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About Us & RulesStudents For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
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Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 12:00 pm
Next week, our campus will be hosting Israel Apartheid Week (IAW), a series of events hosted by Students For Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters across the country. It is time that this event and this group are exposed for what they truly are. SJP does not stand for justice, instead they are a hate group and a more fitting definition of the acronym would be, “Students for Jewish Persecution.”
Let’s start with the naming of IAW. The use of the word “apartheid” in conjunction with Israel is not only false, but an insult to those who actually experienced true apartheid in South Africa. Most simply stated, there is no country in the Middle East that gives Arabs or other minorities more freedom than Israel does. Arabs can own land, vote, practice their chosen religion and speak their minds.
SJP uses IAW as an attempt to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish State. They promote what they refer to as “the Palestinian narrative,” which is nothing more than an attempt to rewrite history, where true historical facts are rendered irrelevant. All I can say to that is that narratives are what you want history to be. History is what actually happened. The close to 1 million Jews who were thrown out of the neighboring Arab countries at the time of Israel’s founding that are ignored in the “Palestinian narrative.”
In their campaign of terror, instead of advising civilians to take shelter, Hamas requires Palestinian civilians to stand on rooftops to increase their casualty counts. At the same time, Hamas leaders line their pockets with funds from international aid, while redirecting other resources to the construction of terror. Yet, when Israel fights back and defends itself, SJP shares gruesome pictures from other countries such as Syria, ignoring the flagrant violations of human rights. This is done to demonize Israel.
Earlier this semester I had the displeasure of sitting through an SJP chapter meeting. During introductions, everyone went around and said their name and preferred gender pronoun. This is ironic since homosexuality is a capital offense in Gaza and much of the Middle East, while Tel Aviv is one of the most LGBTQ-friendly cities in the world. Sharing such facts has elicited accusations of “pinkwashing” from NU SJP in the past, the irrational idea that Israel hides human rights violations (that don’t actually exist) by promoting their great record of LGBTQ rights.
SJP tries to hide their naked anti-Semitism by partnering with groups with misnomers such as Jewish Voice for Peace. Throughout history, whenever a new group arises to try and destroy the Jews, there have been members of the tribe assisting them. For months, SJP had its Facebook profile picture in support of convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh. Other chapters have held fundraisers for her.
Legitimate criticism of Israel is perfectly acceptable.
Israel is the Jewish State and Zionism is the belief in this state and the right to Jewish self-determination. When you are against the right of the only Jewish State to exist and survive and use all methods to delegitimize and demonize Israel, then you are against the Jewish people. No amount of verbal gymnastics by SJP can deny this fact. Let me be explicitly clear: anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.
It is here that I must commend Hamas. In their charter, they very clearly call for the destruction of the Jewish people. They do not shy away from what their real goals are. So I ask, when will SJP take off its mask and admit its true intentions?
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/ross-beroff/students-for-justice-in-palestine-hides-true-intentions/
Let’s start with the naming of IAW. The use of the word “apartheid” in conjunction with Israel is not only false, but an insult to those who actually experienced true apartheid in South Africa. Most simply stated, there is no country in the Middle East that gives Arabs or other minorities more freedom than Israel does. Arabs can own land, vote, practice their chosen religion and speak their minds.
SJP uses IAW as an attempt to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish State. They promote what they refer to as “the Palestinian narrative,” which is nothing more than an attempt to rewrite history, where true historical facts are rendered irrelevant. All I can say to that is that narratives are what you want history to be. History is what actually happened. The close to 1 million Jews who were thrown out of the neighboring Arab countries at the time of Israel’s founding that are ignored in the “Palestinian narrative.”
In their campaign of terror, instead of advising civilians to take shelter, Hamas requires Palestinian civilians to stand on rooftops to increase their casualty counts. At the same time, Hamas leaders line their pockets with funds from international aid, while redirecting other resources to the construction of terror. Yet, when Israel fights back and defends itself, SJP shares gruesome pictures from other countries such as Syria, ignoring the flagrant violations of human rights. This is done to demonize Israel.
Earlier this semester I had the displeasure of sitting through an SJP chapter meeting. During introductions, everyone went around and said their name and preferred gender pronoun. This is ironic since homosexuality is a capital offense in Gaza and much of the Middle East, while Tel Aviv is one of the most LGBTQ-friendly cities in the world. Sharing such facts has elicited accusations of “pinkwashing” from NU SJP in the past, the irrational idea that Israel hides human rights violations (that don’t actually exist) by promoting their great record of LGBTQ rights.
SJP tries to hide their naked anti-Semitism by partnering with groups with misnomers such as Jewish Voice for Peace. Throughout history, whenever a new group arises to try and destroy the Jews, there have been members of the tribe assisting them. For months, SJP had its Facebook profile picture in support of convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh. Other chapters have held fundraisers for her.
Legitimate criticism of Israel is perfectly acceptable.
Israel is the Jewish State and Zionism is the belief in this state and the right to Jewish self-determination. When you are against the right of the only Jewish State to exist and survive and use all methods to delegitimize and demonize Israel, then you are against the Jewish people. No amount of verbal gymnastics by SJP can deny this fact. Let me be explicitly clear: anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.
It is here that I must commend Hamas. In their charter, they very clearly call for the destruction of the Jewish people. They do not shy away from what their real goals are. So I ask, when will SJP take off its mask and admit its true intentions?
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/ross-beroff/students-for-justice-in-palestine-hides-true-intentions/
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 6:00 pm
From Truth Revolts, set up by bomb throwing RW David Horowitz who wants Israel to wipe Palestine out.
Why not come right out with it Didge and say you hate Palestinians, want them to roll over, give in, and allow Israel to drive them into the sea?
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 8:40 pm
Behold, David Horowitz, former Marxist gone neoconservative in his autumn years. In the world Horowitz occupies all of the clocks have lurched backward to a more paranoid and suspicious time, let us say somewhere mid-stride of the McCarthy inquisition. In the world Horowitz inhabits there are communists under beds and Grand Conspiracies on the tapis. For instance, last weekend’s march in Washington against the proposed madness of war is simply and conclusively explained away by Horowitz as “a regrouping of the Communist left, the same left that supported Stalin and Mao and Ho.” Granted, in the 60s — an era David is apparently unable to escape — there was much talk of Mao and Ho, yet very little of Stalin beyond the blather of discredited old school Communists which Horowitz inexplicably adds to his toxic brew of condemnation. Nonetheless, any serious talk of Ho and Mao was generally limited to strict Marxist ideologues, of which Mr. Horowitz was one (he remains a strident ideologue, though no longer Marxist). Most folks in opposition to the Vietnam war didn’t buy into Mao, Ho, Che, or Stalin. Of course, as Horowitz likely remembers it, anybody opposed to the Vietnam war was marching around spewing irrelevancies from Mao’s Little Red Book — a text, it must be remembered, essentially introduced by the Black Panthers as a way to make a quick buck. No doubt David, back in the day, helped the BP sell more than a few copies.
The Horowitz glass is distorted, blackened. When he ganders therein, David observes Ramsey Clark lending a helping hand to Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein. It does not matter, of course, that Clark has denounced Saddam Hussein; what irks David is the fact Clark has called the sanctions against Iraq immoral and barbaric, not the stuff of a civilized people. Or maybe Horowitz is angered by Clark’s insistence that Bush Senior is a war criminal for bombing helpless Iraqi innocents into pre-industrial hellishness over a decade ago. David, in his devious way, makes no mention of these things, preferring instead stark generalities. David Horowitz cannot be bothered with particulars or fair play. There is no time, or luxury, because the Clarks of the world dream of a “Communist revolution in America,” the “immediate agenda” of which is to “force America’s defeat in the war with terror we are now in.” Clark and the “100,000 Communists” in Washington last weekend “are not pacifists and they are not peaceniks,” they are “a movement of by and for America’s enemies within.” You, who are now reading this, and who may disagree with Bush’s cataclysmic plans for Iraq — you are seditious fellow travelers on the move with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
David Horowitz has also revealed a fondness for historical revisionism, or possibly historical omission. “The Communist left,” explains neocon guru David, “also opposed ‘American militarism’ in the 1930s to prevent the West from stopping Hitler.” Never mind that well before the US even pondered going to war with Germany (which, prior to Pearl Harbor, most Americans did not support) — back when Henry Ford was accepting awards from the Nazis and happy as a clam to have slave laborers toiling in his German factories — more than a few American communists and plain folk of principle were sailing off for Spain to fight the Franco version of fascism. Moreover, David may wish to tell us about the Nazi ?migr?s who assumed prominent positions in the Republican Party after the war. I wonder, does the name Reinhard Gehlen ring a bell with David Horowitz? Or possibly Laszlo Pasztor, a convicted Nazi war collaborator, who served as adviser to Republican Paul Weyrich? David should exercise more caution when he decides to become a history teacher.
Here’s another historical doozie from Horowitz: “The success of the anti-Vietnam left resulted in the deaths of two and a half million people in Indo-China who were slaughtered by the Marxists after the ‘peace movement’ forced America’s withdrawal.” No doubt Horowitz read the flawed study authored by Jacqueline Desbarats and Karl Jackson, which attempted to demonstrate how a major bloodbath went down in South Vietnam following the Communist victory of 1975. This myth was pretty much put to rest by Gareth Porter and James Roberts in “Creating a Bloodbath by Statistical Manipulation.” At any rate, if David is sincerely interested in learning about murder in Southeast Asia, he may begin with Zbigniew Brzezinski. “I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thai to help the [Khmer Rouge],” Brzezinski has proudly admitted. In November 1980, Ray Cline, former Deputy Director of the CIA, visited a Khmer Rouge enclave inside Cambodia in his capacity as senior foreign-policy adviser to President-elect Ronald Reagan. Good old Reagan, undoubtedly a hero for Horowitz and like-minded far right demagogues, made sure Pol Pot and his genocidal and obsequious followers received $85 million from 1980 to 1986. All of this was revealed years later in correspondence between congressional lawyer Jonathan Winer, then counsel to Sen. John Kerry of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. Horowitz, to his discredit, is careless with the facts — but then, as a propagandist, he is not in the business of truth or accuracy. David is after the “internal threat,” those who would “weaken America’s defenses from within,” which is to say anybody who disagrees with him or US foreign policy, anybody who may elect to exercise his or her constitutional right to petition the government.
David Horowitz believes the “size of [the Washington] demonstrations is a reflection of the growth of a treacherous anti-American radicalism in this country that has no Communist Party per se, but is just as dedicated to America’s destruction… [America is] the Great Satan and we deserve to be attacked. This is the real message of the so-called peace movement, often covertly and disingenuously expressed… Their agenda is to weaken America’s defenses from within. The question is: will we let them?” If anybody is disingenuous here, it is Horowitz. As a former antiwar leftist he knows damn well the vast majority of the people who oppose Bush’s impending war do not want to destroy America — or are they dedicated to aiding and abetting al-Qaeda — but rather they are sincerely interested in preventing an unnecessary and potentially disastrous war. Because David Horowitz wanted to destroy his country when he was a Marxist some thirty odd years ago does not mean all progressives desire to do the same now. Chances are very few of them are Marxists or conniving black flag anarchists bent on throwing bombs, as Horowitz would likely have it. Chances are, as well, they are unanimous in their disapproval and loathing of the mass murder perpetuated on September 11. Horowitz simply reveals his cynical, paranoid, and — yes, unfortunately — misanthropic nature by churning out such sweeping and absurd comments about the good intentions of people he knows absolutely nothing about. Like a many former Marxists gone to neocon seed, he is a master at shuffling people off into neat red pencil categories of disapprobation.
Finally, Horowitz is with John Ashcroft, the son of a preacher who agrees wholeheartedly about the “internal threat” (i.e., those with the temerity to dissent insane and destructive policies) and a man bestowed with the power to do something about it. “The hatred of John Ashcroft reflects the demonstrators’ hatred for the American government and for the ordinary Americans whom our government protects,” opines David. How, exactly, this protection will arrive in the guise of the Patriot Act — with its draconian provisions for internet snooping, roving wiretaps, domestic detours around FISA limitations, and “sneak-and-peek” warrants — is not explained. Obviously, Horowitz agrees with Ashcroft and Bush that good old fashion government, as envisioned by the founders of this nation, is no longer relevant, desirable, or applicable. If Thomas Jefferson were around today, no doubt he would have something to say about Bush’s wholesale trashing of governmental checks and balances, the creation of a secret and unanswerable executive branch, throwing habeas corpus out the window, snooping on the reading habits of library patrons, holding American citizens incommunicado, and eventual military tribunals for the same conducted in secret star chambers. But then, I imagine, Horowitz would characterize Jefferson as an America-hating communist as well, mostly because he sincerely believed in the “eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury,” which Ashcroft and his apologist Horowitz, in their eminent arrogance and contempt for those who disagree with them, believe is no longer necessary.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/10/31/the-delusions-of-david-horowitz/
Horowitz - a burnt out nutter who twists the truth at every opportunity.
