On
July 4, 2016, Rabbi Jenny Solomon co-led a trip to Hebron led by
Breaking the Silence, a group that is closely associated with BDS
(boycott, divest, and sanction Israel) organizations, harasses Israeli soldiers, and spreads hearsay accusations that demonize Israel that would be inadmissible in a court of law.
This is NOT the time for Hillel to be hiring educators, rabbis, or directors with afiliation to the BDS movement.
URGE Hillel to remove employees like Rabbi Jenny Solomon with BDS associations.
URGE Hillel to vet all future hires to prevent Hillel from giving
voice to those who would promote anti-Semitism by demonizing,
delegitimizing, and applying a double standard to Israel.
Please SIGN and SHARE this petition.
If Rabbi Jenny's name sounds familiar, perhaps it's because she's the spouse of Rabbi Eric (Rabbi and Rabbi Solomon? Rabbi and Rabba Solomon? Rabbis Solomon?), who was recently forced by his congregation to drop a plan to take them on an anti-Israel tour run by Breaking the Silence.
For those of you who have forgotten 'Breaking the Silence,' they are an
organization that claims to be dedicated to exposing IDF abuses of
'Palestinians' in Judea and Samaria. They are funded by European governments, by the European Union (which awarded them the prestigious Andrei Sakharov prize) and by private American citizens (as well as by UNICEF and OxFam). 'Breaking the Silence' interviews discharged IDF soldiers and debriefs them regarding their IDF service. Or so they claim. It now seems that they do a lot more.
The 2013 document describes the "toxic atmosphere" in 2000 and 2001
when the foundation began its work in the Middle East, and how this
environment could lead to "politically motivated investigations" from
either the Bush administration or what it calls "pro-Israel entities."
Soros himself was worried about George W. Bush. In 2006, he said the
president's communications strategy reminded him of Nazi and Communist
propaganda. Hence his foundations took a "cautious approach."
"For
a variety of reasons we wanted to construct a diversified portfolio of
grants dealing with Israel and Palestine, funding both Israeli Jewish
and (Palestinian Citizens of Israel) groups as well as building a
portfolio of Palestinian grants and in all cases to maintain a low
profile and relative distance –particularly on the advocacy front," the
2013 paper says.
Some of this was known before. I reported
in 2010 that the liberal Jewish group J Street had received Soros money
but had denied receiving it to the press and on its website. In 2013,
the pro-Israel group NGO Monitor issued a report on Soros funding for Israeli and Palestinian activists covered in the documents released this week.
Still,
let's take a minute here to savor the irony. An outfit that promotes
the "open society" is shielding its efforts to influence public policy.
It's true that plenty of foundations take a similar sub rosa approach to
funding advocacy work in Washington.
But those foundations are not
named for Karl Popper's famous defense of liberal democracies. It's
enough to make you wish there was a new Open Society Foundations to
expose the old one.
The group that leaked these documents is
mysterious. It's called DCLeaks.com, and it says it's a project of
"hacktivists" committed to many of the same principles espoused by
Popper and Soros.
Rebecca Beyer, a communications officer for Open
Society, confirmed to me Monday that documents were removed from an
online forum used by the staff of the foundation and its partners. She
said the breach was reported to the FBI. "The materials reflect
big-picture strategies over several years from the Open Society
Foundations network, which supports human rights, democratic practice,
economic advancement, and the rule of law in more than 100 countries
around the world."
When it comes to Israel, that translates into
funding organizations like Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli
ex-soldiers who tour Europe and the U.S. to discuss the Israel Defense
Force's war crimes. The document says that between 2012 and 2014, the
Open Society Foundations gave this group $100,000 -- a significant
donation for a group that in 2012 had a budget of only $841,410.
Emphasis mine. I wonder whether Soros also contributes to Rabbi and Rabba Solomon's salaries. Hmmm.
A Polish reporter who spent a month in Gaza in the summer of 2014 has once again confirmed what we all knew all along: Hamas used the civilian population of Gaza as human shields in a cynical attempt to cause civilian casualties during Operation Protective Edge.
Yes, Israel bombed Palestinian houses in Gaza. But Hamas is also to blame for its cruel and selfish game against its own people. I do not have hard evidence, but for me, spending a month in the middle of this hell, it was obvious that they were breaking international rules of war and worst of all, were not afraid to use their own citizens as living shields.
The first incident happened late in the evening. I was in the bathroom when I’ve heard a loud rocket noise and my Spanish colleague, a journalist who was renting a flat with me near the Gaza beach, started to scream. He wanted to light a cigarette and came to one of the open windows. The moment he was using his lighter, he saw a fireball in front of his eyes and lost his hearing.
From what our neighbors told us later, a man drove up in a pickup to our tiny street. He placed a rocket launcher outside and fired. But the rocket failed to go upwards and flew along the street at ground level for a long time before destroying a building. It was a miracle that nobody was hurt or killed.
When we calmed down, we started to analyze the situation. It became obvious that the man or his supervisor wanted the Israel Defense Forces to destroy civilian houses, which our tiny street was full of. Whoever it was, Hamas, Iz al-Din al-Qassam or others, they knew that the IDF can strike back at the same place from which the rocket was fired. Fortunately for us, the rocket missed its target in Israel.
The second story happened in the middle of the day. I was sitting with other journalists in a cafe outside one of the hotels near the beach. During wartime, these hotels are occupied by foreign press and some NGOs. Every hotel is full and in its cafes many journalists spend their time discussing, writing, editing stories or just recharging the phones. Suddenly I saw a man firing a rocket from between the hotels. It was obvious that we journalists became a target. If the IDF would strike back, we all would be dead. What would Hamas do? It would not be surprising to hear about the “cruel Zionist regime killing innocent and free press.”
