Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 14, 2014

07/14 Links Pt1: Bibi: We use missiles to protect civilians, Hamas use civilians to protect their missiles.

From Ian:

Bibi On Fighting "The Rocketeers" & On "The Preeminent Terrorist Empire Of Our Time" (video)

"[H]ere's the difference between us. We are using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they're using their civilians to protect their missiles. That's basically the difference. They're embedding these rockets that they're firing wholesale into our cities, terrorist rocketing, trying to kill as many as they can.
They're not succeeding because of two reasons. One is because we've developed this incredible missile defense system, which I think is a historic development in the history of defensive warfare ...
But the other reason we're succeeding, you have to understand some of the rockets do pierce through this shield. The reason we're succeeding is also because we're targeting the rocketeers. The rocketeers are firing from homes, these homes are actually command posts of the Hamas and Islamic jihad army. So, that's where they have their secure communications, weapon caches, rockets hidden, map rooms, so on. These are the command posts.

Benjamin Netanyahu Fox News Sunday We Use Missiles to Defend Civilians Hamas Uses Civilians..

Netanyahu: Imagine 80% of Americans in Bomb Shelters

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on CBS's Face the Nation Sunday from Tel Aviv just as another round of sirens sounded, sending the city under yet another red alert. The prime minister asked viewers to imagine this scenario happening in every city in America:
Well, the sirens went off because Hamas have fired rockets on Israel's major city. They're firing rockets at all our cities. I want your audience to imagine what it would be like if all the cities of the United States -- I'm not just talking about New York and Washington, I'm talking about all the cities of the United States from the East Coast to Colorado. 80% of your population would be in bomb shelters, with a minute to a minute and a half red alert warning time to get into those shelters. That's what we're experiencing right now as we speak. So this is an unconscionable terrorist attack on civilian populations and of course we have to act to defend ourselves.

Dermer: Hamas Deliberately Targets Civilians, Israel Does Not

Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and Face the Nation guest Ron Dermer said Sunday while Hamas was deliberately targeting civilians during its fighting, Israel would continue to make all efforts to avoid killing or hurting civilians on its end.
Host Bob Schieffer played a video during the interview from the Israel Defense Forces of a pilot being told that a target set to be attacked in Gaza had children inside, and thus he backed off.
“When our pilots are targeting a particular site, they try to make sure that it’s clear of civilians,” Dermer said. “There are many, many military operations that are called off, because we see that there are civilians that are going to come into harm’s way. That’s the difference between us and Hamas. Hamas is deliberately targeting our civilians. They want to kill as many civilians in Israel as possible.”

Danny Ayalon: Lessons learned

The relatively low number of casualties in Gaza during the operation so far, despite the IDF’s’ intensive attacks, which are even stronger than the IDF attacks during “Cast Lead”, result from the precise and optimized use of advanced warning such as “Knock on the Roof”, and avoiding direct hits on schools, hospitals and mosques, even when it is a known thing that rockets and other weaponry are being hidden there.
In light of the IDF’s responsible conduct, Hamas is finally seen, not only in Western media, but in the Arab media as well, as a cynical, cruel, and irresponsible terror organization. An organization that uses a civilian population as human shields, and even calls for them to use their bodies to protect Hamas leaders and their rockets, while the Hamas terrorists and leaders themselves stay well-hidden and protected in underground tunnels and warehouses set in the midst of a civilian populace.

This morning Hamas announced that it had deployed drones to Israel. One drone was shot down over Ashdod.

Hamas also claimed to have sent a drone that performed a successful reconnaissance mission towards the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, as well as other drones. Those claims are unlikely. (Hamas did release some video of some generic farmland as proof.)

Hamas named the drones as the Ababil-1, with three configurations: the A1A for reconnaissance, the A1B for dropping bombs and the A1C for "suicide missions."

It turns out that Iran has named drones the Ababll since at least 2006. They were used by Hezbollah as well as Sudan.

The naming could be a coincidence, although if the drone has any sophistication is very possibly did come from Iran. (On the other hand, mail-order remote controlled airplanes have become pretty sophisticated in recent years, although I don't know if they can be guided for 60 km.)

