Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, February 02, 2009

Blowing apart "official" Gaza casualty figures

CAMERA has been taking apart the weekly PCHR casualty reports in Gaza and finding that - despite its seemingly comprehensive nature, with names and ages listed - it is woefully inaccurate.

This information is extremely important and needs to be disseminated. Here is their summary and some notable parts of their analysis:

• By cross-checking with other sources, CAMERA has identified a number of Hamas fighters and members of other Palestinian terrorist groups who were either misclassified by PCHR as civilians, not identified as combatants, or omitted entirely from their tabulations. This raises serious questions about the accuracy of PCHRs casualty statistics.

PCHR represents a partisan source that favors Hamas over Israel. This is evidenced by the terminology and tone it uses in its reports - for example, labelling the Israeli Defense Forces as the "Israeli Occupation Forces" and describing Israeli military operations as "war crimes." Despite PCHR's clear bias, its data is widely cited by the media.

• An analysis of the fatalities by age and gender shows that the majority of civilian fatalities recorded by PCHR are males between 15 and 40 years old, the same age profile as the combatants. This also should raise concern that significant numbers of combatants may have been misclassified as civilians.

• Out of 1285 fatalities, at least 950 were males aged 15 or higher. While males over age 15 make up approximately 25 percent of the Gaza population, they made up over 74 percent of the fatalities.

PCHR records 281 child fatalities to January 21. But it gives specific age and gender information for only 253. Of these 253, 57 (23 percent) are 15 -17 year old males. Considering that this age group accounts for less than 8 percent of the under-18 population, 15-17 year old males are overrepresented as fatalities. Since Palestinian terror groups are known to have used teenagers from this age category to carry out suicide bombings, it is not unreasonable to suspect that a number of these teenage fatalities resulted from them having participated in combat.

Another example of how "children" are misrepresented can be seen from a list of "child" casualties from Al Jazeera (h/t Henrik). In a January 15th report of child victims, listed by name and age, out of 217 listed, 22 were adults by any definition (18 years old) ;70 were males above 15.

Also, keep in mind that we have no idea whether those executed by Hamas are included in these counts. In addition, we do not know how many Gazans were killed by Hamas fire aimed at the IDF, nor how many were killed by secondary explosions of Hamas munitions when Israel targeted weapons stores or terrorists. CAMERA also points out that quite a few of the civilians were killed when Israel targeted specific terrorists at locations that Israel warned the residents to leave, including family members who were forced to stay with their terrorist relatives.

I would also like to point out that the "objective" PCHR has as of yet refused to issue a report on casualties from Hamas attacks on Fatah and syspected "collaborators," information that PCHR pretends to keep track of and that other Gaza human rights organizations have publicized and criticized. The PCHR is taking a decidedly pro-Hamas stand in its choice of how to present its statistics, and this needs to be exposed to the Western reporters who are happy to parrot their seemingly comprehensive figures.

More Hamas war crimes

Ma'an lists the names of 181 people who were either killed, shot in the legs or had their legs broken by Hamas in Gaza in the past month. Since the list was generated by Fatah, it might not be including everyone, and while they only list 11 people killed, I have seen Palestinian Arab sources that list the names of 16. Also, yesterday a group of PalArab human rights organizations counted 27 killed by Hamas, without listing the names.

Meanwhile, the Shin Bet is getting specific confirmations of Hamas war crimes in Gaza from prisoners captured by Israel:

Nuaf Atar spoke about the use of Gazan schools to shoot rockets at Israel. Zabhi Atar revealed that Hamas used food coupons to entice Palestinians to join its ranks and Hamad Zalah said Hamas took control of UNRWA food supplies transferred to Gaza and refused to distribute them to people affiliated with Fatah.

Just last night, Hamas reportedly took over a house belonging to a relative of YasirArafat in Gaza.

Staged photo (and actor) of the day

Reb Akiva of Mystical Paths picks up on a nice example of a staged photo from Gaza.

From AP last week:

Leading Palestinian Hamas lawmaker Mushir Al-Masri stands in the chamber of the Palestinian Legislative Council that was destroyed during Israel's offensive in Gaza City, Monday, Jan. 26, 2009.

Let's look a bit closer at part of the photo:

Amongst the devastation, by Allah, five framed photos of Hamas members happen to all fall and drop in the same area, face up. And while the entire parliament building is covered with grey dust, these photos miraculously are clean.

Masri himself is in a prayerful position, looking heavenward at the very moment that the photographer happens to have clambered over to the balcony or perhaps set up the gear needed to take such a photo from such a high angle.

