Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

To the haters, Israel has only one right: the right to be destroyed

I mentioned last week that the anti-Israel crowd has latched onto a new meme: that Israel, under international law, has no right to defend itself.

One of the most-quoted "proofs" of this comes from Noura Erekat, writing in Jadaliyya, in a post that was "liked" nearly 20,000 times on Facebook.

Her argument is similar to John Dugard's argument I had responded to, claiming the nonsense that Israel is occupying Gaza and therefore cannot claim self-defense against an area that is occupied. As with Dugard, her own words prove otherwise:

Occupation Law is part of the laws of armed conflict; it contemplates military occupation as an outcome of war and enumerates the duties of an occupying power until the peace is restored and the occupation ends. To fulfill its duties, the occupying power is afforded the right to use police powers, or the force permissible for law enforcement purposes. As put by the U.S. Military Tribunal during the Hostages Trial (The United States of America vs. Wilhelm List, et al.)

International Law places the responsibility upon the commanding general of preserving order, punishing crime, and protecting lives and property within the occupied territory. His power in accomplishing these ends is as great as his responsibility.

Erekat, who teaches international law, allows that an occupying power is allowed to use police powers, and her own quote defines police powers as "preserving order, punishing crime, and protecting lives and property within the occupied territory." This is true: and it is proof that Israel cannot be occupying Gaza, because Israel does not have the ability to perform the duties required of an occupier, of setting up functioning security and judicial structure. By definition, if a state cannot exercise that level of control over an area, it cannot be considered an occupier. (This is derived from the Hague conventions, article 43.)

International law does not require a nation to be placed in an impossible situation where it cannot defend itself, either by policing or by war, but Noura Erekat and her ilk are actively trying to create a legal framework where Israel, and only Israel, is not legally allowed to defend itself under any circumstances (except, ironically, by forcibly conquering Gaza which would involve a death toll in the tens of thousands.)

The real agenda is clear. None of these people care about human rights. They simply want Israel to be destroyed.

This can be seen on a much more basic level by this recent incident in Sweden:

Social Democrat leader Stefan Löfven has been flooded with thousands of negative comments after he posted on Facebook that "Israel has the right to defend itself" in a post about the ongoing Gaza crisis.

The election favourite posted the comment on Saturday night and within minutes he was on the receiving end of angry replies from users of the social network.

"Israel must respect international law but obviously has the right to defend itself. It is a huge tragedy that the violence escalates," Löfven wrote.

Most of the comments were critical of the political party leader's stance with one user posting; "Israel kills right now Palestinian children every day. Is that self-defence?"

Several other people said they had no intention in voting for Löfven in September following the remark.

Löfven's comment appears to clash with a statement released by the Social Democrats' foreign policy spokesperson Urban Ahlin. In a press release issued on Thursday Ahlin stated that the party needed to be clear in its reaction against the Israeli bombing of Gaza.

He also condemned the Hamas rocket fire against Israel and called for a peaceful two-state solution.

"It's very surprising (what Löfven wrote) as it differs from what the party's foreign policy spokesperson Urban Ahlin said the other day," Ulf Bjereld, a professor of political scientist at Gothenburg University, told Aftonbladet.

Yes, saying that Israel has the right to defend itself while respecting international law is considered hugely controversial to large swaths of Sweden's citizenship.

This is a human rights issue.

The entire purpose of the State of Israel was to afford Jews the right to defend themselves. Noura Erekat and John Dugard and the Swedish protesters and many, many others want that right to be stripped away, and to bring back the old days where Jews could be slaughtered without protest.

(h/t Yoel)

Paralyzed girl has been used as a political pawn for weeks (update)

I wrote yesterday that Sky News reported the tragic story about Maha Sheik Khalil, the 7-year old girl from Gaza.

Sky News wrote that

The family has been told there are three hospitals willing to treat Maha - in Germany, Turkey, and the US - and a sponsor has agreed to cover the cost.

But they need to get her our of Gaza first, and they are still waiting for permission from Israel.

I noted that according to the IDF, no such request had been made, which means that it wasn't Israel keeping Maha from live-saving treatment - but Gaza officials.

It turns out that Maha has been a literal poster child for supposed Israeli atrocities for weeks, with many stories about her.

AP had a photo of her in the hospital on July 28:

Palestinian Maha al-Sheikh Khalil, 7, left, receives a present by a charity worker dressed as a bear for the Eid al-Fitr holiday on a hospital bed in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 28, 2014. ... According to the family, the doctors informed them that there is nothing that they can do and they have to seek treatment and spinal cord surgery abroad. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

AFP published a photo of her as early as July 23.

On July 28, WSJ wrote:

Her surviving relatives say they are awaiting permission from Israel to let her leave Gaza to receive medical treatment in Germany. Due to the fighting, they aren't holding out much hope.

So was there any formal request to transfer Maha to Israel so she could be treated abroad?

Not until after the Sky News story was aired, and two weeks after media first reported they were waiting for permission from Israel!

Channel 3 New Zealand reported on her Monday at the same time as the Sky News article, indicating that officials at Shifa Hospital have been pushing her story to every reporter that walks in:

And while Maha has received offers of treatment from Germany, Turkey and the United States, she is stuck in the warzone.

Her transportation will take longer to organise than the current three-day ceasefire allows - and also requires Israeli cooperation.

Her doctor told Sky News every day she waits Maha's chances of nerve recovery fade.

