Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Terrorists shooting long-range rockets from near UNRWA school/shelter

Because of the threat of Israeli bombardment – and because the Israelis have been sending out warning notices to some neighbourhoods of impending attacks – there are close to 20,000 Gazans who have sought refuge with relatives in safer districts or in United Nations schools.

The Fakhoura School is one of them, offering temporary housing to about 1,200 people who arrived last week after receiving an Israeli warning. That works out to about 30 people in each of the school’s 40 classrooms – a pretty tight fit when you consider everyone has to find room to sleep there.

...When it came time to distribute the UNRWA food, a patrol of clean-cut Boy Scouts, around 16 years of age, marched into the compound dressed smartly in khaki shirts and purple neckerchiefs with the white fleur-de-lys Scout emblem. They were volunteers from Jabalia and organized themselves in front of the distribution doors so as to make sure people stayed in line and there was no pushing or shoving.

To help people just like these, Israel announced Wednesday that it would facilitate a five-hour humanitarian truce on Thursday to allow people who fled their homes to return to them to pick up supplies. During these hours, Israel said it cease all operational activity in Gaza and hold its fire.

Heading toward the exit, we were overwhelmed by the jet-like sound of two rockets being launched from somewhere near the school. Hamas, or some or militant group, clearly is hoping the Israelis won’t strike at the launchers, which are kept underground until the moment of firing, because they’re close to the school and so many refugees.

As the Hamas-made missiles screamed off into the sky, leaving a white vapour trail, the kids all cheered. One older boy of maybe 12, shouted in Arabic “They’re R160s,” named for the late Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi who was assassinated by Israel in 2004. These are the big, long-range rockets usually reserved for Tel Aviv, Jerusalem or the airport in between.

There is approximately zero chance that any UNRWA spokespeople will condemn the firing of rockets from near their facilities, endangering the people they pretend to care about.

(h/t Honest Reporting Canada)

07/16-17 Overnight Links: My Jewish family's roots in Gaza; JVP: No empathy for Israel; The ‘Unsustainable Status Quo'

From Ian:

My Jewish family's roots in Gaza

Gaza is all over the news headlines - but here's one story you won't hear about. Read Steven Plaut's heartwarming article from the Jewish Press, first published in 2009. (With thanks: Eliyahu)
My family has roots in Gaza. We were there a century ago.
OK, technically it is my wife’s family. I am married to the granddaughter of Nissim Ohana, the rabbi of Gaza City.
But let’s back up a bit here.
In Genesis, Gaza is explicitly listed as part of the Land of Israel promised to the Jews. It was conquered by the tribe of Judah during the era of the Judges, though it was later recaptured by the Philistines. It was captured again by the Jews during the time of the Maccabees, only to be seized by the Romans, who handed it over to King Herod.
Gaza had a small Jewish community during the era of the Talmud. A synagogue was erected near the Gaza waterfront in 508 CE. A survey of the town in 1481 found about 60 Jewish households there, many producing wine. Later, quite a few followers of Shabbtai Zvi lived there, including the famous Natan of Gaza. There was a thriving Jewish community in Gaza when Napoleon arrived in 1799 via Egypt, but a plague followed his troops and the Jews abandoned the city.

JVP: No empathy for Israel

This is the latest solicitation I ‘ve received from the self-proclaimed wedge group, Jewish Voice for Peace.
Not a word- not a single word about the thousands of rockets launched from Gaza. Not a single word about the millions of Israeli civilians spending their nights in bomb shelters. Not a single word condemning Hamas for its indiscriminate shelling of civilians. Not a single word of compassion for the Israeli Jews, Christians and Muslims living under constant threat of Hamas’s long range rockets targeting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Not a single word of empathy for the families of our boys murdered by Hamas.
Its as though 8 million Israelis simply don’t matter to JVP. Perhaps because 8 million Israelis don’t actually matter to JVP.

Stop American Jewish Extremists

An organization called the Jewish Voice of Peace (JVP) has issued a letter which says that the issue in the Middle East is “rooted in the idea that Jewish lives matter more than Palestinian lives.” The note – which they plan to place in ads in Jewish newspapers including The Forward – continues “I’ve seen terrified Palestinian children in Hebron and Halhul, sitting on the ruins of their homes.”
Their so-called “Open Letter” claims that the Israeli government “created this situation. For weeks, the government knew that the three kidnapped teenagers were dead. But they instituted a gag order on the media, lied to Israelis and the world, and falsely claimed the mass arrests and collective punishment of Palestinians was all in the hopes of finding the teenagers alive.”
Shameful, hateful rhetoric. Akin to blaming America for the WTC bombing, these conspiracy theorists must be rejected. While this shameful organization does not reveal the source of their funding, they have previously described themselves as the “Jewish wing” of the Palestinian solidarity movement.

Latest Fatah video shows more rocket fire from populated areas

Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah groups (Abu Nidal Brigades of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades) continue to fire rockets at Israel, and the world continues to pretend that they simply don't exist.

