Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, July 09, 2014

Hamas encourages human shields (update)

From MEMRI:

We saw yesterday that is was likely that the Hamas leader in the house called the neighbors to protect him during the five minutes from the phone call to the bombing.

Since then, as far as I can tell, none of the other terror leader houses that have been bombed have been protected by "human shields," meaning that the neighbors trusted Hamas to put their lives on the line exactly once.

Of course, Hamas is happy either way. If the human shields work then their houses and weapons caches are saved by their encouragement or coercion of civilians. If civilians are killed, they can then say this:

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said on his Facebook page that the civilian casualties in Gaza meant that Hamas could do the same to Israel.

Hamas is actively trying to endanger Gaza civilians for PR purposes, which is depraved - and par for the course.

Keep in mind that there is no analogy, as much as Hamas pretends there is. International law allows the targeting of a military objective even if there are civilians in the area as long as the target is of high enough value. International law forbids purposefully placing military targets in civilian areas. And international law forbids purposefully moving civilians to a military target in order to protect it.

International law does not require a combatant to warn their enemy that they are going to be attacked. Steven Erlanger in the New York Times made a sarcastic comment yesterday implying that there was such a standard in warfare, at least for Israel:

Israel does not always give warnings, of course. Also on Tuesday, a missile hit a car traveling along a central Gaza thoroughfare, killing the three occupants. It was not immediately clear who the targets were, though one was reportedly a senior Hamas military official, Muhammad Shaban, and it seemed unlikely that anyone had called them to warn that a missile was on the way.

That comment should be enough to fire the reporter for obvious bias. But, hey, it's The New York Times.

(h/t David G)

UPDATE: This video from 2008 proves that Hamas does indeed call people to protect houses.

Text of Israel's leaflets being dropped on Gaza

From Ma'an:

Israeli warplanes on Monday dropped warning leaflets in the northern areas of the Gaza Strip, witnesses and Israeli media reported.

The leaflets read:

"To the people of the Gaza Strip: The terrorists and smugglers are well aware that their terrorist acts of digging tunnels to smuggle military ammunition is a target for the Israeli Defense Forces, but they keep working and taking cover near your residences.

"Do not stand still. You are being used by terrorists who will not be by your side when you get hurt. Take responsibility for your future!"

The leaflet also provided a telephone number and email address to provide information to, with secrecy guaranteed, it added.

Ma'an blacked out the phone number and email, but Saraya.ps published it, probably without thinking.

So, Gaza residents, remember: call 02-5830746 or email to HelptoGaza2010@gmail.com when terrorists want to endanger your lives!

(By the way, the IDF has used that same phone number and email address for years, probably since Cast Lead.)

New York Times criticizes Israel for trying to save Arab lives (update)

This is really sickening reporting by the New York Times:

The call came to the cellphone of his brother’s wife, Salah Kaware said Tuesday. Mr. Kaware lives in Khan Younis, in southeast Gaza, and the caller said that everyone in the house must leave within five minutes, because it was going to be bombed.

A further warning came as the occupants were leaving, he said in a telephone interview, when an Israeli drone apparently fired a flare at the roof of the three-story home. “Our neighbors came in to form a human shield,” he said, with some even going to the roof to try to prevent a bombing. Others were in the stairway when the house was bombed not long afterward.

Seven people died, Mr. Kaware said, a figure also stated by the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza, which also said that 25 people were wounded. The Israeli military said that targeted houses belonged to Hamas members involved in launching rockets or other military activity, and that they had been used as operations rooms.

But the events on Tuesday were another example of a contentious Israeli policy in which occupants of a building about to be bombed or shelled are given a brief warning in Arabic to evacuate. The Israelis have used such telephone calls and leaflets for years now, in a stated effort to reduce civilian casualties and avoid charges of indiscriminate killings or even of crimes against the rules of war.

During Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in late 2008, the Israelis often used telephone calls and leaflets to tell occupants to leave before striking. In some cases, the Israelis fired missiles without explosive warheads onto the roof to get Palestinians who had gathered there to leave. The Israelis called it “the knock on the roof.” But often, as in the Khan Younis case on Tuesday, people die in any case, because they ignore or defy the warnings, or try to leave after it is too late.

