Eyeless in Gaza: How Hamas controls the media in Gaza
For those of you who are in London on Monday night, here's a film you don't want to miss. It's called Eyeless in Gaza, and as the title of this post indicates, it shows how Hamas controls what's reported out of Gaza through intimidation. But that's only half the story. Here's a preview.
“It’s something I call ‘group think’,”
explains Himel. “Group think isn’t a malicious attempt to lie or
distort the truth, but there is a strong herd instinct of what is
allowable and what is not.
“When you look at reporting on the Middle East
in general, the same model is used. The Syrian conflict was described
as a fight for human rights and the Arab Spring was hailed as a revolt
against brutal dictators.
“What often happens is the group think will
significantly distort what’s really going on when you are reporting
something – and if you violate group think you can be in a lot of
trouble.”
As a case in point, the film highlights the
naval blockade and subsequent raid by Israeli forces on a Palestinian
freighter named Karine A in 2007. The vessel was found to be carrying 50
tons of weapons, including short-range Katyusha rockets, anti-tank
missiles and explosives.
But as the documentary notes: “Very little of
the weapons found…made it to the media. Instead, the news focused on
flotillas trying to break the naval blockade.”
Why, then, did journalists focus more on the flotillas than the success of the Karine A operation?
Himel explains: “The group think is that an
unjustified blockade is causing hardship for the people of Gaza. They
can’t get basic food, they can’t move around, they can’t get to family
in other places. The media will be attracted to things that strengthen
that assumption.
“So a flotilla coming in trying to save the
besieged people of Gaza, like those besieged in Leningrad in 1942, is
appropriate, whereas if you are talking about a naval blockade that’s
stopping arms getting in, you are instantly making the picture more
complex – and that doesn’t sit well with editors.”
The consequences for journalists who veered away from the accepted narrative can be extreme.
When RTV reporter Harry Fear tweeted that Gaza
rockets had fired into Israel, he was immediately expelled from the
area by Hamas officials, while Palestinian journalist Ayman al-Aloul was
imprisoned and tortured for being critical about the governing
authority in Gaza.
“You pay the price,” says Himel.
There is, however, also another element, which
Himel believes underscores the very reasons why the Israel-Gaza
conflict is reported in the way it is.
“The real story is there’s a really serious war of beliefs going on, that’s the basis for all of it.
“But editors don’t want to say it, because
that means it’s a religious war and you begin to realise how sensitive
and complex the whole issue is.”
That decision not to report the conflict as one based on religion has
also effectively blocked out mention of Hamas and its anti-Semitic
ethos.
I would say it's much more malicious than Himel thinks it is. Let's start with the Karine A. The Karine A happened in January 2002 before this blog existed, not in 2007 as Himel has it. But the 2007 date is convenient. The so-called 'blockade' of Gaza started after Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007. In January 2002, Israel actually controlled Gaza.
The 'flotillas' have nothing to do with the Karine A and everything to do with the anti-Semitic Europeans (who stand behind the flotillas), who promote the most pernicious lies about Israel and Jews. In fact, it is the Europeans who have done more to keep the dream of 'Palestine' replacing Israel God Forbid than even the Arab states. The Arab states have tired of the 'Palestinian' lies.
But like the inconvenient fact that our war with Hamas is a religious war, the media also prefers to ignore the inconvenient fact that Europe still dreams of finishing what Hitler started.
I would still go see Himel's movie, because it's important that someone is at least raising the issue (although Matti Friedman is the guy who really brought the issue up), but given his sloppy reporting on the Karine A, I have to wonder what the movie is really going to say.
To get you thinking, I want to show you the full video from 2014 by an Indian television crew - a video that is quite rare - of which you saw a small clip in the preview above.
MUST SEE: @APDiplowriter schools the State Department on hypocrisy
Shana Tova, a good year to all of you. While the holiday has not yet ended in much of the world, here in Israel it is over.
And now, for your entertainment pleasure, the AP's Matt Lee schools the State Department spokesperson on the hypocrisy of last summer's criticism of Israeli operations in Gaza v. the excuses for the US bombing a civilian hospital in Afghanistan last week.
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.
Gaza kids were encouraged to play in the streets during Operation Protective Edge bombing runs
I am sure that most, if not all of my readers who have children would do just about anything to protect them. But in Gaza, things are different. Elder of Ziyon posted this video showing how Gaza children were encouraged to play outside during Israeli air raids in the summer of 2014.