Because closing your eyes and ears and yelling "Hamas bad! Fatah peaceful!" over and over is such a great political strategy.

As usual, the rockets are being shot from urban areas.

To their credit, their graphics have improved since yesterday. To their detriment, they feel they must show each firing twice, the second time in slow motion.

Remember that it is highly unlikely that Fatah smuggled these rockets into Gaza themselves. Hamas controlled all the tunnels when Egypt was still turning a blind eye, and Hamas was attacking Fatah as late as a few months ago.

This means that Hamas has been providing Fatah, and other terror groups, with their rockets for the current fighting.

Who said that the Hamas-Fatah unity didn't bear fruit?

07/16 Links Pt2: Test: Are you pro-human rights, or anti-Israel?; Islamist Jew-haters and leftist enablers

From Ian:

UN Watch: Test: Are you pro-human rights, or anti-Israel?

If in the past year you didn’t CRY OUT when thousands of protesters were killed and injured by Turkey, Egypt and Libya, when more victims than ever were hanged by Iran, women and children in Afghanistan were bombed, whole communities were massacred in South Sudan, 1800 Palestinians were starved and murdered by Assad in Syria, hundreds in Pakistan were killed by jihadist terror attacks, 10,000 Iraqis were killed by terrorists, villagers were slaughtered in Nigeria, but you ONLY cry out for GAZA, then you are not pro HUMAN RIGHTS, you are only ANTI-ISRAEL.

Pro-Palestinian and Pro-Hamas Have Become Oxymorons

Over the years, we at the Investigative Project on Terrorism and many others have called on American Islamists to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization. They have steadfastly refused.
Fine. But if Palestinian advocates really want a better life for the people of Gaza, today's events make it clear they must condemn Hamas for making the plight of the people there demonstrably worse.
For six hours, Israel stopped bombing Gaza, accepting a cease-fire put forth by Egypt. All Hamas had to do was stop firing rockets at Israeli civilians and the people of Gaza could start trying to resume their lives, confident that the latest conflict had ended.

Douglas Murray: The West has drifted away from Israel — and itself

What I am coming to is that it seems to me — from many visits there, and seeing the country in peace and war — that it is Israel that remains the truly western country. It is Israel which takes its history seriously, thinks deeply about where it is going and what it exists for. It is Israel which takes western values seriously and fights for the survival of those values rather than sitting back and assuming they are simply part of some birthright. Israel’s questions and dilemmas are not the stuff of North London or other parts of western Europe these days, though they remain febrile in much of the US. In conclusion, and despite my admiration for his frankness, I cannot help thinking that Hugo has got this wholly wrong and upside-down. Geography aside, it is Israel that is still truly a western country. Far more than many parts of western Europe now are.
A gap may well be emerging. But not because Israel has drifted away from the West. Rather because today in much of the West, as we bask in the afterglow of our achievements — eager to enjoy our rights, but unwilling to defend them — it is the West that is, slowly but surely, drifting away from itself.

Analysis of the latest developments in the Israel-Gaza conflict

Media treats Gaza war as a sporting event

A number of TV news shows have been publishing graphics comparing Israel and Hamas during the current events. Here's an example from MSNBC a couple of days ago, but CNN has done it as well:

The implication is that this is some sort of game.

When viewers see a graphic like this, they automatically think that the comparison is a fair one. To the uninformed viewer, this is a sporting event, and Israel is "winning."

Everyone loves a winner, but not when that winner is unsportsmanlike. What could be more unsporting than to keep running up the score and humiliating your opponent?

Any gentleman on the playing field would allow the other side to score some points. Or, in this case, to kill some Jews.

The comparison is wrong for a very basic reason: Israel wants to minimize casualties on both sides, and the Gaza terror groups want to maximize them.

Sports don't work that way.

Every dead Palestinian civilian is a loss for Israel and a gain for Hamas. But that fact - which underpins the entire conflict - is nowhere to be seen in these simplified visual shortcuts. All the viewer sees, no matter what is being said by the analysts, is that Israel is a bully picking on their poor neighbors who can't defend themselves.

It's no wonder that the anti-Israel crowd loves these sorts of graphics.

More from the humor site PreOccupied Territory:

New York, July 16 - New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet expressed surprise today upon discovering the word "terrorist" in the dictionary, to the point that he repeatedly showed the entry to every other person in the newsroom he could find.

Baquet was looking for a precise definition of the pottery term terra cotta, and in turning the pages of the book his eye fell upon the curious new word. "A person who uses violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal," he recited aloud, and repeated, with a disbelieving look on his face.

Colleagues relate that Baquet first consulted several online sources, each time with increasing disbelief that the word had escaped his knowledge until now. His confusion was compounded upon further discovering that the term is not, as he had initially suspected, an obscure or obsolete word, and he immediately began consulting other personnel over whether they had ever encountered the term.