The Ababil in Muslim mythology is a bird that dropped bricks of shale on enemy elephants to protect Mecca from a Yemeni invasion. Operation Pillar of Defense was called "Shale Stones" by Hamas to recall the same event.

A couple of suspected Hezbollah drones have been intercepted over Israel in recent years, and a Hamas plot to send drones from the West Bank was foiled by PA security forces.

Ten days ago we saw images of Arabs rioting and destroying the light rail system in Jerusalem that served - them.

Arab rioters in Shuafat, the hometown of murdered Arab teenager Muhammad Abu Khdeir, launched bombs at three light rail stations over the July 4th holiday weekend and severed the train lines to ensure that the system is beyond repair, according to sources on the ground who toured the city.

Shuafat has been one of the main epicenters of violence and riots in Jerusalem since it was announced that Israeli citizens killed Khdeir in an apparent revenge attack for the recent kidnapping and murder by Hamas of three Jewish teenagers.

Rioters in the city were spotted pulling up pieces of the sidewalk near the rail station and using handheld saws to cut into the rail line, which was completed about three years ago.

Others spray painted violent messages against Israel, including one that read: “Death to Israel,” according to photographs.

A new IMRA report shows that not only did Israel manage to get the light rail up and running again, but it appears that these attacks were anything but spontaneous:

The CityPass Jerusalem light rail service wasn't just trashed by rioters in the Arab Shuafat neighborhood, it was systematically destroyed.

Arab teams came in with jackhammers to reach the copper cable wire running by the tracks while other teams came with equipment to saw off massive electric poles as others brought in trucks to pour cement on tracks while fuel was poured on the tracks to burn off the rubber elements. Discussion groups on the Internet speculated that it would take up to a year to restore service and that service would run next to Shuafat rather than through the middle of the neighborhood.

Why the systematic destruction? One veteran Israeli reporter told IMRA that Fatah was behind the move as they control the taxi service from Shuafat to the rest of the city and destroying the light rail was a move to restore a major source of income.

But it didn't take a year to restore service.

This Sunday CityPass was already running their trains per the regular schedule.

CityPass COO Shay Eisenberg told IMRA that while the service is up and running that there is a lot of work yet to be completed. Since the traffic lights in the neighborhood and communications were destroyed, the train "has to cross intersections like a car without a traffic light". The two stations in Shuafat were completely destroyed so passengers board in a
makeshift arrangement.

Spontaneous rioters don't usually form into teams to grab jackhammers, cement trucks and chainsaws.

It seems to me that some people have been hoping for and planning a third intifada for a while, and the light rail was a natural target:

It helps unify Jerusalem
It is a symbol of Jews and Arabs traveling together
It was the object of BDS wrath

So while I don't know about the taxi service claim, the idea that the light rail had been chosen ahead of time to be a focus for an uprising seems quite likely.

(h/t Elihu)

Hamas' message is a bit different in English and Arabic

Here is Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades official English website, filled with headlines about supposed Israeli atrocities and human rights violations:

Here is their (autotranslated) official Arabic website. It is a little more...militaristic. It is filled with press releases bragging about every rocket and missile they fire towards "usurped" Arab lands, about how Zionists are being killed and living in fear.

Unbelievable anti-semitic attacks in Paris

The story from JSSNews is chilling:

I'm in Paris.

I've seen these videos where they shout "Death to the Jews" in the streets of Paris. But the truth is that with a video, we are still not that aware of this reality.

So when I, completely by chance, ended up at Republic Square in the middle of the afternoon, and I saw this pro-Palestinian rally, .... But I wanted to see it more closely.

I do not have the peace of mind enough to write about it as it happened. It's too hot.

But then:

- Death to the Jews
- Death to Ashkenazi!
- Hitler was right
- Hamas Resistance!
- Jihad! Jihad! Jihad!
- Palestine must finish the job (started by Hitler)

At the microphone, to approach the Place de la Bastille, (yes, the microphone also) they shouted "Death to the Jews!"...

In restaurants passersby do not know what to say. In any case, they do not dare move. France has worked the same way: the good people were too scared to move.