I think Dodge that if the Germans had invaded here and stolen out land, you would have rolled over and played dead like the pathetic soul you are, because after all, you believe people defending their land are terrorists, so you would have been a collaborator, licking the Nazi boots, begging them to take more.
The Horowitz glass is distorted, blackened. When he ganders therein, David observes Ramsey Clark lending a helping hand to Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein. It does not matter, of course, that Clark has denounced Saddam Hussein; what irks David is the fact Clark has called the sanctions against Iraq immoral and barbaric, not the stuff of a civilized people. Or maybe Horowitz is angered by Clark’s insistence that Bush Senior is a war criminal for bombing helpless Iraqi innocents into pre-industrial hellishness over a decade ago. David, in his devious way, makes no mention of these things, preferring instead stark generalities. David Horowitz cannot be bothered with particulars or fair play. There is no time, or luxury, because the Clarks of the world dream of a “Communist revolution in America,” the “immediate agenda” of which is to “force America’s defeat in the war with terror we are now in.” Clark and the “100,000 Communists” in Washington last weekend “are not pacifists and they are not peaceniks,” they are “a movement of by and for America’s enemies within.” You, who are now reading this, and who may disagree with Bush’s cataclysmic plans for Iraq — you are seditious fellow travelers on the move with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
David Horowitz has also revealed a fondness for historical revisionism, or possibly historical omission. “The Communist left,” explains neocon guru David, “also opposed ‘American militarism’ in the 1930s to prevent the West from stopping Hitler.” Never mind that well before the US even pondered going to war with Germany (which, prior to Pearl Harbor, most Americans did not support) — back when Henry Ford was accepting awards from the Nazis and happy as a clam to have slave laborers toiling in his German factories — more than a few American communists and plain folk of principle were sailing off for Spain to fight the Franco version of fascism. Moreover, David may wish to tell us about the Nazi ?migr?s who assumed prominent positions in the Republican Party after the war. I wonder, does the name Reinhard Gehlen ring a bell with David Horowitz? Or possibly Laszlo Pasztor, a convicted Nazi war collaborator, who served as adviser to Republican Paul Weyrich? David should exercise more caution when he decides to become a history teacher.
Here’s another historical doozie from Horowitz: “The success of the anti-Vietnam left resulted in the deaths of two and a half million people in Indo-China who were slaughtered by the Marxists after the ‘peace movement’ forced America’s withdrawal.” No doubt Horowitz read the flawed study authored by Jacqueline Desbarats and Karl Jackson, which attempted to demonstrate how a major bloodbath went down in South Vietnam following the Communist victory of 1975. This myth was pretty much put to rest by Gareth Porter and James Roberts in “Creating a Bloodbath by Statistical Manipulation.” At any rate, if David is sincerely interested in learning about murder in Southeast Asia, he may begin with Zbigniew Brzezinski. “I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thai to help the [Khmer Rouge],” Brzezinski has proudly admitted. In November 1980, Ray Cline, former Deputy Director of the CIA, visited a Khmer Rouge enclave inside Cambodia in his capacity as senior foreign-policy adviser to President-elect Ronald Reagan. Good old Reagan, undoubtedly a hero for Horowitz and like-minded far right demagogues, made sure Pol Pot and his genocidal and obsequious followers received $85 million from 1980 to 1986. All of this was revealed years later in correspondence between congressional lawyer Jonathan Winer, then counsel to Sen. John Kerry of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. Horowitz, to his discredit, is careless with the facts — but then, as a propagandist, he is not in the business of truth or accuracy. David is after the “internal threat,” those who would “weaken America’s defenses from within,” which is to say anybody who disagrees with him or US foreign policy, anybody who may elect to exercise his or her constitutional right to petition the government.
David Horowitz believes the “size of [the Washington] demonstrations is a reflection of the growth of a treacherous anti-American radicalism in this country that has no Communist Party per se, but is just as dedicated to America’s destruction… [America is] the Great Satan and we deserve to be attacked. This is the real message of the so-called peace movement, often covertly and disingenuously expressed… Their agenda is to weaken America’s defenses from within. The question is: will we let them?” If anybody is disingenuous here, it is Horowitz. As a former antiwar leftist he knows damn well the vast majority of the people who oppose Bush’s impending war do not want to destroy America — or are they dedicated to aiding and abetting al-Qaeda — but rather they are sincerely interested in preventing an unnecessary and potentially disastrous war. Because David Horowitz wanted to destroy his country when he was a Marxist some thirty odd years ago does not mean all progressives desire to do the same now. Chances are very few of them are Marxists or conniving black flag anarchists bent on throwing bombs, as Horowitz would likely have it. Chances are, as well, they are unanimous in their disapproval and loathing of the mass murder perpetuated on September 11. Horowitz simply reveals his cynical, paranoid, and — yes, unfortunately — misanthropic nature by churning out such sweeping and absurd comments about the good intentions of people he knows absolutely nothing about. Like a many former Marxists gone to neocon seed, he is a master at shuffling people off into neat red pencil categories of disapprobation.
Finally, Horowitz is with John Ashcroft, the son of a preacher who agrees wholeheartedly about the “internal threat” (i.e., those with the temerity to dissent insane and destructive policies) and a man bestowed with the power to do something about it. “The hatred of John Ashcroft reflects the demonstrators’ hatred for the American government and for the ordinary Americans whom our government protects,” opines David. How, exactly, this protection will arrive in the guise of the Patriot Act — with its draconian provisions for internet snooping, roving wiretaps, domestic detours around FISA limitations, and “sneak-and-peek” warrants — is not explained. Obviously, Horowitz agrees with Ashcroft and Bush that good old fashion government, as envisioned by the founders of this nation, is no longer relevant, desirable, or applicable. If Thomas Jefferson were around today, no doubt he would have something to say about Bush’s wholesale trashing of governmental checks and balances, the creation of a secret and unanswerable executive branch, throwing habeas corpus out the window, snooping on the reading habits of library patrons, holding American citizens incommunicado, and eventual military tribunals for the same conducted in secret star chambers. But then, I imagine, Horowitz would characterize Jefferson as an America-hating communist as well, mostly because he sincerely believed in the “eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury,” which Ashcroft and his apologist Horowitz, in their eminent arrogance and contempt for those who disagree with them, believe is no longer necessary.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/10/31/the-delusions-of-david-horowitz/
Horowitz - a burnt out nutter who twists the truth at every opportunity.
I think Dodge that if the Germans had invaded here and stolen out land, you would have rolled over and played dead like the pathetic soul you are, because after all, you believe people defending their land are terrorists, so you would have been a collaborator, licking the Nazi boots, begging them to take more.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 9:23 pm
As a friend of mine said:
People that want to stand with Israel, let them. If you wilfully choose to stand on the side of clear injustice then that speaks for itself.
People that want to stand with Israel, let them. If you wilfully choose to stand on the side of clear injustice then that speaks for itself.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 9:26 pm
Holocaust survivors condemn Israel for 'Gaza massacre,' call for boycott
In response to Elie Wiesel advertisement comparing Hamas to Nazis, 327 Jewish Holocaust survivors and descendants publish New York Times ad accusing Israel of 'ongoing massacre of the Palestinian people.'
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.612072
In response to Elie Wiesel advertisement comparing Hamas to Nazis, 327 Jewish Holocaust survivors and descendants publish New York Times ad accusing Israel of 'ongoing massacre of the Palestinian people.'
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.612072
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 9:29 pm
And the replies from 'peace loving Israelis'
Israelis on Facebook wish death for Holocaust survivors against 'Protective Edge'
Nope, it’s not The Onion.
A few days ago some 300 Holocaust survivors placed an ad in the New York Times condemning the massacre in Gaza. My colleague from Local Call, John Brown, has selected a few of the responses on Facebook that Israelis posted in response to the ad.
I’ve translated a few from John’s selection:
David Cohen: Those aren’t Holocaust survivors those are probably collaborators with the Nazis.
Shmulik Halphon: He’s invited to go back to Auschwitz.
Itzik Levy: These are survivors who were Kapos. Leftist traitors. That’s why they live abroad and not in the Jewish State.
Vitali Guttman: Enough, they should die already. They survived the Holocaust only to do another Holocaust to Israel in global public opinion?
Meir Dahan: No wonder Hitler murdered 6 million Jews because of people like you you’re not even Jews you’re disgusting people a disgrace to humanity and so are your offspring you are trash.
Asher Solomon: It’s a shame Hitler didn’t finish the job.
Katy Morali: Holocaust survivors who think like this are invited to go die in the gas chambers.
Yafa Ashraf: Shitty Ashkenazis you are the Nazis.
http://972mag.com/nstt_feeditem/israelis-on-facebook-wish-death-for-holocaust-survivors-against-protective-edge/
Israelis on Facebook wish death for Holocaust survivors against 'Protective Edge'
Nope, it’s not The Onion.
A few days ago some 300 Holocaust survivors placed an ad in the New York Times condemning the massacre in Gaza. My colleague from Local Call, John Brown, has selected a few of the responses on Facebook that Israelis posted in response to the ad.
I’ve translated a few from John’s selection:
David Cohen: Those aren’t Holocaust survivors those are probably collaborators with the Nazis.
Shmulik Halphon: He’s invited to go back to Auschwitz.
Itzik Levy: These are survivors who were Kapos. Leftist traitors. That’s why they live abroad and not in the Jewish State.
Vitali Guttman: Enough, they should die already. They survived the Holocaust only to do another Holocaust to Israel in global public opinion?
Meir Dahan: No wonder Hitler murdered 6 million Jews because of people like you you’re not even Jews you’re disgusting people a disgrace to humanity and so are your offspring you are trash.
Asher Solomon: It’s a shame Hitler didn’t finish the job.
Katy Morali: Holocaust survivors who think like this are invited to go die in the gas chambers.
Yafa Ashraf: Shitty Ashkenazis you are the Nazis.
http://972mag.com/nstt_feeditem/israelis-on-facebook-wish-death-for-holocaust-survivors-against-protective-edge/
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:07 pm
Anyon who stands against Isrel and backs Hamas backs the genoicide and hate of the Jews. The fact that Hamas and many Muslims want the erdaication of the Jews is never understood by the extreme left they back a failed horse not understanding its true goal.
Again all the evidence is there and why Hamas supporters are Jew haters.
Again all the evidence is there and why Hamas supporters are Jew haters.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:19 pm
Debunking Israel's 11 Main Myths About Gaza, Hamas and War Crimes
You've got to hand it to Israeli spinners like Mark Regev. They are masters of PR. In fact, as the Independent's Patrick Cockburn revealed over the weekend, "the playbook they are using is a professional, well-researched and confidential study on how to influence the media and public opinion in America and Europe".
Let's be clear: I'm no fan of Hamas, a brutal and anti-Semitic group which has been accused by Amnesty International and other NGOs of human rights abuses against the people of Gaza and of war crimes against the people of Israel. Firing rockets into civilian areas isn't justified under international law, even if it is framed as part of a (legitimate) struggle against foreign military occupation.
Having said that, however, in recent days I've been debating supporters of Israel's latest assault on Gaza on radio and on Twitter and I've been astonished not just by the sheer number of fact-free claims made by those supporters, but also by their confidence, slickness and sheer message discipline. According to the pro-Israel, pro-IDF crowd, Hamas is to blame for everything.
This, of course, is utter nonsense. To quote the late US senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts."
So, in a Moynihanian spirit, here are fact-filled, evidence-based rebuttals to the 11 main myths, half-truths and self-serving 'talking points' that are repeatedly pushed by various Israeli spokespersons, both on the airwaves and on social media:
1) The Gaza Strip isn't occupied by Israel
Boston Globe: "Israeli-imposed buffer zones.. now absorb nearly 14 percent of Gaza's total land and at least 48 percent of total arable land. Similarly, the sea buffer zone covers 85 percent of the maritime area promised to Palestinians in the Oslo Accords, reducing 20 nautical miles to three." Human Rights Watch: "Israel also continues to control the population registry for residents of the Gaza Strip, years after it withdrew its ground forces and settlements there." B'Tselem, 2013: "Israel continues to maintain exclusive control of Gaza's airspace and the territorial waters, just as it has since it occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967."