And, of course, sometimes bombs and missiles do not hit the building at which they are aimed.

The Israelis also regularly drop leaflets over Gaza urging citizens not to cooperate with terrorism and to stay away from border zones, an injunction that has been criticized by human rights advocates, like the Palestinian organization Al-Haq, which argue that such leaflets do not protect Israel from allegations of the indiscriminate killing of civilians.

Where to begin?

The article clearly states that Gazans are deliberately putting themselves in harm's way, knowing that a rocket is coming and deciding to act as human shields anyway. The residents of the building made the decision to stay. (Those in the stairwells are not described as trying to flee, rather the implication is that they were heading to the roof as well. An earlier version of the article wrongly said the opposite.)

Also, if there was only a five minute period between the warning and the human shields assembling, the targets in the house must have been the people calling their neighbors to act as human shields.

But even though Gazans decide to go into an area about to be bombed, the Times is slamming Israel's policy of warning them. The IDF sacrifices the element of surprise in order to save lives; even though the terrorist leaders in the houses are legitimate military targets (yes, under the Geneva Conventions) who can live another day to attack Israelis if they heed the warning, as most do.

And the NYT criticizes Israel.

Article 28 of the Geneva Conventions, to which "Palestine" is legally bound, says "The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations." That is exactly what the Hamas human shields are doing.

The NYT and Al Haq and HRW which is also quoted in the article do not have a negative word to say about the flagrant Palestinian violation of international law but they criticize Israel for going beyond international law in an attempt to save the lives of its enemies.

(h/t David G)

UPDATE: Here is what the article said at one point, before it was edited out - apparently for not having been true:

A telephoned warning was made to the owner of the targeted home in Khan Younis five minutes before the bombing, apparently part of the Israeli military’s stated effort to minimize unintended civilian casualties. Salah Kaware, 25, who lived in the house, said that a call came to the cellphone of his brother’s wife, and that the caller urged them to leave. Some of the occupants were descending the upper floor stairway when the roof was hit with a rocket, Mr. Kaware said in a telephone interview.

A few hours later, the sentence "Some of the occupants were descending the upper floor stairway when the roof was hit with a rocket, Mr. Kaware said in a telephone interview." was deleted.

Clearly, either the reporters (at the time the article was credited to Isabel Kershner and Fares Akram) made the idea up that residents were leaving the house at the time of the bombing, or they realized that Kaware was lying when he said so, but that wasn't important enough to mention. And during that time the "human shield" part of the story was missing from the NYT.

Abbas spokesman implies that rockets aimed at Tel Aviv are "defensive"

Ma'an reports:

A Presidential spokesman on Tuesday condemned Israel's escalation of airstrikes on Gaza, saying Palestinians have the right to defend themselves.

Israel's new operation is a "declaration of war on Palestinians and the Israeli authority alone will bear the consequences," Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a statement.

"Palestinians have the right to defend themselves by all legitimate means," Abu Rudeineh said, calling the new assault on Gaza an "open massacre" against children, women, and the elderly.

Palestinian officials will make "fateful decisions" to defend their people, he added.

What exactly does that mean? Since it is a threat against Israel, it must mean that the PLO's definition of "defending itself" is to attack Israel. And since Gazans have no weapons to effectively target soldiers, it sounds like tacit support for the barrage of rockets that most of Israel has been having to deal with. Possibly also kidnappings. (Unless Abbas plans to instruct his security forces in the West Bank to start shooting at IDF forces there, and I don't think he is that stupid.)

A hint might come from this unintentionally funny video by the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, which is part of - who else - Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah.

The software that they used did not understand that Hebrew is read from right to left, so all the Hebrew threats are backwards. Even then, they make some major mistakes.

07/08 Links Pt2: Lumish: Where are the Jewish Riots?; Israel's Moloch Syndrome

From Ian:

Michael Lumish: Where are the Jewish Riots?

