Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 21, 2014

Terrorists are 2848% more likely to be killed in Gaza than civilians

Here is a statistical analysis by Ilya Zhorov on Facebook, translated via Yenta Press (by "Enrico the Sailor's girlfriend) in the comments here:

Lately I’ve encountered many who claim that the IDF is attacking Palestinians “indiscriminately”. Watching Al Jazeera one can see that the majority of those who were killed in Gaza were young men. This does not go hand in hand with the claim that the killing is random, considering Gaza’s demographics.

With that in mind, yours truly decided to carry out some simple calculations in order to test the claim that the IDF kills combatants and civilians indiscriminately.

First, let us look at the size of the population in Gaza, which is estimated at 1,805,000 (based on the 2010 census + extrapolated population growth).

The size of the various armed organizations in the Gaza strip is estimated at 25,000. This is also the figure the Hamas boasts (the Zionists have larger estimates, but why trust them?)

Therefore the number of uninvolved civilians in Gaza is 1,780,000.

At this point, according to the press, the number of Palestinian casualties in Gaza is 572, with 28% being combatants and 72% being civilians.

Therefore, as simple calculation shows that the odds for being killed by the IDF is 0.0064 if you’re a combatant/terrorist and 0.000247 if you’re a non-involved civilian.

That means your odds of being killed by the IDF if you’re a Hamas terrorist (or combatant, depending on one’s point of view) is 28.48 times greater than if you’re a civilian. It appears that there is a very cut and clear distinction with the IDF specifically going after Hamas and not civilians.

Some people, not familiar with the basics of the science of probability may ask, “So how come there are more dead civilians than combatants?” The answer is simple. Most of the people in Gaza are non-involved civilians. The terrorists are only 0.0138% of the population.

Consider this: Had the IDF truly been killing people indiscriminately in Gaza, considering there are only 1.385% Hamas terrorists in Gaza, one would expect to see only 7 dead terrorists out of the total of 572 fatalities.

Of course, Zhorov is accepting the Hamas-created statistics as to who is a civilian and who is a combatant at face value. In fact, evidence shows that the number of terrorists killed is probably around double these figures, so the actual chances of being killed if you are a Hamas terrorist is closer to 50 or 60 times the chances of being killed if you are a civilian.

Anyone who claims that the IDF fires "indiscriminately" is either completely innumerate, or a liar.

07/21 Links Pt2: The Inside Story of the Kerry Peace Plan; To the Fake “Human Rights” Activists

From Ian:

The Explosive, Inside Story of How John Kerry Built an Israel-Palestine Peace Plan—and Watched It Crumble

Recounting the history of the Kerry effort, he sounded almost wistful. “We definitely tested the proposition that American involvement, creativity, high-level engagement with the leaders, intensive negotiations—all of the things the U.S. can bring to the table—could achieve peace,” said Indyk. “And it wasn't enough.”
Nearly everyone we interviewed felt the same way: that Kerry was absolutely correct to attempt a deal. The outlines were clear; the cost of inaction too great. “I always tell American secretaries of state that you get points for trying,” said Tony Blair, now a Middle East envoy. But they also believed that, for any agreement to be reached in the future, something major, something fundamental would have to change—the leaders, the American approach, the terms of reference, the external pressures.
There's no shortage of ideas, in other words. And some of them—particularly that last—may bring Israelis and Palestinians closer to a deal than Kerry got this time. But few of the people we spoke to expected progress any time soon. With Netanyahu entrenched, Abbas on his way out, settlements and rocket ranges expanding, and the populations increasingly hardline, we seem to have reached the end of an era in the peace process. And no one harbors much hope for what comes next.
“I see it from a mathematical point of view,” said Avi Dichter, the former chief of Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency. “The American effort will always be multiplied by the amount of trust between the two leaders. So if Kerry's pressure represents the number five, and then Obama's help brings the American effort to ten, it really doesn't matter. You’re still multiplying it by zero. The final result will always be zero.”

To the Fake “Human Rights” Activists

While I see or hear about all of the above, you then proceed to claim that you’re standing up for human rights. You claim that you are fighting “oppression” against the Palestinian-Arabs face on a daily basis. You claim to fight for freedom. You claim that you seek peace in the region. For some of you, you claim that you are upholding Jewish values by supporting these actions. Most importantly, you claim that you are standing up for the Palestinian-Arabs themselves. Here is the reality: You lie, and you have always lied.
True human rights activists do not spew Jew-hatred like it is second nature. They do not compare Jewish self-determination to racism. They do not hold double-standards against a people undergoing rocket fire at a rate unprecedented in the modern era. They do not stand in defense of a group of people who use their own citizens as human shields while firing rockets into another civilian population. They do not support diabolical terrorism bent on destroying the self-determination and the existence of another people. They do not stand by while propagandists emit vitriolic anti-Semitism against a state that has not only demonstrated peaceful intentions, but restraint against additional civilian casualties.

Fascism in the 21st Century: Why are so many people waving Hezbollah flags?

