Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The case of the bogus "expert" (guest post)

Commenter Bill #2, who is incredibly knowledgeable about weapons, noticed a news item I translated from the Palestine Today about a British "expert" who determined that Israel used uranium weapons in Gaza based pretty much on watching the explosions on TV. Bill did a little research:

Following your link and doing a bit of research, the 'expert's name is Dai Williams. From where is his expertise? Well, if you read his own introduction at http://www.grassrootspeace.org/ d...iams_oct03.html , you can see where his expertise comes from:

• Is he a biological researcher? No
• Is he ex-military with extensive experience or training in either EOD (Explosives Ordnance Demolition) or BDA (Bomb Damage Assessment)? - No
• Is his background in civil engineering or demolitions? No
• Is he a chemical engineer, especially one studying explosives No

Dai Williams is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, from his own web page at http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/. So far there is nothing to suggest that he is an expert in the subject matter of identifying explosives type by detonation cloud. He has done work as an environmental consultant in the oil industry for many years.

So far, there has not been definitive proof of the use of depleted uranium (DU) in Lebanon, as far as I understand. A lot of supposition and allegations, but so far no definitive proof. [The UN found that Israel did not use it, but Bill #2 is taking the allegations at face value, for argument's sake. - EoZ] Given that the type of explosions would be the same if DU wasn't used in either case, and possibly the same if DU was used in either or both cases, it is so far just an allegation based on what was seen on television from Gaza. Any deep penetrating explosion is going to have a similar dust and smoke plume, with the debris channeled up into a high dust cloud as it takes the path of least resistance upward. This can include the path that the incoming bomb took, or it can mean the tunnel itself if the explosion happened inside the tunnel, as you would expect with precision-guided munitions. The cloud of hot gases and dust will rise quickly, emphasizing the narrowness of the cloud, and often it will continue to rise to form a miniature mushroom cloud as the dust and gases stop rising as they cool at the top of the plume.

Let's look at some of his other claims (not exhaustive, just some quick ones):
"Some versions of these warheads also use tungsten but tungsten does not burn." http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/ pdf...weapons2006.pdf

Well, that's news to light globe manufacturers who seem to insist on putting inert gas inside glass envelopes with the tungsten filaments for no reason whatsoever. Let's look at a reference, just to be sure: Tungsten Powder "In finely divided form, highly flammable."[3]. Eric Lassiter in his book Tungsten[4] describes how tungsten of 1µm or smaller can be pyrophoric (likely to ignite spontaneously on exposure to air). Finally, United States Patent 3946673 "Pyrophoris penetrator" - 'Alloys of tungsten, zirconium and one or more binder metals are utilized as pyrophoric penetrators.' I think I will agree that bulk tungsten will not burn, but in the presence of the shock waves, temperature, and pressure from high explosives, the metal may be finely dispersed and raised to a temperature that may be causing it to burn, especially if the explosive is oxidizer-rich. I would agree that uranium is more pyrophoric than tungsten, but the claim that tungsten can't be used because it doesn't burn is not convincing.

"Now tungsten will be no good for that because it will burst but is no more than that; while uranium if it fragments, it will turn then into a firebomb." http://www.grassrootspeace.org/ d...iams_oct03.html
Certainly the standard enthalpy of formation is high for U3O8 (-3575 kJ/mol), but it is much lower for the other uranium oxides: UO2 (-1085 kJ/mol) and UO3 (-1224kJ/mol)[1]. This is the energy released by oxidizing (burning) uranium. Compare this to tungsten dioxide (-586 kJ/mol) and aluminum oxide: Al2O3: (-1676 kJ/mol), zirconium dioxide (-1097 kJ/mol), magnesium oxide (-602 kJ/mol) and water (-285 kJ/mol). Note that tritonal, an explosive used in bombs, uses a mixture of TNT and aluminum powder to increase brisance, but if we take the energy released just by TNT, we have a figure of 950kJ/mol[2], but you can't harness the full energy of the standard enthalpy of formation like you can with the TNT since you still need an oxidiser - which may be partly supplied by the TNT itself - and it needs to be finely dispersed enough for the oxidisation to achieve a useful effect. The problem is you may not get much of the higher energy from the U3O8 in a limited oxygen environment than you might if you just added aluminum powder to your primary explosive. You can't just look at the standard enthalpy of formation, and make a prediction without reference to other things such as the stability of the oxides which may affect the oxidation of the underlying metal and the rate of its burning.