That reporter did a follow-up today:

3 News met Maha days after the strike. Nearly three weeks later she is still in hospital, unable to receive the advanced treatment she needs.

But her family has just been told there might be some good news. They've got Maha's passport and there's a possible flight from Tel Aviv to Turkey – but they have to get her into Israel first.

A mobile phone sits at Maha's bedside and her uncle prays quietly – the family has been told the call could come at any minute.

Maha is listening to everything that's being said around her.

"They told me that I'm going to travel but until now they didn't let me go," she says.

"I want to go outside so fast so I can get well."

Maha's family is waiting for travel permission from Israel, but Israel says it hasn't received the request.

A check with the hospital confirms Maha's name is on a list that was sent a day earlier. But because of the political situation in Gaza the hospital has had to send it to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah first, and on from there into Israel.

The urgent request had not been made until yesterday!

Maha's crime is that she is a cute 7-year old girl who can be used for anti-Israel propaganda - and as such she is far more valuable being shoved in front of reporters than abroad.

Now that there were indications of malfeasance by the administration of the hospital in getting her specialized treatment, her value has changed. Now it makes more propaganda sense for her to be treated abroad where more stories can be written about her. A British hospital, for example, is seemingly vying to treat Maha, but there is something a little off about that:

Dr Abdul Razzaq, chairman of North West directors of public health, has been working to have the little girl brought to Alder Hey.

He said: “I’ve been trying to see what’s possible. She’s very poorly.

“This is not political, this is a humanitarian issue with helping young innocent children to get better.”

If Maha, injured by shrapnel, can be operated on at Alder Hey, she will need to stay in Britain whilst she recovers.

Does it sound like Dr. Razzaq is working to treat her or is he working to use her to generate more news stories about Israeli atrocities? Especially since there are already hospitals in three countries willing to take her, why is he pretending that his hospital is in the running? When he says this isn't political - it sure sounds political.

Remember that Shifa Hospital is Hamas' de facto headquarters. The administration at the hospital knowingly protects and cooperates with a terror group. Terrorists set up shop next to the emergency room.

Finally, one must wonder if there aren't any Israeli hospitals that could treat Maha. The country has a fair share of medical expertise and an unfortunately high percentage of the population who have been paralyzed in war. Why is no one trying to get her treated in Israel, and instead concentrating on moving her to where even more stories can be written about her?

Doctors and hospital officials, possibly in cooperation with Hamas, are sacrificing Maha's well-being in order to demonize Israel.

This entire episode is an exercise in anti-Israel PR, and Maha is the star of the production - very possibly at her own expense.

(h/t Bob Knot)

UPDATE: Sky News reports that Maha may leave Gaza, but gives a somewhat different story about the circumstances of her permit:

The family of paralysed seven-year-old Maha Sheik Khalil have been told she will be able to leave Gaza.

The Al Shifa hospital is now working to co-ordinate her transfer for specialist treatment abroad.

It comes as Israel issued a statement saying it had originally authorised a request for her evacuation abroad 16 days ago, but the permit was not used.

A spokesperson for the Co-ordination of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat), a branch of the Israeli Ministry of Defence which co-ordinates entry and exit of people and goods to Gaza, said the permit was issued on July 26.

However, until Tuesday morning, neither the Director of Patient Transfers at Al Shifa Hospital nor the family had been made aware the application had been received, or authorised.

On Monday, in response to a Sky News report on Maha's situation, Israeli military spokesperson Lt Col Peter Lerner tweeted that a "preliminary investigation" had shown that no request had been made for Maha to be able to leave Gaza.

The reason for the confusion is not clear, but the process for patient evacuation requires a chain of communications, from the doctors in Gaza sending a request to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, which is then communicated to Israel.

Sky News was shown a list of requests for evacuation sent by the Al Shifa hospital's patient transfer office on Sunday, which included Maha's name, but they did not know whether the list had reached Israel.

In a statement to Sky News, Major Guy Inbar, from Cogat, said he had on Tuesday sent messages to both the Palestinian Authority and the World Health Organisation, urging them to resubmit an application, which would be authorised immediately.

So it looks like the hospital did submit the request but for some reason didn't follow up.

(h/t Irene)

Israel, under fire, still providing Gazans with generators, food, medicine, medical treatment

From Ma'an, August 6:

10 new electric back-up generators have been installed across the Gaza Strip in order to avert a humanitarian crisis in the besieged coastal enclave, officials said Wednesday.

The Gaza Electricity Distribution Company said that the generators would help ensure the provision of services in Gaza, especially in the water and health sectors, and prevent major disruptions due to lack of energy.

Al-Qidra added that the generators would be distributed evenly among all districts to operate water wells and sanitation pumps.

The company said that the generators were brought in through Kerem Shalom crossing in the northern Gaza Strip [sic].

What else?

4.44 million liters of diesel for the power station
1.04M liters for UNRWA.
4.93 M liters of fuel and 2.22M liters of benzene for transportation.
2,676 tons of gas for domestic use.
2,806 trucks filled with food, essentials and aid.

How does Hamas react to this? Why, they shot rockets into the Kerem Shalom crossing on Sunday:

Because of Hamas rocket fire, Gazans did not receive these shipments on Sunday:

94 trucks of food
20 trucks of bottled water and drinks
16 trucks with humanitarian and medical supplies
14 trucks of agricultural materials
53 trucks of mixed goods (i.e. clothing, cleaning supplies, etc.)
27 trucks of equipment and supplies for international organizations carrying food, medicines, water and other humanitarian relief materials.