We see Palestinian flags, Algeria, Iraq. Signs of support to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Not a word about the children of Syria. Or carnage in Sudan. Or slavery in Qatar. Or women's rights in Saudi Arabia. Tolerance, respect and love? No, simply hate. Eyes that scream "Die!"

And even ... And even a replica of a Palestinian missile that crashed on an Israeli nursery is paraded. Widely applauded. Those who can, embrace. Admiration.

There are 200,000 deaths in Syria. This afternoon the demonstration in Paris is to denounce the 150 dead in Gaza.

Rue des Rosiers, rue de la Roquette, the place of Voltaire, violence. Wounded also, at least 4. Blood. The blood of innocents.

And in the streets, scooters reversed. Police remains speechless. Jews who lock themselves in synagogues.

"Fuck the Jews" on boulevard Voltaire. Sticks, keffiyeh and "dead Jews" in St. Paul. Attempt of a rampage of Jewish shops on rue de Turenne.

In the swamp, fifty barbarians, iron bars in hand, walk to cause fear. And hit. And hurt. Break the Yid. ..The Jewish minority of France is forced to hide in the halls of buildings in the center of Paris.

Joel Mergui prend la parole: "nous ne sommes plus en danger, nous sommes chez nous, dans cette syna et en France". pic.twitter.com/a4FXAwZAML
— Gary Assoulinho (@garyassouline) July 13, 2014

On the Boulevard Beaumarchais, projectiles flew toward the police, who responded with tear gas.

The attack on the synagogue has been denounced by politicians in France, but the real problem of huge numbers of Muslims who have no desire to act in a lawful manner, and who can be easily whipped up into a pogrom, does not seem to be a high priority for the French police.

We've already seen the Abu Nidal Brigades and the Abdul-Qader al-Husseini Brigades, both part of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah terror organization, have taken credit for rocket fire into Israel.

Now a third Fatah group has joined them:

[T]he Ayman Judah Brigades, an offshoot of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, said in a statement that its fighters fired a missile at Kibbutz Miflasim and two homemade projectiles at Kibbutz Beeri.

And a fourth:

[T]he National Resistance Brigades, a military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the al-Asifa Army, an offshoot of Fatah’s al-Aqsa Brigades, said in a joint statement that their fighters fired two Grad missiles at Eshkol regional council.

Wow, those "moderate" Fatah terrorists are multiplying faster than Mahmoud Abbas can pretend to dismantle them!

I am still amazed that not a single reporter thinks of asking PLO and PA representatives on TV about these Fatah terror groups that report to the leader of Fatah - "President" Mahmoud Abbas, the great hope for "peace." These Fatah terrorists are bragging about their ability to shoot rockets against their "peace partners" and idiotic pundits still talk as if somehow Fatah is the hope for peace and Hamas is the only terrorist group here.

Fatah is exactly like Hamas, except they are better at lying, a legacy of their founder Yasir Arafat.

Meanwhile:

The Al-Ansar Brigades said in a statement that its fighters fired four missiles toward Kerem Shalom military base.

Yes, they are shooting rockets at the place where Israel is sending them food, fuel and medicines.

Another small fact that the media seems to not quite realize.

(h/t Alexi)

So, now we are at it again, huh.

I am writing this on the morning of Friday, July 11, so it may very well be entirely out of date by the time that you read it on Sunday the 13th. But, despite the fact that most Americans do not realize it - and would not care if they did - the Jews of the Middle East are, yet again, in another mini-war with the front-line Arab troops in Gaza.

And they are calling it Operation Protective Edge.

I honestly do not think that I like the name. It is just too ambiguous. Protective Edge? What does that even mean, really? Or does it have a connotation in Hebrew that I am unaware of?

I think that I would have gone with something more like... I don't know... Operation We Are Going to Kick Your Ass?

To my ear that has a certain ring.

Let us look at it again:

Operation We-Are-Going-to-Kick-Your-Ass.

I like that better than Operation Protective Edge.

Needless to say, however, whatever the name of this thing in Gaza, the question that many of us are asking ourselves is whether the Netanyahu administration has the strength and courage to eliminate Hamas.

I certainly doubt it.