Masri is of course a deeply religious man, well known among Gaza journalists, always praying. Here we see him in a very similar pose as he leads prayers outside another ruined building, places that he seems to be magnetically drawn to along with Gaza photographers.

Another photo of him praying with the ruins in the background here. And another more recent example of him praying here.

Poor Masri, always getting caught by the intrusive photographers while he is just trying to have a couple of moments communicating privately with Allah.

The Gaza equivalent of "No Smoking"

Hospitals in the Western world will usually have "no smoking" signs.

In Gaza, things are a little different:

A Palestinian woman waits to receive treatment at a medical clinic run by visiting Jordanian doctors in Gaza City February 1, 2009. A large team of Jordanian medical workers arrived in Gaza last week to treat Palestinians after Israel's 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Why exactly doesn't Reuters point out why such a sign might be necessary?

An Arab boy works on his laptop among the ruins of his house.

However, these ruins aren't from Israeli bombardments in Gaza. They aren't from Israel destroying Arab houses in the West Bank or Jerusalem.

This house is in Saudi Arabia, and destroyed by the Saudi authorities:

"A young Saudi is busy with his laptop on Saturday on the ruins of his house in Al-Balad District in downtown Jizan, Saturday. The house was demolished by the Committee for Combating Encroachments two months ago. "

Somehow, I don't think that there are any protests against Saudi Arabia for destroying the houses of Arabs.

Transcript of Peres speech at World Economic Forum in Davos

Here is what Shimon Peres said last week that so upset Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, causing him to walk out. Here is also Erdogan's sputtering response.
The only place I have found this was at a site called Palestine Think Tank which is heavily anti-Zionist, but the transcript appears to be accurate.

Well, thank you Mr. Chairman, I heard the distinguished speakers talking about Israel and I couldn’t recognize the picture of the country that they know. I want to tell the beginning. It’s very difficult when a democratic country has to confront an illegal terroristic group. Whatever we do is being photographed; whatever they do, nobody sees. For example, when you throw a rocket on a settlement in Israel, it’s not being photographed. You cannot see the mother trying to defend her child the whole night, and their sleepless night. Did you ever see on television a sleepless night?

I must respect for you Mr. Prime Minister, but I must put things as they really are.

Let me start with democracy. First of all, who was elected by the Palestinians, but Mr. Abbas, who is called Abu Mazen. Sixty-two percent of the Palestinians voted for him to be the President of the Palestinian people, and we negotiate with him. Hamas participated in the elections but have a very unique idea about democracy. They think a democracy is a story of one day in four years you go through the election. After the elections you can start to shoot and kill and threaten. Finished. Democracy is not a matter of elections. It is a civilization and I want to conflict to your words by quoting from the Hamas; I won’t be going to interrupt the stories? But Hamas concerns us; Hamas published a charter; let me just read two lines, three lines from it, from the Hamas Charter. “The day of judgment will not come about until the Muslims kill the Jews, when the Jews will hide behind stones and trees, there is no solution for peace initiative, proposals, international conferences are all a waste of time.” This is an official charter. I don’t know about which Hamas you are talking?

Now about the proportions. In the last eight years, well I mean, I hate to say it, but since you mentioned it, let me give the other picture, too. Israel lost hundred, thousand hundred sixty-seven lives from terrorists, eight thousand five hundred were wounded. It wasn’t done in twenty days, it was done in several years. We restrained all the time. And then since the last four years when Hamas took over Gaza, 5500 rockets, and 4000 mortars, shells were fired upon civilian life in Israel at random: they didn’t care if it was a kindergarten, if it’s a [ ]we didn’t answer. For that reason, the ceasefire idea, Mr. Prime Minister, was very strange in our views. We never started fire. And we told the Palestinians time and again, “Don’t fire, and there won’t be fire; we are not doing we never started!” And who broke…and oh by the way, we didn’t have a formal agreement about the ceasefire, they announced, and the Palestinians said, “It’s over.” They broke it. And when the Prime Minister was at your place four days before the operations started, the government of Israel didn’t yet to decide to take actions against it.

Now let me… I want you to listen because you watch all of your television, I can understand your feelings.

Israel left Gaza completely, no occupation. We took out all of our soldiers from Gaza, all of our civilians. People are talking about settlements, we took out from Gaza all the settlements and all the settlers, fifteen thousand of them. Nobody forced us, it was our own choice. We had to mobilize forty-five thousand policemen to bring them back home, at the cost of 2.5 billion dollars.

I want to understand why did they fight rockets against us? What for? There was not any siege against Gaza. All the passages were open. Not only that, we participated in investing money in Gaza, to develop a, an agriculture. We at Peres Center, we ourselves put in twenty thousand dollars, twenty million dollars, sorry, to build green houses, to develop strawberries, the export of strawberries, excellent strawberries, flowers.

