Happy Independence Day, Israel!

This time of year is always an emotional one for Jews and for Israel.

Last Thursday was Yom Hashoah when we remember the 6 million men, women and children who died in the Holocaust.

Last night and today, less than a week after, is Yom Hazikaron when we mourn the victims of terror attacks and the 22,993 soldiers who sacrificed their lives to defend and protect our homeland Israel.

This is immediately followed by Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day, reminding us that those lives were not lost in vain, but also that Israel's very existence is a miracle to be celebrated.

May G-d protect our soldiers, people and country Israel so we may celebrate many more Independence Days.

Happy 64th Israel!

Responding To Terrorism

I should probably just change the title of my whole blog to ‘Better Late Than Never’, but here goes anyway.

A month ago on Friday 9^th March, Israel decided it’d had enough of the continuous yet intermittent rocket fire from Gaza (50 over the last two months), and responded to the two rockets launched that morning.

As well as targetting Palestinian terrorists about to fire more rockets into Israel, the IDF killed the leader of the PRC Zuhir al-Qaisi, and another member, who were involved in the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. The IDF had intelligence that al-Qaisi was planning a terror attack along the Israel-Gaza border, similar to one the PRC had carried out last August along Israel’s border with Egypt. In that multiple-stage attack, eight Israelis were killed when Palestinian terrorists attacked them in their cars and buses with guns, missiles and a suicide-bombing. In the days following, two more Israelis were killed by rocket fire.

After Israel killed the PRC leader last month, terrorists bombarded Southern Israel with over 300 rockets in the space of just four days. Myself and friends and family would flock to Facebook to find updates from friends and family in South Israel on their status, inbetween them flocking to their bomb shelters. In response the IDF targetted weapons depots, manufacturing facilities and rocket launching sites in Gaza. 24 Palestinians were killed, 20 of whom were terrorists, most whilst actually in the process of preparing to launch more rockets.

At the funeral of one of the terrorists, Palestinian gunmen fired into the air, with one bullet striking an eight year old boy in the head. This was of course blamed on Israel, although Palestinians later revealed the truth. Two days later the child died, and the day after that two more Palestinian teenagers died from trigger-happy Palestinians’ gunfire at another terrorist’s funeral.

A picture of a young Palestinian girl was circulated online, originally tweeted by Khulood Badawi, who claimed it was “another child killed by Israel”. It was discovered that the picture was from 2006, and the girl had died in an accident. Meanwhile it transpired that Badawi works for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs as an ‘Information and Media Coordinator’, with Honest Reporting calling for her dismissal:

“it is absolutely unacceptable that a UN employee working specifically on dissemination of information to the media and public tweets malicious and false information to libel Israel... [when it] is trying desperately to defend more than 1 million of its civilians from the incessant murderous rain of Gazan rocket terror”.

Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the UN also called for her dismissal, pointing out that she was “actively engaged in the demonization of Israel, a member state of the United Nations. Such actions contribute to incitement, conflict and, ultimately, violence.”

A week later in an indescribably horrific terrorist attack at a Jewish school in France, an Islamist fanatic rode up on a motorbike and murdered a Rabbi, Jonathan Sandler, his 3 and 6 year old sons Gabriel and Arieh, and 8 year old Miriam Monsonego, the daughter of the school principle.

Strangely, the EU Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission, Catherine Ashton appeared to compare the attack to “what is happening in Gaza”.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the French-Algerian terrorist Mohammed Merah, who was a member of Al Qaeda, claimed that his actions, which also included the murder of three unarmed French soldiers was to “avenge Palestinian children”. He was killed after a 32 hour siege on his apartment, in which he injured several French police officers, preventing him not only committing further attacks but also from spewing any more excuses for his barbaric, evil acts. Possibly the best response to Merah’s comment about Palestinians came from the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, who stated:

"This terrorist crime is condemned in the strongest terms by the Palestinian people and their children... No Palestinian child can accept a crime that targets innocent people. It is time for these criminals to stop marketing their terrorist acts in the name of Palestine and to stop pretending to stand up for the rights of Palestinian children who only ask for a decent life”.

In any case which Palestinian children was Merah referring to? Which children in Gaza was Baroness Ashton talking about? The ones brainwashed into wasting their lives by becoming terrorists? The ones oppressed by their own government? The children killed when they’re exploited by terrorists and used as human shields, who launch rockets into Israel from civilian areas? Or the ones killed in accidents because they’re surrounded by militants building weapons or ‘symbolically’ firing guns at terrorists’ funerals?

It has been pointed out again and again by pro-Israel activists that the actions of most supposedly ‘pro-Palestinian’ activists do nothing to help the Palestinians, in fact do the opposite. There seems to be a link; and somewhere between all these incidents there are lies, distortions and exaggerations about Israel’s actions that far from helping solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict simply trigger cycles of violence, not only manifested in antisemitism against Jews and Israel but with the much wider target of ‘the West’.

