Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Optics: Hamas bans public celebrations in Gaza

Hamas' Interior Ministry has banned all public concerts, weddings and other celebrations in Gaza.

The stated reason is "in response to the difficult humanitarian conditions prevailing after the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip."

In other words, they don't want any videos or photos of happy Gazans to be spread around because they are vested in showing the world nothing but misery and destruction. Gazans having normal lives means less international funding.

Gazans are still allowed to have celebrations in private.

In a honor/shame society, "optics" is inherently more important than reality. How things appear is what generates honor or shame, not how they really are. Putting on a show to the world is as natural as breathing. That's one reason why public self-criticism is so rare in Arab society - shame must be avoided at all costs.

As we have seen from "honor killings," shame is often worse than death.

This means that literally everything that Western observers see in Gaza and the Arab world is being presented through a distorted lens, where facts are hidden or fabricated or spun as needed. The competing desire for honesty that Westerners have in their culture is subsumed to the requirements of honor and avoiding shame.

This is a small example of this phenomenon, but it is terrifically important to understand. While today's Jews are anxious to admit their shortcomings to the world and try to explain them, Arabs will simply hide them.

Without understanding this, one cannot report reliably from the Arab world.

Human Rights Watch just issued what it calls an "in-depth look" at three separate incidents at Gaza schools, concluding that Israel must have deliberately attacked these schools.

Let's look at their bias, and errors of omission, from the July 24 Beit Hanoun incident.

In the first attack, at about 3 p.m. on July 24, apparent Israeli mortar shells struck a coeducational elementary school in Beit Hanoun run by the United Nations, killing 13 people, including six children, and wounding dozens of others.

Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that days of fighting in the area had caused most of the people staying at the school to leave, but several hundred remained. Most were awaiting transport to a safer area when two munitions, probably 81mm or 120mm mortar shells, hit inside the school compound.

Jamal Abu `Owda, 58, said he was sitting outside a classroom when one of the munitions struck. “Most people got killed in the middle of the courtyard,” he said. There were “shredded bodies, a mix of everything, boys, men, girls, women, a mix of different faces and bodies.” Witnesses said a second shell hit the courtyard shortly after the first, followed in quick succession by two more just outside the school compound.

The Israeli military alleged that Hamas fighters had “operated adjacent to” the school. After coming under fire with anti-tank missiles, soldiers responded by “firing several mortars in their direction.” The military said a “single errant mortar” hit the school courtyard, which was “completely empty” – a claim disputed by seven witnesses who separately spoke to Human Rights Watch.

Witnesses described at least four shells striking in and around the compound within a few minutes – a precision that would be extremely unlikely for errant Palestinian munitions. And there were no reports of Israeli troops near the school that might have led the Palestinians to fire mortar rounds there.

HRW assumes that Hamas would never, ever shoot at Gaza civilians.

Let's think about that for a second.

We know that Hamas purposefully places its rockets, weapons caches, command and control centers - indeed the entire infrastructure of their military operations - among civilians, placing them at risk.

We know that Hamas kills people it doesn't like without trial.

We know that Hamas wants to maximize the appearance of civilian casualties to the world.

We know that Hamas shoots rockets towards its own people - sometimes aiming at areas that have no Israelis.

HRW has no problem accusing Israel, a professional army, of deliberately shooting multiple munitions at a school that it clearly knows is filled with civilians. But it cannot imagine a terror group, whose major war strategy was to shoot rockets at Israeli civilians, doing the same.

Human Rights Watch doesn't mention that the IDF was trying for days to evacuate the school, and that Hamas had stopped many of the people there from leaving.

Here's what HRW didn't say:

Why didn't HRW mention any of this? Clearly the IDF was under attack from Hamas terrorists in the area. Clearly the IDF was trying to evacuate the school for days. Clearly the IDF gave a window for evacuation that Hamas prevented.

And guess who also tweeted that Hamas rockets fell in Beit Hanoun that day?

None other than Chris Gunness of UNRWA itself!