It is, of course, exceedingly easy for me to sit here in Oakland and say, "Hell, yeah! Go for it, fellahs!", but that does not change the fact that there is no possible end-game with Hamas as a player. So long as Hamas exists so, according to the very nature of Hamas, the conflict must go on.

This is because Hamas is in the Jew Killing Industry. Killing Jews is the function of Hamas. It is not a secret. They practically shout it from the roof-tops on a daily basis and, yet, they still end up with US taxpayer dollars, not to mention EU and UN funding.

The reason for this, at least in part, is because Barack Obama is the president of the United States and he is not a friendly character towards Israel. There are no two ways about this. Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood and the Brotherhood is the organizational parent of both Hamas and Qaeda.

People, by the way, need to stop saying that Hamas calls for the elimination of Israel in its charter. This is a lie of omission. The Hamas charter calls quite specifically for the genocide of the Jewish people and quotes my favorite hadith in doing so:

The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!

Now, you can call me old-fashioned and some will call me a racist, right-wing war-monger, but what I say is that when the Jewish people have an organization on the border of the Jewish State that screams to the heavens for the destruction of that state, and for the murder of its Jewish citizenry, then Israel has a moral obligation to eliminate that organization.

Some would even argue, as old-timey Zionists once did, such as Moshe Dayan, that the very purpose of Israel is to protect the Jewish people.

It will be an ugly job and this gives me no pleasure whatsoever to write, but I honestly believe that it is the necessary next step.

Hamas needs to go away.

I do not know how I could be possibly be more concise.

Hamas needs to go away.

The question, of course, is how to do it?

What combination of ground operations and aerial assaults would be necessary to round up the Hamas leadership?

Round up the leadership and put them on trial for incitement to genocide.

But as I sit here and ponder this - looking at blue skies and puffy white clouds outside my window - I know that I am safe.

Our friends and family in Israel are not.

What they are dealing with is blood and bombs.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

07/13 Links: PA Envoy: Israel Follows International Law, We Don't; Iron Dome more popular than hummus

From Ian:

Israel says cease-fire possible only if it ensures long-term quiet

Israel is not ruling out a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip if it results in a significant change in the situation inside Gaza and a restoration of quiet to the South, diplomatic officials said Saturday night.
Israeli officials were not speaking of the conditions they would demand for a cease-fire, but among the ideas that have been discussed are the dismantling of the rocket capabilities inside Gaza, similar to the manner in which the chemical weapons were dismantled in Syria; developing a mechanism to enforce the cease-fire; and a restoration of Palestinian Authority – not Hamas – control over the area.

Hamas rejected Egyptian proposal to hold fire

As part of Egypt’s efforts to halt the fighting between Hamas and Israel, Cairo proposed to the Palestinian organization’s leadership and to the Israeli government that they mutually stop the fire for 40 hours, after which a broader ceasefire agreement would be discussed — but Hamas rejected the offer, The Times of Israel learned from Israeli and Hamas sources.
The offer was presented to the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, Moussa Abu Marzouk, by Egyptian intelligence officers last week. Abu Marzouk rejected it after a brief consultation with the terror group’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades, the sources said.

What Stands Behind the IDF's Targets in Gaza?

Our Mission: Stop Hamas Terrorism

The sickness of the "Israelis lied to start a war" meme

JJ Goldberg in The Forward last week asserted a truly reprehensible and false conspiracy theory:

... Once the boys’ disappearance was known, troops began a massive, 18-day search-and-rescue operation, entering thousands of homes, arresting and interrogating hundreds of individuals, racing against the clock. Only on July 1, after the boys’ bodies were found, did the truth come out: The government had known almost from the beginning that the boys were dead. It maintained the fiction that it hoped to find them alive as a pretext to dismantle Hamas’ West Bank operations.

The initial evidence was the recording of victim Gilad Shaer’s desperate cellphone call to Moked 100, Israel’s 911. When the tape reached the security services the next morning — neglected for hours by Moked 100 staff — the teen was heard whispering “They’ve kidnapped me” (“hatfu oti”) followed by shouts of “Heads down,” then gunfire, two groans, more shots, then singing in Arabic. That evening searchers found the kidnappers’ abandoned, torched Hyundai, with eight bullet holes and the boys’ DNA. There was no doubt.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately placed a gag order on the deaths. Journalists who heard rumors were told the Shin Bet wanted the gag order to aid the search. For public consumption, the official word was that Israel was “acting on the assumption that they’re alive.” It was, simply put, a lie.