Our battle for support for Israel and the truth may sometimes seem unwinnable, but there are constant reminders of successes and the importance of this battle, and who knows the effect that each of these instances can have. So whether it’s blogging or tweeting or demonstrating, we have to keep spreading the truth.

Most importantly, everyone should see the words of Eva Sandler, who lost her husband Rabbi Jonathan and her two young sons Gabriel and Ariel in the France school shooting. In a heart-wrenching article on the Chabad website, she referred to Pesach, which Jews worldwide are currently celebrating, and wrote:

“Along with our tearful remembrance of our trials in Egypt so many years ago, we still tell how ‘in each and every generation, they have stood against us to destroy us.’ We all will announce in a loud and clear voice: ‘G-d saves us from their hands.’…  The spirit of the Jewish people can never be extinguished; its connection with Torah and its commandments can never be destroyed.”

Obama's Speech And The 1967 Lines

The senior editor of MEMO (the pro-Hamas group who are tonight, hosted by Amnesty holding a debate called "Complicity in Oppression: Does the Media Aid Israel?"), Ibrahim Hewitt, wrote in to The Guardian complaining about Obama's speech; that negotiations on land would "reward Israel for its illegal settlement policy" (disputed, not illegal), that a non-militarised Palestinian state would be "at the mercy of the Israel Defence Forces" (not such a bad thing; it's an indisputable fact that if the Palestinians put down their weapons the conflict would end but if Israel put theirs down they would be destroyed); that Israel is a Jewish state and that the US is committed to Israel's security. How terrible. 

It's not surprising that the Israel-bashers are disturbed by Obama's professed support for Israel, but the speech wasn't all good. Hewitt says that since Israel accepted the two-state proposal in 1947, (which the Palestinians rejected, as Abbas forgot to mention in his NYT op-ed), Israel should have no case not to go back to what Hewitt calls the "1967 borders", which is similar to what Obama suggested: "We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps". 

Obama correctly called it lines, unlike Hewitt, because they were never borders. But if Israel did go back to the pre-'67 lines, Gaza would be part of Egypt, and the West Bank in Jordan. There never was a Palestinian state. The most obvious point to make, which Netanyahu did, brilliantly, is that those lines are indefensible, leaving Israel only nine miles wide - "these were not the boundaries of peace, they were the boundaries of repeated wars". They were unsustainable, and the only reason Israel is (bli ayin hara) more stable now than it was then is because it can defend itself, because it won that land when the Arabs started the '67 war. 

Just Journalism point out that the coverage of Obamas' speeches about Israel (in The White House, and at the AIPAC conference) focuses almost exclusively on his demands on Israel rather than his condemnation and demands of the Palestinians, such as that 

"the recent agreement between Fatah and Hamas poses an enormous obstacle to peace. No country can be expected to negotiate with a terrorist organization sworn to its destruction. We will continue to demand that Hamas accept the basic responsibilities of peace: recognizing Israel's right to exist, rejecting violence, and adhering to all existing agreements. And we once again call on Hamas to release Gilad Shalit, who has been kept from his family for five long years."

Meanwhile Honest Reporting observe that whilst Netanyahu's response to Obama was reported in the New York Times as "Netanyahu Responds Icily to Obama remarks", what didn't get that sort of coverage was Abbas' response, his complete rejection of Obama calling the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation an obstacle to peace, saying that after all, "Hamas is a part of Palestinian society".

It's quite frightening how since Abbas joined Hamas he's abandoning any pretence of wanting peace. He is just one step away from openly advocating terror attacks on Israeli civilians.

Judge Goldstone's Guilt

Two years after the Goldstone report accused Israel of committing war crimes in a “deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population”, Goldstone has confessed that his conclusions were wrong.

Of course, all of his accusations against Israel were disproved both at that time and even before his investigation, by research undertaken by Israel supporters and truth-seekers all over.

The report was widely accepted, and used to further delegitimise Israel and deny its right to self-defence. I look forward to Robert Fisk’s reaction to this, as at the time he referred to Goldstone as “the eminent lawyer who so bravely… inspires…” etc. The self-hating Jews will also be quite upset about Goldstone’s retraction.

Significantly, The Times had observed that it was imbalanced for equating Israel and Hamas and not acknowledging Israel’s right to self-defence, and that the UN, who facilitated the investigation, is undeniably biased against Israel.

As Michael Weiss points out in the Telegraph, the report didn’t acknowledge Hamas’ use of civilians as human shields, and storage of weapons in schools, mosques and hospitals, when even last week the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights criticised Hamas for violating international law by continuing to “store explosives or to treat such explosives in locations close to populated areas” (not for firing them at Israeli civilians though).

Now Goldstone acknowledges that: “The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion”, and that Israel’s investigations into 400 alleged incidents of misconduct “indicate[s] that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy”.