But then you knew all this. For those who have forgotten (I have posted it before), here are out-takes of Alarabiya-TV reporter Hannan al-Masri learning of a Hamas missile being fired from the ground floor of the building housing the
Alarabiya studio in January 2009 (Operation Cast Lead).
Let's go to the videotape.
It's still nice to hear foreigners confirming what we knew all along.
If you're grossed out by the picture above, don't follow this link, because you will see several more like it. And if you're not grossed out by it, you will be when I tell you what it is. It's the corpse of a baboon that starved to death at the Gaza zoo. It's part of a puff piece at the London Daily Mail that blames Israel for the fact that the Gaza zoo has inadequate veterinary care and inadequate supplies, and therefore most of its animals have starved to death.
What the Mail doesn't tell you is how the zoo was used during Operation Cast Lead during 2008-09. That was entirely Hamas' doing.
Let's go to the videotape.
But of course, if they showed you that video, it would ruin the spin that the state of Gaza's zoo is Israel's fault.... Media bias.... It's everywhere....
Report: Israel and 'Palestinians' reach deal over Gaza construction materials
United Nations envoy Robert Serry says that Israel and the 'Palestinians' have reached a deal over the passage of construction materials into Gaza (Hat Tip: Gershon D).
Serry told the U.N. Security Council that the United Nations had brokered the deal "to enable work at the scale required in the strip, involving the private sector in Gaza and giving a lead role to the Palestinian Authority in the reconstruction effort, while providing security assurances through U.N. monitoring that these materials will not be diverted from their entirely civilian purpose."
"Building materials and reconstruction equipment will enter the Gaza
Strip through a mechanism that Coordinator of the
Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Maj. Gen. Yoav
Mordechai is building, together the with UN envoy Robert Serry and the
Palestinian Authority," Ya'alon added.
But the defense minister warned that "if those materials are
transferred to building tunnels - the transfer will stop immediately."
Of course, the terror tunnels were built from materials that Israel allowed in after the last two Gaza operations (Cast Lead and Pillar of Defense) in 2006 and 2008-09, respectively, and either the IDF didn't pick up on it or decided that they could not stop the materials from being diverted. Why will this time be different? What could go wrong?
Video: Longer interview with former AP Israel correspondent who exposed disproportionate media coverage of Israel
Journalist and award-winning author Matti Friedman joins Yishai
in-studio to discuss his powerful article, 'An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth,' in which he writes about "the resurgence
of an old, twisted pattern of thought and its migration from the
margins to the mainstream of Western discourse—namely, a hostile
obsession with Jews."
It is true the conflict we covered can be framed in
various ways: of downtrodden Palestinians facing off against powerful
Israel, or of tiny Israel against the surrounding sea of 300 million
Arabs. Often, I felt that attempting to “frame” it either way was not
instructive. It was preferable to simply bear witness to what we saw
unfolding before our eyes.
During my six-year tenure in Israel and the Palestinian
territories, our staff was made up mostly of Israeli Jews and
Palestinian Muslims, with a smaller number of foreigners who belonged to
neither or those two communities. Matti provided valuable, fair-minded
input during those years, a voice that often helped ensure the Israeli
viewpoint got a fair shake without belittling the other side. I was
grateful for that, and for the other voices in the bureau who did the
same for the Palestinians.
As bureau chief, I knew it was one of my key roles to
fight bias in our reporting. Was this achieved all the time? I doubt it.
But I know an honest attempt was made at all times. I always told our
reporters not to deliver “milk toast” and to lay bare the raw passions
of each side in all their glory, rather than trying to tone down the
arguments. While fairness was of utmost importance, I told them, not
every story had to be 50-50 (if you were reporting in 1930s Germany, I
asked, would you be compelled to give half the space to the Jewish side
and the other half to the Nazis?)
Matti states that the AP’s Jerusalem bureau – like all
other major news operations based in Israel and the Palestinian
territories – employs an inordinate amount of reporters because of this
hostile obsession with the Jews. The truth is the story of Israel is
that of a nation rising from the ashes of the worst genocide in human
history, being attacked from all sides upon its inception.
Depending on
your point of view, it’s also a story about the persecuted becoming the
persecutors. All of this, of course, is happening to the people of the
Bible, the descendants of the Hebrew slaves who were led out of Egypt by
Moses and from whose ranks emerged Jesus Christ. It’s as if a new
chapter of the Bible is being written in our times. Whether you think
the Bible is mythology or the word of God is beside the point. The point
is we are all human beings who love a good story, and this one is
particularly good.
In his article, Matti states that I personally
suppressed stories that did not fit my narrative of Israel being bad,
implying that I was a part of this worldwide media conspiracy against
the Jews. It’s a large statement, and of course could only be true if I
hated myself. The truth is I am not a self-hating Jew or any kind of Jew
other than just a regular one.
...
If an article didn’t appear that Matti thought should
have, it was not because it didn’t fit a pre-ordained narrative or
because we had it in for Israel. Deciding which stories to pursue
involves news judgment, and rare events are more newsworthy than common
ones. Reporters do not write about all the houses that DON’T catch fire,
and corruption in Sweden is more noteworthy than it is in Nigeria.
(Though it must be stated that Matti’s assertion that the AP ignores
Palestinian corruption and other aspects of Palestinian existence is
untrue).
Matti stated that a female reporter in our bureau had
access to maps showing the contours of a generous Israeli offer of a
Palestinian state, but that the bureau’s leadership refused to run the
story. The map he’s talking about was indeed shown by a Palestinian
official to one of our reporters. It affirmed a longstanding Palestinian
proposal for a land swap that had been part of the Geneva Initiative,
and was old news.
