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.
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.
Dempsey was asked about the ethical
implications of Israel's handling of the Gaza war, during an appearance
in New York at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.
"I
actually do think that Israel went to extraordinary lengths to
limit collateral damage and civilian casualties," Dempsey told the
group.
"In this kind of conflict,
where you are held to a standard that your enemy is not held to, you're
going to be criticized for civilian casualties," he added.
Dempsey said Hamas had turned Gaza into "very nearly a subterranean society" with tunneling throughout the coastal enclave.
"That
caused the IDF some significant challenges. But they did some
extraordinary things to try and limit civilian casualties, to include
... making it known that they were going to destroy a particular
structure," Dempsey said.
He said
the IDF, in addition to dropping warning leaflets, developed a technique
called "roof-knocking" to advise residents to leave sites they planned
to strike.
...
Dempsey said the Pentagon three months ago
sent a "lessons-learned team" of senior officers and non-commissioned
officers to work with the IDF to see what could be learned from the Gaza
operation, "to include the measures they took to prevent civilian
casualties and what they did with tunneling."
The general said civilian casualties during the conflict were "tragic, but I think the IDF did what they could" to avoid them.
...
"The
IDF is not interested in creating civilian casualties. They're
interested in stopping the shooting of rockets and missiles out of the
Gaza Strip and into Israel," Dempsey said.
That's a very different tune than what's being sung by the Obama administration and the 'human rights' organizations, isn't it? Jonathan Tobin comments.
The contradiction between Dempsey’s remarks and the blistering
criticisms of Israeli behavior uttered by the State Department and White
House is instructive. Dempsey not only undermined the credibility of
anything said by the U.S. during the war. He also exposed the
president’s political agenda against the Jewish state and its
government, a point that was made clear in the recent controversy about
“senior administration officials” telling The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg that Prime Minister Netanyahu was a “coward” and a “chickenshit.”
...
But the issue is not merely the falsity of the American carping about
Israeli actions. There’s little doubt the White House and the State
Department were well aware of the U.S. military’s opinion of what was
going on in Gaza or the fact that American actions ordered by Obama
produce much the same results.
The American military is right to seek to learn the lessons of Gaza
and to do what they can to emulate Israeli actions. But the real agenda
at play in Washington on this issue has been a concerted effort by the
Obama administration to undermine Israel’s right of self-defense in
order to weaken its ability to stand up to U.S. pressure. Seen in that
light, the real lesson to be culled from this episode is that everything
that comes out of the mouths of the president’s foreign-policy team
with respect to Israel should be considered false until proven
otherwise.
It's only going to get worse over the next two years....
Eyewitness accounts of Hamas use of human shields in Operation Protective Edge
The Tower Magazine has published eyewitness accounts from IDF soldiers of Hamas' use of human shields during Operation Protective Edge.
Schwartz interviews a number of IDF soldiers for the piece, beginning
with Jonny S., a combat solider originally from Maryland. Jonny
recounted the ambush that killed Benaya Sarel, Hadar Goldin, and Liel
Gidoni on August 1, 2014. An hour after the ceasefire was announced, the
unit saw a man in an area that was supposed to be evacuated. When some
of the soldiers approached the man they were attacked. Jonny says in
retrospect:
I think the whole thing was a trap. It was an hour after
the ceasefire, and I think they purposely put a man that looked like a
civilian, just a normal man, to kind of entice us to come out to go talk
to him, and then waiting down below were a bunch of explosives and a
suicide bomber.
Omri, a second IDF soldier who serves as a fighter pilot, tells of
one instance when he was ordered to carry out an operation in Shejaiya:
We were sent in during the first week of the ground
operation. The ground forces were supposed to be moving into Shejaiya.
The civilians were told to vacate by Monday at 12 noon. So when we were
sent in, I was supposed to fly in just after 12, and we were told that
civilians wouldn’t be there because they were all told to leave. And
then we went and we saw civilians everywhere—in houses, on the streets.
Only in hindsight did we realize that Hamas had told civilians to stay
in their houses.
Another pilot, Capt. Dor, related:
I saw targets in schoolyards, in parks next to swings,
and you realize that Hamas takes the most innocent place, next to a
swing, and builds a rocket launcher. In his mind, the air force won’t
attack it. In his mind there’s more of a chance there will be children
nearby. And for Hamas, for children to be killed is a great success. It
hurts to think it, but for them it’s a great success. They manage to
bring the Israelis to harm by accident innocent children. And we do
everything in our power to avoid it, which is a paradox. You do
everything in your power to make the Gaza civilians safe, and Hamas does
everything in its power to keep civilians in danger.