The late Christopher Hitchens infamously saw no difference between radical Islamism and European fascism. As he put it, ‘both movements are based on a cult of murderous violence that exalts death and destruction and despises the life of the mind.’
In London, symbols of fascism are brandished in public without any public concern. Our MPs are too busy critiquing ‘Israeli war crimes’ in the comfort of Westminster than they are stopping intimidating displays of racism around the corner.
That man on the bus was not a humanitarian or a pacifist. He was expressing his admiration for an ideology akin to fascism.
Fascists are not humanitarian. This is such an old point, but where are the demonstrations against Assad? Where are the rallies against Putin? It is only the Jews which fascists are so disturbingly obsessed with.

Chloe Valdary: ‘When we speak Zionism, we speak freedom’ (Video)

Chloe Valdary is a New Orleans-based pro-Israel student activist. Here is a clip of her short yet powerful speech at a Rally for Israel on July 18th held at Boston Common. (Valdary was reportedly assaulted at a rally last week outside the Israeli Embassy when 100 or so pro-Palestinian counter-demonstrators swarmed Israel supporters.)

When We Speak Zionism, We Speak Freedom

Depravity: Music video celebrating "kidnap" of Israeli soldier

Hamas continues to claim that they captured an Israeli soldier "Shaul Aron" without any proof. (Oron Shaul is the name of one of the soldiers killed on Sunday. UPDATE: IDF says it does not have the body of one of the soldiers.)

But the nebulous claim is enough to cause great celebrations in Gaza - and Ramallah.

Now a singer has put out a music video to cash in on how happy Arabs are at committing a war crime. It has gone viral - over 130,000 views in just a few hours.

Disgustingly, the video is filled with images of Oron Shaul taken from his Facebook page, causing his family immeasurable grief.

Lies outweigh facts in Palestinian Arab media

Usually I can glean some interesting facts from the Palestinian Arab media. And, believe it or not, one of the best in terms of accuracy has been Palestine Today, which is run by Islamic Jihad.

But nowadays the Arabic media is nothing but propaganda, and they are reporting more lies than facts.

Across the board, the Arabic media is reporting the supposed abduction of an Israeli soldier as fact, even though a person with that name has been declared dead and the IDF has denied any soldier was captured. (UPDATE: IDF says it is still looking for one body.)

Up until this morning, Hamas' Al Qassam webpage showed a fake picture of the "capture" that was actually part of a Hamas kidnap training session from 2008.

Palestine Today announced that Ghassan Alian, the Druze commander of the Golani Brigades, had died from his injuries. In fact, his injuries were upgraded to "light" and he is anxious to return to the front.

And, of course, the Arab media is not reporting any casualties among the mujahadin.

Those who rely on Arab media reports for their accusations are looking even more idiotic than usual.

The Paris pogroms continue

From The Independent and Business Insider:

Fears are growing that the Gaza conflict could transfer to the streets of France after Jewish-owned shops were burned and pillaged last night during a second violent pro-Palestinian demo in the space of two days.

In the Paris suburb sometimes nicknamed "little Jerusalem" for its large community of Sephardic Jews, the rally descended into chaos when dozens of youth -- some masked -- set fire to bins and lit firecrackers and smoke bombs.

Eighteen people were arrested after looters wrecked shops, including a kosher foodstore and a funeral home as protesters shouted: "Fuck Israel!".

A pro-Gaza demonstration in a town with a large Jewish population began peacefully but degenerated into attacks on Jewish and Chaldean businesses and four hours of running battles between youths and police.

Several cars were burned. Three shops, including a Kosher grocery, were burned and pillaged. A railway station was severely damaged.

The interior minister, Bernard Cazeneve said today: “When you menace synagogues and when you burn a grocery because it is Jewish-owned, you are committing anti-semitic acts… That is intolerable. Protest against Israel is legitimate. Nothing can justify such violence.”

The riot in Sarcelles - which was for many years run by disgraced French politician, Dominique Strauss-Kahn – followed violent scenes during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in northern Paris on Saturday afternoon.

Thirty people were arrested and 18 policemen slightly injured when youths pelted police lines with stones and bottles. Another 18 youths were arrested in Sarcelles last night.

The Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, warned at the weekend that France faced “a new form of anti-semitism”, fomented by the hard left and by political activists like the comedian Dieudonne who blame “Jews” for all the world’s ills.

"We have never seen such an outpouring of hatred and violence in Sarcelles," said the mayor Francois Pupponi. "This morning people are stunned, and the Jewish community is afraid."

Roger Cuikerman, head of the French umbrella groups of Jewish organisations, CRIF, said there was a growing anxiety amongst French jews. Protest against Israeli government actions was one thing, he said. Attacks on Jews for being Jews were “deeply disturbing”.

“They are not screaming 'death to the Israelis' on the streets of Paris,” he said. “They are screaming ‘death to the Jews’. They are attacking synagogues which are places of prayer.”

It was only last week that Israel haters at Mondoweiss pretended that a group of these gangs attacking a synagogue were not antisemitic - because they found some video of some Jews fighting back, which is unnatural and very disturbing to those who prefer their Jews to die like sheep to a slaughter. (Here's the truth.)

The other reason that the moral midgets at Mondoweiss hate stories like these is because is shows that a Jewish state is necessary, as hundreds of French Jews who moved to Israel last week proved. That drives them nuts because they base their anti-Israel arguments on the claim that antisemitism is a thing of the past.