"Researcher Dai Williams believes this is a new class of weapons using enriched uranium, not through fission processes but through new physical processes kept secret for at least 20 years." http://www.globalresearch.ca/ind...& articleId=3813
Well, maybe not so much a secret, since enriching uranium through centrifuge methods (i.e. non fission process) has been going on since 1945, and Iran is proud of its ongoing work with uranium hexafluoride gas centrifuges[6]. Wikipedia has a super secret page on these non-fission enrichment processes[9].

Dai actually raises a very interesting point[8], one overlooked by many. Depleted uranium can be used as a shaped charge liner[5] for the type of anti-tank weapons supplied to Hamas and Hezbollah (Self Forging Fragment). Iran has significant deposits of copper[7], so it is unlikely that it would be driven to deploy depleted uranium because of a lack of copper, the traditional shaped charge liner. Note [5] refers to a five times better penetration to that of copper. If there are traces of depleted uranium, they may be due to Iranian, although it is anyone's guess at whether Iran would risk exposure through the deployment of such material. If it has, then that may explain some of the DU material that people are claiming to have found. It is also possible that people may be unwittingly using DU-based weapons.

In conclusion, we just don't know, but I think it's a stretch basing one supposition onto another as proof.

Notes:
[1] http://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cboo...Units=SI& cTC=on
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Tri...Trinitrotoluene , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritonal (using public sources here)
[3] http://www.ilo.org/public/englis...14/ icsc1404.htm
[4] ISBN 0306450534
[5] http://www.freepatentsonline.com...om/ 4441428.html
[6] Official Iranian web site: http://web-srv.mfa.gov.ir/output...nts/ doc7949.htm
[7] http://www.indexmundi.com/en/ com...copper_t20.html
[8] http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/ pdf...u26leb19oct.pdf , page 25
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Ele...tope_separation

OK, it was more than a little research!

Bill #2 also wrote a pretty exhaustive treatise on white phosphorus in the comments that I've been meaning to post....

Why peace is impossible: a tiny example

Martin Fletcher of NBC writes about Danny Malhouf, a a 70-year-old Israeli plasterer from Ashkelon, who used to employ Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

According to Malhouf, Haniyeh was a good worker, and they were close friends:

"He was a good worker, he worked for me for five years on a salary. He went with my son to Netanya, all over, he came to my house and I went to his in Gaza.
"There was no border post then, we all just came and went. We went to him, I went to Jabaliya like going to my own home, we ate fish there, we lived together, no difference between Jews and Arabs. We ate together, they went to Tel Aviv in their cars, I went to his house, his old house, not the new one now! Gaza was like Tel Aviv for me.

"Weddings, funerals, we were friends. He came with his wife and two children to my daughter’s wedding. But one day his brother was killed and from that very day he became a Hamasnik."

On May 20, 1990, a mentally unstable Israeli named Ami Popper, who had been dishonorably discharged from the IDF, put on his army uniform, lined up 7 Arabs and shot them dead. One of them was Haniyeh's brother. Popper was sentenced to seven consecutive life terms for the murders (a sentence later reduced to 40 years.)

Malhouf continues:

"I went to Ismail’s house for the funeral. There were four men in masks. I thought, walla! I’m finished. I’m a dead man. Then one took off his mask and it was Ismail. He said, ‘I told you not to come. I’m finished. I’ll never come to Israel again.’ He came with me to the Erez border to make sure I was safe, and he never came back to work. I never saw him again.
"He wasn’t religious – only later when his brother died. Then I didn’t see him again till [I saw him on] TV, and he’s prime minister! But today, let him stay in the bunker.

"That day at the funeral, I told him, get better, you can’t kill the Jews, we are one state, you are many, you won’t beat us.

"What’s to talk about? They ate with us, worked with us, lived like kings. What happened? They want to get rid of us, what? Tough, we have our state, that’s it. Nothing they can do about it. There they kill each other, what did they get out of it?
"That’s it, if you see him, best wishes to Haniyeh. I say to him, Ismail, get better, stop making problems, it’s over. That’s my message to Ismail. And lose the beard. Tell him your boss, Danny the plasterer, Rachel’s husband, sends his best wishes and stop making all those problems. We all want peace."

The story, as interesting as it is, is not the point I want to make. I want to highlight a couple of comments made to this story by American Arabs:

Well, I am glad that there is somebody that's showing the truth to the world. Haniya was a peaceful man until a zionist killed his Brother (and he is one among thousands killed or captured in Israili jails).
Thank you Mr. Mahlouf for stating that the palestinian violence is a reaction to the Israeli's every day terrorism.