I cannot but help notice the general lack of Jewish rioting.
Three Jewish Israeli kids, including an American, were killed strictly for political reasons.
And, yet, there is no rioting. Jews are not rioting in the streets of Tel Aviv. Jews are not rioting in Jerusalem... or Yerushalayim... if you like. Jews are not rioting in Brooklyn and they are not rioting in Miami.
They are not rioting in Timbuktu nor Walla Walla, Washington.
They are not rioting in Canada nor Australia nor the United States nor England nor Ukraine.

Anti-Israel bloggers assume we hate like they hate — they are wrong

I added Legal Insurrection’s name to the list of pro-Israel blogs and bloggers supporting Elder of Ziyon’s open and unequivocal condemnation of the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir.
In a follow up post today, Elder makes points I made this morning in Israeli reaction to murder of teen a sign of Israel’s moral strength.

Israel's Moloch Syndrome

A morally superior society doesn't clamber onto some universalist moral high ground. It isn't infinite restraint in war that makes one society superior to the other. That's a recipe for the eventual extinction of everything that society has to offer, to itself and to the world.
The elements that make one society superior to another are to be found in its culture, its arts and its sciences, in its religious inspirations, its engineering feats, its medical research, its poems and songs, its roots to the past and its vision to the future. A morally superior society protects these things by protecting them against invaders and enemies.
Charity begins at home. So does morality.
A society that is too moral to protect itself is immoral because it is incapable of protecting the sources of its morality.

Malmo, Sweden: Man beaten for displaying an Israeli flag (update)

SvD Nyheter reports that a Malmo man placed an Israeli flag in the window of his house:

Someone threw a stone through the window, as you can see.

When the man went out to investigate on Sunday night he was attacked, kicked repeatedly and beaten with metal rods. One newspaper says that about a dozen men took part in the beating.

The man ran away but collapsed a short distance away, where he was found and taken to the hospital. He was still there Monday morning with serious but not life-threatening injuries.

While Malmo police have not yet classified it as a hate crime, they do say that their information indicates that he was beaten because of the flag.

Naturally, the media is not speculating on what kind of Malmo residents might have decided to beat a man for displaying a flag in his apartment window.

Between 10% and 20% of Malmo's residents are Muslim. Jews have been harassed, threatened and attacked constantly and many have fled the city for their own safety.

Here is a documentary from last year about the situation.

(h/t Ken S)

UPDATE: The victim's family was born in Iraq and later moved to Iran. He is a Kurd who is fond of Jews and Israel.

(h/t S)

WHAT REPORTERS NEED TO KNOW during Operation Protective Edge

As an observer of previous Israeli operations in Gaza, and as the person who has uncovered and publicized some huge journalistic errors during those times, I strongly caution reporters not to make the same mistakes that they have made in the past in their coverage.

Mistake #1: Assuming that all Gaza casualties are the result of Israeli airstrikes

Traditionally, the number of Gaza rockets that fall short and never reach Israel, or that explode as they are fired, is over 35% -and sometimes as high as 80%!.

Between June 12-25, terrorists fired 41 rockets at Israel, of which 24 exploded in Gaza, killing one child and injuring six more children. That is a 58% failure rate.

At least three Gaza civilians have been killed this year by terrorist rockets.

Egyptian politician kissing dead baby killed by Hamas

During Operation Pillar of Defense, the media was fooled at least twice - and possibly three times - with false Arab reports that children were killed by Israeli airstrikes when they were killed by errant terror rockets from Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Even schools have been hit by terrorist rockets.

Also, several civilians have been killed from gunfire during funerals of terrorists.

When terrorists are firing rockets hurriedly, as they are now, the chances for misfires is even greater. Not to mention "work accidents" (which have killed dozens this year alone) are probably more likely to occur in Gaza weapons workshops and laboratories.

Also Gaza spokespersons are known to lie and blame Israel for deaths caused by internal explosions.

For all these reasons, journalists must be especially careful when reporting on civilian deaths in Gaza.

