Banned UN Speech

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhWgZu6tcZU&feature=related

And here some approved UN abuses!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMEw0lZ3k_Y&feature=related

And here is a Sderot resident appealing to UN re imbalance in human rights...."all men are created equal but some more than others"....Some people are deseving of human rights but not others....."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QYifo19scI&feature=related

This is hilarious

http://dotsub.com/view/84f5c72d-b0ba-408c-ace3-8cc40995e011 English guy about the demands from Islam

Mumbai

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=rHeB81BbuYU

http://www.steynonline.com/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,33/

WHO'S VULNERABLE?
Steyn on the World > Saturday, 13 December 2008

Shortly after the London Tube bombings in 2005, a reader of Tim Blair, the> Sydney Daily Telegraph's columnar wag, sent him a note-perfect parody of a> typical newspaper headline: "British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over> Tomorrow's Train Bombing."> > Indeed. And so it goes. This time round - Bombay - it was the Associated> Press that filed a story about how Muslims "found themselves on the> defensive once again about bloodshed linked to their religion."> > Oh, I don't know about that. In fact, you'd be hard pressed from most news> reports to figure out the bloodshed was "linked" to any religion, least of> all one beginning with "I-" and ending in "-slam." In the three years since> those British bombings, the media have more or less entirely abandoned the> offending formulations - "Islamic terrorists," "Muslim extremists" - and by> the time of the assault on Bombay found it easier just to call the alleged> perpetrators "militants" or "gunmen" or "teenage gunmen," as in the opening> line of this report in the Australian: "An Adelaide woman in India for her> wedding is lucky to be alive after teenage gunmen ran amok." > > Kids today, eh? Always running amok in an aimless fashion.> > The veteran British TV anchor Jon Snow, on the other hand, opted for the> more cryptic locution "practitioners." "Practitioners" of what, exactly?> > Hard to say. And getting harder. Tom Gross produced a jaw-dropping round-up> of Bombay media coverage: The discovery that, for the first time in an> Indian terrorist atrocity, Jews had been attacked, tortured, and killed> produced from the New York Times a serene befuddlement: "It is not known if> the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental> hostage scene."> > Hmm. Greater Bombay forms one of the world's five biggest cities. It has a> population of nearly 20 million. But only one Jewish center, located in a> building that gives no external clue as to the bounty waiting therein. An> "accidental hostage scene" that one of the "practitioners" just happened to> stumble upon? "I must be the luckiest jihadist in town. What are the odds?"> > Meanwhile, the New Age guru Deepak Chopra laid all the blame on American> foreign policy for "going after the wrong people" and inflaming moderates,> and "that inflammation then gets organized and appears as this disaster in> Bombay."> > Really? The inflammation just "appears"? Like a bad pimple? The "fairer" we> get to the, ah, inflamed militant practitioners, the unfairer we get to> everyone else. At the Chabad House, the murdered Jews were described in> almost all the Western media as "ultra-Orthodox," "ultra-" in this instance> being less a term of theological precision than a generalized code for> "strange, weird people, nothing against them personally, but they probably> shouldn't have been over there in the first place." Are they stranger or> weirder than their killers? Two "inflamed moderates" entered the Chabad> House, shouted "Allahu Akbar!," tortured the Jews and murdered them,> including the young Rabbi's pregnant wife. Their two-year-old child escaped> because of a quick-witted (non-Jewish) nanny who hid in a closet and then,> risking being mown down by machine-gun fire, ran with him to safety.> > The Times was being silly in suggesting this was just an "accidental"> hostage opportunity - and not just because, when Muslim terrorists capture> Jews, it's not a hostage situation, it's a mass murder-in-waiting. The sole> surviving "militant" revealed that the Jewish center had been targeted a> year in advance. The 28-year-old rabbi was Gavriel Holtzberg. His pregnant> wife was Rivka Holtzberg. Their orphaned son is Moshe Holtzberg, and his> brave nanny is Sandra Samuels. Remember their names, not because they're any> more important than the Indians, Britons, and Americans targeted in the> attack on Bombay, but because they are an especially revealing glimpse into> the pathologies of the perpetrators.> > In a well-planned attack on iconic Bombay landmarks symbolizing great power> and wealth, the "militants" nevertheless found time to divert 20 percent of> their manpower to torturing and killing a handful of obscure Jews helping> the city's poor in a nondescript building. If they were just "teenage> gunmen" or "militants" in the cause of Kashmir, engaged in a more or less> conventional territorial dispute with India, why kill the only rabbi in> Bombay? Dennis Prager got to the absurdity of it when he invited his readers> to imagine Basque separatists attacking Madrid: "Would the terrorists take> time out to murder all those in the Madrid Chabad House? The idea is> ludicrous."> > And yet we take it for granted that Pakistani "militants" in a long-running> border dispute with India would take time out of their hectic schedule to> kill Jews. In going to ever more baroque lengths to avoid saying "Islamic"> or "Muslim" or "terrorist," we have somehow managed to internalize the> pathologies of these men.> > We are enjoined to be "understanding," and we're doing our best. A> Minnesotan suicide bomber (now there's a phrase) originally from Somalia> returned to the old country and blew up himself and 29 other people last> October. His family prevailed upon your government to have his parts (or as> many of them as could be sifted from the debris) returned to the United> States at taxpayer expense and buried in Burnsville Cemetery. Well, hey, in> the current climate, what's the big deal about a federal bailout of jihad> operational expenses? If that's not "too big to fail," what is?> > Last week, a Canadian critic reprimanded me for failing to understand that> Muslims feel "vulnerable." Au contraire, they project tremendous cultural> confidence, as well they might: They're the world's fastest-growing> population. A prominent British Muslim announced the other day that, when> the United Kingdom becomes a Muslim state, non-Muslims will be required to> wear insignia identifying them as infidels. If he's feeling "vulnerable,"> he's doing a terrific job of covering it up.> > We are told that the "vast majority" of the 1.6-1.8 billion Muslims (in> Deepak Chopra's estimate) are "moderate." Maybe so, but they're also quiet.> And, as the AIDs activists used to say, "Silence=Acceptance." It equals> acceptance of the things done in the name of their faith. Rabbi Holtzberg> was not murdered because of a territorial dispute over Kashmir or because of> Bush's foreign policy. He was murdered in the name of Islam - "Allahu> Akbar."> > I wrote in my book, America Alone, that "reforming" Islam is something only> Muslims can do. But they show very little sign of being interested in doing> it, and the rest of us are inclined to accept that. Spread a rumor that a> Koran got flushed down the can at Gitmo, and there'll be rioting throughout> the Muslim world. Publish some dull cartoons in a minor Danish newspaper,> and there'll be protests around the planet. But slaughter the young pregnant> wife of a rabbi in Bombay in the name of Allah, and that's just business as> usual. And, if it is somehow "understandable" that for the first time in> history it's no longer safe for a Jew to live in India, then we are greasing> the skids for a very slippery slope. Muslims, the AP headline informs us,> "worry about image." Not enough. > The Orange County Register, December 2008

Good honest history of Israel

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened

A Blood-libel at the Royal Court theatre

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/02/08/seven-jewish-children-a-play-for-gaza-by-caryl-churchill-at-the-royal-court/

This is from Harry's Place blog. It shows the hypocracy of people who turn down an anti-Islamic play but merrily show an offensive, untrue anti-semitic one. I despair for humanity!!

What we are up against

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amMxHD9Vk04&feature=related

This is old but it shows what we are up against. I assume the title of the film is to get people to watch it!!

'My daughters, they killed them': Doctor shows Israelis horror of war

This was in the Independent-note how they are wrong on the shellings of UN-run schools!! See below to see the truth of what happened-how he was told to get his kids out but he chose not to listen. See what was in his house in the posting below that! This is a man who loves peace?

By Ben Lynfield in Tel Hashomer, Israel
Monday, 19 January 2009



RANAAN/AP
Dr Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish bursts into tears on Friday after his daughters' deaths

© More pictures
Like the shellings of UN-run schools and a major hospital in Gaza City, the Israeli public might have regarded the deaths of his three daughters as just more collateral damage in an ugly but justified war, if they noticed it at all. But Dr Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish is a gynaecologist at Israel's Shiba Hospital near Tel Aviv, and is well known among Israeli medical colleagues and journalists.
During the 22 days of Israel's military onslaught on Gaza, the Palestinian doctor and peace advocate who speaks Hebrew fluently had helped the Israeli media cover the war by giving phone interviews from inside Gaza.

But on Friday night, Dr Aboul Aish's scheduled live interview with Israeli Channel 10 television was conducted minutes after three of his daughters were killed by an Israeli shell. His raw anguish forced Israelis to take their first real glimpse of the suffering and death caused to Palestinian civilians.

Note how the Israelis told him to get out

It is worth paying extra attention to the bit that states "The IDF Spokesperson Unit stresses that in the days leading up to the incident, Dr. Abu El-Eish was contacted personally several times by officers in the Coordination and Liaison Administration in order to urge the doctor to evacuate his home, as many others already have, because of Hamas operations and the intense fighting that was already taking place in that area for several days." This shows how much the IDF try to prevent civilian casualties before they happen.