He admits, “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document”, but then blames this on Israel’s “lack of cooperation”. Bizarrely, he expresses disappointment that Hamas never investigated their own war crimes, even though he acknowledges that it is their “policy to destroy the state of Israel”.

Goldstone’s admission is brave but he demonstrates cowardice as well because instead of taking responsibility, he is blaming Israel for withholding information. But that evidence was available at the time for anyone who looked for it – either Goldstone is very stupid, or he deliberately chose to ignore the evidence and has only now realized how absurdly untruthful and damaging his report is.

It was not very difficult for supporters of Israel to learn the truth about everything that happened, so it is beyond me why so-called “amateur” bloggers like the great Elder of Ziyon and others are seen as irrelevant, whilst people like Goldstone who choose to ignore the facts receive worldwide recognition for their work. We are not detectives, but I and ever other pro-Israel blogger out there are more qualified than Goldstone to comment on the truth about Cast Lead and the general situation in Israel and the territories.

The reason why Goldstone wrote his retraction is evident from this quote: “the Human Rights Council should condemn the inexcusable and cold-blooded recent slaughter of a young Israeli couple and three of their small children in their beds.”

Recently Interior minister Eli Yishai wrote to Goldstone telling him to condemn Palestinian attacks on Israelis, because his report on Cast Lead legitimises the attacks by not holding the terrorists accountable and instead condemning Israel for acting in self-defence.

When Goldstone sees all the attacks on Israelis, and the absurd restraint Israel shows in its retaliations, and then hears and sees how the world still demonizes Israel, it would be impossible for him not to feel guilty. Yishai’s letter would merely have been the trigger for the article, written out of the guilt that Goldstone already feels.

Terrorists Fire 70 Rockets Into Israel In Less Than A Week

Gaza terrorists fired 10 mortars and 2-3 grads into Southern Israel today including Be'er Sheva and Ashkelon. One man was wounded by shrapnel, several others were treated for shock.

On Saturday alone 50 mortars were fired into Israel. When the IDF responded with airstrikes on terrorist targets, Hamas accused Israel of "escalating against our people", and asked for a ceasefire. Five terrorists were killed as well as, sadly, four civilians who had been used as human shields by the terrorists - rockets were fired from right behind their house. A Palestinian boy who was injured was transferred to an Israeli hospital for treatment.

Elder of Ziyon provides a calendar of all the rockets that have been fired into Israel so far this month.

Hamas seem set on starting another war with Israel.

IDF Soldier's Music Video

I was sent this video by an American musician called Hayim Ani who recently made Aliya and is now in the Egoz unit in the IDF.

Although he had to leave his band behind in America, Hayim is continuing as a solo musician, and made this very creative music video before he enlisted in the army.



Perhaps people who see it might realise that IDF soldiers are not the monsters they are portrayed as in the media, but are actually humans with different talents and interests and backgrounds, united by their pride of Jews and Israel, and a sense of responsibility to protect its citizens.

They Kill, We Build

Th reaction of most Jews and Israelis' to the terror attack in Itamar probably will have been a deep, sickened feeling of grief and horror followed by defiance and determination to carry on.

Some reacted differently though - condemning settlers through their crocodile tears. Yitzchak Laor writes in Haaretz that the brother of Udi Fogel, murdered in the terror attack in Itamar “sought to remove the murder from any context other than the pain over his brother's death... [but] No one allowed for the murder to be rescued from the sole context in which the right wing placed it.”

But the right have placed the death and the world’s reaction exactly in context – because the brother wouldn’t feel the pain of Udi Fogel’s death if it weren’t for the incitement to murder Jews that takes place in Palestinian society – and the rest of the world that ignores – if not encourages - antisemitism. It’s not about revenge and anger, but to move forward from these things it helps a little to try and understand them. To the surviving family it might feel like the end of the world, but viewed in context it is part of the Jews’ long timeline of persecution and suffering – and our reaction to this is “Am Yisrael Chai”. They have tried again and again to stamp us out but with G-d’s help we still survive. 12 year old Tamar Fogel, who saw the bodies of her parents and three siblings, has shown amazing strength and understanding of this:

But Laor just views this as the right as ‘exploiting’ “its 15 minutes of media exposure to impose its version of ‘history’." On the decision to publish photos of the bodies – the decision which was actively encouraged by the surviving family – Laor calls it “so explicit it is practically pornographic” – yet it is only when Israelis are the victims that the media are so hesitant to give details, in case people might actually feel sympathy.

Laor accused the right of displaying “joy in pouring salt on our wounds, all in the name of Israel's hasbara. But this isn't hasbara; it's a desperate need to impose ‘our’ version of events, under cover of the horror.”

What he just said is Hasbara. Giving the real version of events because the world constantly ignores our side of the story. In the days following the attack, the media has made it very clear what they view as the “obstacle to peace” – and it is not the murder of sleeping Jewish babies. “Israel approves more settlements”, the headlines read – adding, as an afterthought “oh and by the way this might have something to do with the mysterious deaths of hardline extremist Jewish settlers who asked for it”.