The rule of thumb is that if the IDF denies an airstrike in an area where people were killed, the people were not killed by an Israeli airstrike.

On a similar note:

Mistake #2: Assuming that Gaza casualties and damage are the direct result of Israeli airstrikes

Lots of Israeli airstrikes towards terror targets hit weapons caches and explosives, and often the secondary explosions are larger than the direct explosion from the strike. Israeli forces don't always know the size of the weapons caches, and sometimes the secondary explosions cause deaths and injuries that cannot be blamed on Israel which is only aiming at military targets according to the laws of armed conflict.

This is of course much more difficult to know for sure, but stories should be filed with this in mind.

Mistake #3: Believing that victims are civilian when they are not

Most of the time, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are happy to announce deaths of their members, ushering them into paradise. But not during wartime.

Over 750 of the people killed during Cast Lead were terrorists, but Hamas did not publicize the deaths of many of them until months afterwards. As a result, during the operation the media assumed, wrongly, that the majority of deaths were civilian. It took a long time to research and crosscheck the names of the dead and their affiliations. (It would be wonderful if an enterprising reporter would do this research instead of people like me.)

Some NGOs will even call combatants "children" in order to inflate the number of supposedly civilians being killed. DCI-Palestine and Euro-Mid Observer have been particularly egregious in this regard.

PCHR and Al Mezan doesn't lie as badly, but their definition of "combatant" is usually restricted to anyone in uniform actively engaged in fighting, not terrorists who are hiding in civilian clothing. So Hamas "policemen" who are also members of the Al Qassam Brigades terror group would invariably be called "civilian" even though Hamas admits that they regard them as combatants.

It is easy to allow oneself to be fooled in the fog of war, especially when one doesn't know the history of how terror groups manipulate the media. Let's hope that this time around the reporters are more aware of the pitfalls of believing, uncritically, what terrorists and their supporters tell them.

I don't usually ask this, but please tweet or email this to every reporter and media outlet you know.

07/08 Links Pt1: Operation Protective Edge Commences; 450 Rockets Since January, 200 in June

From Ian:

Operation ‘Protective Edge’ Commences as IDF Targets Terror Sites in the Gaza Strip

In combined efforts of both aerial and naval forces, the IDF targeted overnight approximately 50 terror sites and targets across the Gaza Strip, commencing operation ‘Protective Edge’ – aimed to retrieve stability to the residents of southern Israel, eliminate Hamas’ capabilities and destroy terror infrastructure operating against the State of Israel and its civilians.
Among the targets are 4 activity sites utilized by Hamas operatives who are responsible for numerous rocket attacks and were involved in various terror activities against the State of Israel.

IDF Targets Two Terror Sites in Op. Protective Edge

3.5 Million Lives in Danger: the Growing Range of Hamas Rockets

More Than 450 Gaza Rockets Fired at Israel Since January, 200 in Last Month

Since January of this year, Gaza terrorists have fired more than 450 rockets towards Israeli citizens in communities across southern Israel, according to an IDF spokesperson. More than 200 of those rockets have been fired since June 12, the day on which three Israeli teens were abducted and murdered by Hamas terrorists.
At least 80 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel within 24 hours on Monday, July 27, with air raid sirens sounding throughout Monday night in southern Israel including the city of Ofakim and the Merhavim region. According to the IDF, 11 of the 80 rockets were shot down by Iron Dome systems. The IDF spokesperson also stated that Hamas was responsible for launching a large majority of the rockets.

Iron Dome Intercepts Rockets Over Ashdod

ToI Liveblog: State orders massive call-up of 40,000 reserves as Gaza death toll hits 10

Israel launched a major operation against Gaza in the early hours of Tuesday morning, dubbed Operation Protective Edge, following heavy Hamas rocket fire over the preceding days. The fast-escalating situation in the south comes in the shadow of spiking Jewish-Arab tensions in Israel over the brutal killings of four teenagers — three Jews and one Arab — by extremists. Stay with The Times of Israel’s liveblog for updates throughout the day.