And the IDF continues to allow injured and sick people to cross Erez into Israel for treatment.

Did you miss this information in the New York Times and the Guardian?

08/11 Links Pt2: Foreign Press Assoc protests Hamas intimidation; The State of Erdogan

From Ian:

Foreign Press Assoc protests “blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox” Hamas intimidation

The FPA protests in the strongest terms the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting international journalists in Gaza over the past month.
The international media are not advocacy organisations and cannot be prevented from reporting by means of threats or pressure, thereby denying their readers and viewers an objective picture from the ground.
In several cases, foreign reporters working in Gaza have been harassed, threatened or questioned over stories or information they have reported through their news media or by means of social media.
We are also aware that Hamas is trying to put in place a “vetting” procedure that would, in effect, allow for the blacklisting of specific journalists. Such a procedure is vehemently opposed by the FPA.

Douglas Murray: Owen Jones is lying about Israel. Plain and simple.

I am sure that, if Israel ‘wanted’ to carry out ‘indiscriminate slaughter’ in Gaza, they could. But they don’t want to, which is a major reason why they don’t. Israel’s aim is to minimize civilian casualties. Hamas’s aim — in Israel and in Gaza (where at least 10 per cent of Hamas’s own rockets fall short and hit Gazans) — is to maximise civilian casualties.
But this is of no apparent interest to Owen or the thousands of people who turned out again last weekend to protest against Israel. To these people Israel is committing a ‘massacre’, an ‘atrocity’, ‘war-crimes’, ‘genocide’ and even a ‘Holocaust.’ There is no evidence for these claims. They are a wild and wilful distortion of the facts on the ground. The claim that Israel is engaged in ‘the massacre of children’ is not just a lie. It is precisely the sort of lie which makes its way into the body politic and then persuades some people that they must act on this outrage. After all, if you knew of a friendly government which was wilfully engaged in the deliberate ‘indiscriminate slaughter’ of children, what would you not do to stop it?
Here, in a nutshell, you can see the moral sickness of a portion of the Left. For good form’s sake — and doubtless with sincerity — they stress how much they loathe anti-Semitism. But as they hold one hand up in a scout’s promise that they oppose all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism, there they are with the other hand busily feeding the furies. Anybody really concerned about avoiding anti-Semitism should take another course. An honest person would realise that if you stop the lies then, although you might never entirely stop the anti-Semitism, you may at least subdue it.

Father of Slain Israeli Teen Slams Buzzfeed

Ofir Shaer, the father of 16-year-old Gilad Shaer, who was abducted in June with two other teens, questioned the motives of outlets such as BuzzFeed, which has come under scrutiny in recent weeks for publishing reports claiming that Hamas was not involved in the incident, despite mounting evidence presented by Israeli authorities indicating otherwise.
Following the first BuzzFeed report that claimed Israeli political leaders had fabricated Hamas’s involvement in the abductions in order to create a pretext for the current Gaza war, Israel’s Shin Bet security service disclosed that one of the Palestinian suspects had been in Israeli custody for weeks and had admitted to Hamas’ involvement in the terror plot.
BuzzFeed’s reporting on the crime helped fuel accusations by Israel’s critics that the Gaza war had been started by Israel, not Hamas.

IDF Reserve Officer Describes Experience in Face of Terrorists in Gaza

Ohad Elhelo, a junior at Brandeis University, left his summer internship to serve as a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces during Operation Defensive Edge and spoke about his experience at a Boston's "Rally in Solidarity with Israel" last Thursday.
Elhelo described the steps that Israel's military takes to ensure civilian safety, including one terrifying experience in which a terrorist fired a missile and then retreated to an ambulance. He also noted that two of his friends lost their lives in the war and that 18 year old soldiers have "to make the hardest decisions possible."
"I refuse to believe there is a Jewish heart that was not broken for the death of each Palestinian child," explained Elhelo
He called for the elimination of Hamas and for the international community to afford moderate Palestinian people a chance to build infrastructure and a better future for Israelis and Palestinians.
J Street refused to join with the Boston community and rally in support of Israel and against terrorism.

IDF Reserve Officer: "New Infrastructure of Hope" (Hebrew Subtitles)

Muslims brag of their morality in murderous 1934 pogrom against Jews

From the Encyclopedia of Antisemitism:

Between August 3 and 5, 1934, Muslim mobs went on a rampage in the Algerian city of Constantine, attacking Jews and Jewish property. In the attack, 25 Jewish men, women, and children were killed, most from having their throats cut or their skulls crushed, and 26 more were injured, according to official statistics. More than 200 Jewish-owned stores were ransacked. The total property damage to homes, businesses, and synagogues was estimated at over 150 million Poincare francs. Some 3,000 people, one-quarter of Constantine's Jewish population, were in need of welfare assistance in the aftermath of the pogrom. During the rampage, anti-Jewish incidents were recorded in the countryside of the Department of Constantine, extending over a 100-kilometer radius. Jews were murdered in Hamma and Mila, and in Ain Beida, Jewish homes and businesses were looted. In all, 314 Jews left Ain Beida for good, seeking the relative security of larger communities. During much of the rioting, the French police and security forces stood by and did little or nothing to stop the rioters.