Wired.com is supposed to be a high tech site. They wanted to write about Gaza. They had to work a little bit to find an angle to make you all feel sorry for Gaza. So they went to the Google-financed incubator in Gaza City to see how the 'entrepreneurs' made it through Operation Protective Edge.
Abultewi goes quiet, and so does
everyone else in the room. The sound of so many clacking keyboards is
replaced by the crash of bombs in the distance. One woman stands, puts
her hands together, and says Halas!—Arabic for “enough”—before
leaving the room. But soon, the clatter of the keyboards resumes, and
Abultewi, a slender 25-year-old dressed in a light-blue hijab, continues
her pitch. Soon, it’s business as usual at Gaza Sky Geeks, the first startup accelerator in the Gaza Strip, home to one of the world’s oldest geopolitical conflicts.
Over the past seven years, Gaza has endured three wars between Israel
and Hamas—the democratically empowered Islamic organization determined
to reclaim Palestine from Israel—and a civil war between Hamas and
Fatah, the secular Palestinian political party that rules the West Bank.
Initiated by a Hamas attack on Israel, the most recent conflict left
more than 2,100 Palestinians dead and more than 10,000 injured, and it
devastated the local infrastructure, destroying more than 18,000 homes,
depriving more than 450,000 civilians of municipal water, and blanketing
the region in extended blackouts after an airstrike on Gaza’s only
power plant.
But here in this room on the sixth floor of
a small office building on the outskirts of Gaza City, young
entrepreneurs like Abultewi are still intent on bringing new internet
technologies to their sliver of land between Israel and the
Mediterranean and, crucially, to other parts of the Middle East and
North Africa. That may seem a Sisyphean task, and perhaps even a
pointless one, given the basic amenities needed throughout the region.
But Gaza Sky Geeks—created by Mercy Corps,
a global aid agency that has for more than a decade worked to improve
life in Gaza—provides much-needed employment for local youth and a
potential path to economic recovery.
...
As the airstrike blasts subside on this
August day and Mariam Abultewi finishes her pitch, she goes back to
work. So does Hadeel Elsafadi, 24, the founder of a digital animation
startup called Newtoon. “These bombings have become normal for me and
everyone here,” she says. “This is why I do what I am doing—to have a
normal life away from bombs and danger.” Her work, she explains, is not
just for her, but also for her two younger brothers. “I want them to
have a future, and I want to have a future as well.”
An Israeli startup's employees could not have worked through a bombing that way. First, while a Gaza startup that knows its headquarters don't house a Hamas military installation has nothing to fear, an Israeli startup always has something to fear because Hamas shoots missiles randomly. Second, while Hamas does not bother to protect its population - and therefore there is little or nothing to be gained by fleeing elsewhere - Israel does protect its population. It's worthwhile for Israelis to go into bomb shelters.
I wonder whether Google expects to get any return on their investment. Or maybe this is just liberal, feel-good politics....
Some of you may recall an incident in the summer in which four 'Palestinian' kids were killed on a Gaza beach in what was claimed to be a strike by Israeli gunboats. At the time, I told you not to rush to conclusions, that we had seen something like this before and it turned out to have been caused by a Hamas land mine.
I can’t tell you what actually happened, but the boys weren’t playing
soccer, the target was legitimate, and the IDF did not deliberately
kill children. Yes, the Israelis took responsibility for the deaths;
however, the IDF stopped using the M825A1 smoke shell for no reason. The IDF was also unable to determine how Mustafa Tamimi and Bassem Abu Rahmeh died. From the standpoints of PR and forensic investigation, the IDF needs major reform.
Knowing what I do about Hamas, my gut tells me that someone tossed a
hand grenade. At close range that would cause all the wounds, burn the
children, and tear off their clothes.
Hamas are just the type of creatures to instantly exploit a situation by murdering children.
Mohammed Bakr, Ahed Bakr, Zakaria Bakr, and Mohammed Bakr were living souls, not objects to be used in film production.
The White House has acknowledged for the first time that
strict standards President Obama imposed last year to prevent civilian
deaths from U.S. drone strikes will not apply to U.S. military
operations in Syria and Iraq.