During my years with the AP and other news
organizations, I reported from some two dozen countries, including
Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Colombia, Cuba and Israel. I have been
threatened, shot at and shelled, and I have been present when colleagues
were injured and killed. Were there times when we decided not to report
a given fact because we thought it would endanger one of our reporters?
Yes there were, and one of these incidents occurred when Matti was on
the editing desk. But these events were extremely rare – perhaps only
two or three times during my entire six-year stint in Israel/Palestine –
and we withheld the information only after concluding that it would
necessarily be traced to the reporter in question, thus jeopardizing his
life.
Read the whole thing. I found Matti Friedman's presentation to be much more factual than Steven Gutkin's. And I left out this sentence in the excerpt above, which is quite telling about whether the AP and the media generally are biased:
Depending on your point of view, it’s also a story about the persecuted becoming the persecutors.
CNN interviews journalist who shined spotlight on disproportionate media coverage of Israel
You will recall that last week, I posted a story from Tablet magazine from a former AP journalist in Israel who talked about how the media frames the Middle East narrative. That journalist, Matti Friedman, was interviewed on CNN over the weekend.
The most important story you will read today: How the media turns Israel into the pool into which the world spits
The article linked and discussed in this post really is the most important story you will read today - regardless of what else happens over the course of the day. Matti Friedman is a former AP correspondent in Israel, who has lived here since 1995. In this article, he discusses how the mainstream media frames the 'Israel story' so that you think it's the most important story in the world, and why the mainstream media chooses to do that. He also explains some of the things the mainstream media ignores because they interfere with its narrative of the 'Israel story,' and why it chooses to do so. Here are a few highlights.
The lasting importance of this summer’s war, I
believe, doesn’t lie in the war itself. It lies instead in the way the
war has been described and responded to abroad, and the way this has
laid bare the resurgence of an old, twisted pattern of thought and its
migration from the margins to the mainstream of Western
discourse—namely, a hostile obsession with Jews. The key to
understanding this resurgence is not to be found among jihadi
webmasters, basement conspiracy theorists, or radical activists. It is
instead to be found first among the educated and respectable people who
populate the international news industry; decent people, many of them,
and some of them my former colleagues.
While global mania about Israeli actions has come to be taken for
granted, it is actually the result of decisions made by individual human
beings in positions of responsibility—in this case, journalists and
editors. The world is not responding to events in this country, but
rather to the description of these events by news organizations. The key
to understanding the strange nature of the response is thus to be found
in the practice of journalism, and specifically in a severe malfunction
that is occurring in that profession—my profession—here in Israel.
...
The volume of press coverage that results,
even when little is going on, gives this conflict a prominence compared
to which its actual human toll is absurdly small. In all of 2013, for
example, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict claimed 42 lives—that is,
roughly the monthly homicide rate in the city of Chicago. Jerusalem,
internationally renowned as a city of conflict, had slightly fewer
violent deaths per capita last year than Portland, Ore., one of
America’s safer cities. In contrast, in three years the Syrian conflict
has claimed an estimated 190,000 lives, or about 70,000 more than the
number of people who have ever died in the Arab-Israeli conflict since
it began a century ago.
A reporter working in the international press
corps here understands quickly that what is important in the
Israel-Palestinian story is Israel. If you follow mainstream coverage,
you will find nearly no real analysis of Palestinian society or
ideologies, profiles of armed Palestinian groups, or investigation of
Palestinian government. Palestinians are not taken seriously as agents
of their own fate. The West has decided that Palestinians should want a
state alongside Israel, so that opinion is attributed to them as fact,
though anyone who has spent time with actual Palestinians understands
that things are (understandably, in my opinion) more complicated. Who
they are and what they want is not important: The story mandates that
they exist as passive victims of the party that matters.
Get ready for this one - here's a biggie.
There has been much discussion recently of
Hamas attempts to intimidate reporters. Any veteran of the press corps
here knows the intimidation is real, and I saw it in action myself as an
editor on the AP news desk. During the 2008-2009 Gaza fighting I
personally erased a key detail—that Hamas fighters were dressed as
civilians and being counted as civilians in the death toll—because of a
threat to our reporter in Gaza. (The policy was then, and remains, not
to inform readers that the story is censored unless the censorship is
Israeli. Earlier this month, the AP’s Jerusalem news editor reported and
submitted a story on Hamas intimidation; the story was shunted into
deep freeze by his superiors and has not been published.)
But if critics imagine that journalists are clamoring to cover Hamas
and are stymied by thugs and threats, it is generally not so. There are
many low-risk ways to report Hamas actions, if the will is there: under
bylines from Israel, under no byline, by citing Israeli sources.
Reporters are resourceful when they want to be.
The fact is that Hamas intimidation is largely beside the point
because the actions of Palestinians are beside the point: Most reporters
in Gaza believe their job is to document violence directed by Israel at
Palestinian civilians. That is the essence of the Israel story. In
addition, reporters are under deadline and often at risk, and many don’t
speak the language and have only the most tenuous grip on what is going
on. They are dependent on Palestinian colleagues and fixers who either
fear Hamas, support Hamas, or both. Reporters don’t need Hamas enforcers
to shoo them away from facts that muddy the simple story they have been
sent to tell.
It is not coincidence that the few journalists who have documented
Hamas fighters and rocket launches in civilian areas this summer were
generally not, as you might expect, from the large news organizations
with big and permanent Gaza operations. They were mostly scrappy,
peripheral, and newly arrived players—a Finn, an Indian crew, a few others. These poor souls didn’t get the memo.