Gaza rocket tallies for the past two weeks

June 27: 6 rockets, 2 intercepted
June 28: 3 rockets, Sderot factory burned to ground
June 29: 4 rockets, 2 intercepted
June 30: 16 rockets
July 1: 5 rockets, several mortars, damage to vehicles and a major fire as a result, also mortars
July 2: 10 rockets, 9 mortars, 1 intercepted
July 3: 13 rockets, homes and a summer camp damaged
July 4: 25 rockets, several mortars, 3 intercepted
July 5: Over 20 rockets, including to Beersheva, several mortars, 3 intercepted, some damage and an injury
July 6: Over 25 rockets, some damage
July 7: Over 85 rockets, Hamas claimed to shoot 100 and Islamic Jihad claimed to shoot 60. 13 intercepted
July 8: At least 160 rockets, 7 intercepted, so far, some damage and injuries

This is the best I could do at the moment, but the figures are not definitive. Sources include this constantly updating Wikipedia page as well as Israeli and Arabic media.

BBC exposes Pallywood lies in #GazaUnderAttack Twitter hashtag

In 2012, BBC correspondent Jon Donnison tweeted this:

Only one problem: The photo was actually taken in Syria.

The BBC reporter reflexively assumed that a photo that accompanies a tweet is accurate - when it is anti-Israel.

The good news is that the BBC has now exposed the fact that this same type of purposeful anti-Israel photographic propaganda is happening all the time, today, under the "#GazaUnderAttack" hashtag that the Israel haters are using on Twitter.

Over the past week the hashtag #GazaUnderAttack has been used hundreds of thousands of times, often to distribute pictures claiming to show the effects of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.

A #BBCtrending investigation has found that many of these images are not from the latest conflict and not even from Gaza. Some date as far back as 2009 and others are from conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

Twitter is a wonderful tool, but it is an even better tool for propagating lies.

Amnesty re-interprets international laws specifically to damn Israel

Amnesty International, after the three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped but before we knew their fate, issued a statement that (after calling for the release of the Israelis) listed a litany of supposed Israeli violations of international law in the IDF's attempts to find the boys.

One of the supposed violations was this:

The Israeli authorities are also considering transferring Hamas officials or prisoners who are residents of the West Bank to the Gaza Strip. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits an occupying power from forcibly transferring or deporting people from an occupied territory.

An EoZ reader sent Amnesty a question about this:

In your [statement], you say that Israeli authorities are considering transferring Hamas officials or prisoners who are residents of the West Bank to the Gaza Strip, and that this would be forbidden since the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits an occupying power from forcibly transferring or deporting people from an occupied territory.

However, Amnesty International also claims that Gaza is currently belligerently occupied by Israel. If that is the case, transferring Hamas officials who are residents of the West Bank to the Gaza Strip is simply a reassignment of residence of persons within occupied territory that is explicitly permitted by article 78 of the Geneva Convention. In any event, transfer to Gaza could not possibly be a "deportation" from occupied territory.

Is Amnesty International now finally admitting that the Gaza Strip is not belligerently occupied by Israel?

For background, here is Article 78 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions:

If the Occupying Power considers it necessary, for imperative reasons of security, to take safety measures concerning protected persons, it may, at the most, subject them to assigned residence or to internment.

The ICRC's 1958 commentary adds:

Unlike the Articles which come before it, Article 78 relates to people who have not been guilty of any infringement of the penal provisions enacted by the Occupying Power, but that Power may, for reasons of its own, consider them dangerous to its security and is consequently entitled to restrict their freedom of action.
The security measures envisaged are "assigned residence" and "internment", which have already been considered in detail in connection with Articles 41 and 42 .
It will suffice to mention here that as we are dealing with occupied territory, the protected persons concerned will benefit by the provisions of Article 49 and cannot be deported; they can therefore only be interned, or placed in assigned residence, within the frontiers of the occupied country itself. In any case, such measures can only be ordered for real and imperative reasons of security; their exceptional character must be preserved.