(h/t Bob K for photos)

(Etymology note: I've seen definitions of pogrom both for organized massacres against people and against property. I am using only the latter definition. Thank God.)

07/21 Links Pt1: Golani: First to fight, first to pay the price; Ban Ki-Moon Please Don’t Be a Terrorist

From Ian:

Times of Israel Live Blog: Peres consoles bereaved families; large rocket barrage at south

The Times of Israel is liveblogging events as they unfold through Monday, the 14th day of Operation Protective Edge. Israel thwarted early morning attacks by Hamas gunmen emerging from tunnels. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Israel’s actions in the Hamas stronghold of Shejaiya were “atrocious.” The IDF announced Sunday evening that 13 Golani Brigade soldiers died overnight in fighting in Gaza, raising the Israeli army death toll to 18. The soldiers were killed in heavy combat in Shejaiya, which also left over 70 Palestinians dead, Gaza Health Ministry officials said. Israel said the neighborhood is a Hamas stronghold, and that the army had warned residents to evacuate

How many Israelis must die before we are ‘allowed’ to defend them? (From The Guardian!)

As Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Daniel Taub, said recently: “We don’t have to apologise for Israelis not being killed.” Indeed, one wonders quite how the media would want to even up the scores. Perhaps Israel should switch off the early-warning systems that notify Israelis of missiles, and stop using Iron Dome until more Israelis have been killed than Palestinians? Only then, having satiated the media thirst for Israeli blood by dying in sufficient numbers, would Israel be “allowed” to resume its protective operation to let Israelis live peaceful lives free from terror.
Israel both has the right to defend our citizens with military operations, and to protect the lives of our citizens with bunkers and anti-missile systems. Until our operations are over, the media ought to drastically rethink the irresponsible way they are discussing proportionality.

Brendan O'Neill: Can everyone please stop posting photos of dead Palestinian children all over the internet?

It all has the look and feel and sound of moral pornography, designed less to enlighten people about what is going in Israel-Gaza – war harms children? Who didn’t know this? – than to provide something shocking for us all to stare at and be collectively horrified by. There is a terrible irony to this widespread publishing of photos of battered Palestinian children – the aim seems to be to show that we the right-minded folk of Twitter and the Western media really care, but the question it immediately raises in my mind is this: “Well, if you care about children so much, why didn’t you publish photos of dead kids from the Congo? Or Aleppo? Or Sri Lanka? Do you only care about one group of children – Palestinians – and no others?” So a photo-sharing frenzy aimed at advertising our caring tendencies actually has the opposite effect: it makes one wonder why this alleged caring instinct is so picky, so partial , attaching itself firmly to the child-victims of one conflict but rarely finding expression in relation to any other conflict.

PM Netanyahu's message to the people of Gaza

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: The Arabs Betrayed Us - Again

Since 1948, the Arab countries and government have been paying mostly lip service to the Palestinians.
"They have money and oil, but don't care about the Palestinians, even though we are Arabs and Muslims like them. What a Saudi or Qatari sheikh spends in one night in London, Paris or Las Vegas could solve the problem of tens of thousands of Palestinians." — Abdel Bari Atwan, Palestinian editor.
"Some Arabs were hoping that Israel would rid them of Hamas." — Ashraf Salameh, Gaza City.
"Some of the Arab regimes are interested in getting rid of the resistance in order to remove the burden of the Palestinian cause, which threatens the stability of their regimes." — Mustafa al-Sawwaf, Palestinian political analyst.
"Most Arabs are busy these days with bloody battles waged by their leaders, who are struggling to survive. These battles are raging in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Libya and the Palestinian Authority." — Mohammed al-Musafer, columnist.
"The Arab leaders don't know what they want from the Gaza Strip. They don't even know what they want from Israel." — Yusef Rizka, Hamas official.

Hamas terrorist seen dressed as a woman (update)

Janis Mackey Frayer of CTV tweeted this yesterday:

Inside Shejaiyya we also saw several #Hamas gunmen. One passed dressed in a woman's headscarf... tip of a gun poked out from under cloak.
— Janis Mackey Frayer (@janisctv) July 20, 2014

This happens to be a war crime.

The 1977 Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 , article 37, defines "perfidy" as "(c) the feigning of civilian, non-combatant status."

Too bad there are no photos, but my impression is that most photographers in Gaza are Gazan stringers.

UPDATE: Hebrew media reports that a Hamas member dressed as an old man and approached IDF soldiers on Saturday morning, begging for medical help. As troops approached him, he then started throwing hand grenades, and the soldiers killed him. (h/t Yoel)

Last week, Dr. Mads Gilbert - known 9/11 conspiracy theorist and spinner of bizarre tales about secret Israeli weapons being used in Gaza - returned to the region to spread his poisonous lies.

Renounced Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert on Sunday (7/13) accused the Israeli army of using internationally banned weapons in its ongoing offensive against the Gaza Strip.

Gilbert told a press conference in Shifa Hospital in Gaza City that examinations of the bodies of the Palestinian victims showed that they had been subjected to internationally banned weapons.

