Hamas lies about Shalit in response to Goldstone

Palestine Press Agency says that Hamas' response to Goldstone also talks about how it is treating Gilad Shalit.

Their "commission of inquiry" claims that the armed groups holding Shalit are "committed to the Third Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, saying he has the proper amounts of food and was being held in a safe and clean manner that preserves his dignity."

The only problem is that the Third Geneva Conventions also specifically says in Article 125

Art. 125. Subject to the measures which the Detaining Powers may consider essential to ensure their security or to meet any other reasonable need, the representatives of religious organizations, relief societies, or any other organization assisting prisoners of war, shall receive from the said Powers, for themselves and their duly accredited agents, all necessary facilities for visiting the prisoners, for distributing relief supplies and material, from any source, intended for religious, educational or recreative purposes, and for assisting them in organizing their leisure time within the camps. Such societies or organizations may be constituted in the territory of the Detaining Power or in any other country, or they may have an international character.

The Detaining Power may limit the number of societies and organizations whose delegates are allowed to carry out their activities in its territory and under its supervision, on condition, however, that such limitation shall not hinder the effective operation of adequate relief to all prisoners of war.

The special position of the International Committee of the Red Cross in this field shall be recognized and respected at all times.

As soon as relief supplies or material intended for the above-mentioned purposes are handed over to prisoners of war, or very shortly afterwards, receipts for each consignment, signed by the prisoners' representative, shall be forwarded to the relief society or organization making the shipment. At the same time, receipts for these consignments shall be supplied by the administrative authorities responsible for guarding the prisoners.

Hamas has never allowed any third party to visit Shalit. As far as I can tell, Hamas never specified how Red Cross visitation would compromise Hamas' security.

Also, Article 13 states "prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity." This was violated with Hamas' parade mocking Shalit in front of thousands of Gazans in 2008.

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Hamas frightened of Egypt (guest post by Zvi)

A couple of recent comments in response to my post about Hamas groveling to Saudi Arabia (the publication of that letter is making waves in PalArab media) are worth posting.

Sshender pointed out that Khaled Meshal was acting in at least a humiliating way to Egypt as well, pointing out a Hebrew link from Channel 10 to a hostile Egyptian interview with him and to general statements that Mubarak has been making about Hamas.

Zvi follows up with a worthwhile analysis:

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Here's how I see this. It's not about the Saudis at all. It's about Egypt.

Hamas knows that if Egypt ever becomes REALLY SERIOUS about hurting Hamas, Hamas is going to be in extremely hot water. Egypt can shut down the tunnels if it wants to do that, both by building as deep and strong a wall as it wants to build, and (if Egypt gets really serious) by arresting or shooting anyone on the Egyptian side who participates in the tunnel "industry."

The Egyptian steel wall sends that signal very clearly. In fact, ever since the news about the steel wall became public, the Hamas leadership appears - to me, at any rate - to have shown increasing signs of panic. I can see why; if it works, then Hamas can't bring in weapons, can't tax the tunnelers and can't smuggle its people in and out. If it works, then Gazans really WILL have a crisis on their hands, and Hamas will be very clearly to blame.

Egypt, for its part, is furious with Hamas for two reasons: 1. Hamas humiliated the Egyptian government when the Egyptians tried to reconcile the factions, and again when Egypt tried to work out an exchange of prisoners between Hamas and Israel. 2. Hamas has kept parading in front of the world its closeness to Iran, at a time when the Egyptians are absolutely apoplectic to find that Hezbollah was planning for terror attacks against the Suez Canal, which is one of Egypt's primary strategic assets, and against other Egyptian targets. As of last week, Egypt's state prosecutor was asking for the death penalty for the terrorists.

The Hamas attempt to do what it did last time, and use civilians to camouflage an attack on the Egyptian border (I'm assuming that this is what happened) went very wrong when Hamas murdered an Egyptian border policeman in cold blood.

[Egypt has shown its displeasure not only with the wall but also by kicking out the pro-Hamas demonstrators and the public announcement that no more leftist aid convoys will travel through Egypt. - EoZ]

Egypt said earlier this week that it would consider *cough* throwing the Gazans under the bus *cough* withdrawing completely from Palestinian affairs. It has pretty firmly rejected Hamas flirtations.