2) Israel wants a ceasefire but Hamas doesn't
Al Jazeera: "Meshaal said Hamas wants the 'aggression to stop tomorrow, today, or even this minute. But [Israel must] lift the blockade with guarantees and not as a promise for future negotiations'. He added 'we will not shut the door in the face of any humanitarian ceasefire backed by a real aid programme'." Jerusalem Post: "One day after an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire accepted by Israel, but rejected by Hamas, fell through, the terrorist organization proposed a 10-year end to hostilities in return for its conditions being met by Israel, Channel 2 reported Wednesday.. Hamas's conditions were the release of re-arrested Palestinian prisoners who were let go in the Schalit deal, the opening of Gaza-Israel border crossings in order to allow citizens and goods to pass through, and international supervision of the Gazan seaport in place of the current Israeli blockade." BBC: "Israel's security cabinet has rejected a week-long Gaza ceasefire proposal put forward by US Secretary of State John Kerry 'as it stands'."
3) Israel, unlike Hamas, doesn't deliberately target civilians
The Guardian: "It was there that the second [Israeli] shell hit the beach, those firing apparently adjusting their fire to target the fleeing survivors. As it exploded, journalists standing by the terrace wall shouted: 'They are only children.'" UN high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay: "A number of incidents, along with the high number of civilian deaths, belies the [Israeli] claim that all necessary precautions are being taken to protect civilian lives." United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, 2009: "The tactics used by the Israeli armed forces in the Gaza offensive are consistent with previous practices, most recently during the Lebanon war in 2006. A concept known as the Dahiya doctrine emerged then, involving the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations. The Mission concludes from a review of the facts on the ground that it.. appears to have been precisely what was put into practice."
4) Only Hamas is guilty of war crimes, not Israel
Human Rights Watch: "Israeli forces may also have knowingly or recklessly attacked people who were clearly civilians, such as young boys, and civilian structures, including a hospital - laws-of-war violations that are indicative of war crimes." Amnesty International: "Deliberately attacking a civilian home is a war crime, and the overwhelming scale of destruction of civilian homes, in some cases with entire families inside them, points to a distressing pattern of repeated violations of the laws of war."
5) Hamas use the civilians of Gaza as 'human shields'
Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor: "I saw no evidence during my week in Gaza of Israel's accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields." The Guardian: "In the past week, the Guardian has seen large numbers of people fleeing different neighbourhoods.. and no evidence that Hamas had compelled them to stay." The Independent: "Some Gazans have admitted that they were afraid of criticizing Hamas, but none have said they had been forced by the organisation to stay in places of danger and become unwilling human-shields." Reuters, 2013: "A United Nations human rights body accused Israeli forces on Thursday of mistreating Palestinian children, including by torturing those in custody and using others as human shields."
6) This current Gaza conflict began with Hamas rocket fire on 30 June 2014
Times of Israel: "Hamas operatives were behind a large volley of rockets which slammed into Israel Monday morning, the first time in years the Islamist group has directly challenged the Jewish state, according to Israeli defense officials.. The security sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, assessed that Hamas had probably launched the barrage in revenge for an Israeli airstrike several hours earlier which killed one person and injured three more.. Hamas hasn't fired rockets into Israel since Operation Pillar of Defense ended in November 2012." The Nation: "During ten days of Operation Brother's Keeper in the West Bank [before the start of the Gaza conflict], Israel arrested approximately 800 Palestinians without charge or trial, killed nine civilians and raided nearly 1,300 residential, commercial and public buildings. Its military operation targeted Hamas members released during the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011."
7) Hamas has never stopped firing rockets into Israel
Jewish Daily Forward: "Hamas hadn't fired a single rocket since [2012 Gaza conflict], and had largely suppressed fire by smaller jihadi groups. Rocket firings, averaging 240 per month in 2007, dropped to five per month in 2013." International Crisis Group: "Fewer rockets were fired from Gaza in 2013 than in any year since 2001, and nearly all those that were fired between the November 2012 ceasefire and the current crisis were launched by groups other than Hamas; the Israeli security establishment testified to the aggressive anti-rocket efforts made by the new police force Hamas established specifically for that purpose.. As Israel (and Egypt) rolled back the 2012 understandings - some of which were implemented spottily at best - so too did Hamas roll back its anti rocket efforts."
Hamas provoked Israel by kidnapping and killing three Israeli teenagers
Jewish Daily Forward: "The [Israeli] government had known almost from the beginning that the boys were dead. It maintained the fiction that it hoped to find them alive as a pretext to dismantle Hamas' West Bank operations.. Nor was that the only fib. It was clear from the beginning that the kidnappers weren't acting on orders from Hamas leadership in Gaza or Damascus. Hamas' Hebron branch -- more a crime family than a clandestine organization -- had a history of acting without the leaders' knowledge, sometimes against their interests." BBC correspondent Jon Donnison: "Israeli police MickeyRosenfeld tells me men who killed 3 Israeli teens def lone cell, hamas affiliated but not operating under leadership.. Seems to contradict the line from Netanyahu government."
9) Hamas rule, not Israel's blockade, is to blame for the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip
US State Department cable: "Israeli officials have confirmed to Embassy officials on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.. Israeli officials have confirmed.. on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge." The Guardian: "The Israeli military made precise calculations of Gaza's daily calorie needs to avoid malnutrition during a blockade imposed on the Palestinian territory between 2007 and mid-2010, according to files the defence ministry released on Wednesday under a court order.. The Israeli advocacy group Gisha.. waged a long court battle to release the document. Its members say Israel calculated the calorie needs for Gaza's population so as to restrict the quantity of food it allowed in."
10) The Israeli government, unlike Hamas, wants a two-state solution
Times of Israel: "[Netanyahu] made explicitly clear that he could never, ever, countenance a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank.. Amid the current conflict, he elaborated, 'I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.'"
11) All serious analysts agree it was Hamas, and not Israel, that started this current conflict
Nathan Thrall, senior Mid East analyst at the International Crisis Group, writing in the New York Times: "The current escalation in Gaza is a direct result of the choice by Israel and the West to obstruct the implementation of the April 2014 Palestinian reconciliation agreement." Henry Siegman, former national director, American Jewish Congress, writing for Politico: "Israel's assault on Gaza.. was not triggered by Hamas' rockets directed at Israel but by Israel's determination to bring down the Palestinian unity government that was formed in early June, even though that government was committed to honoring all of the conditions imposed by the international community for recognition of its legitimacy."
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/gaza-israel_b_5624401.html
You carry being an appeaser of injustice, an apologist for Israeli crimes, a defender of them blowing children to smithereens, a boot licker who would let your land be run over because to defend it is to be a terrorist.
You've got to hand it to Israeli spinners like Mark Regev. They are masters of PR. In fact, as the Independent's Patrick Cockburn revealed over the weekend, "the playbook they are using is a professional, well-researched and confidential study on how to influence the media and public opinion in America and Europe".
Let's be clear: I'm no fan of Hamas, a brutal and anti-Semitic group which has been accused by Amnesty International and other NGOs of human rights abuses against the people of Gaza and of war crimes against the people of Israel. Firing rockets into civilian areas isn't justified under international law, even if it is framed as part of a (legitimate) struggle against foreign military occupation.
Having said that, however, in recent days I've been debating supporters of Israel's latest assault on Gaza on radio and on Twitter and I've been astonished not just by the sheer number of fact-free claims made by those supporters, but also by their confidence, slickness and sheer message discipline. According to the pro-Israel, pro-IDF crowd, Hamas is to blame for everything.
This, of course, is utter nonsense. To quote the late US senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts."
So, in a Moynihanian spirit, here are fact-filled, evidence-based rebuttals to the 11 main myths, half-truths and self-serving 'talking points' that are repeatedly pushed by various Israeli spokespersons, both on the airwaves and on social media:
1) The Gaza Strip isn't occupied by Israel
Boston Globe: "Israeli-imposed buffer zones.. now absorb nearly 14 percent of Gaza's total land and at least 48 percent of total arable land. Similarly, the sea buffer zone covers 85 percent of the maritime area promised to Palestinians in the Oslo Accords, reducing 20 nautical miles to three." Human Rights Watch: "Israel also continues to control the population registry for residents of the Gaza Strip, years after it withdrew its ground forces and settlements there." B'Tselem, 2013: "Israel continues to maintain exclusive control of Gaza's airspace and the territorial waters, just as it has since it occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967."
2) Israel wants a ceasefire but Hamas doesn't
Al Jazeera: "Meshaal said Hamas wants the 'aggression to stop tomorrow, today, or even this minute. But [Israel must] lift the blockade with guarantees and not as a promise for future negotiations'. He added 'we will not shut the door in the face of any humanitarian ceasefire backed by a real aid programme'." Jerusalem Post: "One day after an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire accepted by Israel, but rejected by Hamas, fell through, the terrorist organization proposed a 10-year end to hostilities in return for its conditions being met by Israel, Channel 2 reported Wednesday.. Hamas's conditions were the release of re-arrested Palestinian prisoners who were let go in the Schalit deal, the opening of Gaza-Israel border crossings in order to allow citizens and goods to pass through, and international supervision of the Gazan seaport in place of the current Israeli blockade." BBC: "Israel's security cabinet has rejected a week-long Gaza ceasefire proposal put forward by US Secretary of State John Kerry 'as it stands'."
3) Israel, unlike Hamas, doesn't deliberately target civilians
The Guardian: "It was there that the second [Israeli] shell hit the beach, those firing apparently adjusting their fire to target the fleeing survivors. As it exploded, journalists standing by the terrace wall shouted: 'They are only children.'" UN high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay: "A number of incidents, along with the high number of civilian deaths, belies the [Israeli] claim that all necessary precautions are being taken to protect civilian lives." United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, 2009: "The tactics used by the Israeli armed forces in the Gaza offensive are consistent with previous practices, most recently during the Lebanon war in 2006. A concept known as the Dahiya doctrine emerged then, involving the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations. The Mission concludes from a review of the facts on the ground that it.. appears to have been precisely what was put into practice."
4) Only Hamas is guilty of war crimes, not Israel
Human Rights Watch: "Israeli forces may also have knowingly or recklessly attacked people who were clearly civilians, such as young boys, and civilian structures, including a hospital - laws-of-war violations that are indicative of war crimes." Amnesty International: "Deliberately attacking a civilian home is a war crime, and the overwhelming scale of destruction of civilian homes, in some cases with entire families inside them, points to a distressing pattern of repeated violations of the laws of war."
5) Hamas use the civilians of Gaza as 'human shields'
Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor: "I saw no evidence during my week in Gaza of Israel's accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields." The Guardian: "In the past week, the Guardian has seen large numbers of people fleeing different neighbourhoods.. and no evidence that Hamas had compelled them to stay." The Independent: "Some Gazans have admitted that they were afraid of criticizing Hamas, but none have said they had been forced by the organisation to stay in places of danger and become unwilling human-shields." Reuters, 2013: "A United Nations human rights body accused Israeli forces on Thursday of mistreating Palestinian children, including by torturing those in custody and using others as human shields."
6) This current Gaza conflict began with Hamas rocket fire on 30 June 2014
Times of Israel: "Hamas operatives were behind a large volley of rockets which slammed into Israel Monday morning, the first time in years the Islamist group has directly challenged the Jewish state, according to Israeli defense officials.. The security sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, assessed that Hamas had probably launched the barrage in revenge for an Israeli airstrike several hours earlier which killed one person and injured three more.. Hamas hasn't fired rockets into Israel since Operation Pillar of Defense ended in November 2012." The Nation: "During ten days of Operation Brother's Keeper in the West Bank [before the start of the Gaza conflict], Israel arrested approximately 800 Palestinians without charge or trial, killed nine civilians and raided nearly 1,300 residential, commercial and public buildings. Its military operation targeted Hamas members released during the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011."
7) Hamas has never stopped firing rockets into Israel
Jewish Daily Forward: "Hamas hadn't fired a single rocket since [2012 Gaza conflict], and had largely suppressed fire by smaller jihadi groups. Rocket firings, averaging 240 per month in 2007, dropped to five per month in 2013." International Crisis Group: "Fewer rockets were fired from Gaza in 2013 than in any year since 2001, and nearly all those that were fired between the November 2012 ceasefire and the current crisis were launched by groups other than Hamas; the Israeli security establishment testified to the aggressive anti-rocket efforts made by the new police force Hamas established specifically for that purpose.. As Israel (and Egypt) rolled back the 2012 understandings - some of which were implemented spottily at best - so too did Hamas roll back its anti rocket efforts."