Jimmy Wolfensohn who was representative of the Quartet, took from his own pocket 5 million dollars to participate in it. They destroyed it. Why? They bombed all the passages. Why? Why did they fire at us, what did they want?" We didn't occupy, there was never a day of starvation in Gaza! By the way, Israel is the supplier of water daily to Gaza, Israel is the supplier of fuel to Gaza, the only thing we didn't permit to bring in was rockets from Iran! And they build tunnels to do it! And you know, we also have women and children, and they want to sleep at night. Do you know what it means, every day, almost hundred rockets falling at random, a million people have had to be under shelter. They came to the government and said "What happened to you? We want have security, why do you permit to happen it? " And I want anyone telling me, clearly, what were the reasons for the attack? What were the purposes of the attack? Peace? We make peace with Egypt, not by arms, by agreement and negotiation, and we met all of the requests of Egypt. We made peace with Jordan the same, we gave back all the land and all the water. We opened with the Palestinians, and we told them, that we are for a Palestinian state, I started in Oslo, against the majority maybe, of our people that didn't agree And all the time, you know Mr. Prime Minister, while you have had to wait, because many busses that came from the West Bank to Jerusalem were full of dynamite. I was then Prime Minister, I saw it with my own eyes, the blood and the bodies. You know, I don't have to watch television, and when I came in there were thousands of people shouting at me "Traitor, killer, look at what you did to us!" You must, there are many details you have to know. Israel is sixty-years old, do you know any other country, that in sixty-years has had to go through seven wars, two Intifadas, an ongoing boycott? What, why? And in spite of it, we made peace with Egypt. I have the highest respect for President Mubarak. By the way, President Mubarak accused Hamas, not us. And President Mubarak knows the situation not less as you Mr. Prime Minister. And President Abbas knows the situation not less than you do, and he accused Hamas not us. And then mothers and children came to the government and asked what will happen? A million people every night have had to hide themselves in shelters, mothers with sleepless nights, what do you really mean? By the way, I have never saw anyone demonstrating against those missiles! That was ok Nobody said a word. And we didn't answer, a day in and a day out, a year in a year out, there's a limit to it.

And by the way, I have much respect for the Secretary General, he used to be and I hope we're still a friend, I appreciate very much the Arab initiative, but there is a problem in it, I don't want to hide it. The problem is not the Arab world, the problem is the Iranian ambition to govern the Middle East. They supplied the rockets to Hezbollah, they supplied the rockets to Hamas, they are controversially the Arab making, and you know we didn't have a choice. The leader of Hezbollah, Nasrallah says: "Would I know that Israel will react so strongly, we wouldn't have started". Thank you very much. And then come the Mashaal, the leader of Hamas and said: "Israel reacted too strongly." What did you expect us to do, I don't understand? What would any country do? What would you do if it you would happen in Istanbul every night ten rockets, a hundred rockets?

And we never gave up, all my life as you said, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate it, I am fighting for peace, what we did is not…the thing that we wanted to do… It's not our choice, our choice is peace. What we did is because the lack of a choice, we were threatened with a choice. Would you vote for such a convention, to kill the Jews? OK, those are words, but to kill the Jews and send rockets to kill them. What you want us to do? We started to negotiate with Mr. Arafat, with much respect, it wasn't simple. The PLO was in the beginning a terroristic organization. Mr. Arafat agreed to stop terror and go on to negotiations. By the way, what ever was achieved peacefully, positively, was achieved not by rockets, not by force, not by power, but by negotiations. It takes time, it takes time. It's a very complicated country. It's a small country with three religions, with a lot of history. With different ethnicities, it's not simple. We made peace, once, twice, now we are negotiating with the Palestinians. There was a crisis among the Palestinians, we don't intend to be the one that decide that the Palestinians be united or not. As long as Hamas did not rebel against the Fatah, it was not our business, we didn't say a word.

