Glorifying Hamas at The Australian

An outrageous display of lionizing terrorists and their supporters by Martin Chulov of "The Australian":

Chants and flags on streets, jets in sky Martin Chulov in Gaza

July 01, 2006

WAVING billowing green flags and with fists thrust skywards, Hamas's dedicated thousands took to the darkened streets of Gaza late on Thursday to show the world they remained defiant.

As an unmanned Israeli drone buzzed high overheard and attack helicopters and fighter jets rumbled through the distance, about 5000 people chanted in support of their jailed West Bank politicians and their Gaza leaders in hiding.

As the crowd made its way home through rubbish-strewn streets,[those littering Zionists again! - EoZ] past mosques and half-finished buildings, explosions sounded across the city. Hundreds surged towards the sound of the largest -- an air strike on the Interior Ministry that sent smoke billowing and masonry tumbling to the road.

These are testing times for the hundreds of thousands who elected Hamas in January, And more so for the many more who care not about the colour of the flag above the legislature.

All around is evidence of hardship: cars annihilated on bomb-lined roads, rotting fruit and vegetables swept into allies and rubbish piled high along main routes.

But defiance is a lifeblood. There is little hatred for the captured Israeli soldier, but little sympathy for him either.

"Perhaps he can see what it's like to live at the mercy of others and go back to his people and tell them," said Hanin al-Masri as she carried home her two five-year-old children, who she dressed with Hamas caps.

Sitting in the sand outside his home as a dog-eared Hamas flag flew from the balcony, Abu Hanifeh said: "We may have nothing left and I have two sons in Gaza and another one who has been martyred. But that's what makes resistance worthwhile.

"We have nothing to lose and everything to gain," he concluded.

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DoD loyalty test for Jews?

InsightMag.com has a blurb for a subscriber-only article that is troubling, to put it mildly:

Defense Dept. imposes loyalty test on American Jews
The Pentagon has banned security clearance to Americans with relatives in Israel. Government sources and attorneys said the Pentagon has sought and succeeded in removing security clearance from dozens of Americans, mostly Jews, who either lived, worked or have relatives in Israel. Official documents report that American Jews were asked by Pentagon examiners whether they would join a U.S. attack on Israel if the Jewish state was threatened.

Over at Free Republic there is some skepticism about this, both about whether it is true and whether it is standard operating procedure for all employees with relatives in other countries.

I would love to know whether Americans with Canadian or British or Australian relatives have to answer the same question. The question isn't dual loyalty - it is whether Jews are being discriminated against by our own government.

H/T to Jameel at DovBear.

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BBC: Dhimmified since 1935

Just found this:

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Clerics: Suicide bombers go to hell, unless they do it for the right reasons

For a moment there they almost sounded...human.

On Wednesday, top Islamic clerics at the Supreme Council of Al-Azhar University in Egypt, perhaps the most important in the Islamic world, said that the Islamic rule (Shaaria) forbids suicide, the London-based Arabic newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat reported.

The clerics determined that a connection was mistakenly made between suicide and a "sacrifice to defend religion and the homeland". The clerics stressed that the faith of those who commit suicide is no less than hell.

"Those who commit suicide bombings in the name of religion are not Muslims but rather people who sold their soul to the devil," Islamic clerics ruled. "They didn't understand the principle of the religion according to which there is no killing allowed, except by law."

"There is a difference between jihad and terror, between sacrificing yourself and suicide," said Dr. Mohammad Rafat Othman, a member ofthe Jurisprudence Research Committee of the Islamic Research Academy, Al-Azhar.

Alas, it all fell apart in the end:

"Those using suicide bombing against the enemy, the land robbers, and the occupier of nations, are martyrs," he concluded.

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AFP photographer gets deep in his story

Seen through the shattered window pane of a car hit during an Israeli air attack, a young Palestinian supporter of the Brazilian football team gathers with others to inspect the damaged vehicle in Gaza City. Israel called a halt to a planned incursion into the northern Gaza Strip amid international appeals for diplomatic efforts to free a soldier captured by Palestinian militants.(AFP/Mahmud Hams)

So this means that the AFP photographer was inside the car when this picture was taken.