Differing analyses of the causes of the Constantine pogrom were offered by the French colonial administration, by Jews, by Algerian Muslims, and by later historians. All agree that the spark igniting the violence was an argument between a Jewish Zouave (infantryman), Eliahou Khalifa, and worshipers in a mosque adjacent to his home. Eyewitness accounts differed over the precise circumstances. The antisemitic French colonial authorities and press reported only the Muslim version that Khalifa was drunk, urinated on the Arabs, and insulted Islam. A report by the Jewish authorities claimed that he was not inebriated, that he had asked the Muslims to close some windows opening onto their ablution hall for the sake of modesty, and that in the ensuing argument, they had cursed him and his faith and that he in turn cursed them and their religion. ("God curse your religion" is a common imprecation in North Africa freely and frequently used by Muslims and Jews, even between members of the same faith.) Jewish public opinion at the time blamed the incident on a conspiracy between European antisemites in the Algerian colonial bureaucracy and on pan-Arab propaganda. In the official government account at the time, the rioting was described as a completely spontaneous event. The antisemitic pieds noirs (colonists) and some Muslims blamed the outbreak on the enmity of the native underclass caused by the arrogance of nouveau riche Jews, who supposedly flaunted their superiority as French citizens under the Cremieux Decree of 1870, and by the alleged exploitation of Jewish moneylenders.

JTA reported:

A scene of utter desolation and horror, of Jewish girls with their breasts cut off, of little children with numerous knife wounds and of whole families locked in their homes and burned to death, was described by a Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent, who succeeded in reaching this city today.

“It will take days before the world will obtain a true picture of all the atrocities committed by the Arabs during the pogrom on the Jewish quarter,” the correspondent wired.

“The only comparison I can think of is the Palestine riots of 1929. I found Jewish girls with their breasts cut off, greybearded Jews stabbed to death, little Jewish children dead of numerous knife wounds and whole families locked in their homes and burned to death by the rioters."

Hadial-Hassani, writing in Algerian daily El Chorouk, is proud of how the Muslims acted as they were slaughtering Jews on this 80th anniversary of the Constantine Pogrom. Even though he admits that 20 Jews were killed versus 2 "Algerians" (showing that to Algerian Muslims, Jews were never citizens,) he says the Muslims acted with restraint.

You see, he claims, they destroyed the Jewish shops, but they didn't steal anything!

How moral he Algerian Muslims are! They'll slit your throat without blinking because you are of the same religion as the person they pretend insulted them, but they won't steal your money!

The author also quotes a Lebanese Christian saying that the pogrom was a "revolution of the oppressed whose dignity was wounded."

Apparently, the rules are that if a Muslim insults a dhimmi, the dhimmi must be quiet. If the dhimmi responds in kind, then all his people may be murdered to keep the dignity of the Muslim intact.

How dare any ungrateful Jew say that they weren't treated wonderfully under Muslim rule!

By the way, here is the newspaper masthead since the Gaza fighting began:

850 terrorist rockets landed in the Gaza Strip!

From Jane's, data from the IDF:

The accompanying article brings up some interesting points, but here's what I found interesting from these two graphs.

Probably because there was a ground war, terror groups fired their rockets directly at the IDF in Gaza - about 370 of them.

The rockets are not meant to be used that way. This means terrorists are aiming the rockets to hit IDF targets by pure guesswork, not the educated guesses they have used for the shorter-range rockets aimed at Sderot and Ashkelon. It would mean that they are aiming the rocket launchers very low - at a height that would hit Gaza buildings when they miss their targets.

This means that over 850 terrorist rockets landed in Gaza during the fighting so far.

(I am assuming that "rocket" means rocket, not mortar. But even their mortars would be launched from a far enough distance that most would miss their targets and land in the built-up areas that the IDF was engaged in.)

The number of deaths from these rockets cannot be negligible. The amount of damage must be significant.

Given that the misfired rockets are landing wildly all over Gaza, the media is especially negligent not to mention these rockets are possible sources for damage and deaths.

Hell, the media never even mentioned the fact that Gazans were firing rockets at the IDF to begin with!

(Add to that the new story that Hamas may have executed dozens of tunnel diggers on suspicion of being "collaborators." )

(h/t MtTB)

08/11 Links Pt1: The U.N. Handmaiden of Hamas; Hamas executed dozens of tunnel diggers

From Ian:

Claudia Rosett: The U.N. Handmaiden of Hamas

Yet the U.N. representatives in Gaza helped cater the conflict and are already setting the table for the next round. Officially, Unrwa is a strictly humanitarian agency, providing Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and the West Bank, as well as Gaza, with "assistance and protection" in the form of schools, hospitals, construction, loans, jobs and other help. By the agency's own account, in its 2014-15 budget "the core services UNRWA provides are comparable in nature and scope to those provided by a local or national government."
But Gaza under Hamas is a place with only two basic industries: aid and terrorism. These are much entwined, and not solely because Hamas controls Unrwa's staff unions in Gaza, where in 2012 a Hamas-affiliated slate swept 25 of 27 seats. In effect the U.N. group subsidizes Hamas. Among U.N. agencies in the Middle East, Unrwa is the largest employer, with a regular budget for 2014 of $731 million, and a total budget that, with emergency appeals, tops $1 billion.
The agency has roughly 30,000 staff on its payroll, almost all Palestinian. Some 12,500 work in Gaza, home to 1.2 million Unrwa-registered refugees, who account for about two-thirds of Gaza's population. The U.N. agency's welfare programs relieve Hamas of many of the costs of servicing the enclave it controls as its launchpad for terror.
With the agency handling household chores, Hamas—especially since its bloody takeover of Gaza in 2007, ousting the Palestinian Authority's Fatah—has found the time and resources to amass rocket arsenals (Unrwa last month reported finding rockets stashed in three of its vacant schools), to bombard Israel (sometimes in close proximity to Unrwa premises), and to build miles of concrete-reinforced tunnels extending into Israel for terrorist attacks. Israel, in its counteroffensive, has been accused by the U.N. of deadly strikes on Unrwa schools serving as shelters.