Unverifiable accusations like this one enhance Gilbert's celebrity among reporters, and the Independent yesterday published without any comment an article by Gilbert about the "rivers of blood" in Shifa Hospital (the hospital that is Hamas de facto headquarters.)

He's a doctor, he is in a war zone, he is a volunteer, UNRWA praises him, so who will question such a man?

But some of his statements can be verified as lies, if only the media would know enough to ask.

So, here is proof that Mads Gilbert is a liar (and that reporters are usually too lazy to check out the facts:)

Israel says it allows in medical supplies except for “dual-use” items — anything it suspects could be diverted by Hamas for military purposes — but won’t say what it has blacklisted.

Gilbert, the Norwegian volunteer, helps out at Shifa several times a year. This time, he brought headlamps, useful for surgeons, but says they are on Israel’s list of banned items.

A few months ago I published the official list from the IDF of everything banned to be exported from Israel to Gaza. Literally everything.

Needless to say, headlamps are not on the list.

Here it is, for reporters who don't want to bother asking the IDF themselves:

Missile equipment and munitions have been strictly forbidden from entering into Gaza as declared in the Defense Export Control Order of 2008.

Controlled Dual Use Items:

1. Fertilizers or any mixture containing choleric potassium with concentrations greater than 5%.
2. Fibers or textiles containing carbon (carbon fibers or graphite fibers), including:
a. Chopped carbon fibers.
b. Carbon roving.
c. Carbon strand.
d. Carbon fabric tape.
3. Glass fiber-based raw materials, including:
a. Chopped glass fibers.
b. Glass roving
c. Glass strand.
d. Glass fabric tape.
e. S-glass.
f. E-glass.
4. Vessels.
5. Fibers or fabrics featuring polyethylene, also known as Dyneema.
6. Retro detection devices.
7. Gas tanks.
8. Drilling equipment.
9. Equipment for the production of water from drillings.
10. Vinyl esther resins.
11. Epoxy resins.
12. Hardeners for epoxy resins featuring chemical groups of durable or reliable types, including:
a. DETA – diethylenetriamine.
b. TETA – thiethylenetramine.
c. AEP – aminoethylpiperazine.
d. E-100-ethyleneamine.
e. Jeffamine T-403.
f. Catalyst 4,5,6,22,23,105, 140, 145,150,179,190,240.g. D.E.H 20,24,25,26,29,52,58,80,81,82,83,84,85,87.
h. XZ 92740.00
13. Vinyl esther accelerants, including:
a. DMA-dimethylaniline.
b. Cobalt octoate.
c. MEKP – methylethyl keyone peroxide.
d. AAP – acetyl acetone peroxide.
e. CuHP – cumene hydroperoxide.
14. M or H type HTPB, hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene.
15. Water disinfection materials – solutions with a concentration of over 11%.
16. TDI - Toluene diisocyanate.

Dual Use Items for Projects (that may be imported into Gaza by NGOs such as UNRWA)

Portland cement (bulk or bags or drums).
Natural aggregates, quarry aggregates and all foundation materials.
Prepared concrete.
Concrete elements and/or precast and/or tensed concrete.
Steel elements and/construction products.
Concrete for foundations and pillars of any diameter (including welded steel mesh).
Steel cables of any thickness.
Forms for construction elements of plastic or galvanized steel.
Industrial forms for concrete pouring.
Beams from composite materials or plastic with a panel thickness of 4mm and thicker.
Thermal insulation materials and/or products excluding roof tiles, plaster/mortar glue, mosaic tiles, building stone/coating stone/exterior stone.
Concrete blocks, silicate, Ytong or equivalent (of any thickness).
Building sealing materials or products which include Epoxy or polyurethane.
Asphalt and its components (bitumen, emulsion) in bulk or in packages of any sort.
Steel elements and/or steel working products for construction.
Elements and/or products for channeling and drainage from precast concrete with diameters of over 1 meter.
Trailers and/or shipping containers.
Vehicles except for personal vehicles (not including 4X4 vehicles), including construction vehicles.

Everything not on this list can be imported into Gaza without restriction from Israel, as long as there is a Gazan willing to buy it.

The person in charge of the Kerem Shalom crossing told me that he has seen Jacuzzis and BMWs imported into Gaza through the crossing.

The facts are out there for anyone who tries to find them out. To bad the media is so willing to fall under the spell of a "humanitarian doctor" so much so that they don't check out whether he is also a liar.

For most reporters, there are no dead terrorists in Gaza

From Patrick Martin at The Globe and Mail:

As we arrived, we came upon the funeral of nine men, all in their 20s or early 30s, killed about 2 a.m. Saturday morning by a single missile apparently fired by an Israeli drone. The deaths helped put the total number of Gazans killed in this war well above 300.

The oration was pretty standard fare for Hamas or Islamic Jihad funerals. But what surprised us as we turned into the courtyard of Nasser Hospital where the event was taking place was that this was a funeral mainly conducted by Fatah, the party led by Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Abbas, known popularly as Abu Mazen, opposes the rockets being fired against Israel and is trying to de-escalate this conflict not intensify it.