February 4th, 2009

Results from IDF Inquiry Regarding Incident at the Residence of Dr. Abu El-Eish

Investigations were held on many levels in the IDF, with regards to the incident at the residence of Dr. Az A-Din Abu El-Eish, that occurred on Friday, January 16, 2009, in which three of the doctor's daughters were killed. The conclusions found that two shells were fired from an IDF tank resulting in the deaths of.

The investigation found that a force from the Golani Infantry Brigade operated in the area of Sajaiya for several days, during which they were engaged in face to face combat within short range of Hamas terrorist cells. The forces also located tunnels used for ambushing and attacking IDF forces, and identified homes which were booby-trapped.

On that Friday, the force came under sniper and mortar fire in an area laden with explosives and IEDs (improvised explosive devices). The force identified and located the source of fire from a house adjacent to that of the doctor's, and in response, opened fire.

During the reactionary fire opened by the IDF forces, suspicious figures were identified in the upper level of Dr. Abu El-Eish's house and were thought to be spotters who directed the Hamas sniper and mortar fire. Upon assessing the situation in the field while under heavy fire, the commander of the force gave the order to open fire on the suspicious figures. It is from this fire, that the three daughters of Dr. Az A-Din Abu El-Eish were killed.

Following the opening of fire, screams were heard from the direction of the house, and immediately the IDF force ceased all fire. Only later was it understood that this was in fact the house of Dr. Abu El-Eish. When contact was made with the doctor, the IDF force operated in order to allow for ambulances to evacuate the injured via the Erez Crossing for immediate emergency medical treatment in Israel.

The IDF Spokesperson Unit stresses that in the days leading up to the incident, Dr. Abu El-Eish was contacted personally several times by officers in the Coordination and Liaison Administration in order to urge the doctor to evacuate his home, as many others already have, because of Hamas operations and the intense fighting that was already taking place in that area for several days.

The IDF Spokesperson Unit also emphasizes that in addition to the personal contact made directly with Dr. El-Eish, the IDF issued warnings to the residents of Sajaiya by dropping thousands of leaflets as well as issuing warnings via Palestinian media outlets.

The investigation of the incident was conducted by the commanders of the forces in the area, as well as the division commander, and was approved by GOC Southern Command and the Head of the IDF Operations Branch (both ranking Major Generals). The IDF is saddened by the harm caused to the Abu El-Eish family, but at the same time states that considering the constraints of the battle scene, the amount of threats that endangered the force, and the intensity of fighting in the area, the forces' action and the decision to fire towards the building were reasonable.

The investigation's results were presented yesterday to the Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, and received his approval.

Re: Dr Din Abu El Eish

This is an email from a friend from a friend so I can't verify the facts.

My friend, an Israeli Golani soldier during the operation in gaza near the doctor's home, was in the combat unit that fired the shots at terrorist hamas gangs near outside of this doctor's home. his family was inside. after the israeli golani soldiers cleaned the area from hamas threat and gunmen, they entered the house and found the dead bodies.what they also found is lots of ammunition stored in a kitchen closet: grenades, guns and some crude missiles. there were lots of black powder in sacks in the kitchen cabinet that the hamas uses to put into the rockets they send to israel. the soldiers also found guns stored in the bedroom closet above the doctor's bed...like an attic.

the israeli soldiers confiscated all this and blew them up outside the home. the doctor kept also empty pvc tubes under the bed in the bedroom. these are usually cut off from underground sewage systems and filled with the black powder in sacks and then made into crude missiles.

this was not reported by the idf because the investigation is still going on, but the idf intelligence knows what really happened.

amazing that this doctor, a hamas supporter and comlicit in their terror agenda by letting them store ammunition in his house, works at soroka medical center near beer sheba and claims innocence and wonders why the idf has operated near his house.

my friend tells me that they eliminated the gun fire from behind the doctor's house which came from hamas gunmen. they didn't target the house. the civilians in the house were part of the doctor's family...children. hamas knew they were inside and hamas needed the ammunition in the house. they forced the children to stay there and started shooting at the golani idf troops from behind the house. the hamas knew that the israeli soldiers will shoot back and hit the house. they knew it and they did it on purpose so the children would die in the battle. the house had secondary explosions from all the grenades stored in the closet and this is how the children died.mahed zabouri, druzigalil (02.04.09)

The intimidation of the House of Lords

by Melanie Phillips--scary reading!!
Tuesday, 3rd February 2009

I have been travelling during the past few days and so have built up a bit of a backlog of events upon which I have not yet commented. One of these is the apparently gross abuse of Parliament by Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, which remarkably has not been covered at all in the mainstream British media. Another member of the House of Lords invited the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who is currently facing prosecution in the Netherlands for his outspoken analysis of the Islamist war on civilisation, to screen his controversial film ‘Fitna’ in the Lords on January 29 and discuss his views.

But various representatives of the British Muslim community protested; and Lord Ahmed issued a threat that he would personally mobilise 10,000 Muslims to prevent Wilders from entering the Upper House and would take the peer organising the event to court. In the face of such threats, the meeting was cancelled.

Lord Ahmed then boasted of his victory in the Pakistani media. The Associated Press of Pakistan reported him exulting ina victory for the Muslim community.

It was of course a major defeat for Parliament’s sovereign right and duty to protect free speech, the right to issue an invitation to a democratically elected member of a European parliament, and the right of British citizens to live without intimidation. It was an appalling development.

Now, however, it is fighting back. Wilders has been re-invited to speak and screen his film in the Lords later this month. Parliament now has a second chance to show that jihadi thuggery will not be allowed to prevail within the cradle of democracy.

But if it is really to demonstrate this, it should also surely take action against Lord Ahmed, who abused his position as a peer of the realm to threaten mass intimidation of the House in which he sits. If it fails to do so, it will be another notch on the ratchet of Britain’s slide into submission.

How Gaza was spun by Andrew Bolt

See the original at http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/how_gaza_was_spun and watch this staged "cardiac arrest" by Mad Mads http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/32393_A_Staged_Scene_in_a_Gaza_Hospital
January 26, 2009 at 07:05am

Report after report during the fighting in Gaza stressed how Israel was carelessly killing civilians - and so many of them.

But reports by largely Left-leaning journalists from an area controlled by a terrorist group that could make life very nasty for them and their contacts cannot lightly be trusted. Both of the key claims against Israel turn out to be suspect.

First, Fairfax’s Jason Koutsoukis finds that Hamas, at least, knows well that Israeli troops restrain themselves in a fight - and tried to exploit that restraint in ways that put the lives of innocent Palestinians at risk:

Mohammed Shriteh, 30, is an ambulance driver registered with and trained by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.... Mr Shriteh said the more immediate threat was from Hamas, who would lure the ambulances into the heart of a battle to transport fighters to safety.

In fact, Hamas reportedly used one hospital as a hideout and headquarters:
Senior Hamas officials ... are believed to be in the basements of the Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza City, which was refurbished during Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip… During a cabinet meeting a week ago, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said senior Hamas officials found refuge in the hospital basement because they know Israel would not target it, due to the patients in the upper floors.

This is the same hospital where Mads Gilbert, the Marxist Norwegian doctor who backs terrorist attacks against the US, worked for several days and gave countless interviews accusing Israel of war crimes against largely innocent Palestinians. Oh, and performed in one highly questionable medical intervention for the cameras.

And what of all those innocents that Israel slaughtered? True, hundreds did, tragically, die, as Hamas fought from behind their human shields, but once again it seems the truth was spun:
Italian journalist Lorenzo Cremonesi, who works with the Corriere della serra newspaper, reported Thursday that Hamas had vastly overstated the number of civilian deaths in Gaza. While Hamas claims that 1,330 residents of Gaza were killed in the operation and approximately 5,000 wounded, the real number of casualties was far lower, Cremonesi says.

Cremonesi’s report was based on his own findings after touring hospitals in Gaza and talking to families of those killed or wounded.... Cremonesi estimated that between 500 to 600 people were killed in the fighting. Most were young men between the ages of 17 and 23 who were members of Hamas, he said.

Many hospitals had several empty beds, he reported… The Italian report also confirmed Israeli allegations that Hamas had used civilians as human shields and used ambulances and United Nations buildings in the fighting.

And, typically, the only clear case we have so far of innocent Palestinians being deliberately gunned down during Israel’s invasion has received almost no coverage and zero outrage from the the UN and the rest of the “pro-Palestinian” bureaucracy:

The Palestinian Authority’s Minister of Social Welfare Affairs, Mahmoud Habbash, ...confirmed that Hamas had been torturing and executing Fatah members in the Gaza Strip during and after Operation Cast Lead. Nineteen Palestinians were murdered in cold blood by Hamas, Habbash said, while more than 60 others were shot in the legs.

Ihab Ghissin, spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza, confirmed that his men had arrested scores of “collaborators” with Israel during and after the war.... Musa Abu Marzouk, a top Hamas official in Syria, confirmed that his movement had executed “collaborators” during the war.

This is a war crime!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHhs9ihSmbU Israeli soldiers find school and Zoo booby trapped by Hamas

Hypocrisy! by David A Harris

David is Executive DirectorAmerican Jewish Committee This letter was in the J post. January 26, 2009

Dear Ms. Trine Lilleng,

You were an unknown Norwegian diplomat till this month.No longer.