As I have already demonstrated here, the settlements are irrelevant. Someone who murders babies, and those who celebrate this act, are not looking for peace or negotiations. There are no excuses. Daniel Greenfield wrote a great piece on this for Arutz Sheva.

Meanwhile in Itamar in the week of the Shiva, a Palestinian woman went into labour. IDF soldiers together with settler paramedics delivered the baby, taking care of her and the mother. You would never read this sort of thing in the Western media, because there the IDF and settlers are constantly dehumanised. But IDF decency to Palestinians is not at all an unusual occurence in Israel.

Incitement And Violence

The BBC and Guardian reported that many Palestinians were "shocked" by the Itamar attack, with no evidence for this, and conveniently forgetting about the handing out of sweets in Gaza, and Hamas spoksman Samu Abu Zuhri saying they "completely support the resistance against settlers".

Abbas did condemn the attack, but his words are meaningless whilst his government continues to incite hatred and violence against Jews and Israelis, glorify terrorists and spread antisemitic propaganda in Palestinian schools, media, mosques and on the streets.

Here are just a few examples of this incitement from recent weeks:

- On the day that the Fogels were buried, Fatah members named a town square after the female terrorist Dalal Mughrabi, who led a bus hijacking in 1978 that killed 37 Israelis – including 13 children. Summer camps in 2008 and this past summer have also been named after her.

- Two days before the Fogels were murdered, Abbas’ advisor Sabri Saidam said in a speech that Palestinian weapons must be turned towards Israel.

- The day before that, the PA announced a youth football tournament named after Wafa Idris, the first female Palestinian suicide bomber. Among other things, a student group and a UNICEF-funded summer camp have also been named after her.

- On March 4th, Fatah held a procession commemorating suicide bombers including Muhammad Daraghmeh who killed nine Israelis in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem, and Ayyat Al-Akhras, the youngest female suicide bombing at 17, who killed two Israelis.

- Three weeks ago, Palestinian Authority TV (under control of Abbas’ office) broadcast a video tribute to “martyrs” – including Habash Hanani, who in May 2002 entered Itamar (where the Fogels were killed), and murdered three Israeli students at the local high school.

- In December, Abbas awarded $2000 to the family of a terrorist who tried to attack Israeli soldiers with pipe bombs.

Details on more similar incidents here.

The Palestinian leadership are raising another generation of children to believe that their religion calls for the murder of Jews and that this will bring wealth and honour for them and their families.

For too long the world has been ignoring this, focusing incessantly on Israel building houses – but suicide bombings and rockets aren't aimed solely at settlers - and there is absolutely nothing that makes it ok to slash the throat of a three month old sleeping baby, killing her, her 4 and 11 year old brothers, and their parents.

The issue of settlements is irrelevant until the Palestinians stop teaching their children to hate and murder, and teach peace instead.

Meanwhile yesterday the IDF discovered tonnes of Iranian-made weapons on a ship that was headed from Turkey to Egypt, with Hamas being the intended recipient.

Also yesterday, Egyptian security forces intercepted five vehicles loaded with weapons that were headed from Sudan to Gaza.

The Promise: "Die, Evil Jews!"

The fourth and final part of The Promise, if possible, was even worse than the previous three put together in it’s demonisation of the Jews.

Anyone who defends the programme as “balanced” and really believes that all Jews are as evil as they are portrayed in it, must either be a. ignorant, or b. antisemitic.

This is just beyond anti-Zionism and any defence of it as such, as opposed to antisemitic, is just laughable.

I am not at all saying that some of what the Israelis and Jews did in The Promise didn’t happen; it did, and I would not defend the actions of the Irgun, some of what they did was disgusting.

But looking at The Promise from the perspective of someone who has no knowledge of Israel now or then, what they would think is that the Jews are totally evil.

In modern-day Israel, the Israeli brother tells Erin that “you can do anything you want to the Palestinians” with no consequences, and we see Israeli soldiers stand by as Jews scream abuse and throw glass and rocks at defenceless Palestinians - and this is portrayed as the norm – whilst the Palestinians in The Promise never do anything like this.

The reality is very different, not least because much as people like to pretend it isn’t, Israel is a democracy and Jews, just like Arabs will face the consequences if they are involved in violent behaviour. And that includes Israeli soldiers who are punished if they act against the IDF's strict code of conduct.

Meanwhile in The Promise’s version of the late 1940s the Jews are not only murderers but traitors as well – Clara, the Jewish woman who Erin’s grandfather was involved with, and his British-Jewish soldier friend both betrayed him leading to the deaths of British soldiers and Arabs.

The Promise completely ignores the other side to all this: that a. the majority of the Jews condemned these attacks – and not only condemned, but the Haganah, the original Israeli Defence Forces who worked alongside the British, captured and turned in Irgun members to the British; and b. at that time the Arabs attacked and killed hundreds of unarmed Jewish civilians.