"He had this excited look on his face," recalled Deputy Managing Editor Lawrence Ingrassia. "He showed me his paperback dictionary and this strange new word, and I was just as shocked. Here was this term that perfectly and cogently describes half of the people involved in the Middle East stories we report, and we've been using bland, namby-pamby 'militant' instead. Frankly, I'm kind of embarrassed this perfectly suited word was available and current the whole time, and it never occurred to us to use it."

From Ingrassia, Baquet continued to Andrew Rosenthal, the Editorial Page Editor. The latter admitted some awareness of the term, but only as vaguely associated with the Bolsheviks, and occasionally bandied about on the internet. "I seriously had no idea there were still such people," he confessed. "I mean, fighters, yes, and even freedom fighters, but people who employ violence, especially against civilian targets, to sow fear and thus bring about political change - I mean, who does that anymore?"

Baquet has already had a prolonged conversation with crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz about perhaps including the term in a puzzle, and that is likely to be the only section of the paper that features it.

07/16 Links Pt1: There's something very ugly in this rage against Israel; Hamas gets Hebrew grammar 101

From Ian:

Times of Israel Live Blog: Rocket hits near Ashkelon house; Hamas said to offer 10-year truce

The Times of Israel is liveblogging events as they unfold through Wednesday, the ninth day of Operation Protective Edge. On Tuesday, while Israel accepted an Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire, Hamas rejected it and continued its rocket fire into Israel. An Israeli was killed by mortar fire. In mid-afternoon, Israel resumed attacks on Hamas targets, as Foreign Minister Liberman called to retake full control of the Strip, an idea Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects. After targeting Hamas leadership in a number of overnight strikes, the death toll in the Strip rose to over 200.

Israeli civilian killed by Gaza mortar fire

A Beit Aryeh resident succumbed to his wounds Tuesday after being hit by Gaza mortar fire near the Erez Crossing, marking Israel's first fatality during Operation Protective Edge. Dror Hanin, 37, was a civilian who had come to bring food and drinks to soldiers serving on the Gaza border.
Hanin suffered severe injuries to his chest, and despite efforts to save his life, he was pronounced dead after arriving at Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon. A friend who was standing beside him when the mortar struck was lightly injured.

Brendan O’Neill: There’s something very ugly in this rage against Israel

Anyone possessed of a critical faculty must at some point have wondered why there’s such a double standard in relation to Israeli militarism, why missiles fired by the Jewish State are apparently more worthy of condemnation than missiles fired by Washington, London, Paris, the Turks, Assad, or just about anyone else on Earth. Parisians who have generally given a Gallic shrug as French troops have basically retaken Francophone Africa, stamping their boots everywhere from the Central African Republic to Mali to Cote d’Ivoire over the past two years, turned out in their thousands at the weekend to condemn Israeli imperialism and barbarism. Americans who didn’t create much fuss last month when the Obama administration announced the resumption of its drone attacks in Pakistan gathered at the Israeli Embassy in Washington to yell about Israeli murder. (Incredibly, they did this just a day after a US drone attack, the 375th such attack in 10 years, killed at least six people in Pakistan. But hey, Obama-led militarism isn’t as bad as Israeli militarism, and dead Pakistanis, unlike dead Palestinians, don’t deserve to have their photos, names and ages published by the concerned liberals of Twitter.) Meanwhile, hundreds of very angry Brits gathered at the Israeli Embassy in London, bringing traffic to a standstill, clambering on to buses, yelling about murder and savagery, in furious, colourful scenes that were notable by their absence three years ago when Britain sent planes to pummel Libya.

Caroline Glick: The popular Palestinians

And even as Palestinian officials acknowledge the nature of this war, rather than rethink their support for genocidal terrorists anti-Israel activists in the US and Europe redouble their support for the Palestinians, by among other things engaging in violent assaults on local Jews. In so doing, they demonstrate that they share the Palestinians’ ultimate objective.
These activists are in turn supported by the leftist academia.
Their efforts are buoyed by the media which, at a minimum, fail to report on the nature of the campaign against Israel and generally, actively strive to obfuscate it. Leftist Jews, while compelled to condemn Hamas rocket fire, (but not rocket fire by Fatah militias), nonetheless make clear that at a minimum, Israel is also to blame for the Palestinian assault because it doesn’t give other Palestinians its heartland and capital city.
Finally, as we see with US-led Western demand that Israel reach a cease-fire with Hamas without first defeating the Palestinian terror machine in Gaza, the activists, the professoriate and the media are joined by political leaders who all agree that inciting and acting on behalf of the genocide of Jewry is not a disqualifying offense.