As first secretary in the Norwegian Embassy in Saudi Arabia, you recently sent out an email on your office account in which you declared: "The grandchildren of Holocaust survivors from World War II are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them by Nazi Germany."Accompanying your text were photos, with an emphasis on children, seeking to juxtapose the Holocaust with the recent Israeli military operation in Gaza.

Clearly, you are miscast in your role as a diplomat, all the more so of a nation that has sought to play a mediating role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. In fact, you're desperately in need of some education.Let's begin with your current posting.

You've been in Riyadh since 2007. If you're so anguished by human rights violations, perhaps you could have begun by devoting some of your attention - and email blasts - to what surrounds you. Or were your eyes diplomatically shut?Have you failed to notice the many legal executions, including beheadings, going on in your assigned country?Have you ignored the often abysmal treatment of foreign workers, many from Asia, who also happen to be disproportionately counted among the victims of Saudi capital punishment?Have you neglected the gender apartheid that surrounds you? Did you ever look out of your car to notice that Saudi women are proscribed from driving, and that's hardly the worst of it?

Have you checked the skyline of Riyadh or Jeddah lately to count the number of church spires or other non-Muslim houses of worship?Have you bothered to inquire about the fate of homosexuals?Okay, you were AWOL on those issues. Maybe you just didn't want to offend your hosts by speaking the truth, or maybe you're suffering from that diplomatic disease known as "localitis" or "clientitis."But surely a woman like you, with such capacity for empathy for those in far-away places, and especially for children in danger, couldn't remain silent about other human rights transgressions, could she?

After all, could an individual so deeply moved by the plight of Palestinians in Gaza remain silent about what a New York Times columnist earlier this month described as "hell on earth" - Zimbabwe? Could a person so anguished by the fate of Palestinian children stay mum about a country where a girl's life expectancy at birth is 34, much less than half that of her Norwegian counterpart, and where the health care sector has vaporized, all thanks to the one-man rule of Robert Mugabe?

Could such a dedicated humanist possibly avert her eyes from the deadliest conflict since the Second World War, which has killed over five million people, many of them children, in the Congo in the past decade - not to mention the documented and widespread use of torture, rape, and arbitrary detention?

An observer of such acute sensitivity could hardly hold her tongue while Afghan girls attempting to go to school have been doused with acid by those who wish to deny young women access to education, reminiscent of the five years of Taliban rule, could she?

In neighboring Pakistan, where you served in the Norwegian embassy for three years, the beleaguered human rights community must have been fortunate to have such an impassioned voice for all that's wrong in this failing state. Or was that voice, perhaps, on mute?

The children of Sderot, the Israeli town near the Gaza border, have been in desperate need of just such a spokesperson as you for the past eight years. After all, their town has been in the crosshairs of literally thousands of missiles and mortars fired from Gaza. Those Israeli children live with all the signs of trauma, knowing that, with only 15 seconds warning, they could be hit at any time in their schools, their parks, or their beds. Yet, during my visit there last week, for some reason, those children and their parents had yet to hear you speak out for them. What a pity!

And the children of Iran could use your help as well. According to human rights groups, Iran has no compunction about executing children or those who were children when their crimes were allegedly committed. Oh, and by the way, your compassionate help would also undoubtedly be welcomed by others under the gun in Iran, including women's rights activists, union organizers, student protesters, independent journalists, reformist politicians, and religious minorities.

And let's not forget, once again, the children of Israel, who, according to the Iranian president, don't have a right to live.

But wait! A Google search about you reveals nothing, not a single word, regarding your views on Zimbabwe, Congo, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sderot, or Iran. Or, for that matter, Burma, Darfur, Syria. Shall I go on?Only Israel, faced with those who wish to destroy it, manages to prompt your impassioned correspondence and righteous indignation.

Why?No less, your stunning lack of education extends beyond the contemporary world to 20th century history, specifically the Holocaust.Your invocation of the Holocaust to describe what's taken place in Gaza is, frankly, nothing short of obscene.Your claim that the grandchildren of the survivors are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them goes beyond any norm of decency, much less honesty.Approve or disapprove of the Israeli military operation, but there is no basis whatsoever for such a comparison.

When Israel entered Gaza in a war of self-defense in 1967, the population was 360,000. After Israel withdrew totally from Gaza in 2005, it was estimated at 1.4 million.Would that the Jewish population under Nazi rule had quadrupled!

When Israel entered Gaza in 1967, life expectancy for women was 46. When it left Gaza, it was 73.Shall we even bother to discuss life expectancy for Jews under Nazi occupation?

The Second World War in Europe lasted from September 1, 1939 to May 8, 1945 - 68 months in all. That means an average monthly extermination rate of nearly 90,000 Jews.Compare that to the total number of victims in Gaza over three weeks - roughly guesstimated at more or less 1,000 - and recall that the majority were armed fighters committed to Israel's destruction, who used civilians, including children, as human shields, mosques as arms depots, and hospitals as sanctuaries.

Believe me, Ms. Lilleng, if the "grandchildren of the Holocaust survivors" had wanted to do exactly what the Nazis did to their grandparents, they would have unleashed their full air, land, and sea power. They would have thrown the Israel Defense Forces' ethical guidelines to the wind, kicked out the UN and Red Cross personnel on the ground, stopped humanitarian transports of food, fuel, and medicine, prevented media reporting, and left absolutely nothing - and no one - standing. Unless, of course, they needed slave labor, in which case they would have carted off the able-bodied to work in Auschwitz replicas until they dropped. Or material for ghoulish medical experimentation, in which case, in the spirit of Mengele, they would have kept Palestinian twins alive temporarily.

But Israel didn't do any of these things. It's a peace-seeking democracy dedicated to the rule of law - unlike so many of the countries whose horrific sins you blithely choose to overlook.

What are we to make of your selective moral outrage and rank hypocrisy? You ought to take a look in the mirror and ask yourself why Israel, and only Israel, makes your blood boil and leads you to speak out, even at the risk of grossly distorting both reality and history.

The answer, Ms. Lilleng, should be painfully obvious.

Petition the UN re:Hamas War Crimes!!

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/tap12009/petition.html

Statistical "Proof" that Hashem is watching over us!!

There is no end to the miracles that we have heard happening in this war: from the relatively few soldiers killed-the govt thought it was going to be in the 100s- in the end it was in low double figures, to this:

"Harold Gans is a mathematical consultant and international lecturer throughout North America, Israel, Australia and South Africa. He was a Senior Cryptologic Mathematician with the National Security Agency, United States Department of Defense until his retirement after 28 years of service. He recently reported the following:

On Jan. 5, 2009, Ehud Barak, Defense Minister of Israel, announced that 125 Grad-Katyusha missiles had fallen on populated areas of Beersheva, Ashkelon and Ashdod. This is 40% of the missiles fired; the remaining 60% fell in open areas. Of the 40% that hit populated areas of these cities, 2% hit buildings. I obtained satellite photos of Beersheva, Ashkelon and Ashdod. My analysis indicated that the average percentage of the ground covered by buildings in these three cities is 39.7%. This takes into account the different sizes of these cities.

Now, the expected rate of rockets hitting buildings should be the same as the percentage of the ground covered by buildings: 39.7%. Yet it is only 2%. The odds of this happening by chance are 100,000,000,000,000,000: 1.

Note that this has nothing to do with the bad aim of these missiles; we are only counting the 40% that actually did fall in populated areas of these cities."

If only the world would see the real Hamas!

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&Do=Print&ID=35455

Don't you think that seeing the world is fund raising for Hamas, that we should do an appeal for al-qaeda, the taliban and all the other terrorist organisations out there so that we have balanced, impartial help going to all their poor women and children who are under siege by the war on terror!?!

This must be one of the most brilliant, poignant articles to date.

http://online.wsj.com:80/article/SB123362422088941893.html By Daniel Pearl's father, a professor in UCLA. "Daniel Pearl and the normalisation of evil". Read it and weep.

Worrying times in France

Once again, the real news in France is conveniently not being reported as it should. To give you an idea of what's going on in France where there are nowbetween 5 and 6 million Muslims and about 600,000 Jews, here is an E-mail that came from a Jew living in France.Please read!

Will the world say nothing - again - as it did in Hitler's time?

Hewrites, "I AM A JEW -- therefore I am forwarding this to everyone on all my mail lists. I will not sit back and do nothing." Nowhere have the flames of anti-Semitism burned more furiously than in France : In Lyon, a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire.

In Montpellier, the Jewish religious center was firebombed; so were synagogues in Strasbourg andMarseilles; so was a Jewish school in Creteil - all recently.

A Jewishsports club in Toulouse was attacked with Molotov cocktails, and on thestatue of Alfred Dreyfus in Paris , the words "Dirty Jew" were painted.

In Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish football team with sticks andmetal bars. The bus that takes Jewish children to school in Aubervilliershas been attacked three times in the last 14 months.

According to the Police, metropolitan Paris has seen 10 to 12anti-Jewish incidents PER DAY in the past 30 days.

Walls in Jewishneighborhoods have been defaced with slogans proclaiming "Jews to the gaschambers" and "Death to the Jews."