But it was definitely the yellow flag of Fatah that flew above the crowd of 300 or so – flying upside down, by the way, whether by design or accident, I couldn’t find out.

And it was the flag of Palestine that was bloodied and wrapped as a shroud around the bodies of seven of the nine men – the other two were wrapped in the green flag of Hamas.
...

While Khan Younis might be called the original home of Hamas, it also has been a centre of the Fatah movement in Gaza. In the 2006 Palestinian election, the people of this city elected three Hamas representatives and two from Fatah, one of whom was Mohammed Dahlan, who led the party in Gaza and denounced Hamas’s election as a disaster. He even attempted to overthrow Hamas in 2007, but lost in the street battles between the two sides and left the Strip in Hamas’s control.

Yet, despite the bloody history between the two movements, today they stand allied.

A senior Fatah official told me earlier this week in Ramallah that Fatah has felt obliged to fire some rockets against Israel, lest it be seen as collaborating with the Jewish state.

Oh, so the scores of rockets Fatah groups have fired into Israel aren't meant to actually kill anyone. They are symbolic! Just like these Fatah rockets, fired from buildings!

The Israeli civilians who are under fire can breathe easy. It isn't personal, just politics.

Notice also that while the IDF has killed many terrorists like the ones mentioned here, practically all the reporters in Gaza have ignored them completely, implying that all of the dead are civilians. There are no photos of any victims who are not civilian, no reports from terrorist funerals (that would identify which terror group the dead belonged to) - nothing.

All those firefights don't result in a single dead Hamas or Islamic Jihad member. Of course, their webpages avoid any mention - except for a token "martyr" once every couple of days - of the names of their members killed by the IDF. The Hamas Interior Ministry and Health Ministry avoid mentioning how many dead are from terror groups that they admit they support. And reporters ignore all of this, willingly going along with Hamas' sham.

This article is the exception that proves the rule.

It is as if the world media is following Hamas' published guidelines on how to report from Gaza.

This is possibly the biggest scandal of the current fighting. It is because of irresponsible and one-sided reporting from Gaza that criticism of Israel is being hurled by the UN and other diplomats and pundits, people who have no idea of the realities of conflict in an urban area where terrorists are hiding among the general population.

Oh, by the way, Hamas' de facto headquarters is in Shifa Hospital

I had missed this in the Washington Post last week:

At the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, crowds gathered to throw shoes and eggs at the Palestinian Authority’s health minister, who represents the crumbling “unity government” in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The minister was turned away before he reached the hospital, which has become a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.

Isn't that special?

Gaza interior ministry denies any rockets were hidden at UNRWA facility (update)

The Interior Ministry of Gaza has denied that any rockets were found in a UNRWA school, something that UNRWA admitted last week.

Their statement reveals a lot about the Gaza ministries that they perhaps do not want Western media to notice.

The ministry said in a statement on its website that it had asked the security agency to provide proof to the police at the school referred to, to make sure of the validity of the claim or not, but they apologized for it, and failed to cooperate with them.

The ministry confirmed the absence of any proof of the declaration of UNRWA, and they denounced the organization, saying they are doing their job to achieve security for all citizens and all institutions and headquarters of local and international organizations in addition to their role in protecting the resistance.

The ministry emphasized that it has to communicate with all the resistance factions in Gaza, which confirmed its categorical rejection of the use of schools and civic institutions and that they cannot do so.

The Gaza Interior Ministry considers this claim as a means to justify the targeting of civilians and to prepare in advance to find a cover for the crimes committed by the Israeli occupation today in the Gaza Strip.

It pointed out that all UNRWA schools are guarded by the agency around the clock, and wonders how they were storing weapons and entered the school without the knowledge of school guards, stressing that Palestinian resistance does not need to use the schools for the storage of weapons and gear.

Who is more credible - UNRWA or the Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry? Since they both are run by accomplished liars, you need to look at who has the most incentive to lie, and in this case UNRWA had no incentive to lie about rockets that makes it look bad to allow them to be placed on their grounds to begin with. (The charge that UNRWA is in cahoots with the IDF is one of the funnier things I've seen today.)

Notice also that the Interior Ministry admits that its job is to protect terrorists, and that it is in constant contact with all Gaza terror groups.

Once we have established that the Gaza ministries lie, then the question is why the media takes their statements about civilian casualties without any skepticism?

UPDATE: Their statement is in English.

The bad blood between Hamas and Egypt is affecting people's lives - but none of the reporters in Gaza seem to care.

Al Ahram reports:

Egyptian troops in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula barred an aid convoy of activists and medical volunteers from reaching the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip on Saturday, as a deadly conflict with Israeli forces intensified.

The convoy, which left Cairo in the early hours of Saturday, was stopped at the North Sinai Balooza checkpoint when forces said that the supplies but not humans could pass into the embattled enclave, citing security concerns.

"Despite carrying complete permits, we were blackmailed, [being told] that only supplies, not medical volunteers, could be allowed to move ahead," said Mohamed El-Baqer, of the Popular Committee to Support the Palestinians’ Uprising, at a press conference late on Saturday outside the Journalists Syndicate in downtown Cairo.

The authorities have not issued any statements on the incident.