It sure looks like Amnesty must indeed consider Gaza to be a different territory than Judea and Samaria, and not part of the "occupied territories," for its reasoning to have any legal weight. Article 78 is quite clear.

My correspondent received a reply from Gordon Bennett, Supporter Care Team, Amnesty International UK. (I am making the assumption, supported by knowledgeable people, that Bennett's responses on behalf of Amnesty are considered on the record.)

Bennett wrote a condescending and, frankly, outlandish response that completely moved the goalposts to keep claiming Israel is violating international law, while abandoning Amnesty's main argument completely:

Hi XXX,

Nice try, but no. Like the vast majority of the world's governments, NGOs and international institutions, we recognise that Gaza remains under occupation, despite the removal of settlers and ground troops (excepting the regular incursions of course), as Israel retains effective control over the territory.

Assigned residence, like administrative detention/internment, is permitted under international law only when absolutely necessary. The way both assigned residence and adminstrative [sic] detention/internment are used by Israel far exceeds what is permitted under international law.

Regards,
Gordon Bennett

In other words, Amnesty is saying to ignore their previous statement. At first, they claimed that moving a Hamas member to Gaza was a violation of Article 49. They agree that there is no violation of the Geneva Conventions if Israel decided to transfer a Hamas member to Gaza. They now claim that Israeli behavior is illegal for a totally different and completely inconsistent reason - that it violates their quite novel interpretation of Article 78, and that same logic blows up their earlier assertion that it is a violation of Article 49.

Yet they write "Nice try," as if a mere letter writer cannot possibly have the same intellectual prowess as an Amnesty spokesperson - who just abandoned his own organization's previous legal reasoning.

Beyond that, Amnesty's original statement said "The Israeli authorities are also considering transferring Hamas officials..." In their response they say that "The way ...assigned residence [is] used by Israel far exceeds what is permitted under international law." How can Amnesty make such a statement when they themselves say that the idea is only speculation? It seems that Israeli officials' very thoughts are now considered to be gross violations of international law before any action is actually done, before anyone can evaluate whether the theoretical people being moved are indeed a security risk or not!

Amnesty (and others) have accused Israel of "excessive" behavior in the past without being qualified to and without knowing all the facts, which is bad enough. But here it is accusing Israel of excessiveness before Israel actually does anything.

Amnesty is the prosecutor, judge and jury in pre-emptively deciding Israel is criminal, and its legal reasoning is not nearly as important as the pre-determined result.

To call this outrageous would be an understatement. This is the exact opposite of objectivity.

Who is Gordon Bennett, the "Supporter Care Team" member of Amnesty UK?

While working at Amnesty, he was also a member of the International Solidarity Movement, the pro-Hamas organization that has actively aided terrorists,. He has taken part in anti-Israel, pro-BDS demonstrations in London. He is as far from objective as someone can be.

Not that he is the first person Amnesty hired as an expert on the Middle East who has a long record of anti-Israel incitement- and who makes up facts as they go along in order to convey a consistently anti-Israel message.

In a sane world, being a member of an anti-Israel organization would disqualify someone from being part of a "human rights" organization that claims to be objective.

For Amnesty, it may be a prerequisite.

(h/t Mike et. al.)

News from the new, moderate Iran

From AFP:

Iranian journalist Marzieh Rasouli said on Monday that she has been sentenced to two years in Tehran's notorious Evin prison and 50 lashes for publishing anti-regime propaganda.

Rasouli, respected for her work as an arts and culture reporter for leading reformist media outlets, including the Shargh and Etemaad dailies, was detained in January 2012 as part of a crackdown.

She was later freed on bail, but her incarceration -- shortly before a parliamentary election -- drew international condemnation led by the United States and France.

In a statement posted Monday on Twitter, Rasouli said she had been charged with "propaganda against the establishment and disruption of public order through participation in gatherings."

The first charge has been commonly used by Iran's conservative-dominated judiciary to convict activists and journalists since the disputed 2009 presidential election that triggered widespread anti-regime protests.