You know what? I am talking about Israel, look what the people, of the Palestinian people, the Secretary General of Fatah is saying about Hamas, three days ago.His name is Yasser Abd Rabbo, a Palestinian, a secretary general of the PLO, of the executive committee, and I quote him, I quote him three days ago: "Hamas has turned Gaza, Gaza schools and mosques, all universities into centers of detention, interrogation and torture and torture. Dozens have been shot in their legs, beaten savagely, and had their bones broken, broken. Hamas plundered trucks bringing …and distributes it only to…the food.. only to the supporters of their movement." They didn't give the food to the people of Fatah. They killed hundred leaders of Fatah in full daylight. They throw them from the roofs. What do you really mean? Is that the matter of definitions? Israel does not want to shoot anybody, for us all children are as important as one can think of. I created the Peres Center, all the money we have collected went to the cure of children. Palestinian children. They didn't have insurance, they didn't have hospitals, in five years we have brought to Israel 5500 Palestinian children and their mothers to be cured. By the way, there is no hospital today in Israel that does not have Arab doctors, so the children can communicate with the doctors in the Israeli hospitals. That is our choice, to touch a child. But if you put a child, if you put bombs in the kindergarten, and if you hide yourselves behind innocent families, and before we shell, we, before we try to shell anybody, we try and telephone the people, we say, please leave the place. We don't want to hurt you. We made during those twenty days, 250,000 telephone calls before we shoot. What could we do, what was our choice? And what would any government do?

I am very much sorry Mr. Secretary General about the United Nations' building, according to our records, not by your knowledge, they started to shoot from there, and by the way, Europe, you bombed Kosovo, and you hit the Chinese embassy, did you want to? And hundreds of civilian people were killed in the bombing to, That's Ok. So please, I want to speak clearly, Israel does not need a ceasefire, because we never started a bullet and we shall never do it.

And we shall never do it, and the minute they stop shooting there will be a ceasefire, we don't need anything else. Every moment, every day we are not interested in fire; we are not interested in hurting or killing anybody.

Now about the peace process. First of all I want to say that it was a great move on the side of the Secretary General of the Arab League to introduce the Arab Initiative. I think that was a very positive move in a bitter history of misunderstanding and confrontations. The problems we will facing well the following: a) we started to negotiate directly with the Palestinians. President Mubarak told me, "Look, finish you negotiations with the Palestinians we shall consider as the first move to an overall peace." We are negotiating and I think we made headway in extremely complicated issue. They call on this issue of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is not a piece of land. Jerusalem is fire. There are three different religions and there are different streams in every religion, and people are fighting about every window, every door. It's easy to say "make an agreement," we are trying to find the way. We told the Palestinians that we are ready really to accept [unintelligible], which means ready to return most almost all of the land of the West Bank to them. Gaza we left completely. What is there to fight? So the ceasefire is as far as this is concerned is not a problem for us. We never started, we should never start fire and when they fired against us we replied, but after a great restrain and thousands of people were killed too. They weren't killed in a concentrated manner. So what? It doesn't matter.

I think that what we have to do, and by the way I'm for the restoration of Gaza, we have nothing there wasn't a day that we didn't supply water and oil. I personally read every week a report about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. If something is missing the government and myself we're intervening to make sure there will be fuel and food. The tragedy of Gaza is not Israel, it's Hamas, who decreed a dictatorship, a very ugly one and they build the problem of the crossing, now is not because we want to control the supply of food or building material or medical. They build a tunnels to bring in those missiles and they build an underground system of tunnels, well by the way the leaders hide themselves there and they forgot the people. I think, yes, we would like to see Gaza flourishing- Gaza is a small place with an intelligent people. When I started to talk with Mr. Arafat we took as an example Singapore. Gaza together with the West Bank are nine times larger than Singapore and Singapore there are more people than in Gaza and the West Bank. Today the problem is not land but really education and Gaza is not our enemy, and the people in Gaza are not our enemies, and we want to live with them in peace. We don't have hatred and we don't have plans for that reason we left Gaza and we are for restoring the life in Gaza but without dictators and without shooting not only us but the people of Fatah…

Moderator: We might end there… Just one minute

Shimon Peres: And then want to renew negotiations with the authorized Palestinian authority. We made headway. We want to start right away, we want to do it with the Quartet, we want to do it straight away, we don't want to waste time. Our aim is peace not war and when we win a war we don't consider it as a victory. For us victory is peace not war. We have power we should never use power unless we don't have another choice and when we have a choice we want peace and I think that Hezbollah has learnt the lesson they stop shooting, nobody stop them to shoot but our reaction. I hope that Hamas will also have lesson they will stop shooting and start talking everything that we can achieve is by talking not by shooting and that was and that is and that will remain the position of Israel.

Thank you sir.

Moderator: This has been a powerful and passionate debate. It's a debate that tonight can go on for hours but we have already gone well past our closing time. I mean…

Erdogan: One minute.

Moderator: Mr. Prime Minister…. with apologies to Mr. Prime Minister Erdogan…

Erdogan: One minute, one minute, one minute…

Moderator: Well, I…

Erdogan: One minute! It can't be! One minute! One minute!

Moderator: Ok, but I'm gonna hold you to the one minute please.

