Goldstone Report: It's A Missile! No, It's A Mortar! No, It's An Air To Ground Rocket!!

The blog Harris ad hoc addresses the issues surrounding the attack on the al-Maqadmah mosque, 3 January 2009: in this case the changing story between the Goldstone Report and Judge Goldstone himself, about what actually happened.

After laying out and analyzing the various relevant paragraphs from the report--and Judge Goldstone's different version presented at the Brandeis debate--Harris summarizes how the telling of the story of the al-Maqadmah mosque has changed:

The written report claims that it had been an isolated air strike unrelated to any ground operations and fire fights and explicitly claims that apparently no ground forces were in that area during that incident. Lateron [sic] the air-to-ground missile has turned into a mortar shell which does not contain any tungsten and can not be fired precisely at a mosque door and would not have allowed to make such a case of an Israeli strike because the origin of such a mortar shell would remain unclear. Now this mortar shell has turned back into a missile which is claimed to be - with certainty - a ground-to-ground missile fired by ground troops who - which is implied in it - would had been operating in the closest proximity of that mosque not mentioned by anyone in the testemonies or by the written report. And suddenly - for countering Gold's claims that the mosque had not been attacked by the IDF - Goldstone adds some tungsten shrapnels which are not mentioned in the written report with regard to this incident.

Read the whole thing.

Apparently no one really cares how the mosque was destroyed--as long as it can be blamed on Israel.

Technorati Tag: Goldstone Report.

Continue Reading This Post...

Summary only...

A Myth In The Making: Israel Broke The Cease-Fire On Novermber 4, 2008

In conjunction with the Goldstone Report accusing Israel of war crimes, there has been a move to blame Israel for the breaking of the truce which led to the commencement of the war itself.

Typical is this opinion piece from The Irish Times by David Morrison of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign:

IN JUNE, Israel agreed a six-month ceasefire with Hamas. Until December 27th, no Israeli, civilian or military, was killed as a result of rocket or mortar fire from Gaza.

None. Not one. And there was very little rocket or mortar fire out of Gaza until Israel broke the ceasefire in early November.

Those key facts have been missing from most of the reporting of Israel's slaughter of nearly 300 Palestinians in Gaza, which began on December 27th.

Israel's claim that it had to act in order to protect Israeli civilians from being killed by rocket or mortar fire from Gaza is bogus.

Putting aside that odd notion that firing rockets at Jewish town is OK as long as no one gets hurt. Continuing along this fanciful line of thought Morrisson claims:

From the point of view of protecting Israeli citizens, the ceasefire was a success. If the Israeli government had the protection of Israeli civilians as its first priority, it would have done its best to have the ceasefire continued indefinitely.

But it didn't. On the contrary, it broke the ceasefire by killing six Palestinians in Gaza on the night of November 4th, while the world was watching the election of Barack Obama.

Only in the Middle East can on not only claim that a ceasefire that allows for the continued one-sided firing of rockets at a civilian (not military) target is not only acceptable--but is also something that should continue indefinitely.

Here is an idea of the kind of the status quo Morrisson condemns Israel for refusing to accept:

From the start of the ceasefire at 6 AM on June 19 till the incident on November 4th cited by CNN, the following attacks were launched against Israel from Gaza in direct violation of the agreement:

• 18 mortars were fired at Israel in this period, beginning on the night of June 23.
• 20 rockets were fired, beginning on June 24, when 3 rockets hit the Israeli town of Sderot.
• On July 6 farmers working in the fields of Nahal Oz were attacked by light arms fire from Gaza.
• On the night of August 15 Palestinians fired across the border at Israeli soldiers near the Karni crossing.
• On October 31 an IDF patrol spotted Palestinians planting an explosive device near the security fence in the area of the Sufa crossing. As the patrol approached the fence the Palestinians fired two anti-tank missiles.

However, Morrisson's account--typical of the pro-Palestinian apologists--not only lacks common sense. It is also lacking in truth. Morrisson forgets to mention what other activities Hamas was engaged in: for all the talk about how Israel took advantage of the November 4th election night to hide what it was doing, just what was Hamas doing then? Make attempts to kidnap Israeli soldiers. From CAMERA:

The first came to light on Sept. 28, when Israeli personnel arrested Jamal Atallah Sabah Abu Duabe. The 21-year-old Rafah resident had used a tunnel to enter Egypt and from there planned to slip across the border into Israel. Investigation revealed that Abu Duabe was a member of Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and that he planned to lure Israeli soldiers near the border by pretending to be a drug smuggler, capture them, and then sedate them with sleeping pills in order to abduct them directly into Gaza through a preexisting tunnel. For more details click here and here.