The Promise fails to mention that the UN proposed the partition plan to create a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, and that the Jews accepted this but the Arabs rejected it.

It also throws in a large dose of sympathy to a Palestinian family whose daughter was a suicide bomber, and whose brother, a member of Hamas “says it’s his job to protect the family” – as though that’s in their charter and not to kill all the Jews or anything like that.

Finally, at the end of the programme, the director dictates to the viewers exactly what he aimed for them to think:

- About the creation of the state of Israel, Erin’s grandfather: “embarrassed and ashamed”.

- About present day Israel, Erin on the idea of returning: “Why, what’s the point?”

I have never seen such an obvious attack of delegitimisation of Israel on every level like this. With it's sympathy of Palestinian terrorists, and deliberate distortions and omissions of Israelis' and Jews' actions, The Promise is against both Israel’s right to existence and it’s right to self-defence, without both of which all the Jews would die. If that’s not antisemitism I don’t know what is.

The Promise: The Ultimate Defence Of Antisemitism

Amir Ofek of the Israeli embassy said that with regards to the anti-Israel Western media, The Promise is "worse than anything I've seen" and has "created a new category of hostility towards Israel".

I would go further, and say that of anything I've ever read or seen, The Promise is the most antisemitic and antisemitic-inducing of all. Whatever comes out of the Arab media is only to be expected and I haven't seen any Nazi propaganda films, but for Western media standards, The Promise is pretty shocking, and I am not easily shocked.

We meet a lot of Jews and Israelis in The Promise, and pretty much all of them are evil or portrayed as evil, barring the self-hating lefty Israeli brother, whose Christian-Arab terrorist-turned-"peace"-activist friend is, for a Christian, surprisingly hostile to Israel. Also I didn't know that the Al Aqsa Martyrs employed Christians, I thought it was just an Islamic thing.

Anyway Channel 4 defended The Promise saying that the characters

"'consistently and sympathetically present a contemporary Israeli perspective' and the Holocaust was 'powerfully evoked' to explain the longing for a Jewish homeland... 'Nobody escapes scrutiny in this film; different parts of the story reflect well and badly on the Palestinians, the Israelis and the British'."

Uh, really? Let's first count the ways the Israelis are reflected well:

1. Jews died and suffered in the Holocaust.

A round of applause for The Promise and Channel 4 for not being Holocaust deniers (even though Channel 4 have given a platform to Ahmadinejad The Holocaust Denier).

2. Some Israelis (namely Lefty Israeli Brother) hate Israel, which makes them good and peace loving, even though they think Israeli civilians deserve to be blown up by Palestinian suicide bombers.

Ok, now let's count the way the Palestinians are reflected badly (because the ways they're reflected well are too many to count):

1.

Yeah, there are none. There was a Palestinian suicide bombing which was just because, according to the self-hating brother "they can't make their point any other way" - but it definitely wasn't animalistic, as the 'Racist' Israeli Mother called it - and even though suicide bombings decreased by over 90% after the security fence was built, this fact is ignored in The Promise, and the fence is cited as having nothing to do with preventing terrorism; instead it is just to humiliate the Palestinians, so really the suicide bombings are the Israelis' own fault.

Despite this, Christina Patterson of the Independent (who has an issue with Jews) calls The Promise "extremely balanced".

The programme according to which typical Israeli children scream and throw stones at Palestinian girls whilst Israeli soldiers watch. In The Promise, Palestinians don't do these things, but they are "held and humiliated for the hell of it" by the IDF, not because Palestinians have ever been known to be violent towards Israelis or anything like that.

Patterson of course ignores Jewish history and links to Israel and sees the Holocaust as the only reason Jews wanted Israel as a homeland. She then ignores all the Palestinian persecution of Jews and pogroms against them before the Holocaust and claims that "you can see why their [the Palestinians'] sympathy for their newish neighbours might have worn a bit thin". Sympathy 'worn a bit thin' possibly being the biggest understatement ever made on Palestinian terrorism.

Patterson then seems to equate Palestinian terrorists with settlers and thinks that all that needs to be done for peace is for Israel to acknowledge "what Arabs around the world are reminding us: that there comes a time when bullying backfires."

Can Christina Patterson do simple maths?

If security fence = 90% decrease in suicide bombings

and giving away land (i.e. Gaza) = increased rockets on Israeli towns,

then what the hell is she talking about?

Terrorists Attack; Terrorists Arrested

Yesterday IDF soldiers found Hamas terrorists planting explosives near the Gaza security fence. In the fighting that followed, four Israeli soldiers were wounded and one killed.

Today a Palestinian armed with two pipe bombs and a knife was shot and killed at a checkpoint as he approached IDF soldiers, shouting "Allahu Akbar".