Rasouli suggested the sentence had been approved by an appeals court, without elaborating, only adding that "I have to go to prison tomorrow to serve my sentence."

From Al Arabiya:

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is contemplating a ban on vasectomies and other birth control measures in an attempt to rekindle the Islamic Republic’s falling birthrate.

The birth rate has dropped from 3.2 percent in 1986 to 1.22 percent now, according to the CIA World Factbook. At present fertility rates, Iran's median age is projected to increase from 28 in 2013 to 40 by 2030, according to U.N. data.

In his 14-point decree online, Khamenei said increasing Iran's 76 million-strong population would “strengthen national identity” and reverse “undesirable aspects of Western lifestyles.”

Khamenei is ambitiously calling for a population of 150 million.

In reaction, Tehran lawmakers passed a bill that would see the imprisonment of doctors for five years if found guilty of performing birth control procedures. The bill is yet to be ratified and will be scrutinized by a constitutional watch dog.

We knew Rohani would reform the Islamic Republic!

07/07 Links Pt2: Gideon Levy's hidden racism; Review-‘Making David into Goliath’ Israel and the left

From Ian:

Book review: ‘Making David into Goliath’ by Joshua Muravchik - Israel and the left

Why did so many progressives abandon Israel and Zionism? That's the question Joshua Muravchik sets out to answer in "Making David Into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel." Part polemic, part intellectual history, this thoughtful and timely study explores Zionism's shifting position in the progressive imagination, "from a redemptive refuge from two thousand years of persecution to the very embodiment of white supremacy," as Mr. Muravchik puts it.
The author, a fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, recalls how during its first two decades of existence the Jewish state attracted sympathy from broad swaths of the Western left. That support reached its apogee during the Six Day War, when some 3,700 academics signed a letter in the New York Times calling on the U.S. to militarily intervene in the conflict—on Israel's side. At the height of the war, the cause of Israel's survival united Hannah Arendt, Lionel Trilling, Ralph Ellison, Martin Luther King, Pablo Picasso and Jean-Paul Sartre, among other progressive luminaries.
Yet 1967 would also prove to be a turning point. Around the same time, the Palestinians launched a war of ideas against Israel's legitimacy that persists to this day. Having redefined themselves as a nation separate from the Arabs, the Palestinians thenceforth articulated their struggle as one for national self-determination against a colonial power.

The hidden racism of Gideon Levy

Gideon Levy is one of the most recognised voices of Haaretz newspaper, and as such he's much more recognised outside of Israel, since Haaretz and it's flagman Levy are so keen on making easy money from sensational, slanderous anti-Israeli fabrications, nobody inside of Israel bothers to read. From manipulating statistical data to meet his own worldview, to simply making up horror stories about the Israeli border police, Levy's lies have been revealed countless times by a variety of bodies and journalists. From his most recent pearls you have Israel "ordering" the kidnapping of the Judea and Samaria schoolboys (the Hebrew headline, in fact, states just that), all for provocation sake. Of course, nothing of the sort can be found in the actual article, because nothing of the sort ever took place. What can be found in abundance is only the typical blaming of Israel for the acts of filthy terrorists.

Studying Muslim Anti-Semitism in America

Steven Baum is an Albuquerque-based clinical psychologist who has been in private practice for over 30 years. He developed an interest in the psychology of genocide and then focused on the psychology of anti-Semitism during the next decade. He has published numerous articles and books on anti-Semitism, genocide and hate, and is the founder and editor of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.
“From the study, it became clear that the Muslims interviewed were more anti-Semitic than Christians in the United States and Canada. The average or mean test scores endorsing negative Jewish stereotypes – after statistically separating out anti-Israel sentiment items – were more than double those of North American Christians. When separating culture from religion, Arab Muslims came out as the most anti-Semitic. Arab Christians and Non-Arab Muslims from Bosnia and Pakistan were less so, yet still anti-Semitic. Mainstream North American Christians were not very anti-Semitic at all.