Hamas provoked Israel by kidnapping and killing three Israeli teenagersJewish Daily Forward: "The [Israeli] government had known almost from the beginning that the boys were dead. It maintained the fiction that it hoped to find them alive as a pretext to dismantle Hamas' West Bank operations.. Nor was that the only fib. It was clear from the beginning that the kidnappers weren't acting on orders from Hamas leadership in Gaza or Damascus. Hamas' Hebron branch -- more a crime family than a clandestine organization -- had a history of acting without the leaders' knowledge, sometimes against their interests." BBC correspondent Jon Donnison: "Israeli police MickeyRosenfeld tells me men who killed 3 Israeli teens def lone cell, hamas affiliated but not operating under leadership.. Seems to contradict the line from Netanyahu government."
9) Hamas rule, not Israel's blockade, is to blame for the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip
US State Department cable: "Israeli officials have confirmed to Embassy officials on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.. Israeli officials have confirmed.. on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge." The Guardian: "The Israeli military made precise calculations of Gaza's daily calorie needs to avoid malnutrition during a blockade imposed on the Palestinian territory between 2007 and mid-2010, according to files the defence ministry released on Wednesday under a court order.. The Israeli advocacy group Gisha.. waged a long court battle to release the document. Its members say Israel calculated the calorie needs for Gaza's population so as to restrict the quantity of food it allowed in."
10) The Israeli government, unlike Hamas, wants a two-state solution
Times of Israel: "[Netanyahu] made explicitly clear that he could never, ever, countenance a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank.. Amid the current conflict, he elaborated, 'I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.'"
11) All serious analysts agree it was Hamas, and not Israel, that started this current conflict
Nathan Thrall, senior Mid East analyst at the International Crisis Group, writing in the New York Times: "The current escalation in Gaza is a direct result of the choice by Israel and the West to obstruct the implementation of the April 2014 Palestinian reconciliation agreement." Henry Siegman, former national director, American Jewish Congress, writing for Politico: "Israel's assault on Gaza.. was not triggered by Hamas' rockets directed at Israel but by Israel's determination to bring down the Palestinian unity government that was formed in early June, even though that government was committed to honoring all of the conditions imposed by the international community for recognition of its legitimacy."
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/gaza-israel_b_5624401.html
You carry being an appeaser of injustice, an apologist for Israeli crimes, a defender of them blowing children to smithereens, a boot licker who would let your land be run over because to defend it is to be a terrorist.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:22 pm
You see the left proving they buy the lies Hamas gives, because trhey themselves are jew haters.
Hamas calls for the utter destruction of the Jews and Israel.
Hamas builds no bom shelters with the money it is given and insetad buys weapons tro attack Israel.
Hamas commits child abuse teaching every child to hate the Jews.
Only those that support this madness are also Nazi'.
Hamas calls for the utter destruction of the Jews and Israel.
Hamas builds no bom shelters with the money it is given and insetad buys weapons tro attack Israel.
Hamas commits child abuse teaching every child to hate the Jews.
Only those that support this madness are also Nazi'.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:23 pm
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:24 pm
Now we more propaganda from the Jew hater who would have been welcomed in open arms in Nazi Germany
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:25 pm
Here’s a classic. Let’s start with the ghoulish display of sorrow over the body of a dead boy, allegedly killed by Israeli bombing. It’s aimed right at the heart of a someone like Annie Lennox who, upon seeing bombs falling on Gaza immediately imagines Palestinian babies on the receiving end, rather than Hamas militants targeting Israeli babies. And, of course, the news media snatch up the photo-op.
And, of course, the media run with the story. It’s all so obvious. Boy dead from explosion, Israelis bombing Gaza. As the Palestinian “general” in charge of the investigation of Al Durah’s death put it, “there’s no need to investigate when we know who did it.”
But wait, what about the evidence, asks Elder of Baker Street? Jodi Rudoren, who for all her flakey early noises when she was assigned the Middle East beat by the NYT, shows some signs of independent journalism writes:
It is unclear who was responsible for the strike on Annazla: the damage was nowhere near severe enough to have come from an Israeli F-16, raising the possibility that an errant missile fired by Palestinian militants was responsible for the deaths.
And Karin Laub, the AP reporter, adds significant detail:
Israel vehemently denied involvement, saying it had not carried out any attacks in the area at the time. Gaza’s two leading human rights groups, which routinely investigate civilian deaths, withheld judgment, saying they were unable to reach the area because of continued danger. Mahmoud’s family said the boy was in an alley close to his home when he was killed, along with a man of about 20, but no one appeared to have witnessed the strike. The area showed signs that a projectile might have exploded there, with shrapnel marks in the walls of surrounding homes and a shattered kitchen window. But neighbors said local security officials quickly took what remained of the projectile, making it impossible to verify who fired it.
We’ve seen this scenario before. In the summer of 2006, most of the Ghalia family were killed in an explosion on the Gaza Beach. The Palestinians, with the help of dramatic but dubious footage of their young daughter, meandering in wild grief among the wreckage, sold the Western news media, who immediately broadcast their claim that the family, while relaxing on the beach, was shelled by Israeli naval ships. Classic Pallywood. Evidence piled up that the Israelis had not been firing there, that the hole caused by the ordnance did not accord with an Israeli shell, that despite claims to the contrary, Palestinian sources and their unofficial spokesman, Mark Garlasco of HRW had no ballistic evidence of what caused the explosion. When it came time to send two of the youngest victims to Israeli hospitals, and at risk to their lives, the doctors hastily removed the shrapnel from their bodies.
In this case, however, journalists begin to show some signs of forensic acuity. To be fair, them to us, and we to them, both the NYT’s Jodi Rudoren and AP’s Karen Laub actually mention the anomalous evidence: the explosion was too small to have been fired from a plane; the clean-up crew visited the site before the journalists. Indeed, the Algemeiner contacted a ballistics expert who confirmed Rudoren’s suspicions:
After reviewing CNN’s footage of the scene of the blast, Yiftah Shapir, a ballistics expert who is the Director of the Middle East Military Balance Project at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel confirmed to The Algemeiner, “It is reasonable to say that this damage is from a relatively small explosion at close range.”
“You see a lot of small holes,” he added, “If it was a very heavy bomb the damage would be worse, and at long range the shrapnel would be spread much more widely because of the long distance.”
This is obviously a huge step forward over the Guardian’s Suzanne Goldenberg’s appraisal on October 1, 2000, of the wall behind barrel that Muhammad al Durah and his father had hidden behind, the previous day.
From Nahum Shahaf’s archive:
Told that the Israelis had fired for 40 minutes of “bullets like rain” until they killed the boy, Goldenberg looked at the dozen or so bullet holes that looked suspiciously like they were shot from “head on,” rather than the 30% angle of an Israeli bullet would have to travel to leave marks on the wall, and pronounced the cluster “proof that the Israelis had targeted the boy.”
Apparently, now, almost 13 years later, some journalists have at least problematised the Israeli-Goliath/Palestinian-David framing story: maybe that doesn’t cover all the cases. It is after all, a journalistic task to give us the relevant evidence. Obviously more investigation is called for, but thanks for the allusive scraps. Those who argued that Israel should have let journalists into Gaza for OCL in 2008/9, because they would have provided quality control over the kind of footage that would come out of Gaza from unsupervised Palestinian “journalists,” have evidence for their claim in this kind of reporting. Similarly, watchdog groups like NGO Monitor have read the riot act even to Palestinian NGOs, notorious for their anti-Israel advocacy brand of “human rights” defence. Notes Elder of Baker Street:
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights , which is keeping track of everyone killed in Gaza (and which admits that most of the dead have been “militants,”) did not list Mahmoud Sadallah or Aiman Aby Wardah in their list of victims of Israeli airstrikes, although they even include one person who died of a heart attack.
So far so good. Now I don’t want to grade elementary school students by too high a standard, but an alert journalist’s antennae should quiver at the comment, “no one appeared to have witnessed the strike”. In one of the most densely populated neighbourhoods of “one of the most densely populated areas in the world”? No one noticed? Omerta? Possibly. Probably, if it were a Hamas explosive.
How many journalists or readers even think on the role of intimidation in shaping the news they get?
And yet, another datum corroborates this hypothesis: Laub informs us, “local security officials quickly took what remained of the projectile.” Two questions:
1) Are we sure it was all “projectile”? What if part of it was the mangled body of a rocket launcher that blew up on the launchers, killing the neighbours, including the four-year-old boy?
2) Does one imagine all these cleaners did was run in, remove the item(s) in question, and leave without also informing those watching them not to speak about the event? Indeed, I wonder who was the brave person who reported about the clean-up crew?
Here is the head of Hamas, whose boys systematically fire from the midst of civilians, in order create civilian casualties they can then blame on Israeli counter-strikes, exploiting a death directly caused by his men in order to appeal to Wwestern sympathy. It would be hard to imagine a more stunning portrait of the most depraved hypocrisy (and contempt for viewers who believe this display of compassion). If hypocrisy is the compliment that vice pays to virtue, then this brazen hypocrisy is the contempt vice shows for the pathetic stupidity of the supposedly virtuous.
After all, it is hard to imagine a more grotesque expression of a mutual corruption: trying to demonise your enemy before an outside audience whom you expect to side with you in the name of empathy for the very children you victimise. How disordered must the emotional and moral world of someone subject to this kind of manipulation?
Not only that, but Haniyah dragged into this humiliating display the prime minister of Egypt’s new “Muslim Brotherhood” government, trying to show support for her Palestinian branch, Hamas. Prime Minister Hesham Kandil jumped right in, kissing the baby, and subsequently testifying (in what BBC Correspondent Wyre Davies found to be a “powerful statement”): “his blood is still on our clothing.” Kandil’s a fool eagerly trying to join in the morbid circus Haniyah and Hamas so frequently stage. Haniyah, thinking he could get away with it, has dragged Kandil into this shameless pornography of death.
One last reflection. Hamas’s strategy has long been to attack from behind civilians to provoke Israeli retaliation and then use the collateral damage of those victims as a way to blame Israel. This is in fact a key element of their asymmetrical war with Israel. As one Gazan explained to an Italian reporter towards the end of Operation Cast Lead (OCL):
The Hamas militants looked for good places to provoke the Israelis. They were usually youths, 16 or 17 years old, armed with submachine guns. They couldn’t do anything against a tank or jet. They knew they were much weaker. But they wanted the [Israelis] to shoot at the [the civilians’] houses so they could accuse them of more war crimes.
In other words, Hamas engages in the exceptionally rare wartime act of actively victimizing one’s own civilian population – specifically a war crime – in order to win a victory in cognitive war. And they can only do so, if a corrupt media on the scene (including NGOs and UN agencies), rather than expose their criminal strategies, play along and present the images of dead babies in the framework of the Palestinian narrative of Israeli victimisation.
The fact that Hamas thought they could clean up the scene and pull off a Gaza Beach, successfully blaming the Israelis for the tragedy, speaks eloquently of their exceptionally low appraisal of the forensic acumen of the Western press (or their power to indimidate). And they have good reason to so believe. After all, Goldstone, in his investigation into the abuses of the Palestinian people during OCL, never once looked into this kind of human shielding. Imagine if he had!
Similarly, when so acute a journalist and commentator as Max Fisher puts his mind to analyzing this data and these issues, he ends up coming out with the empty-handed meme about “both sides…” It’s hard to know whether he is just incapable of siding with Israel on so simple and fundamental an issue, or he’s actively trying to do damage control for Hamas. In either case his readership is hardly served by his moral obfuscations in the name of even-handedness.
Alas. It’s hard to believe that if the press had learned the lessons of al Durah they’d still be suckered by this grotesaque display.
Now meditate on this picture, provided by Electronic Intifada to weaponise the tragedy against Israel.
Are you prepared to say, “so what if Hamas killed the boy, this picture symbolises Palestinian suffering at the hands of Israelis anyway”?
• An earlier version of this essay, one that includes all the pictures, appeared at Pajamas Media, and the evolving version is at the Augean Stables.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/richardlandes/100190395/pallywood-and-the-pornography-of-death-the-western-media-suckered-again/
And, of course, the media run with the story. It’s all so obvious. Boy dead from explosion, Israelis bombing Gaza. As the Palestinian “general” in charge of the investigation of Al Durah’s death put it, “there’s no need to investigate when we know who did it.”
But wait, what about the evidence, asks Elder of Baker Street? Jodi Rudoren, who for all her flakey early noises when she was assigned the Middle East beat by the NYT, shows some signs of independent journalism writes:
It is unclear who was responsible for the strike on Annazla: the damage was nowhere near severe enough to have come from an Israeli F-16, raising the possibility that an errant missile fired by Palestinian militants was responsible for the deaths.
