Ray Cook - As I See It

Israel, Zionism and the Media

Tag: Hamas (Page 7 of 7)

Remember Nahr el-Bared?

09/03/2009 / / 0 Comments

No, I don’t suppose you do unless you are one of the 30,000 Palestinians displaced or a relative of the 400 who died two years ago in fighting between the Lebanese army and Islamist militants.

The Lebanese army went in hard. It destroyed homes and killed many innocent civilians.

Yet there were no delegations from the Arab League, no British MPs making a tour of the devastation, no UN resolutions, no lurid TV pictures, no Iranian outrage, no Hamas demonstrations, no Palestinian Authority claims of war crimes,  no UNRWA officials accusing Lebanon of anything, no Viva Palestina convoys and definitely not a Jeremy Bowen in sight.

Why? Because it’s alright for an Arab country to kill Muslims with impunity. No Jews or Israelis were involved. So the world has little interest. Why did Lebanon take this action? Because an Islamist group was threatening to destabilise the country. They weren’t sending a missile barrage into neighbouring towns and cities, they didn’t threaten to annihilate the Lebanese people, but they were brutally slaughtered.

The Lebanese did not allow in any journalists. Pictures of the devastation have been carefully suppressed.

The camp was not bombed for three weeks but for 3 MONTHS!

This is what Michael Birmingham had to say on 25th October 2007 on the Information Clearing House website:

Between May and September of this year, a ferocious battle took place between the Lebanese Army and a small armed group known as Fatah Al Islam. From the first the day, the Lebanese Army surrounded the camp and fired in artillery, maintaining this course for months. Most of the residents of the camp were forced to leave with the clothes on their backs within the first three days. As the number of young Lebanese soldiers killed and horribly maimed rose through the battle, Lebanon became awash with patriotism and grief, any questioning of the army taboo.

Something terrible has been done to the residents of Nahr al Bared, and the Lebanese people are being spared the details. Over the past two weeks, since the camp was partly reopened to a few of its residents, many of us who have been there have been stunned by a powerful reality. Beyond the massive destruction of the homes from three months of bombing, room after room, house after house have been burned. Burned from the inside. Amongst the ashes on the ground, are the insides of what appear to have been car tyres. The walls have soot dripping down from what seems clearly to have been something flammable sprayed on them. Rooms, houses, shops, garages – all blackened ruins, yet having had no damage from bombing or battle. They were burned deliberately by people entering and torching them.

How many we do not know; it is too large for a few people to comprehensively assess. But finding an un-bombed house or a business that has not been torched is very hard indeed.

(http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18618.htm)

Basically THE ENTIRE CAMP was destroyed by the Lebanese army. Was this not a prima facie war crime? Was this not worthy of world-wide condemnation, ICC war crimes investigations and those other instruments being used to attack Israel?

Unfortunately the residents of Nahr el-Bared do not have the propaganda machines working for them, but what is incomprehensible is that they do not even appear to have the interest of their fellow Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

But perhaps it’s not so incomprehensible after all. In fact, it’s blindingly obvious. Hamas and the PA don’t care about Palestinians who are not fighting Israel because there is no political ground to be gained. Accusing the Lebanese does nothing to further their aims of destroying Israel by arms or by political stealth.

Meanwhile the BBC reports today (here):

Palestinians have been here for more than 60 years – since the creation of Israel – but they are still barred from at least 70 professions, have no access to state education or healthcare, and cannot move freely or buy land.

These conditions turn the Palestinian camps into a breeding ground for extremism, a time bomb which will inevitably explode

It sounds to me that these Palestinians have it considerably worse than those in Gaza but are ignored by the world and the Arab world especially. The BBC adds:

The UN’s relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has only managed to raise $43m (£31m) to rebuild the camp – a tiny fraction of the $430m needed. Lebanon’s rich neighbours in the Gulf have not delivered the funds they pledged. 

Can the world not see the utter moral bankruptcy of the Arab world with regard to these people. But still it’s Israel and Israel alone which is being demonised and delegitimised around the world by Arab and Muslim hypocrites who allow hundreds of thousands to die in Sudan whilst sending support to the evil regime of al-Bashir and turn a blind eye to their fellows in Lebanon many of whom, despite the BBC’s assertion, were actually expelled from Jordan, another state that has washed its hands of the Palestinians.