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Google News does it again

Here's another explicitly anti-semitic article , approvingly quoting Goebbels, on a site that Google considers "newsworthy":

"It's The Jews Stupid"

By Curt Maynard

I have long thought about writing this article but hesitated because I didn’t want the reader to conclude that I believed that all Jews are complicit in what amounts to a vast conspiracy to undermine western civilization and establish a Talmudic centered one world government. However, times have changed, and I feel obligated to write this and post it on the last bastion of freedom of speech, the Internet – before even that, in its present form is made unavailable to mankind.

Of course all Jews aren’t engaged in this nefarious plan, but unfortunately most of them will come to the aid of those who are. There are some exceptions, on occasion one will criticize another, but as a rule, those who are in a position to publicly denounce one of their own are still pro-Israel/pro-Zionist in orientation....One hears many excuses for this cohesive support, which only enables the criminals, fear of anti-Semitism, and/or fear of the next pogrom or holocaust. Unfortunately for collective Jewry, this excuse doesn’t wash – what they are doing, and what the Germans knew they were collectively doing in 1933, and what Americans are slowly becoming aware of now, is aiding and abetting their co-religionists to commit crimes that are tantamount to treason. In 1933 the German nation democratically elected a leader that promised them he wouldn’t allow this absolute and empirical reality to continue. George Bush on the other hand chose a Jew named Bernenke to replace another Jew named Alan Greenspan as the head of the Federal Reserve, a position that is without question perhaps one of the most powerful and influential positions in government today. In the words of Joseph Goebbels’ if Hitler were to have done something like that after the German people had suffered through a decade of hyperinflation, and the deprivation so associated, the German people would have “boxed their ears.”
...Goebbels’ was somewhat of a prophet pariah, he understood organized Jewry like few Americans do today, he understood that their collective calls of anti-Semitism directed at the Nazi leadership and indeed the German people themselves was a technique they had successfully used, even perfected, in order to advance their interests while at the same time suppressing any dissent from the gentile majority. We see this same technique at work today, all around the world, anytime anyone honestly divulges the actions of a Jew in some crime; they are immediately smeared with the label of “anti-Semitism.” This is not a recent phenomenon, it has nothing to do with Zionism, as Noam Chomsky might suggest, it is an ageless technique developed by Jewry over an extended period of time...
...many Jews are becoming aware of the fact that non-Jews are beginning to scrutinize some uncomfortable facts that implicate Jews as being behind a great deal of the issues that most effect them – this is getting harder to cover up, people are beginning to notice that Jews are disproportionately represented in the areas of life that the non-Jewish majority is most concerned with, and that is the degeneracy of western culture, the degeneracy of American culture, the degradation of Christian values, the collapse of the American educational system and the rape of our economy. In their haste to cover up their involvement in these areas, Jews are exposing themselves as they never have before, and because of this Americans now know that Jews dominate Hollywood, the media in all its facets, our economy, our judicial process and in many respects our very government. Once again, this is nothing new, Jews had attempted the very same thing in Germany after the First World War and in France, and in Poland, and in Spain – in fact ethnic Jews have been tossed out of more countries, not for their faith as they today allege, but because of their collective behavior, than any other ethnic group in history. Despite what your history professor will tell you about their ejection from Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella, it had nothing to do with the fact that they weren’t Catholic and everything to do with their behavior – they intentionally enslaved the Spanish people under their usurious yolk, they absolutely, without any doubt whatsoever ushered in the Moorish invaders from Africa and as a result they unquestionably committed treason, and the Spanish people knew it. It is for these reasons and no others that the Jews were ejected from Spain and you can bet there wasn’t a moist eye to be found among the Spanish victims. Bearing this in mind, carefully consider the words of Joseph Goebbels’:

The Jews aren't always so clever as they would like themselves to believe. Whenever they are in danger they prove to be the stupidest devils.

Goebbels’ was of course correct, contemporaneously and in a modern sense as well, organized Jewry has in fact become desperate, they exposed themselves completely on 9-11, and if the media were in other hands, their Fifth Column would long ago have been neutralized and the war on terror ended. If it were not for the fact that the entire media apparatus was kosher, Americans would know that 150 Israelis were arrested in the United States following 9-11 for espionage and then quietly deported without informing the American public by the Jew and dual Israeli citizen Michael Chertoff, who was at that time Assistant Attorney General under the flunky John Ashcroft....