• The second abduction plan was aborted on the night of Nov 4, thanks to a warning from Israeli Intelligence. Hamas had dug another tunnel into Israel and was apparently about to execute an abduction plan when IDF soldiers penetrated about 250 meters into Gaza to the entrance of the tunnel, hidden under a house. Inside the house were a number of armed Hamas members, who opened fire. The Israelis fired back and the house exploded – in total 6 or 7 Hamas operatives were killed and several were wounded. Among those killed were Mazen Sa’adeh, a Hamas brigade commander, and Mazen Nazimi Abbas, a commander in the Hamas special forces unit. For more details click here.

It was when Israel aborted this imminent Hamas attack that the group and other Palestinian groups in Gaza escalated their violations of the ceasefire by beginning to once again barrage Israel with rockets and mortars.

Now it is of course possible that Morrisson considers the Hamas policy of kidnapping Israeli soldiers to be acceptable--along with the threat of rockets. Then again, the fact that Morrisson does not make mention of those attacks indicates he knows full well that his argument can go only so far.

The real question is how far the media is willing to go to present an accurate picture of what the terrorist group Hamas is really up to.

In the meantime, the myths continue.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

Technorati Tag: Israel and Gaza and Hamas and Operation Cast Lead.

Continue Reading This Post...

Summary only...

Goldstone Reports's Col. Desmond Travers: 'Hey, They Never Laid A Glove On Me!'

But not a glove has been landed on the report itself … It cannot and will not be buried. It will not go away.
Col. Desmond Travers, participant in the Goldstone fact-finding mission

And neither will the analyzes, criticisms and refutations of that very same Goldstone Report--critiques that Col. Travers claims do not exist.

Among the sources of analysis online is Understanding The Goldstone Report, which has a section featuring Open Letters To Judge Goldstone, including:

• Law Professor Trevor Norwitz
• Dr. David Zangen (who refuted the Jenin Massacre myth)
• Rep. Howard Berman (who rebutted Goldstone's criticism of HR 867)
• CAMERA (whose whose The Goldstone Report: A Study in Duplicity points out factual flaws in the Report)

And that is not even including Israel's in-depth response.

If Col. Travers cannot even recognize the fact that in-depth, critiques of the Report exist that deal with the actual facts, what are we to think of the Goldstone Report in which he participated?

Technorati Tag: Colonel Desmond Travers and Goldstone Report.

Continue Reading This Post...

Summary only...

State Department: Obama Administration Has Accomplished More Than 8 Years Of Bush

That is simply too good not to check. First, here is the actual comment, from yesterday's daily press briefing with State Department spokesman Ian Kelly:

QUESTION: Could you give us just a brief synopsis of the progress that Senator Mitchell has made in his months on the job?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think we have – we’ve gotten --
QUESTION: Yeah, maybe if the --

MR. KELLY: -- both sides to agree on this goal. We have gotten both sides --

QUESTION: Ian, they agreed on the goal years ago. I mean, that’s not --

MR. KELLY: Well, I think that we – this government --

QUESTION: You mean you got the Israel Government to say, yes, we’re willing to accept a Palestinian state? You got Netanyahu to say that, and that’s his big accomplishment?

MR. KELLY: That is an accomplishment.

QUESTION: But previous Israeli administration – previous Israeli governments had agreed to that already.

MR. KELLY: Okay, all right.

QUESTION: So in other words, the bottom line is that, in the list of accomplishments that Mitchell has come up with or established since he started, is zero.

MR. KELLY: I wouldn’t say zero.

QUESTION: Well, then what would you say it is?

MR. KELLY: Well, I would say that we’ve gotten both sides to commit to this goal. They have – we have – we’ve had a intensive round or rounds of negotiations, the President brought the two leaders together in New York. Look --

QUESTION: But wait, hold on. You haven’t had any intense --

MR. KELLY: Obviously --

QUESTION: There haven’t been any negotiations.

MR. KELLY: Obviously, we’re not even in the red zone yet, okay.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: I mean, we’re not – but it’s – we are less than a year into this Administration, and I think we’ve accomplished more over the last year than the previous administration did in eight years.

QUESTION: Well, I – really, because the previous administration actually had them sitting down talking to each other. You guys can’t even get that far.

MR. KELLY: All right.

QUESTION: I’ll drop it.

MR. KELLY: Give us a chance. Thank you, Matt.

To be honest, Kelly does seem to maybe have realized he exaggerated--but the same cannot be said for Secretary of State Clinton, who said in a speech in September:

And I think that what George Mitchell has done has been very valuable in sorting through a lot of the concerns, because if you recall in the previous efforts of the Bush Administration through the Roadmap, the parties were encouraged to work themselves toward a resolution. The United States was not actively engaged in it, as we were in the ‘90s. So do I think maybe we’ve lost some ground, or maybe it’s a little more difficult because of that? I do. But that is not going to discourage us. So let me just reassure you. We are going to continue to do all that we can working with everyone involved, but most particularly the Palestinians and the Israelis, to reach that comprehensive peace agreement that we think is in the best interests of both countries.