A gunman opened fire on a kosherbutcher's shop (and, of course, the butcher) in Toulouse, France; a Jewish couple in their 20's were beaten up by five men in Villeurbanne, France. The woman was pregnant; a Jewish school was broken into and vandalized inSarcelles, France. This was just in the past week. "

So I call on you, whether you are a fellow Jew, a friend, or merelya person with the capacity and desire to distinguish decency from depravity,to do, at least, these three simple things:
First, care enough to stay informed. Don't ever let yourself become deluded into thinking that this is not your fight.

I remind you ofwhat Pastor Neimoller said in World War II: "First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew. Then theycame for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant.Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me".

Second, protest to the media about what is going on. Write to the French embassy.

Third, send this along to your family, your friends, and your co-workers. Think of all of the people of good conscience that you know and let them know that you and the people that you care about need their help. The number one bestselling book in France is...."September 11: TheFrightening Fraud," which argues that no plane ever hit the Pentagon.
Please Pass This On, Let's not let history repeat itself, thank-you for your time and consideration.

write to the French embassy about your concern for the safety of Jews there.

French Embassy
58 Knightsbridge
London SW1X 7JT

Aaaagh! The world is going down the tubes!

OK. I know G-d is up to something. We have all the factors for a major catastrophe building up:
1. Economic crisis
2. Israel under attack-whether from rockets form Hamas or from the war of words from the rest of the world
3. Jihad is on the up
4. And now the Pope is reinstating Holocaust denying priests.
No, don't get depressed. No, you are not paranoid-everyone does hate us BUT........
Remember Egypt? Pharaoh after one disproportionate plague still couldn't see the wood for the trees.
Remember the story of Queen Esther? Everyone hated the Jews then too. The only thing we learn from history is that no-one ever learns from history.
Anyway, the good news is after all our history, we are still here, so G-d does love us in His own special way so whatever the world throws at us be reassured that Someone is looking after us.

Cease and Fire!

Ha Ha! Silly me but when I was growing up a ceasefire meant just that: a cease fire. It turns out that Hamas only hear the fire part so they are continuing firing at Israel despite declaring a truce. When is the rest of the world going to wake up?? Do we hear on national news about these attacks?-barely, last article at back of newpaper or only if Israel responds. I wrote to Reuters today to tell them that they have it all back to front!

"Why whenever you do a report on Gaza, you get the chronology of events back to front? You will find that Gaza terrorists were firing at Israel so Israel had to respond to the threat to her civilians. Not Israel fired at Gaza and oh, yes, forgot to mention, in passing, that Hamas were firing at Israel and happened to injure 3 human beings. Your bias speaks volumes!!"

This is what I wrote to the BBC today pre-empting the Panaroma show next week.

I know that the BBC prides itself on its impartiality and I just wanted to write in to express my hopes that Jeremy Bowen will do justice in next week's Panorama to the terrible situation in Israel/Gaza. I hope that he will start by putting the situation in context i.e that for 6 long years Israeli citizens have had daily bombardment by Qassams, Grads and Ketusha rockets which by sheer miracle, have had few fatalities but many casualties-not to mention the psychological impact on the lives of Israeli civilians living in the South. I hope he will make clear that Hamas is a terrorist organisation that uses children as human shields. I hope that he will show the youtube images of Hamas firing from the UN School in Gaza. I hope he will show the Gazan Doctor who publically blamed Israel for the death of his 3 daughters and when there was an investigation, a piece of shrapnel from a Hamas bomb was found in one of the girls. I hope he will expose the mindset of a people intent on the destruction of Israel. I hope he will show images of the green houses left when the Israelis withdrew from Gaza in 2005 so the Palestinians could build a thriving enterprise for themselves BUT Hamas then destroyed them. I hope he exposes how BILLIONS of dollars have been poured into Gaza but instead of going to the humanitarian crisis, it has gone into the purchase of bombs, artillery and training camps for men and children. I hope he shows the youtube images where a Palestinian woman is interviewing a 3 yrs old(!) and asking her who are the sons and daughters of pigs and monkeys and who should we kill?

Thank you because after seeing Jeremy on Jon Snow's programme where Jon was baying for more blood and more bloody images, I was worried that our own Jeremy might not be so impartial after all.........

Holocaust denial in the Vatican

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/01/a-man-of-the-zyklon-cloth.html

http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=4441467&ct=6645285


Britain's Bishop Richard Williamson, who is reportedly being investigated for Holocaust denial in Germany, denied the murder of 6 million Jews by stating in an interview on Swedish state television last week, "I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews died in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them in gas chambers."

The Pope must make clear to the world that at a time when antisemitism and Holocaust denial have reached the highest levels in two decades and protesters at anti-Israel rallies are chanting, "Jews back to the ovens", his decision to welcome a Holocaust denier back into the Church will only validate Holocaust denial and contradicts the teachings of Vatican II. Bishops who preach antisemitism or Holocaust denial should not be embraced by the Vatican.

Bishop Williamson is one of four Catholic Bishops belonging to the notoriously antisemitic 'Society of Saint Pius', a breakaway group which opposes changes in Catholic doctrine. According to news reports, Williamson has endorsed "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", a notorious anti-Semitic forgery, and claimed that Jews are bent on world domination.

Just last week, Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of Williamson and three other Bishops belonging to this group.

The Charities are Guilty, not the BBC (The Times Jan 26th)

The Corporation is right not to run the Gaza appeal. Oxfam and others are clearly anti-Israel
Andrew Roberts

Mark Thompson, the Director-General of the BBC, is quite right to refuse to broadcast the appeal of the Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC) for humanitarian relief for Gaza, but not for the reason he thinks. He is under the impression that it will damage the BBC's reputation for impartiality in reporting the Israel-Palestine question, but the fact is that the BBC does not have any such reputation, having for years been institutionally pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli. The reason that his decision is brave and right, however, is that many of the 13 charities that make up the DEC are even more mired in anti-Israeli assumptions than the BBC itself.
Mr Thompson rightly appreciates that the issue of humanitarian relief in this conflict is quite unlike humanitarian relief for victims of a tsunami or a famine.

Who adjudicates on which victims to support via such charitable aid - and according to whose political morality? Why did the BBC not launch an appeal for the victims of collateral damage during Nato's bombing of Serbia in 1999 during the Kosovo campaign? And had it done so, would it have given money to ethnic Serbs as well as to Kosovars and Bosnian Muslims, all of whom were “cleansed” during the Balkan wars of that decade? What about the victims of insurgencies and counter- insurgencies in Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Chechnya or Georgia? Or Israeli victims of the next Hamas suicide attack? Indeed, what about the Palestinian victims of Hamas's hideous human rights abuses, still so shamefully under-reported by the British media as a whole?
And who are these supposedly impartial charities who are attacking Mr Thompson's (albeit belated) attempt to uphold the Corporation's traditional standards? While groups such as the British Red Cross and Christian Aid are generally impartial in other areas of the world, that cannot be said to apply to their role in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, where they regularly view the conflict through a deeply partisan lens.

In the months prior to the decision by Hamas to end the six-month ceasefire and resume rocket attacks, these charities issued a flood of one- sided denunciations aimed at Israel. Their campaign repeated tendentious and often highly inaccurate terms such as “collective punishment” and “violation of international law”. On March 6, 2008, CARE International, Cafod, Christian Aid and Oxfam (among others) published a widely quoted report under the headline “The Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion”. The authors did not bother to hide their political bias against Israel, repeating standard Palestinian political rhetoric and including claims that Israeli policy “constitutes a collective punishment against ordinary men, women and children” and is “illegal under international humanitarian law”.

The report was wrong on many counts, including allegations over the availability of food and basic necessities, which were later contradicted by both the World Bank and World Health Organisation, neither of which are exactly Israeli stooges. The fact that Hamas chose to pursue war with Israel rather than the welfare of its people, was not covered in these reports. There was no sense that any of these claims might be disputed by the other side or by genuinely neutral observers.

During the three-week war, Oxfam and other charities were extremely active in the ideological campaign that highlighted Palestinians as the sole victims and Israelis as the sole aggressors. Numerous Oxfam press statements included language such as: “The international community must not stand aside and allow Israeli leaders to commit massive and disproportionate violence against Gazan civilians in violation of international law.”

Violence against Israelis, including deaths, are virtually ignored by Oxfam officials, who have referred to “collective punishment illegal under international humanitarian law yet tolerated by the international community”. For those of us who reject such gross ideological bias, which absolves the Hamas leadership for a confrontation which they openly sought, such statements by charities are unacceptable and should not be rewarded by the BBC.

The final issue is the fraught one of the practicability of actually distributing the aid on the ground. After Hamas seized total control of Gaza in June 2007 there have been many well-documented reports of Hamas officials diverting assistance for themselves. On February 7 last year, for example, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported that “at least ten trucks with humanitarian aid sent to the Gaza Strip by the Jordanian Red Crescent Society were confiscated by Hamas police shortly after the lorries entered the territory”. Journalists also reported that the aid was “unloaded in Hamas ministry warehouses” and that a similar seizure took place in January 2008.