Are you furious after reading that? I was. Here's another story that will infuriate you.
In early 2009, for example, two colleagues of
mine obtained information that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had
made a significant peace offer to the Palestinian Authority several
months earlier, and that the Palestinians had deemed it insufficient.
This had not been reported yet and it was—or should have been—one of the
biggest stories of the year. The reporters obtained confirmation from
both sides and one even saw a map, but the top editors at the bureau
decided that they would not publish the story.
Some staffers were furious, but it didn’t
help. Our narrative was that the Palestinians were moderate and the
Israelis recalcitrant and increasingly extreme. Reporting the Olmert
offer—like delving too deeply into the subject of Hamas—would make that
narrative look like nonsense. And so we were instructed to ignore it,
and did, for more than a year and a half.
This decision taught me a lesson that should be clear to consumers of
the Israel story: Many of the people deciding what you will read and
see from here view their role not as explanatory but as political.
Coverage is a weapon to be placed at the disposal of the side they like.
And why are these decisions made? Surprise: It's classical anti-Semitism (and Friedman is not a conservative - he is opposed to the 'settlements').
For centuries, stateless Jews played the role
of a lightning rod for ill will among the majority population. They
were a symbol of things that were wrong. Did you want to make the point
that greed was bad? Jews were greedy. Cowardice? Jews were cowardly.
Were you a Communist? Jews were capitalists. Were you a capitalist? In
that case, Jews were Communists. Moral failure was the essential trait
of the Jew. It was their role in Christian tradition—the only reason
European society knew or cared about them in the first place.
Like many Jews who grew up late in the 20th century in friendly
Western cities, I dismissed such ideas as the feverish memories of my
grandparents. One thing I have learned—and I’m not alone this summer—is
that I was foolish to have done so. Today, people in the West tend to
believe the ills of the age are racism, colonialism, and militarism. The
world’s only Jewish country has done less harm than most countries on
earth, and more good—and yet when people went looking for a country that
would symbolize the sins of our new post-colonial, post-militaristic,
post-ethnic dream-world, the country they chose was this one.
When the people responsible for explaining the world to the world,
journalists, cover the Jews’ war as more worthy of attention than any
other, when they portray the Jews of Israel as the party obviously in
the wrong, when they omit all possible justifications for the Jews’
actions and obscure the true face of their enemies, what they are saying
to their readers—whether they intend to or not—is that Jews are the
worst people on earth. The Jews are a symbol of the evils that civilized
people are taught from an early age to abhor. International press
coverage has become a morality play starring a familiar villain.
I have two further comments. First, people occasionally ask me why I write a blog when most of the world gets their information from the mainstream media anyway. Unfortunately, I and my fellow bloggers have not yet reached the point where our impact approaches that of the New York Times, the Washington Post, AP or the Guardian. But collectively, we are having an impact. Not enough of an impact, but an impact all the same.
Second, after reading this story, I am more convinced than ever that the Sheldon Adelson's of the world are correct and that the answer is to create an alternative mainstream media (Adelson finances Yisrael HaYom, which has become the largest circulation newspaper in Israel - it is handed out for free and subsists on ad money). But while Israel may have been the place to start, the real places where an alternative mainstream media needs to play out are the western countries - especially in North America and Europe.
I hope you all read the story. I'm quite jaded and I was still astounded by how blatant the framing of Israel's story really is.
The music is Oseh Shalom (He Who Makes peace) by Shtar, the photos are of those we lost over the past two months. The silver lining is that the video is three and a half minutes long - and not God Forbid longer. But looking at all the young lives we have lost over the past two months is heart-rending.
Let's go to the videotape.
Many years ago, I heard from a rabbi in Jerusalem that one who attends the funeral of a young person need not learn Mussar (rebukes) for a month. The memory of a young person who died is enough to keep one's behavior in line.
Unfortunately, we have had too many young people die this summer.
I can only pray that the unity that has been fostered amongst the vast majority of Israeli Jews this summer will continue for a long time to come.
Civilian to combatant casualty ratio in Gaza around 1:1
Despite ongoing 'Palestinian' efforts to create civilian casualties in Gaza through the use of human shields, the IDF reports that the civilian to combatant casualty ratio in Operation Protective Edge is around 1:1.
Israel has
evidence that almost half of Palestinians killed in the 25-day-old Gaza
war were combatants, its deputy foreign minister said on Saturday,
pushing back against international allegations of a lopsidedly heavy
civilian death toll.
Gazan human rights groups say
at least 80 percent of the 1,669 Palestinians killed have been
non-combatants, including hundreds of children. The U.N. Human Rights
Council last week accused the Israelis of "disproportionate and
indiscriminate attacks" and launched an inquiry into possible war
crimes.
...
"There is research being done in the military,
very professionally and reliably, (whose) conclusion is that at least
47% of the fatalities are terrorists, with photographs and names,"
Tzachi Hanegbi told Israel's Channel Two television, adding that the
data would be presented to investigators.
He
did not elaborate. Israel rejected the U.N. Human Rights Council's
probe announcement, describing the forum as biased, but usually conducts
its own combat inquiries.
Israel
says Hamas and other Palestinian guerrillas in Gaza are terrorists and
in past conflicts has used broad definitions of combatants - including,
for example, Palestinian policemen working for the Hamas administration.
Other significant factors in the count include:
1. The statistics from the 'Palestinian Health Ministry' in Gaza come from Hamas and are therefore not reliable.
2. The statistics from the 'human rights council' counted anyone under the age of 18 as a civilian, whereas Hamas uses 16 and 17-year olds (and sometimes even younger children) as combatants. and even uses babies as human shields.