Terrorists in Gaza fired a barrage of mortars into Southern Israel today, injuring three Thai kibbutz workers, one seriously.

Last week Israeli soldiers accidentally killed a Palestinian man in a raid to re-arrest six Palestinian terrorists that had been released by Abbas. One of them, released just four months after his arrest, was involved in the shooting and murder of four Israeli civilians last August, and a 2008 suicide bombing that killed one Israeli and wounded 10. The accidental killing of the innocent Palestinian is tragic, but there is a bigger picture that the media most likely ignore: the corruption of the Palestinian "justice" system, the fact that the murderer of four Israeli civilians was released four months after his crime, and the obligation of the IDF to re-arrest these terrorists before they murder even more Jews. Not something Israel haters are really bothered by.

Guest Post: In Defence Of Eden

This story kicked up a major firestorm when former IDF Soldier Eden left the photo gallery from her time in the IDF accessible to the public on Facebook. Two photos have led to condemnation by Israelis, the IDF, Palestinians and foreign press and commentators from all around the world.

The coverage has led to four main talking points:

1. Eden has been effectively crucified by the foreign press and media and her photos have brought forth accusations of ‘Israel’s Abu Grhaib’
2. Eden has been compared to Lynndie England, the US marine who posed with horribly abused Iraqi prisoners at Abu Grhaib
3. The IDF has condemned Eden and called the photos ‘shameful’ and ‘repulsive’ and also excluded her from reserve duty
4. The photos have had a domino effect and proved to be the trigger for leftist anti Israel NGO Breaking The Silence to release more photos of supposed IDF brutality and prisoner abuses with the statements that they hold thousands of similar images

These are the photos:

As you can clearly see Eden is posing, but she is not doing anything that could be considered as abusive. The reason these detainees are bound and blindfolded is that they are likely suspects with links to crime, terror or other illegal activities. They may be blindfolded so as not to be able to disclose their whereabouts or identify the soldiers who arrested them. Aside from the restraints, they have been treated in a humane and dignified manner. There are no visible marks or bruises, their clothes are not removed, their religious symbols (skullcap on the third detainee on the right) have been respected and they are seated on blocks and able to rest their backs rather than being face down or sitting on the floor.

In my opinion these images are definitely inappropriate and disrespectful towards the detainees. Even if Eden is only making a slight smirk and not doing anything wildly offensive, the simple fact is that human rights have to be held to the highest standards in all situations. Although there is a high possibility that the detainees may be guilty of a crime, it still doesn’t give us the right to treat them in a degrading manner, no matter how much we think they deserve it. And that’s where Eden went wrong - to her, she isn’t doing anything wrong, and although I believe she probably did take care of them, allowing herself to have her photo taken with them was inappropriate.

Eden might be disappointed at the perceived lack of support and overly harsh criticism from the IDF but she needs to realise that the moral and ethical conduct in the IDF is held to the highest levels and any break in that conduct will lead to serious repercussions. In any profession where a person is placed in your custody, you have to be extra sensitive and careful not to breach the human rights of your patient or client. That means doctors and medical personnel do not pose with their patients, law enforcement should not pose with their criminals and soldiers should not pose with their detainees.

In defence of Eden, the situation for Israeli teenagers is very different from those in western countries. At 18, both boys and girls have to enter either the army or for girls the option of national service which can include serving as a medic. That means that 18 year old boys and girls have to face potentially life threatening circumstances on a daily basis. From treating terror victims and watching their friends suffer in wars and operations to protect the citizens of Israel, the stress and pressure on these teenagers are often unbearable and traumatic. Operations of arresting terror suspects or treating patients eventually become the daily norm and teenagers can easily lose their moral perspective. The situation that is documented in the photo of Eden with the detainees is probably a daily occurrence for many soldiers, the only difference in most cases being that photos are not taken. There is no abuse but the fact that a photo of the detainees was taken is a breach of ethical conduct and nothing more than that. This is what the foreign press choose to ignore and decided to twist into a story of regular Israeli abuse of ‘innocent’ Palestinians.

But to compare this to other famous abuse claims? You can see that the prisoners have not been mistreated, certainly not to the extent that detainees have been treated in Iraq (warning - photo extremely distressing), Afghanistan, Iran, even the West Bank and Gaza where Hamas decides that the most humane treatment for a detainee would be to throw them off a tall building to their gruesome deaths.

The comparisons with Abu Ghraib are absurd and only an ignorant fool would ever think of drawing parallels between the two. But here those fools are:

From the Daily Mail article, “The photographs have echoes of those taken in 2003 by U.S. soldiers in Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison showing Iraqi detainees being humiliated by their captors.”

They also compare Eden’s photo to one with the notorious Lynndie England who is pictured holding a dog’s leash tied round the neck of a naked and bruised Iraqi prisoner lying on the floor! You want to compare these photos? Eden is Mother Teresa compared to Mrs Hitler (sorry I meant Lynndie England).

