In an op-ed piece in the Jeruslame Post, Marc R. Stanley castigates the Jewish critics of Obama who say that he is not talking to Israel.
Stanley correctly points out the often paranoid reactions coming mainly from the Right and concludes:
The long-term security of Israel will only be fully ensured if peace is achieved. Obama has made clear that the road is difficult, but the president is working hard to make that day come. However, there will still be those with the undying chutzpah to attack the president for not being sufficiently supportive of Israel. I urge them to actually listen to what the president is saying and watch what he is doing – they might be surprised.
Hmm.
I have to say that from where I sit/stand (in the UK) Obama is playing a very dangerous game and the efforts of the US Jewish Democrats to convince themselves that all is well and peace will inevitably result from this ‘new approach’ are simply comforting themselves that their choice of President will all turn out OK in the long run.
I do not doubt President Obama’s commitment to Israel, and, as a naturally left-leaning person myself, I was extremely pleased to see him elected. But we should not allow the historic significance of his election at home cloud the reality of his policy in the Middle East.
Although ‘well-meaning’ I believe the ‘even-handed’ policy, designed to give confidence to the Arab world and to be seen as an honest broker, just will not work for a very simple reason: the PA (and, of course, Hamas, Hizbollah and Iran) have not budged one inch; they see a Palestinian State merely as a stepping stone to the destruction of Israel and the creation of a single state ‘from the river to the sea’. None of their statements are in any way indicative of any compromise on ANY of the sticking points, namely, settlements, Jerusalem, Right of Return, demilitarisation etc., let alone changing the whole ethos of Jew-hatred which is promulgated daily on TV and in schools and mosques.
As long as the Palestinian leadership continues its century-old animus against the Jewish people with attitudes which have only become more polarised over time, then Obama is barking up a tree that has been continuously urinated on by the dogs of the PA etalia.
Obama, frustrated by Arab and Palestinian stone-walling (encouraged, no doubt by the US administration’s new tough-love approach to Israel) simply reacts by criticising just about everything Israel does (settlements, evictions etc) whilst remaining publicly effectively uncritical of the PA.
But, sooner or later, he will realise that regardless of what Israel does, the PA will remain firmly a prisoner of its own rhetoric and history. It cannot change. Only a revolution within Palestine, a new generation that can face reality and not live on fantasies driven by ideology and religious fanaticism, can start a real dialogue for peace.
Obama is doomed to fail, and in the process he simply fuels the world’s bias, anger and frustration with and against Israel whilst Palestinians remain the poor benighted victims of racism, apartheid and European colonialism. So the narrative goes and will go for a very long time.
The Jerusalem Post reports that 50 Gazans were denied (or at best, delayed) entry to Israel at the Beit HaMeches Junction near the Erez crossing.
Before you throw your hands up in disgust against those terrible Israelis, let me clarify: it was Hamas who was, once again, risking the lives of its own citizens for their own perceived political benefit.
It may also come as a surprise to you that Gazans are queueing up to go to Israel for medical treatment. Isn’t it strange that those awful Israelis, those tramplers of human rights, who were accused of genocide in Gaza just a few months ago (probably by some of the people waiting to get into Israel) are willing to offer medical aid, often freely, to Palestinians.
Please put on your very best thinking cap. Now, tell me about another conflict where one side is sworn to exterminate the other and this other side is the one that is vilified and also chooses to provide humanitarian aid to the people who are determined to destroy them. What crazy logic is this?
Let’s see: were Germans streaming across the Channel for medical treatment in WWII, or Japanese to America? How many Taleban are welcomed to the hospitals of Lahore or Karachi? And, how many Gazans can find medical treatment in PA hospitals or vice-versa?
Only Israel, the little Satan, finds it morally obligatory to help the sick and dying of any country, including those of its sworn enemies.
So maybe if you found this page expecting to enjoy more gleeful Israel bashing, perhaps you might consider that your prejudices need re-examining.
The current world media, and indeed the Palestinian and left-wing Israel narrative about Israel’s activities on the West Bank tells of road-blocks, a so called “apartheid” wall, unwarranted restrictions on movement of Palestinians and general emiseration of life.