I received an email recently from a source that is knowledgeable about the incident, and here is their description of what happened:

COGAT had tried to get them to evacuate the shelters in beit hanoun for 3 days because there was increased fighting in the area and the writing was on the wall that there would be civilian casualties in the area if they stayed. UNRWA refused because according to them they are not legally obligated ot move IDPs [internally displaced persons - EoZ] if the IDPs refuse to leave - which was the case here. The morning of the incident there was an agreed upon 4 hour evacuation window from 10 to 2. They ended up not utilizing it because they didn't have transport because Hamas had actively interfered with the efforts to secure buses. COGAT reached out to local leaders to appeal to the IDPs to leave, and pretty much when they agreed there was the security incident and the rocket/mortar/shell/whatever hit the school yard.

Then UNRWA goes around claiming Israel didnt give them an opportunity to leave - only the UN could have it both ways: they refuse to leave and then blame israel for making them stay.

I floated the idea of a purposeful Hamas (or other terror group) attack on the school the day it happened.

Human Rights Watch is making two basic, and very biased, assumptions. The first is that Israel is so immoral as to target the very people it is trying to evacuate. The second is that Gaza terror groups whose entire strategy is to attack civilians and use their own civilians as shields would never do anything to harm their own people.

When HRW says that the schoolyard was hit "probably 81mm or 120mm mortar shells" that means they want to match the incident up with known Israeli munitions with zero forensics evidence.

When HRW says that "there were no reports of Israeli troops near the school that might have led the Palestinians to fire mortar rounds there" they are assuming that Hamas - the only party that stands to gain from the death of women and children - would never target women and children. It also proves that HRW was not looking for evidence of Hamas fighters near the school.

By making these assumptions, not only does it prove that HRW is not a credible investigator. It doesn't only prove that HRW is suffused with anti-Israel and pro-Hamas bias.

It also proves that HRW cares little about human rights if Arabs are both the attackers and the victims.

The fake Palestinian "civilians" just keep on coming! (update)

PCHR reported on July 15 that Jihad al-'Eid was killed in an Israeli missile strike that destroyed his brother's house.

While PCHR admitted that his brother, 'Omar Ahmed Sheikh al-'Eid, was a member of the Islamic Jihad Al Quds Brigades, it counted Jihad as a "civilian."

Here's Jihad's martyr poster from Islamic Jihad:

On August 1, PCHR announced that Mahmoud Dahlan was killed the night before when his motorbike was targeted by an Israeli drone. It counted him as a "civilian."

Here is a photo of kids from his family playing with his Islamic Jihad martyr poster:

In his obituary from Islamic Jihad's Al Quds Brigades, they specifically say that Dahlan knew that his enemy was "the Jews."

The entire collection of fake Gaza "civilians" can be seen here.

(h/t Johnny)

UPDATE: Someone made a video of Dahlan's "civilian" life:

(h/t Bob Knot)

09/10 Links Pt2: The Israeli Origins of Anti-Israel Bias; South Africa, Netanyahu and The Dalai Lama

From Ian:

The Israeli Origins of Anti-Israel Bias

Israel’s problem is that members of the international media - such as AP bureau chiefs or others - who reside in Israel live within a milieu of Israelis who primarily lean to the left. They are fed information by NGOs such as Rabbis for Human Rights. Some of them already have the ready-made narrative of “giving a voice to those who have none” or “helping the weak.” A ready-made narrative of Israel already exists, set in stone since the 1960s, and tragically fed by former Israeli elites who dislike the current right-wing government and use foreign media to get back at it.
The international media thus naturally gravitates towards Israel’s critical press like Haaretz that has no problem publishing misleading stories such as the May 18 headline “settlers torch Palestinian orchard” for Lag B’omer which was subsequently corrected. In other countries, such as Russia, Turkey or the United Arab Emirates, the foreign media does the same, in terms of relying on local English-language media and NGOs for its stories, and the result is the same in each country: Where there is critical civil society and self-loathing left wing press, the international media will come away with negative stories, where there is censorship and forced patriotism, the media will parrot back patriotism. Rare is the foreign media that truly discovers a story for itself without handlers, fixers and the like.
On the other hand, the more interesting stories in Israeli society, such as about Jewish diversity, or about minority communities that don’t get media attention, such as the Druze, Circassians or Ahmadiya, are routinely ignored. Foreign media almost never expresses interest in things that galvanize large masses of Israelis, such as Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef’s funeral or Mizrahi musicians. The media simply is not attuned to Israeli popular society or its nuances; even its poverty, simply because Israeli media doesn’t care about this issue and doesn’t report about it in English.
The tragic fact is that international media’s focus on Israel is a twisted blend of Jewish leftists from abroad posted to Israel who have a contentious relationship with the Jewish state. It concentrates on Israeli media sources from the highly critical left, and fits them into a pre-conceived box relating to the conflict through such themes as “David versus Goliath” and “weak Palestinians suffering at the hands of Israel,” with clichés in the background about the “persecuted becomes the persecutor.” Both the Israeli public and the world at large deserve better.