3. The more significant statistic in determining whether civilians or combatants are being killed is the male to female casualty ratio. The numbers I have seen for Operation Protective Edge put that at 3:1.
According to a 2010 assessment by John Sloboda of Iraq Body Count,
a United Kingdom-based organization, American and Coalition forces had
killed at least 28,736 combatants as well as 13,807 civilians in the Iraq War, indicating a civilian to combatant casualty ratio inflicted by coalition forces of 1:2.[24] However, overall, figures by the Iraq Body Count
from 20 March 2003 to 14 March 2013 indicate that of 174,000 casualties
only 39,900 were combatants, resulting in a civilian casualty rate of
77%.[25]
The civilian casualty ratio for U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan
is notoriously difficult to quantify. The U.S. itself puts the number
of civilians killed from drone strikes in the last two years at no more
than 20 to 30, a total that is far too low according to a spokesman for
the NGOCIVIC.[26] At the other extreme, Daniel L. Byman of the Brookings Institution
suggests that drone strikes may kill "10 or so civilians" for every
militant killed, which would represent a civilian to combatant casualty
ratio of 10:1. Byman argues that civilian killings constitute a
humanitarian tragedy and create dangerous political problems, including
damage to the legitimacy of the Pakistani government and alienation of
the Pakistani populace from America.[27] An ongoing study by the New America Foundation
finds non-militant casualty rates started high but have declined
steeply over time, from about 60% (3 out of 5) in 2004-2007 to less than
2% (1 out of 50) in 2012. The study puts the overall non-militant
casualty rate since 2004 at 15-16%, or a 1:5 ratio, out of a total of
between 1,908 and 3,225 people killed in Pakistan by drone strikes since
2004.[28]
By the way, Britain's civilian-combatant ratio in Afghanistan was 3:1.
After Operation Cast Lead, Israel produced a 500-page report which, among other things, showed that it had killed mostly combatants (make sure to watch the video at that link). Subsequently, former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations demolished the 'human rights council's investigation chairman, Richard Goldstone, in a debate (videos at this link) at Brandeis University, which I live-blogged. After that debate, Goldstone refused to debate anyone else (including Alan Dershowitz) about his report, and eventually he recanted the major accusations in the report - far too late.
Hamas' New Year surprise... and John Kerry's cease fire - UPDATED
Maariv - Israel's third largest circulation daily - is confirming that Hamas planned a mass terror attack on southern Israel on Rosh HaShannah, the Jewish New Year, a little more than two months from now (second link in Hebrew).
According to the report, Hamas planned to send up to 200 terrorists through many tunnels that lead into six different kibbutzim, moshavim and villages around Gaza's borders. The terrorists' mission was to have been the mass murder and kidnapping of as many Jews as possible. Although the newspaper does not make the connection, I suspect that this map likely shows some of the places involved, and explains why the battle of Shejaiya earlier this week was so important.
The IDF was aware of the tunnels, and as a result, the soldiers who were sent to destroy them over the past week knew exactly where to go. But the IDF was not aware of the specific plan for a mass terror attack two months from now - that came from interrogating Hamas terrorists who were captured this past week.
During the course of Operation Protective Edge, the IDF discovered that the tunnels did not go straight as it assumed, but the tunnels intersected with each other, to allow the transfer of terrorists from one tunnel to the next. The tunnels also included storage rooms for weapons, tranquilizer drugs, and cables to tie the hands of potential kidnap victims. The idea was to kill as many people as possible, and bring back many more to ransom for 'Palestinian' terrorists languishing in Israel prisons.
According to Maariv, the tunnel digging started several years ago, and in the last year Hamas terrorists have been working three shifts per day, around the clock, in order to add 15 meters per day to each tunnel. Hamas has spent hundreds of millions of dollars (actually, euros) on the tunnels, which money could have gone to pay for schools hospitals, bomb shelters, etc.
The IDF has told the political echelon that it is capable of finishing the job, but it needs several more days to do so. Hamas, whose plans and capabilities have been completely exposed, now wants a cease fire to save what is left (about 4,000 of its 9,000 rockets, among other things), but it is in the IDF's interest not to have a cease fire now, and to nail Hamas to the wall.
Enter US Secretary of State John FN Kerry... our unwelcome guest.
Kerry has proposed a week-long cease fire beginning on Sunday (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). During that week, the parties would negotiate for a more permanent deal, i.e. until the next time Hamas violates it. It would leave Hamas with some tunnels intact, with about 45% of its rocket supply, and with the ability to fight another day. It would also bring Hamas billions in international aid for 'reconstruction,' much of which would likely be diverted to reconstruct the tunnels, as was the case after Operations Cast Lead and Pillar of Defense.
As soon as the truce took effect, Palestinian
and Israeli officials would begin negotiations on the principal
economic, political and security concerns about Gaza, with other nations
attending.
Important
details of the plan remained under negotiation early Friday, said the
official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as the negotiations
were at a delicate stage. Among the unresolved issues is an Israeli
proposal that its troops be allowed to remain in Gaza during the
temporary truce.
It was not clear if the final plan would be endorsed by Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, or by the Israeli cabinet.
I don't see how Israel could withdraw from Gaza now. As noted above, a cease fire now is not in Israel's best interest, and in any event a withdrawal would make it that much harder to get back in. The last two times in this operation, Hamas did our dirty work by turning down the cased fire. Will it happen again?