But here’s a funny thing. Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas has just been to Washington. In an interview with the Washington Post he made (albeit translated) the following astonishing statement:
“I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements,” he said. “Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life.”
Normal life! Good reality! If everything is so dandy, what’s the beef?
The truth is that whatever the aspirations and long-term goals of the PA things have got a lot better recently. I’m not saying there is normality as that would be untrue. But Abbas sees new possibilities with Obama. Abbas can wait to achieve his goals whilst the US, Europe and, ironically, Israel pour billions of dollars into the development of the West Bank and what would be a future Palestinian state. Yes. He can wait.
Abbas also revealed what former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered him, and this says it all about Abbas, Obama’s policy, the possibility of peace and the PA’s true intentions:
Abbas acknowledged that Olmert had shown him a map proposing a Palestinian state on 97 percent of the West Bank — though he complained that the Israeli leader refused to give him a copy of the plan. He confirmed that Olmert “accepted the principle” of the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees — something no previous Israeli prime minister had done — and offered to resettle thousands in Israel. In all, Olmert’s peace offer was more generous to the Palestinians than either that of Bush or Bill Clinton; it’s almost impossible to imagine Obama, or any Israeli government, going further.
Abbas turned it down. “The gaps were wide,” he said.
What!!! He turned it down? Just like his predecessor, Yasser Arafat at Camp David and Taba in 2000/2001 who was made a similar offer, rejected it and began the Second Intifada. Why does the world say it is Israel that is the main stumbling block to peace? Each time Israel offers more, not less (as would be the case in any other conflict where the answer to peace negotiations is violence not a counter-offer). “The gaps were wide”. What does Abbas want for heaven’s sake? Well we know what he wants: the right of return for 4 million Palestinians and ALL of the Old City of Jerusalem (he does not reveal waht Olmert offered there but Barak in 2000 offered to divide the city). In other words he will settle for nothing less than the destruction of Israel demographically.
Now, perhaps, we can see why the Netanyahu government sees no point to further negotiations with the PA. What more is there to discuss at the moment? What will Israel get in return for freezing settlement expansion or dismantling settlements? It’s a stand-off. It’s a bit like the final scene in “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” with each side circling round the other and waiting for someone to blink.
Obama to Netanyahu: stop settlement expansion and we’ll talk about Iran
Netanyahu to Obama: do something about Iran or we’ll continue with (existing) settlement expansion
Obama to Abbas: stop saying horrible things about Israelis (you can’t use the words “vile anti-Semitic propaganda” in the even-handed world of Obama). Make nice with Hamas.
Abbas to Obama: I can wait. Get rid of Netanyahu or get him to unequivocally accept a two-state solution. I’m not playing ball with George Mitchell until you do that, so no talks with moderate Arab states to help the process. I can wait for Hamas.
Abbas to Netanyahu: (silence)
Netanyahu to Abbas: (silence)
As the Post concludes:
What’s interesting about Abbas’s hardline position, however, is what it says about the message that Obama’s first Middle East steps have sent to Palestinians and Arab governments. From its first days the Bush administration made it clear that the onus for change in the Middle East was on the Palestinians: Until they put an end to terrorism, established a democratic government and accepted the basic parameters for a settlement, the United States was not going to expect major concessions from Israel.
Obama, in contrast, has repeatedly and publicly stressed the need for a West Bank settlement freeze, with no exceptions. In so doing he has shifted the focus to Israel. He has revived a long-dormant Palestinian fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees, while Arabs passively watch and applaud. “The Americans are the leaders of the world,” Abbas told me and Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt. “They can use their weight with anyone around the world. Two years ago they used their weight on us. Now they should tell the Israelis, ‘You have to comply with the conditions.’ “
So all is quiet in the world of Abbas. He knows that Netanyahu’s options are limited. The next Israeli government might offer even more. Iran might do the job he always dreamed of. Hamas can stew in Gaza because why should he do anything that wil make life for Israel easier. He can squeeze Hamas on the West Bank and take them out when necessary. In fact, by doing so, as the Jerusalem Post reports, he is putting pressure on Israel:
In March 2007, a car carrying over 100 kilograms of explosives succeeded in infiltrating downtown Tel Aviv from the West Bank town of Kalkilya. The terrorists’ plan was to detonate the car on Seder night.
