FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

Most of the media are reporting the UN — which means UNRWA — account of the killing of a Palestinian truck driver verbatim. For example, NPR this morning reported that

The UN, in the midst of all this, has  suspended all aid operations in Gaza after one of its drivers was killed by Israeli tank fire…They also reported Red Cross (in this case, Palestinian Red Crescent) claims that an aid convoy yesterday “came under Israeli tank fire”.

To be fair, the story in other places uses the phrase “aid agencies say”, but there is no indication that there is the slightest bit of doubt about the details. As I wrote yesterday (“Did Hamas shoot Palestinian truckers?“), two Palestinians who were wounded in the incident have gunshot — not shrapnel — wounds, and the Israeli medic who evacuated them says that they were shot by a Hamas sniper.

Incidents like this are very bad for Israel, which is doing its utmost to hit only Hamas targets in order to prevent a premature end to the operation that will result in an imposed settlement — like UN Resolution 1701 which ended the 2006 Lebanon war — which will gain Hamas legitimacy and leave it with the ability to rearm.

Hamas has an endgame strategy to emerge from this conflict with the ability to rebuild, with Israel’s reputation further blackened, and with ‘street cred’ from successfully holding off the IDF. Since it can’t defeat Israel militarily, it is doing its best to produce “Israeli atrocities” by any means possible to create an excuse for the anti-Israel forces in the UN to shut down the war at the most advantageous point.

One thing that the media do not dwell upon is that the “aid agencies” here are pro-Hamas. UNRWA — the UN agency created solely to keep Palestinian ‘refugees’ on the dole and prevent their resettlement — is staffed almost entirely by Palestinians, and in Gaza is under the thumb of Hamas. The Palestinian Red Crescent, too, is far from impartial, and has been the subject of Israeli complaints that ambulances are used to transport terrorists, etc. Yet over and over they repeat their claims without caveats.

Worse, sometimes we even see media reports like this one, also from NPR:

Friday’s deaths in Gaza pushed the Palestinian death toll to more than 750 in the two-week-old conflict, with at least half of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials.

“Gaza health officials”? And whom do these ‘officials’ work for?

The above article is also interesting for it’s title: “Despite U.N. Truce Call, Israel Vows To Fight On”. Well, yes, but they don’t mention that Hamas also has vowed to fight on.

Israeli authorities have so far been silent about the aid convoy accusation. My feeling is that they are being very careful not to issue a premature apology — as they did in the case of the faked killing of Muhammad al-Dura — and are presently researching the facts about the incident.

Israel-haters are certain that it is the IDF’s goal to hurt Palestinian civilians as much as possible, but the fact is that such a policy is not only immoral — and understood as such by the IDF and Israeli leadership — but very much against Israeli interests.

Therefore I suggest that we should take the flood of atrocity reports with more than one grain of salt.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hamas, Gaza, atrocities, propaganda

This incident may be a smoking gun (so to speak):

Who killed a Palestinian humanitarian aid truck driver and wounded two others as their convoy made its way into the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing during Thursday’s ‘humanitarian ceasefire’?

According to the foreign media, who based their information on UN sources, IDF tank shells blasted the truck. According to the Magen David Adom medic who said he evacuated the Palestinians to an Israeli hospital, the truck came under Hamas sniper fire. The medic, who asked not to be named, said he got his information from soldiers in the field. The IDF Spokesperson’s Office has not been able to provide a response or establish contact with the relevant sources in the field.

Adding to the confusion, the Palestinian Red Crescent said it evacuated the Palestinians, but the MDA medic said soldiers told him they went in, with great risk to themselves, and evacuated the wounded Palestinians. What is certain is that there is one dead Palestinian, and two others being treated at Ashkelon’s Barzilai Hospital with gunshot wounds to the chest… [my emphasis]

As a result of the incident, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip said it was suspending operations relating to the collection and distribution of humanitarian aid. — Jerusalem Post

It is extremely hard to believe that an Israeli tank would fire at a truck near the Erez crossing during the humanitarian pause, even by accident. It would be very much not in Israel’s interest to do this. Of course anything is possible, but the wounded drivers are in an Israeli hospital with gunshot, not shrapnel wounds.

It should be quite easy to find out exactly what happened. I have no doubt that the IDF spokesperson will come out with a statement soon.