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas, used to say that Hamas was like a bird that needed two wings to fly - the armed branch, but also the charitable-welfare side of the organisation. Do the 13 charities and their political allies that are so vocally attacking the “cowardly” BBC really have the guts and wherewithal to do a proper audit on how those monies might be spent in today's Gaza Strip? I, for one, do not believe it.

Andrew Roberts is the author of Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West (Allen Lane)

Comparison of IRA and Hamas by BICOM

View text version View HTML version





Printable version
26/01/2009


BICOM ANALYSIS: THE NEW US ADMINISTRATION AND HAMAS - LESSONS FROM NORTHERN IRELAND

Key Points

Over the last four years, Hamas has participated in national elections and entered into a unity government, but in terms of the calculated use of violence, it has shown no sign of following in the footsteps of the IRA.

Rather than approaching ceasefires as a way to create the basis for longer-term political agreements, Hamas see them as essentially for the purposes of rearming, regrouping militarily and consolidating power.

The political goals of Republicanism contrast starkly with the radical Islamist beliefs which underpin Hamas's stated goal of establishing an Islamic Waqf (trust entity) throughout the whole area of the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.

Moderate Sunni Arab states, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, view the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip as a deeply problematic tool in Iran's arsenal for disrupting regional stability and encroaching Iranian power.

Introduction

In his first week in the Oval Office, President Obama demonstrated his resolve to "hit the ground running" on regional peace-making by appointing Senator George Mitchell to serve as his Middle East special envoy. Mitchell will make his first visit in his new role to Israel and the Palestinian Authority this week. He has experience in the region, having devised the 2001 Mitchell Commission plan in US efforts to stem the violence following the outbreak of the Second Intifada. His appointment naturally draws parallels with the Northern Ireland conflict, as he also chaired talks that culminated in the April 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Over the years, many respected politicians and commentators have drawn comparisons, recognising that whilst no two conflicts are ever the same, lessons can be learned.[i] The main hope today, especially since Hamas's electoral victory in January 2006, is that where Sinn Féin and the IRA moved away from terrorism for political dialogue with Britain, Hamas could be similarly engaged. This briefing draws upon the Northern Ireland experience to shed light on the most difficult challenges vis-à-vis Hamas which would need to be addressed in order to do so. It also dispels some of the myths about Hamas in current public discourse, either due to wishful thinking, smug imperialist attitudes or plain naivety; in any case, such myths are a dangerous phenomenon. The guiding political questions are first, whether enough of the Hamas leadership are interested in a compromise, and second, whether they are capable of creating an internal consensus. These are critical issues for how the new US administration carves out its role this year.

Commitment to armed struggle

The success of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement perhaps overshadows the chequered history of dialogue which preceded it. Although contact stems back to the 1970s, such as when Northern Ireland Secretary William Whitelaw held secret talks with the provisional IRA in London, a recent Guardian article notes that, "Republicans did not get their seat at the table until they had forsworn violence and agreed to pursue their goals by exclusively peaceful means."[ii]

Similarly, it would seem that not until Hamas leaders internalise the need to renounce violence is it advisable to conceive of them as prospective interlocutors in peace negotiations. As Peter Neumann, a terrorism expert at King's College London, explains, "No one in the IRA ever abandoned the organisation's absolutist ambitions for a united Ireland, but at some point in the late 1980s, the group's leaders realised that their military campaign no longer furthered that aim, and so they began exploring alternatives."[iii]

Over the last four years, Hamas has participated in national elections and entered into a unity government, but in terms of the calculated use of violence, it has shown no sign of following in the footsteps of the IRA. Playing by democratic rules entails more than winning power at the ballot box; Hamas's use of Palestinian ministries to create a new loyal militia - the Executive Force - and turning it on their own people, rather than attempting to build unified Palestinian institutions, is a case in point. Just last Thursday, in a West Bank news conference, senior PA official Yasser Abed Rabbo said that Hamas had "turned its rifles in the direction of Fatah members" after last week's ceasefire with Israel. Militants reportedly shot victims in the kneecaps, the notorious punishment tactic of the IRA in its terror heyday.[iv]

Whereas armed struggle damaged the Republican cause in Northern Ireland, ‘muqawama' (resistance) for Hamas, against Israel, is a defining feature of its authenticity among its supporters in Palestinian society. Last June, Hamas agreed to the six month ‘tahdiyeh' (temporary lull), which it chose not to extend. The idea of a ten year ‘hudna' (truce) has been occasionally mooted by Hamas leaders in the past. Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha has now said the organisation would not agree to more than an 18 month ceasefire.[v] But Hamas leaders are explicit that all these are ‘tactical' manoeuvres. Rather than seeing ceasefires as a way to create a basis for longer-term political agreements, they see them as essentially for the purposes of rearming, regrouping militarily and consolidating power. This is exactly what Hamas did throughout the ceasefire in the second half of 2008, which it used to greatly increase the range of its rockets.[vi] Hamas today remains strategically committed to violent resistance, as Damascus-based political chief Khaled Meshaal explained on 11 January: "We will not accept a permanent truce, because it will take [away] the right of resistance from the Palestinian people."[vii]

Religion and politics

The second dimension of the Northern Ireland conflict, which is instructive in assessing the propensity of Hamas to compromise, concerns the role of religion in respective political visions. Whilst Republicanism is tied to a religious identity - Catholicism - its goals are essentially political - an independent and united Ireland. Moreover, Britain supports the Northern Irish community's will to determine the province's future so long as it is by democratic consent; this is fundamental to the Belfast agreement. A deal was possible because, whilst religion is certainly a factor in Northern Ireland, the IRA never sought to convert Britain into a Catholic country.
This contrasts starkly with the radical Islamist beliefs which underpin Hamas's stated goal of establishing an Islamic Waqf (trust entity) throughout the whole area of the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.[viii] The Hamas Charter is an integrated political-Islamist ideological vision, in which no one - including Arab-Muslim leaders - is entitled to concede any part of this land.[ix] In a recent BBC Today programme interview, former British ambassador to the UN Sir Jeremy Greenstock rejected the idea that Hamas is committed to Israel's destruction, stating that the 1988 Charter was "a rhetorical statement of resistance" which is not part of Hamas's political agenda.[x] It is worth noting that senior Hamas leaders have repeatedly reaffirmed the organisation's full commitment to its founding document, including on 25 January 2006 when Palestinian Legislative Council elections were held.[xi] This sets it at fundamental odds with both Israel and its secular nationalist rivals in the Palestinian Authority. There may be those in the movement who are more open to dialogue than others, but there is little indication that moderate voices are at the forefront of the organisation or sufficient in number to steer its direction. The religious precepts shut out the notion of a permanent political arrangement based on two states which would end Palestinian claims against Israel. They also severely hamper prospects for more progressive thinking to garner momentum within the movement.
The former ambassador also stated that Hamas "is not beholden to Iran," because Hamas is Sunni and Iran is Shia.[xii] Hamas identifies itself as a "wing" of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is indeed a fundamentalist movement from within Sunni Islam. But whilst theologically distinct from the Tehran regime, Hamas is politically aligned with Iran, its key source of military and financial sponsorship, according to British, American, Canadian, Israeli and Palestinian intelligence.[xiii] Hostility to secular Arab nationalism and Western influence are ideological trends common to radical streams within both Sunni and Shia Islam. Moderate Sunni Arab states, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, view the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip as a deeply problematic tool in Iran's arsenal for disrupting regional stability and encroaching Iranian power.

Intra-party friction and constraints

The very different perceptions of Hamas stem from various factors, including its careful use of the international media and well-intentioned peace advocates to promote a peaceful demeanour to the West. The picture is also obscured by the multifaceted nature of the organisation itself. The radical ideology and use of organised terror which characterise Hamas are two significant dimensions of a broad-based political and social movement, which includes the formal political party - headquartered in both Gaza and Damascus - and da'wa, which comprises an extensive social welfare system, charitable services and religious teaching.

In assessing which Palestinian interlocutors to address, the new US administration cannot escape consideration of Hamas's internal dynamics. Here again, the Northern Ireland example is insightful. It took time to build a consensus amidst deep divisions within the Republican movement. As one commentator put it, "[Gerry] Adams and Martin McGuiness resisted any move that would cause a republican split so that when they were finally ready to do a deal, the deal held."[xiv] Rising Catholic prosperity in the province during the 1970s made the IRA's strategy of the ‘long war' far less appealing over time.

This raises questions as to whether anyone in Hamas has the necessary clout to control its rank and file or the internal legitimacy to engage in political dialogue. An inner power struggle continues between Gaza and Damascus, which seems to have been accentuated by the three week conflict with Israel at the turn of the year. Following disagreements about when and under what terms to reach a ceasefire, it was reported that Hamas's armed wing - the Izz a din al-Qassam Brigades - chose to ignore calls by the Damascus leadership to carry out attacks against IDF troops when they were withdrawing from the Strip.[xv] Aware of the gap between prosperity in the West Bank and Gaza widening, local residents are frustrated with Hamas's ‘resistance'. One was quoted as saying, "We do not care how, we want a ceasefire. We want to go back to our homes. Our children need to go back to sleep in their beds."[xvi] It is unclear how far disenchantment with Hamas will develop, but the political constituency to whom the Gaza leadership is actively responsive to - and constrained by - is the local population.