South Africa, Netanyahu and The Dalai Lama

The South African Government has a long history of supporting the disenfranchised and the oppressed. That is if they are Palestinian. They haven’t been too bothered with the terrible plight of the Zimbabweans who are on our doorstep (actually they are now inside, in the dining-room) or anyone else in Africa really, or those pesky Syrians who keep dying by the tens of thousands. We have also yet to hear outrage with regard to the beheadings and brutality of radical Islam but no doubt we will soon.
And as for China’s occupation of Tibet? Given the fact that the SACP (South African Communist Party) says that it has always been part of China along with Taiwan, so that seems to be that.
So when the Dalai Lama wants to come and visit us down South, it is perhaps no surprise that we land up delaying his Visa approval until he has no choice but to cancel his trip. In fact in 2012 when he applied to visit the country and was not granted permission to do so, the Supreme Court of Appeal found that the Minister of Home Affairs had in fact “unreasonably delayed her decision,” and “acted unlawfully” in doing so. It does need to be said that there is a small amount of satisfaction that we can derive from that refusal given that the trip was to celebrate Desmond Tutu’s 80th birthday (and we are clear what we think him “tsu tsu tsu”). It also needs to be noted that that trip coincided with the Deputy President Kgalema Motalanthe’s visit to Beijing, which I am sure, was just that, an unfortunate coincidence.

John Bolton: The United Nations at 70: How to Fix a Broken Organization

The UN system today is a huge operation, defying orderly analysis, which is precisely one of its biggest problems.
In many often-unknown or overlooked UN specialized agencies and programs, considerable important technical or humanitarian work is being done. The World Food Program, the International Maritime Organization and the Universal Postal Union, for example, generally serve their members well, without contentious political matters interfering, and without much publicity.
Others, unfortunately, have gone far astray, even humanitarian bodies like the UN Relief and Works Agency (“UNRWA”). It has helped preserve Palestinians as “refugees” over several generations, in violation of every precept of “refugee” status, for entirely political, anti-Israel goals.
In fact, it is the UN’s well-known political institutions that are fundamentally broken: the Security Council, the General Assembly and the misbegotten Human Rights Council.

New tunnels already being built (video)

From MEMRI (whose YouTube channel has been silent for a while, so this is embedded from their site directly.)

A recent Al-Jazeera TV report took the viewers down into new tunnels dug by the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, after the Gaza cease-fire. "We are getting these tunnels ready for the next battle, in order to launch attacks and fire mortars and artillery. These tunnels will also have other uses, which we will not disclose," said a masked militant. The report aired on September 4.

Reporter: We are in a tunnel which is being dug by resistance fighters in this border area. As you can see, conditions here are extremely harsh. As you can see, these tunnels are very narrow and not very high, making the conditions very difficult. What is remarkable about this tunnel is that it has been dug recently. As you can see, it is still being dug. Let’s try to shed some light on what is going on at the other end of this tunnel. This is clearly another stage in the preparation of this tunnel. There have been some cave-ins, but the work goes on. We’re trying to go as far as possible down the tunnel.

May Allah bless you, guys.

Worker: You too.

Reporter: Can we get inside?

Worker: Sure, go ahead.

Reporter: How’s it going?

Worker: Fine.