A
White House statement to Yahoo News confirming the looser policy came
in response to questions about reports that as many as a dozen
civilians, including women and young children, were killed when a
Tomahawk missile struck the village of Kafr Daryan in Syria's Idlib
province on the morning of Sept. 23.
The
village has been described by Syrian rebel commanders as a reported
stronghold of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front where U.S officials
believed members of the so-called Khorasan group were plotting attacks
against international aircraft.
But
at a briefing for members and staffers of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee late last week, Syrian rebel commanders described women and
children being hauled from the rubble after an errant cruise missile
destroyed a home for displaced civilians. Images of badly injured
children also appeared on YouTube, helping to fuel anti-U.S. protests in a number of Syrian villages last week.
...
Asked about the strike at Kafr Daryan, a U.S. Central Command spokesman said Tuesday that U.S.
military “did target a Khorasan group compound near this location.
However, we have seen no evidence at this time to corroborate claims of
civilian casualties.” But Caitlin Hayden, a spokesperson
for the National Security Council, told Yahoo News that Pentagon
officials “take all credible allegations seriously and will investigate”
the reports.
At
the same time, however, Hayden said that a much-publicized White House
policy that President Obama announced last year barring U.S. drone
strikes unless there is a “near certainty” there will be no civilian
casualties — "the highest standard we can meet," he said at the time —
does not cover the current U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.
The
“near certainty” standard was intended to apply “only when we take
direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the
time,” Hayden said in an email. “That description — outside areas of
active hostilities — simply does not fit what we are seeing on the
ground in Iraq and Syria right now.”
That's a hole you could drive a truck - or fly a fighter jet - through. When would it ever be the case that a democracy takes 'direct action' in an area that is 'outside areas of active hostilities.' I would argue that there are always 'active hostilities' in Gaza. Heck, the IDF has caught two infiltrators from there in the last three days trying to carry out terror attacks.
So I think the IDF should announce that it is adopting President Obama's 'near certainty' standard, except when President Obama wouldn't adopt it.
Otherwise, we'd be condoning a double standard.
Aren't you glad that Obama never got around to adopting the Rome Statute and joining the International Criminal Court? Otherwise, the US could find itself in the dock for that statement.
(Fat chance the IDF would adopt Obama's 'near certainty' standard. The IDF really is the most moral army in the world).
A reminder to all of you that I am in Boston and therefore will be posting later than usual today.
Jordanian Mudar Zahran has done what no one in the international media is willing to do: He has actually interviewed Gaza residents about their experiences during Operation Protective Edge.
Although Gazans, fearful of Hamas's revenge against them, were afraid
to speak to the media, friends in the West Bank offered introductions
to relatives in Gaza. One, a renowned Gazan academic, who spoke on
condition of anonymity, said that as soon as someone talked to a Western
journalist, he was immediately questioned by Hamas and accused of
"communicating with the Mossad". "Hamas makes sure that the average
Gazan will not talk to Western journalists -- or actually any
journalists at all," he said, continuing:
"Hamas does not want the truth about Gaza to come out.
Hamas terrorizes and kills us just like Daesh [ISIS] terrorizes kills
Iraqis. Hamas is a dictatorship that kills us. The Gazans you see
praising Hamas on TV are either Hamas members or too afraid to speak
against Hamas. Few foreign [Western] journalists were probably able to
report what Gazans think of Hamas."
When asked what Gazans did think of Hamas, he said:
"The same as Iraqis thought of Saddam before he was
toppled. He still won by 90-something percent in the presidential
elections. If Hamas falls today in Gaza, people here will do what Iraqis
did to Saddam's statue after he fell. But even though Western
journalists may not have been able to speak freely with Gazans, they
still need a story to send to their editor by the end of the day. So it
is just easier and safer for them to stick to the official line."
"What was that," I asked: "'Blame Israel'?"
...
D, a store owner, said:
"There were two major protests against Hamas during the
third week of the war. When Hamas fighters opened fire at the protesters
in the Bait Hanoun area and the Shijaiya, five were killed instantly. I
saw that with my own eyes. Many were injured. A doctor at Shifa
hospital told me that 35 were killed at both protests. He went and saw
their bodies at the morgue."