So now Hamas is going back to the Saudis. Why? Most importantly, because if the Saudis (who have been flirting a bit with the Syrians lately) actually agree to get involved again, this will make the Egyptians look isolated and powerless. Hamas leaders may be calculating that the Egyptians will immediately try to restore their diplomatic prestige by rushing to mediate something (this is a guess, I will admit. ; - ) And an engaged Egypt is not going to simply seal off Gaza and let Hamas stew in its own violence and stupidity.

While Hamas made the Saudis look like useful idiots last time around, the Saudis are suckers for things that will make them look influential in the region, as long as it doesn't involve making peace with Israel. So under normal circumstances, I would expect them to go for it.

But at the moment, the Saudis are fighting a war against what they see as Iranian proxies in Yemen. While Huthi forces are apparently trying to request a truce at the moment, the Saudis are apparently having none of it (I'm reading only a little bit into this column: http://asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=2&id=19655). The little snipe at Hamas in the column also suggests that Hamas is very much out of favor in Saudi circles. So I'm expecting the Saudis to ignore this.

Hamas will keep trying to find mediators that it hasn't already humiliated. I'm betting that Hamas will try the Turks next, and the Turks are likely to go for it. It's unclear whether Fatah will accept Turkish mediation.

Meanwhile, Hamas has lost the so-called "legitimacy" of an "electoral mandate, weakening its position among Gazans." Useful idiots will continue to willfully forget that in 2007, Hamas gunmen violently overthrew the elected order, threw their opponents off of buildings and forcefully occupied Gaza, putting it under the control of people who are living in Damascus. Now that the parliamentary term has expired, the fig leaf is simply gone. Hamas has refused to cooperate with PA elections, and that's how things stand.

None of this means that Hamas is on its last legs or that it will change its behavior or its associates. Hamas leaders have been very clever liars and very clever when it comes to survival - all the while continuing to try to murder as many Jewish civilians as possible.

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Hamas finds itself innocent. What a surprise.

Al-Arabiya reports that Hamas has investigated itself and found not only that it did nothing wrong, but also that other terror groups didn't either:

The Islamist Hamas movement said Wednesday it has investigated allegations in a U.N. report into last winter's Gaza war and absolved Palestinian armed groups of any atrocities.

Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the Israeli offensive aimed at halting rocket attacks from the territory ruled by the Islamist group.

But Hamas, which along with other armed groups has launched thousands of makeshift rockets into southern Israel in recent years, said a committee it appointed to follow up on the report found no intention to harm civilians.

"The committee worked around the clock to uncover the facts, despite the certainty that there were no violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law that amount to war crimes," said the committee head, Hamas justice minister Mohammed Faraj al-Ghul.

"The Palestinian government has on more than one occasion called on armed Palestinian groups to avoid targeting civilians," said the report by Hamas, which has claimed scores of deadly suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

"(The armed groups) struck military targets and avoided civilian targets, and any accusations related to this concern errant fire."

The Goldstone report said the firing of the hard-to-aim rockets at southern Israel deliberately targeted civilians and could constitute a crime against humanity.

Hamas, during the war, really did claim to only be targeting military sites. For example, this press release from the al-Qassam Brigades English site detailed the targets of all the rockets fired during the war:

Target	Qassam	Grad	Mortar
Military base "Blmakheem"	0	2	0
Military base "Tal Nouf"	0	1	0
Military base "Al Majdal"	26	47	0
Military base "Sdod"	0	36	0
Military base "Beer Al Saba'a"	0	23	0
Military base "Kiryat Gat"	0	3	0
Military base "Hitsareem"	0	16	0
Military base "Sderot"	88	0	0
Military base "Third Eye"	9	0	12
Military base "Miftaheem"	13	0	0
Military base "artillery"	9	0	9
Military base "Ba'eri"	6	0	0
Military base "Talmi Yusif"	3	0	0
Military base "Nir Oz"	4	0	0
Military base "Ami Oz"	2	0	0
Military base "leadership"	2	0	0
Military base "Mageen"	4	0	0
Military base "El-yahoo"	1	0	0
Military base "Abu Salim"	3	0	3
Military base "Nahil Oz"	10	0	10
Military base "Sufa"	6	0	0
Military base "Nitifut"	31	51	0
Military base "Tsailem"	0	6	0

You can see in the table that Hamas just took names of places like Sderot and Kiryat Gat and Ashdod ("Sdod") where ordinary people were targeted and simply re-labeled them as "military bases." As YNet points out, there are no military bases in Sderot.