And I am expecting that it will show that Hamas fired at Palestinian drivers in order to embarrass Israel.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hamas, Gaza, Erez crossing

Sometimes I don’t have to go looking for insights; they appear in my email inbox. Here is an arbitrary collection of quotations from links that people sent me. This first one has an unexpected source:

…more generally, the word [occupier] means that Israel occupies all the land of Palestine. This, Hamas defines by the boundaries of the territory mandated by the League of Nations to Britain after World War I, minus the east bank of the Jordan that Britain sliced off to give to the Jordanian royal family and which is now Jordan.

So when Hamas talks about resisting the “occupier”, it is not just talking about resistance in Gaza.

Its occasional references to a long-term “truce” also must be understood. For Hamas, this does not mean a proper peace agreement with Israel. It means a cessation of violence, which could perhaps last for years, but under which it holds its options open.

And when Hamas says it is ready to accept a Palestinian state within the borders as they existed before the war in 1967, it does not follow that it would accept those borders as the last word. It hopes to re-establish Palestine as it once was.

Sometimes Hamas leaders come into the open. A few years ago I interviewed one of them, Dr Mahmoud Zahar, in Gaza. He referred to Israel as “a foreign body. It does not belong in the area”.

Dr Zahar has now declared that Israel’s attacks in Gaza have “legitimised” the killing of Israeli children. I doubt if he has changed his mind about Israel being a foreign body. — “The language of Hamas“, Paul Reynolds, World affairs correspondent, BBC News website [!]

And here is one that succinctly characterizes the information war that Israel must fight along with the military one:

Israel faces enemies in the field of world public opinion that add up to powerful de facto allies of the Hamas. This vast alliance, ranging from the UN to the Arab street to the looming inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the US, to the inevitable Rabbi Michael Lerner and the J Street alliance of Hamas groupies, cannot be defeated by Shaldag commandos, bunker buster bombs or military intelligence.

It was inevitable that Mahmoud Abbas, Hosni Mubarak and the other distinguished lights of Middle East diplomacy would orchestrate a caterwauling symphony of wailing about the “genocide” of the “Palestinian people” in public diplomacy and their government controlled media, while all the while urging Israel to wipe out the Hamas behind the scenes. Rafael military industries has not yet perfected an anti-J-Street device, and Golan soldiers are not equipped with anti-UN-General-Assembly missiles and anti-CNN radar chaff. — “Gaza: What now?“, Ami Isseroff

I have hopes that Isseroff is wrong about the future actions of the Obama Administration, but we shall see.

The next one illustrates the old saying “it’s not paranoia; they really are all against you’:

From the beginning of Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” in Gaza on December 27, 2008 to January 8, 2009, 35 NGOs claiming to promote human rights and humanitarian agendas have issued more than 132 statements on the fighting, and the number increases continuously. These statements exhibit severe bias and double standards, focus overwhelmingly on condemning Israel, and ignore or pay little attention to Israeli human rights and casualties. Under the façade of morality and universality, they exploit international legal terminology and erase Hamas violations of international humanitarian law, such as the extensive use of human shields.

These reports are a central part of the “soft power” war being waged against Israel, in parallel to the “hard power” rocket and terror attacks, and reflect an ideological bias which also gives excessive attention to this conflict. In contrast many international NGOs have remained silent on extensive human rights abuses occurring around the world during this period. For example, on December 27 (the start of the operation), 189 villagers were massacred by Ugandan rebels in the Congo. Yet, none of the major NGOs reported on this incident. — NGO Monitor

Finally, a great one from the folks that brought us Muhammad al-Dura:

French public television network France 2 on Tuesday revealed they had aired photographs that allegedly showed destruction caused by the Israel Air Force during Operation Cast Lead, which were in fact taken during a different incident in 2005, one in which Gaza civilians were killed by an explosion caused by militants in the Strip.

The footage aired on Channel 2 on Tuesday afternoon showed dozens of dead bodies, including Hamas gunmen and citizens, which the channel said were killed by an IAF bombing raid on January 1st. It later came to light that the channel had instead aired footage of the devastation caused after a truck full of explosives blew up in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp. — Ha’aretz (h/t: Simply Jews)

Whew.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hamas, Gaza, Cast Lead

News item:

Despite mounting international pressure for an end to hostilities between Israel and Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, Hamas declared on Wednesday that it would not accept any permanent cease-fire with Israel.

