Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, July 09, 2014

Satan Tired Of Hamas Leaving Gates Of Hell Open All The Time (PreOccupied Territory)

More from the humor site PreOccupied Territory:

Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip, July 9 - The leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad threatened to "open the gates of Hell" on Israel if the latter continued attacking their fighters launching rockets at Israel, but the chief resident of Hell is not amused, and complains that Hamas is perpetually opening those gates and neglecting to close them after passing through.

"This is at least the fourth time in the last few years that Hamas has opened those gates, but I'll be damned if they've bothered to close them again even once," said Satan this afternoon. "We have countless imps running around, completely unaware that they can fall into the River Styx. Thank God that hasn't happened yet, but our demons already have their hands full with their regular duties and don't need to be neglecting their torture assignments to go rounding up the imps because some terrorists forgot basic manners and put all of the little ones at risk."

He also noted other disruptions that occurred as a result of the open gates. "The temperature down here is calibrated very precisely, and those cold drafts that come in through the open gates play hell with our thermostats," he explained. "I'd expect people who are our natural allies in the mortal realm to take into account our basic needs."

Another minor grievance involves the difference in humidity between the inside of Hell and existence beyond the gates. "When the gates stay open for too long at a time, the humidity in here shifts dramatically, and it messes up Mrs. Satan's hair. You don't want to be in the same chamber as her when that happens."

But most egregious of all, says the Prince of Darkness, are the journalists who come poking around when the gates are carelessly left swinging in the breeze. "We had a reporter here yesterday from TMZ. He just waltzed in and started asking questions about how Michael Jackson is faring here. As if we need the headache. Mind you, this particular correspondent found out pretty darn quickly that freedom of the press is not a concept we respect here."

Lucifer has sent repeated reminders to Hamas that they are expected to close the gates when they use them, but understands that they might not see the urgency of doing so. "What am I going to do, threaten them with Hell? They already live in the Gaza Strip. I can't compete with that."

07/09 Links Pt1: Operation Protective Edge; IDF Foils Terror Attacks from the Ocean and Tunnels

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Protective Edge

Hamas, meanwhile, has vowed to expand the range of its rocket attacks to Tel Aviv and has rejected any talk of deescalation. Until now, there were many factors mitigating against Hamas attacking on a large scale.
The terrorist organization has been severely weakened by a number of recent developments, from the loss of its Iranian and Syrian patrons, to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s destruction of the lifeline tunnels from Sinai that connected the Gaza Strip to goods, materials and weapons from the outside world, to the lack of financial support from Qatar, to Saudi Arabi’as antagonism toward the Muslim Brotherhood and, as an extension, toward Hamas. But according to Benedetta Berti, a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, Hamas is stepping up rocket attacks on Israel to boost its popularity.
“After every armed struggle, Hamas’s popularity goes up,” Berti says.
Because Israel is so widely vilified in the Arab world, Hamas gains support by attacking Israeli civilians. If innocent Palestinian civilians are inadvertently injured or killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli retaliation, the benefits to Hamas are compounded.

Amidror: If We Have to Go In to Gaza – Then Let's Go All the Way

Operation "Protective Edge" is underway, and already the Israeli public feels a sense of deja-vu. Given similar operations in the past, it's easy to predict what will happen over the next few days: the headlines will blare "The IDF prepares for a ground incursion", while the Air Force will work overtime, reserves will be called up and the "Home Front" will be asked to "keep calm." Meanwhile, Hamas will continue to make the lives of Israeli citizens in the south miserable, perhaps even giving residents of the country's center a "taste" of the experience. The operation will end with the declaration that "deterrence has been restored"; the citizens of Israel will meantime take bets on when the next such outburst will happen.
Is this merry-go-round inevitable or is it possibly to defeat Hamas once and for all, thus permanently restoring peace to the south of the country? If the latter, then how?
Mida spoke with three experts with extensive experience in the defense and diplomatic arenas to see what they have to suggest.

IDF Foils Palestinian Terror Attack Launched From Sea Near Gaza (VIDEO)

Israeli army forces interdicted and foiled a Palestinian terror squad trying to infiltrate the Kibbutz Zikim area just north of Gaza, Tuesday evening.
IDF troops killed five gunmen in the bid to carry out a terror attack under cover of a heavy rocket barrage overhead, according to the IDF Spokesman.

Hamas Terrorists Infiltrate Israel and are Neutralized

Israel Navy Prevents Infiltration of Hamas Terrorists

Will the State Department condemn Abbas for his own group's rocket fire?

Yesterday, the Washington Free Beacon noted that the State Department was continuing to maintain that Hamas is not part of the "unity" government and therefore Mahmoud Abbas cannot be held responsible in the slightest for rocket attacks:

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki claimed again Tuesday that “no evidence” existed that the terrorist organization Hamas “plays any role” in the Palestinian government.

A reporter asked Psaki if President Mahmoud Abbas bore any blame for the current fighting between Israel and Hamas, saying, “at one point, yes, it was a conflict between just the U.S. and Hamas, and Abbas had no real kind of skin in the game, because it was between the two parties even though it was affecting the Palestinian people directly. But now, he’s part of a unity government and has some influence with Hamas now, wouldn’t you say?”

” Well, we have no evidence that Hamas plays any role in the interim technocratic government, and as far as we know, there have also been no steps taken for the implementation of the reconciliation,” Psaki said.

In my opinion, the reporter (almost certainly Matt Lee of AP) did not ask the right question.

The State Department can claim that no Hamas members are part of the PA, which is not really much of a government to begin with since it only deals with domestic matters. However, Mahmoud Abbas has a far more direct responsibility for rocket attacks against Israel.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is part of Fatah, has taken gleeful credit for a number of rocket salvos on Israel. And Mahmoud Abbas is the leader of Fatah.

This Fatah group issued three press releases yesterday claiming credit for shooting 19 rockets at Israel (which they call "usurped land") including 11 rockets towards Ashkelon.

They don't even claim that they are aiming at military targets, only naming the cities that they are shooting the rockets toward.

Abbas has not condemned rocket attacks by his group aimed at Israeli civilians. There is no indication that he has dissociated himself from this group. It is entirely possible that Fatah - or the Fatah-dominated PLO - pays their salaries.

This clear connection between the "man of peace" Mahmoud Abbas and the terror group that answers to him is the issue that the State Department must address.

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!