FG and ISM volunteers on the ground in Gaza, please refer to our website: http://www.FreeGaza.org

In solidarity & struggle,
The Free Gaza Movement

We have already seen how "peaceful" the ISM is, as they laughingly pose with armed Palestinian Arab terrorists.

Every time the media refers to the Free Gaza boats as "aid boats" they are buying into the deception that the Free Gaza terror-supporters try to spread.

Not a single word on their website has anything negative to say about Qassams, or Hamas, or the kidnap of Gilad Shalit. The reason is because all of those are part of their goal, and while they claim to be "non-violent" they are more than willing to support the violence of others that are aimed at the same goal.

News roundup

News you might have missed:

The 2009 PalArab self-death count got a huge boost from reports that Hamas has been executing Fatah members, killing 35 of them, worried that they are planning a coup during Israel's invasion. Palestine Press reports on many incidents of Hamas shooting Fatah members in the legs and beating them up, but only a few deaths.

Hamas is claiming very few casualties on their side; that they have killed 10 Israeli soldiers, and that they have kidnapped two of them, and destroyed tanks. All of these claims are, shall we say, dubious.

Here's a good example of PalArab "reporting," in English, from Ma'an:

Israel's air force strikes orphanage in Ar-Ramal; one killed

Israeli air forces struck an orphanage in the Ar-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza city on Saturday night, Ma'an's reporter in Gaza said.

One person was killed in an attack. The apparent target of the attack was a group of Palestinian fighters stationed near a mosque in the same neighborhood.

Residents of the Ar-Rimal neighborhood said that explosions could be seen in the vicinity of the Al-Amal (Hope) orphanage.

The headline implies Israel killing a kid in an orphanage; by the end you can see that it is likely that Israel killed a "fighter" near an orphanage.

Gaza cell phone and Internet service is being severely disrupted.

Just another lying Palestinian Arab "human rights" group

The "Palestinian Center for Human Rights" has been coming out with daily reports of Israeli "war crimes" in Gaza since Operation Cast Lead started.

Typical is this headline from yesterday:

The Number of Palestinians Killed Rises to 372, Mostly Civilians, Including 75 Children and 16 Women, and the Number of House Bombarded Mounts to 73

Yet on Thursday, in their normal weekly report of deaths and injuries in the territories, here was their tally:

334 Palestinians, including 121 civilians, have been killed throughout the Gaza Strip. The victims include 33 children and 11 women.

So, according to the PCHR, between Thursday and Saturday there were 38 deaths. Out of those 38, 42 of them were children and 5 were women!

Not only that, but for the number of civilians dead to rise to a majority, that means that at least 64 civilians must have died during a time that 38 total people died!

I guess that this is the math taught in UNRWA schools.

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.