Hamas’s political leader, Khaled Meshal, has stated that he would not
accept an enduring cease-fire until his demands were met, including the
lifting of an economic blockade on Gaza. But Mr. Meshal called Wednesday
for a humanitarian truce to allow relief aid to reach Gaza, and the
proposed start of the seven-day truce is intended to coincide with the
Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr, which signals the end of Ramadan. The
Israeli cabinet was expected to discuss the plan on Friday afternoon, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported.
The security cabinet is meeting now (after the meeting was postponed from Noon to 3:00 pm), but the plan it is considering would not only have the IDF remain in Gaza for the week, but it would have the IDF continue to destroy tunnels (presumably around the clock), and I'd be shocked if Hamas accepted that.
An Israeli official said the Netanyahu government envisages the
initial halt to the fighting lasting seven days, during which the army
would keep digging up tunnels on Gaza's eastern frontier.
"First
Israel wants to hear Hamas's response to the (Kerry) proposals," an
official said, adding that some members of the security cabinet also
sought assurances that Gaza would be stripped of its remaining rockets
under any extended ceasefire.
A Washington Post editorial earlier this week actually called for disarming Gaza, but I cannot see Hamas agreeing to that, at least so long as there are expendable civilians. And there are plenty of voices in Israel who don't want a cease fire either. For example, Public Security Minister Yitzchak Aharonovitch.
Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch (Yisrael Beytenu)
publicly expressed support for continuing Operation Protective Edge on
Friday, at a press conference with Israeli reporters.
"A ceasefire without exposing all the tunnels would be a mistake," he said.
...
Aharonovitch denied that Israel was considering a cease-fire just yet, however.
"There are all kinds of proposals," he noted. "The IDF is
operating in Gaza and exposing many terror tunnels, and the goal is to
expose them all. We need to do what needs to be done, and not limit the
IDF to a deadline."
Meanwhile, Kerry is trying to pressure the parties to reach an agreement by threatening to leave. This is the Times again.
“He
isn’t here for an indefinite amount of time, and in the near future, he
will determine whether there is a willingness to come to an agreement
on a cease-fire,” a senior State Department official told reporters
Thursday evening.
The Israeli news media has reported that Mr. Kerry planned to leave Cairo for the United States on Friday afternoon.
We wish he would leave. After all, Nantucket awaits.
Whether he will leave empty handed remains to be seen - at least as of now. But many here hope he goes home with his tail between his legs and doesn't return for a long time. We didn't ask him to come in the first place.
Foreign reporters threatened on Twitter for reporting on Hamas rocket fire
On Wednesday night, I reported that foreign journalists have begun to quietly acknowledge that Hamas is using hospitals and mosques to store and fire rockets and is using the civilian population generally as human shields for its activities. Unsurprisingly, we now have word that some foreign journalists have been threatened for their reporting.
On Wednesday, Peter Stefanovic of Australia’s Channel Nine News
tweeted: “Hamas rockets just launched over our hotel from a site about
two hundred metres away. So a missile launch site is basically next
door.”
An account called @ThisIsGaza said this was Stefanovic’s fourth time
“passing and fabricating information to Israel... from GAZA” and
threatened to sue him.
Another account, @longitude0 wrote: “You are a cretin. Are you working for the IDF” and “in WWII spies got shot.”
Financial Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief John Reed reported seeing “two
rockets fired toward Israel from near al-Shifa hospital, even as more
bombing victims were brought in.”
Shifa, in Gaza City, is the main medical facility in the Strip [and is where the Hamas leadership is hiding out. CiJ].
In response, @Saritah_91 tweeted: “We’ll hold you responsible if Israel
uses your tweet to bomb the hospital & then justify it.”
Another twitter user, @ Faysal_FreeGaza, said he’s “subtly justifying
and encouraging IDF attacks on hospitals,” and @Maysara_ ara wrote:
“Get out of Gaza u informant.”
...
Harry Fear, a journalist from the UK reporting from Gaza for RT
(formerly Russia Today) television, tweeted last week: “Early morning
Gaza rockets were fired into Israel. A well-known site in W. Gaza City,
near my hotel, was among the origins, confirm locals.”
Fear then took on the critics, tweeting soon after that he rejects
“loaded complaints that I ‘informed’ Israel about the specifics of Gaza
military sites... These sites are well-known among locals and
internationals here.”
“Should a journalist only report the noise and ferocity of Israel’s
attacks & not the sounds of Gaza’s rockets? Both terrify people,”
he tweeted.
Later that day, Fear tweeted: “Al-Wafa hospital has been hit in the
last while; injuries reported – this is the hospital with human
shields.”
While a Goldstone 2 is unlikely to be any less biased than the GoldstoneCommission after Operation Cast Lead, these tweets should be filed away for future reference. If a future inquiry (there's already one in the making - more on that later) is biased against Israel, these tweets can be used to show that Israel acted justifiably.
Sorry seems to be the hardest word... and in this case it isn't enough
UNRWA, whose job is to perpetuate 'Palestinian refugeehood,' announced on Thursday that it had 'discovered' 20 rockets inone of its schools.
Yesterday, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises,
UNRWA discovered approximately 20 rockets hidden in a vacant school in
the Gaza Strip. UNRWA strongly condemns the group or groups responsible
for placing the weapons in one of its installations. This is a flagrant
violation of the inviolability of its premises under international law.
This incident, which is the first of its kind in Gaza, endangered
civilians including staff and put at risk UNRWA’s vital mission to
assist and protect Palestine refugees in Gaza.
UNRWA has rejected an IDF investigation that concluded that terrorists were present in the Jabalya school in which 30-40 civilians were allegedly killed on Tuesday.