Erdogan: Dear Mr. Peres, you are older than I am. And you have a very strong voice. I feel that you feel guilty and that's why your voice was so loud. My voice is not going to be so loud because you know what I'm going to tell you. You know very well how to kill. I know very well how you killed and murdered children on the beaches [of Gaza]. There are two people, two former Prime Ministers of your country, who said something very significant to me. One of them said: "When I entered Palestine in a tank I was happy." When the tanks entered Palestine they were happy. That's how some of your Prime Ministers felt. Here you're talking about figures. I can give you names, perhaps some of you feel curious. I condemn the ones who applaud cruelty. Because applauding these people who have murdered children is a crime against humanity. We can't overlook that reality. Look, here I have taken many notes [about Peres intervention] but now I don't have the possibility to answer them all. I only will tell you two more things about this issue. The first one…

Moderator: Prime Minister, we can't start the debate again.

Erdogan: Excuse me. The first one, the first one…

Moderator: I'm sorry…

Erdogan: Don't interrupt me.

Moderator: We really do need to get people to dinner.

Erdogan: The Torah's 6th Commandament says: Thou Shalt Not Kill. But they have killed Palestinians. The second thing, look, is very interesting. Gilad Atzmon: "Israel's barbarity is way beyond cruelty." He's Jewish. Then, there is international relations professor from Oxford University Avi Shlaim, who served in the Israeli army. He has said the following in the English newspaper The Guardian: "Israel is a rogue state".

Moderator: Prime Minister, Prime Minister. I wanna ask to our host. Thanks.

Erdogan: I also want to thank him as for me it's finished. For me, for me Davos is finished. I will not come back again to Davos, you should know, here is finished. You don't let me speak. He's been talking for 25 minutes, and I only could talk 12 minutes. It can't be. [He gets up and goes away, the Secretary of the Arab League shakes his hand].

By the way, Erdogan did speak for 12 minutes, but so did Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, so only Peres had a chance to speak for Israel.

And while I didn't reproduce Erdogan's speech, it had some less-than-truthful passages like "but when the ceasefire ended, 6 months later there were no rocket attacks at that point."

Hamas' current strategy

Today we have an object lesson in how Hamas shoots rockets into Israel while pretending to maintain a cease-fire, and it provides a glimpse into Hamas' strategy to land on its feet after Cast Lead.

Unlike Fatah, Hamas tries to project an aura of trustworthiness. Hamas supporters point out that Hamas didn't take any responsibility for rockets fired during the last month of the six month "lull," for example; they only started to claim to shoot rockets after the deadline had passed.

Likewise, all rockets fired into Israel since the last "ceasefire" have either not been claimed or claimed by small, "rogue" groups that Hamas can pretend are acting on their own. It would be hard for Hamas supporters to believe that the PRC or Islamic Jihad - whom Hamas obviously coordinated fighting with during January - are acting on their own in shooting rockets, so we are seeing claims instead by the "Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades" or similar, seemingly tiny groups.

Today, there were three rockets and four mortars shot into Israel, and they were claimed by the "Yasser Arafat Brigades" of Fatah. Curiously, this claim was send not to Fatah media outlets, but to Palestine Today, which is aligned with Islamic Jihad.

An intriguing report in WorldNetDaily from 2007 quotes Israeli sources as saying that Hamas had infiltrated these very same Yasser Arafat Brigades.

While this is slightly tenuous evidence, it can be bolstered by understanding the timing. Hamas is supposedly set to agree to a one-year ceasefire with Israel starting Thursday. It needs to appear as if it is a credible partner for such a deal - increasing its prestige - but it also needs to shore up its base of terrorists who want to make it appear as if Israel lost the war by not having stopped rockets. These rockets, laundered through these third party groups, make Israel appear weak to the Arab world while a successful "cease fire" deal - where these tiny groups' rockets magically disappear, as they did for a few months during the last lull - will make Hamas appear strong to the West.

Simultaneously, Hamas is pushing to replace the PLO with its own more extreme leadership for Palestinian Arabs outside of Gaza, making an end-run around the increasingly weak PA.

Hamas is banking that it can continue to smuggle weapons with impunity under whomever is guarding Rafah, especially the PA. It is also positioning itself to be the primary provider of aid in Gaza after the war, because whoever controls the aid - and the money - controls Gaza.

Hamas is also calculating that it can brush off the criticism that the Arab world hurled at it and can end up stronger after Cast Lead than it was before, both to the more sympathetic Arab countries of Syria and Qatar as well as to Europe and the US. Everything it is doing is aimed in that direction, and, as usual, the PA is completely outmaneuvered.

Apparently, so is much of the West.