Khaled Meshaal in Damascus, meanwhile, is more concerned with maintaining his broader legitimacy and relevance, hence his calls for the diplomatic isolation of Hamas to end coupled with tough rhetoric: "We need a third ‘Intifada' (uprising) in the West Bank and a revolution in the Arab, Islamic world," he proclaimed during the conflict, "[T]he blood of our women and children and people will increase our cohesion and determination to achieve our aims."[xvii] If a contender for power from within Hamas were to follow Sinn Féin's lead and agree to "democratic and exclusively peaceful means," the Damascus leadership would want to be able to declare the ‘Real Hamas' as the ‘authentic Islamic Resistance Movement'.

Conclusion

When contemplating political negotiations, pragmatists ask whether the other side is amenable to compromise and able to digest all that it would entail internally. The Northern Ireland experience shows that it was not until the Republican movement was ready to declare its war over did the possibility of a historic compromise begin to become realistic.

Hamas's ongoing control of the Gaza Strip continues to present a major obstacle to all key stakeholders in the peace process, including the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Western powers and the moderate Arab states. Its ongoing commitment to violent ‘resistance' as a radical religious and political ideology - and the absence of cohesion in Palestinian politics - deeply exacerbates the challenge they face and ought not to be underestimated. The stakes are even higher when considering the broader picture in which Hamas is politically aligned to Iran, which has regional hegemonic ambitions. As such, the issues of how to face the Hamas challenge in Gaza require ongoing assessment and may benefit from creative ideas by the new US administration. But policymakers will be conscious that engaging Hamas before they are ripe for negotiations could be profoundly counterproductive.

[i] For a guide to the roots of comparative study, see ‘Why Hamas is not Sinn Fein', BICOM Analysis, 24 October 2007.
[ii] Jonathan Freedland, ‘Amid the horror and doom of Gaza, the IRA precedent offers hope', The Guardian, 14 January 2009.
[iii] Peter R. Neumann, ‘Negotiating with Terrorists', Foreign Affairs (86:1), Jan/Feb 2007.
[iv] Griff Witte and Jonathan Finer, ‘Battered Gaza Still In the Grip Of Hamas', Washington Post, 24 January 2009.
[v] Avi Issacharoff, ‘Hamas offers 18-month cease-fire', urges PA to sever talks with Israel', Haaretz, 26 January 2009.
[vi] Avi Issacharoff, Amos Harel and Yuval Azoulay, ‘Meshal: Hamas ready for truce, but only as ‘tactic'', Haaretz, 27 April 2008.
[vii] ‘Meshaal: Resistance is all we have in Gaza', Press TV, 11 January 2009.
[viii] See Article 11 of the Hamas Charter (which can be read online). A full English translation can be read here.
[ix] Further analysis can be read here: The Hamas Charter (1988), Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, 21 March 2006.
[x] ‘Hamas diplomacy is ‘hard to see'', BBC Today, 12 January 2009.
[xi] See The Hamas Charter (1988), Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, 21 March 2006.
[xii] ‘Hamas diplomacy is ‘hard to see'', BBC Today, 12 January 2009; see also Melanie Philips, ‘Sir Jeremy Greenstock says Hamas is only about ‘resistance', Spectator, 13 January 2009.
[xiii] For further details, see Matthew Levitt (2006), Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Services of Jihad (Yale: London).
[xiv] Jonathan Freedland, ‘Amid the horror and doom of Gaza, the IRA precedent offers hope', The Guardian, 14 January 2009.
[xv] Abraham Rabinovich, ‘Hamas leadership at odds over Gaza truce', The Australian, 13 January 2009; Amos Harel, ‘IDF to conclude withdrawal today', Haaretz, 21 January 2009.
[xvi] Reuters, ‘Enough is enough, say tired Gazans', Gulf News, 17 January 2009.
[xvii] Meshaal: Time has come to talk to Hamas, AFP, 22 January 2009; ‘Meshaal: Resistance is all we have in Gaza', Press TV, 11 January 2009.

These are the type of innocent civilians we are up against and don't forget it!

http://images.google.co.uk/images?um=1&hl=en&rlz=1T4ADBF_en-GBGB307GB308&q=ramallah+arab+lynch+soldier+2000&start=20&sa=N&ndsp=20

I know this is from a while back (2000 to be precise) but I don't remember the world trembling with rage over the savage and animalistic lynching of 2 lost Israelis in Ramallah. Where are the war crimes levelled at these barbarians? If they came to Britain, would someone be waiting to arrest them at the airport?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=t_B1H-1opys Pallywood

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DzsCBFhCsyY&feature=related Mohammed Al-dura

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=sOVhTFOPKxc&NR=1 Suicide bomber caught at checkpoint on her way to blow up Israeli hospital where she was receiving treatment

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PPU4UN03t7E&feature=related 14yr old suicide bomber!!

These above links are why I can't trust the outpourings from Gaza. This is why women and children unfortuately are not as innocent as they seem. It is so hard for us in the West to understand the mentality of these people because it is so opposite from our own. However, we must wait for the truth to out in Gaza. When Jon Snow shows us images of flechette darts in a wall, we see one "bullet" and to be honest, it looks like a nail that has been hammered into a wall. If a flechette bomb contains 5,000 darts, why aren't there more darts in the wall? Why aren't people covered with them as you would expect. All I am saying is that the world mustn't rush to conclusions! Mud sticks. If I accuse you of murdering someone and you are subsequently cleared, people remain suspicious of you. Soooo, wait until the investigations are completed before you declare yourself an expert on the situation.

Support the BBC's decision NOT to publicise Gaza Aid Appeal.

Please write to the BBC and support their decision on Gaza Aid Appeal
The BBC are standing firm - despite protests outside Broadcasting House - in their decision not to televise a Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for Gaza (unlike the other broadcasters in the UK).
We, myself included, are quick to criticize the BBC when they broadcast something that is clearly biased against Israel. So we now an opportunity to thank them.
Please see the Editor's justification for this decision below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/
The following link will help you e mail the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/feedback/default.stm

Find out the truth about Gaza No of Deaths.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129574

Another Melainie Phillips brilliant piece that says it all about our sense of denial.

Around the world, people have reacted with horror to the vile atrocities in Mumbai.
For three days, our TV screens transmitted images of carnage and chaos as the toll of murder victims climbed to upwards of 190 people, with many hundreds more injured.

Despite the fact that British citizens were caught up in the attacks, there is nevertheless a sense in Britain that this was nothing to do with us — a horrible event happening in a faraway place.
Among commentators, moreover, there has been no small amount of confusion. Were these terrorists motivated by the grievance between Muslims and Hindus over Kashmir, or was this a broader attack by al Qaeda?

If British and American tourists were singled out over Iraq — which many assume is the motive for such attacks — why were Indians targeted in the Victoria railway station? And why was an obscure Jewish outreach centre marked for slaughter?

Such perceptions and questions suggest that, even now, Western commentators still don’t grasp what the free world is facing. This was not merely a distant horror.

We should pay the closest possible attention to what happened in Mumbai because something on this scale could well happen here.

But because we don’t understand what we are actually up against, we are not doing nearly enough to prevent this — or something even worse — occurring on British soil; and if it were to happen here, we would be unable to cope.

The Mumbai atrocities show very clearly what too many in Britain obdurately deny — that a war is being waged against civilisation.

It is both global and local. It is not ‘our’ fault; it has nothing to do with Muslim poverty, oppression or discrimination.

The Islamic fundamentalist fanatics use specific grievances — Kashmir, Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya — merely as recruiting sergeants for their worldwide holy war against all ‘unbelievers’.

The Mumbai attackers targeted British, American and Indian citizens simply because they wanted to kill as many British, American and Indian ‘unbelievers’ as possible. Where they found Muslims, they spared them.

They also singled out for slaughter the occupants of the Chabad House, a pious Jewish outreach organisation with no Israeli or political agenda — underscoring the point that at the core of the Islamists’ hatred of Israel festers their hatred of the Jews.

This was not, as is so often described, ‘mindless violence’. On the contrary, the terrorists precisely calibrated both their choice of targets and the way in which they attacked them. This tells us many things.

India was chosen in order to further two aims. First was to foment greater tension between India and Pakistan.

No less important was the wish to destroy the ever more vital strategic alliance between India and the West in common defence against the Islamist onslaught.

That was why British and American visitors in those two grand hotels were singled out. And that was why Mumbai itself was chosen — as the symbol of India’s burgeoning commerce and prosperity and its links with the West.

The manner of these attacks also carried a message. Many hostages were taken, but no attempt was made to use them to demand redress of any grievances. They were simply killed. That made a statement that the terrorists’ agenda is non-negotiable.

The attacks demonstrated, above all, the reach of the perpetrators and the impotence of their designated victims. Those who believe that Islamist terror can be halted by addressing grievances around the world are profoundly mistaken.

With these atrocities, moreover, Islamist attacks have moved much closer to war than conventional terrorism.

The Iranian-born foreign affairs specialist Amir Taheri has pointed out that the Mumbai attacks embody the plan outlined by a senior Al Qaeda strategist after the U.S. decided to fight back following 9/11 — a decision that the Islamists had not expected.