United
Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) spokesman Chris Gunness said
terrorists are not allowed in its schools, and he demanded an
"impartial" probe into IDF reports that Hamas shot mortars next to a
school. He said he did not know off hand what constitutes an impartial
body.
"If there have been violations on either side, we want
those responsible brought to justice," he told Israel National News. He
added that he cannot comment on the IDF report that it shelled a UNRWA
school because terrorists were attacking soldiers with mortars from
within the building.
"Allegations that UNRWA facilities are used
by militants are always investigated and we will cooperate so our name
can be cleared," Gunness stated.
...
He also said he wants proof of the IDF claim that terrorists were killed in the shelling.
Asked about the October 2007 incident in which video evidence (link includes video) was presented that terrorists were shooting mortars from a UNRWA schoolyard, Gunness had this to say:
Concerning
the 2007 video of mortar attacks from a school in the northern Gaza
town of Beit Hanoun, Gunness explained that the terrorists entered after
the building was deserted. The UN had evacuated children and teachers
because of an Israel military operation and terrorists moved in
afterwards, he added. "We did not open the doors" for them.
Gunness
also said that the UNRWA teacher who was discovered to be a rocket
manufacturer in his off hours was sacked and that his family did not
receive pensions that usually are granted to workers.
Israel actually compensated UNRWA for the 2009 incident. Hopefully, at least this time, we won't be dumb enough to do that.
In the meantime, as you may have noted from the statement at the top of this post, UNRWA is pretending that Israel is behind the rockets. Waiting for them to claim that in 4... 3... 2... 1....
Prime Minister Netanyahu has not ordered a ground invasion due to international pressure and due to the fact that he understands that he would be sending at least some IDF soldiers to their deaths. We all understand that. But there's more to it than that. Elliott Abrams writes that Netanyahu has not ordered a ground invasion because of the warped moral calculation it would cause with respect to casualty numbers.
For one thing, Netanyahu knows he would be sending some Israeli
soldiers to their deaths. But he also knows that in the sick math of the
Gaza war, Israel would be blamed for “disproportionate” killing.
What that means is simple: too many Palestinians would die, and “not
enough” Israelis–in the view of much of “world opinion.” You would read
that calculation in the New York Times and see it on the BBC.
In “Operation Cast Lead” in 2008, about 1000-1400 Palestinians died, and
13 Israelis. In “Operation Pillar of Defense” in 2012 it was something
like 150 to 6. As of now, in the current conflict there are no Israeli
deaths and about 100 Palestinian deaths. Here’s how Time Magazine started its story:
The death toll among Palestinians scrambling under a relentless Israeli air assault in the Gaza Strip passed 80 Thursday and edged close to 100 Friday,
including at least 14 children….Meanwhile, the barrage of rockets Gaza
militants launched toward Israeli cities failed to produce a significant
casualty on the third day of Israel’s offensive Thursday….The Israeli
military said it destroyed more buildings in the first 36 hours of the
current campaign than in all of Pillar of Defense. More people are dying
too: the 80 fatalities reported so far is, once again, more than half
the reported death toll from the longer bombing two years earlier.
Time then discussed exactly this phenomenon: when what
“world opinion” sees as “too many” Palestinians dying and the balance is
“too great” in Israel’s favor–that is, too many Palestinians and not
enough Israelis being killed–the calls for a cease-fire will escalate.
Moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas will be the order of the
day–except for those who elevate Hamas, since after all it is killing
fewer people!
...
Remember this: in the Second World War, the United States suffered
416,000 combat deaths, or about 0.32 percent of the population. Germany
suffered 4-5 million combat deaths, or about 5 percent of the
population. The death ratio was 10 to 1. Did that make the war unjust?
Does that mean the United States inflicted “disproportionate” numbers of
casualties? Unfortunately the Israelis know “world opinion” will never
be on their side in these arguments. Let’s just hope the United States
is.
UPDATE: UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay has already proved this analysis right, even before an Israeli ground incursion. She said this today:
For its part, the Government of Israel must take all
possible measures to ensure full respect for the principles of
distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack, during the
conduct of hostilities, as required by international humanitarian law.
In all circumstances, they must avoid targeting civilians. However, we
have received deeply disturbing reports that many of the civilian
casualties, including of children, occurred as a result of strikes on
homes. Such reports raise serious doubt about whether the Israeli
strikes have been in accordance with international humanitarian law and
international human rights law.
So, she is already accusing Israel of breaking international
humanitarian law and human rights law. Perhaps since Goldstone has
retired, she is filling in.
You have to wonder what the outcome of World War II would have been had the World been as 'moral' as it is today.
Report: Senior commander of Hamas rocket arsenal dead, Hamas denies it
A report on Israel's Channel 10 television indicates that the IAF has killed Ayman Siam, the head of Hamas' rocket arsenal. Hamas is denying the report.
Hamas is denying a Channel 10 report that the Israel Defense Forces
killed a senior Hamas operative who headed the Islamist organization's
vast arsenal of rockets.
According to Channel 10, a joint Shin Bet-IDF operation resulted in
the killing of Ayman Siam, one of the most wanted Hamas figures.
Channel 10 is reporting that Siam was killed in a strike as he was driving in a vehicle in the southern Gaza Strip.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri urges Gazans to act as human shields for Hamas leaders targeted by Israel, arguing that it's been proven effective, for example, in the case of Nizar Rayyan.
Let's go to the videotape.
For those who have forgotten Nizar Rayyan, he managed to take most of his family down with him by ordering them to act as human shields during Operation Cast Lead. I discussed it hereand here. The Kawari home, which is shown in the video, was discussed here.