Almost certainly Iran is behind these machinations, and if the West doesn't wake up, we will be caught flatfooted again.

A Muslim liar re-appears - as a sock puppet

Over three years ago, I posted an article called "Reasonable sounding liar - Dr. Sam Hamod." In it I look at an article written by Dr. Hamod where he espouses an American conservative philosophy before launching a bizarre rant against Israel, including the claim that Israel receives some quarter of a trillion dollars every year from the US. I found then that Hamod had written much nuttier things to his preferred audience of haters and lunatics, claiming (for example) that 90% of reporters are Jewish and advocating a children's intifada against the US government.

In other words, truth is not his strong suit.

I had forgotten about Dr. Hamod, and in general I don't bother with such lunatics anymore on my blog. But a comment made last night is most interesting:

Dear Elder of Ziyon and others,
I would like to offer both my expert opinion and personal opinion in regard to Dr. Hamod’s professionalism and character. I have known the man for several years and find him to be a fine example of Truth, faith, and loyalty. He is a genuine follower of his faith and exemplifies it in his personal life and professional life. He is of the utmost integrity and is the most giving man that I have personally had the privilege of knowing. I have taught with Hamod in the past and continue to interact with him and the beautiful godly woman in his life. This is America and Dr. Hamod has his opinions whether we all agree or not he is entitled to air his. I have found that at times we agree and at times we disagree, but it is most often that we agree. Also, I know him to be friends with many of the Jewish nationality; we both share a good friend in Rabbi Handleman. So, let us not be hasty to judge this good descent American-Lebanese man who has done much good for the arts and politics as well. His heart encompasses all faiths and nationalities as I have seen through the twenty years that I have had the benefit of knowing him.

Sincerely,

Dr. Tovah Blum
Dr. Bloom | 02.01.09 - 2:36 am | #

I found it most interesting that Dr. Blum spelled her own last name differently in the same post. And unless "Dr. Bloom/Blum" is a very unethical psychiatrist, "she" wouldn't offer her defense of Hamod as an "expert opinion."

So I went a bit further, researching this "Rabbi Handleman." I could not find anyone with that name, but I did find a "Rabbi Shmuel Handelman" mentioned on a number of websites.

And in every site, he is either defending Dr. Sam Hamod, quoted by Hamod or posting on a website the Dr. Hamod is associated with.

Here is one of the posts by this "Rabbi:"

To the world from Rabbi Shmuel Handelman,

As a Jew, I denounce this crime that the zionists in our midst are
doing in the name of Judaism and Israel. All Jews with any conscience
will condemn this dastardly attack on Gaza.

Thank you Ms. Surasky, and all those who are working for a just
peace, not one imposed by arms and cruelty. This is not Judaism, this
is the cruelty of zionism and its devils on the earth.

Mr. Barak, Ms. Livni, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Olmert, we condemn you
all in Yahweh's name, you will reap the whirlwind as surely as Moses
is our prophet. And where is the voice of the man who was given an
Nobel Prize for Peace, Mr. Peres? Have you lost your belief in our
religion Mr. Peres to give up your soul for these fools like Barak,
Livni, Netanyahu and Olmert?

I pray for you because you have a chance to prove you deserved that
Nobel Prize for Peace--if you do not raise your voice agains this,
then you should return the medal and the money to the Nobel Foundation
for you will not have deserved, nor deserve, it.

In sorrow, shalom,

Rabbi Shmuel Handelman

Anyone who is the slightest bit familiar with Judaism would know, without a doubt, that this is not written by a Jew. It is written by a Muslim pretending to be a Jew, "as surely as Moses is our prophet. "

Notice that "Shmuel" is Samuel in Hebrew, and that "Handelman" shares Hamod's initials.

It is clear that "Rabbi Handleman/Handelman" is a sock puppet for Dr. Hamod, who I am now doubting should be called "Dr." I could find no links to him outside of his political writings, so why would we believe that this liar has a doctorate - or any other of his supposed credentials as a professor?

Moreover "Dr. Bloom" visited me by Googling "sam hamod," something that one would expect Hamod to do on his own. Once we know that Hamod is willing to use fake Jewish sock-puppets to defend himself, it seems more than likely that our English-challenged "Dr. Bloom/Blum" is "Dr." Hamod himself.

Thanks, Sam, for not only proving my initial assertion that you are a liar, but for adding to the evidence.

January Rocket Calendar

Q=Qassam (may include Katyusha-style rockets)
QS=Qassam landing short in Gaza
M=Mortar
F=Fatality (F=Gazan, F=Israeli)
(G)=Grad (included in Qassam count, not consistent yet)

M*- Apparently upgraded 120mm mortars
MS=Mortar landing short
P - unnamed "projectiles"
(Paren) indicates unconfirmed Palestinian claims

* - Fatal non-rocket attack

K=Katyushas from Lebanon

Mortars are severely undercounted since they simply don't make the news any more.