Alan Dershowitz: Media death count encourages Hamas to use human shields

Proportionality is not judged by the number of civilians actually killed by Hamas rockets, but rather by the risks posed to Israelis. These risks have been diminished, but not eliminated by the Iron Dome system. They have also been considerably diminished by Israel’s counterattacks on the missile launchers and those who employ them. Without these counterattacks, it is highly likely that more Hamas missiles would have made it through the Iron Dome system which has been approximately 85% effective. Israel has every right under the rules of proportionality to attack these military targets, so long as they take reasonable efforts to reduce civilian casualties. They have done so by leafleting, by calling, and by other methods of warning civilians to leave target areas. Hamas leaders, on the other hand, have urged, and sometimes compelled, their civilians to remain in harm’s way as human shields.
The media, by emphasizing the comparative body counts without providing the reasons for the disparity, play into the hands of Hamas, and encourage that terrorist organization, to continue to pursue its dead baby strategy. So the next time those in the media promote a body count without explanation, they should point a finger at themselves for contributing to this deadly count.

Antwerp store refuses to sell to Jews, and other Belgian antisemitism (video) (UPDATE x2)

From JP Updates:

A 29-year-old Orthodox Jewish woman went shopping at the Coton store in the Keyserlei area of Antwerp, Belgium, but was told that she could not buy anything there because she is Jewish.

The woman, who asked not to be identified, told police that she went to purchase cotton at the store at 3:00 on Monday afternoon, and the woman at the register told her that “we don’t sell to Jews at this moment due to the ongoing situation in Israel.”

After the woman returned home and told her husband about the humiliating incident, he went to the store with a friend. Employing a hidden camera to record the exchange, the two asked a saleslady about the alleged snub.

Translated from Flemish, the conversation went as follows:

> He: “A friend of mine wanted to buy something today and was not allowed to buy.”
> Lady at the register answers, “Eh, Yeh.”
> He: “What was the story?”
> She: “A protest, I think. My boss was here and he was protesting.”
> He: “Can I buy something?”
> She: “Yes, go ahead.”
> He: “Where is the boss?”
> She: “He’s not here.”
> He: “So he doesn’t sell to Jews?”
> She: “That’s how he said it.”
> He: “Can I call him or talk to him?”
> She :”No.”
> He: “Were you here also?”
> She: “I wasn’t here but they told me the story.”
> He: “Can I have his number?”
> She.: “I can’t give it out.”
> He: “It’s a strange story no?”
> She:”Yes.”

After police came to the store and asked the boss about the story, she denied the incident and said that a lot of her wholesales are Jewish, so she has nothing against Jews. Police told the victim they will investigate the incident since the conversation confirming it was captured on video by her husband.

A number of Antwerp residents told JP that they were shocked when they heard about the incident, as the store is located in the middle of the Jewish neighborhood.

Also:

Figen Erol is an intercultural facilitator at St. Francis hospital in Heusden-Zolder. But some recent comments she posted online suggest she shouldn't be employed in a position which requires contact with people, and especially not with foreigners.

For example:

"Hitler said" a day will come when you will curse me for leaving over a few heads

She later removed this comment, but another one is still online:

On the facebook page of Knack Magazine, a user named "Zafer Aksoy" posted a comment saying: 'When all Jews are dead... then there will be a ceasefire'. Erol responded: "Quite right, and the rest can get lost. Or to Israel!! If it happens to still exist."

Those posts were made during work hours.

(h/t Bob Knot)

UPDATE: (h/t sophie44)

Approximately 500 people attended Saturday’s protest in the capital of Belgium’s Flemish region, where one of the speakers used a loudspeaker to chant a call in Arabic that means “slaughter the Jews.”

UPDATE x2: The hospital worker was fired (h/t Akiva who received email from the hospital.)

The REAL statistics of those killed in Gaza

Times of Israel reports:

The truth is that the number of casualties, and the percentage of civilians among the dead, comes exclusively from Palestinian sources. Israel only publishes its version of the body count — which is always significantly lower than the Palestinian account — weeks after such operations end. Meanwhile, the damage to Israel’s reputation is done.

For Operation Protective Edge, the only data published so far comes from the health ministry in Gaza. This ministry is run by Hamas, therefore rendering the number of casualties and injuries it reports more than unreliable, said Maj. Arye Shalicar of the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s unit. “Hamas has no shame about lying. We know they’re a terrorist organization that makes cynical use of casualty numbers for propaganda purposes. You can’t trust a single number they publish.”

And yet, the figures from the Gazan ministry are routinely adopted, unquestioned, by the United Nations. “According to preliminary information, over 77 per cent of the fatalities since 7 July have been civilians, raising concerns about respect for international humanitarian law,” states a situation report published Tuesday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Once given the stamp of approval of such an important body, these numbers are quoted everywhere else.

While the IDF does not publish their statistics in a timely manner, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center does. They use similar methods that I and my team used in 2009 when we exposed the lies on casualties from Cast Lead.

In order to ascertain who was killed and whether the victim is a terrorist or a civilian, the center’s staff looks up their names on Palestinian websites and searches for information about their funerals and for other hints that could shed light on a person’s background.