Cheer leading for genocide

08/03/2009 / / 0 Comments

Whilst President Omar al-Bashir thumbs his nose at the ICC and world opinion, Iran and Hamas have rushed to Khartoum in a solidarity mission.

These two august regimes have denounced the International Criminal Court’s warrant. These are the same regimes who accuse Israel of genocide of the Palestinians.

There is no doubt that the Sudanese government and its supporter’s activities in Darfur represent the clearest example of genocide and war crimes imaginable. But Iran is sending the speaker of their parliament, Ali Larijani whilst Hamas have despatched Moussa Abu Marzouk their second in command in Damascus.

After the ICC warrant  was announced, al-Bashir expelled foreign aid workers further exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, an act itself which could be considered a crime against humanity. 2.7 million people have been forced out of their homes and villages. Hundreds of thousands have been killed. Tens of thousands of women and young girls raped. 

By supporting such a regime Iran and Hamas show their true colours.  Yet we still have people in this country (UK) and around the world who believe them to be a bulwark against the West, the vanguard of anti-Zionism and the heroes of Islam. 

Meanwhile, the BBC has reported here that the Arab League us asking the UN to defer the warrant for a year.

But look who Sudan’s biggest supporter is. None other than the Tibet-annexing, freedom-suppressing Chinese government who effectively have aligned themselves with Hamas and Iran by complaining to Ban Ki-moon about the warrant and then blocking a French security council statement. For the Chinese their strategic interests in Africa are more important than the lives of millions of Africans – no surprise there.

Meanwhile, on March 3rd, the Libyan ambassador to the UN compared Gaza to Nazi concentration camps. The double standards of the Arab League and many Islamic regimes on the question of Darfur are breathtaking in their hypocrisy.

Can We Have Our Munitions Back Please

17/02/2009 / / 0 Comments

So you are the UN operating in Gaza and you decide that it is incumbent on you to go round the Strip collecting unexploded munitions from the recent Israeli-Hamas conflict.

You decide to place these munitions in a warehouse for future safe disposal and you need someone to guard them.

So who do you pick? Why, Hamas of course!

Then when you find that the warehouse is suddenly empty you plead with Hamas, “can we have our munitions back please?”

What kind of madness is this?

1. Hamas is classified as a terrorist organisation by the UN

2. UNWRA workers were recently held at gunpoint and had tonnes of aid stolen by Hamas

3. Who do the UN think Hamas might use these munitions against?

It is totally unbelievable. Now tell us that the UN is not deeply implicated with Hamas in Gaza. Where is their judgement? Where is their commonsense?

The UN has now, effectively, turned itself into a partner for a terrorist organisation.

BBC’s Web Spinning is Biased (no news there then)

16/02/2009 / / 0 Comments

BBC headline today: "Fresh violence shakes Gaza Strip" What are they reporting? It’s an Israeli retaliatory attack for several rockets fired into the Western Negev Sunday and today. So why wasn’t the headline "Fresh rocket attacks on Israel".

Hamas’ attacks and those of other groups in Gaza (who call themselves by a variety of names so they can claim that Hamas did not violate the cease fire) are never reported UNLESS Israel responds and then it’s headlines of this sort we always see subtly implying that all violence is from one side in response to rockets that, by pure chance and not by intention, cause no Israeli casualties.

Hamas Propaganda and the Lies About Gazan Casualties

16/02/2009 / / 0 Comments

During the recent Gaza conflict UNWRA was the main source for Gaza casualty figures and these figures were used by the world’s press, including the BBC, as absolutely undeniable because they came from the UN. But the figures did not come from the UN, they came from Hamas and the gullible UNWRA gave the Hamas lies cover due because everyone believes the UN, don’t they?

Throughout the conflict Israeli sources could just about be heard in the background stating that the Hamas figures were exaggerated and many combatants were included as civilians. Now, at last, and, as often is the case with the Israeli government, too late to change the world’s impression of the conflict, the Israeli figures have been published.