The existence of this cell, which was the target of the Palestinian clashes in Kalkilya on Sunday, had been the IDF’s excuse for refusing to scale back its operations in the West Bank city and implement there and in Tulkarm what is being called the “Jenin model.”
Under the Jenin model, the IDF has scaled back operations in that city, removed checkpoints in the area, permitted the deployment of US-trained Palestinian forces and allowed Israeli Arabs into the city to boost the local economy.
The more effective the PA police are in confronting Hamas and thwarting attacks on Israel, the less reason there is for the Israeli Army to be operating there. This, in turn, reduce tensions between Israelis and Palestinians and increases Abbas’s prestige at home and in the world. But, crucially, Israel’s ability to preempt terrorism emanating from the West Bank would be reduced.
And this is really the true nature of the Pax Palestina on the West Bank. They are rapidly approaching de facto statehood with improving social conditions and security; they are working with Israel on a number of projects to improve living conditions; checkpoints are reducing; Israel is acting against settlements that even they deem illegal.
For Abbas it is just a stage on the road to the destruction of Israel. He still cherishes that hope. He still wants 4 million refugees to flood Israel and create a third Palestinian state in the region; he still wants all of Jerusalem; he still tells his people that Jews have no historic connections or claim to the Holy Land; he still tells his people that there never was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem; he still allows daily incitement against Israelis and Jews; he still allows lies and vicious Jew-hatred to be inculcated into Palestinian children from the earliest age.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the global war of deligitimisation of Israel is the alliance of the European extreme left with terrorism.
So, for example, Respect’s George Galloway is quite jubilant about supporting Hamas and denies that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to wipe Israel off the map. Meanwhile Gerry Adams, former IRA supremo turned politician, also sees fit to cosy up to Hamas.
Of course, the common interest of the extreme Left, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran is their loathing of Zionism. The fact that this includes loathing of Jews generally is glossed over by the Left, is denied or represented as paranoia or an attempt to scotch criticism of Israel. It is why the Dutch Labour Party supports demonstrations at which bigots call out “Hamas Hamas, Joden aan het Gas” (Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas). Here’s a YouTube video where Harry van Bommel, a Dutch Socialist MP, is leading a chant of “Intifida” to an unchallenged background chant of “Hamas Hamas, Joden aan het Gas”
Now the Dutch Labour Party, the main opposition in the Netherlands, according to Ha’aretz
…demands Israel accept Hamas as a partner for dialog
As seems invariably to be the case with some Left wing elements, they see the world through the prism of their own ideology. This prism appears to have a very large blind spot, so let me state it again for the umpteenth time: Hamas is a viciously anti-Semitic terrorist organisation which will not recognise Israel, wants to destroy Israel and kill ALL Jews. You don’t make deals with your would-be murderers.
Don’t believe me? Then just look at the Hamas charter. Or if you think that is just political positioning, here’s an example from Palestinian Media Watch.
I reproduce it here, but if you go to the website you’ll be able to experience the delights of a Hamas TV broadcast.
Bulletin
Apr. 19, 2009 Palestinian Media Watch
Hamas Racism:
Jews are evil – “Their children will be exterminated.”
Imam who participated
in “Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace”
calls for extermination of Jews
by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
A Hamas cleric who once participated in an international conference of “Imams and Rabbis for Peace” — whose delegates vowed to “condemn any negative representation” of each other’s religions — has wholeheartedly espoused Hamas’s racist ideology in a recent Friday sermon on Hamas TV.
Ironically, this latest profession of Hamas’s genocidal racism was preached and broadcast at the start of the month in which the UN is meeting in the “Durban II” conference in Geneva to condemn Israel as being “racist.”
According to the Hamas interpretation of Islam, the Jews are inherently evil, seek to rule the world, and are a threat to Muslims and all of humanity. Therefore they are destined to extermination. In the words of Hamas religious leader Ziad Abu Alhaj, “Hatred for Muhammad and Islam is in their [Jews’] souls, they are naturally disposed to it…”
He asserts that because of the Jews’ inherent evil, the Jewish state, “Israel … is a cancer that wants to rule the world.” One can find the details of the Jews’ plan in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which he jokingly refers to as “The Protocols of the Imbeciles of Zion” (a play on words in Arabic). He concludes that the Jews are destined to be annihilated:
“The time will come, by Allah’s will, when their property will be destroyed and their children will be exterminated, and no Jew or Zionist will be left on the face of this earth.”