Nor was that the only fib. It was clear from the beginning that the kidnappers weren’t acting on orders from Hamas leadership in Gaza or Damascus. Hamas’ Hebron branch — more a crime family than a clandestine organization — had a history of acting without the leaders’ knowledge, sometimes against their interests. Yet Netanyahu repeatedly insisted Hamas was responsible for the crime and would pay for it.
...
The kidnapping and crackdown upset the balance. In Israel, grief and anger over the boys’ disappearance grew steadily as the fabricated mystery stretched into a second and third week. Rallies and prayer meetings were held across the country and in Jewish communities around the world. The mothers were constantly on television. One addressed the United Nations in Geneva to plead for her son’s return. Jews everywhere were in anguish over the unceasing threat of barbaric Arab terror plaguing Israel.

This, too, was misleading. The last seven years have been the most tranquil in Israel’s history. Terror attacks are a fraction of the level during the nightmare intifada years — just six deaths in all of 2013. But few notice. The staged agony of the kidnap search created, probably unintentionally, what amounts to a mass, worldwide attack of post-traumatic stress flashback.

Goldberg hangs his thesis on the supposed fact that the IDF was lying and it knew that the boys were dead.

Unless Goldberg has access to information that is different from what everyone else does, this is quite false.

The army knew that there were shots in the phone call. They knew that the boys were shot in the recovered, burned out car. But while they might have suspected that they were all murdered, they didn't know.

Because they also knew some other facts that Goldberg ignores. They knew that two Hamas-linked figures were missing since the night of the abduction. They knew that Hamas was been planning, and publicly calling, to kidnap Israelis for years. They knew that the entire Palestinian Arab populace was upset that the last batch of terrorists were not released in April when the peace talks fell apart and that they would support any kidnapping of soldiers of "settlers" making such an operation more feasible in the West Bank. They knew that the boys had been abducted, not shot and left by the side of the road, almost certainly for the initial purpose of kidnapping to bargain for prisoners.

There was a significant chance that at least one boy was kept alive - perhaps injured - for this bargaining. What purpose would have been served to tell the public, and the parents, that probably two of your boys are dead? There is no reason to extinguish that hope under these circumstances.

And if the IDF didn't know for certain that all the boys were dead, they would have acted exactly the same as they did. No pretext is needed to arrest and question major Hamas figures in the West Bank - that is what investigators do.

As far as whether the Hamas family was acting on orders from Gaza or not, again, Goldberg doesn't know any more than anyone else. Hamas was at the time supposedly part of the "unity" government and the idea that they would be anxious to make their presence felt on the West Bank is not so far fetched. A successful kidnapping would have boosted Hamas' popularity tremendously. Moreover, Palestinian Arab leaders are masters at using "rogue groups" to do what they want and give them plausible deniability. Arafat did it numerous times, and Hamas does it when it turns a blind eye to rockets from other Islamist groups in Gaza.

Goldberg pretends that he has brilliantly put these pieces together, but he ignores the pieces that don't fit his theory. That's what makes it a conspiracy theory,and not responsible analysis.

Now that Goldberg opened the floodgates of this sick quasi-conspiracy theory, others are joining in: The antisemites cannot be far behind, and they will be happy to point to the Jews who floated this to begin with for support.

Yet the basis of the theory - unless Goldberg has inside information about the investigation that no one else has - is clearly false.

See also Gil Lainer's response.

Hamas hackers take over Israeli Domino's Pizza Facebook page, hilarity ensues

Earlier today, Hamas managed to take over a major Israeli website.

Domino's Pizza's Facebook page.

For an hour or so, the page looked like this:

The hackers put up statuses such as "Today will strike deep in Israel, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, Ashkelon, Ashdod more than 2000 rockets. We'll start at 7. Counting back towards the end of Israel ... Be warned!"

Responses included "Hey, please reserve a missile for me with jalapenos, green olives, extra cheese, and mushrooms. You have my address. Tell the delivery boy to activate the alarm when it is arriving, so I know to put my pants on."