But Hamas doesn't want some aid, as their mouthpiece Middle East Monitor says:

Forty members of the UAE "aid convoy" which entered the Gaza Strip last week have been revealed as intelligence agents. They were, it is believed, trying to collect information about Hamas and its infrastructure in the besieged territory.

According to one informed source, a local Palestinian recognised one of the agents as a soldier in the UAE armed forces. He contacted the security forces in Gaza who took the agent in for questioning.

Other members of the "aid convoy" then made contact with officials in the United Arab Emirates. In turn, they asked disgraced Fatah official Mohamed Dahlan, who now lives in and is sponsored by the UAE government, to try to secure a safe and swift exit for the agents.

"Dahlan called one of his followers from Fatah who spoke with Hamas officials and they agreed to let the convoy leave immediately," the source said.

Palestinians in Gaza were surprised by the sudden exit of the UAE personnel on Saturday. The field hospital that they had ostensibly arrived to set-up was left uncompleted.

Commentators say that suspicions should have been aroused when the convoy was allowed by the Egyptians to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing, as no other convoys have been allowed to enter since the start of the Israeli attack and invasion. Media reports on Saturday said that the Egyptian army has banned and attacked three international aid convoys trying to enter the enclave.

Egypt has closed Rafah and does not allow wounded Palestinians to travel abroad for treatment or let much-needed medicine and medical equipment to be taken into Gaza.

Well, Egypt did allow a few patients to cross Rafah, but Hamas isn't exactly being very honest in its press releases.

Arabs are quite willing to sacrifice other Arab lives for even nebulous political gain, but the Western media can't wrap their heads around the idea. Much easier to blame everything on "Goliath" Israel.

Dead child porn: Reporters allow emotions to override facts

The photos and videos from Shuja'iya are horrific in every sense of the word. Innocent women and children have been killed. One cannot look at the carnage and not feel empathy.

The problem is that empathy must not trump facts.'

As horrible as the scenes of the dead are, they do not reveal the reasons nor the circumstances for their deaths - and it is unlikely in the politically charged atmosphere of Gaza that the real reasons of any of their deaths can be determined.

It was recognized days ago that the crowded civilian neighborhood of Shuja'iya was a major center of Hamas' military operations. As Times of Israel reported at the time:

During the morning (Wednesday), the Israel Air Force dropped flyers while recorded phone calls and SMS messages to residents warned a series of military strikes was imminent, the military said.

The flyers said the military would carry out air strikes against targets in Zeitoun and Shuja’iya, two flashpoint districts east of Gaza City, noting that “a high volume of rocket fire” had been directed from there. Residents were advised to evacuate to Gaza City by 8.00 a.m. local time.

“In spite of the ceasefire, Hamas and other terror organizations continued to fire rockets, therefore it is the intention of the IDF to carry out aerial strikes against terror sites and operatives in Shuja’iya and Zeitoun,” the leaflets read. “A high volume of rocket fire at Israel has originated in this area.”

“For your own safety, you are requested to vacate from your residence immediately and head towards Gaza City by Wednesday morning, July 16, 2014, at 08:00 AM. The IDF does not want to harm you, and your families. The evacuation is for your own safety. You should not return to the premises until further notice. Whoever disregards these instructions and fails to evacuate immediately, endangers their own lives, as well as those of their families.”

However, residents of Shuja’iya and Zeitoun were not evacuating their homes, in spite of the Israeli ultimatum issued, Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip told The Times of Israel.

As on Sunday, Hamas urged residents to ignore the warnings, dismissing it as “psychological warfare”.

“There is no need to worry about these (warnings), or deal with them. Do not respond to them in any way,” a Hamas interior ministry statement said. “This is part of the psychological war, intended to disrupt the domestic front.”

Now, what happened when the IDF troops entered Shuja'iya?

Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman, said that Israeli forces had been moving toward Shuja'iya, which he called a "Hamas stronghold" from which about 140 rockets had been fired at Israel since the start of the Israeli offensive.

The forces were "on the way to deal with tunnels they have in Shuja'iya and to deal with rocket launching from there," Lerner said. "We met extensive resistance from Hamas terrorists shooting at forces from houses in the neighborhood, firing rocket-propelled grenades from several directions. Artillery was fired in support, to address that challenge."

And, as we now know, 13 IDF soldiers were killed.

How can any reporter know which of the dead children were killed by Israeli fire and which were killed by Hamas RPGs? How many were killed by IDF bombers and how many from Hamas weapons caches that were detonated by those bombs? Hamas made no secret that it is booby-trapping civilian areas and attempting to lure IDF soldiers and vehicles into deadly ambushes - how many civilians were killed through Hamas' extensive efforts to kill or capture IDF soldiers?

These are questions that most journalists in Gaza are ill-equipped to answer. And they are unlikely to emphasize how much effort the IDF placed in trying to empty the area from civilians while Hamas used implicit threats to keep the same people in their houses that are on top of Hamas tunnels and bunkers. In a medium driven by imagery, photos and video of dead children are going to override the desire for sober analysis.