[Hamas (Al-Aqsa) TV, April 3, 2009]
He also claims that the Jews wanted to murder Muhammad.
This imam, who is preaching the genocide of Jews, participated in the Second World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace in 2006, which also featured many prominent rabbis from Israel. The final statement from the Seville conference included the pronouncement, “. . . We condemn any negative representation of these [religious beliefs and symbols], let alone any desecration, Heaven forbid. Similarly, we condemn any incitement against a faith or people, let alone any call for their elimination, and we urge authorities to do likewise.”
The following is the text of the Hamas sermon calling for the extermination of Jews:
“Who is it that is leading the world today in the vicious, all-encompassing war against Islam and Muslims? The answer is clear: it is the Jewish nation. It is the Jews who today are leading the all-encompassing war against Muslims…
We, the Muslims, know the nature of Jews the best, because the Holy Quran taught us. The prophetic traditions explained at length to Muslims the true nature of Jews… Their war and their hatred for Muhammad and Islam is in their souls, they are naturally disposed to it.
Israel today lives in the heart of Arab-Muslim territory, and it is a cancer that wants to rule the world. Know, my brothers! The Jews’ expansion today brings the dissemination of an ancient thinking…
They argued with Allah’s prophet Moses; they wanted to kill Allah’s prophet Jesus, and wanted to murder Allah’s prophet Muhammad…
The Jews want to destroy every inch … Perhaps their famous book, which they deny [its authenticity] – known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but we call it, “The Protocols of the imbeciles of Zion” – in this book, my brothers, the Jews set down their plan to besiege the entire world by land, by air, and by sea – conceptually, economically, and its communications, as is happening today…
The Jews’ grandeur today, and their ascent to the world’s throne, is because America, with all of its power, is ruled by the Senate, I won’t say ‘American’ but rather ‘Jewish’ [Senate] … The time will come, by the will of Allah, when their property will be destroyed and their children will be exterminated, and no Jew or Zionist will be left on the face of this earth.”
I wonder if Harry van Bommel would do business with a Belgian terrorist organisation calling for the killing of Dutch children and wiping the Netherlands off the map or saying that Dutch Protestants are controlling the world with their evil religious animus.
I wonder what George Galloway and Tony Benn really think when they read this, if they do, or are they too busy trying to find an apology for it. The double-think involved is staggering; George Galloway, for example has given an impassioned interview about the enormity of the Holocaust, but supports groups bent on a second one.
As Mahmoud Ahmadinejad takes the podium at Geneva, no doubt the European Far Left will be cheering from the sidelines.
King Abdullah of Jordan, on a visit to Bucharest, has said that Israel
“must decide whether they want to observe this opportunity and become integrated in the region or whether they want to remain a fortress … and keep the Middle East hostage in conflict”
as reported by Arutz Sheva. The opportunity he refers to is the Saudi Peace Plan/Ultimatum reiterated in Qatar last week in terms of “take it or leave it”.
The Saudi plan offers recognition of Israel from all Arab countries but in return Israel must withdraw from what are known as The Occupied Territories, there must be an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and (and here’s the killer punch), there must be a just solution to the “problem” of Palestinian refugees.
So in return for the dubious benefits of “recognition”, whatever that really means, Israel must return to the 1949 ceasefire lines and potentially allow into Israel hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Palestinians against whom it has been fighting an existential war since 1967. This influx will turn the Jewish State into something quite different. In no time, Jews would be a minority in their own country and there would be two Arab states, no doubt with the intention of confederating as Palestine and thus bringing about the end of Israel.
Security issues (massive), housing, health, the economy would all suffer to the detriment of Israelis. And where would these returnees go? Would they have the right, having kicked the Jews out of the West Bank, to start to kick them out of Ashkelon and Haifa?
It’s as if the enmity generated throughout the world by Operation Cast Lead, the move to a right wing government in Israel and the pleasant noises (for Arab ears) emanating from the new administration in Washington have emboldened the Arabs in the belief that the time is ripe to land a killer blow on the Israeli chin or maybe a kick somewhere lower down.