Another photo the hackers placed showed Israelis sheltering from rockets in a sewer pipe, with the caption "The right place for every Israel - the sewer pipe, hahaha!"

An Israeli answered back, "You know who lives in sewers? And what they eat?" with a cartoon of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their favorite food - pizza.

After Domino's took the page back, they posted this photo:

The words say "You cannot defeat....The Israeli hunger for pizza!"

There are lots of funny posters in response to the incident on the page.

In another spectacular Hamas psy-ops failure, they released this music video, in Hebrew:

Attack! Carry out bombings! Shock them!
Annihilate all the Zionists! Rock Israel's security!
Strive to engage the Zionists in combat.
Burn their camps and their soldiers.
Rock Israel's security, and expose it to flames and volcanos.
Strive to engage the Zionists in combat.
Burn their camps and their soldiers.
Rock Israel's security, and expose it to flames and volcanos… Volcanos!
Attack! Carry out bombings! Shock them!
Annihilate all the Zionists! Rock Israel's security!
Attack! Carry out bombings! Shock them!
Annihilate all the Zionists! Rock Israel's security!
It is a feeble state, built on illusions. They cannot endure war. They turn out to be like cobwebs, when they encounter knights.
It is a feeble state, built on illusions. They cannot endure war. They turn out to be like cobwebs, when they encounter knights.
Rock Israel's security! Light furnaces in its heart. Raze it to the ground, exterminate the cockroaches' nest, and banish all the Zionists.
Attack! Carry out bombings! Shock them!
Annihilate all the Zionists! Rock Israel's security!
The Zionists' hearts turn in different ways. They are terrified of dying, so they hide behind walls.
The Zionists' hearts turn in different ways. They are terrified of dying, so they hide behind walls.
Rock Israel's security! Light furnaces in its heart. Raze it to the ground, exterminate the cockroaches' nest, and banish all the Zionists.
Attack! Carry out bombings! Shock them!
Annihilate all the Zionists! Rock Israel's security!
Their illusion of an army is incompetent. It is a thing of the past. Their soldiers are like mice in a dry field, draw them near and open fire.
Their illusion of an army is incompetent. It is a thing of the past. Their soldiers are like mice in a dry field, draw them near and open fire.

While the song is kind of catchy, the lyrics are not geared towards Israelis but towards Arabs - yet it is in Hebrew.

That's a lot of effort to release a video with no audience.

Somehow, for Israelis who are relatively unscathed after hundreds of rockets, I don't think this will scare them.

Proportionality - Number of Israeli airstrikes about the same as number of Gaza rockets

According to the Gaza NGO Safety Office, there have been nearly 1100 Israeli airstrikes so far in Operation Protective Edge. (Some of the airstrikes included multiple missiles, perhaps 1.5 missiles per strike.)

According to the same source, about 1220 rockets have been fired from Gaza so far. (As we have seen, a high percentage of these are falling onto Gazans as well.)

Of course most IAF missiles are more powerful than most Gaza terror missiles, but it is interesting that the numbers are so close, especially for people who falsely claim a "proportional response" means an equivalent response.

It is also noteworthy that even if you falsely assume that every person killed in Gaza was killed by Israel and not errant Hamas rockets, which is clearly not true, only one Gazan has been killed per 10 missiles.

Anyone who has seen the damage caused by a single Israeli missile would realize immediately that Israel cannot be accused of either indiscriminate bombing or (as some haters claim) of targeting civilians, because in either case the number of people killed would be much, much higher.

Here is one of the best "roof-knocking" videos I've seen so far - "roof-knock" at 0:04, and devastating damage from missiles at 1:10.

Clearly there would be many hundreds more people dead if Israel was not warning the residents with leaflets, phone calls and finally "roof knocks". Any accusations of purposeful or wanton Israeli bombing are from people who have an agenda - or who are innumerate.

Back to the topic of probable Gaza casualties from Hamas or other terror group rockets, here is the front-page image that the UN is using to show damage in Gaza on their OCHA-OPT page.