“Flashback: The Facebook photos are reminiscent of this undated image of U.S. Army Spc. Lynndie England with a naked detainee at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad date unknown. Th

e Abu Ghraib scandal erupted in 2004”.

The Daily Telegraph mentions that the photos bring a reminder of Abu Ghraib but then makes two very important points: “The photographs of the Israeli soldier and the Palestinians, by contrast, show no overt physical abuse or coercion of the prisoners” and “Palestinians are routinely handcuffed and blindfolded when they are arrested to stop them from trying to flee.”

Huffington Post have their own interpretation of the images: “she is sitting legs crossed beside a blindfolded Palestinian man who is slumped against a concrete barrier. His face is turned downwards, while she leans toward him with her face upturned.” They also mention Abu Ghraib: “The photographs were a reminder of snapshots taken in 2003 by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq that showed Iraqi detainees naked, humiliated and terrified. In that case, some soldiers went to prison after the photos came to light.”

Mondoweiss a leftist Jewish blog signs off his article with this quote: “The picture I see in Eden's photos? An army that has forgotten the other's humanity--and has lost its own humanity in the process.” So Eden represents the entire IDF does she? This is what we call ignorant.

And of course The Guardian just couldn’t help itself: “The images were reminiscent of the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq.”

After the initial story broke, it gave the ammunition to the anti-Israel Israeli NGO called Breaking the Silence to add fuel to the fire. They added one of Eden’s photos to a facebook gallery showing more apparent IDF detainee abuse photos. These photos were then lapped up by the foreign press in particular by the Guardian who produced a photo gallery replicating the photos with their own captions. They also interviewed members of Breaking the Silence.

One of the photos that stood out is shown below. In the original caption, it stated that the body of the man was all but ignored by the soldiers, but on 19^th August this was amended to: “Israeli soldiers stand by the bloodied and broken body of a man.”

How could the Guardian say the soldiers “all but ignored the man”? The soldier on the right is looking at the IV drip which he has attached to the man to ensure he is giving the right amount of saline! This soldier is treating a potential Palestinian terrorist but if you look away for one second it must mean you have ignored an injured innocent Palestinian? Give me a break, it’s a pathetic quote and the Guardian have obviously taken their slice of humble pie and spat it back out by amending the quote to basically accuse the IDF soldiers of causing the man to be ‘bloodied’ and ‘broken’. Is this Palestinian just a ‘man’ or is he a serious criminal, a terrorist, maybe even a potential martyr. Maybe he started shooting at the soldiers who came to arrest him? We don’t know for sure, but the IDF doesn’t just go and batter innocent people. Nice emphasis by the Guardian though which gives the impression that the IDF brutally abused this ‘innocent’ Palestinian.

Their reporting is a complete joke and these publications should be ashamed of themselves for allowing their reporting to be so amateur – when even Al Jazeera didn’t compare Eden’s photos to Abu Grahaib or make their own personal comments on a photos. In fact the Al Jazeera caption simply states “Eden Abergil's pictures of Palestinian prisoners have sparked controversy in Israel”.

In short, this was another case of a relatively minor blunder being completely blown out of proportion and used to slander and criticize Israel and its defenders the IDF, but this happens everyday.

Since I started writing this report, a youtube video of a male IDF soldier dancing inappropriately around a blindfolded female Palestinian has been making the rounds. Now this is something that the press have a right to strongly condemn and you can probably judge for yourself which incident deserves the most attention. But when something apparently newsworthy occurs in Israel, the media need to ensure they conduct the necessary research so they understand the background and context and can make an objective and informative report that looks at the whole story, keeping it in perspective.

No one is perfect and the IDF like every other army has its flaws. But I can safely say that thee IDF are the most humane army working in the most extreme and challenging conditions, which means that when these incidents occur, it is big news in Israel and the world. And rest assured there will be no one more disgusted and ashamed at these incidents than the IDF itself.

More Gaza Violence And Media Bias

It turns out that the two Palestinians killed on Sunday were not "armed" with the weapons; they had just picked them up after seeing them lying on the ground - but they were standing near the terrorists who did fire at the IDF. The Telegraph for some reason illustrates this with a picture of Palestinian children posing behind a hospital's metal gate. I think the picture is supposed to reflect badly on Israel and make the Palestinians look "caged in", but I'm not quite clear how it's significant that whoever built the hospital in Gaza gave it a gate.

The BBC also reports the story in a strange way, early on in the article saying "The Israeli army said it had returned fire after militants approached the border and fired a rocket propelled grenade at a patrol", but only affirming later on in the piece that this wasn't a Jewish lie and actually did happen: "The incident occurred shortly after militants in Gaza fired several rockets and mortar rounds across the border into southern Israel."

Also notable is the statement the BBC make at the end of the article - and which they add at the end of most articles on the subject - that: "One Thai farm worker in Israel has been killed by rocket fire from Gaza in the past 18 months, while scores of Palestinians in Gaza have been killed over the same period."