To verify those reports, I spoke to a second Gazan academic, who holds a PhD. from a Western university, who stated:
"Hamas did kill protesters, no doubt about that. But we
could not confirm how many were actually killed. If I have to guess, the
number was more than reported. I am confident that not all of the 21
men Hamas killed on August 22 were collaborating with Israel. Hamas
killed those men because it was weakened by Israel's attacks and felt
endangered. So it went on a 'Salem Witch-Hunt.' They arrested everyone
who opposed them and had to make a few examples to scare people from
standing against Hamas. Hamas's tactic worked. Now Gazans are afraid to
talk against Hamas even in front of their own family members. Gazans are
probably afraid to criticize Hamas even in their sleep!"
S. a medical worker, said:
"The Israeli army sends warnings to people [Gazans] to
evacuate buildings before an attack. The Israelis either call or send a
text message. Sometimes they call several times to make sure everyone
has been evacuated. Hamas's strict policy, though, was not to allow us
to evacuate. Many people got killed, locked inside their homes by Hamas
militants. Hamas's official Al-Quds TV regularly issued warnings to
Gazans not to evacuate their homes. Hamas militants would block the
exits to the places residents were asked to evacuate. In the Shijaiya
area, people received warnings from the Israelis and tried to evacuate
the area, but Hamas militants blocked the exits and ordered people to
return to their homes. Some of the people had no choice but to run
towards the Israelis and ask for protection for their families. Hamas
shot some of those people as they were running; the rest were forced to
return to their homes and get bombed. This is how the Shijaiya massacre
happened. More than 100 people were killed."
Another Gazan journalist, D., said:
"Hamas fired rockets from next to homes. Hamas was
running from one home to another. Hamas lied when it claimed it was
shooting from non-populated areas. To make things even worse for us,
Hamas would fire from the balconies of homes and try to drag the
Israelis into door-to-door battles and street-to-street fights -- a
death sentence for all the civilians here. They would fire rockets and
then run away quickly, leaving us to face Israeli bombs for what they
did. They are cowards. If Hamas militants are not afraid of dying, why
do they run after they fire rockets from our homes? Why don't they stay
and die with us? Are they afraid to die and go to heaven? Isn't that
what they claim they wish?"
K, another graduate student at an Egyptian university who had gone to
Gaza to see his family but was unable to leave after the war started,
said on July 22:
"When people stopped listening to Hamas orders not to
evacuate and began leaving their homes anyway, Hamas imposed a curfew:
anyone walking out in the street was shot without being asked any
questions. That way Hamas made sure people had to stay in their homes even if they were about to get bombed. God will ask Hamas on judgment day for those killers' blood."
I asked him if Hamas used people as "human shields." He said: "Hamas
held the entire Gazan population as a human shield. My answer to you is
yes."
...
A first-aid volunteer, E., said that Hamas militants had confiscated
150 truckloads of humanitarian supplies the day before. He said the
supplies were donated by charities in the West Bank and that their
delivery was facilitated by the IDF. He commented: "This theft angers
all of us [Gazans]. The Israeli army allows supplies to come in, and
Hamas steals them. It seems even the Israelis care for us more than
Hamas."
Another aid worker, A., confirmed that Hamas steals the humanitarian
supplies given to Gaza. "They [Hamas] take most of it, sell it to us,
and just give us the stuff they do not want."
A Gazan mosque's imam said that the most precious aid item Hamas
stole was water. "Gazans are thirsty and Hamas is stealing the water
bottles provided to us for free and selling them at 20 Israeli shekels
[approximately $5] for the big bottle and 10 Israeli shekels for the
small one."
...
K., a Gazan school teacher agreed:
"When Hamas starts caring for our children we will start
caring for Hamas. Hamas has one policy, to attack Israel; so Israel
attacks back, and gets us killed and Hamas then gets more money from
Arabs and Erdogan [Turkey's president]. My son has autism; he cannot
handle the sounds of rockets and bombs landing. Why would I support
Hamas, which causes this suffering to him? Gazans have had enough of
Hamas, any claims that we love Hamas is just propaganda. A recent poll
indicates that most of us support Hamas; this is not true, except maybe
in the West Bank where they have not yet lived under Hamas rule. I
cannot accuse the polling center of fabricating the poll, but my safest
explanation for the result is that Gazans polled are too afraid to give
their true opinions of Hamas. Hamas watches everything here. Most Gazans
now have to deal with the aftermath of the war. Almost 300,000 Gazans
are now homeless and Hamas is not providing them with anything. So why
would they or their extended families have any love for Hamas? Would
there be any common sense to that? Most Gazans are angry at Hamas, and
most of us would love to see them replaced by any other force."