All this might be considered a first round negotiating position, but three significant players are completely ignored in this equation: Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
Hamas leader Ismael Haniya reasserted his faction’s principled refusal to recognize Israel, calling it “the Zionist entity” and claiming it to be an illegitimate state based on ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, according to the Palestine Times. He said that Hamas wouldn’t abandon its principles under pressure. “We will not cave in to pressure, we will not betray our people’s trust, we will not recognize the illegitimate Zionist entity. This has always been our stance, and it will never change.”
Haniya suggested that when it comes to recognizing Israel, the Palestinian Authority represented only itself and not the entire PA Arab population.
Let’s analyse this. Israel is “an illegitimate state based on ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”. So what is it this “principled” people want to do with Israel?
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
Hamas are a little hypocritical when it comes to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, don’t you think? Just go to PalestinianMediaWatch (www.pmw.il) to see the depraved depths of their hate-filled rhetoric, their “educational”materials, their blood-libels and then tell me who are the racists and Nazis in the Middle-East.
Hezbollah and Iran have a similar genocidal animus against Israel and the Jews. Fatah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs, Islamic Jihad are not exacty Israel or even Jew-friendly.
So let’s see what happens when the Saudi dream is realised. Israel’s borders will be open, the security wall dismantled and those whose professed aim is to kill all Jews and destroy Israel will have a free pass across its borders, along its coastline, in its airspace. Their agents and accomplices will move freely among Jewish Israelis.
So the small matter of the Right of Return for Palestinians is nothing less than a formula for the destruction of Israel and the removal of all rights to self-determination of Jews. So the other points in the formula a little moot. Of course, compensation for the hundreds of thousands of Jews expelled from Arab countries in 1948 are not part of the equation.
Do the Arab nations really expect this government of all governments to agree to a new Jewish Holocaust?
Of course they don’t. But what they do want is to be seen as moderate, offering a “peace solution” which Israel will reject out of hand and they can write another chapter in the Book of Historical Revisionism to say “the Jews didn’t want peace. We had no choice but to continue the struggle. They bring it upon themselves.”
This attack was committed in the framework of the resistance,” Ayman Taha, a spokesperson for the group said. “This is a reaction to the continuing occupation and the continued building of settlements.”
“This is a natural reaction,” he said, “especially against the backdrop of Israeli attacks. We are a people occupied, and it is our right to defend ourselves and to act in every way and with every means at our disposal in order to defend ourselves.”
Thus any act, however depraved, is justifiable. This is the rhetoric of an organisation supported by millions across the world. An organisation as murderous as it is immoral.
Let’s not forget they also attacked a seven year old. And let us not forget that this boy’s father is serving a prison sentence as a terrorist for plotting to blow up a Palestinian school. A plot that was thwarted by the Israeli police.
Now just reverse the roles. Do you see any Palestinian terrorists in prison in Palestine? Did the Palestinian police ever thwart a terrorist attack on Israel, or do they just aid and abet?
Headline at the BBC website: “Israeli boy killed on West Bank”. Note “killed” not “murdered”. And try to find that story today – it suddenly disappeared and has been replaced by “Livni condemns new Israeli leaders” and the Lieberman arrest.
Straight away the headline tells a subtle lie. It uses the present tense. We might be fooled into thinking this was some reaction to recent (disproved) stories of misconduct. Maybe a fig leaf for greater crimes, a token gesture? But no, it happened during Operation Cast Lead. Yes, during, before the current round of unchecked and unproved allegations.
The BBC is quoting a Ha’aretz story; the same paper that released the story about alleged atrocities emanating from a pre-military academy.
An Israeli soldier was removed from the combat area after he shot a Gazan woman in the leg “by mistake” during the recent offensive, military sources say.
The soldiers were firing in the air and urging a group of Palestinians who looked “suspicious” at the time, the military said….
…A statement from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said there had been a warning of a suicide attacker in the area where the incident occurred.
The soldier was an infantryman from the Givati Brigades, and has been demoted and put on probation
The BBC report then goes on to rehash recent unproven accusations and drops its own little bomblet: “The Israeli forces’ conduct has been heavily criticised. ” Thus conflating criticism of general tactics with specific allegations of war crimes committed by individuals.