To the Arab mentality - even American Arabs - Haniyeh's transformation into a mass murderer is a perfectly logical consequence of his brother being killed by a nutcase. The fact that Israel punished Popper exactly as if he had killed Jews is irrelevant - this is a case of honor, and if your "family" kills one of mine, my "family" can kill as many of your as we feel we need to.

This story just proves that violence only creates more extremists. Israel's most recent carnage in Gaza will only create more hatred.

This Arab is saying that Haniyeh's transformation is perfectly natural. It would never occur to him to similarly justify Israeli actions as natural - no, that privilege belongs solely to Arabs who of course turn into extremists while Israelis are expected to be stoic adults who turn the other cheek.

What a ridiculus story! Please stop propaganding. It is not working anymore. You made a genocide, you used illegal weapons and you burned babies. Most of the killed people are kids, women and old men and you talk about peace. Stop being hepocrites and liers. You will pay your crimes sooner or later.

No comment.

Please send my message to Danny Mahlouf.

Hello Mr. Mahlouf,

Salaams.

I pray for peace between Israelis & Pastinians every moment of every day.

I also understand and value very highly the freindship
and working relationship you both had fostered based on trust.

This trust was shattered by Israli dishonored soldier
who killed innocent seven Palastinians.

I am a very proud citizen of this great country on the earth, the USA. If one kills seven innocent people he will get life sentence. In your country this heartless, barbarian, cruel Israeli was dishonorably discharged. Is this the type of justice
your country men and your Court of Justice believe in?

This man, who is trying to give a message of peace, is still so consumed with hate that he cannot read the article properly. He thinks that Popper's only punishment was to be dishonorably discharged, something that Fletcher makes clear had happened beforehand. Fletcher also says that Popper got seven consecutive life sentences. Even the most peaceful, reasonable Arab cannot think the slightest bit objectively when he is convinced beforehand of the evil of the Zionists.

And these aren't Arabs who are from Gaza - these are Americans, who understand Western mores, and they are still consumed with ugly, blind hate. If they cannot read this story and understand the point, what are the chances that their cousins in the Middle East will ever be able to accept a true peace with Israel?

Hamas lost 50 explosives experts

From AFP (h/t Henrik):

Hamas has launched a probe which is expected to be extremely critical of the failures of its military wing during the recent Gaza offensive, the respected Jane's Defence Weekly magazine said Monday.
Citing an unnamed top Hamas military commander, Jane's said a full report due soon would be critical of almost every decision taken by battlefield commanders during the 22-day assault, which ended last week.

The report will highlight the losses of interior minister Said Siam and around 50 of Hamas's top explosives experts as among the most significant.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said last week that it lost only 48 fighters during Israel's Operation Cast Lead, although Israel has reported killing more than 500 Hamas members.

It is a little hard to fit 50 explosives experts into a grand total of 48 dead Hamas members.

Unless, of course, they were counted as "civilians."

Which, of course, they were.

No, it doesn't mean "no hijab."

It is a bumper sticker campaign to stop any moves that might allow women in Saudi Arabia to drive.

Bumper stickers in Saudi Arabia have taken a distinctly political turn as men opposed to allowing women to drive have taken to putting their views on their cars in the face of mounting concern the ban may be lifted.

A report in Britain’s the Daily Telegraph Wednesday quoted an anonymous government official as saying the government had decided to lift its ban on women drivers and would issue a decree by the end of the year.

For those opposed to lifting the ban, bumper stickers have become a popular outlet for expressing their displeasure, the Saudi newspaper Shams reported Sunday.
"There has been a decision to move on this by the Royal Court because it is recognized that if girls have been in schools since the 1960s, they have a capability to function behind the wheel when they grow up," a government official told The Daily Telegraph. "We will make an announcement soon."

Women activists in the kingdom have brought the issue to the limelight in recent years by breaking the driving ban and risking arrest.

The sticker, widely displayed by men opposed to giving women the right to drive, has a picture of a woman and steering wheel inside a prohibitory traffic sign.

Women in Saudi Arabia are prohibited from driving by law. The driving ban dates back to its establishment as a state in 1932. Reasons cited for the ban are usually related to mingling of unmarried women and men, which is prohibited in the conservative kingdom.

Scholars and Religious Police officials argue that allowing women to drive would lead to moral decay by make dating easier and encourage youth to flirt with or chase women drivers.

Critics also defend the bad based on the safety of women and their ability to handle certain difficult situations like car breakdowns, accidents, or driving in remote areas. Some also fear that if women drive, they will start changing their dress code since the existing one, a cloak and a face veil, might not be practical behind the wheel.

Global warming news

For the first time in recorded history, the Jais Mountain in the United Arab Emirates was covered in snow.