Despite all Hamas has done to Gazans, they do not seem to hold much love -- or less hatred -- for Israel.
Unfortunately, the interviews are necessarily anonymous. Wouldn't it be great if someone could take some of these people to the 'human rights council' and show what a farce its proceedings are? Not that it would really matter. So long as it's Muslims killing and torturing Muslims, the world doesn't care.
As long as the excerpts above are, there's much, much more. Read the whole thing.
Two weeks after the end of the Gaza war, there is growing evidence that
Hamas militants used residential areas as cover for launching rockets at
Israel, at least at times. Even Hamas now admits “mistakes” were made.
Mistakes? Actually, Hamas has another excuse.
But Hamas says it had little choice in Gaza’s crowded urban
landscape, took safeguards to keep people away from the fighting, and
that a heavy-handed Israeli response is to blame for the deaths of
hundreds of Palestinian civilians.
“Gaza, from Beit Hanoun in
the north to Rafah in the south, is one uninterrupted urban chain that
Israel has turned into a war zone,” said Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas
official in Gaza.
That's a load of nonsense. Here's an example. I'm embedding a satellite map of Gaza City below. You will note that various neighborhoods are outlined - some of the names will be familiar. Now notice all that open farmland on the right side on the bottom two thirds of the map. Couldn't Hamas have used that space if it really wanted to avoid harming civilians?
During 50 days of fighting, many observers witnessed rocket launches
from what appeared to be urban areas. One piece of video footage
distributed by the AP, for instance, captured a launch in downtown Gaza
City that took place in a lot next to a mosque and an office of the
Hamas prime minister. Both buildings were badly damaged in subsequent
Israeli airstrikes.
Here's AP reporter Joseph Federman on July 9.
Let's go to the videotape. In this video, watch the question and answer sequence between 1:14 and 2:01.
Note how Federman says that two rockets were launched right outside the AP's Gaza City office!
Then there's the Carter Center's effort to set a new legal standard.
“Yes, Hamas and others may have used civilians as human shields, but was
that consistent and widespread?” said Sami Abdel-Shafi, a
Palestinian-American who represents the Carter Center in Gaza. “The
question is whether Israel’s response was proportionate.”
Umm, no. Those are two independent questions. If Israel's response was disproportionate, that might be a war crime. Or it might not be a war crime. Recall this and this.
But if Hamas used civilians as human shields, that's a war crime regardless of whether it was consistent or widespread. And each time they did was a war crime. Targeting civilians, which is what the 'Palestinians' did on a consistent and widespread basis, is a war crime each time it's done. Imagine what our death toll would have been - God Forbid - if we didn't have Iron Dome.
Finally, here is an IDF video showing 12 examples of rocket launches from civilian areas and Gaza.
Let's go to the videotape.
Notice how most of those rockets were shot from the middle - not even the edges - of civilian areas, and they were shot at our civilians. What was the IDF to do? Do you think we should have stood our ground and not responded? Would your government have responded?
PS This article doesn't even discuss the terror tunnels, all of which used civilian structures.
The first investigation will examine events surrounding the military strike on a Gaza beach on July 16, in which four Palestinian kids were killed.
The second will look into the circumstances around an IDF strike on an UNRWA school in Gaza on July 24, in which 14 Palestinians were killed.
Additionally, since the end of hostilities in Gaza, Efroni has ordered immediate in-depth investigations into three cases. The first involved suspected looting by soldiers, the second investigation is examining how a woman who coordinated an exit from her home in Gaza was nevertheless shot and killed, and a third is looking at claims that a 17-year-old Gazan youth was taken into custody and held for five days, during which, according to his claim, he was moved from place to place by soldiers and beaten.
In recent weeks, the Military Prosecutor's office has closed several cases related to the war, after concluding that no criminal wrong doing occurred. An officer in the prosecutor's office decided not to open an investigation into a strike on a journalist in Gaza after it was discovered that he was a terror operative, suspected of carrying a missile in his vehicle.
Another case that was closed involved an air strike on a home following the evacuation of the Kaware family from it on July 8.
Family members left the home after a small unarmed bomb was dropped on its home, but then ran back into the house after a second, armed missile was already fired at the target. Eight members of the family were killed in the strike. "There is no suspicion that international law was violated here," the sources said on Wednesday.
...