The Jerusalem Post reports here that the Palestinian Center for Human Rights has quoted 895 Gazan civilians killed which represents more than two-thirds of all deaths. But  the IDF has carefully compiled the actual names of many of those killed and its figures show a very different story. The IDF puts the percentage at about one third which is about 450.

Dealing with real human lives lost in a statistical war of words is a regrettable course to have to follow but a necessary one in order to expose Hamas lies and attempt to redress the balance of world opinion.

Another, and very important ‘detail’ that had UNWRA and the world and the BBC et alia exercised about Israeli ‘war crimes’ was the incident near a UN school in Jabalya. The Jeruslaem Post reports:

Initial Palestinian reports falsely claimed IDF shells had hit the school and killed 40 or more people, many of them civilians.

In fact, he said, 12 Palestinians were killed in the incident – nine Hamas operatives and three noncombatants. Furthermore, as had since been acknowledged by the UN, the IDF was returning fire after coming under attack, and its shells did not hit the school compound. 

Yet most of the world still believes the Hamas lies (only 48 of its fighters killed as opposed to about 900 now reported by the IDF) reinforced by news reports, including Israeli newspapers, and the UN itself who prefer the story of a group it classifies as a terrorist organisation over the counter claims of one of its own members, namely Israel. And the rest of the world goes along with this analysis.

When will Israel get its act together and realise how important it is to rebut the lies of Hamas as they occur.  The JP reports that “the IDF was considering setting up a response team” for just this purpose.  About time! 

So, more than 400 children killed? Hardly when the total of non-combatants is around that mark.

So will the world’s press now issue rebuttals of its previous reports and tell the world the actual truth. Fat chance. Will Jeremy Bowen of the BBC report the IDF findings in his blog? 

I blame the Israeli government and organisations like Shin Bet for not doing enough to counter Hamas claims and the falsified, exaggerated and emotional images they trot out hour by hour in any conflict.

Even though several impressive spokespersons were put forward this time for the very purpose of better serving Israel’s case, they failed miserably because they could not counter the terrible daily images coming out of Gaza. Quite often they themselves did not seem to believe in their own story. This is a measure of how successful Hamas propaganda is and how poor Israeli counter-propaganda is.

What we need to see now is a further detailed analysis of homes, schools, hospitals, mosques and civic building destroyed or damaged and how many of those as a result of IDF actions and how many as  a result of secondary explosions caused by Hamas weapons dumps.

There is also the matter of the use of white phosphorus but that brings up the whole question of the appropriateness of some articles of International Law in the new reality of assymetric warfare, something I intend to write about in a future article.

These three elements: casualties, destruction of property and use of certain weapons such as WP and tank shells in built-up areas all need to be thoroughly analysed and answered quickly by Israel; not because they are obliged to do so, but because they need to provide evidence to counter the vicious worldwide assault on Israel’s right to defend itself.

Israel and Accusations of War Crimes

11/02/2009 / / 0 Comments

Why is it that Israel’s military campaigns seem always to provoke the media, human rights groups both inside and outside Israel and governments all over the world to accuse the Jewish State of ‘war crimes’?

Why is it that no other state or political entity ,where breaches of international law are much clearer cut, are not subject to the same media attention and are not described in the same terms?

Let me provide a few examples:

Much has been made of Israel’s apparent attacks against schools and hospitals in Gaza. John Ging, head of UNRWA in Gaza, publicly proclaimed that ‘a war crime MAY have been committed’. Subsequently Ging said that he never claimed that the UN school had been hit at all but the shells landed in the vicinity killing about 30 people. Very little was made of this subtle difference in the media and most people would still think that Israel targeted a school for no good reason. Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, reports of Tamil Tigers shelling a school killing 10 people and wounding dozens of others does not prompt outrage in the media or calls for war crimes investigations. But more pertinent is the never-mentioned fact that Hamas deliberately time their rocket attacks to coincide with the beginning of school in Sderot and elsewhere in order to target children. Hamas rockets, as indiscriminate and unguided missiles, are a flagrant breach of international law in any case, but little, if anything, is made of this in the media.