Foe example, when they are referred to as "mujahadin" in terrorist supporting message boards, or if there are photos of them in terror gear and with weapons.

So here are the most accurate statistics as of Tuesday at noon:

According to (initial) ITIC information, the distribution of those killed is as follows:
1) 72 terrorist operatives:
A. 35 Hamas operatives(most of them from its military-terrorist wing)
B. 27 PIJ operatives
C. Ten operatives from other terrorist organizations
2) 80 non-involved Palestinians
3) 41 Palestinians whose identity still cannot be ascertained.

Of the victims that are known, nearly half are confirmed to be terrorists. This is roughly in line with what we saw during Cast Lead, a 1:1 ratio of terrorist to civilian, a ratio that is unknown in any other military operation in urban areas in history outside Israel.

It is outrageous that NGOs trust the Gaza authorities, who have been proven liars time and time again, for their information.

Here's an example of "civilians", as reported by Ma'an:

When their next-door neighbors received a "warning call" from Israel to evacuate a home in Jabaliya refugee camp, Yousef Qandil and his son Anas fled their property, fearing that they could be killed or injured by shrapnel.

Both men took refuge under a tree near the site, awaiting the imminent airstrike which they expected to hit the house, or neighboring properties.

Yousef had already sent his wife and younger children to their parents' house to protect them from harm.

Moments later, both Yousef and Anas were killed in an airstrike that targeted a group of Gazans sheltering under a tree for protection.

"Anas was a high school student and Yousef was a tailor. What threat or danger were they to Israel sitting under a tree?" Yousef's brother told Ma'an.

Yet Islamic Jihad says that Yousef was a leader in the Al Quds Brigades and that one of the others killed with him, Sweilem Mohammed, was also a mujahid. And so was his 17 yer old son Anas, who his father did not send to safety with his younger children but took with him to meet with other terrorists.

This is proof that you cannot trust the information that comes from Palestinian Arab sources with a vested interest in inflating the number of civilians.

I've mentioned before that the Goldstone Report found three separate international treaties that he said Israel violated when chickens were killed during military operations. The UN report concluded, without any military experience, that Israel killed the chickens deliberately, and therefore it violated "article 1 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."

Of course, the IDF did have a valid military reason to destroy the chicken coops:

123. The command investigations conducted with regard to this incident reveal that the Sawafeary chicken coops were destroyed for reasons of military necessity.

124. Specifically, the investigations revealed that the area around the Sawafeary chicken coops was occupied by an IDF ground force beginning on 4 January 2009, as part of the ground maneuver, with the intention to take control of rockets and mortar launching sites and reducing the number of terror attacks on Israeli territory. The force took positions in several houses, including one house that was adjacent to the chicken coops. This positioning was necessary to secure the area for military operations against Hamas and to protect the IDF troops in those operations. The IDF’s defense plan for this area needed to meet three serious threats to the safety and security of the IDF troops: the firing of anti-tank and RPG missiles on IDF positions; sniper fire; and infiltration of terrorist operatives into the immediate vicinity of the forces in order to plant and detonate explosive devices, including by suicide bombers.

125. The terrain in the area made this location more dangerous for IDF forces. The area was agricultural in its original use and thus included many orchards, groves, and greenhouses, located between and around the houses occupied by the IDF. This made it harder for the IDF to identify Hamas positions and fighters. The threat was not theoretical—on 5 January 2009, an RPG missile was launched at one of the IDF positions in that area. In addition, several shooting incidents occurred originating from the orchards located to the south of the chicken coops.

126. In order to overcome these threats, the IDF decided to create a security zone around each of the IDF positions with a perimeter of 20–50 meters around each post, which would allow uninterrupted observation and firing capabilities for the force in each position, as well as joint protection among the different IDF outposts. These security zones allowed IDF forces to anticipate at an earlier stage the approach of terrorist operatives.

127. The Sawafeary chicken coops were located only a few meters away from one of the key IDF positions. The IDF position was, itself, dictated by the lay of the terrain in the area. As the command investigation determined, this IDF position could not be adequately secured if the chicken coop structures were left intact. The demolition of these structures was needed to allow a clean line of sight for protection of IDF forces. The investigation also determined that the decision to destroy the coops was consistent with the demands of the principle of proportionality: there was a compelling military need for the area to be cleared for the safety of the IDF forces and for the success of IDF operations against the Hamas forces operating in the area. The local commanders determined that these advantages outweighed the damage to private property that would result from the demolition. The commanders avoided the destruction of residential buildings or other facilities in the area, when such destruction was not required by military necessity or appeared to be disproportional.

Will human rights groups say that Hamas is violating the same treaties they accuse Israel of violating?

No, and for good reason: Hamas wasn't aiming at the cows. It is aiming at Israeli civilians. So the food supply was only accidentally destroyed in pursuit of murdering people.