The Gaza DEC appeal: a case study in support for Hamas terrorism in the UK

Since Thursday it has been impossible to watch TV, listen to the radio or even look at your computer without being bombarded with impassioned pleas to donate to the "Gaza crisis" DEC (Disasters Emergencies Committee) appeal. The appeal is a case study in hysteria, propaganda, and support for Islamic terrorists while ignoring all the genuine tragedies and crises being inflicted by Islamic terrorists all over the world.
DEC has boasted that in the first 24 hours of the Appeal they raised nearly £5 million which is apparently a record. Well, whatever is raised this DEC Appeal already wins the record for the most deceitful and least deserving charity appeal of all time (maybe their next one can be for the families of Al Qaeda and ISIS members, because it is hard to see the difference).
And who are the 13 charities who form DEC? They include all the big charities with the most notorious record of using money (which members of the public assume is going to feed the starving) to fund anti-Israel and anti-semitic political propaganda and even terrorist related organisations: Oxfam, Christian Aid and Save the Children. But what is really incredible is that the list includes the charity Islamic Relief which is well known as a front for Hamas and other Islamic terrorists organisations worldwide, not to mention support for Islamic hate preachers. At the end of the day ALL of the money sent to Gaza will be overseen by Hamas because they control everything there including of course UNWRA. People who 'want to help the children suffering in Gaza' must realise that every penny they send to this appeal will bolster Hamas and prolong the suffering of the children.

“Palestine Solidarity” spokesman blames synagogue vandalism on Jews

It may not be flat-out antisemitism, but it’s the closest thing to it: When Jews in the diaspora are called upon to denounce Israel.
Now, responding to “Free Gaza” graffiti sprayed on a synagogue in the English city of Hove:

A spokesman for the Brighton and Hove Palestine Solidarity campaign said: “The real issue here is that there needs to be a political solution to the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.
“We would like the members of the Brighton Jewish community who do not agree with Israel’s policies to stand up – as 150 in Brooklyn did the other day, and many others have done – to show that there is not a divide between Jews and non-Jews.”
Since the PSC believes that the unlimited “right of return” (meaning the end of Israel) is non-negotiable, it’s hard to imagine what sort of “political solution” they have in mind.
But blaming an egregious act of vandalism targeting the Jewish community on the failure of enough Jews to condemn Israel shows where they really stand.

In part 1, we looked at the Principle of Distinction and determined that - unlike the claims of "human rights" organizations - the IDF was not violating international law when its commanders make their determinations of whether a target is a valid military target or a civilian target. They have wide latitude to make that decision in the field of battle with the best information they have at the time.

However, military commanders are not allowed to attack even a valid military target if the expected number of civilian casualties are disproportionate to the value of the target. This is summarized by the ICRC this way:

Launching 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, is prohibited.

This brings up the question - how does one define "excessive"?

Just as with the principle of distinction, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia determined who can make that decision:

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]

It turns out that there has been a specific ruling on a specific case being a proportional action that can shed a lot of light about whether Israel's practices fit that definition.

Wikipedia summarizes the event:

The NATO bombing of the Radio Television of Serbia headquarters occurred on 23 April 1999, during the Kosovo War. It formed part of NATO's aerial campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and severely damaged the Belgrade headquarters of Radio Television of Serbia (RTS). Other radio and electrical installations throughout the country were also attacked. Sixteen employees of RTS died when a single NATO missile hit the building. The television station went to air 24 hours later from a secret location.

What was NATO's justification for the attack on a TV station?

NATO Headquarters justified the bombing with two arguments; firstly, that it was necessary "to disrupt and degrade the command, control and communications network" of the Yugoslav Armed Forces, and secondly, that the RTS headquarters was a dual-use object which "was making an important contribution to the propaganda war which orchestrated the campaign against the population of Kosovo". The BBC reported that the station was targeted because of its role in Belgrade's propaganda campaign; RTS had been broadcasting Serb nationalist propaganda, which demonised ethnic minorities and legitimised Serb atrocities against them.

16 were killed to bomb what was an enemy communications hub and possibly mainly a propaganda outlet. The TV station was only out of commission for a day.

Was this proportionate?

The same International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ruled on that question. It first questioned whether the station was a legitimate military target, and it decided that if it was used for command and control then it was, if it was only used for propaganda it wasn't. It then goes on:

77. Assuming the station was a legitimate objective, the civilian casualties were unfortunately high but do not appear to be clearly disproportionate.

Although NATO alleged that it made "every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties and collateral damage" (Amnesty International Report, ibid, June 2000, p. 42), some doubts have been expressed as to the specificity of the warning given to civilians by NATO of its intended strike, and whether the notice would have constituted "effective warning … of attacks which may affect the civililan population, unless circumstances do not permit" as required by Article 57(2) of Additional Protocol I.