See how "disproportionate" Israel is! Never mind how many rockets have been fired in that period (about 2000), if it only killed one person, Israel isn't allowed to retaliate. Meanwhile scores (in other words, so many it's impossible to count, not like Grandma's home-knitted rockets) of Palestinians have been killed. It doesn't matter if they were killed accidentally blowing themselves up, or whilst they were in the middle of trying to murder Israelis - either by knife, gun, or rockets - the important thing is to imbed it in your mind that Israel-Is-Disproportionate-And-Bad.

A near-identical incident occurred today when Palestinian terrorists again fired missiles at the IDF, who retaliated, reportedly killing one Palestinian. Make that 'scores of Palestinians, plus one', and, to the BBC's disappointment, still only the one Thai farm worker.

Over on the Sky website though, Dominic Waghorn blogs one of Hamas' propaganda videos, depicting the Palestinians destroying and taking over Israel. Of course this is only the dream of the select members of the Hamas "military wing". No other Palestinians share that dream of killing Jews and taking over Israel. They want to share the land and live in peace, like what happened when we gave them Gaza.

UPDATE: At least 11 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel today, Wednesday, two of which were phosphorous bombs, luckily landing in open areas. Israel responded by striking the tunnels used to smuggle in weapons, and tunnels being dug to send terrorists into Israel, killing one Palestinian.

Hider: Rockets Are Minor Annoyance

Just Journalism look at the Times' latest editorial, that is "the first since the start of the peace talks to focus on Hamas’ refusal to accept either the legitimacy of the peace talks, or the existence of the Jewish state." (Which the Times, unlike the other papers, have acknowledged previously). The editorial refers to Hamas' recent murder of four innocent Israelis and states that although some settlers and ultra-Orthodox Jews might oppose Israel giving away land (for religious and security reasons), "any equation between such groups and Hamas is crass, mistaken and grossly offensive." It is in its editorials that the Times shows its journalistic integrity, in stark contrast to papers like the Guardian and Independent, who seem to view the settlers as a bigger obstacle to peace than Hamas terrorists.

In it's reporting though, The Times often demonstrates an anti-Israel slant that is common in the rest of the media. The culprit is their Middle East correspondent, James Hider. Last week he wrote an opinion piece that gives more of an insight into his anti-Israel attitudes than is already evident in his news reporting. To be fair - as I always am! - Hider does not seem to be an extremist left-wing Hamas and terror supporter. He occasionally acknowledges Hamas' murderous intent, but does tend to follow the rest of the media in focusing more on the settlers.

The op-ed opens with a ridiculous exchange with a Tel Aviv waiter, who learns that Hider lives in Jerusalem: "'Jerusalem?' he gasped. 'It's full of violence and police checkpoints. I never go there. What's it like now?'" I know people say Tel Aviv is a bubble, but I don't believe a typical citizen there is that ignorant. This must be the only Tel Aviv-ian who is, and trust Hider to find him. There are violence and checkpoints in and around both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv - but neither city is "full of" them. Jerusalem is not what you'd call a war zone, and nor is it the hole that Hider tries to imply it is. It is a thriving, bustling, modern town, with residents of all religions and backgrounds - and richer and poorer areas, just like every city in the world has.

Hider describes the divisions and differences between on the one hand Fatah in the West bank and Hamas in Gaza, and on the other hand the secular Israelis and the "rising influence of the ultra-Orthodox" in Jerusalem. But he claims that "what unites most Israelis is a sense of indifference":

"Most Israelis don't think about the millions of Palestinians on the other side of the walls and fences, unless Hamas is firing its rockets into the communities in the south. But since Israel's devastating offensive into Gaza in late 2008, even those have slowed to a minor annoyance."

10,000 rockets is a "minor annoyance"? Bomb shelters, trauma, damages, injuries, deaths, a minor annoyance? Is that what Hider would call it if a kassam fell on him?

Following that article, Hider was back to news reporting on Tuesday, with a piece on, yes, the settlers, and the "Countdown to construction that could doom peace".

Meanwhile, there have been more Palestinian terror incidents that didn't make the news. On Monday Palestinians shot at two plain-clothed Israeli policemen, lightly wounding them. A two year old baby was hospitalised after Palestinians threw rocks at the car her family was driving. In another Palestinian rock-throwing incident, an Israeli vehicle was damaged but no one was injured.

Hamas continue to fire rockets into Southern Israel on an almost daily basis, including two today, miraculously causing no injuries. An eight year old Israeli boy was injured when Palestinians threw rocks at his face. Also today, Palestinians armed with guns and a rocket launcher were killed by the IDF after approaching the Gaza fence despite warning shots from the IDF.

The twelve year old girl wounded by Palestinians last Thursday is in intensive care following head surgery - her family request that people pray for Herut bat Timor.