It goes on:
Several international rights experts and organisations have raised concerns that both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants may have committed war crimes during the 22-day conflict.
This despite the fact that Hamas were, had and continue to fire rockets and mortars deliberately intended to kill civilians, a war crime as patent as it is cynical, and the BBC say “may have”. Hamas use schools, mosques, ambulances, innocent civilians’ homes, hospitals and media centers to stockpile weapons and use as firing positions, and the BBC say “may have”. The BBC tries to be even-handed in its treatment of the IDF and Hamas as if the latter were not a terrorist organisation that has no interest in observing ANY international laws and cynically exploits Israel’s attempts at observing those same laws.
Listen to what an IDF Colonel had to say:
He said the soldiers entered “thousands” of homes in Gaza. “Almost in every house we found rifles, grenades, RPGs (rocket propelled grenades),” he said.
They also saw Hamas militants moving from house to house carrying white flags to pose as civilians, he added.
He blamed Hamas for exposing civilians to danger by using civilian institutions for cover:
“When you find in a backpack, a blue backpack with logo of the UN on the backpack, an IED, (improvised explosive device) you understand how cynical, how far they go,” he said.
So Hamas use the white flag as a cover and the world wonders why, perhaps, some really innocent people carrying a white flag may have been shot. They use UN equipment to hide bombs, they place weapons in thousands of homes and the world wonders why innocents were killed, UN facilities damaged and Gazan residents’ homes damaged or demolished. When the enemy cynically exploits its opponents morality – yes, I said morality – a morality they clearly do not have, then it is not surprising mistakes happen – in fact it is amazing so few civilians were killed even if you accept the Palestinian figure and not the Israeli one.
As long as the West believes that asymmetric warfare can still be waged without some ‘loose rules of engagement’ then they will never win the War on Terror.
Nevertheless, and I have said this repeatedly in recent posts, Israel must not sink to the level of Hamas and its fellow travellers. Where there are inexcusable lapses which amount to patent crimes, the perpetrators must be brought to justice. So far no investigations into individual allegations have yielded any clear evidence. Hearsay and rumour are powerful weapons to diminish reputations when so many are willing to accept them prima facie without taking the care to wait for full investigations.
Some believe that Israel has given up caring what the world thinks. Understandable. But dangerous. If you don’t care what others think, that removes a powerful moral deterrent. It must not happen.
Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has dropped a very big hint that earlier this year, probably January, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) bombed a convoy of illegal arms on its way to Gaza from Tehran via Sudan and Egypt.
As with the alleged bombing of a Syrian nuclear plant the countries involved are reluctant to admit anything happened because it shows them up for what they are – terrorist states.
It seems there as a cosy little alliance of murderers and genocides (both actual and aspirational) consisting of Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Sudan.
A Sudanese minister, Mabrook Mubarak Saleem told an Arabic news channel that many had been killed in the air strike. Arutz Sheva reports:
a Sudanese spokesman claimed that “more than 100 people” had been killed in the air raid, which he termed “a genocide, committed by U.S. forces.”
When asked how he knew the attackers were American, the spokesman said: “We don’t differentiate between the U.S. and Israel. They are all one.”
This man’s contempt for the word ‘genocide’ in whatever language he was using is an indication of the mentaliy of these atrocious people in the Sudanese government who make Mugabe look like a benevolent democrat.
Meanwhile his government is committing genocide in Darfur supported by the Iranian axis of evil.
Meanwhile Iran WANTS to commit genocide in Israel.
Meanwhile Hamas WANTS to commit genocide in Israel.
Meanwhile Hezbollah WANTS to commit genocide in Israel.
What an attractive little group of murdering, Jew-hating, fanatical, tyrannical, warmongers they are.
Hey, maybe we can talk to them and persuade them to talk about peace and reconciliation.
Hey, maybe they are really quite nice people with a grievance.
Hey, maybe if we gave the Palestinians a homeland they’d all settle down and turn to stamp collecting.
Hey, maybe if we gave the Palestinians a homeland they would pursue democracy, peace, education, equality for all their citizens, including women; maybe they wouldn’t teach their children to hate, to glorify murder, to corrupt their own religion.