...As Western journalists were reportedly warned by their employers to stay away from the television station before the attack, it would also appear that some Yugoslav officials may have expected that the building was about to be struck. Consequently, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair blamed Yugoslav officials for not evacuating the building, claiming that "[t]hey could have moved those people out of the building. They knew it was a target and they didn’t … [I]t was probably for … very clear propaganda reasons." (ibid, citing Moral combat – NATO at war, broadcast on BBC2 on 12 March 2000).

78. Assuming the RTS building to be a legitimate military target, it appeared that NATO realised that attacking the RTS building would only interrupt broadcasting for a brief period. Indeed, broadcasting allegedly recommenced within hours of the strike, thus raising the issue of the importance of the military advantage gained by the attack vis-à-vis the civilian casualties incurred. The FRY command and control network was alleged by NATO to comprise a complex web and that could thus not be disabled in one strike. As noted by General Wesley Clark, NATO "knew when we struck that there would be alternate means of getting the Serb Television. There’s no single switch to turn off everything but we thought it was a good move to strike it and the political leadership agreed with us" (ibid, citing "Moral combat, NATO at War," broadcast on BBC2 on 12 March 2000). At a press conference on 27 April 1999, another NATO spokesperson similarly described the dual-use Yugoslav command and control network as "incapable of being dealt with in "a single knock-out blow (ibid)." The proportionality or otherwise of an attack should not necessarily focus exclusively on a specific incident. ...With regard to these goals, the strategic target of these attacks was the Yugoslav command and control network. The attack on the RTS building must therefore be seen as forming part of an integrated attack against numerous objects, including transmission towers and control buildings of the Yugoslav radio relay network which were "essential to Milosevic’s ability to direct and control the repressive activities of his army and special police forces in Kosovo" (NATO press release, 1 May 1999) and which comprised "a key element in theYugoslav air-defence network" (ibid, 1 May1999). Attacks were also aimed at electricity grids that fed the command and control structures of the Yugoslav Army (ibid, 3 May 1999).

79. On the basis of the above analysis and on the information currently available to it, the committee recommends that the OTP not commence an investigation related to the bombing of the Serbian TV and Radio Station.

Clearly, if it was a military target, the warnings for the workers to leave was considered enough due care to minimize civilian casualties and the attack was completely proportional.

We see that the bar for proportionality is far lower than what Israel routinely practices. A series of tunnels or weapons caches under houses are obviously valid military targets, and as long as care is taken to minimize the loss of life, they are allowed to be targeted even if the military gain for each individual attack is relatively low and temporary.

In somewhat stark terms, the lives of 15 civilians are not considered a disproportionate price to pay for taking out a communications system for a couple of hours under international law.

Tunnels that are destroyed take weeks or months to rebuild, Rockets and weapons that are destroyed are gone forever. Yet a disruption of a few hours of a single point of a redundant communications system is considered worth the lives of 16 civilians!

By this measure, assuming that Israel's targets are valid military targets (which we already proved last time,) Israel cannot possibly be accused of violating the principle of proportionality.

(There's lots in the ICTY document that also help define how far an army can go in attacking dual-use objects, such as power plants that are used by the militants. Any flat statement that an attack on a power plant is against international law is wrong.

(Similarly, it says that while broadcasting propaganda may not be enough to consider TV station a target by itself, incitement to murder or genocide would be. Israel did not attack the Al Aqsa TV station this time but based on its genocidal nature, it appears that such an attack would be legal as well.)

There is no doubt that there are may innocent victims in Gaza of Hamas' human shield tactics.

There is also no doubt that Gazans will reflexively lie to reporters - and reporters will believe the lies.

From Sky News, with a video on heavy rotation on their newscasts:

Maha is seven years old and paralysed from the neck down.

Her mother and sister were killed in the airstrike on their house. She remembers everything about it.

She told Sky News: "We were sitting at home when we heard the noise. So we went down under the stairs.

"This is where we were injured. Some of us stayed alive, some of us died."

Her family tells her that she will get better, but any real hope of that depends on urgent treatment abroad.

Mahasen Sheikh Khalil, her aunt, explained: "She doesn't know that she could stay paralysed like this.

"She's waiting to go for treatment abroad so she might get well.

"She says to me, 'Aunt, if I can move my hand then I can eat by myself. I just want to stand up, move and play.'"

The family has been told there are three hospitals willing to treat Maha - in Germany, Turkey, and the US - and a sponsor has agreed to cover the cost.

But they need to get her our of Gaza first, and they are still waiting for permission from Israel.

After this story came out, IDF spokesperson Peter Lerner tweeted the author of the article:

Hey @skystallard my preliminary inquiry found that out of some 1300 patients, no request for Maha has been submitted for to leave Gaza.
— Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) August 11, 2014

Yes, the Sky News reporter didn't even bother to ask the Israelis why they were cruelly barring little cute paralyzed Maha from being treated. It turns out - they weren't.

The truth is worse. Someone in Gaza - whether it is Hamas, or Maha's family - purposefully kept Maha in the hospital in Gaza for over three weeks rather than request to have her treated in Israel or moved abroad. (The article doesn't say whether they tried to go through Egypt.)