And Karin Laub, the AP reporter, adds significant detail:
Israel vehemently denied involvement, saying it had not carried out any attacks in the area at the time. Gaza’s two leading human rights groups, which routinely investigate civilian deaths, withheld judgment, saying they were unable to reach the area because of continued danger. Mahmoud’s family said the boy was in an alley close to his home when he was killed, along with a man of about 20, but no one appeared to have witnessed the strike. The area showed signs that a projectile might have exploded there, with shrapnel marks in the walls of surrounding homes and a shattered kitchen window. But neighbors said local security officials quickly took what remained of the projectile, making it impossible to verify who fired it.
We’ve seen this scenario before. In the summer of 2006, most of the Ghalia family were killed in an explosion on the Gaza Beach. The Palestinians, with the help of dramatic but dubious footage of their young daughter, meandering in wild grief among the wreckage, sold the Western news media, who immediately broadcast their claim that the family, while relaxing on the beach, was shelled by Israeli naval ships. Classic Pallywood. Evidence piled up that the Israelis had not been firing there, that the hole caused by the ordnance did not accord with an Israeli shell, that despite claims to the contrary, Palestinian sources and their unofficial spokesman, Mark Garlasco of HRW had no ballistic evidence of what caused the explosion. When it came time to send two of the youngest victims to Israeli hospitals, and at risk to their lives, the doctors hastily removed the shrapnel from their bodies.
In this case, however, journalists begin to show some signs of forensic acuity. To be fair, them to us, and we to them, both the NYT’s Jodi Rudoren and AP’s Karen Laub actually mention the anomalous evidence: the explosion was too small to have been fired from a plane; the clean-up crew visited the site before the journalists. Indeed, the Algemeiner contacted a ballistics expert who confirmed Rudoren’s suspicions:
After reviewing CNN’s footage of the scene of the blast, Yiftah Shapir, a ballistics expert who is the Director of the Middle East Military Balance Project at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel confirmed to The Algemeiner, “It is reasonable to say that this damage is from a relatively small explosion at close range.”
“You see a lot of small holes,” he added, “If it was a very heavy bomb the damage would be worse, and at long range the shrapnel would be spread much more widely because of the long distance.”
This is obviously a huge step forward over the Guardian’s Suzanne Goldenberg’s appraisal on October 1, 2000, of the wall behind barrel that Muhammad al Durah and his father had hidden behind, the previous day.
From Nahum Shahaf’s archive:
Told that the Israelis had fired for 40 minutes of “bullets like rain” until they killed the boy, Goldenberg looked at the dozen or so bullet holes that looked suspiciously like they were shot from “head on,” rather than the 30% angle of an Israeli bullet would have to travel to leave marks on the wall, and pronounced the cluster “proof that the Israelis had targeted the boy.”
Apparently, now, almost 13 years later, some journalists have at least problematised the Israeli-Goliath/Palestinian-David framing story: maybe that doesn’t cover all the cases. It is after all, a journalistic task to give us the relevant evidence. Obviously more investigation is called for, but thanks for the allusive scraps. Those who argued that Israel should have let journalists into Gaza for OCL in 2008/9, because they would have provided quality control over the kind of footage that would come out of Gaza from unsupervised Palestinian “journalists,” have evidence for their claim in this kind of reporting. Similarly, watchdog groups like NGO Monitor have read the riot act even to Palestinian NGOs, notorious for their anti-Israel advocacy brand of “human rights” defence. Notes Elder of Baker Street:
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights , which is keeping track of everyone killed in Gaza (and which admits that most of the dead have been “militants,”) did not list Mahmoud Sadallah or Aiman Aby Wardah in their list of victims of Israeli airstrikes, although they even include one person who died of a heart attack.
So far so good. Now I don’t want to grade elementary school students by too high a standard, but an alert journalist’s antennae should quiver at the comment, “no one appeared to have witnessed the strike”. In one of the most densely populated neighbourhoods of “one of the most densely populated areas in the world”? No one noticed? Omerta? Possibly. Probably, if it were a Hamas explosive.
How many journalists or readers even think on the role of intimidation in shaping the news they get?
And yet, another datum corroborates this hypothesis: Laub informs us, “local security officials quickly took what remained of the projectile.” Two questions:
1) Are we sure it was all “projectile”? What if part of it was the mangled body of a rocket launcher that blew up on the launchers, killing the neighbours, including the four-year-old boy?
2) Does one imagine all these cleaners did was run in, remove the item(s) in question, and leave without also informing those watching them not to speak about the event? Indeed, I wonder who was the brave person who reported about the clean-up crew?
Here is the head of Hamas, whose boys systematically fire from the midst of civilians, in order create civilian casualties they can then blame on Israeli counter-strikes, exploiting a death directly caused by his men in order to appeal to Wwestern sympathy. It would be hard to imagine a more stunning portrait of the most depraved hypocrisy (and contempt for viewers who believe this display of compassion). If hypocrisy is the compliment that vice pays to virtue, then this brazen hypocrisy is the contempt vice shows for the pathetic stupidity of the supposedly virtuous.
After all, it is hard to imagine a more grotesque expression of a mutual corruption: trying to demonise your enemy before an outside audience whom you expect to side with you in the name of empathy for the very children you victimise. How disordered must the emotional and moral world of someone subject to this kind of manipulation?
Not only that, but Haniyah dragged into this humiliating display the prime minister of Egypt’s new “Muslim Brotherhood” government, trying to show support for her Palestinian branch, Hamas. Prime Minister Hesham Kandil jumped right in, kissing the baby, and subsequently testifying (in what BBC Correspondent Wyre Davies found to be a “powerful statement”): “his blood is still on our clothing.” Kandil’s a fool eagerly trying to join in the morbid circus Haniyah and Hamas so frequently stage. Haniyah, thinking he could get away with it, has dragged Kandil into this shameless pornography of death.
One last reflection. Hamas’s strategy has long been to attack from behind civilians to provoke Israeli retaliation and then use the collateral damage of those victims as a way to blame Israel. This is in fact a key element of their asymmetrical war with Israel. As one Gazan explained to an Italian reporter towards the end of Operation Cast Lead (OCL):
The Hamas militants looked for good places to provoke the Israelis. They were usually youths, 16 or 17 years old, armed with submachine guns. They couldn’t do anything against a tank or jet. They knew they were much weaker. But they wanted the [Israelis] to shoot at the [the civilians’] houses so they could accuse them of more war crimes.
In other words, Hamas engages in the exceptionally rare wartime act of actively victimizing one’s own civilian population – specifically a war crime – in order to win a victory in cognitive war. And they can only do so, if a corrupt media on the scene (including NGOs and UN agencies), rather than expose their criminal strategies, play along and present the images of dead babies in the framework of the Palestinian narrative of Israeli victimisation.
The fact that Hamas thought they could clean up the scene and pull off a Gaza Beach, successfully blaming the Israelis for the tragedy, speaks eloquently of their exceptionally low appraisal of the forensic acumen of the Western press (or their power to indimidate). And they have good reason to so believe. After all, Goldstone, in his investigation into the abuses of the Palestinian people during OCL, never once looked into this kind of human shielding. Imagine if he had!
Similarly, when so acute a journalist and commentator as Max Fisher puts his mind to analyzing this data and these issues, he ends up coming out with the empty-handed meme about “both sides…” It’s hard to know whether he is just incapable of siding with Israel on so simple and fundamental an issue, or he’s actively trying to do damage control for Hamas. In either case his readership is hardly served by his moral obfuscations in the name of even-handedness.
Alas. It’s hard to believe that if the press had learned the lessons of al Durah they’d still be suckered by this grotesaque display.
Now meditate on this picture, provided by Electronic Intifada to weaponise the tragedy against Israel.
Are you prepared to say, “so what if Hamas killed the boy, this picture symbolises Palestinian suffering at the hands of Israelis anyway”?
• An earlier version of this essay, one that includes all the pictures, appeared at Pajamas Media, and the evolving version is at the Augean Stables.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/richardlandes/100190395/pallywood-and-the-pornography-of-death-the-western-media-suckered-again/
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:28 pm
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:30 pm
“Not again”: Eyewitness Joe Smith writes about the shooting of Tom Hurndall
Above: A British peace activist going only by the name Alice cries for help as she holds her hand over the headwound of British peace activist Thomas Hurndall, who had been shot in the head moments earlier, at the start of a protest, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, April 11, 2003. Hurndall, age 21, from Machester, England, had been standing between Israeli troops and Palestinian children when Israeli soldiers opened fire, according to a fellow activist from the International Solidarity Movement who witnessed the scene.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Please not again. We heard the shooting — we always hear shooting — but repeated sniper fire like that is especially disturbing. I heard the shot, I heard a scream, and turned to see the fluorescent orange lump lying on the ground, blood coming from his head. I moved back and forth a bit not knowing what to do, and within seconds my medical training clicked in. The Palestinians lifted him to move him from the area. “Set him down!” Alice, the other medic, and I screamed.
Finally we got him down on the pavement, I had my safety pads out and was trying to stop the bleeding. One doesn’t consider rubber gloves at times like these. Blood was poring out of the back of his head. I couldn’t get it to stop. Seconds later he was lifted again and pulled into a taxi. “Wait for the ambulance!” We tried to convince them, but they were hysterical, and he was torn away from us and rushed to the hospital in a brown Mercedes. The ambulance arrived on the scene minutes later, but it was too late, he was gone.
Above: Peace activist Tom Hurndall is rushed into Israel’s Soroka hospital in Beer Sheva, April 11, 2003, after he was shot and critically wounded by Israeli troops. Israeli troops shot the 21-year-old Briton as he was helping Palestinian children cross a street under gunfire Friday, fellow activists and hospital officials said. Hurndall was one of 12 members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who Thursday went to the Rafah refugee camp on the Egyptian border to protest at continued Israeli shooting in the area, said ISM member Nick Smith. (Reuters)
I looked down to find the bloody safety pad still in my hand. I had a brief instinct to throw it down, like one does any trash on these streets, but was unable to let go of it. I held onto it while in the taxi on the way to the hospital, and still clutched it as I slouched on the ground against the stone walls surrounding his operation room.
He was dead for me from the moment he was set on the ground for us to administer treatment. Alice tried to do mouth to mouth, and I thought it pointless. He was dead for me when he was pulled from our hands and put into the car. Even when he was wheeled out of Al-Najjar Hospital and taken to Europa Hospital in Khan Younis, he was still not alive in my mind.
Now he’s on life support in Saroka Hospital in B’ersheva, brain dead but still breathing. No matter how constantly his heart still beats, I continue to speak of him in the past. It took me awhile to accept that Rachel was actually gone, and I think my mind is compensating for that loss by preparing itself for another in advance.
Above: British peace activist Thomas Hurndall, left, sits on the floor of a home with fellow activist Joseph Smith, minutes before they left to participate in a protest at which Hurndall suffered a gunshot wound to the head, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, April 11, 2003. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
His name was Thomas Hurndall and he was from London. When he arrived, we already had an English guy named Tom so he chose the nickname “Tab”, and that is how I knew him. Tab was incredibly passionate about protecting people when and where they needed it most. We were in Yibna, a Rafah refugee camp right on the Egyptian border, because he was aware of the constant Israeli gunfire to which this neighbourhood is victim every day.
He’d learned about the two brothers who’d been shot the previous morning, and was dedicated to maintaining a presence there. He said that he’d gotten extremely angry and determined after listening to gunfire while lying in his bed at the doctor’s house Rachel died protecting. He wanted to be in the most dangerous areas, not out of some martyr complex to die but simply because he knew that that is where internationals are most needed.
He was prepared to stay in the house most targeted, and helped us hang large banners on it. He was all about placing a tent in an area in front of a mosque, used every night by an Israeli tank for terrorizing the neighborhood with gunfire. We were on our way to pitch the tent the day he was shot, but had abandoned the project due to the Palestinians’ discomfort with the level of gunfire.
The tank was already in its parking spot when we arrived, and was shooting into the area. A nearby security tower had also joined in, and was firing the scary sniper shots. We were positioned behind a large roadblock deciding what to do, and Laura had gone forward with some Palestinians to take a look. She was wearing our trademarked florescent orange jacket with reflective stripes, and was clearly an international.
Despite, or possibly because of this they shot around her. She said that shots were being fired on both sides of her, making it rather difficult for her to move. She had just rejoined us, when the sniper fire from the tower turned onto the roadblock behind which we were standing. There were children playing on the roadblock, as they often do, and many scattered due to the gunfire.
There was one boy, however, that Tab noticed was too frightened to move. Instinctually, he quickly removed him from the area, as he observed shots land around the small and fragile innocent. After successfully evacuating him, he was about to leave when he noticed two small girls down in front of the roadblock, right in the line of fire.