Israel is accused of targeting civilian dwellings (which it claims were used by Hamas fighters). More war crimes investigations are called for by various governments and organisations across the world. But, when a house in Helmand province is struck by the British army, killing an entire family, everyone accepts their explanation that the Taleban were using that house to fire at the British troops, but by the time they responded the terrorists had fled and the occupants of the house became the victims of the Taleban’s deliberate attempt to cause as many civilian casualties as possible to discredit the Coalition. Sound familiar? So when will there be a war crimes investigation against the British army?

Again, Sri Lanka; this time a hospital is hit and has to close. Accusations ensue on both sides as to the culprits. Did the UN call for an investigation? If so, do we hear about it?

Stephen Sackur of the BBC recently interviewed Isaac Herzog , Israel’s Welfare and Social Services Minister, and pressed him strongly about the need for an independent investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza. Herzog reacted strongly stating that Israel was a fully democratic country quite able to make its own investigations into its own conduct of the war. Has anyone ever suggested an independent investigation into Hamas’s war crimes, breaches of human rights, extra-judicial executions and murders of fellow citizens? Has anyone proposed such investigations into the Sri Lankan, Sudanese, Chinese, British or American conduct in the conflicts that they are involved in and trumpeted such proposals loudly on prime-time television? It is only Israel that is involved in a direct existential threat against implacable enemies who have torn up every article of decent human behaviour and ethical conflict. Meanwhile, only Israel makes 125,000 phone calls and drops millions of leaflets warning Gazans to leave the area before an attack; only Israel takes lawyers to the battlefield to confirm the legality of any military action.

I don’t ask that Israel be given exemption from criticism, I just wonder why they are not treated like any other democratic state. I think I may know the answer. Do you?

Gerald Kaufman Postscript

23/01/2009 / / 0 Comments

Yesterday I was watching Jeremy Bowen on News at Ten inside Gaza talking to a ‘leading Hamas member’, Dr Ahmed Yusef amid the rubble of Rafah. When Bowen (a reporter who is often scandalously one-sided in his reporting of Israel) asked him about the Israeli bombing he repeated a version of Sir Gerald’s words in the House of Commons one week earlier (“We had an IRA bomb in Manchester which destroyed much of the centre – we didn’t send troops over to Belfast to murder 1,000 Catholics”). The Hamas representative, an apparently mild-mannered, smartly-dressed, middle-aged man said: “When 14(sic) years and more the IRA bombing London and some British cities, I never heard that the British government sent F16(s) or any of the military might they have to destroy Belfast”.
The similarity between these statements cannot be coincidence.

Thus a prominent British Jew provides the script for Israel’s enemies, and just as Kaufman’s false analogy goes unchallenged, so does Yusef’s. My post of last week have been proven to be correct: Sir Gerald does indeed provide succour to Israel’s enemies.

Sir Gerald Kaufman gives succour to Holocaust Deniers and anti-Zionists

19/01/2009 / / 0 Comments

On Friday last week the Labour MP for Gorton, Sir Gerald Kaufman, made a statement in the House of Commons where he accused Israel of behaving like Nazis in its conduct of the operation against the Hamas terrorists in Gaza. He also uttered one of the most offensive and potentially damaging sentences I have ever heard come from the mouth of a fellow Jew: “The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from Gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.” This followed his description of his grandmother being shot dead in her sick bed by a German soldier during the Holocaust: “”My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.”

Sir Gerald thus aligns himself, by his use and careful choice of language, with every anti-Zionist, Holocaust denier or trivialiser, and every Jew-hater here and abroad. This is the latest in a long history of Kaufman’s outspoken attacks against Israel and its policies.

Sir Gerald, despite claiming to have “been a long-term supporter of Israel”, went virtually unchallenged by the media and the Jewish community. Louise Ellman MP, someone for whom I have immense admiration for her forthright defence of Israel and the Jewish people, could only find a somewhat vapid riposte: “”The Nazis were about rounding up and exterminating people because of their origins..” No, Ms Ellman, they were about a lot more than that. And this is why the invidious comparison places Sir Gerald firmly in the camp of Israel’s and the Jew’s enemies.