In the end, this isn't a story about Israeli cruelty. This is a story about how Gazans will happily endanger their own people in order to score propaganda points.

Too bad the writer is so biased that she couldn't bother to even do the most basic confirmation of a story told by people who are indoctrinated to lie to reporters.

Even Arab media like Ma'an will call and ask the IDF to confirm stories. One would think that Sky News had at least the bare minimum of journalistic standards. Apparently, when Israel gets blamed for something, all pretense of objectivity goes out the window.

(h/t Margie)

Facebook has taken down the Facebook page of humor site and EoZ columnist PreOccupied Territory due to "controversial humor."

For those who don't know, PreOccupied Territory is essentially The Onion of the Middle East - all written by one person.

Given that Facebook allows the most extreme terror groups to preach their hate on its pages, this is an irony that deserves to be mocked by PreOccupied Territory itself.

The prolific author of the site asks that EoZ readers visit his main webpage and "share the hell out of it" in response, especially on Facebook.

Thanks!

EBay UK offered "F*** Jews" as a related search for "Star of David T Shirts"

From E-Commerce Bytes:

eBay UK is suggesting shoppers searching for Star of David t shirts might be interested in items featuring an anti-Semitic term. A reader alerted me to the fact that when you search eBay UK for Star of David T shirt, it comes back with the related term "fuck jews." I was able to replicate the search myself - and not just once. Each time I tried the search on Sunday evening, it came back with the same hateful suggestion.

eBay rolled out its next-generation search engine Cassini in the U.S. in 2013 and has since rolled it out internationally. I emailed eBay PR in the U.S. and UK asking for an explanation of how the anti-Semitic term came to appear in that particular search.

I tried many other searches and couldn't come up with anything similar. Many searches resulted in numerous related terms to try, and only a tiny percentage came back with a single suggestion under the "related" prompt.

The term could be considered an attempt to send a message to Jewish shoppers on eBay UK - it's not clear whether an eBay employee might have manipulated the "related" search feature, whether eBay might have been hacked, or if there is some other explanation for how eBay's search engine would link a search for a Star of David t shirt with the offensive, anti-Semitic term.

It looks like eBay fixed this problem quite quickly, as I could not reproduce it on the eBay UK site or any other. But it seems highly unlikely that this was an accident. The Cassini search engine that is mentioned is highly optimized to ensure that search results are relevant, using a large amount of data at the many eBay sellers' sites.

Unlike Google searches, where antisemitic articles can come up high when searching for "Jews," Cassini is meant to fight against keyword stuffing and other techniques that eBay sellers used to use to game the system and increase their search rank. There are no eBay products with the title or phrase "fuck Jews" that would ever be a result of a legitimate search.

The only explanation I can see is that whoever programmed the Cassini search engine, which seems to be an internal eBay product, purposefully hard-coded an antisemitic insult to be a response for specific terms that only Jews were likely to use when searching.

EBay really needs to explain how this happened and to apologize. This was no accident.

UPDATE: A couple of hours before this article, someone posted that question on an EBay UK bulletin board. That question is no longer visible.

(h/t B)

Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party threatens the world

Dr. Fayez Abu Eita, a Fatah spokesman, said in a TV interview that "the world will not enjoy security and stability unless it is enjoyed by the children of Palestine."

That was the synopsis given for this video on his Facebook page, as well as on the Fatah Facebook page (sorry, no subtitles, hopefully MEMRI or Palestinian Media Watch will excerpt this soon.)

Is he threatening worldwide terror attacks? Airplane explosions? Train station bombs? Sarin in the subways?

Well, the media will never ask him that, because he is from Fatah, and they are supposed to be the Good Guys.

Reporters just don't ask such awkward questions in today's cowardly news environment.

Qatar pays CNN to display propaganda content

The Qatar Foundation has cut a deal with CNN so that their propaganda pieces, although labeled as advertising, are visible under a CNN logo in the CNN web domain and CNN airs their videos on their network:

Content from The Foundation magazine, Qatar Foundation’s (QF’s) monthly magazine can now be found by clicking here on CNN’s website.

The Foundation features full-length reports on the most high-profile recent events in the QF calendar, a round-up of the latest news, and in-depth profiles of some of the organization’s many centers, research projects, and initiatives.

Inside the Middle East is a 30 minute monthly feature program on CNN that seeks to capture the dynamism and broad range of cultural diversity in countries across the Middle East. Together with exclusive online articles and galleries it gives a fresh perspective on life in the region that goes beyond the news headlines. It is broadcast in association with Qatar Foundation.

Does anyone at CNN have a problem taking money from the country that bankrolls Hamas?

Is there any question that this will affect CNN's already poor objectivity?

(h/t TIP)

Before tractor attack, Hamas leader demanded Arab Israelis kill Jews by all means possible

From MEMRI:

In a July 30, 2014 interview with the Lebanese Al-Quds TV channel, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called upon Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in the West Bank to wage attacks "to avenge the blood of Gaza" and said: "The Palestinian people has no choice but to wage this battle in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, and in all the cities of occupied Palestine."
Following are excerpts:

Fawzi Barhoum: Let me say, loud and clear, to our people in the West Bank: Don't you have cars? Don't you have motorcycles? Don't you have knives? Don't you have clubs? Don't you have bulldozers? Don't you have trucks? Anyone who has a knife, a club, a weapon, or a car, yet does not use it to run over a Jew or a settler, and does not use it to kill dozens of Zionists, does not belong to Palestine.