He was going to help them escape when the Israeli soldier in the tower took his aim, and fired a large calibre sniper bullet directly into Tab’s head. He was in full view of the tower, and like Laura was wearing the high visibility gear. Our embassies had been informed of our presence in the area, and they had informed the Israeli military.
They knew who he was, they knew what he was, and they knew what he was doing. They knew that he was no threat to their physical safety, but they likely understood the international attention his presence was attracting, and knew how our human shield work had prevented them from adequately terrorizing the Palestinian civilians and demolishing their homes.
In this way, he was a “threat” to them, a threat to the image of Israel it portrays to the world. He was a threat to the validity of the occupation, and a threat to their unquestioned notion of these people as nothing but inhuman terrorists. The sniper couldn’t tolerate this kind of challenge, and took lethal measures to end it. We’ll only have to see how such an act will backfire.
I didn’t know Tab all that well. He’d only been here a week, but planned to stay the full month of his visa. He’d just spent a week doing refugee work in Jordan, before which he’d spent two weeks in Iraq doing human shield and relief work. He was a brilliant photographer, and was passionate about documenting the immense human rights violations being perpetrated on the Arab people.
It was his first trip to the Middle East, but his previous three weeks had made him rather well-versed in this type of work. He was mature and laid back about it all, but incredibly passionate and determined. I was quite surprised to learn that he was only 21 years old, born the same year as I.
I had spent a few hours that day taking him around Rafah to take pictures. We were trying to compile photo images of the city and our presence here for documentation and publicity purposes. The children here love a camera, and would crowd us endlessly. This bothers and overwhelms most people, but Tab thought it a little funny, and would chuckle at the rambunctious children shouting “What’s you’re name” and “How are you”. He mentioned that he’d learned some tricks already, like not pulling out his camera until the absolute last minute.
We had even had a conversation that day about the dangers of this place, and how none of us really understood them or we wouldn’t be here. I said that I still felt confident with my international status even after the recent violence against us. I believed that it was not a calculated targeting of internationals, just an increased amount of recklessness and hostility brought on by the increased effectiveness of our work. I said I wouldn’t really be intimidated until they openly target an obvious international. Not until they very intentionally kill one of us would I feel the terror experienced by Palestinians. Fate works in mysterious ways.
I don’t know if I can stay here now. I believe that internationals need to stay here, and that the Israeli military should not learn that they can intimidate ISM with such violence. I believe that it only shows how effective our work has become, and that now is the time to stay and establish an even stronger presence.
Above: Rachel Corrie confronts an Israeli bulldozer earlier on the day she was killed, 16 March 2003. (Joe Smith)
But I only have so much energy left. Rachel’s death took a lot out of me, but also inspired me to stay longer and throw myself into the Olympia Sister City project and nonviolent direct action against the Israeli occupation of Rafah. I had planned to stay through the end of May to accomplish these goals, and knew that I had at least that left in me. But this incident has aged me quickly, and makes me question if I can now handle this place and this type of work.
Who knows what’s going to happen to him now. It seems likely that his family will have to make that dreaded decision about whether or not to take him off life support. I have to leave here if he dies, I can’t do the whole shahid thing again. I also cannot participate in another military investigation. There were plenty of Palestinian and international witnesses willing to cooperate.
I’ll continue media and legal work regarding Rachel’s death, but I can’t handle two. I just can’t. Learning my limits has been a crucial part of my personal development here. I have learned to say “no”, and I’m saying it now. This statement may be used for any media or legal processes, but that’s it, khallas!
What a privilege it is for me to be able to say that. How lucky I am that I can just leave when I’ve had enough, and catalogue the event in my mental register of intense experiences. I can only leave on the condition that I return with a longer-term commitment, as my solidarity with these amazing people has only just begun.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/not-again-eyewitness-joe-smith-writes-about-shooting-tom-hurndall/4523
Tom Hundall was an amazing British photographer who took pictures that showed the world what was really happening to children in Gaza. The IDF deliberately shot him in the head, knowing he was unarmed, knowing he was protecting children. The British Government never raised and finger, like the USA Government never raised a finger for Rachael Corrie being crushed to death.
Above: A British peace activist going only by the name Alice cries for help as she holds her hand over the headwound of British peace activist Thomas Hurndall, who had been shot in the head moments earlier, at the start of a protest, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, April 11, 2003. Hurndall, age 21, from Machester, England, had been standing between Israeli troops and Palestinian children when Israeli soldiers opened fire, according to a fellow activist from the International Solidarity Movement who witnessed the scene.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Please not again. We heard the shooting — we always hear shooting — but repeated sniper fire like that is especially disturbing. I heard the shot, I heard a scream, and turned to see the fluorescent orange lump lying on the ground, blood coming from his head. I moved back and forth a bit not knowing what to do, and within seconds my medical training clicked in. The Palestinians lifted him to move him from the area. “Set him down!” Alice, the other medic, and I screamed.
Finally we got him down on the pavement, I had my safety pads out and was trying to stop the bleeding. One doesn’t consider rubber gloves at times like these. Blood was poring out of the back of his head. I couldn’t get it to stop. Seconds later he was lifted again and pulled into a taxi. “Wait for the ambulance!” We tried to convince them, but they were hysterical, and he was torn away from us and rushed to the hospital in a brown Mercedes. The ambulance arrived on the scene minutes later, but it was too late, he was gone.
Above: Peace activist Tom Hurndall is rushed into Israel’s Soroka hospital in Beer Sheva, April 11, 2003, after he was shot and critically wounded by Israeli troops. Israeli troops shot the 21-year-old Briton as he was helping Palestinian children cross a street under gunfire Friday, fellow activists and hospital officials said. Hurndall was one of 12 members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who Thursday went to the Rafah refugee camp on the Egyptian border to protest at continued Israeli shooting in the area, said ISM member Nick Smith. (Reuters)
I looked down to find the bloody safety pad still in my hand. I had a brief instinct to throw it down, like one does any trash on these streets, but was unable to let go of it. I held onto it while in the taxi on the way to the hospital, and still clutched it as I slouched on the ground against the stone walls surrounding his operation room.
He was dead for me from the moment he was set on the ground for us to administer treatment. Alice tried to do mouth to mouth, and I thought it pointless. He was dead for me when he was pulled from our hands and put into the car. Even when he was wheeled out of Al-Najjar Hospital and taken to Europa Hospital in Khan Younis, he was still not alive in my mind.
Now he’s on life support in Saroka Hospital in B’ersheva, brain dead but still breathing. No matter how constantly his heart still beats, I continue to speak of him in the past. It took me awhile to accept that Rachel was actually gone, and I think my mind is compensating for that loss by preparing itself for another in advance.
Above: British peace activist Thomas Hurndall, left, sits on the floor of a home with fellow activist Joseph Smith, minutes before they left to participate in a protest at which Hurndall suffered a gunshot wound to the head, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, April 11, 2003. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
His name was Thomas Hurndall and he was from London. When he arrived, we already had an English guy named Tom so he chose the nickname “Tab”, and that is how I knew him. Tab was incredibly passionate about protecting people when and where they needed it most. We were in Yibna, a Rafah refugee camp right on the Egyptian border, because he was aware of the constant Israeli gunfire to which this neighbourhood is victim every day.
He’d learned about the two brothers who’d been shot the previous morning, and was dedicated to maintaining a presence there. He said that he’d gotten extremely angry and determined after listening to gunfire while lying in his bed at the doctor’s house Rachel died protecting. He wanted to be in the most dangerous areas, not out of some martyr complex to die but simply because he knew that that is where internationals are most needed.
He was prepared to stay in the house most targeted, and helped us hang large banners on it. He was all about placing a tent in an area in front of a mosque, used every night by an Israeli tank for terrorizing the neighborhood with gunfire. We were on our way to pitch the tent the day he was shot, but had abandoned the project due to the Palestinians’ discomfort with the level of gunfire.
The tank was already in its parking spot when we arrived, and was shooting into the area. A nearby security tower had also joined in, and was firing the scary sniper shots. We were positioned behind a large roadblock deciding what to do, and Laura had gone forward with some Palestinians to take a look. She was wearing our trademarked florescent orange jacket with reflective stripes, and was clearly an international.
Despite, or possibly because of this they shot around her. She said that shots were being fired on both sides of her, making it rather difficult for her to move. She had just rejoined us, when the sniper fire from the tower turned onto the roadblock behind which we were standing. There were children playing on the roadblock, as they often do, and many scattered due to the gunfire.
There was one boy, however, that Tab noticed was too frightened to move. Instinctually, he quickly removed him from the area, as he observed shots land around the small and fragile innocent. After successfully evacuating him, he was about to leave when he noticed two small girls down in front of the roadblock, right in the line of fire.
He was going to help them escape when the Israeli soldier in the tower took his aim, and fired a large calibre sniper bullet directly into Tab’s head. He was in full view of the tower, and like Laura was wearing the high visibility gear. Our embassies had been informed of our presence in the area, and they had informed the Israeli military.
They knew who he was, they knew what he was, and they knew what he was doing. They knew that he was no threat to their physical safety, but they likely understood the international attention his presence was attracting, and knew how our human shield work had prevented them from adequately terrorizing the Palestinian civilians and demolishing their homes.
In this way, he was a “threat” to them, a threat to the image of Israel it portrays to the world. He was a threat to the validity of the occupation, and a threat to their unquestioned notion of these people as nothing but inhuman terrorists. The sniper couldn’t tolerate this kind of challenge, and took lethal measures to end it. We’ll only have to see how such an act will backfire.
I didn’t know Tab all that well. He’d only been here a week, but planned to stay the full month of his visa. He’d just spent a week doing refugee work in Jordan, before which he’d spent two weeks in Iraq doing human shield and relief work. He was a brilliant photographer, and was passionate about documenting the immense human rights violations being perpetrated on the Arab people.
It was his first trip to the Middle East, but his previous three weeks had made him rather well-versed in this type of work. He was mature and laid back about it all, but incredibly passionate and determined. I was quite surprised to learn that he was only 21 years old, born the same year as I.
I had spent a few hours that day taking him around Rafah to take pictures. We were trying to compile photo images of the city and our presence here for documentation and publicity purposes. The children here love a camera, and would crowd us endlessly. This bothers and overwhelms most people, but Tab thought it a little funny, and would chuckle at the rambunctious children shouting “What’s you’re name” and “How are you”. He mentioned that he’d learned some tricks already, like not pulling out his camera until the absolute last minute.
We had even had a conversation that day about the dangers of this place, and how none of us really understood them or we wouldn’t be here. I said that I still felt confident with my international status even after the recent violence against us. I believed that it was not a calculated targeting of internationals, just an increased amount of recklessness and hostility brought on by the increased effectiveness of our work. I said I wouldn’t really be intimidated until they openly target an obvious international. Not until they very intentionally kill one of us would I feel the terror experienced by Palestinians. Fate works in mysterious ways.
I don’t know if I can stay here now. I believe that internationals need to stay here, and that the Israeli military should not learn that they can intimidate ISM with such violence. I believe that it only shows how effective our work has become, and that now is the time to stay and establish an even stronger presence.
Above: Rachel Corrie confronts an Israeli bulldozer earlier on the day she was killed, 16 March 2003. (Joe Smith)
But I only have so much energy left. Rachel’s death took a lot out of me, but also inspired me to stay longer and throw myself into the Olympia Sister City project and nonviolent direct action against the Israeli occupation of Rafah. I had planned to stay through the end of May to accomplish these goals, and knew that I had at least that left in me. But this incident has aged me quickly, and makes me question if I can now handle this place and this type of work.
Who knows what’s going to happen to him now. It seems likely that his family will have to make that dreaded decision about whether or not to take him off life support. I have to leave here if he dies, I can’t do the whole shahid thing again. I also cannot participate in another military investigation. There were plenty of Palestinian and international witnesses willing to cooperate.
I’ll continue media and legal work regarding Rachel’s death, but I can’t handle two. I just can’t. Learning my limits has been a crucial part of my personal development here. I have learned to say “no”, and I’m saying it now. This statement may be used for any media or legal processes, but that’s it, khallas!
What a privilege it is for me to be able to say that. How lucky I am that I can just leave when I’ve had enough, and catalogue the event in my mental register of intense experiences. I can only leave on the condition that I return with a longer-term commitment, as my solidarity with these amazing people has only just begun.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/not-again-eyewitness-joe-smith-writes-about-shooting-tom-hurndall/4523
Tom Hundall was an amazing British photographer who took pictures that showed the world what was really happening to children in Gaza. The IDF deliberately shot him in the head, knowing he was unarmed, knowing he was protecting children. The British Government never raised and finger, like the USA Government never raised a finger for Rachael Corrie being crushed to death.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:31 pm
Dodge, wuzz, coward, appeaser, who would give his country away rather than stand up and fight for it.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:34 pm
You are a Nazi Stassi and all the evidence points to this as you back Hamas who hate the Jews whop place their people in the line of fire.