So what, if anything, were the accomplishments of the Bush administration during the 8 years of its administration? Rick Richman has a list:

Far from ignoring the Arab-Israeli issue, Bush did the following:

(1) became in 2002 the first U.S. president to endorse a Palestinian state as a matter of official policy;

(2) translated the policy in 2003 into a Road Map approved by the UN, the EU, Russia, the Palestinian Authority and Israel;

(3) negotiated with Israel in 2004 on the Gaza Disengagement Deal (and got West Bank settlements dismantled to demonstrate it would not stop with Gaza);

(4) supported a Palestinian election in 2005 to endorse a new leader pledged to dismantling terrorist groups;

(5) permitted all parties to participate in the 2006 elections to give Palestinians a choice between the “peace partner” party and the premier terrorist group;

(6) scuttled the first two phases of the Road Map in 2007, in order to keep the process going, even after the Palestinians elected their premier terrorist group;

(7) convened a worldwide conference in Annapolis in 2007 to begin a year-long period of final status negotiations; and

(8) had his Secretary of State make umpteen trips in 2006-2008 to push the negotiations.

You can argue about the policies of the Bush administration, but to say it stood by and did nothing is just wrong.

Getting back to the Obama administration, just what has been accomplished? The Washington Post is not nearly as confident as Hillary Clinton. In fact--quite the opposite:

After nine months of shuttle diplomacy by U.S. special envoy George J. Mitchell, the gap between Israeli and Palestinian leaders appears to have grown, and it now includes not only a dispute over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, but also renewed tension over Jerusalem, disagreement over the framework for the talks and controversy over a U.N. report on alleged war crimes during Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter.

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mitchell report to the White House next week on the administration's goal of restarting the peace talks, they will be describing a situation that has arguably regressed, particularly in the three weeks since a high-level session in New York involving President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. [emphasis added]

In tracking the failure of the Obama initiative, Elliot Abrams points to 4 issues--

1. The instant hostility towards the new Netanyahu coalition
2. The obsession with a settlement freeze, including Jerusalem--which even the Palestinian Arabs had not made a central issue
3. The demand from Saudi Arabia to reach out to Israel--which was rejected.
4. Manipulating the Palestinian leadership: (i) by encouraging them to also insist on a settlement freeze--and then leaving them high and dry by drawing back from the demand
(ii) by pressuring them to not push for the approval of the Goldstone Report in the UN Human Human Rights Council.

So for Mr. Kelly to say:

we are less than a year into this Administration, and I think we’ve accomplished more over the last year than the previous administration did in eight years

is, if nothing else, an indication of how glibly one can create facts in Washington.
One can only hope that the US is basing itself more firmly on the facts when dealing with our allies.

But at least--as the questions asked of Kelly above indicate--the press is showing more of a tendency to challenge what the administration is claiming.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Middle East and Obama.

Continue Reading This Post...

Summary only...

What Does "Pro-Palestinian" Really Mean? (You May Be Surprised)

And the fact that being pro-Palestinian may be so very different than what the self-proclaimed pro-Palestinian 'activists' are doing, offers a clear indication of what is actually going on.

What Does "Pro-Palestinian" Really Mean?

by Khaled Abu Toameh

In recent years there has been a significant rise in the number of non-Palestinians who describe themselves as “pro-Palestinian” activists. These people can be found mostly on university campuses in North America and Europe.

What is striking is that many of these “pro-Palestinian” activists have never been to the Middle East, let alone the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. In most cases, they are not even Arabs or Muslims.

What makes them “pro-Palestinian”?

In their view, inciting against Israel on a university campus or publishing “anti-Zionist” material on the Internet is sufficient to earn them the title of “pro-Palestinian.” But what these folks have not realized is that their actions and words often do little to advance the interests of the Palestinians. In some instances, these actions and words are even counterproductive.

It is hard to see how organizing events such as “Israel Apartheid Week” on a university campus could help the cause of the Palestinians. Isn’t there already enough anti-Israel incitement that is being spewed out of Arab and Islamic media outlets?

Toameh concludes:

Being anti-Israel does not necessarily turn one into “pro-Palestinian.” On the other hand, promoting coexistence, peace and good government would be more beneficial to the Palestinians.

The Palestinians do not need students and professors on university campuses to tell them that Israel is bad. They have already had enough of this incitement from Hamas, Fatah and other Arab media outlets and leaders.

It is time for the “pro-Palestinian” camp in the West to reconsider its policies and tactics. It is time for this camp to listen to the authentic voices of the Palestinians – those that are shouting day and night that the Palestinians want good leaders and an end to lawlessness, anarchy and financial corruption.

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tag: Palestinians and Khaled Abu Toameh.

Continue Reading This Post...

Summary only...