Palestine says loud and clear: Real men are those who avenge the blood of Gaza. Real men are those who avenge the blood of the Gaza Strip. Real men will not sleep until they have avenged the blood of Gaza.

To our people within the Green Line, we say: It is time for you to declare a new phase in this struggle. Political and social considerations are worthless. Blood and martyrdom are the only considerations that matter. The Palestinian people has no choice but to wage this battle in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, and in all the cities of occupied Palestine.

This speech was given only a few days before the tractor attack in Jerusalem that killed one.

This is no coincidence.

Islamic Jihad made a similar call today for renewed terror attacks by Arabs in the West Bank against Jews.

08/10 Links: Hamas could have chosen peace. Instead, it made Gaza suffer; Doctors for terrorism

From Ian:

Dennis Ross: Hamas could have chosen peace. Instead, it made Gaza suffer.

The Israelis will certainly resist an outcome that offers Hamas any gains. Having destroyed the tunnels that could penetrate Israel, the Israelis have pulled out of Gaza and were willing to extend the 72-hour truce that ended Friday. Hamas was not willing to do so. If Israel hopes to build broader international pressure on the group to stop firing, the Israel Defense Forces will need to avoid targets such as U.N. schools and hospitals. Of course, that is easier said than done, given that Hamas often fires rockets from or near such sites.
At some point, Hamas will stop firing rockets — if for no other reason than its arsenal is depleted. For the people of Gaza, however, the price has been staggering. But Hamas’s leaders have never been concerned about that. For them, Palestinians’ pain and suffering are tools to exploit, not conditions to end.
When relative calm returns, there will understandably be a push for a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas now even less able politically to tackle the core issues , a permanent agreement between the two sides is not in the cards. U.S. diplomacy, therefore, needs to be guided by several considerations and achievable aims. (h/t Alexi)

Exclusive: New Details Surface in Hamas Murder of IDF Soldier Hadar Goldin (update)

The officer explained how, after the suicide bombing that killed Lt. Goldin, a second kidnapping team of Hamas terrorists grabbed parts of his body and ran back into the tunnel from which the terrorists emerged. The tunnel led back into a mosque. From the mosque, they escaped in a clearly marked UNRWA ambulance. The terrorists then made contact with high-ranking Hamas officials hiding in the Islamic University.
As a result Abu Marzook, a senior member of Hamas, announced in Cairo that Hamas had kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Israeli intelligence intercepted a conversation between the kidnappers and the Hamas officials at the Islamic University and thus got all the particulars regarding the hiding place of the kidnappers. Within minutes, the IAF attacked both the kidnappers' location and the Islamic University.
In the midst of this attack, a second force of IDF soldiers--which had gone into a mosque looking for weapons, explosives, and rockets-- encountered a female suicide bomber who was about to detonate the belt she wore, which would have resulted in the deaths of the soldiers. One of the soldiers instinctively recited the opening words of the holiest Jewish prayer “Shema Yisrael”. The female suicide bomber hesitated and began trembling, giving the soldiers a chance to grab her and disable the device.
The soldiers then took her prisoner and turned her over to a counter-intelligence unit. Their investigation uncovered that the female suicide bomber’s mother was a Jew who had married a Palestinian in Israel and, after the wedding, was smuggled against her will into Gaza. There she lived a life filled with abuse and humiliation, and was basically a captive. In addition to the female suicide bomber, there were two smaller children as well. An armored force went in and rescued the two small children.

UPDATE: People I trust are telling me that this story does not add up to the known facts about the attack. There have been a lot of rumors going around as fact to try to make up for Israeli censorship and this story very well may be an example of that.

Hillary Clinton Criticizes Obama Foreign Policy, Slams ‘Unfair’ World Response to Gaza War

Much of my conversation with Clinton focused on the Gaza war. She offered a vociferous defense of Israel, and of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as well. This is noteworthy because, as secretary of state, she spent a lot of time yelling at Netanyahu on the administration's behalf over Israel’s West Bank settlement policy. Now, she is leaving no daylight at all between the Israelis and herself.
“I think Israel did what it had to do to respond to the rockets,” she told me. “Israel has a right to defend itself. The steps Hamas has taken to embed rockets and command-and-control facilities and tunnel entrances in civilian areas, this makes a response by Israel difficult.”
I asked her if she believed that Israel had done enough to prevent the deaths of children and other innocent people.
“[J]ust as we try to do in the United States and be as careful as possible in going after targets to avoid civilians,” mistakes are made, she said. “We’ve made them. I don’t know a nation, no matter what its values are—and I think that democratic nations have demonstrably better values in a conflict position—that hasn’t made errors, but ultimately the responsibility rests with Hamas.”(h/t Bob Knot)

Doctors for terrorism

The one-sided campaign waged by Physicians for Human Rights Israel is also supported by several European governments as well as the New Israel Fund.
It is possible to diminish the influence of these bodies by exposing their misuse of medical ethics and holding the Norwegian, British and other bodies who fund them to account. This is not a simple process, but it has been proven effective in the long-term.
The Lancet medical journal is a financial body, therefore, the most effective (and certainly the most complicated) strategy would be to cancel subscriptions and to pull advertising in protest of the misuse of medical ethics. Those who use their professional status and prestige to promote anti-Semitism and support terrorism are dishonoring the Hippocratic oath they took, vowing to "never do harm."