Eactly what the Nazi's did
Hence why the extreme left are biggest enemies we face today alongside the extreme Muslims
Eactly what the Nazi's did
Hence why the extreme left are biggest enemies we face today alongside the extreme Muslims
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:37 pm
You are a coward Dodge, a liar, a wimp and a coward who would allow his country to be overrun rather than fight for it, an appeaser of the murders of small children.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:40 pm
risingsun wrote:You are a coward Dodge, a liar, a wimp and a coward who would allow his country to be overrun rather than fight for it, an appeaser of the murders of small children.
No Stassi, I know the truth and you like the Nazi Hamas are a bunch of cowards.
You are nazi scum.
It is Hamas that kills and enusres the death of Palestinian children and teaches them to die all of which you ignore.
Again where is the bomb shelters?
There is tunnels built to smuggle weapons and attack Israel and Hamas asks its people to die for them.
That is Nazism is for you
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:40 pm
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:40 pm
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:41 pm
Hilarious from the Nazi
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:42 pm
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:45 pm
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:48 pm
I believe they used to send these in WWI. Rather appropriate
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:49 pm
risingsun wrote:I believe they used to send these in WWI. Rather appropriate
So now Stassi backs the execution of soldiers who suffered shell shock
There is all the evidence you will need she is indeed a Nazi
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:52 pm
Israel call this 'MOWING THE LAWN'
Dodge thinks the people of Gaza should thank Israel for doing it.
- Graphic image:
Dodge thinks the people of Gaza should thank Israel for doing it.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:55 pm
Again Stassi ignores the fundemental questions
Why does Hamas deny its citizens protection and instead buys arms to attack Israel?
Why does it store these weapons within residential areas and schools.
So that they ensure children die.
Stassi the Nazi has no answer to this or the fact Hamas has sworn to wipe out the Jews and why is sassy silent on this?
Because she backs Hamas a terrorist Islamistg group and wants the genoicide of the Jews also.
Why does Hamas deny its citizens protection and instead buys arms to attack Israel?
Why does it store these weapons within residential areas and schools.
So that they ensure children die.
Stassi the Nazi has no answer to this or the fact Hamas has sworn to wipe out the Jews and why is sassy silent on this?
Because she backs Hamas a terrorist Islamistg group and wants the genoicide of the Jews also.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:57 pm
Your ignorance is amazing, truly amazing. It's people like you that allow Israel to do that to a baby.
Goodnight oh cowardly one, had a hard day campaigning so I'm for bed.
I wonder how many boots you can lick by tomorrow morning.
Goodnight oh cowardly one, had a hard day campaigning so I'm for bed.
I wonder how many boots you can lick by tomorrow morning.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:59 pm
You see she cannot answer these fundemental facts, because she is a Nazi and hates the Jews.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sat Feb 28, 2015 11:03 pm
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sun Mar 01, 2015 10:12 am
I know that this is a very emotive subject for some and the pictures are meant to shock to get across a point.
However, please could the graphic pictures, particularly those of children, come with a warning so those of us who don't want to see photos of mutilated children can avoid those posts?
However, please could the graphic pictures, particularly those of children, come with a warning so those of us who don't want to see photos of mutilated children can avoid those posts?
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sun Mar 01, 2015 10:27 am
feelthelove wrote:I know that this is a very emotive subject for some and the pictures are meant to shock to get across a point.
However, please could the graphic pictures, particularly those of children, come with a warning so those of us who don't want to see photos of mutilated children can avoid those posts?
That is a fair point FTL.
What sickens me is that the vast majority of these children are brought up to believe in martyrdom, to hate the Jews, told lies the land belongs to Palestine where no such history backs this as it belongs to nobody, Hamas knowingly tells them to stay in their homes to become victims, does not build bomb shelters and then deliberately entice attacks so they can use these dead or injured children for PR to gain sympathy around the world, even though they have created and ensured children will die.
Sadly some people buy into this without wanting to know the facts.
You are right and this has been spoke of before about warnings, so you will have this done from me.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sun Mar 01, 2015 10:30 am
Brasidas wrote:feelthelove wrote:I know that this is a very emotive subject for some and the pictures are meant to shock to get across a point.
However, please could the graphic pictures, particularly those of children, come with a warning so those of us who don't want to see photos of mutilated children can avoid those posts?
That is a fair point FTL.
What sickens me is that the vast majority of these children are brought up to believe in martyrdom, to hate the Jews, told lies the land belongs to Palestine where no such history backs this as it belongs to nobody, Hamas knowingly tells them to stay in their homes to become victims, does not build bomb shelters and then deliberately entice attacks so they can use these dead or injured children for PR to gain sympathy around the world, even though they have created and ensured children will die.
Sadly some people buy into this without wanting to know the facts.
You are right and this has been spoke of before about warnings, so you will have this done from me.
Thank you Didge xxx
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sun Mar 01, 2015 2:29 pm
Debunking Israel's 11 Main Myths About Gaza, Hamas and War Crimes
You've got to hand it to Israeli spinners like Mark Regev. They are masters of PR. In fact, as the Independent's Patrick Cockburn revealed over the weekend, "the playbook they are using is a professional, well-researched and confidential study on how to influence the media and public opinion in America and Europe".
Let's be clear: I'm no fan of Hamas, a brutal and anti-Semitic group which has been accused by Amnesty International and other NGOs of human rights abuses against the people of Gaza and of war crimes against the people of Israel. Firing rockets into civilian areas isn't justified under international law, even if it is framed as part of a (legitimate) struggle against foreign military occupation.
Having said that, however, in recent days I've been debating supporters of Israel's latest assault on Gaza on radio and on Twitter and I've been astonished not just by the sheer number of fact-free claims made by those supporters, but also by their confidence, slickness and sheer message discipline. According to the pro-Israel, pro-IDF crowd, Hamas is to blame for everything.
This, of course, is utter nonsense. To quote the late US senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts."
So, in a Moynihanian spirit, here are fact-filled, evidence-based rebuttals to the 11 main myths, half-truths and self-serving 'talking points' that are repeatedly pushed by various Israeli spokespersons, both on the airwaves and on social media:
1) The Gaza Strip isn't occupied by Israel
Boston Globe: "Israeli-imposed buffer zones.. now absorb nearly 14 percent of Gaza's total land and at least 48 percent of total arable land. Similarly, the sea buffer zone covers 85 percent of the maritime area promised to Palestinians in the Oslo Accords, reducing 20 nautical miles to three." Human Rights Watch: "Israel also continues to control the population registry for residents of the Gaza Strip, years after it withdrew its ground forces and settlements there." B'Tselem, 2013: "Israel continues to maintain exclusive control of Gaza's airspace and the territorial waters, just as it has since it occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967."
2) Israel wants a ceasefire but Hamas doesn't
Al Jazeera: "Meshaal said Hamas wants the 'aggression to stop tomorrow, today, or even this minute. But [Israel must] lift the blockade with guarantees and not as a promise for future negotiations'. He added 'we will not shut the door in the face of any humanitarian ceasefire backed by a real aid programme'." Jerusalem Post: "One day after an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire accepted by Israel, but rejected by Hamas, fell through, the terrorist organization proposed a 10-year end to hostilities in return for its conditions being met by Israel, Channel 2 reported Wednesday.. Hamas's conditions were the release of re-arrested Palestinian prisoners who were let go in the Schalit deal, the opening of Gaza-Israel border crossings in order to allow citizens and goods to pass through, and international supervision of the Gazan seaport in place of the current Israeli blockade." BBC: "Israel's security cabinet has rejected a week-long Gaza ceasefire proposal put forward by US Secretary of State John Kerry 'as it stands'."
3) Israel, unlike Hamas, doesn't deliberately target civilians
The Guardian: "It was there that the second [Israeli] shell hit the beach, those firing apparently adjusting their fire to target the fleeing survivors. As it exploded, journalists standing by the terrace wall shouted: 'They are only children.'" UN high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay: "A number of incidents, along with the high number of civilian deaths, belies the [Israeli] claim that all necessary precautions are being taken to protect civilian lives." United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, 2009: "The tactics used by the Israeli armed forces in the Gaza offensive are consistent with previous practices, most recently during the Lebanon war in 2006. A concept known as the Dahiya doctrine emerged then, involving the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations. The Mission concludes from a review of the facts on the ground that it.. appears to have been precisely what was put into practice."
4) Only Hamas is guilty of war crimes, not Israel
Human Rights Watch: "Israeli forces may also have knowingly or recklessly attacked people who were clearly civilians, such as young boys, and civilian structures, including a hospital - laws-of-war violations that are indicative of war crimes." Amnesty International: "Deliberately attacking a civilian home is a war crime, and the overwhelming scale of destruction of civilian homes, in some cases with entire families inside them, points to a distressing pattern of repeated violations of the laws of war."
5) Hamas use the civilians of Gaza as 'human shields'
Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor: "I saw no evidence during my week in Gaza of Israel's accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields." The Guardian: "In the past week, the Guardian has seen large numbers of people fleeing different neighbourhoods.. and no evidence that Hamas had compelled them to stay." The Independent: "Some Gazans have admitted that they were afraid of criticizing Hamas, but none have said they had been forced by the organisation to stay in places of danger and become unwilling human-shields." Reuters, 2013: "A United Nations human rights body accused Israeli forces on Thursday of mistreating Palestinian children, including by torturing those in custody and using others as human shields."
6) This current Gaza conflict began with Hamas rocket fire on 30 June 2014
Times of Israel: "Hamas operatives were behind a large volley of rockets which slammed into Israel Monday morning, the first time in years the Islamist group has directly challenged the Jewish state, according to Israeli defense officials.. The security sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, assessed that Hamas had probably launched the barrage in revenge for an Israeli airstrike several hours earlier which killed one person and injured three more.. Hamas hasn't fired rockets into Israel since Operation Pillar of Defense ended in November 2012." The Nation: "During ten days of Operation Brother's Keeper in the West Bank [before the start of the Gaza conflict], Israel arrested approximately 800 Palestinians without charge or trial, killed nine civilians and raided nearly 1,300 residential, commercial and public buildings. Its military operation targeted Hamas members released during the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011."
7) Hamas has never stopped firing rockets into Israel
Jewish Daily Forward: "Hamas hadn't fired a single rocket since [2012 Gaza conflict], and had largely suppressed fire by smaller jihadi groups. Rocket firings, averaging 240 per month in 2007, dropped to five per month in 2013." International Crisis Group: "Fewer rockets were fired from Gaza in 2013 than in any year since 2001, and nearly all those that were fired between the November 2012 ceasefire and the current crisis were launched by groups other than Hamas; the Israeli security establishment testified to the aggressive anti-rocket efforts made by the new police force Hamas established specifically for that purpose.. As Israel (and Egypt) rolled back the 2012 understandings - some of which were implemented spottily at best - so too did Hamas roll back its anti rocket efforts."
Hamas provoked Israel by kidnapping and killing three Israeli teenagers
Jewish Daily Forward: "The [Israeli] government had known almost from the beginning that the boys were dead. It maintained the fiction that it hoped to find them alive as a pretext to dismantle Hamas' West Bank operations.. Nor was that the only fib. It was clear from the beginning that the kidnappers weren't acting on orders from Hamas leadership in Gaza or Damascus. Hamas' Hebron branch -- more a crime family than a clandestine organization -- had a history of acting without the leaders' knowledge, sometimes against their interests." BBC correspondent Jon Donnison: "Israeli police MickeyRosenfeld tells me men who killed 3 Israeli teens def lone cell, hamas affiliated but not operating under leadership.. Seems to contradict the line from Netanyahu government."
9) Hamas rule, not Israel's blockade, is to blame for the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip
US State Department cable: "Israeli officials have confirmed to Embassy officials on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.. Israeli officials have confirmed.. on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge." The Guardian: "The Israeli military made precise calculations of Gaza's daily calorie needs to avoid malnutrition during a blockade imposed on the Palestinian territory between 2007 and mid-2010, according to files the defence ministry released on Wednesday under a court order.. The Israeli advocacy group Gisha.. waged a long court battle to release the document. Its members say Israel calculated the calorie needs for Gaza's population so as to restrict the quantity of food it allowed in."
10) The Israeli government, unlike Hamas, wants a two-state solution
Times of Israel: "[Netanyahu] made explicitly clear that he could never, ever, countenance a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank.. Amid the current conflict, he elaborated, 'I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.'"