In this Sky News interview, Naftali Bennett does a fair but not great job defending the IDF as the (blurred) scenes shown in the video above are shown:

Notice how the Sky News anchor takes it as a given that every death is the result of Israeli actions. He says explicitly, without any knowledge of reality, that Israel is "indiscriminately kill[ing] women and children."

He is clueless and he is making accusations based on emotions rather than facts.

When they see dead kids, most reporters reflexively assume they were killed by the "enemy," not their own side - but they have a hard time internalizing that Hamas is the enemy of these children, and the IDF is not.

Bennett should have emphasized that under international law, Israel's actions in Shuja'iya were entirely legitimate. Since Wednesday, the IDF did everything possible to ensure that innocents would not be harmed, and Hamas did everything they could to keep them in place as human shields - nearly explicitly, in their own statements. It is even possible that the Hamas edicts were being backed up by force.

The IDF's actions in trying to save civilians, in all probability, made the operation far more complex and dangerous for their own soldiers, which is not at all mandated in international law. Nowhere does the Geneva Conventions say that armies must place their own soldiers at risk to avoid civilian casualties. Israel, and Israel alone, is expected to adhere to superhuman standards and is castigated even when it does so.

The existence of civilians in the area during what is being described by all observers as a fierce firefight does not make the area immune from being a target in any reasonable interpretation of international law.

Bennett should similarly have challenged the anchorman as to whose munitions actually killed so many civilians, and why the anti-Israel anchor assumes that Israel alone is responsible. He doesn't know and his asking loaded questions based on his ignorance should have been fiercely countered.

The sad fact is that with every dead child, Hamas wins and Israel loses. For all the effort Israel expends to minimize innocent lives lost (on both sides of the battlefield), Hamas does the opposite. This is clear from both IDF and Hamas official statements.

That simple fact should be what every reporter thinks of when they see sickening scenes of dead civilians.

Only Hamas benefits from their deaths.

07/20 Links P2: Peace? Not at this street protest; Russell Brand Justifies Hamas Terrorism

From Ian:

Watchdog Group’s Massive Billboard Equates New York Times With Terror Group Hamas

A pro-Israel watchdog group equated The New York Times with terror group Hamas on a massive billboard banner which went up outside the famed newspaper’s newsroom on Friday.
“Hamas attacks Israel: Not Surprising”, the banner reads, above a picture of a missile. Underneath it says: “The New York Times attacks Israel: Also not surprising”, on top of an image of a pen.
“Stop skewing facts. Stop the key omissions. Stop the Anti-Israeli Bias”, the billboard concludes.

Michael Coren: Peace? Not at this street protest

“The Jews control the media, control the banks, control governments, control everything,” shouted the man in front of me, cheered on by a mob of men and women who quickly assembled around him.
“Will I condemn the murder of the three Israeli teens? Speak sense! They were killed in a car accident two weeks earlier and used by the Zionists to justify the holocaust on Gaza. Their families were part of the plot.” More cheering.
Welcome to the wonderful world of a Toronto protest against the Israeli response to Hamas and its killing of Jewish kids and firing of thousands of rockets into Israel.

Russell Brand Legitimizes Hamas Terrorism

Unlike those celebrities who are tweeting Free Palestine without explanation- add singer Selena Gomez to the list – Russell Brand – an English “comedian” most notable for being Katy Perry’s ex husband - has decided to put out a video explaining his thoughts in depth.
More like out of his depth.
4:22: Brand claiming news of the death of the three Israeli boys was deliberately held back and used to build up tension and conflict.
4:57: Brand again denying Hamas are a terrorist group and then speaking of those “powerful lobbying groups” representing Israel’s interests in American politics.

They honestly think that Jewish people are monsters.

It is the only final explanation that I can come to.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and other such affable neighbors blanket Israel in bombs - thousands and thousands of bombs over the course of years - ruining the lives of tens of thousands of young people throughout that part of the country - and the western-left, which claims to care about human rights, simply does not care about those human rights.

They honestly, sincerely do not care and, thus, have never minded Arab-on-Jewish violence... or, really, anybody on Jewish violence.

Israel is both one of the smallest countries in the world and the single most bombed country in the world for its size and the very people who claim to stand for human rights and social justice, could not care less.

On the contrary, they honestly believe that we deserve it. They believe, that despite our history, that, yet again, Jews deserve a good ass-kicking, apparently for not being respectful enough to our former masters.

That is why as soon as the Jewish people stand up for ourselves, against a much larger majority population, western-leftists leap to their feet and call us "Nazis" and murderers and claim that we have sacrificed our very souls out of some irrational, racist fear of the harmless, indigenous "other."

They mock and demean our efforts to protect ourselves and our children out of some shallow, vaguely understood, but emotionally-satisfying political ideology. They portray, in exceedingly caustic terms, our efforts at self-defense as an unjust form of aggression against those who hand out candy at the joyous news of the killing of Jewish teenagers.

The Jews of the Middle East are six million people swimming in a very small bay within a much larger ocean containing between 350 and 400 million Arabs who, for the most part, do not want us there and are not the least bit shy about letting us know it.

And sometimes they do so in exceedingly direct terms, such as nearly chopping the head off of a three month old Jewish baby girl.