Let's go to the videotape.
You don't think Hamas (which 'loves death more than life') would actually want to cause child casualties, do you? You bet they would. Read the whole thing.
Must see: The video that proves Amnesty International is lying about Israel
This video shows how Amnesty International edited a video to make it seem that Israel destroyed a Gaza building immediately after a roof knock last summer, when in fact the IAF had given residents five minutes to escape... and escape they all did.
Let's go to the videotape.
To see the original video and how it was edited, go here.
'Palestinians' to turn to International Criminal Court on Thursday
It's a travel day, so greetings to all of you from the airline lounge in Paris (France, not Texas).
There is supposed to be WiFi on my next flight, and if there is and I stay awake, there may be a few posts today.
The 'Palestinian Authority' (the state that claims it needs a state) is planning to take advantage of the incredibly biased 'investigation' into last summer's Gaza war that was released by the United Nations 'human rights council' on Tuesday by filing a complaint against Israel in the International Criminal Court on Thursday.
According to a senior Palestinian official, Palestinian Foreign
Minister Riyad al-Amliki will present the documents concerning the
results of the fighting in Gaza along with data on the damage caused by
the war, and the damage to the civilian population. He will
additionially provide information on settlement construction over the
past year, as well as the issue of the Palestinian prisoners held in
Israel, with an emphasis on administrative detention.
Since the signing of the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court and Palestine's joining
the ICC in April, the Palestinian National Council has prepared
materials on a number of matters with the goal of presenting them to the
ICC, said the senior Palestinian official.
Last month, Fatah central committee member Mohammed Ashtayya told Haaretz that the Palestinian reports were comprehensive and detailed accounts of
Israel's contravention of international law and were intended to
provide the court with a sufficient basis on which to decide whether to
launch investigations.
The reports were compiled by a special committee
established at the beginning of the year to collate all the material
destined for the court. The committee was assisted by international
jurists and advisers.
The Palestinian position has received renewed
support as a result of the release of the Gaza report this week; and PA
officials have said they are being aided by lawyers who specialize in
international law, in order to prepare the documents for the ICC in
expectation that this will speed up the court's decision to open an
investigation against Israel.
We can thank all the anti-Semitic European governments for funding the NGO's that issued this report.
Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the report's release, the 'Palestinians' have been directing their celebratory gunfire from Gaza at Israel....
Israel's Foreign Ministry urges foreign correspondents to open their eyes to terror rule in Gaza, correspondents not amused
In a marked departure from previous regimes, Israel's Foreign Ministry on Monday released this animated video showing a clueless foreign correspondent, oblivious to Hamas terrorism in Gaza.
The Foreign Press Association is surprised and alarmed by
the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s decision to produce a cartoon mocking
the foreign media’s coverage of last year’s war in Gaza.
At a time when Israel has serious issues to deal with in Iran and
Syria, it is disconcerting that the ministry would spend its time
producing a 50-second video that attempts to ridicule journalists
reporting on a conflict in which 2,100 Palestinians and 72 Israelis were
killed.
Israel’s diplomatic corps wants to be taken seriously in the world.
Posting misleading and poorly conceived videos on YouTube is
inappropriate, unhelpful and undermines the ministry, which says it
respects the foreign press and its freedom to work in Gaza.
The foreign ministry was actually responding to the priorities being set by the media and their European and American rulers. While we understand the gravity of what is going on in Iran and Syria (and Iraq and Yemen and Libya), the 'international community' continues to focus solely on the 'Palestinians' as if a 'Palestinian state right now' is the panacea for all of the region's problems. Hence the necessity for the foreign ministry to respond.
Israeli report on Gaza operation shows something UN report won't
The government of Israel has released a 277-page report on its investigation into last summer's Operation Protective Edge today, the same day that the United Nations is releasing its report. What does the Israeli report have that the United Nations report doesn't? Here's one example:
Here's something new: photos of the weapons Hamas hid in an UNRWA school. From page 85 of Israeli gov's Gaza report. pic.twitter.com/o88plSxg2y
It's come to this: We need a Facebook page to support an IDF commander who targeted terrorists
I get asked to like Facebook pages daily, and usually I ignore the requests - no time.... This morning, I got a message from Shy Guy (whom I actually have met in 'real life') asking me to like a Facebook page for IDF Lieutenant Colonel Nerya Yeshurun. I clicked on the Facebook page (in Hebrew) and it has nearly 3,000 likes in three days - not too shabby. Here's why (translated from Hebrew - I'll leave the Hebrew so that the experts on translating IDF ranks into English can correct me if I got one wrong):
בימים אלו נשמעים קולות לחקור את "ירי הנקמה" שבוצע ע"י גדוד 82 בפיקודו של סא"ל נריה ישורון.