Reporter: What are you guys doing?

Worker: We are now inside one of the tunnels of the Al-Quds Brigades, on which work began the minute the war on Gaza ended, and the cease-fire was declared. We have begun work, and we are continuing it, regardless of the threats by the Zionist enemy.

Reporter: So despite the war, the Israeli raids, the heavy shelling in this border area, and the scorched earth policy, you seem to be continuing the work.

Worker: Yes, we are. We will not be hindered by the threats of the enemy, or by the ban on importing cement and other building materials.

Reporter: It is well known that this area is on the border. What is the purpose of these tunnels?

Worker: We are getting these tunnels ready for the next battle, in order to launch attacks and fire mortars and artillery. These tunnels will also have other uses, which we will not disclose.

Reporter: It is clear – at least from what we have just heard – that the Palestinian fighters are preparing for the (battle) to come. This will give you an idea of what the near future will have in store in the Gaza Strip, especially if the conditions and demands of the Palestinian resistance are not met. We have moved on to another tunnel in tis border area. It is clearly in better condition than the previous one we were in, and it is clear, from what we have been told, that it is an attack tunnel, used to repel attacks by Israeli armoured vehicles and tanks, in the event that they infiltrate this area. Obviously, it is very hard to climb up. Perhaps this is the end of the tunnel. We have reached this place…

Reporter: Hello. What do you do here?

Worker: Blessings upon the Prophet Muhammad and those who follow his path. We are in a forward position right now – a special room for launching anti-tank weapons, especially the Kornet missile. Allah willing, we are awaiting instructions to go out and take on the targets of the enemy.

Reporter: Would it be possible for us to see some anti-aircraft weapons?

Worker: Of course, we’ll take you there now.

Of course, any weapons Israel creates to destroy the deep tunnels will also cause severe damage to the surrounding areas, and the world will blame Israel....

More from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Also, check out their new Facebook page.

Amman, Jordan, September 10 - A Jordanian government minister has found himself under fire for allegedly breathing oxygen made by trees in Israel, a charge the official denies.

News reports yesterday mentioned Minister of Agriculture Ayyam Aprik in connection with the inhalation of Israel-produced gases necessary for cellular respiration and other metabolic processes, an accusation fraught with political implications in the wake of a bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. A majority of the population of Jordan, ruled by the Hashemite house, is Palestinian, and the violence that left approximately 2,000 Palestinians dead in the Gaza Strip last month has forced every official engaged in normal interaction with Israel onto the defensive.

"The baseless accusations that I am breathing Zionist oxygen are simply an effort to defame me and hobble the government's efforts to address important issues," said Aprik. "I myself am the child of Palestinian refugees. These false accusations sting." He suggested political rivals were behind the smear.

Oxygen is produced in certain plant cells when the energy from sunlight is used to transform carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and the sugar glucose. Israel has engaged in a more or less constant effort to plant trees throughout its territory, continuing an effort by Jewish pioneers that became ingrained into the culture years before the establishment of the state itself in 1948. As a result, Israel is the only country in the Middle East with more trees now than seventy years ago, giving it an edge in oxygen production. The precious resource carries even more importance in a region covered mostly by desert, compounded by the sensitive politics of Palestinian-Jordanian-Israeli relations.

King Abdullah himself has called the accusations "ridiculous," challenging the minister's anonymous accusers to produce evidence that any of the oxygen Aprik has ever breathed was knowingly obtained from an Israeli source. "My ministers are patriotic Arabs, and no one shall impugn their pro-Palestinian bona fides."

The possible scandal comes hot on the heels of a controversial Jordanian agreement to buy gas from a field in Israeli territorial waters. In that case, Jordanian officials have deflected the accusations of "normal" commercial relations with Israel by claiming that the gas is actually being sold by the American company that is a partner in the Mediterranean gas grilling venture with Israel's Delek Energy. In official accounts of the deal, the source of the gas is described as "the Eastern Mediterranean" and no mention is made of the Israeli company.

09/10 Links Pt1: Facing reality after Protective Edge; Had Israel given up the Golan ...