Hey, maybe if we gave the Palestinians a homeland they wouldn’t continue in their stated objective of destroying Israel.
Hey, maybe Iran really is just developing a nuclear energy programme.
Hey, maybe they wouldn’t dream of threatening Israel and the West with a nuclear weapon.
Hey, maybe Israel isn’t a terrorist state after all.
Hey, maybe Israel is the front line against these these monsters.
Hey, maybe we can learn from Israel how to defend the free world.
HonestReporting.com has released its analysis of what it claims to be the BBC’s biased coverage during the Gaza conflict. Biased against Israel, off course.
The report which can be seen here begins with a telling comparison to the conflict in Sri Lanka between government forces and the Tamil Tiger separatists.
During the conflict, the BBC published, on average, 4.5 articles every day dealing with the fighting. In contrast, BBC coverage of the Sri Lankan government’s campaign against the Tamil Tigers group — a conflict that resulted in an estimated 2,000 civilian deaths in January of 2009 — produced barely one article a day.
According to human rights organizations, the conflict in Sri Lanka includes intentional attacks by both sides on civilians, attacks on hospitals (twenty attacks from December through February alone), and the use of human shields. Yet the BBC gives this conflict, estimated to have resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, less than one quarter the average daily coverage of the Gaza conflict. If the BBC is going to focus this much on Gaza, it must expect scrutiny of that coverage.
This discrepancy is something that I and many others have pointed out previously and will be the subject of a post I intend to write shortly.
One of the main thrusts of the HonestReporting analysis is the discrepancy between accounts coming from Gaza and those emanating from the Israeli side. The report points out how unsubstantiated claims went either unquestioned or received a token warning of the BBC’s inability to authenticate claims.
Emotive images often accompanied the reports even though these images were often unrelated to the actual events being reported. Unverifiable atrocities were reported unquestioned.
The reports concluded:
The BBC’s coverage of the Gaza conflict painted a picture of an Israeli attack that intentionally targeted civilians and may have included war crimes. Specifically:
The BBC relied upon Palestinians who were given the opportunity to make dubious accusations without any supporting evidence.
The BBC published image after image of Palestinians suffering under Israeli attacks while giving readers few views of the impact that the conflict was having on Israeli civilians living under a constant and daily rocket barrage.
The most damning Palestinian statements about the Israeli operations were highlighted on the side of the articles, while Israeli statements were almost never treated in the same way.
The analysis looked at every report on the BBC and the BBC website during the conflict and various diagrams are produced to back up claims of an extremely skewed coverage which showed Israel in a negative light with little attention given to the hundreds of thousands of Israelis condemned to years of rocket and mortar attacks. Many sources used by the BBC were dubious, to say the least, in that they came directly from or were almost certainly channelled through Hamas or its supporters or those it had most likely intimidated or threatened (although this, too, of course is difficult to prove or assess).
The most egregious ‘lie’ was that of the ‘bombing; of an UNRWA school which made such headlines at the time, especially as John Ging, UNRWA’s head of staff in Gaza first claimed more than 40 civilians had been killed INSIDE the school and later had to recant and admit that the shells fell outside the school. But the damage was done and the BBC continued reporting 40 deaths only for it to be revealed there were ‘only’ 12, of which 9 were Hamas operatives who had used the vicinity of the school to fire at IDF troops. The truth was not reported with the same sensationalism as the initial lie and thus the the smear sticks.
Although the report is an excellent analysis, I must take issue with part of its interpretation of the statistics. Here is a table of the findings I have made:
Palestinian
Israeli
Eyewitness Accounts
40
18
Palestinian Casualties/Destruction
Israeli Soldiers
Israeli casualties/destruction
Hamas Terrorists
Images
215
53
34
11
Palestinian Position
Israeli Position
Highlighted Quotations
33
3
Now, I do not want to be an apologist for the BBC but most of the action was taking place in Gaza. And even though rockets were falling on Israel throughout the conflict it is undeniable that it was Gaza where there was a huge battle raging and hundreds of people (almost all Palestinians) dying, not Israel.
For me the statistics are not the key element of the bias; what is key is the quality of the reporting and the lack of concern, especially by Jeremy Bowen, for proper journalistic norms. Hearsay and dubious sourcing, gullibility and a predisposition against the Israeli position, assumptions of guilt without proof, hectoring of Israeli spokespersons; all these were what characterised the BBC’s coverage.