On and on it goes, and it would be easy to dismiss as just another hateful moron - but Google considers it "news" and as such it needs to be exposed. (They have some Holocaust denial as well, for good measure.)

UPDATE: Mathaba deleted the article with a curious explanation:

Incorrect categorisation Posted: 2006/06/29 From:

	The original opinion piece was incorrectly categorised by a junior assistant editor and passed the usual checks due to a temporary resource shortage, as such it was inadvertently approved for news aggregators. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Doesn't exactly sound like an apology or a disavowal to me.

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Terror starts small and gets worse if not stopped

The lessons of Givat Ada

Givat Ada is a small community on Israel's coastal plain.

In 1936, Arabs destroyed vineyards and other crops in the town. Evidently, their hatred for Jews outstripped their supposed love of the land.

While this was hardly the only instance of Arab vandalism against agriculture - in fact, this was at the beginning of a huge wave of Arab tree destruction - it is important to see what happens when smaller crimes are not dealt with swiftly and properly.

Givat Ada suffered a much worse crime two years later. Three Jewish kids were kidnapped, their whereabouts unknown:

In 1940, their remains were found in an Arab village. A trial in 1941 of eight Arabs accused of the crime ended up in acquital as some witnesses recanted their testimony.

Barely two weeks after the kidnapping, Givat Ada was subject to a much more public and brazen attack. 200 armed Arasb arrived and killed three residents, including a mother of two:

In the space of two years, attacks went from arson to secret kidnapping/murder to open warfare against civilians. The acceptance of one level of violence naturally ends up empowering the terrorists to do more.

An absurd concept that has gained currency in the world today, seemingly only applicable to Israel, is the idea of "proportionate response." Somehow, when a terror act is committed, Israel is expected to pull its punches and only react in a proportional manner, in a similar fashion as the original crime.

This is exactly wrong.

The proper reaction to terror is swift and uncompromising disproportionate response. Anything less invites the terrorists to do more and more. When the terror leaders know with near certainty that they will still be alive after any of their attacks, they have no incentive to stop. In fact, they have a disincentive to stop - they know that they can get away with more next time.

Israel would do well to learn the lessons of Givat Ada.

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Beach bias at the WaPo

The Washington Post has a column called World Opinion Roundup, ostensibly to show other sides of news stories from other countries.

But when the reporter, Jefferson Morley, discusses the Gaza beach bombings, he introduces the discussion with a comment from an American blog.

Juan Cole's blog, to be precise.

Not surprisingly, he goes on to show how seemingly everyone in his universe believes that Israel bombed a family on the beach, and only the IDF seems to believe that Israel is not responsible. (He mentions the Sueddeutshce Zeitung as well.)He quotes the British newspaper triumvirate of Israel-bashers, he quotes Mark Garlasco (misspelled in his column) - as if HRW is a media outlet - and he quotes a slew of Arab newspapers calling it a cold-blooded crime.

Somehow, he doesn't manage to mention any reasons why Israel's account is far more believable than the critics'. He has no problem mentioning critics' not believing the timeframes, for example, but not a word about the shrapnel Israel found in the victims' bodies showing it was not from Israeli artillery.

Yet another example of bias in an "even-handed" report.

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Dead Arab score: Palestinians 3, Israel 0

So far there has apparently not been a single casualty from the Israeli return to Gaza.

However, at least 3 Palestinian Arabs have been killed by "work accidents":

Palestinians reported that two people were killed, including a young girl, in an explosion in a Khan Yunis home on Wednesday afternoon.

The explosion was apparently the result of a work accident.

An activist from Hamas' armed wing was killed yesterday in an explosion in Gaza City. No one took responsibility for the explosion of the vehicle in which he was traveling and Israeli sources said they believed it was a "work accident."

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Kidnapping Israelis is official Hamas policy

The elected government of Hamastan has enshrined as policy the kidnap of Israelis. As such, arresting the leaders seems to be quite appropriate, if perhaps too mild a reaction.