According to the deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau, Moussa Abu Marzouk, the group would not talk about a permanent cease-fire so long as Israel continued its “occupation,” and would instead continue the “resistance.” He said that Hamas stood by its demand for Israel to immediately halt its offensive, to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and to open all of the border crossings.

What are Hamas’ immediate objectives?

It cannot defeat Israel militarily. Given time, Israel will destroy Hamas as an effective force. Despite their macho posturing, Hamas’ leaders know this.

They have so far been unable to achieve the international legitimacy  and control of the Palestinian Authority that they want, because they cannot agree to the necessary conditions: recognition of Israel’s right to exist, acceptance of prior agreements — the Oslo accord — and renunciation of ‘resistance’. All of these are explicitly contradicted by the Hamas charter.

Hamas also has difficulty overcoming the Western antipathy to racism, antisemitism, genocidal intent, misogyny, homophobia, etc.

So its strategy is to obtain legitimacy by attacking Israel’s. The intention is to so demonize Israel in world opinion that Hamas will appear as a relatively acceptable counterpart.

Therefore, the purpose of the thousands of rockets launched into Israel was not so much to hurt Israel — although the actual damage, psychological and economic, has been far greater than the small number of deaths might suggest — as to provoke Israel to respond.

Now Israel has responded, and Hamas will try to turn events to its advantage. Its goal will be to maximize civilian casualties and the appearance thereof, in order to force an end to the conflict before it is hurt beyond repair. We can expect that Hamas will continue to put Palestinian civilians in harm’s way, to exaggerate casualties and even manufacture atrocity stories, and to use its enormous apparatus of Middle Eastern and Western fellow-travelers to broadcast its propaganda worldwide.

Almost any imposed settlement will give Hamas an advantage because

• It will gain huge credibility among Palestinians for having ‘defeated’ Israel.

• No international monitoring or peacekeeping arrangement will be able to prevent it from re-arming.

• An agreement will protect it from Israel.

• Israel will be seen even more as a pariah among nations.

And, most important,

• If Hamas is party to the agreement, it will be seen as a legitimate political entity, not just a terrorist gang.

This puts Hamas in a much better position to regain influence in the Palestinian Authority and ultimately to get control of the West Bank as well as Gaza.

What must Israel do? There are several things:

• It must do its utmost to minimize civilian casualties.

• It must counteract atrocity propaganda swiftly and credibly.

• Nevertheless, Israel must destroy Hamas’ weapon supply and fortifications, eliminate Hamas’ leadership and kill enough of its army (estimated at 20,000) to neutralize its fighting ability.

• It must re-occupy the Philadelphi corridor alongside the Egyptian border to make it impossible for Hamas to rearm.

• It must not allow the conflict to be ended, despite international pressure, before the above are accomplished.

• It must not agree to a settlement which in any way legitimizes Hamas.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hamas, Gaza

The following was received from the Israeli Embassy in Washington regarding the deaths of civilian Palestinians at the UNRWA school yesterday. Note the reference to secondary explosions, indicating that the school was used for storage of explosives.

January 6, 2009
Dear Friends,

Today, initial investigations into reports of multiple Palestinians killed tragically in Jebaliya indicate that Hamas terrorists fired mortar bombs from a site which is ordinarily used as a school towards Israeli forces.

Israeli forces returned fire and a series of explosions followed, indicating the presence of munitions and explosives in the building. Israeli forces had no knowledge of those present at the site; however, it is clear that it was not operating as a school.

Israel later identified two of the casualties at the site as Imad and Hassan Abu Askhar, who served as heads of the Hamas mortar units in Gaza.

Israel regrets the loss of any innocent civilian lives.

Hamas has once again cynically chosen to use civilian sites from which to operate, thus endangering the safety of innocent civilians. This is not the first time that Hamas has fired mortars and rockets from schools, which deliberately uses civilians as human shields in their acts of terror. This was proven in the recent past with footage from an unmanned plane showing rockets and mortars being fired from the yard of an UNRWA school (click here for video).

For more information and photos please visit the Embassy of Israel’s website.

Ben Sack
Officer for Public Affairs
Embassy of Israel
Phone: (202) 364-5500
Fax: (202)364-5423

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hamas, UNRWA School, Israeli Embassy