So rare was the snowfall that a lifelong resident of the area said the local dialect does not even have a word for 'snow,' the UAE daily The National reported.
Sunday's snowfall was only the second time in recorded history that it has snowed in the emirate, with temperatures dropping two degrees below zero as 20 cm (eight inches) of snow accumulated in some places.

A helicopter pilot who flew up to the top of the mountain said: “The sight up there this morning was totally unbelievable, with the snow-capped mountain and the entire area covered with fresh, dazzling white snow.”

“The snowfall started at 3 p.m. Friday, and heavy snowing began at 8 p.m. and continued till midnight, covering the entire area in a thick blanket of snow. Much of the snow was still there even when we flew back from the mountain this afternoon. It is still freezing cold up there and there are chances that it might snow again tonight,” Major Saeed Rashid al-Yamahi was quoted by local press as saying.

The accusation that accidentally includes some truth

Today began the 81st (!) Conference of Supervisors of Palestinian Affairs at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo. I'm not sure what was accomplished in the first 80 sessions of this organization.

Attending the five-day conference are representatives from Egypt, the PalArab territories, Jordan, Lebanon , Syria and the Arab league as well as the UNRWA Vice-Commissioner-General Filippo Grandi.

I think it is safe to say that the amount of hot air generated at these conferences could provide a small country with energy independence.

Even so, a telling statement was made by the Assistant Secretary-General for Palestine Affairs of the Arab League, Ambassador Mohamed Sobeih, at its opening. According to Palestine Today, he accused Israel of deliberately attacking UNRWA schools in Gaza, "in order to end the refugee issue."

Mohammed Sobeih warned that the Jewish state "wants to break the will of the Palestinian people and their steadfastness, and they want to be aggressive towards the Agency [UNRWA] and its presence, because UNRWA does not want to work to end the issue of Palestinian refugees."

Israel of course has no intentions of harming UNRWA facilities, but Sobeih is right about UNRWA's goals - that this agency has not the slightest interest in solving the Palestinian "refugee" problem; in fact, that it tries as hard as it can to maintain and perpetuate that problem!

After all, the only reason why the descendants of the 1948 Arab refugees are still considered "refugees" themselves is because UNRWA defines them that way! Nowhere else in the world are the descendants of refugees considered refugees themselves. This way, the number of "refugees" will continue to grow forever and UNRWA employees can remain safely employed for generations to come.

Originally, the UNRWA indeed tried to resettle refugees in Arab countries in order to solve that problem. But as the Arab states resisted these moves - even though the UNRWA offered them economic incentives (works programs) - and the UNRWA gave up, turning itself into a huge bureaucracy that is dedicated exclusively to aid and no longer to resettlement or any other solutions.

This desire to perpetuate Palestinian Arab misery is so ingrained in the psyche of the Arab League and the UNRWA that the idea that this problem should ever be solved is regarded as an insult. There is no embarrassment for an Arab League representative to speak of any such ideas in a derogatory way - in front of the a UNRWA representative.

In other words, Sobeih admitted what any neutral observer could have seen for decades: Israel is interested in solving the Palestinian Arab "refugee" problem and the Arab League and UNRWA are not.

Iran's plans to re-arm Hamas

The Times of London buries some very good investigative journalism on the bottom of an article about US attempts to limit arms smuggling to Hamas:

A document circulated to ministers by Israeli military intelligence last week suggested that despite the bombardment, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is well advanced with a huge programme of arms resupply for Gaza.
According to the document, the Iranians are attempting to smuggle munitions from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, where the arms shipments are loaded onto commercial vessels.
In recent weeks at least two Iranian destroyers have been sent to the Gulf of Aden on the pretext of fighting piracy. The Israelis suspect that the destroyers, which are currently in port in Aseb in Eritrea, may have had some role in the shipments.
In January 2002, Israeli naval commandos stormed the Iranian cargo ship Karine A in the Red Sea. They found 50 tons of arms, long-range rockets and explosives being shipped to Yasser Arafat, then the Palestinian leader. Israeli defence sources believe the same route and methods are being used again.
According to the sources, once in the Red Sea the cargo is taken on one of two routes. The first is to dock in Somalia and Sudan, where professional smugglers carry the cargo overland to Sinai. In Sinai, Bedouin specialists smuggle the shipment into Gaza through the notorious border tunnels.
Despite intensive Israeli bombing, some tunnels remain open. Palestinian sources in Rafah, the Gaza Strip’s southern town, estimate that 100 tunnels are still in action, about 20% of the pre-war total.
A second arms smuggling route into Gaza has also been used by Tehran, according to well briefed sources. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has sent shipments through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean to anchor off the Gaza coast, inside Egyptian territorial waters, where the Israeli navy is barred.
After dark, Iranian frogmen transfer weapons in sealed containers to Palestinian fishing boats. This can prove dangerous as the Israeli navy may open fire without warning, but according to the sources it has worked well in the past.
The intelligence report suggested that Iran plans to ship Fajr rockets with a 50-mile range to Gaza. This would bring Tel Aviv, its international airport and the Dimona nuclear reactor within reach for the first time.