Before the war, Hamas was not quite as circumspect. In fact, they would openly brag about targeting civilians. For example, this communique from November 16, 2008:

Al Qassam Brigades executed the following mission:

Day: Friday.

Time: Between 8:50 to 09:10.

Operation: Shelling Sderot settlement by eight Qassam rockets.

Result: Number of settlers were wounded.

There are countless other examples of Hamas proudly taking credit for rocket attacks on civilians.

And if you have the slightest thought that Hamas really considered all of the towns listed above to be "military sites," the Qassam Brigades published a similar scorecard of rockets fired on February 27th, 2008, where many of the same cities are listed without the prefix "military base":

In response to the Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Al-Qassam Brigades declared the following:

Name	No.
Sedrot settlement	30
Meftahim settlement	4
Kesufim settlement	4
Yad Murdakhi settlement	3
Military site Sofa-Rafah	2
Zikim-north of Gaza strip	4
Intelligence site east of Rafah city	2
Military site Nahil Oz-Gaza	3
Natif Etzra settlement	2
Baeri east of Al Buriej camp	2
Kfar Azza east of Gaza city	1
Military site Erez-Gaza	2

The result of the shelling:

1. A Zionist settlers was killed in the Sederot.
2. Huge confusion between the settlers.

The target is explicitly named and celebrated.

It is not hard to find proof that Hamas lies using nothing but Hamas sources.

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Hamas plans response to Goldstone this week

According to Palestine Press Agency, Hamas "miniter of justice" Mohammed Faraj al-Ghoul announced that Hamas has prepared its own response to the Goldstone report, 52 pages worth. He said that the response will be professional and adhere to international standards.

Meaning, the international standards that blame Israel for everything.

al-Ghoul also says that the fact that Israel paid $10.5 million to UNRWA in compensation for inadvertent damage done is proof that Israel is admitting to "committing war crimes and crimes against humanity." He goes on to say that he hopes that the UN will not be taken in by this "bribe" and will continue to hate Israel as passionately as it did before.

Laughably, al-Ghoul said that Hamas set up a committee of inquiry to investigate any alleged violations and worked around the clock to uncover the truth, opened its doors wide open to receive public complaints, and investigated to the greatest extent and the pursuit and prosecution of abusers by Palestinian law. I can just imagine how welcome any resident of Gaza would feel about entering Hamas headquarters to lodge a formal complaint against Hamas.

He also said that Goldstone only specified some 36 incidents, while Hamas has been documenting over 1500 such crimes, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of genocide, the crimes of aggression, "all of which were monitored and documented in full accordance with international standards and which will surprise the occupation."

Which is an interesting tack. Israel should prepare a dossier of Hamas war crimes that Goldstone missed, which is pretty much all of them.

Playing strictly defense is no way to win a battle.

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Arab satellite removes Iranian TV

From Reuters:

Iran's Arabic-language television network Al Alam said on Wednesday it has again been taken off air by a Saudi-based satellite operator amid simmering tensions between Shi'ite Iran and U.S.-allied Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia.

Analysts say Riyadh and several other Arab governments allied to the United States are worried about a rise in Tehran's influence in the region through Shi'ite minorities.

Al Alam said in November that both the Saudi-based Arabsat network and Nilesat in Cairo had halted its broadcasting. In a statement on Wednesday, it said Arabsat later resumed broadcasting, before halting it again. It did not give details.

The Saudi/Iran hatefest is definitely must-watch TV.

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Obese PalArabs beg Abbas for surgery

Now that Mahmoud Abbas has personally sponsored weight-loss surgery for a morbidly obese man in the territories, he may have opened up the floodgates of fat.

Firas Press reports on a woman who lives near Ramallah who weighs over 400 kg - nearly 900 pounds! She heard about Abbas largesse for the large and is now demanding the same for herself.

40 year old Fadwa Ahmad Jibril Alrushdi has been stuck in her bed for six years now. She is demanding help, saying that she has gained 50 kg just since last Ramadan!

Poor Abbas. Now every fat PalArab will be bugging him for their right to surgery, and he'll have to figure out new ways to cook the books so that EU and US money will go to help them.

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