הירי בוצע על תשתית טרור לגיטימית, מרפאה לכאורה ממנה נורתה אש צלפים אשר הרגה את סרן דימה לויטס.
עמוד זה הינו בא לתמוך בסא"ל נריה ישורון, לאור הפרסומים המבישים על פתיחת חקירה בנוגע להשמדה לגיטימית של תשתית טרור!
We are currently hearing calls to investigate the 'revenge fire' by Brigade 82 under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Nerya Yeshurun. The fire was the result of a legitimate terror infrastructure, which looked like a clinic, from which sniper fire that killed Sargent Dima Levitas originated. This page is to support Lieutenant Colonoel Nerya Yeshurun in light of the disgusting publicity about the opening of an investigation into the legitimate destruction of a terror infrastructure!
Obviously, I urge you to like the page.
Based on the Google search results, the original story was pushed by Electronic Intifada, an anti-Semitic web page that is funded by European governments (principally Holland), and is run by President Hussein Obama's Chicago buddy Ali Abunimah. I try not to link anti-Semitic websites, but the story is on Reddit here.
To make your holiday, here's an amazing story from last summer's war in Gaza that shows how a group of Torah-observant Jews led to the foiling of a Hamas terror attack.
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: NR - Daughter Number 2, Child Number 4).
What a surprise. The Financial Times of London reports that Gaza is once again preparing for war.
International donors, analysts, and political figures in Gaza say
warning signs of a new conflict have appeared less than a year after
last summer’s war, the bloodiest of three Israel and Hamas have fought
since 2009. Dubbed Operation Protective Edge by
the Israelis, it killed more than 2,200 people, mostly Palestinians,
and ended without a long-term truce between the two sides.
On Thursday evening sirens sounded in southern Israel after a rocket
was fired from inside Gaza, Israel’s military said, underscoring the
tension at the border.
“Since
the end of the recent aggression of the Israelis in Gaza, we have begun
preparations for the next war,” a PFLP leader who calls himself Abu
Jamal says at a café in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza. “We expect at any
time that there might be an aggression on Gaza, especially in light of
the changes in the Middle East and the result of Israeli elections where
the extreme right wing gained popularity.”
Six
months after the international community pledged $3.5bn to rebuild
Gaza, barely a quarter of the funds have been released and “further
conflict is inevitable”, a group of 46 aid agencies warned last week.
Donor fatigue with the conflict, and misgivings about a frozen
reconciliation process between Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah, have stalled the rebuilding process.
According to Basil Nasser, acting head of the UN development
programme’s Gaza office, only Qatar and Kuwait have begun paying in
money to rebuild some of the more than 10,000 houses destroyed or
severely damaged during the war.
“If something dramatic doesn’t happen in the Gaza Strip with regard
to the reconstruction process, the probability of another violent round
is higher,” says Kobi Michael, an analyst with the Institute for
National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
In addition to its training exercises at the northern border, Hamas
has been rebuilding its arsenal and firing test rockets into the sea.
I'm shocked - just totally shocked.
By the way, when was the last time you heard about a terrorist leader sitting in a cafe in Iraq or Afghanistan? Must be those cruel Jews' fault for letting him out of his hole.
That's what the tweet means: Southern residents claim they once again hear digging sounds (Chico Menashe is an Israel Radio diplomatic correspondent).
The southern residents in question are residents of the Gaza envelope - the area closest to the Gaza Strip (link in Hebrew).
They have reported the digging to the IDF and the IDF is investigating.
Some residents have said that in light of the discoveries this past summer, they no longer rely on the IDF's vigilance.
Comment: The truth is that the IDF knew of the tunnels long before the summer. The political echelon chose not to act against them until Hamas attacked.