The teams are currently looking at 44 incidents from the war. Of those, two have resulted in criminal investigations so far, 12 are being examined, seven have been closed, and three are pending, army sources added.
As if that biased UN Commission chaired by William Schabes is going to give us a break for acting properly....
In a written petition to have Schabas recused filed on Sept. 4, UN
Watch, a Geneva-based NGO, showcased a July 17 BBC interview in which
Schabas presumed Israel guilty. Although at the time of that interview
there had been no ground offensive, Schabas declared “prima facie there
is evidence of disproportionality” by Israel sufficient to declare the
air strikes unjustified because “there are a huge number of civilian
casualties on one side and virtually no civilian casualties on the
other.” The BBC interview is damning evidence sufficiently questioning
Schabas’ impartiality under a longstanding due process principle that
judges or investigators “should be, and should be seen to be, free of
commitment to a preconceived outcome.”
Also on Sept. 4, Schabas championed his commission’s adjudicatory
relevance in a CNN interview, stating: “the International Criminal Court
is sitting in the wings,” and the commission will likely “provide
materials that would go to the prosecutor of the ICC and so that’s a
pretty big stick if we come to the conclusion that there were war
crimes.” The Palestinians recently disclosed plans to join the ICC,
which might be considered encouraging news to Schabas, who has
repeatedly promoted prosecuting Palestinian claims against Israel at the
ICC. Schabas’ admission to CNN that his commission aims to assist any
ICC prosecution lends greater significance to a 2012 address he
delivered to the Russell Tribunal, a London-based pro-Palestinian NGO
that even Judge Richard Goldstone [the author of a controversial UN
report on Israeli actions during the last Gaza war] discredited as “one
sided.” Schabas quipped in that speech: “My favorite would be [Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu within the dock of the International
Criminal Court.”
The BBC and CNN interviews confirm that Schabas should be disqualified
either for actual bias or the appearance of bias. As UN Watch argues,
the BBC interview demonstrates “commitment to a preconceived outcome” of
“Israeli guilt for war crimes” that “constitutes an overt case of
actual bias on the very question that the [UN commission] members are
meant to impartially assess.” These circumstances distinguish Schabas’
case from that of Nabil Elaraby, current head of the Arab League, who
was part of the 2004 judicial panel at the International Court of
Justice (ICJ) that issued an advisory opinion on “Legal Consequences of
the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Territory.” The ICJ refused
to disqualify Elaraby notwithstanding anti-Israel sentiments he
expressed in a newspaper interview prior to joining the Court. The ICJ
reasoned that Elaraby “expressed no opinion on the question put in the
present case” during that interview. In stark contrast, Schabas’ opinion
of prima facie guilt by Israel relates directly to the very issues and
events his commission is supposed to assess.
No other country in the world would be subjected to this treatment. None.
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."
Abu Mazen: Hamas lied - 850 terrorists killed in Operation Protective Edge
'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen says that Hamas lied about its casualties in Operation Protective Edge: 850 terrorists were killed, exactly as estimated by the IDF.
Another point Abbas touched on was the death toll in Operation
Protective Edge. Hamas has been busily pushing an inflated civilian
death toll to world media outlets that rely on it for figures given the
lack of objective investigation in the Hamas stronghold of Gaza, and in
doing so Hamas uses a variety of tactics to skew the numbers.
Abbas burst the claims, saying "Hamas says the number of dead
from their ranks didn't go past 50, when in actuality over 850 Hamas
members and their family members were killed."
Hamas's health ministry has claimed just slightly over 2,000
Gazans dead in the operation. Given that, Abbas's figure, which didn't
include the number of killed terrorists from other groups such as
Islamic Jihad, would support Israeli reports placing the ratio of
civilian to terrorist casualties at roughly 1:1, an almost unprecedented achievement in urban warfare.
Gee, you think Hamas would lie? Abu Mazen obviously does.
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.
United Nations refused to evacuate civilians from Gaza war zone
Mark Langfan posts part of a fascinating interview with Penelope Ironside. Ms. Ironside heads up the UNICEF field office in Gaza. UNICEF is the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, and is meant to help children all over the world, including in both Gaza and Israel. Ms. Ironside reports that the UNICEF and the United Nations were asked by the IDF to evacuate civilians who were being used as human shields by Hamas in Gaza. The organizations refused to act.