Maariv adds a couple of details on the Iranian frogman operation (via Daily Alert:)

According to an Israeli security source, the IDF has encountered Iranian-leased weapons ships anchored ten miles out to sea opposite Rafiah in Egyptian waters.

The weapons are packed in waterproof containers which travel under the surface. During the night, Iranian frogmen transport the containers and tie them to Palestinian fishing vessels located closer to shore.

The Palestinian vessels return to Gaza, towing the containers underwater to avoid detection.

Which means that the Free Gaza terror supporters are very possibly a part of a weapons smuggling ring when they board "fishing boats" to "protect the poor fishermen."

The Times also adds another tidbit, showing that Iran is repeating what it did in Lebanon after the 2006 war- trying to make Hamas into heroes by paying off the population:

Tehran has also promised to rebuild Gaza. Last week Hamas announced that every home-owner whose house had been destroyed would receive €4,000 (£3,820). The families of those who died will receive €1,000 and the wounded will receive €500.

PalArab news roundup 1-26-09

The Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades shot a rocket towards Israel that fell short in Beit Hanoun, and Hamas attacked them, injuring some and arresting the rest.

A "Palestinian political expert" was satisfied with Hamas' performance during the war, because he says that the definition of success is the fact that Hamas managed to keep shooting rockets at Israeli civilians throughout.

An unknown group called the "Gaza Martyrs Brigades" took responsibility for firebombing the car of a pro-Hamas professor in the West Bank.

Last Thursday, PA official Yasser Abed Rabbo told journalists that Israel's stopping its operations before dismantling Hamas was a "big mistake" and that Hamas' survival is "bad for all of us."

A British "expert" has accused Israel of using uranium bombs in Rafah. He bases his expert testimony on the similarities he saw on television between explosions in Rafah where Israel was attacking tunnels and explosions he saw in Lebanon where Israel was attacking underground bunkers. I guess this "expert" doesn't realize that Israel didn't use any uranium in Lebanon either. (Arab media has been accusing Israel of using depleted uranium armaments for a while now, and the ever-vigilant UN is investigating these ludicrous claims.)

A Palestinian Arab human rights organization is calling on Hamas to stop its murders, attacks and torture of Fatah members in Gaza.

Gaza terrorists are saying that angels from Allah came down from heaven to guide them during their fighting. The angels must have felt that the ratio of 100-1 deaths was really good. (h/t Womble)

Hamas official: Hamas preparing for war since summer

Early in the Gaza operation, Israel-bashers pointed to the fact that the IDF had prepared for the war as evidence that Israel was not interested in peace.

Dr. Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of Hamas in Damascus, just said that Hamas was preparing for war since the truce began last summer. How much will this bother those "peace" advocates?

Marzouk also said that, while it is true that Gaza lost 1500 people, not to worry: the good Muslim sisters in Gaza gave birth to more than 3500 children in the meanwhile.

Which sort of demolishes the idea that the IDF engages in "genocide." Not that his audience would understand that.

Rachel story makes Muslims nervous

There have been some rumors that the Matriarch Rachel appeared to Israeli soldiers in Gaza and helped steer them away from danger. Some prominent rabbis in Israel are supporting the story, others are a bit more skeptical.

Perhaps the best summation comes from David Hazony at Commentary:

For weeks now, we have been hearing rumors about a mysterious woman who appeared before Israeli troops in the thick of the Gaza battles. Not just any woman, mind you, but the biblical Rachel, the beloved wife of Jacob, matriarch of Israel. (My nine-year-old daughter gave me an excellent speech about the pluses and minuses of believing these rumors.) Israel’s former chief rabbi, Mordechai Eliyahu, announced that he himself had sent her. And now another former chief rabbi and Shas spiritual leader, Ovadiah Yosef, has confirmed these reports.
This is the point where I’m supposed to say how ridiculous it is. A hoax, or a superstition, or something. But I’m not gonna’ do it.