From Ian:

Isi Leibler: Facing reality after Protective Edge

Most of us were bitterly frustrated that the Hamas terrorist regime was not removed in ‎the course of Operation Protective Edge. Although defeated, it remains in power, and ‎unless there is a diplomatic breakthrough, we must be prepared for the likelihood of a ‎future conflict.‎
Despite this, the reality is that the Israel Defense Forces performed superbly and ‎achieved the declared objectives. It successfully neutralized the immediate threats by ‎destroying the tunnels, and dramatically eroded the ability of Hamas to launch ‎sophisticated missiles. Hamas failed to realize any of its demands, and was ultimately ‎forced to accept the terms of the cease-fire as initially proposed by Egypt at the outset, ‎which they had consistently rejected.‎
Israel can also be proud of the proven success of Iron Dome, the miraculous Israeli ‎technological creation that undoubtedly saved countless lives.‎
In this context, those Israeli politicians and commentators who lament that we lost the ‎war are not merely denigrating the achievements of the IDF and undermining the morale ‎of the nation, they are also providing Hamas with credibility in their pathetic efforts to ‎portray themselves as the victors.‎

Had Israel given up the Golan ...

It was because of the politicians on the Left and the various advocacy groups that supported them that Israel signed the Oslo Accords some 20 years ago and carried out the disengagement plan from Gaza and northern Samaria in 2005. But the Left, which was aided by pundits who essentially served as its mouthpiece, was unable to push through a Golan withdrawal; luckily, we were spared from what would have been a train wreck of unimaginable proportions.
You would think that the Left would own up to its mistake. But no, rather than stop and think, the very same people have stayed the course, galloping toward the abyss. They have embraced Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas despite his lethal hold; they keep talking about withdrawing form Judea and Samaria; they keep insisting that more withdrawals would produce more security. It's hard to think of anything more reckless to say.

Elliott Abrams: Palestine in Sinai?

Several days ago news reports "revealed" a proposal by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to extend the territory of Gaza south into Sinai. According to the story, as Israel Army Radio carried it, the area to be added to Gaza is five times the size of the current Gaza. The idea is that this area would accommodate all the Palestinian "refugees," thus satisfying the demand for a "right of return." Palestine would consist of this new area and the current Gaza Strip, giving the Palestinians more territory than if the 1967 "borders" were restored.
The idea of expanding Gaza is not crazy, given how overcrowded the place is. In 2004, Israeli Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, then national security adviser under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, proposed that Gaza be enlarged. This would require taking land from Egypt, and Israel (under the Eiland plan) would have compensated Egypt with lands further east that would have permitted an automobile tunnel linking Egypt and Jordan. The Eiland plan never went anywhere in part because the Egyptians would not consider parting with one square inch of sovereign territory.

Britain's Hamas Appeal

Although the Disasters Emergency Committee claims that its member bodies only work with "carefully vetted" local partners, it does not oversee these partnerships, and could not even provide a list of those "local partners" that will benefit from the money raised and transferred through Islamic Relief.
One of the "partners" in Gaza used by Islamic Relief's branches appears to be the Al-Falah Benevolent Society, which, according to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre, is one of "Hamas's charitable societies."
Al-Falah is run by Ramadan Tamboura, whom the Ha'aretz newspaper describes as a "well-known Hamas figure".

PART 5

(Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4)

Continuing my series of lies that were tweeted by Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch over the past two months.

August 8 Young men over-represented among Gaza dead: unclear if Hamas won't acknowledge fighters or Israel targets young men. http://trib.al/UkKu8z4

Truth: Nowhere in the article was there mentioned a possibility that Israel "targets young men." (A later version of the article than the one Roth linked to on August 8 added some theories as to why young men may be more at risk but it still never accused Israel of targeting them.)

Roth simply could not abide by the idea that Hamas was lying to inflate apparent civilian casualties, even though Hamas has done that in the past and it instructed Gazans to do exactly that. So since the emerging statistics from Gaza showed that his earlier memes of indiscriminate Israeli fire were clearly not true, Roth created a new Israeli war crime out of thin air without the tiniest bit of evidence.