Let’s examine Sir Gerald’s claim that the Israeli government were behaving like Nazis, a claim for which he provides cover by revealing his authority on the subject since his own grandmother was a victim; so he should know Nazi behaviour when he sees it, right? A Jew knows what a Nazi is, surely? Well, in Kaufman’s case, decidedly not.

Kaufman was not specific about which particular aspect of the IDF’s behaviour was comparable to the Nazis. It is the use of these broad smears which are the hallmark of prejudice and ignorance. Let’s help him out here by providing a litany of Nazi policies, actions and atrocities and see if they stand up to comparison with the actions of the Israeli government and its armed forces in Gaza.

Did the IDF round up every man woman and child and send them without food, water or sanitation in a cattle truck for several days and then humiliate them, gas them and burn their bodies? No, Sir Gerald, they did not.
Did the IDF enter hospitals and old-age homes and throw Gazan’s from windows or shoot them and their doctors on the spot. No, Sir Gerald, they did not.
Did the IDF string anyone up from lampposts?
Did the IDF standby whilst hundreds of thousands of people died of starvation and disease?
Does the Israel government have a policy of exterminating every last Palestinian?
Did Israeli doctors carry out experiments on the living tissue of Palestinians without anaesthetic? Sir Gerald?
Were any Palestinians forced to dig trenches and then made to strip naked before being shot in the back of the head and dumped into the graves they had dug for themselves? No, no, NO!
When you compare anyone to a Nazi you have to understand fully what that means; it is not a term of abuse to be bandied about recklessly. To do so trivialises the actions of the Nazis and insults the memory of the millions who died, Jew and Gentile, at the hands of these murderous scum. How dare you, Sir Gerald compare Israel to its oppressors. How dare you trivialise the murderers of your own grandmother. How dare you give succour to our enemies by using the language of hate.

This is what Arutz Sheva reported today on its website: “15 Gazan children with cancer will be transferred to Israeli hospitals Monday. They will first go to the medical clinic at the Erez crossing before being transferred.” How many children did the Nazi’s treat for cancer, Sir Gerald? The report goes on: “Residents of Gaza routinely receive medical treatment as part of Israel’s humanitarian aid to Gaza. In addition, 200 trucks of humanitarian aid were transferred to Gaza Monday.” How much aid did the Nazi’s send into the ghettos or the shtetls, Sir Gerald?

Sir Gerald swallows whole the statistics which come from Hamas and the UN via Hamas. They are unverifiable, completely one-sided and do not tell the truth about what really happened in Gaza and why innocents were killed.  An Israeli soldier reports: “..in Gaza, where there are bombs all over the place all the time, we’ve seen kindergartens filled with 150 or 200 children, and the kindergartens are boobytrapped! They even shoot rockets from inside mosques..”

The real Nazis are not the IDF, but Hamas. They are the ones who seek to exterminate the Jews with their openly genocidal policies. It is they who terrorise Gaza with murder and assassination. It is they who use their own citizens as human shields. It is they who forced their own people into areas the Israelis warned the Gazans to evacuate so that they would maximise casualties. It is their munitions which were placed in huge dumps within the centres of population which caused deaths and widespread destruction.  It is Hamas that hijack aid convoys and then sell it to their own people. It is Hamas that fire from schools, hospitals, mosques and media centres to force the IDF into perceived atrocities. It is Hamas who have infiltrated UNWRA schools to teach hate by day and build rockets by night. And it is Hamas who take the Geneva Convention and laugh at it whilst firing rockets indiscriminately into urban areas to maximise civilian deaths and at a time when they know Israeli children will be going to school. Who are the Nazis, Sir Gerald? Who?
Israel estimates that the majority of casualties and deaths in the conflict were Hamas fighters. Yet the world just accepts 1300 dead as if they were ALL innocent. The world and Sir Gerald believe Hamas but ridicule Israeli claims.