At 29 minutes into the briefing, Ms. Ironside landed what could be an
absolute bombshell in any future war-crimes tribunal. In response to a
question of how she, and the entire UN Gaza staff, remained “neutral” in
the face of Gaza children’s and civilian hardships, Ms. Ironside stated
that, “There have been attempts to instrumentalize the UN in Gaza in
this conflict. Including, there have been attempts [by Israel] to try
to facilitate military operations against the [Palestinian] civilian
population by facilitating the clearance of certain neighborhoods. The
UN has refused to be a party to that.” (Emphasis added to convey Ms.
Ironside’s emphasis.) Ms. Ironside, on a follow-up question, clarified
that it was the Israelis that sought the UN’s help in clearing civilian
neighborhoods of civilians in advance of imminent Israeli military
operations directed at military targets imbedded in those civilian
neighborhoods. She explained that the Israelis had informed them
through “text messages, phone calls, and leaflets from Israel,” with
“notice of some hours.” From her briefing statements, Ms. Ironside
appeared to believe that “some hours” of Israeli notice to her meant
“short notice.”
In essence, she admitted that the UN, not just
UNICEF, has purposefully refused to assist, or to “be a party” to, the
orderly civilian evacuation of areas Israel had warned it would soon
attack in several hours. Thus, from Ms. Ironsides’ briefing testimony,
it would appear that the UN, itself, has had a significant and negative
role in the number of Gazan civilian deaths that have consequently
resulted.
Let's go to the videotape. The part we're looking for starts at 1:14.
I don't get this. How does evacuating citizens from a war zone to save them from harm 'instrumentalize' the UN? Why would the UN not try to save civilians whose lives are being placed at risk whether involuntarily due to force by Hamas, or voluntarily because they are willing to act as human shields?
Video: Erez crossing point operating under mortar fire during Operation Protective Edge
At the height of the conflict, Ynet video reporter Assaf Kamar went down
to the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza, to watch as sick and
wounded Palestinians were transferred for treatment - while Hamas fired
mortars at them.
Residents of high-rise in Gaza ask Hamas Interior Ministry to evacuate its offices from the building out of fear of being targeted by Israel
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) September 2, 2014
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.
Last week, the UN published several maps showing the aftermath of Operation Protective Edge. The maps mark damaged buildings with red dots scattered throughout Gaza. But these maps tells only half the story: Hamas used many of these buildings – including houses, hospitals and schools – as sites to launch rockets and carry out other attacks.
In many cases, the IDF struck buildings in order to stop Hamas’ violence. This means that the red dots on the UN’s maps represent more than destruction. They show the many cases in which terrorists attacked Israel from heavily populated areas in Gaza.
Wow! SIX MORE Hamas commanders were supposed to be in bunker busted meeting
Six more senior Hamas commanders were supposed to be at a meeting that Israel broke up with three bunker busters on Thursday morning, killing Mohammed Abu Shamalah, Raed al-Atar and Mohammed Barhum. Hamas is so scared of what has happened that they have charged an additional 150 people as 'collaborators.'
Hamas's "military wing", the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, issued a
statement on Sunday saying that the men had been arrested over "security
leaks", a source told the Arabic-language outlet. The source claimed
Hamas was "in a state of confusion" following the elimination of three top al-Qassam Brigades commanders, Mohammed
Abu Shamalah, Raed al-Attar and Mohammed Barhum on Thursday, as well as
an attempted assassination of the Brigades's top leader, Mohammed Deif.
Hamas claims Deif survived the attack, which killed his wife and two
of his children, but has not issued any word on his condition.
Compounding the group's fears is the fact that the Israeli Air Force
strike killed Abu Shamala, Attar and Barhum as they met in a top-secret
bunker some 30 meters underground. Six other commanders were reportedly
due to join them, but the decision appears to have been taken to
eliminate them as soon as they were together, to avoid the possibility
of any of them getting away.
And the assassinations of top Hamas leaders has continued since, with the group's top financial chief and "Justice Minister", Mohammed al-Ghoul, taken out by an Israeli airstrike on Sunday.
The bunker was located under the home of the "Kilab" family, and the
IAF targeted the house and the tunnel beneath it with bunker-buster
bombs weighing up to three tons, both ensuring the elimination of the
terrorists and avoiding unnecessary damage to surrounding homes as much
as possible.
Their liquidation essentially wiped out Hamas's entire southern military command in Gaza.
Why aren't we doing the same with Shifa Hospital, where the most senior Hamas commanders are hiding out?
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