I don’t care if you call the appearance of Rachel a metaphor or a miracle. There is a point in rabbinic discourse where miracles and metaphors all mingle together, where the word “literally” loses its meaning, making room for midrash — the art of saying something illiteral and literary. To say that Rachel was with our soldiers, that our matriarch was protecting her boys, is a deeper statement than anything that can be made by a professional reporter with a camera.
Let’s give the religious spinmasters the benefit of the doubt. Of course she wasn’t there. But, of course, she was.

It is most interesting to see how this story is being reported in the Muslim world. Usually, Muslims are the ones who publicly ascribe their actions to supernatural or divine influences, and they also believe that their religious values are what will help them to ultimately destroy the mostly infidel, secular Jews.

But now they are seeing that the IDF soldiers who entered Gaza did have a greater public spirituality than in previous operations. They are talking about miracles, about prayer, about their increased desire to wear tefillin and tzitzit.

And when Jews talk about G-d, Muslims get nervous. Their entire worldview of Jews is based on Jews having fallen from grace because they angered Allah by not doing their commandments and by not listening to their prophets. Even anecdotal stories about Jewish spirituality on the battlefield get lots of attention in the Arab and Muslim media.

Now, Islam Online is quoting "experts" on Judaism to try to debunk the Rachel story (in Arabic only, of course.)

Commenting on this story in history, a Palestinian professor, an expert on the Jewish history spoke to "Islam Online. Net," saying: "It does not have a scientific basis; Rachel, the wife of Prophet Abraham, Prophet Yusuf's mother, is not known to have participated in the fighting having sanctioned the extermination of children and women."

It goes without saying that this "expert" cannot get even the basic outlines of Rachel's life correct.

Dr. Zakaria Sinwar, a professor of history at the Islamic University in Gaza, and an expert on the Jewish issue, he said: "The Torah did not mention in their books that Rachel was a woman fighter, or participated in the fighting in one day, or sanctioned the extermination of children and women. "

According to Dr. Sinwar in an interview with "Islam Online. Net," "Israel has tried from the outset to show that this is a religious war .. their scrutiny of religious reading of the Torah reveal a dimension of ordering the bloody killing of the young."

He said that the "repetition of the talk about the emergence of Rachel during the war demonstrates that the Israeli soldiers lack the sense of the military .. Are they waiting for Rachel to show them on the whereabouts of the resistance and mines?!. Is Rachel a better means of spying then their advanced technology?!".

He added: "After their failure, the soldiers tried to give an aura of holiness and a religious dimension. Their talk about Rachel is not linked to any historical or religious facts, only naive attempts to imitate what is spoken by the people of Gaza from the verses of Allah and victory in the battle against Israel .. The soldiers say that the angels of Gaza also have fought with us. "

The Palestinian resistance has emphasized the "Islam Online.Net," that God directly supported them, bringing a dense fog, which enabled them to plant and detonate improvised explosive devices in the mechanisms of military occupation.

During the war in Gaza the Israeli media showed images of a soldier on the tank reading the Talmud, and the second leading some religious ceremonies before the launch of missiles, and the third wearing a Jewish skullcap religious symbol.

One only tries to debunk stories that one's audience might otherwise believe.

The terrorists that pray that their Qassam rockets kill Jewish children seem to be getting a bit uneasy that the Jews are praying at the same time to help kill the terrorists. It is almost as if they realize, deep down, that G-d might prefer to be on the Jews' side, as He appears to have been for other wars between Jews and Arabs.

The difference between NGOs and soldiers

A great article in the Spectator by a British soldier about Gaza (h/t Backspin twitter):