There is no doubt that innocents were killed. There may well have been mistakes made. But consider if you will, Sir Gerald, if it were Hamas entering Tel Aviv. No doubt their actions would be seen as ‘understandable’ as a result of the ‘occupation’ and 60 years in ‘refugee camps’. No doubt, Sir Gerald, you would be the first to excuse them along with Jenny Tonge and the other enemies of truth and justice who crawl out the woodwork to spit hate and venom at Israel every time it dare defend itself. Where were your Nazi jibes against Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe or the Janjaweed in Sudan or the Taleban in Afghanistan. Instead Sir Gerald dismisses Hamas as a nasty group of ineffective insurgents. “We had an IRA bomb in Manchester which destroyed much of the centre – we didn’t send troops over to Belfast to murder 1,000 Catholics”. He thus makes another false analogy which his rhetorical brilliance covers. How absurd. The IRA did not send a barrage of rockets onto Manchester for 7 years. Manchester citizens did not have to live in shelters for fear of their lives. Belfast is part of the United Kingdom, Gaza is not part of Israel. Hamas are the rulers of Gaza, the IRA were not the rulers of Ulster. The IRA did not seek to exterminate every last British citizen. Israel did not murder 1000 innocents, it eliminated hundreds of terrorists bent on its destruction. Maybe if the Irish Republic was shelling Belfast everyday, Dublin and its citizens would not have escaped the wrath of the British Army.

Whilst Sir Gerald pours out his hatred on the Israeli government, the rest of us have to live under the increased threat of violence from the usual suspects in British society who can now point a finger at Sir Gerald Kaufman and say, “Look, even the Jews think Israel is a Nazi, apartheid, racist state”, and thus justify their attacks on synagogues, shops and British Jews going about their everyday business. Thanks to Sir Gerald Britain has become an even more uncomfortable place for Jews of all persuasions, even a Jew like him.

Thoughts on the Manchester Rally for Peace in Israel and Gaza

17/01/2009 / / 0 Comments

On Sunday I had the great privilege of being able to attend the Rally for Peace for the People of Israel and Gaza held in Albert Square with hundreds of people from the North West of England.

I think all those who attended would agree that the most inspiring, uplifting and moving speech was made by a non-Jew, Lorna Fitzsimons, former MP for Rochdale and now CEO of BICOM (British Israel Communications and Research Centre), an organisation dedicated to tell the truth about Israel and its detractors and to counter the half-truths, lies and bias of the British media. She spoke of her recent visit to Sderot and her passionate support of Israel and the Jewish people. To hear such truth from someone not of a Jewish background drew the loudest cheers and many tears. Lorna proclaimed that it should not be left to the Jewish People alone to tell the world the truth but that it was the duty of everyone.

What a striking contrast, then, to those Jews of Jews for Justice for Palestinians who stood ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with Islamists, left-wing agitators, Stop The War Coalition and others. As Joy Wolfe asked for one minute’s silence to remember the victims in both Israel AND Gaza, the counter-demonstrators, who had kept up a constant barrage of noise and abuse throughout, could be heard to chant ‘Kill The Jews’. What did the Jews in that counter-demonstration feel at that point, I wonder. Although these misguided individuals have every right to their beliefs and opinions and also to march or demonstrate in support of those beliefs, it is beyond appalling that they should associate with the Jew-haters, islamo-fascists and left-wing dupes and find themselves actually marching IN SUPPORT OF HAMAS, an organisation dedicated to kill every Jew in the world, including (well-meaning) them. Make no mistake; if they thought they were marching to show that Jews too feel for the people of Gaza and Palestine then not only should they have been with us inside Albert Square, but they were naive to the point of recklessness. How sad it is that our fellow Jews should send such a message to the world. Frankly, their behaviour is scandalous and I hope they learned a lesson that day.

In London and Manchester the calm, thoughtful and dignified rallies for peace and life were in stark contrast to the rabid behaviour of the anti-Zionists and Jew-haters who clearly showed just why Jews need their own state and a state that is militarily strong enough not only to defend itself but to have the strength of will to act in the teeth of world ‘opinion’. The prostrate leaders of the world’s democracies have shown themselves to be more concerned about potential insurrection at home from an enemy within than the pursuit of peace and the facing down of these jihadis and their deranged fellow-travellers.

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