(Retweet - August 14) Trita Parsi @tparsi ·Wondering why the excessive police violence? Here's a guess: #Ferguson police chief got training in Israel... #Gaza

Truth: The fact that Ken Roth felt that this was worth retweeting is, by itself, the most damning piece of evidence of his hate towards Israel.

Twitter is an interesting medium because it's very ease of use makes it a window into one's subconscious. Tweets you believe are true are easily retweeted, tweets from an opposing perspective would not be.

This tweet is ridiculously wrong on many levels:

Counter-terrorism training is completely different from training on how to handle civil unrest and riots. They aren't even close.
The responsibility for killing someone rests with the person who did the killing, not the people who supposedly once gave a course to his or her boss.
The Ferguson police chief that took the training retired from the force months before this incident!

Roth wouldn't dream of retweeting anything that is pro-Israel. Yet Roth believed - without any fact-checking, without any hesitation -an absurd and completely false conspiracy theory that was only circulated by the far left fringe and anti-Israel activists. And he decided that this was worth retweeting to his followers.

This is from the $400,000+ salaried executive director of an organization that claims to be objective.

To tie Ferguson to Israel prima facie proof of bias against Israel There is no other way to interpret this retweet. (Of course, Roth never apologized or clarified his position on this matter.)

August 19 Because of Iron Dome & indiscriminate #Israel attacks, 5% of Israelis killed were civilians versus 50-82% of Gazans. http://trib.al/4nxVtE9

Once again, Roth takes a tangential part of an article and adds his own bizarre additions while ignoring the bulk of the article.

The article, in a relatively obscure blog but written by a research fellow at National Defense University, discusses how Hamas can use new, cheap technology to change its current tactics of targeting Israeli civilians to targeting military targets. He discusses how Israel would be hampered in its responses to purely miliary targeting (although it is implied that Hamas would continue to mount attacks from civilian areas.) Nowhere does the author accuse Israel of indiscriminate attacks, although he does quote some pundits saying that the civilian toll is unacceptably high.

Roth is again showing his bias by editorializing, with no expertise whatsoever, beyond what the article he links to actually says.

Iranian media: "9/11 a false flag op," New (Islamic) World Order, support for terror

Remember Iran? Our new ally in the war against terror?

Here are some English-language stories from today's government-run Iranian media:

9/11: The Ultimate False Flag Operation

In his top-selling book, “Solving 9/11: The Deception That Changed the World”, Christopher Bollyn states that a small gang of high-level Zionist extremists carried out the 9/11 attacks on the US soil.
According to the American investigative journalist, this group centers on Shimon Peres, who is currently president of Israel, as well as other Zionist leaders, such as the former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The gang also includes the former minister of defense, Ehud Barak, and other less known members of Israel’s military intelligence establishment. Former Mossad officers, especially people like Arnon Milchan, who have been involved in building Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal with Shimon Peres, are also included.

In his superb book, which caused him serious troubles with the government and forced him to move his family to Europe, Bollyn notes that the crime of September 11 is still very much at the center of the political stage: “It is the real reason why the Zionist-controlled Barack Obama is president of the United States and why the 91-year-old Shimon Peres is still president of Israel.”

Leader's Aide: Arrogant Powers Unable to Block New World Order

Supreme Leaders' senior advisor Ali Akbar Velayati referred to the recent developments in the Middle-East and North Africa, and said the arrogant powers can no more stand against the new world order being shaped by the Islamic Awakening.

"The world is witnessing a change and tilt in power equations towards the Muslim world with the rapid growth of developments in West Asia and North Africa and this important event has basically created the new regional order, and the world of arrogance is and will no more be able to confront this new order," Velayati told FNA on Tuesday.

His remarks came after Ayatollah Khamenei said on Thursday that the West lacked the might and awe it enjoyed in the past as its representative, the Zionist regime of Israel, lost the battle against the small population of the Muslims in Gaza.

"The current world order cannot continue and a new order is emerging," Ayatollah Khamenei said in a meeting with members of the Assembly of Experts in Tehran.

Iran hosts intl. confab on Palestinian resistance

On Monday, Iran hosted an international conference on the Palestinian resistance in Tehran.