Why the Schabas Report will be every bit as biased as the Goldstone Report
Until he was forced out a month ago when it was discovered that he had worked for the PLO, William Schabas headed the United Nations 'human rights council's commission of inquiry into Israel's summer 2014 Operation Protective Edge. The UN has tried arguing that Schabas' resignation means the report won't be biased. That's nonsense. But not for the reason you think. In a lengthy article published by the Tower, Hillel Neuer explains how Richard Goldstone was duped when he headed the Commission of Inquiry into Operation Cast Lead in 2009, and how as much as Schabas was anti-Israel, his presence or absence on the Commission likely made little difference.
There seems no question that Goldstone was duped. He never suspected
that OHCHR, the UN agency in charge of providing him with professional
staff support, had quietly embedded one of the world’s top anti-Israel
lawfare strategists into the team. After all, only four years before,
Goldstone had worked on another UN inquiry on the oil-for-food program.
In that case, he was supported by a highly professional staff based in
New York, with most if not all of them lawyers and experts hired from
the outside. Goldstone assumed the Gaza inquiry would be the same.
But it was not the same. The culture of the Geneva-based OHCHR
secretariat is known to be far more anti-American, anti-colonial, and
anti-Israel than the one in New York. In his naiveté, Goldstone was
blind to the prejudice and political agenda of his own bureaucracy.
Indeed, there is not the slightest indication that Goldstone had any
knowledge of Baars’ extremist activism. But OHCHR knew—and that is why
they hired her.
On March 23, what for six months was the Schabas Commission, and now
in its final and seventh month has become the McGowan Davis Commission,
will present its report to the Human Rights Council. Do we have any
reason to expect a fair, objective, and credible report?
Not if we consider the built-in prejudice of the commission’s
founding mandate, spelled out in resolution S-21/1 of July 23, 2014,
which preemptively declares Israel guilty. It condemns the Jewish state
“in the strongest terms,” citing “widespread, systematic, and gross
violations of international human rights,” “the targeting of civilians
and civilian properties” as a form of “collective punishment contrary to
international law,” “disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks,”
“grave violations of the human rights of the Palestinian civilian
population,” and “military aggressions.” The resolution mentions Israel
18 times. Hamas is not mentioned once.
Not if we consider that Schabas, the activist chairman who says
that he “devoted several months of work” to the project, is someone who
performed undisclosed paid legal work for the PLO—on the subject of how
to prosecute Israelis in international courts—and who famously declared
barely three years ago that the leader he most wants to see in the dock
at the International Criminal Court is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu.
And—as the cautionary tale of lawfare general Grietje Baars as the
key author of the original Goldstone Report makes clear—not if we
consider the outsized role played by OHCHR in compiling the evidence,
processing submissions, and picking the people to draft the report’s
chapters and conclusions. Everything we now know about how OHCHR
engineered the travesty of the original Goldstone Report indicates that
Goldstone II will suffer the same politically-motivated fate.
Read the whole thing. The woman whose picture is at the top of this post is Grietje Baars, whose name you probably never heard until today.
(Linked article in tweet is in Hebrew. Short summary below).
The resolution was proposed in September right after Operation Protective Edge. Its goal was to ensure a stable cease fire between Hamas and Israel. But Abu Mazen saw it as a trap. He believed that if the 'Palestinian Authority' went into Gaza, he would have a fight with Hamas and the 'Palestinian' public would turn against him. If his forces went into Gaza and did not have a fight with Hamas, he believed that Israel would blame him every time Hamas shot a rocket. Abu Mazen also believed that the 'Palestinian Authority' going into Gaza would end the 'reconciliation' talks between Fatah and Hamas.
The resolution also called for funds to reconstruct Gaza. De facto, since a donors' meeting in October, very little money has been collected for that purpose.
One has to question whether Abu Mazen ever intends to unify the 'West Bank' and Gaza under his rule.
End of summary. My take. It's really quite simple. Abu Mazen prefers living to being in charge and having to meet expectations. If this ever happened, he'd be assassinated within a week.
I don't know whose idea this was, but I could have told you in a New York minute that Abu Mazen would never agree to it.
Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, has made a lengthy submission to the United Nations 'human rights council's investigative commissionkangaroo court regarding Israeli actions to minimize civilian casualties during last summer's Operation Protective Edge. It's very much worth it to read the whole thing. Here's the conclusion.