Yellow=day Israel sent aid to Gaza

January 2009

Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
				1	2	3
				59Q (9G) 5M	41Q (4G) 5M	28Q 10M
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
50Q 5M	39Q(4G) 5M	30Q 3M	24Q(8G) 1M	30Q 4K	30Q (7G)	16Q (4G)
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
28Q (3G)	20Q (3G) 3M	18Q 5M	11Q 5M 3K	29Q (3G)	21Q (3G) 4M	27Q 4M
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
("CeaseFire") 13Q (3G) 4M		8MS
25	26	27	28	29	30	31
(1QS)		*	1Q (7M)	1Q	(1M)	1G
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
4Q 8M	3M 1Q	1Q(1G)

A day without yellow doesn't necessarily mean the crossings were closed; I just may not have seen the reports of them being specifically open.

January 27 the crossings were closed immediately after a fatal attack on an IDF patrol outside Gaza during the day, but goods didget transferred in the morning.

All previous calendars here.

PalArab news roundup 1-31-09

Al Ahram is reporting increasing tensions between Hamas leaders in Gaza and Damascus.

Egypt arrested some armed Palestinian Arabs emerging from a tunnel in Rafah, who told them that there were at least seven others that the Egyptians missed.

The PalArab press latches onto another American Israel-basher, this time Ramsey Clark, who is calling the Gaza op a "genocide."

Hamas denied that it had anything to do with the murder of a Fatah teacher in Gaza last week, but the Palestine Press Agency is warning them to 'fess up or they will name names. Meanwhile, the MSM is slowly starting to report on Hamas murders during and after the operation.

Doctors in Gaza are now claiming that 90% of Gazans suffer from some sort of mental disorders, blaming Israel. It is unclear what percentage might have been suffering beforehand.

Palestinian Arabs are still up in arms over the idea that Hamas will set up an alternative to the PLO, which is still not being reported much in the Western media. One Palestinian Arab blogger is trying to get a million signatures on his blog against the idea. So far, he has about 65.

Terror group Hizb ut-Tahrir gave a lecture in Qalqilya, adding another extremist group to the mix in the West Bank.

The BBC's Gaza appeal debacle

The BBC last week made a strange decision not to broadcast an appeal to help Gazans. In their words, "We decided not to broadcast the DEC's public appeal because we wished to avoid any risk of compromising public confidence in the BBC's impartiality in the context of covering a continuing news story where issues of responsibility for civilian suffering and distress are intrinsic to the story and remain highly contentious."

Anyone who ever watches how the BBC covers Israel cannot but laugh at this absurd logic. Israelis and Zionists have no problem with the millions of dollars being spent to help Gazans; only with the millions being given to Hamas, directly or indirectly. Israel itself spends incredible amounts of time, effort and money to help Gazans. Israel has never protested aid going to Gazans from WHO, the Red Cross or any other charity group.

In a weird way, the BBC in making this decision seems to have betrayed its own genteel anti-semitism. While no Jewish or Zionist group asked the BBC not to air the appeal, the Beeb assumed that the selfish, powerful Jews would be upset at giving money to Gazans. Rather than deal with those imaginary protests the BBC thought that they should throw the Elders a bone, deny the appeal and use it as "proof" of their objectivity.

One reason that the BBC is so skittish is because of the Balen report that showed the BBC to have anti-Israel bias. While the BBC has spent enormous amounts of time and money to keep the report secret, it appears to have made an impact on the BBC - but in the wrong way. Rather than actually improve its reporting, the Beeb instead decided to make cosmetic decisions like quashing the appeal for Gazan aid.

The BBC's vaunted "impartiality," of course, mistakes evenhandedness for reality. The BBC made the assumption that Zionists would be as upset at aid being given to Arabs as Arabs would if the BBC appealed for bomb shelters for Sderot. That may be evenhanded but it is hardly impartial. It betrays the BBC's biases.

And now, instead of dealing with imaginary threats from the all-powerful Jewish lobby, they have to deal with very real threats from very real people.

From News of the World:

NEWSNIGHT hardman Jeremy Paxman was chased onto a tube train by a raging Palestinian supporter.
Shocked commuters watched as the presenter leapt into a carriage, pursued by a protester who was outraged at the BBC’s refusal to broadcast a Gaza appeal.
‘Rotweiller’ Paxman ended up on the receiving end of a verbal rant at London’s Green Park station.
After fleeing down the escalators, Paxo, 58, managed to squeeze in between the closing doors of a train.
He told a friend: “A man started shouting at me, ‘Paxman, you are a Zionist agent’.
“He pursued me down the escalators, moving very quickly to get me. I turned round and told him I’d tell him my opinions on Gaza if he settled down but he carried on shouting.