Why Barack Obama shares in the blame... and so does Hillary Clinton
Yesterday, a Facebook friend in the US whom I have known since he was born (almost literally) wrote the following (I am purposely not linking it and not giving his name and I will delete any comment that names him).
Today
is a terrible day in the long history of the Jewish people confronted
by enemies committed to the age old statement of Haman seeking to
eradicate the Jewish people. But let's stay focused on who is that
enemy and who it is not. This has nothing to do with President Barack
Obama.
Sorry D, but that's dead wrong. Here's Noah Pollak in a brilliant article to explain why.
The murder of the teens and the rocket fire from
Gaza are, of course, entirely the fault of Hamas. But it would be taking
too narrow a view of the situation not to consider the way over the
past five years the Obama administration has shaped the environment in
which these events are unfolding.
A few examples: Israeli intelligence believes the Hamas cell that carried out the abduction was run by a Hamas leader who lives openly
in Turkey. The Erdogan regime has, of course, made Turkey a comfortable
haven for anti-Israel terrorists, allowing weapons smuggling to
Hezbollah, staging the terror flotilla to Gaza in 2010, hosting (and
feting) Hamas leaders, and so on. Obama's protest? None. In fact, a few
years ago Obama said that Erdogan was his favorite Middle East leader,
and Obama over the years has offered nothing but lavish public praise
for Erdogan.
Another example: The Obama administration has
consistently adopted policies whose effect is to make Hamas rule in Gaza
easier. One of the first foreign policy moves the administration
made—you can read all about it in Hillary Clinton's Hard Choices,
where she writes earnestly and proudly about her involvement—was to
pressure Israel to weaken its blockade on Gaza after Operation Cast
Lead, the short war that ended days before Obama's inauguration in 2009.
Every dollar of aid provided to Gaza is a dollar freed up for Hamas to
spend on terrorizing Israelis—and the Obama administration for five
years has been insistent on Gaza receiving substantial aid, and Israel
relaxing its blockade. Clinton and Obama pushed through another
loosening of the Gaza blockade after Operation Pillar of Defense in
2012.
Yet another example: The Obama administration,
including Secretaries Clinton and Kerry, has always insisted that the
U.S. taxpayer should continue funding the Palestinian Authority even if
it forms a "unity government" with Hamas, which after many years of
trying was finally consummated last month. The Obama administration even
coached the Palestinians on how to organize the new unity government so
that the administration would be able to claim that it does not violate
a 2006 law forbidding the funding of exactly such a PA (instead of
Hamas terrorists receiving ministerial positions in the Palestinian
Authority, there are Hamas-approved "technocrats" occupying the
ministries—i.e., cutouts who do the bidding of Hamas).
And thus, with Hamas and Fatah joined in an
Obama-approved unity government that will continue receiving hundreds of
millions of dollars a year in U.S. funding, we arrive at the events of
the past three weeks—the increased rocket fire, the abduction and murder
of the teenagers, and, of course, the administration's admonition that
Israel not respond to events the administration itself has played a role
in bringing about
And all the while the Obama administration insists
on its "unshakable commitment to Israel's security," a phrase invoked
with repetitive meaninglessness. The most important part of that
commitment is being a source of moral clarity on days like today, and
treating an ally like an ally, instead of a problem that must be
contained. The administration has failed on both counts.
Received by email (since I am not in Israel and not listening to Reshet Bet Israel Radio).
Giora Eiland - IDF Major General, former Israeli National Security Advisor, etc - was interviewed on Israel's noon-time
Reshet Bet radio show, about the overnight rocket Hamas rocket barrages
from the Gaza Strip. Short version: Israel is working very hard to
deescalate the situation, but unless things calm down in the next few
days there will be no stopping an escalation. Israel would be forced to
launch a major operation to stop the rocket fire. Quick, rough
translation:
“I assume it’s a matter of days for us to know if we
succeeded [together with other parties] to create the required calm, or
if not we will certainly be prepared to carry out a larger process than
the [current] spontaneous responses... a hard/harsh Israeli action
against Gaza would be accepted, maybe not with encouragement, but with
great understanding in Washington and most places in the world... Hamas
knows this and therefore there is a structure of deterrence... [without
deescalation] I estimate that there will be an Israeli action, or at
least there will be a call for an Israeli action that is much more
massive – like Operation Pillar of Defense maybe even bigger than it, in
order to achieve a renewed deterrence for another period of a year or
two.”
I'm not into watching TED talks, but many people I know - mostly brilliant people - including Mrs. Carl, are very much into watching them. This week, media watchdog CAMERA took TED to task for airing a talk by one of its fellows, Gaza photojournalist Eman Mohammed, which accused Israel of maximizing casualties during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09. This is from the second link.
CAMERA wrote: “During Operation Cast Lead, Israel dropped over 2.5 million leaflets throughout Gaza and phoned residents in order to warn them of impending attacks. Israel likewise dropped warning fliers during the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank.”
The watchdog quoted testimony from Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan, who addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2009, praising the “extraordinary measures” that Israel took in Cast Lead to avoid civilian casualties.
Kemp said, that “based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”
“Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population,” Kemp said. “Hamas, like Hezbollah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.”
“The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls,” the former British commander said. “Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy’s hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.”
An Israel Defense Forces investigation into the army’s conduct during Cast Lead discussed the precautions that Israel took in this particular strike to safeguard civilian lives. The investigation noted “the unfortunate deaths” of four civilians in the Al Saraya strike, but it also maintained that the strikes were in accordance with international law.
Mohammed said she was injured during the strike, breaking her nose. It was not from IDF fire or shrapnel, but from her own camera.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