In conclusion, in my opinion the IDF took exceptional measures to adhere to the Laws of Armed Conflict and to minimise civilian casualties in Gaza. During the conflict many politicians, UN leaders, human rights groups and NGOs called on the Israelis to take greater action to minimise civilian casualties in Gaza. Yet none of them suggested any additional ways of doing this. I conclude that this was because Israel was taking all feasible steps. I believe Israel to be world leaders in actions to minimise civilian casualties; and this is borne out by the efforts made by the US Army, the most sophisticated and powerful in the world, to learn from the IDF on this issue.
In my opinion Israel is also making strenuous efforts to investigate incidents where civilians were apparently unlawfully killed, wounded or ill-treated, and where civilian property was unlawfully damaged or stolen. I am not aware of any nation that has conducted more comprehensive or resolute investigations into its own military activities than Israel during and following the 2014 Gaza conflict.
On the other hand, Hamas and other groups in Gaza took the opposite approach to that of the IDF. Their entire strategy was based on flouting the Laws of Armed Conflict, deliberately targeting the Israeli civilian population, using their own civilian population as human shields and seeking to entice the IDF to take military action that would kill large numbers of Gaza civilians for their own propaganda purposes. There was and is of course no accountability or investigation of any allegations against Hamas and other extremist groups in Gaza.
I strongly urge the Commissioners to condemn Hamas and the other groups for their actions during this conflict. Failure to do so would be tantamount to encouraging a repeat of such actions in the future, by Hamas and other Gaza groups and by extremist groups around the world who would wish to emulate the actions in Gaza. This would undoubtedly result in further loss of life in Gaza, in Israel and elsewhere.
Similar encouragement is given to extremist groups by the lamentable tendency of some international actors to afford moral equivalence to Hamas, an internationally proscribed terrorist organization, and Israel, a liberal democratic state.
I also urge the Commissioners to give fair consideration to Israel’s actions during this conflict and not simply to jump on the over-burdened bandwagon of automatic condemnation. Where the actions of the IDF were genuinely wrong then of course the Commission should criticise them, call upon them to bring the perpetrators to justice where appropriate and to adjust future procedures as necessary. But false accusations of war crimes, as were made by the Commissioners that investigated the 2008-09 Gaza conflict (the ‘Goldstone Report’), will do nothing to advance the cause of peace and human rights. Instead, such accusations will encourage similar action by Hamas and other groups in the future, leading to further violence and loss of life.
Many people believe that your findings are a foregone conclusion, as the findings of the 2008-09 Commission regrettably proved to be. They believe that you will roundly and without foundation condemn Israel for war crimes while at best making only token criticism of Hamas and other Gaza extremist groups. If you genuinely want to contribute to peace and to improve human rights for the people of Gaza and of Israel then you must have the courage to reject the UN Human Rights Council’s persistent and discriminatory anti-Israel programme and produce a balanced and fair report into these tragic events.
Head of UN's Operation Protective Edge probe resigns
In yet another disgrace for the United Nations, William Schabas, the head of the United Nations panel probing this past summer's Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, has resigned as head of the panel, in effect admitting the veracity of Israeli allegations that he is biased against the Jewish state.
In a letter to the commission, a copy of which was seen by Reuters,
Schabas said he would step down immediately to prevent the issue from
overshadowing the preparation of the report and its findings, which are
due to be published in March.
Schabas' departure highlights the sensitivity of the UN investigation
just weeks after prosecutors at the International Criminal Court in The
Hague said they had started a preliminary inquiry into alleged
atrocities in the Palestinian territories.
In the letter, Schabas said a legal opinion he
wrote for the Palestine Liberation Organization in 2012, for which he
was paid $1,300, was not different from advice he had given to many
other governments and organizations.
"My views on Israel and Palestine as well as on
many other issues were well known and very public," he wrote. "This work
in defense of human rights appears to have made me a huge target for malicious attacks (...)."
Indeed, his views on Israel and the 'Palestinians' werewellknown, which is exactly why he should not have been chosen to head this panel in the first place.
But what the UN is trying to do by having Schabas resign is beyond disgraceful: Schabas has already completed the 'fact-finding,' which means that the report has effectively been written. Schabas' bias will seep throughout the report, because he determined what 'facts' would be included in the report. But now Schabas can deny responsibility for the report itself, because after all he's not writing the final version.
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