Palestinian Media Watch put together some quotes:

Mahmud Al-Zahar, Hamas, Foreign Minister
"The Head of Hamas party in the Palestinian Legislative Council, [and current Foreign Minister-ed] Dr. Mahmud Al-Zahar, said that his movement would not hesitate to kidnap soldiers of the occupation in order to exchange them for [Palestinian] prisoners, should the opportunity arise."
[Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, March 7, 2006]

Saed Siam, PA Interior Minister (now charged with locating the hostage)
"In the past Hamas succeeded in kidnapping many Zionist soldiers…
There are thousands of prisoners of our forces, they have to think how to free these prisoners.
And I believe that it is inevitable to kidnap soldiers to exchange for them.
In the past Hamas kidnapped 10 soldiers…
There is nothing the resistance cannot do. And when there is a goal and a good plan, the goal can be achieved, especially about the prisoner issue, [which] is top priority.
During the PA administration, Hamas succeeded in kidnapping and hiding bodies, but unfortunately, two bodies were handed over for nothing. When there is a kidnapping, and it is secured, each case in its own time, has its own negotiations."
[Undated video clip from Abu Dhabi TV - before Hamas came into power]

Click here to view Minister Siam explaining policy of Kidnapping

Fathi Hamad, Member Palestinian Legislative Council, Hamas
"The Islamic resistance movement “Hamas” yesterday threatened to carry out kidnapping operations of soldiers in the Israeli army, in order to release Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. The threat was announced by Hamas Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Fathi Hamad."
[Al-Ayyam, March 16, 2006]

Sheik Halid Al-Batash, Islamic Jihad
"[Palestinian Authority] Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah emphasized the importance of forming a mechanism for the release of our heroic prisoners who are held in the jails of the occupation, without making concessions...
Prominent Islamic Jihad movement leader, Sheik Halid Al-Batash... called for seeking different mechanisms for the release of our heroic prisoners… He emphasized that among the mechanisms is the kidnapping of Zionists to exchange for the release of the [Palestinian] prisoners."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah, April, 17 2006]

Sheik Halid Al-Batash, Islamic Jihad
"The Islamic Jihad [Movement] says: kidnapping of Israeli soldiers – the fastest way for the release of the prisoners. Islamic Jihad movement senior official [Halid Al-Batash] called on the factions of the resistance to kidnap Israeli soldiers in order to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners, who Israel holds and refuses to release."
[Al-Ayyam, May 9, 2006]

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More on the "women and children" prisoners

A followup on my posting of the specific terror acts done by Palestinian Arab women in Israeli jails:

This is from a Canadian newspaper, and the only example I could find of any news outlet worldwide trying to show the truth about these terrorists.

JERUSALEM -- Ahlam Tamimi was sentenced by an Israeli military court to 16 life sentences: one for each person killed in an attack on a restaurant in August of 2001. Ms. Tamimi brought the bomb in a guitar case to a suicide bomber who blew himself up in the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem. Sixteen people were killed in the attack, including five members of the same family.

Ms. Tamimi is one of 109 Palestinian women and 313 Palestinian children under the age of 18 who are sitting in Israeli prisons as security prisoners, the Israeli prison authority said yesterday.

Palestinian militants from the military wings of the Popular Resistance Committees and Hamas yesterday demanded the prisoners' release in exchange for an Israeli soldier they abducted Sunday.

The women are accused of acts such as planning suicide bombings, aiding suicide bombers, preparing suicide-bomb belts, attacking Israeli soldiers with knives and being members of a terrorist organization.

"Sixty-four of the women and 91 of the youth have blood on their hands," prison authority spokeswoman Orit Stelster said.

While Hamas is the most infamous Palestinian organization, known for its attacks on civilians and its unwillingness to recognize Israel, most of the Palestinian women in Israeli jails are from Fatah, an organization that recognizes Israel's right to exist, to which Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas belongs and with which Israel is willing to negotiate.

"About 35 per cent of [the women prisoners] are from Fatah, about 20 per cent are from the Islamic Jihad and about 20 per cent are from Hamas," Ms. Stelster said. "The rest are from smaller terrorist groups."