Having completed numerous combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, I watched the television footage of Israeli soldiers deploying on Operation Cast Lead with a jolt of familiarity. I saw the emotions that I have felt in the past. I was eager to do my job properly, I had confidence in my abilities and those of my comrades, but I was also apprehensive. That apprehension was not just the fear of what harm may have come to me or my mates, but also the worry that my judgment would fail if I was called upon to make the snap decision to take another’s life. The pressure of these conflicting emotions coupled with the stress of battle is immense. The majority of us called upon to withstand them are young men, some as young as 18.
That is why the casual bandying around of terms like ‘war crimes’ so enraged me when I heard it directed at British soldiers during protest in London. I feel no different when it is levelled at Israeli soldiers. I accept that soldiers enjoy no immunity from the law and that our actions must be scrutinised but that judgement must be a measured weighing of factors, not a knee jerk emotive statement such as that made by Ban Ki-Moon nor a trial by media. I believe that I and other soldiers understand the stress, friction and confusion that combat brings in a way that media commentators and UN bureaucrats never can.
Urban warfare is complicated, disorientating and utterly confusing even in conventional operations. When an enemy, such as Hamas, is willing to dress in civilian clothing, attack from legally protected sites and use civilians as human shields it becomes fiendishly difficult.
The destruction of the UN School, cited by Ban Ki-Moon, is a case in point. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) maintains that its soldiers came under fire from that position. They returned fire; that is what soldiers under contact do. It would appear that light artillery guns or mortars were used. These are emphatically not the ‘smart’ weapons that civilians fondly imagine all war to be fought with. It is commonplace fact of war that such munitions do not always land were they are supposed to.
The urban environment can seriously hinder even the most sophisticated of radio communications, leading to command and control becoming fractured. The assertion by the UN that they provided the IDF with the grid references of their locations is valid. However, it is a fact that often information is not always passed down the chain of command, this is more likely to occur due to the fog of war rather than any malicious intent.
The IDF have also faced accusations that they have attacked ambulances. Again, I cannot speak for the veracity of these claims nor do I seek to diminish the serious nature of such attacks. The British Army’s enemy in Iraq, Jaish Al Mahdi routinely used vehicles marked as ambulances to transport arms, ammunition and fighters around Basra. Like Hamas, Jaish Al Mahdi received training and equipment from Iran.
During the course of Israeli operations in Gaza the whole of the media seems to have become expert in the use of white phosphorous. Most commentators either do not know, or have refused to acknowledge, that the use of white phosphorous is not illegal. The Geneva conventions do restrict the use of white phosphorous in certain circumstances, but it is used almost daily by British forces in Afghanistan.
White phosphorous is used because it provides an instant smokescreen, other munitions can provide a smokescreen but the effect is not instant. Faced with overwhelming enemy fire and wounded comrades, every commander would choose to screen his men instantly, to do otherwise would be negligent.
Much has been made of Israel’s ‘disproportionate and excessive’ use of force in Gaza. Footage of Gaza released today does show devastating damage to individual buildings, but this is no Stalingrad. A fact often unappreciated by those with no military experience is that the selective use of overwhelming force, aimed at key targets, actually shortens conflict and saves lives....
I do not argue that any soldier should be outside of the law, any army that allows such a thing is not worthy of the name. I do believe, however, that the least the world can do for young men returning from combat is to offer them the basic right to have their actions considered on the basis of events and the context in which they occurred.

This is exactly the problem with all who airily accuse Israel of "war crimes". Their hypocrisy is evident when they do not mention Hamas' obvious war crimes, but it is doubly hypocritical when they do not even consider that the vast majority of civilians killed in Gaza are dead because of Hamas' blatant strategy of hiding behind civilians, using civilian buildings to fire from, holding civilians as hostages and pretending to be civilians themselves. To blame Israel - which from all accounts did more than any army in history has ever done to minimize civilian casualties - for "war crimes" without taking this context into account betrays the most sickening kind of prejudice and ignorance about war.

As is often the case, criticism is easy, but none of the critics ever offer any viable alternatives on how to fight a war with fewer civilian casualties without putting one's own soldiers at an unacceptable risk.

Proof that Hamas threatened ambulances

As the dust is clearing, we find that Israel's accusations against Hamas have been extraordinarily accurate.

Here's one more example(h/t Backspin on Twitter):

Mohammed Shriteh, 30, is an ambulance driver registered with and trained by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
His first day of work at the al-Quds neighbourhood was January 1, the sixth day of the war.

"Mostly the war was not as fast or as chaotic as I expected," Mr Shriteh told The Age. "We would co-ordinate with the Israelis before we pick up patients, because they have all our names and our IDs, so they would not shoot at us."

Mr Shriteh said the more immediate threat was from Hamas, who would lure the ambulances into the heart of a battle to transport fighters to safety. He claims Hamas made several attempts to hijack the al-Quds Hospital's fleet of ambulances during the war.

"After the first week, at night time, there was a call for a house in Jabaliya (a heavily built-up area north-east of Gaza City)," he said. "I got to the house and there was lots of shooting and explosions all around."

Because of the urgency of the call, Mr Shriteh said there was no time to arrange his movements with the Israel Defence Forces. "I knew the Israelis were watching me because I could see the red laser beam in the ambulance and on me, on my body," he said.

After getting out of the ambulance and entering the house, he found three Hamas fighters taking cover inside. One half of the building had already been destroyed.

"They were very scared, and very nervous … They dropped their weapons and ordered me to get them out, to put them in the ambulance and take them away. I refused because if the IDF sees me doing this I am finished, I cannot pick up any more wounded people.

"And then one of the fighters picked up a gun and held it to my head, to force me. I still refused, and then they allowed me to leave."

How many ambulance drivers weren't as brave?