Hamas is safe from worrying about the UN going after it.

Incidentally, this shows a small example of what many populated sites in Israel would look like if Iron Dome wasn't protecting people. And this was a small rocket.

(h/t Yoel)

44 terror rockets fell short in Gaza Tuesday

Tuesday was the first day since last Thursday that the Gaza NGO Safety Office did a full hour-by-hour count of rocket fire originating from Gaza. In this case, they counted 192 rockets being shot.

The IDF counted 122 rockets hitting Israel and 26 intercepted by Iron Dome.

Which means that 44 rockets fell short on Tuesday somewhere in Gaza, landing on who knows who, much fewer than the 150 I calculated that fell short on Thursday.Of course, 44 rockets can do a lot of damage and kill a lot of people. Reporters on the scene in Gaza have yet to talk about this or even admit the possibility that some of the casualties they are highlighting may have been killed quite directly by Hamas or other terror groups.

The PCHR has also not yet admitted a single errant rocket.

They counted at least 7 "militants" killed on Monday, however:

At approximately 19:30, an Israeli drone fired a missile at a member of a Palestinian armed group in the north of al-Nussairat refugee camp, killing him. He was identified as Mohammed Yasser 'Ali Hamdan, 24.

At approximately 12:50, an Israeli drone fired a missile at a motorbike in al-Qarara village, north of Khan Yunis. As a result, a member of a Palestinian armed group, 'Abdullah Mahmoud Baraka, 24, from 'Abassan village, who was riding the motorbike was seriously wounded. He was pronounced dead at 14:35.

At approximately 15:55, an Israeli warplane launched a missile at a room on an agricultural plot in 'Abssan village, east of Khan Yunis. The room was destroyed and a member of a Palestinian armed group, Tamer Salem Musallam Qudaih, 37, was killed.

At approximately 22:05, an Israeli drone fired a missile at a number of members of a Palestinian armed group in al-Mawasi area in the west of Khan Yunis. As a result, 2 members were killed: Kamal 'Aatef Yousef Abu Taha, 19; and Ismail Nabil Ahmed Abu Hatab, 21.

At approximately 20:50, an Israeli drone fired 2 missiles at a number of Palestinians in al-Satar al-Gharbi area. As a result, 2 members of a Palestinian armed group were killed: Mohammed Younis Suleiman Abu Yousef, 30, and Mohammed Shakib al-Agha, 23. Two civilians were wounded, one of them, Ahmed Younis Suleiman Abu Yousef, 28, died a few hours later.

Note that the "civilian" is the brother of the terrorist, hanging out with other terrorists.

Thirty five students from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance's (JAMD) Community & Youth Project played a flowing series of events in the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. Starting with a concert in the hospital lobby, and taking a classical approach to the Beatles evergreen hit song "Here Comes the Sun" , the students continued and played in various locations throughout the Medical Center as doctors, patients and passers-by joined in the fun.

(h/t Yerushalimey)

07/15 Links Pt2: Dershowitz: BDS Opposes Israel's Existence; Europe’s Jews: Unwanted, Dead or Alive

From Ian:

IDC fights war on another front

As Israel’s security forces remain embroiled in the ongoing conflict with Hamas along the country’s southern border, students at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya (IDC) are engaged on another equally important front: hasbara or public diplomacy.
The Student Union at the IDC opened a “Hasbara Room” on Thursday – the first day of Operation Protective Edge – with the purpose of providing factual information about the situation on the ground to people around the world, as well as countering the misinformation and lies being disseminated on social media sites.
“Israel is not very strong at hasbara, while Hamas and the Palestinians are very good at spreading the word in the media,” said volunteer coordinator Karen Yoseph, a 27-year-old masters student at the IDC. “We are trying to combat that and we are trying to expose that a lot of times Hamas is lying.”

Dershowitz: BDS Opposes Israel's Existence

In a recent educational video for Prager University, famed Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz stepped across the aisle to fight on behalf of the one issue connecting him to the right: strong support of Israel.
Unlike most pro-Israel videos, Dershowitz refrains from soliloquies praising Israel's achievements, but instead attacks a movement most familiar to him as a University professor, namely, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement and the dark, genocidal motives lurking beneath it.
At the outset, Dershowitz makes it clear he supports the creation of a Palestinian state and also opposes the settlements in Judea and Samaria, but also strongly condemns the BDS Movement, calling it immoral in "singling out Israel of all the world's countries for economic strangulation." He attacked the movement on four fronts:

BDS: The Attempt to Strangle Israel

Anti-Semite Ali Abunimah Calls Egyptian Ceasefire A 'Ploy'

Ali Abunimah, the anti-Semitic editor of the anti-Israel blog Electronic Intifada, called the Egyptian ceasefire proposal a pro-Israel ploy on Tuesday morning.
"I didn't say in my post, but Egypt "ceasefire" ploy also attempt to create conditions for Israel-backed Abbas militias to return to Gaza."
This is not the first time that Abunimah has taken aim at Israel during Hamas' offensive. In one tweet, Abunimah accuses Israelis of "cowering" as they hide from Gazan missile fire:

Pew Research: Republicans Support Israel Much More Than Democrats

A Pew study conducted during the first week of the Israel/Hamas conflict (7/8-14) and released on Tuesday reports support for Israel among Americans remains strong. What has changed is the gap between Republican Party supporters (73%) and Democratic Party supporters (44%), which is wider than ever.
Tuesday's poll reports that 51% of Americans say they sympathize more with Israel, 14% sympathize more with the Palestinians, 15% do not sympathize with either side, and 3% sympathize with both.
However, Republicans are much more likely to sympathize with Israel, an alliance that has gotten stronger. The percentage of Republicans who sympathize more with Israel has risen from 68% to 73%; while the support of Democrats has fallen since April from 46% to 44%. The share of independents siding more with Israel than the Palestinians has slipped from 51% to 45%.The study also demonstrated the more conservative the respondents are the more likely they are to support Israel.

If Israel didn't exist, this is what "Palestine" would look like today

Let's pretend that the Arab fantasy of Israel disappearing came true. All the Jews leave and go to the US and Canada. The PLO is awarded their own country from the river to the sea. The UN and EU fully support the new moderate regime. Finally, the Arab vision of peace - get rid of the Jews - comes true.

What would "Palestine" look like a few months later?

Libya.

Several rockets have reportedly hit the airport in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, where fighting between rival armed groups has been raging since Sunday.

Several Grad rockets struck the airport late on Monday, destroying 90 percent of the planes parked there, government spokesman Ahmed Lamine said.

"The government has studied the possibility to bring international forces to enhance security," he said.

The rockets damaged the airport's control tower and two people were killed in the attack, the Reuters news agency reported.

Authorities had closed the airport due to previous fighting on Sunday, which medics say killed at least seven people .

Rival militias have clashed for control of the airport. The powerful Zintan armed group, which has been in control of the airport since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, was still holding it by Monday.

Meanwhile, the United Nations mission in Libya said it was withdrawing its staff from Libya "temporarily" because of the deteriorating security in the country.

Tripoli has been witnessing one of its worst spasms of violence since the ouster of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Militias, many of which originate from rebel forces that fought Gaddafi, have become powerful players in post-war Libya, filling a void left by weak police and security and cooperating with the government to provide order.

Everyone knows that the Islamists of Gaza want to join a caliphate, not a state; that the Muslim extremists will enthusiastically kill fellow Muslims, that Christians would be threatened and forced to flee, that neighboring countries will not stand for instability crossing the borders and would be willing to fight to keep that out. Yet everyone chooses to close their eyes and pretend that a Palestinian state would be peaceful and secular and respect human rights and it would keep the Islamist groups at bay and would not allow Al Qaeda to build cells in any power vacuum.

The PA, as bad as it is, only exists because of outsiders propping it up. As soon as a state is created the outside interest would go elsewhere, as it always does. The fact is that most Palestinian Arabs are not willing to die for the PA. Yet most Hamas and Islamic Jihad members are willing to die for their ambitions for an Islamist state/umma. A leadership that cannot rally the people to its side is doomed, and all the Western military aid in the world cannot change that.

Even if you believe the worst lying propaganda about Israel, the death toll in the area without Israel would be orders of magnitude higher if Israel didn't exist.

(h/t Yoel)

What "proportionality"means

From CNN via Newsbusters:

CNN
New Day
July 15, 2014
6:02 a.m. Eastern

CHRIS CUOMO, host: Proportionality is a big part of this story always when there's conflict. Israel obviously has the advantage militarily. Uh, yesterday, actually mistakenly reported that there had been deaths in Israel. None so far. Some reports of light casualties. Accurate?

PETER BEINART, CNN contributor: Right.

CUOMO: Now, on the other side from the Ministry of Health there, close to 200 deaths, 1,400 injured, many women, children, civilians, schools supposedly damaged. It takes us to the issue of proportionality. How does that play here?

BEINART: Right, well this is always the problem for Israel. Israel does send leaflets and phone people in order to get them to leave their buildings so as to try not to kill innocent civilians but Gaza is a very heavily crowded place and so when you launch all of these missiles, and there has been a very intense barrage by Israel, more intense than in previous conflicts, you're gonna kill a lot of innocent people and that undermines Israel’s image in the world. On the other hand, Israel has this very effective Iron Dome program and the Hamas rockets are very inaccurate and very primitive so every conflict like this, we've seen a huge disparity in death toll.

What does this have to do with the concept of "proportionality"?

Absolutely nothing.

