Seumas Milne: Hamas Is The Victim

Typical of the sloppy reporting we can expect from the media is an article written by Seumas Milne. This is the same reporter who wrote in 2002 about a "massacre" in Jenin:

The stories of brutality and destruction filtering out of the Jenin refugee camp have become increasingly ominous. While independent observers have been kept out - along with ambulances and UN blood supplies - the Israeli army has rampaged its way through the hillside shanty town, overwhelming desperate Palestinian resistance. Hundreds are reported killed, including many civilians. As in other West Bank towns and camps, reports of beatings and executions of prisoners abound, and Israel appears to be preparing the ground for evidence of atrocities.

Five years later, and Milne's refusal to verify his facts is evident from the very beginning of his report on the Gaza conflict:

Since Israel's deputy defence minister, Matan Vilnai, issued his chilling warning last week that Palestinians faced a "holocaust" if they continued to fire home-made rockets into Israel, the balance sheet of suffering has become ever clearer.

While the initial error, based on a Reuters mistranslation is understandable, for a reporter at this point to parrot the mistake is just plain unprofessional. Mr. Milne's article came out on March 5--but on February 29, Tom Gross wrote for The National Review:

In fact Vilnai said this morning in off-the-cuff remarks made on Israel Radio that: “The more the Qassam rocket fire [on Israeli civilians] intensifies and increases its range, the Palestinians are bringing upon themselves a bigger disaster because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.”

Vilnai used the word “shoah” (meaning disaster), which Reuters mistranslated as “Holocaust,” which is “HaShoah” in Hebrew. It is like confusing a “white house” with “The White House.”

But in the first paragraph, Milne is already on a roll:

More than 120 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces in the past week, of whom one in five were children and more than half were civilians, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

No context is given to the established fact that Hamas' disregard for human life extends to their use of their own people as human shields by operating out of villages, homes, and even mosques. The loss of human life is tragic, but even if we assume that the numbers are correct, the background to how Palestinian terrorist operate is crucial--but Milne writes, unencumbered by context.

Keep in mind also the policy of B'Tselem.

B’Tselem made a deliberate policy choice to note whether casualties were involved in fighting at the time of their death and to refrain from labelling them as civilians or not. B’Tselem spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli confirmed this policy to CAMERA by phone last year. [emphasis theirs]

Brevity may be the soul of wit, but Milne's run through thorny disputed issues is anything but funny, responding to statements that Israel's attack was a response to Hamas rockets:

But of course it has been nothing of the kind - any more than has been Israel's 40-year occupation of the Palestinian territories, its continued expansion of settlements or its refusal to allow the return of expelled refugees.

He ignores the historical absence of a sovereign Arab Palestinian state, does not touch of issue of settlements and Israel's rights to the land, and refers to Palestinian refugees with no mention to numbers or consequences--let alone to how many are actual refugees 60 years later.
parroting of the breathtaking.

Milne is nothing if not consistent, persistent in listing any Israeli reactions to the random firing of rockets on Israeli citizens, while describing them as if they are merely punitive measures initiated by Israel against Gazans and ignoring the fact that each measure is geared specifically to making it more difficult for Palestinian Arabs to kill Jews--an idea that apparently bothers Milne.

Ever oblivious to reality, Milne concludes with this bizarre note on how to end the violence:

The answer could not be more obvious: end the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and negotiate a just settlement for the Palestinian refugees, ethnically cleansed 60 years ago - who, with their families, make up the majority of Gaza's 1.5 million people. All the Palestinian factions, including Hamas, accept that as the basis for a permanent settlement or indefinite end of armed conflict. [emphasis added]

Including Hamas? Maybe Milne's problem is that he reads the Guardian paper that he writes for. On January 12, 2006, the Guardian reported: Hamas drops call for destruction of Israel from manifesto. The New York Times, however, reported 2 weeks later that Hamas had said nothing of the sort:

The exiled political head of the radical Islamic group Hamas said Saturday in Damascus, Syria, that the group would adopt "a very realistic approach" toward governing the Palestinian Authority and would work with the Fatah president, Mahmoud Abbas, on an acceptable political program.

But the leader, Khaled Meshal, also said Hamas would not "submit to pressure to recognize Israel, because the occupation is illegitimate and we will not abandon our rights," nor would it disarm, but would work to create a unified Palestinian army.

He insisted that "resistance is a legitimate right that we will practice and protect," and he defended attacks on Israeli civilians, which included many suicide bombings until a cease-fire nearly a year ago. Then he said Hamas was "ready to work with Europe and even the United States if they wish."

The Meshal news conference was a good example of the mixture of messages coming from Hamas.

Milne certainly picked the message he wanted, but in his conclusion he ignores what Hamas says explicitly in its Charter, statements such as:

• "Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors."
  
  
• "The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it."
  
  
• " There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. The initiatives, proposals and International Conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility."
  
  
• "Today it is Palestine and tomorrow it may be another country or other countries. For Zionist scheming has no end, and after Palestine they will covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates. Only when they have completed digesting the area on which they will have laid their hand, they will look forward to more expansion, etc. Their scheme has been laid out in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and their present [conduct] is the best proof of what is said there"

The only way to end the arbitrary murder of Israeli citizens is to stop Hamas--"the answer could not be more obvious." However, that will require an end to the "regulation" of this war, by recognizing terrorists by what they are and holding them accountable for their actions. It's time for reporters like Seumas Milne to stop making excuses for terrorists.

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