Even now as terrible stories come out of Israel the BBC and others are still making assumptions about the veracity of the reports simply because they are from Israelis without waiting for the full investigations to be carried out. At least Israel takes the accusations seriously; when Hamas is challenged to respond to accusations of abuses it basically sticks two fingers up – hardly surprising; since when did terrorists ever abide by any international laws or conventions? That’s why they are designated terrorists in the first place.
Ken Loach, the British film director, has claimed that it is “‘understandable” that there should be a rise in anti-Semitism since the Gaza conflict, the Jerusalem posts reports.
If there has been a rise I am not surprised. In fact, it is perfectly understandable because Israel feeds feelings of anti-Semitism.
He goes on:
When history comes to be written, I think this will be seen as one of the great crimes of the past decades because of the cold blooded massacre that we witnessed. Unless we take a stand against it, we are complicit.
And all this at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine – a “a symbolic citizens’ initiative that claims to reaffirm the importance of international law in conflict resolution”.
What Loach and other are “complicit” in is the usual one-sided demonisation and singling out of one state whilst ignoring the crimes of those seeking to annihilate it. By ‘understanding’ that Israel’s perceived crimes are responsible for anti-Semitism he is saying that it is “understandable” that all Jews are responsible for Israel’s actions. He makes no condemnation of this linkage. By expressing this belief he himself is complicit in the rise of anti-Semitism because he makes no stand against such a belief. Even Muslim leaders in the UK told their co-religionists NOT to blame Jews for the actions of Israel.
Did Mr Loach “understand” the huge rise in attacks on Muslims as a result of 9/11 or 7/7? No. Because there were very few attacks on Muslims in the UK whose citizens did not perpetrate a blood-libel against them. But in the wake of Operation Cast Lead anti-Semitic incidents in the UK and Europe went through the roof. Only Jews are responsible for the actions of other Jews in Mr Loach’s perverted logic.
I would also ask Mr Loach if he has taken a stand against President Bashir of Sudan, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the Taleban, the Russians for Chechnya (seeing as he is a supporter of Chechen independence) and South Ossetia.
But most importantly I would ask him if his kangaroo court of concerned citizens (which not only makes the accusation but then becomes judge and jury in a mockery of justice) is even going to look at Hamas’s actions and condemn them or does he “understand” Hamas’s motives as well.
And I would ask him why the Russell Tribunal does not even follow – vis-a-vis Hamas – some of its own aims as expressed when “trying” the United States for war crimes in Vietnam:
1. Has the United States Government (and the Governments of Australia, New Zealand and South Korea) committed acts of aggression according to international law?
3. Has there been bombardment of targets of a purely civilian character, for example hospitals, schools, sanatoria, dams, etc., and on what scale has this occurred?
4. Have Vietnamese prisoners been subjected to inhuman treatment forbidden by the laws of war and, in particular, to torture or mutilation? Have there been unjustified reprisals against the civilian population, in particular, execution of hostages?
Replace “United States” with “Hamas”.
On item 1: Hamas were and still carry out daily rocket attacks aimed specifically at the civilian population of Israel which is an “aggression according to international law”.
On item 3: as per item 1 the targets are “purely civilian (in) character” and are indiscriminate. As for scale: over 6000 such attacks since 2001.
On item 4: Gilad Shalit has been held since 2006 without access to the Red Cross contrary to international law. We do not know if he has been tortured. After Operation Cast Lead Hamas was widely reported as taking reprisals against anyone it deemed as being complicit of collaboration especially its political enemy Fatah. It carried out summary executions and woundings against civilians.
This is not Loach’s first attack on Israel. In 2007 at the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival he called for “international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions”. In 2008 he condemned the celebrating of Israel’s 69th anniversary as “tantamount to dancing on Palestinian graves to the haunting tune of lingering dispossession and multi-faceted injustice”.
I believe even in the world of the self-appointed, self-righteous and self-lefteous Ken Loach and the Russell Tribunal there are clear grounds for an “indictment” and “prosecution” of Hamas.
I am sure the entire world is watching with baited breath.