The conference brought together over 400 religious scholars from across the globe. The conference came after Palestinians bravely resisted the Zionist regime’s 51-day war on Gaza.

Addressing the conference, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior foreign policy advisor to the Supreme Leader, said ...that Muslims are duty bound to support the Palestinian resistance and express disgust at the “illegitimate and child-killer Zionist regime”.

Now that the Zionist regime’s “illegitimate and dangerous” nature has been exposed to the entire world, Muslims should make efforts in arming the Palestinian resistance “because their ability to defend themselves is the only thing that alleviates the Palestinians’ pain”.

But, remember: they don't like extremist Sunni Islamists (who aren't shooting at Israel) and we don't like extremist Sunni Islamists.

So besides their rabid daily attacks on Western civilization and explicit support for terror groups, we really have a lot in common.

William Schabas (the new "Goldstone") admits bias but pretends he can be objective (update)

In this interview on CNN, William Schabas freely admits he is biased against Israel and Binyamin Netanyahu.

Yet he claims (without any pushback from the interviewer) that he can set that aside, and be unbiased when he does his "investigation."

No juror in the world would be allowed to be on a case where they admit such strong bias. Any honest judge would recuse him or herself.

But to the UN, the lack of impartiality is in fact the best qualification for a commission like this, since its conclusions are determined ahead of time.

UPDATE: In case you are wondering what Schabas was talking about when he claims that Netanyahu said that Richard Goldstone was the greatest threat to Israel...

Netanyahu didn't say that.

What he said, in December 2009, was:

There are three primary threats facing us today: the nuclear threat, the missile threat and what I call the Goldstone threat. This is all on top of our mission to resume and then accelerate the peace process with the Palestinians, with the goal of reaching a settlement. These are our main tasks. I want to discuss each of them briefly and then say a few words to the Opposition.

...Goldstone has become code for a much broader phenomenon: the attempt to negate the legitimacy of our right to self-defense. It didn't just start now. The international campaign against Israel has gone on since the Durban Conference in 2000 and since the attempt in 2003 to condemn the security fence that has protected Israeli children – but is condemned just the same – in The Hague.

...The fence hasn't been finished yet. But in 2003, it came before The Hague. Israel built a fence – only one small section was an actual wall – and was brought before The Hague to answer for this terrible, international crime. Later, in 2005, General Doron Almog couldn’t even travel to London because he would have been arrested for war crimes. This was in 2005, even before the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and Operation Cast Lead in 2008, which I'll talk about in a minute. We all have a real problem here.

Ehud Olmert speaks on campuses in the United States, and he's denounced as a war criminal. Defense Minister Ehud Barak – they want to arrest him in London. And there's a warrant out against Tzipi Livni, the Opposition leader. This is the sequence. You all know the truth in your hearts. This is an all-out offensive, not just against one Israeli government or another. And we are taking action to confront it.

Bibi didn't say that Goldstone or the report was the threat, but what the report represented as a continuum of attacking Israel's right to defend herself.

I suppose this is the level of accuracy we can expect from Schabas' report.

Today's Fake Palestinian "Civilian"

PCHR listed Ayman Akram Ismail al-Ghalban, 22, as being a civilian on July 27.

Here he is:

He comes from a proud family of Qassam Brigade "martyrs." The Ghalban family has a Facebook page where they celebrate all of them.

PCHR did identify Mohammed Khamis al-Ghalban and Ahmed Hassan Saleh al-Ghalban as members of armed groups. I could not find any mention of Bilal or Mohammed Fathi Ghalban, also listed there as Al Qassam martyrs. It is interesting that of this terrorist family, PCHR still identified Ayman as a "civilian." (UPDATE: Mohammed Fathi was listed as a member of an armed group in PCHR, h/t Bob Knot)

Also the family has a photo of another of their members who was injured, Mohamed Raafat Ghalban, who is almost certainly a terrorist himself, being treated at a Turkish hospital and being visited by Turkish president Erdogan.

In other news, Ma'an reports:

A young Palestinian man died on Monday of wounds he sustained during the Israeli offensive on Gaza, a Ma'an reporter said.