11) All serious analysts agree it was Hamas, and not Israel, that started this current conflict
Nathan Thrall, senior Mid East analyst at the International Crisis Group, writing in the New York Times: "The current escalation in Gaza is a direct result of the choice by Israel and the West to obstruct the implementation of the April 2014 Palestinian reconciliation agreement." Henry Siegman, former national director, American Jewish Congress, writing for Politico: "Israel's assault on Gaza.. was not triggered by Hamas' rockets directed at Israel but by Israel's determination to bring down the Palestinian unity government that was formed in early June, even though that government was committed to honoring all of the conditions imposed by the international community for recognition of its legitimacy."
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/gaza-israel_b_5624401.html
If you don't like seeing what Israel does, write to their Embassy and tell them so.
You've got to hand it to Israeli spinners like Mark Regev. They are masters of PR. In fact, as the Independent's Patrick Cockburn revealed over the weekend, "the playbook they are using is a professional, well-researched and confidential study on how to influence the media and public opinion in America and Europe".
Let's be clear: I'm no fan of Hamas, a brutal and anti-Semitic group which has been accused by Amnesty International and other NGOs of human rights abuses against the people of Gaza and of war crimes against the people of Israel. Firing rockets into civilian areas isn't justified under international law, even if it is framed as part of a (legitimate) struggle against foreign military occupation.
Having said that, however, in recent days I've been debating supporters of Israel's latest assault on Gaza on radio and on Twitter and I've been astonished not just by the sheer number of fact-free claims made by those supporters, but also by their confidence, slickness and sheer message discipline. According to the pro-Israel, pro-IDF crowd, Hamas is to blame for everything.
This, of course, is utter nonsense. To quote the late US senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts."
So, in a Moynihanian spirit, here are fact-filled, evidence-based rebuttals to the 11 main myths, half-truths and self-serving 'talking points' that are repeatedly pushed by various Israeli spokespersons, both on the airwaves and on social media:
1) The Gaza Strip isn't occupied by Israel
Boston Globe: "Israeli-imposed buffer zones.. now absorb nearly 14 percent of Gaza's total land and at least 48 percent of total arable land. Similarly, the sea buffer zone covers 85 percent of the maritime area promised to Palestinians in the Oslo Accords, reducing 20 nautical miles to three." Human Rights Watch: "Israel also continues to control the population registry for residents of the Gaza Strip, years after it withdrew its ground forces and settlements there." B'Tselem, 2013: "Israel continues to maintain exclusive control of Gaza's airspace and the territorial waters, just as it has since it occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967."
2) Israel wants a ceasefire but Hamas doesn't
Al Jazeera: "Meshaal said Hamas wants the 'aggression to stop tomorrow, today, or even this minute. But [Israel must] lift the blockade with guarantees and not as a promise for future negotiations'. He added 'we will not shut the door in the face of any humanitarian ceasefire backed by a real aid programme'." Jerusalem Post: "One day after an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire accepted by Israel, but rejected by Hamas, fell through, the terrorist organization proposed a 10-year end to hostilities in return for its conditions being met by Israel, Channel 2 reported Wednesday.. Hamas's conditions were the release of re-arrested Palestinian prisoners who were let go in the Schalit deal, the opening of Gaza-Israel border crossings in order to allow citizens and goods to pass through, and international supervision of the Gazan seaport in place of the current Israeli blockade." BBC: "Israel's security cabinet has rejected a week-long Gaza ceasefire proposal put forward by US Secretary of State John Kerry 'as it stands'."
3) Israel, unlike Hamas, doesn't deliberately target civilians
The Guardian: "It was there that the second [Israeli] shell hit the beach, those firing apparently adjusting their fire to target the fleeing survivors. As it exploded, journalists standing by the terrace wall shouted: 'They are only children.'" UN high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay: "A number of incidents, along with the high number of civilian deaths, belies the [Israeli] claim that all necessary precautions are being taken to protect civilian lives." United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, 2009: "The tactics used by the Israeli armed forces in the Gaza offensive are consistent with previous practices, most recently during the Lebanon war in 2006. A concept known as the Dahiya doctrine emerged then, involving the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations. The Mission concludes from a review of the facts on the ground that it.. appears to have been precisely what was put into practice."
4) Only Hamas is guilty of war crimes, not Israel
Human Rights Watch: "Israeli forces may also have knowingly or recklessly attacked people who were clearly civilians, such as young boys, and civilian structures, including a hospital - laws-of-war violations that are indicative of war crimes." Amnesty International: "Deliberately attacking a civilian home is a war crime, and the overwhelming scale of destruction of civilian homes, in some cases with entire families inside them, points to a distressing pattern of repeated violations of the laws of war."
5) Hamas use the civilians of Gaza as 'human shields'
Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor: "I saw no evidence during my week in Gaza of Israel's accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields." The Guardian: "In the past week, the Guardian has seen large numbers of people fleeing different neighbourhoods.. and no evidence that Hamas had compelled them to stay." The Independent: "Some Gazans have admitted that they were afraid of criticizing Hamas, but none have said they had been forced by the organisation to stay in places of danger and become unwilling human-shields." Reuters, 2013: "A United Nations human rights body accused Israeli forces on Thursday of mistreating Palestinian children, including by torturing those in custody and using others as human shields."
6) This current Gaza conflict began with Hamas rocket fire on 30 June 2014
Times of Israel: "Hamas operatives were behind a large volley of rockets which slammed into Israel Monday morning, the first time in years the Islamist group has directly challenged the Jewish state, according to Israeli defense officials.. The security sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, assessed that Hamas had probably launched the barrage in revenge for an Israeli airstrike several hours earlier which killed one person and injured three more.. Hamas hasn't fired rockets into Israel since Operation Pillar of Defense ended in November 2012." The Nation: "During ten days of Operation Brother's Keeper in the West Bank [before the start of the Gaza conflict], Israel arrested approximately 800 Palestinians without charge or trial, killed nine civilians and raided nearly 1,300 residential, commercial and public buildings. Its military operation targeted Hamas members released during the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011."
7) Hamas has never stopped firing rockets into Israel
Jewish Daily Forward: "Hamas hadn't fired a single rocket since [2012 Gaza conflict], and had largely suppressed fire by smaller jihadi groups. Rocket firings, averaging 240 per month in 2007, dropped to five per month in 2013." International Crisis Group: "Fewer rockets were fired from Gaza in 2013 than in any year since 2001, and nearly all those that were fired between the November 2012 ceasefire and the current crisis were launched by groups other than Hamas; the Israeli security establishment testified to the aggressive anti-rocket efforts made by the new police force Hamas established specifically for that purpose.. As Israel (and Egypt) rolled back the 2012 understandings - some of which were implemented spottily at best - so too did Hamas roll back its anti rocket efforts."
Hamas provoked Israel by kidnapping and killing three Israeli teenagersJewish Daily Forward: "The [Israeli] government had known almost from the beginning that the boys were dead. It maintained the fiction that it hoped to find them alive as a pretext to dismantle Hamas' West Bank operations.. Nor was that the only fib. It was clear from the beginning that the kidnappers weren't acting on orders from Hamas leadership in Gaza or Damascus. Hamas' Hebron branch -- more a crime family than a clandestine organization -- had a history of acting without the leaders' knowledge, sometimes against their interests." BBC correspondent Jon Donnison: "Israeli police MickeyRosenfeld tells me men who killed 3 Israeli teens def lone cell, hamas affiliated but not operating under leadership.. Seems to contradict the line from Netanyahu government."
9) Hamas rule, not Israel's blockade, is to blame for the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip
US State Department cable: "Israeli officials have confirmed to Embassy officials on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.. Israeli officials have confirmed.. on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge." The Guardian: "The Israeli military made precise calculations of Gaza's daily calorie needs to avoid malnutrition during a blockade imposed on the Palestinian territory between 2007 and mid-2010, according to files the defence ministry released on Wednesday under a court order.. The Israeli advocacy group Gisha.. waged a long court battle to release the document. Its members say Israel calculated the calorie needs for Gaza's population so as to restrict the quantity of food it allowed in."
10) The Israeli government, unlike Hamas, wants a two-state solution
Times of Israel: "[Netanyahu] made explicitly clear that he could never, ever, countenance a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank.. Amid the current conflict, he elaborated, 'I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.'"
11) All serious analysts agree it was Hamas, and not Israel, that started this current conflict
Nathan Thrall, senior Mid East analyst at the International Crisis Group, writing in the New York Times: "The current escalation in Gaza is a direct result of the choice by Israel and the West to obstruct the implementation of the April 2014 Palestinian reconciliation agreement." Henry Siegman, former national director, American Jewish Congress, writing for Politico: "Israel's assault on Gaza.. was not triggered by Hamas' rockets directed at Israel but by Israel's determination to bring down the Palestinian unity government that was formed in early June, even though that government was committed to honoring all of the conditions imposed by the international community for recognition of its legitimacy."
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/gaza-israel_b_5624401.html
If you don't like seeing what Israel does, write to their Embassy and tell them so.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sun Mar 01, 2015 2:34 pm
Ah I see no one is moderating
All is as usual then
It is disgraceful to post those pictures, especially without a warning.
All is as usual then
It is disgraceful to post those pictures, especially without a warning.
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by Guest Sun Mar 01, 2015 2:43 pm
Blogger
Fred Maroun Fred Maroun is a Canadian of Arab origin who lived in Lebanon until 1984, including during 10 years of civil … [More] war. Fred supports Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, and he supports a liberal and democratic Middle East where all religions and nationalities, including Palestinians, can co-exist in peace with each other and with Israel, and where human rights are respected. Fred is an atheist, a social liberal, and an advocate of equal rights for LGBT people everywhere. More blogs by Fred Maroun can be found at http://fredmaroun.blogspot.com/. [Less]
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More in this blog
For a truthful person, demonizing Israel is difficult. How can one convincingly denounce a liberal democracy that is surrounded by despotic regimes, especially one that treats even its enemies better than the despotic neighbours treat their own citizens? How can one denounce a country that is a major contributor of humanitarian aid to the world despite being unfairly singled out and demonized by most of the world? How can one refuse Israel’s right to exist on land occupied by Jews for over three millennia? How can one not support a tiny nation that stands up to all the regional bullies? Easy: lie, then lie, and then lie some more. That is in fact the only logical strategy in this circumstance, and what’s more, because it is used at a massive and an overwhelming scale, it works!
Read more: Telling lies: The one and only strategy of anti-Zionists | Fred Maroun | The Blogs | The Times of Israel http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/telling-lies-the-one-and-only-strategy-of-anti-zionists/#ixzz3T94NrKag
Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook
Fred Maroun Fred Maroun is a Canadian of Arab origin who lived in Lebanon until 1984, including during 10 years of civil … [More] war. Fred supports Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, and he supports a liberal and democratic Middle East where all religions and nationalities, including Palestinians, can co-exist in peace with each other and with Israel, and where human rights are respected. Fred is an atheist, a social liberal, and an advocate of equal rights for LGBT people everywhere. More blogs by Fred Maroun can be found at http://fredmaroun.blogspot.com/. [Less]
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- A shattered Palestinian society: Interview with Bassem Eid
- They don’t hate Israel. They hate Jews.
- Outrage is not enough
- How Israel helped me reconnect with my Arab roots
- A true friend of Israel leaves Canadian politics
For a truthful person, demonizing Israel is difficult. How can one convincingly denounce a liberal democracy that is surrounded by despotic regimes, especially one that treats even its enemies better than the despotic neighbours treat their own citizens? How can one denounce a country that is a major contributor of humanitarian aid to the world despite being unfairly singled out and demonized by most of the world? How can one refuse Israel’s right to exist on land occupied by Jews for over three millennia? How can one not support a tiny nation that stands up to all the regional bullies? Easy: lie, then lie, and then lie some more. That is in fact the only logical strategy in this circumstance, and what’s more, because it is used at a massive and an overwhelming scale, it works!
Read more: Telling lies: The one and only strategy of anti-Zionists | Fred Maroun | The Blogs | The Times of Israel http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/telling-lies-the-one-and-only-strategy-of-anti-zionists/#ixzz3T94NrKag
Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook
Guest- Guest
Re: Students For Justice in Palestine Hides True Intentions (Graphic Images)
by veya_victaous Sun Mar 01, 2015 9:21 pm
feelthelove wrote:I know that this is a very emotive subject for some and the pictures are meant to shock to get across a point.
However, please could the graphic pictures, particularly those of children, come with a warning so those of us who don't want to see photos of mutilated children can avoid those posts?
Fair point
Can people please use the 'Spoiler' function to make images click to view when posting Graphic content (and can probably extent to adult content too)
veya_victaous- The Mod Loki, Minister of Chaos & Candy, Emperor of the Southern Realms, Captain Kangaroo
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