Rep. Gohmert Criticizes Textbook's Failure to Label Hezbollah, Hamas Terrorist Organizations

As TruthRevolt reported Wednesday, social studies textbooks currently being proposed for the Texas school system fail to label Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.
Thursday Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert (R) told TruthRevolt he hoped that Texas would not adopt books promoting such “mis-education,” saying that truly educational texts should inform students of the reality of the dangers of terrorist groups, adding, “Only then will we have any chance of avoiding future mass attacks.”
"Hopefully, Texas will not adopt any textbook such as these that completely fails to educate students on which groups are terrorist organizations that actually want to kill them and destroy true liberty.
This type of mis-education would only set the students up for an incredulous shock when America gets hit with another 9-11 mass murder. Instead, true educating textbooks would make sure they knew substantially how eager the terrorist groups are to terrorize and kill innocent people like the students themselves. Only then will we have any chance of avoiding future mass attacks."
The new social studies textbooks and supplementary educational materials under consideration for adoption in 2015 will be used by 5 million students in the state. Due to its population, Texas is viewed by many states as the testing ground for educational materials.

Thousands of chickens killed by rocket - the UN will condemn this, right?

Back in 2010, the UN Goldstone Report spent countless hours researching and over 20 paragraphs discussing the destruction of the Sawafeary chicken farms during Operation Cast Lead:

On or around the night of 3 January 2009 Israeli troops arrived at a number of houses on al-Sekka Road in Zeytoun. The Mission interviewed four people who were direct witnesses to and victims of the events that occurred in the aftermath of their arrival. One witness was interviewed three times for a total of five hours and testified at the public hearings in Gaza. Another three were interviewed for an hour each. The Mission also visited the site of the Sawafeary chicken farms

...The Mission makes the same findings regarding article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and article 54 (2) of Additional Protocol I, article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and article 12 (2) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women as it made above in relation to the el-Bader flour mill. [e.g.]

The right to adequate food therefore requires the right to food security (through either self-production or adequate income) and the “fundamental” right to be free from hunger. That Israel has not created a state of hunger is the result largely of the external aid provided to the population of Gaza. It has, however, severely affected the ability of Gazans both to produce food and to purchase it.

Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that “in no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.”

The right to adequate food is also reflected in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which requires State parties to guarantee to women “adequate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation.”

The Mission finds that, as a result of its actions to destroy food and water supplies and infrastructure, Israel has violated article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and article 12 (2) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

See how seriously the UN takes the destruction of chicken coops, even during wartime?

So no doubt the UN will apply the same standards to Gaza terror groups, from where a rocket just destroyed a chicken farm and killed thousands of chickens this morning:

I'm sure Amnesty and HRW are also busily writing expansive reports all about this.

Oh, by the way - Hamas is now taking responsibility for the rocket attacks. From Felesteen:

The al-Qassam Brigades, military wing of the Hamas movement, on Monday evening announced it shot dozens of rockets towards towns and Israeli settlements in the south of occupied Palestine. The Brigades said in a press release that they "bombed sites in Netivot and Ofakim and Ashdod and Ashkelon, dozens of rockets, in response to Israeli aggression".

Hamas is part of the PA, so the UN should have no problem condemning the PA for attacking Israeli civilians - and chickens.

Unless you are playing a game of "disproportionate responsibility," where one side is always responsible and the other side isn't....

(h/t Yenta)

Molotov cocktails again thrown at Joseph's Tomb

Yesterday I noted that Arabs threw firebombs at Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus) on Saturday morning. There were no Israelis there; Jews who want to pray there only visit once or twice a month under heavy guard in the middle of the night.

Last night, the tomb was attacked again:

Dozens of Palestinian youths hurled Molotov cocktails at Joseph's Tomb in Nablus late Sunday, security officials said.

Palestinian security forces told Ma'an that youths gathered in the area after late prayers and hurled firebombs at the tomb, before being dispersed by security personnel.

The attack of a Jewish holy site is a purely antisemitic act. No "settlers," no Israeli flag, nothing remotely "Zionist" about it.

While the PA did try to protect it this time, I can find no condemnations of these acts that cannot be remotely construed as "anti-Zionist."