Palestinian children in Israeli jails are boys ranging in age from 13 to 18. Most of them were jailed for carrying knives at Israeli military checkpoints or throwing Molotov cocktails at Israeli military jeeps in the West Bank.

Recently it was revealed that boys are deliberately trying to get arrested by Israeli forces by carrying knives or simple bombs. The youths are poor and living under great duress, some in cities such as Nablus that are under siege for extended periods.

Notice how a Palestinian 18-year old in jail is considered a "child", yet a murdered 18-year old Jew is considered a "settler" by the media.

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Booby-trapped donkey bravado

In an effort to strike fear into he hearts of the IDF:

An al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Member, Abu Ahmed, told Ynet that despite the threats being heard, local organizations are preparing for the IDF incursion. "In previous invasions the Israeli side absorbed heavy losses in armored personnel carriers and jeeps that blew up, but this time we promise that the losses on the Israeli side will be much larger. We are preparing suicide bombers, car bombs, tunnels, and booby trapped donkeys. Everything that the Israelis encounter could turn out to be a deathtrap," he said.

Uh-oh. The Pals better watch out for PETA.

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The bloodless war

Here we are, over 24 hours into the "massive" Israeli push into Gaza, and what's missing?

That's right - not one confirmed report of any deaths that I could find.

Check out Islam Online's coverage of the "invasion":

Trying to escape the large-scale Israeli military operation in Gaza which started early Wednesday, fearful Palestinian men, women and children- entire families- decided to pack and leave their homes in Gaza, seeking a safer place, stated an article on News24.

Thousands of Palestinians fled to the nearby town of Rafah, near the Gaza-Israel-Egypt border.

At 2 p.m. Wednesday, Israeli jets started firing missiles at the northern section of the city.

Armored personnel carriers were stationed outside northern Gaza to move in later in the day.

Challenging Israeli media reports, which claimed that the incursion into Gaza was met with weak resistance, Palestinian media reported that resistance fighters started building barricades and were preparing hideouts and ambush positions.

Palestinian television reported that the barbarous Israeli army was indiscriminately bombing the city.

In the north, Israeli warplanes hit a power station, sending clouds of black smoke into the sky. Correspondents reported that deafening explosions were heard as three bridges and a road were also targeted in a series of air raids carried out by the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces).

Earlier in the day, the IOF took control of the abandoned airport in Dahaniyeh, which represents a strategic control and observation point over the area of Rafah and the southern Gaza Strip, and the town of Shuka in southern Gaza, in a move aimed at strengthening its positions in areas east of Rafah.

Amidst the horrific sound of fire from combat helicopters, horse-drawn carts loaded with fearful Palestinians leaving East Gaza, veiled mothers carrying their children walked along roads dimly lit by streetlamps, heading for family and friends’ houses in safer areas.

Ali Mussa, the director of Rafah hospital, told AFP that the hospital started preparing to receive any casualties caused by the unjustified and barbarous Israeli raid.

"We brought extra quantities of medicines and drugs. We are fully stocked with blood thanks to people donating in the last two days since we heard that Israeli forces were going to attack," the doctor said.

"We have increased the workload for our emergency teams. We cancelled all elective surgery. Our operating room has been ready for two days now only for emergencies," Mussa added.

Palestinian resistance organisations are warning the Israelis of unrelenting battles using significantly more firepower than in the past.

“The Israelis will pay a huge price,” Abu al-Majed, a spokesperson for the Palestinian President’s Fatah faction, once the ruling party, was quoted as saying.

“They will be entering a hornet's nest if they come again.”

An entire article about how awful Israel is...and they can't find a single Palestinian Arab with even a scratch to make news out of.

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Operation Summer Rains livebloggers

Vital Perspective
Israellycool

Both doing an excellent job of keeping the world up to date.

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Muslim opinions on Jews

The Pew Research Center conducted a poll showing (among other things) the attitudes of Muslims in various countries towards many issues. Here is one finding:

Their opinion towards Jews (not Zionists!) was unfavorable in these amounts:
Great Britain 47%
France 28%
Germany 44%
Spain 60%
Egypt 97%
Turkey 65%
Indonesia 72%
Jordan 98%

Another interesting finding is that in practically every country, Muslims did not believe that Muslims were behind 9/11.

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