This new strategy entails targeting countries with a substantial Muslim presence for ‘low-intensity warfare’ comprising bombings, kidnappings, the taking of hostages, the use of women and children as human shields, beheadings and other attacks that make normal life impossible.
Such a simultaneous, multi-faceted onslaught quickly reduces a city and a country to chaos. It can be repeated anywhere — and British cities must be among the most vulnerable.

This is because — astoundingly — Britain now harbours the most developed infrastructure of Islamist terrorism and extremism in the Western world.

The security service has warned that it is monitoring at least 2,000 known terrorists, and has said repeatedly that although many outrages have been averted a major attack may not be preventable.

Indeed, British security officials have sleepless nights about the various ways in which the Islamists are trying to cause mass casualties in Britain — and the fact that even now this threat is not taken seriously.

This point was made yesterday by the former head of Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command, Peter Clarke.

As an example, he noted that Kazi Nurur Rahman, a convicted terrorist who was arrested shortly after 7/7 with a machine-gun and 3,000 rounds of ammunition, had been trying to buy machine-guns, rocket-propelled grenades and missiles — undoubtedly for use against British targets.

Far from the popular caricatures of bumbling, impressionable and socially alienated misfits, he said, there was a capable and motivated enemy spanning the globe which would try to replicate the Mumbai atrocities in Britain.

Even more chilling was the warning by a former head of the SAS that Britain has made no adequate preparations to deal with such an onslaught upon a British city — even though that is precisely the ‘doomsday scenario’ that the security world fears.

Such synchronised attacks, he said, required a ‘military-type response’, either by squads of soldiers or armed police. But we have neither in place.

This country is simply not trained, equipped or prepared in any way to deal with something on this scale.

Yesterday, Gordon Brown said that the Mumbai attacks had raised ‘huge questions’ about how the world should address violent extremism. But the first question he must answer is how the British approach will now change.

For the fact is that not only is Britain hopelessly unprepared for attacks of this kind, but the Government’s approach to the problem of home-grown radicalisation is misguided.

Wrongly believing that it can use religious fundamentalists to counter terrorist recruitment and that it must at all costs avoid causing offence, it is failing to stop extremists spreading their propaganda, handling their demands with kid gloves and undermining genuine moderates among Britain’s Muslims who have been left exposed, vulnerable and abandoned.

The reason for such flawed policies is the false analysis on which they are based. The Government and security establishment refuse to acknowledge that what we are facing is a religious war. Instead, they think that Islamist terrorism is driven by grievances which are basically the fault of the West.

But you have only to look around the world or at the history of the past four decades and more to see the absurdity and ignorance of this view.

Look at Thailand, for example, currently convulsed by Islamist terrorism in the south with bombings, beheadings and the murder of Buddhists.

Look at the persecution of Christians in Nigeria. Look at the Islamist terrorism in the Philippines. Look, as Peter Clarke noted, at the attacks variously upon New York, Bali, Istanbul, Jakarta, Sharm el Sheikh, Casablanca, Madrid, London and India.

If we don’t understand what we are fighting, we cannot defeat it. Mumbai is yet another wake-up call — to a Britain that is still in a trance of denial.

Melanie Phillips articulates everything that I want to say!!

In Britain, the war in Gaza has revealed the extent to which the media, intelligentsia and political class have simply crumbled in the face of the global jihad.

The U.K. is a major player in European and world politics and is America’s most significant strategic ally. Until now, it has been considered one of Israel’s firm supporters and a linchpin of the Western defense against the world-wide Islamist onslaught. With the reaction to Gaza, however, that reputation is no longer sustainable.

Years of demonizing Israel and appeasing Islamist extremism within Britain have now coalesced, as a result of the media misrepresentation of the Gaza war as an atrocity against civilians, in an unprecedented wave of hatred against Israel and a sharp rise in attacks on British Jews.
Throughout the war, London’s streets have witnessed a hallucinatory level of violent and explicit support for Hamas from Muslims, members of the far left and supposedly progressive individuals.

Night after night, Israel’s embassy in well-to-do Kensington found itself under violent siege. Demonstrators attempted to storm the building, howling their support for the terrorist body whose genocidal intentions toward Israel and the Jews necessarily includes killing every one of the occupants inside.

Certainly, there have been anti-Israel protests around the world. But in Britain, not only have these been particularly violent but the authorities have done nothing to stop such incitement of hatred.

The police told pro-Israel demonstrators on at least one occasion to put away their Israel flags because they were ‘inflammatory.’ Yet officers allowed some anti-Israel demonstrators to scream support for Hamas — and even to dress up as hook-nosed Jews pretending to drink the blood of Palestinian babies.

In general, the police have reacted passively to the violence. One recent video clip captured the astonishing spectacle of Muslims stampeding through London’s West End hurling traffic cones and other missiles at the police, all the time shrieking ‘Allahu akbar’ and ‘cowards.’ The police ran and stumbled backward rather than standing their ground and stopping the rampage.
Not only has such violence barely been reported. There has also been no acknowledgment of the explicitly Islamist nature of these demonstrations. Keffiyeh-clad demonstrators prostrated themselves in prayer or shouted ‘Allahu akbar’ as they attacked Jewish-owned or -founded stores, such as Starbucks and Tesco, on numerous occasions.

Instead, the political class has simply regurgitated Hamas propaganda. In a debate in the House of Commons last week, one MP after another expressed horror at Israel’s supposed crimes against humanity in Gaza.

More serious still, Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell cited as fact the Hamas claim that 300 children had been killed in Gaza, even though Israel has given a much lower figure, and said the Israeli action was ‘disproportionate’ and the bombing was ‘indefensible and unacceptable.’
Similarly, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, commenting after this weekend’s cease-fire that ‘too many innocent people’ had been killed, made no mention of Israel’s strenuous attempts to minimize civilian casualties, nor Hamas’s responsibility for holding Gaza’s civilians hostage.
In fact, the British government has effectively taken the view that Israel should not be allowed to defend itself by military means against the Hamas rockets that ministers have taken care to condemn.

From the second day of the war, Foreign Secretary David Miliband was calling for an immediate cease-fire by both sides. Since Hamas would take no notice, this in practice amounted to pressure upon Israel to stop defending itself.

It was Britain which took the lead in framing the United Nations resolution calling upon Israel to withdraw all its forces from Gaza while making no mention whatever of Hamas. And it was Britain which also drew a disquieting moral equivalence between Hamas terrorism and Israeli self-defense.

Certainly, neither Mr. Miliband nor Mr. Brown — a reputed supporter of Israel — can be unaware that it was Tony Blair’s refusal to call for an immediate cease-fire by Israel in the 2006 Lebanon war that finally led his MPs, already enraged by his support for the war in Iraq, to force him prematurely out of office.

But Britain’s new coolness toward Israel is due to much more than this. The government’s failure to support Israel’s war against Hamas as the front line of the West’s defense against the global Islamic jihad reflects its failure in turn to acknowledge the nature of that world-wide phenomenon.

Last Thursday, Mr. Miliband wrote in the Guardian that there was no single, unified Islamist threat but merely a set of various local grievances, such as Kashmir or the Golan Heights.
Such startling ignorance of the goals and ideological antecedents of the Islamic jihad, from Hamas to Hezbollah to Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taiba, is of a piece with the British government’s stubborn refusal to accept that the West is under assault from a war of religion.

The government denies this fact because it does not want to face up to the unpalatable realities of fighting such a war. So although ‘middle Britain’ is beginning to grasp that the Islamists in Gaza are the same as those rampaging through the streets of London, ministers are intent on appeasing Muslim extremism and intimidation both at home and abroad.

Accordingly, while Britain’s security services have had significant success in smashing Islamic terrorism plots, government strategy for combating Islamist extremism rests upon seeking to mollify Britain’s two million or so Muslims by avoiding confrontation — which means turning a blind eye to threatening statements.

Recently, prominent British Muslims who advise ministers against Islamist extremism wrote an open letter making the veiled threat that unless the government condemned Israel there would be a rise in violence in Britain.

Ministers’ openly stated fear that this will indeed happen as a result of the war in Gaza makes them anxious to show Britain’s Muslims that they oppose Israel’s actions. They don’t understand that, by showing such weakness in the face of intimidation, they are not just betraying their Israeli ally but also undermining the Western defense against the jihad.
Across the spectrum, Britain’s elites are terrified of dealing with militant Islamism. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, in a pattern which goes back to the foundational Christian blood libel against the Jews, they are concealing their fearful inability to deal with Islamist aggression by displacing the blame onto its Israeli victims instead.