Throughout the Arab-Muslim Middle East imams and ayatollahs stand before their people, raise their fists, and cry to the heavens for anti-Jewish violence. They spread the blood libel. They tell the world that the Jewish people are monsters who must be confronted, if not killed, wherever we may be found.

Sometimes they claim that we send Zionist sharks into the waters of the Mediterranean for the purposes of ruining Egyptian tourism or that we send vultures into Saudi air space as Zionist spies. Or that we breed diseased Zionist rats to be let loose into Arab villages in Judea or Samaria.

So, who is this "they" that I speak of? Generally speaking, it is the Arab-Muslim world within the Middle East, but it is not only the gracious neighbors of Israel who contribute to this irrational racism and hatred toward us.

The Arab Middle East has its allies.

The First Horrible Ring of Hatred

Think of the conflict as comprised of concentric Rings of Hatred around the Jews of the Middle East.

The innermost ring is the most intense. At the innermost ring are Arabs willing to sacrifice their own children for the Holy Sport of killing Jews in the name of Allah and the Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Unto Him).

These are the people that are currently getting their asses whooped, and for very good reason, in the Gaza Strip, and they are also the same people who generally believe that Jews are fair-game for violence and murder.

I honestly do not know what to say to the local Arabs beyond, "Stop inciting hatred and endeavoring to kill Jews." If they would kindly follow that advice they would find the Jewish people to be their very best friends in the world. Jews would certainly be far better friends to them than their Arab-Muslim brothers who locked them up in refugee camps throughout the Middle East since 1948 to be used as weapons against us for religious reasons.

The Second Horrible Ring of Hatred

Beyond them, of course, is the larger Arab-Muslim Middle East wherein the most blood-curdling forms of outright Jew hatred are perfectly acceptable in day-to-day discourse. And this, in truth, is where the battle will eventually be won or lost. The day may come when the Arab accepts the Jew, but until that day comes the violent pressure from the great Arab majority against the small Jewish minority will continue and the conflict will go on and the western-left, which was practically invented by Jews, will continue to blame the Jewish people for the violence against us.

This, needless to say, brings me to the next Ring of Hatred.

The Third Horrible Ring of Hatred

The United Nations, the EU, and the Western Left.

The UN hardly even needs to be considered. We all understand that the UN is dominated by the Arab / Muslim bloc and that while they spend considerable time and resources seeking to undermine Israel's ability to function as a fellow member of the community of nations, it almost never condemns the far worse human rights violations of other members in good standing.

As for the EU and the western-left, they need to be considered as one. They hold the same values and their organizations from the biggest, such as the EU, itself, to the smallest, tend to represent those values. And, it should be noted, that in theory these are highly commendable values. They include the values of social justice and universal human rights as they emerged in the twentieth-century following the great conflagrations of that century and following nineteenth-century industrial abuses of labor.

It was these classically liberal values that led to something approaching full equality for black people in the United States. It was these values that eventually allowed women to gain a voice and a vote and a share of the public square. I grew up with such values in a Democratic home. We were pro-Civil Rights, pro-Women's Rights, anti-war, pro-environmentalism, and pro-Israel. None of that seemed the least bit contradictory.

Sadly, however, the western-left is no longer a friend to the Jewish people. On the contrary. They, instead, provide a seat at the progressive-left table for anti-Semitic anti-Zionists who would see the Jewish people robbed of autonomy and self-defense.

Times have changed.

At the long-term prodding of Arab and old Soviet propaganda the western left increasingly sees the Jews of the Middle East as villains. The left has constructed a "narrative" of Jewish imperial racism in conflict with indigenous rights. This narrative has nothing to do with history and almost nothing to do with the current Arab-Muslim war against the Jews of the Middle East.

They have invented a morality play in which the Jewish victims are portrayed as aggressors against the innocent, indigenous population who lived idyllic, pastoral lives, tending their Sacred Olive Groves in pastoral tranquility until those vicious, European Jewish marauders rode through in the twentieth-century and stole their land and refused to rape their women out of clear and obvious Zionist-Jewish racism.

That, in a nutshell, is the way much of the western-left views the Jews who live in our ancestral homeland and if that is what they think of them, just what do they think of us?

They think that the Jews are thieves who stole Judea and Samaria from the "native" Arab population. And not only are we told that we stole the land of our ancestors, the land where Jewish people have lived since before recorded history, but we stole it from the "indigenous" conquerors of the 7th century who immediately placed the Jewish people under the conditions of dhimmitude where we lived for 13 long centuries before freeing ourselves with the Movement for Jewish Liberation known as Zionism.

Of course, upon freeing ourselves from persecution under the imperial system of dhimmitude, with the fall of the Ottomans upon the completion of World War I, our former oppressors launched a war against us that continues to this day.

And, yet, western-leftists, who claim to believe in "universal human rights" and "social justice," side with the hostile majority Arab-Muslim population against the besieged Jewish minority in the Middle East and do so within living memory of the Holocaust.

All I can say at this point, with, as I write, the bombs now dropping on Gaza - as well as on S'derot, Ashkelon, and throughout the rest of the country - is G-d Bless the IDF and may it keep the Jewish people in the Middle East, and all Israelis, safe from harm.

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.