The ICRC has a page dedicated to "proportionality in attack." It has nothing to do with the (frankly obscene) idea that each side must suffer similar casualties. Cuomo (and to an extent Beinart) seem to have a puerile viewpoint that war must be between equally matched side. Even more obscenely, the implication is that Israel's defensive measures like Iron Dome that limit Israeli casualties is somehow vaguely unfair and things might be better if Israel would just let some more Israelis get killed.

Interestingly, the word "proportional" is not used in any accepted international law, although it was proposed and many nations use that word in their own laws of war. Here is the source text, from Additional Protocols of the Geneva Conventions of 1977 (Israel is not a signatory but accepts the definition):

Additional Protocol I
Article 51(5)(b) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I prohibits "an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. "
Under Article 85(3)(b) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I, “launching an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population or civilian objects in the knowledge that such attack will cause excessive loss of life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects, as defined in Article 57, paragraph 2 a) iii) is a grave breach. "

There is lots of other good information on that page about the concept of proportionality, all of which proves that Cuomo and Beinart have no business pretending that they are knowledgeable about anything.

Israel’s Manual on the Rules of Warfare (2006) states:

In any attack, it is a duty to ensure that:
…
- That the military gain expected from the attack is proportional to the expected damage that would be caused to civilians as a result of the offensive.
The manual further states: “Proportionality must be maintained: an act must not be performed if the damage to civilians/the environment exceeds the concomitant military benefit.”

(It isn't a manual, it is a study guide. h/t Gidon at the front.)

And this:

In 2008, in a briefing to the Diplomatic Corps on Israel’s operations in Gaza, Israel’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs stated:

I think that Israel is the only state in the world in which its Minister of Defense has today, during a time of almost war, met with the Attorney General, the Minister of Justice, and Foreign Ministry experts on international law, in order to speak about and understand the terms of proportionality in accordance with how the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] works and will continue to work on the ground. So, basically, it is not something that can be judged. I hope that the international community knows that we are trying to avoid civilian casualties … .
Now, it comes down to different examples. We can discuss them. The situation in which you have a family living in a factory where I know there are rockets that can kill Israelis – is this proportionate action? I think that it is proportionate. But these are the decisions that the Israeli Chief of Staff needs to decide on a daily basis.
…
So, yes, I believe that what we are doing is proportionate but I don’t know how you can measure proportionality when you are in this kind of situation. In a way, a war against terrorism is unfair because, on one side, there are these terrorists. Believe me, proportionality is something that isn’t part of their vocabulary, and international law is not part of their vocabulary and the Geneva Convention is not part of their vocabulary. We are working with our hands tied because of all these rules, and because we are part of the free world, and because this is part of our values as well. But accidents can happen and civilians are also being killed by Israeli operations. I am not going to ignore it but I hope that there is a better understanding of what we are trying to avoid.
In 2008, in a background paper on Israel’s operations in Gaza, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated:

In practice, two key questions arise in relation to the legitimacy of the … execution of an operation: 1) Is the target itself a legitimate military objective? and 2) Even if the target is in itself legitimate, is there likely to be disproportionate injury and damage to the civilian population and civilian property.
3. Proportionality
The second legal requirement is that any attack be proportionate, in the sense that incidental loss and damage expected to be caused to civilians and civilian objects must not be excessive in relation to the military advantage anticipated.
…
While the principle is clear, in practice weighing an expected military advantage against possible collateral damage can be an extremely complex calculation to make, especially in the heat of an armed conflict. In their report to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Committee established to review NATO bombings in Yugoslavia highlighted the particular difficulties which arise when military objectives are located in densely populated areas:

The answers to these questions are not simple. It may be necessary to resolve them on a case by case basis, and the answers may differ depending on the background and values of the decision maker. It is unlikely that a human rights lawyer and an experienced combat commander would assign the same relative values to military advantage and to injury to non-combatants. … It is suggested that the determination of relative values must be that of the “reasonable military commander”. [Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee established to review NATO bombings in Yugoslavia para. 50-1]
Furthermore, in making this determination, a military commander is not required to ignore questions relating to the safety of his own forces. To the contrary, As Bothe et al note:

The concept of military advantage involves a variety of considerations including the security of the attacking force. [ibid]

International law accepts that civilians will get killed - it is not a war crime when it happens. When Hamas places weapons and explosives underneath people in the expectation of protecting them (which is a war crime,) warning the people to leave to minimize the casualties is a supremely humane thing to do that goes way beyond anything required by international law. If anything, the amount of effort Israel puts into minimizing civilian deaths while waging a legitimate military campaign is literally unprecedented.

And under the principle of proportionality, the terror groups are the ones who are violating international law, because the military advantage of attacking an airport or a nuclear plant is zero compared to the expected (and, in this case, desired) civilian impact.

This should be basic knowledge. But when it comes to Israel, anyone can make up anything and not be expected to back it up.

Beinart, although I disagree with him on many topics, is not stupid, and he should not acted this ignorant on TV. He should have known better than to answer the way he did, implying that the question was valid.

(h/t MtTB)