(ME-I LOVE Melanie Phillips! She is a beacon of clarity in these dark and confused times!)

watch this video

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/Page/VideoPlayer&cid=1194419829128&videoId=1232292917710
Demonstration calling for the destruction of Israel by Hamas

Gaza Unseen on you guessed it, Channel 4, Jan 22nd

Now I am hyperventilating!!
It is not enough for Jon Snow to be shown mutilated bodies. What he wants is more dead babies being shaken around, more breast beatings, more limbs, more blood and gore. Even when all the other news stations felt you could get an adequate picture from the more limited shots, this was not enough for our Jon. He is on a crusade against Israel. No other war has been covered in such a grotesque way. We weren't shown dead babies in Iraq or Afghanistan or Chechnya. We weren't shown dead babies in Darfur or women being raped. We aren't even being shown dead Jewish bodies because the Israelis have too much dignity and respect for the dead to go hurling them around. There was no balance in this programme with no represntations from Israel. Jeremy Bowen doesn not count as an Israeli!! Mr Snow, you are a very sick man who lusts after hurting Israel's high moral standarding in the world. Israel-the only country that warns people to get out before it attacks. Israel-that targetted terrorists, as opposed to Hamas who indescriminantly fire at civilians. Israel-whose citizens do not hide bombs in their kitchens, their places of worship, their schools. Look at the IDF youtube site for real evidence-not the kind of hearsay that you get from "citizens" living in fear of Hamas. Mr Snow, you are inconsistent in your views (why do you not ask for pictures of dead Israelis to be shown if you are "unbiased"?) and your passion for targetting Israel again and again only confirms the nation's poor view of you. Isn't it time you retired?

How to complain to Channel 4

http://help.channel4.com/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE?New,Kb=C4_Author,Company={2EA1BB9C-510E-44A5-A481-01EB1DDA1669},T=CONTACT_VE,VARSET_TITLE=TV

Mark Regev

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1184614595?bctid=8795440001

Mark is amazing. Notice how Jon Snow cuts him short when Mark is winning the battle of words!!

This is what I wrote to Ch4 about their phosphorus allegations.

Mud sticks! If you continue to slur Israel's name, I will look into contacting a legal team to investigate the libellous allegations that you are making. Just as in the Jenin "massacre" that turned out to be totally untrue and the Gaza beach bombings that turned out to be Hamas but Channel 4 rushed in with the lies about an Israeli battleship causing the deaths of innocent people. This false and illegal manipulation of the truth, flaming extremists in this country is morally wrong. It STOPS here and now!!

Another Channel 4 propagation of lies

http://www.channel4.com/news/

Mud sticks. Just when people are acused of murder or some other crime and then they are proved innocent, there is always doubt about their integrity. I feel Channel 4 , especially that Jon Snow man should be taken to court for libel. They are slurring Israel's name! Any lawyers out there?

Send Mishloach Manot to the soldiers

http://www.purimidf.com/

This was my rant to Al-Beeb in the first place

Please don't support Hamas's propaganda battle and propogate their lies. Confirm facts before you enrage the militants in this counrty. The school was being used as a missile launch pad. Who in their right minds puts children next to a launch pad? You have to take a very poor view on their tactics. Please watch this video. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zmXXUOs27lI

REMEMBER JENIN, AL-DURAH, GAZA BEACH BOMBING, LEBANON-ALL PROVEN TO BE PROPAGANDA AND LIES!! ONCE THE TERRORISTS REALISE THAT THE MEDIA HAS THEIR SYMPATHIES, IT WON'T BE LONG BEFORE THEY START BOMBING THE STREETS OF LONDON AGAIN-YOU HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY!!

Blah blah blah from the BBC

Dear Ms Jones

Thanks for your e-mail. Please accept our apologies for the delay in replying. We know our correspondents appreciate a quick response and we're sorry that you've had to wait on this occasion.

We understand that you feel BBC News coverage of the Gaza conflict has displayed a pro-Palestinian bias. We note that you make specific reference to our reporting of a 2007 Hamas attack.

We can assure you, Ms Jones, that we're committed to due impartiality in respect of all our news reports and we're careful that this is maintained. We're satisfied that our coverage of events in Israel and the Palestinian Authority has been balanced, fair and accurate.

We have reported the casualty figures from both sides: the fact is, however, that there have been many more Palestinian deaths than Israeli. We have also explained clearly and frequently that Israel sees this conflict as a necessary defensive action because of the rocket attacks it has faced for many years. It is for the audience, not the BBC, to judge whether, in its view, the action is justified.

However, we acknowledge that you feel our coverage of the Gaza conflict has been unbalanced and we'd like to assure you that we've registered your complaint on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that's circulated to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers.

The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions about future programming and content.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.
Regards
Jonathan CarberryBBC Complaints

I love Honestreporting!!

What really is behind the numbers reported on the number of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip? Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported Thursday that a doctor working in Gaza's Shifa Hospital claimed that Hamas has intentionally inflated the number of casualties resulting from Israel's Operation Cast Lead.

"The number of deceased stands at no more than 500 to 600. Most of them are youths between the ages of 17 to 23 who were recruited to the ranks of Hamas, who sent them to the slaughter," according to the newspaper article....

A Tal al-Hawa resident told the newspaper's reporter, "Armed Hamas men sought out a good position for provoking the Israelis. There were mostly teenagers, aged 16 or 17, and armed. They couldn't do a thing against a tank or a jet. They knew they are much weaker, but they fired at our houses so that they could blame Israel for war crimes."

The reporter for the Italian newspaper also quoted reporters in the Strip who told of Hamas' exaggerated figures, "We have already said to Hamas commanders – why do you insist on inflating the number of victims?"

These same reporters mentioned that the truth that will come out is likely to be similar to what occurred in Operation Defensive Shield in Jenin. "Then, there was first talk of 1,500 deaths. But then it turned out that there were only 54, 45 of which were armed men," the Palestinian reporters told the Italian newspaper.

More info at The Jerusalem Post.

THE BBC'S OBSESSION WITH ISRAEL

What is it about the BBC and its obsession with Israel? In this story, Israel is compared to Rwanda. According to the BBC:

Rwanda has been described by some as the Israel of Africa.
The ethnic Tutsis of Rwanda experienced their genocide in 1994 but a Tutsi-dominated government then came to power and has ruled ever since.
Like the Israelis, the Tutsis have enemies on their borders, and now they have sent in their powerful army to deal with the ones who have bases in neighbouring DR Congo.
Is the BBC seriously suggesting that Israel is comparable to an African state where tribal warfare led to one of the worst genocides of the modern era? The Rwandan genocide is sometimes held up as an example of how the lessons of the Holocaust were not learned. This is, however, where any similarity ends, particularly when attempting to make any political or military parallels between the two countries. Indeed, this is the first time we have seen such a tenuous comparison made.

Please send your complaints to the BBC and ask why it felt compelled to employ such a downright misleading and erroneous linkage in an article totally unrelated to Mideast matters. You can send your comments to the BBC Complaints website -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints (for detailed instructions on how to navigate the BBC Complaints website, click here).

FOREIGN MEDIA REPORTING REALITY?

As more foreign journalists gain access to Gaza, different viewpoints from the default attacks on Israel are starting to emerge. Newsweek talked to gunmen who admitted using a hospital for firing at Israel:

One of the most notorious incidents during the war was the Jan. 15 shelling of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society buildings in the downtown Tal-al Hawa part of Gaza City, followed by a shell hitting their Al Quds Hospital next door; the subsequent fire forced all 500 patients to be evacuated . . . In the Tal-al Hawa neighborhood nearby, however, Talal Safadi, an official in the leftist Palestinian People's Party, said that resistance fighters were firing from positions all around the hospital. He shrugged that off, having a bigger beef with Hamas. "They failed to win the battle."

Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Butcher returned to Gaza for the first time since the war:
I knew Gaza well before the attacks, so when Israel ended its ban on foreign journalists reaching Gaza on the day the ceasefire was announced, I was able to see for myself.

One thing was clear. Gaza City 2009 is not Stalingrad 1944. There had been no carpet bombing of large areas, no firebombing of complete suburbs. Targets had been selected and then hit, often several times, but almost always with precision munitions. Buildings nearby had been damaged and there had been some clear mistakes, like the firebombing of the UN aid headquarters. But, in most the cases, I saw the primary target had borne the brunt. ...

But, for the most part, I was struck by how cosmetically unchanged Gaza appeared to be. It has been a tatty, poorly-maintained mess for decades and the presence of fresh bombsites on streets already lined with broken kerbstones and jerry-built buildings did not make any great difference.

JORDANIAN AID SEIZED BY GAZA GUNMEN

Will your local media be reporting this from Jordan's Petra News Agency?

A number of armed men have seized on Tuesday a Jordanian aid convoy after entering the Gaza Strip via Karem Abu Salem Crossing Point, Petra was informed.The aid convoy, which was sent by the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization (JHCO), was unloaded to non-Jordanian trucks driven by non-Jordanian drivers after crossing King Hussein Bridge.The UNRWA was expected to receive the convoy and unload it into its warehouses in Gaza to be distributed later on civilians in the strip.

The aid convoy, which was sent by the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization (JHCO), was unloaded to non-Jordanian trucks driven by non-Jordanian drivers after crossing King Hussein Bridge.The UNRWA was expected to receive the convoy and unload it into its warehouses in Gaza to be distributed later on civilians in the strip.The armed men opened fire at drivers after crossing Karem Abu Salem crossing point and forced them to head to their own warehouses.UNRWA has asked the transport company not to send the aid convoys scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday until the issue of the seized convoy is solved.

RESOURCE: INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE GAZA WAR

NGO Monitor examines what international law says about the war in Gaza and how it relates to issues like Gilad Shalit's fate, human shields, proportionate response, indiscriminate attacks, civilian casualties, collective punishment, and war crimes investigations.