And this is not an isolated incident. There have been protests outside BBC buildings over the past week.

So now the BBC will have to bend over backwards to prove to anti-semitic, anti-Zionist idiots that they are not the Zionist tools they appear to be to protestors. One example is a former BBC journalist and now government minister:

Others, including Health Minister Ben Bradshaw, pointed the finger at Israel. Insinuating the BBC had bowed to pressure from the Jewish state, he said: "I am afraid the BBC has to stand up to pressure from the Jewish state occasionally."

It would be nice, of course, if the BBC would actually start to be as fair and impartial as it pretends to be.

What is the worst thing you can call a Hamas supporter?

As I reported yesterday, in a story that has been completely ignored by practically all the media, Hamas is planning to create its own alternative to the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian Arabs, not only in the area once known as Palestine but in other countries.

As can be expected, the PLO is not keen on the idea. The head of the Fatah bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council, Azzam Al-Ahmed, has slammed Hamas and the Arab countries that support it, like Syria and Qatar, by saying that the leaders of these states were "Zionists want to divide the Arabs and the Palestinian revolution, who sabotage and tamper in the Palestinian arena."

He called a stop to those "Zionists who rule the Arabs in some Arab countries because they have destroyed much of the Arab situation in this country and believe that they can now destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization."

He added, "We will not be silent for a long time after today and there will be an open confrontation between the Arabs and the Zionists [supporters of Hamas.]"

If someone in the Western world wants to insult someone else they would call them a terrorist, murderer or sociopath. But if an Arab wants to insult terrorists, murderers and/or sociopaths, he has to call them Zionists.

Thank you and a question (open thread)

With one day left in the month, I have more than doubled my previous record for pageviews and visitors. I should hit 80,000 pageviews for January sometime tonight or tomorrow, and well over 60,000 visitors, numbers which blow my mind.

I have also posted more this month than any other, with at least 184 postings.

Thanks to all my readers, old and new.

Out of curiosity, if I would put together and expand on my best original posts in a (self-published) book, would anyone be interested in buying it? As I have thousands of posts from over the years, I would like to have a way for people to be able to find good articles from the past without having to dig. But writing a book, even a compilation of older stuff, takes a lot of time and effort, and before I consider it I wanted to make sure that there was an audience.

Either way, have a Shabbat Shalom and a good weekend!

According to Palestine Today, News photographer Abdul Rahman Al-Khatib received medium-degree burns after he caught fire during coverage of the burning of Israeli and American flags in a march organized by Hamas in Gaza City this afternoon.

Witnesses said the cameraman was covering the demonstration when a masked man poured gasoline on burning Israeli flags. The resulting explosion burned his hands and feet.

Gazans managed to extinguish the fire.

Now, that would be some good video!

UPDATE: This picture looks like it shows the very flag that burned poor Mr. al-Khatib (that's his name, not the name of his paper, as I originally wrote.)

Yeah, looks like gasoline.

Another NGO denial

I emailed to the ICRC, asking about aid trucks being hijacked in Gaza:

I am a news blogger trying to confirm stories about Hamas hijacking aid trucks in Gaza and distributing the aid to their own members. The UNRWA has denied that this has happened to their aid convoys, despite press reports to the contrary. However, there have been more reports of aid meant for the Palestinian Red Crescent being forcibly taken by Hamas over the past year (links upon request.)

Can you confirm that this has ever happened, and if so, how often? if it has happened, has the ICRC ever condemned Hamas for doing this?

The reply I received (three days later):

The ICRC carefully follows up and monitors the humanitarian assistance it
brings into Gaza, as it does in other conflict situations. It makes sure
that the aid reaches those who are most in need of it - in the case of
Gaza, wounded persons in hospitals and civilians affected by the conflict.

The ICRC does also sometimes transport humanitarian assistance for the
Palestine Red Crescent Society, which is delivered directly to the society
in Gaza. So far, no incidents such as those you mention have been reported
with aid channelled through the ICRC.

You may find more detailed information about the assistance the ICRC has
been able to bring into Gaza on our website,
http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/palestine?OpenDocument.

With best regards,

I didn't realize that the ICRC acts independently of the Pal Red Crescent in Gaza, so I probably didn't phrase it correctly. It seems that writing the Red Crescent directly would be a waste of time.