Without more photos it is hard to know for sure, but the almost perfectly round shape of the hole in the wall together with the fact that the curtains have not been blown off and burned indicates that this is from a Hamas rocket, not an Israeli airstrike. Yet UN-OCHA does not mention even the idea of Hamas rockets falling short in their report.

The descriptions of how some of the children in Gaza were killed also seems to me to be inconsistent with IAF missiles and more probably the work of terror rockets. Unfortunately, the reporters in Gaza aren't skeptical enough of what they see and hear, nor savvy enough with military forensics, to know to research and verify the claims that they are mindlessly parroting from known liars in the Gaza health ministry or some "human rights" NGOs.

The rule is: if you cannot confirm the charges, don't repeat them. Seems like basic Journalism 101, yet we see that rule violated every hour of every day.

(h/t Yoel)

Arabs celebrate rockets in Amman, Hebron - and Israel (videos)

Here are Arabs in Hebron wildly celebrating the sight of Gaza terror rockets hurtling towards Israeli cities:

In Amman, Jordan, sweets were handed out on Saturday night at the news that some rockets had fallen on Tel Aviv (so far all rockets aimed at Tel Aviv have been intercepted):

Most shockingly, Israeli Arabs have been celebrating rockets as well. This video was taken in Jaffa as air raid sirens sounded:

And here is an Arab driving through Israel during an air raid, repeating "Allah hu Akbar," while passing Israelis who stopped to take cover:

Rockets have already been shot towards Muslim population centers in the West Bank like Bethlehem and Ramallah, and Jaffa is right next to Tel Aviv. Here is a video of a rocket landing in the Arab village of Beitunia:

But the idea of a single Jew getting hurt is far more important to these Arabs than any possibility that they might be killed, too.

Which, if you think about it, nicely sums up the hate towards Jews throughout the Arab world.

(h/t Israel Muse @Israellycool, Bob Knot and Sophie44)

Fatah responds to Hamas criticism by saying "We shoot rockets and have martyrs too!"

From the Wall Street Journal:

There were also signs Saturday that a unity government meant to bring Hamas into the Palestinian Authority had all but crumbled amid the fighting. The two sides had been trying to form a unity government in a step toward ending a seven-year-old Palestinian political split between Hamas and Fatah.

Samy Abu Zohry, a Hamas spokesman, said in an online statement that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wasn't supporting Hamas's fight against Israel and was a "war traitor." He added that Mr. Abbas "serves the hostile positions against our citizens and against our resistance."

Fatah Spokesman Ziad Abu Ein said the description wasn't fair, adding that Fatah fighters were "participating in the rocket fire toward Israel" and that two Fatah members had already died in the fighting. "Fatah in the West Bank is leading the struggle against the Israeli occupation," he said.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Fatah has taken credit for at least 18 rockets on Saturday. They also brag about how they assisted Hamas in fighting in Gaza, showing that the only unity between Hamas and Fatah are in violence.

Here is a video of a member of the Fatah terror group, in civilian clothes, in the middle of a city, shooting two rockets that were hidden in a cart. If the IDF would have bombed him he would be counted as a "civilian."

Notice also how close the first rocket comes to hitting the building.

This isn't Hamas. This is Fatah, the group that the West is banking on to make peace with Israel.

07/12 Links: IAF Aborts Strike After Spotting Children Near Target; Chloe Valdary assaulted in Boston

From Ian:

Netanyahu: Gaza conflict proves Israel can’t relinquish control of West Bank

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday vowed to fight Hamas and other Gaza terror groups until Israel was safe from the threat of missile attack, and then launched a highly unusual and extremely bitter verbal assault on would-be peace-brokers, including US Secretary of State John Kerry, who have been urging Israel to relinquish security control of the West Bank to a Palestinian state.
Speaking to the Israeli public on the fourth day of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, which he said has seen Israel attack “over 1,000″ terror targets while sustaining hundreds of rocket attacks from Gaza, Netanyahu vowed that the IDF campaign “will continue until we are sure that Israel’s residents have quiet.” He said that no terrorist target was off-limits, and accused Hamas’s leaders and gunmen of “hiding behind Gaza’s residents” — using them as human shields — and thus being responsible “for any harm that comes to them.”
While Israel did everything to protect its citizens, he said, and had “spent billions to protect the homefront” in recent years, Gaza’s terror groups deliberately put Gazans “in harm’s way.” Israel does its utmost not to harm Gaza’s civilians while targeting the terrorists, whereas Hamas targets Israel’s civilians, he said.