Oh well, just another Hamas war crime.

World press ignores Hamas' media intimidation

From the International Federation of Journalists website, posted last Thursday:

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today led a multinational delegation of journalists' unions from Europe and the Arab world into Gaza, only hours before Israel finally opened the area to the world press

The aim of the mission, says the IFJ, is to support local journalists and to investigate the problems facing media during the conflict.

The IFJ, which has condemned vigorously Israeli targeting of media and the blockade on journalists entering Gaza over the last month, today also condemned Hamas for its threats and intimidation of journalists.

"The last month has been hell for journalists working in Gaza, "said Aidan White. "It is impossible to properly investigate the media situation in Gaza without considering the difficulties facing journalists, particularly because of the Hamas regime. It is clear that Hamas are no friends of media freedom and have been ruthless in their intimidation and manipulation of the media. The situation of journalists in Gaza was already intolerable without military activity and this latest conflict has not made it any better. The IFJ is particularly concerned by Hamas' attempts to interfere in the work of Palestinian journalists. Now that the violence has stopped, it is time for all sides, including Hamas, to allow journalists to work freely."

We have seen plenty of stories about supposed Israeli violations of journalists' rights; how come the media doesn't bother to cover Hamas' overt and endemic intimidation of the press? This story was almost invisible until Hamas reacted angrily today:

De facto government’s information office on Sunday expressed astonishment about declarations made by Secretary General of the international federation of journalists Aiden White after he visited the Gaza Strip.

The statement says White accused the de facto government of suppressing freedom of press, which officials say is “completely null and false.”

White’s report on his return from the area says that “In Gaza we found evidence of intimidation by Hamas. This is completely unacceptable. We understand that humanitarian help to media including safety vests for journalists in danger have been seized and confiscated. This is intolerable.”

The de facto government called the comparison between Israel violations of human rights in Gaza, which the IFJ delegation had set out to identify in Gaza, with de facto government actions “inappropriate,” and said it was “like comparing the victim to the executioner.”

The de facto government does not interfere with the media in Gaza, said the official response, and affirmed that Arab and foreign journalists move freely in the Strip and “interview whoever they want without any impediments.”

Of course, the number of arrests and threats by Hamas (and Fatah) towards journalists is long and detailed, for anyone who bothers to research it, something the Western media is reluctant to do.

A recent example is detailed in this NYT piece by Ethan Bronner:

Because Israel barred foreign journalists from entering Gaza until the war ended, The New York Times relied on my Palestinian colleague here, Taghreed el-Khodary, for on-the-ground coverage of the fighting.

We would speak several times a day as she cautiously went out. Her first stop was usually Shifa Hospital to get a sense of civilian casualties. Early in the war, at the hospital, she witnessed the murder of an alleged Israeli collaborator by Hamas gunmen. They shot him in the skull more or less in front of her. One of the gunmen told Taghreed that she should never mention what she saw to anyone. She told him there was not a chance she would stay silent, then made some calls to find out about other such events and sent me the information, which we published the next day.

From all accounts Taghreed is the exception. The only journalists that report negatively about Hamas in Gaza work anonymously for Fatah-aligned news agencies or for the Israeli media. The world media, always anxious to jump on the anti-Israel bandwagon, is scared to death of crossing Hamas when they are in Gaza. Their claims that they report objectively from Gaza are laughable.

And nothing proves this more than the fact that none of them reported on the IFJ condemnation of Hamas to begin with. The only mention was at Menassat, a Lebanese site dedicated to covering Arab media.

If journalists were so concerned about freedom of expression and objectivity, why did they all ignore this story from an organization that is dedicated to protecting them?

Two years ago

I was just reminded of a post I wrote two years ago right after Hamas' election victory, called Why Hamas Won, from a thread at Jihad Watch. It was a bit optimistic towards the immediate future but I believe that the reasons I gave still hold true. (Later that week I wrote a much more pessimistic scenario.)

As I looked at that old post I saw other posts I wrote that week that stand up quite well after two years. So, for those interested, here are some oldies, all from the week after Hamas won their election:

The cult of the "Peace Process" - why the "Peace Process" has nothing to do with peace
The Arafatization of Hamas - on a Hamas op-ed in Newsweek
The Democracy Pandora's Box - The prerequisite for democracy is freedom
The Arafatization of Hamas II - comparing Hamas Arabic statements with the PLO in 1974
Your crazy Uncle Ned - how the West treats nutty Islamists
The Arafatization of Hamas III - on a Hamas op-ed in the Washington Post
Poor Hamas schizophrenics - comparing "moderate" statements of Hamas to their charter