Muhammad Ibrahim al-Riyati, 22, was critically injured on July 18 when Israeli forces shelled the al-Tanur neighborhood of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Al-Riyati was taken to an Egyptian hospital, where he was pronounced dead on Monday.

What Ma'an didn't mention is that he was a terrorist in the Al Quds Brigades.

Just an oversight, no doubt.

(h/t Johnny)

09/09 Links Pt2: The media’s tragic obsession with Israel; Chloe Valdary: Christian, black and pro-Israel

From Ian:

The media’s tragic obsession with Israel

The irony of all the extra scrutiny of Israel, of course, is that no country in the region already engages in more internal scrutiny and self-criticism than Israel.
When Israel goes to war to defend itself, it’s surrounded by a mini army of lawyers and watchdogs to make sure it doesn’t commit war crimes. And when mistakes are made, as inevitably happens in war, it has its own media breathing down its neck. No media is more ruthless than Israel’s, and few countries have more internal investigations.
The swarm of foreign reporters who focus mostly on Israel’s mistakes and who pile on the attacks think they’re being courageous. They’re not. There’s no courage in beating up someone who’s already beating himself up. You want courage? Report on Hamas.
But as annoying as all the extra media scrutiny might be for Israel’s supporters, those who pay the highest price are surely the millions of persecuted people throughout the Middle East and elsewhere.
“The real victims of the media’s obsession with Israel and the Palestinian conflict,” author Yossi Klein Halevi wrote in an email from Jerusalem, “are the dispossessed of the world whose case almost never gets heard because the Palestinians have sucked up most of the air.”
Given the terrifying Islamic violence currently spreading throughout the region, it’s ludicrous that the media is so obsessed with scrutinizing the one civil society that allows freedom of speech and freedom to dissent.
If the media wanted to chase a really big story in the Middle East, it would be this one: The 22 countries of the region will never build stable, decent societies until they start emulating the democratic ways of the Jewish state. Now that would be a worthy media obsession.

Chloe Valdary: Christian, black, rising star of pro-Israel campus activism

Growing up in New Orleans, Chloe Valdary kept kosher, studied the Jewish Bible and celebrated Jewish holidays with festive meals. In recent years she has become an outspoken pro-Israel campus activist, contributing regularly to the Jewish press, and speaking and posting widely about the merits of the Jewish state on social media.
But the senior at the University of New Orleans is not Jewish. She is Christian — a member of the Intercontinental Church of God, whose adherents revere the Hebrew Bible and follow the Jewish calendar — and she is black.
In July, Valdary, 21, garnered widespread attention for a Tablet piece in which she accused pro-Palestinian activists of misappropriating the rhetoric of the black civil rights movement. In the piece, titled “To the Students for Justice in Palestine, a Letter From an Angry Black Woman,” Valdary addressed the campus group.
“You do not have the right to invoke my people’s struggle for your shoddy purposes, and you do not get to feign victimhood in our name,” she wrote.

Who Killed the Israeli Left?

A month ago, former diplomat Alon Liel wrote that “while me and my friends, the shattered remnants of the Israeli peace camp, put our trust in President Obama, it now turns out that he’s banking on us for a solution.”
Mr. Liel and his friends made the mistake of thinking that outside forces would force Israel to act as they wished – instead of realizing that in a democracy like Israel the primary mission of any political camp is to rally fellow citizens to its cause.
Mr. Obama and like-minded world leaders made the mistake of thinking that the best way to sway Israelis was to pressure their government – instead of realizing that Israelis respond better to policy proposals of outside leaders if they have a measure of trust in those leaders (Israel’s close and respectful relations with former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are the best proof that Israelis only listen to you if they trust you).
International encouragement of Israel’s left was instrumental in killing it. The outside world promoted the unpopular views of an Israeli political minority, giving the left an inflated sense of its own importance domestically. This illusion led to despair, and then to alienation from mainstream Israeli society – all resulting in a further reduction of the left’s political allure.
Israelis can listen to the views of dissenters. They are used to it. But they also want to trust that their dissenters are still a part of the family.