Israel acting disproportionately? Think again

The fact that Israeli fatalities are low in this conflict does not reduce the military necessity of attacking Hamas. As famed jurist Alan Dershowitz points out: “Proportion must be defined by reference to the threat posed by the enemy and not by the harm it has produced”.
The accusation of targeting civilians, a violation of the rule of distinction, is equally baseless. At the moment, the Israeli Air Force is carrying out precision raids on Hamas' terrorist infrastructure, including arms dumps, rocket launchers, command and control centres and the homes of terrorist figures.
Where houses have been turned into military targets, the IDF has provided advance warnings to Palestinian residents (so called roof knocking) to leave their houses prior to an attack. This is designed to minimise civilian casualties, rather than maximise them. In any case, targeting civilians would be futile. It would achieve nothing in military terms and hand a massive propaganda victory to Hamas.

Israel activist Chloe Valdary assaulted in Boston

This is the face of hate
A Palestinian "peace " activist has physically assaulted Israel activist Chloe Valdary at a Boston solidarity rally for Israel. Shrieking that the Jews would go to hell while the Christians and the Muslims took over Jerusalem, she knocked Chloe's phone out of her hand.
The unidentified woman was not arrested..
For those of you attending Israel solidarity rallies this weekend, be careful out there. Its never been about peace for the anti-Israel crowd. In the unforgettable words of International ANSWER organizer Dick Becker, this isn't about peace. Its about the "victory of the resistance"

Anti Israel Woman attacks me at Hate Fest

Israel Air Force Aborts Gaza Airstrike After Spotting Children Near Target (VIDEO)

The Israel Air Force called of an airstrike on a “terror activity site” on Thursday after spotting children in the vicinity of the target, a recently released video shows.
“There are people close to our target,” the pilot carrying out the mission is heard saying in the clip. “It looks like there are people, possibly children in our targeted area.”
An operator responds: “We are not going to strike this target now, let’s move on.”

IDF Pilot Calls Off Airstrike After Children Spotted Near Target

Turkish singer tweets "May God bless Hitler," yearns for Muslims to "bring the end of those Jews" (plus administrivia)

From Hurriyet:

On the night of July 10, Yıldız Tilbe, who has been making folk-influenced hit pop albums since the 1990s, appeared to praise Hitler in the tweets and say the end of the Jews was near.

“If God allows, it will be again Muslims who will bring the end of those Jews, it is near, near,” she tweeted on her official account @YildizzTilbee.

“They (Jews) are hostile to Allah and all prophets including their own prophet Moses.”

In another tweet she appeared to praise Hitler for the mass extermination of Jews in the Holocaust, writing “May God bless Hitler.”

Tilbe wrote after the criticism that she was not racist.

“There is oppression against Muslims everywhere in the world. Is there any single American or Jew being massacred, whose country is bombed or whose people are killed?”

While Tilbe is yet to issue an apology, she has received support from the mayor of Turkey’s capital city, Ankara, Melih Gökçek.

Gökçek, a senior member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), backed the singer’s Gaza tweets, retweeting most of her comments except the one on Hitler, calling them “full of intelligence.”

“I applaud you Yıldız Tilbe for the messages you deliver to many of your colleagues and especially to the Turkish nation,” he wrote.

Things have been crazy busy as you can imagine (and I am busy at work as well.)

I just got my 7500th Twitter follower and blog traffic is up around 70% this week as people look for news they don't see elsewhere. Ian continues to do stellar work in his linkdumps.

I had a few very popular posts this week. It already seems a long time ago that I wrote my open condemnation for the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir. Over 120 bloggers and pundits signed on.

Other important and popular posts were the What Reporters Need to Know story and the Fatah shooting rockets story. Not to mention the evergreen Amnesty hypocrisy story.

I wish I had more time because there are a lot of newsworthy angles to research and report on, even far away from Israel.

I also want to thank the people who decided (without prompting) to donate to EoZ this week. I really appreciate it!