As usual, during a Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the international press readily eats up all sorts of exaggerated claims made by the Arab side. This time — during Israel’s attempt to stop constant, terrorist rocket fire from Gaza — the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) was accused of shelling a UN school. Remember that during the “second intifada” in 2002, Yasir Arafat accused Israel of “massacring” thousands of Palestinians in the battle of Jenin. In fact, “The death toll was 56 Palestinians, the majority of them combatants, and 23 Israeli soldiers.” No massacre. The problem is that once the media reports on accusations leveled against Israel, it rarely steps back to correct the lies. Maybe a footnote is added to one or two stories, but the public relations damage to Israel’s image has already been done. This time, will the media report on the true facts revealed about the IDF’s “school shelling,” or Hamas’ use of its own people as human shields, or Hamas’ stealing of UN emergency supplies destined for those Palestinians who really need it? It can seem hopeless, but the truth is out there.
On Tuesday, HonestReporting highlighted a Canadian news article entitled, “Account of Israeli attack doesn’t hold up to scrutiny:”
… [Globe and Mail's Middle East correspondent, Patrick] Martin’s front-page report investigated the Israeli shelling of Hamas terrorists near a UN school that led to the tragic deaths of 43 civilians. His conclusion: the facts don’t support the accepted story that the school itself was shelled.
According to Martin:
Physical evidence and interviews with several eyewitnesses, including a teacher who was in the schoolyard at the time of the shelling, make it clear:
While a few people were injured from shrapnel landing inside the white-and-blue-walled UNRWA compound, no one in the compound was killed. The 43 people who died in the incident were all outside, on the street, where all three mortar shells landed.Stories of one or more shells landing inside the schoolyard were inaccurate.While the killing of 43 civilians on the street may itself be grounds for investigation, it falls short of the act of shooting into a schoolyard crowded with refuge-seekers.
Martin’s report confirms the underreported Israeli accounts that the IDF accurately returned fire to the location from which it was being shelled by Hamas terrorists.
Some of Martin’s key findings include:
- There were no dead in the UN school, only some injured according to physical evidence and interviews with several eyewitnesses
- Three Israeli mortar shells landed outside the school’s compound, not inside
- Incorrect public pronouncements by the UN helped allow “the misconception to linger”
The fact that people were milling around the area where Hamas was firing rockets is not Israel’s fault, but rather points out that Hamas fired from an area frequented by civilians, engaging in what former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls a double war crime: “Attacking [Israeli] civilians and hiding behind [Palestinian] civilians.” …
An article entitled, “Hamas using human shields, report charges,” released today by The Canadian Jewish News summarized details of an investigation conducted by the Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center:
… “Using civilians as human shields is a war crime, a grave breach of the laws of armed conflict and a crime against humanity.”
Charging that Hamas has fired Qassam rockets and mortar shells at Israeli civilians from private homes, schools, mosques and hospitals, the centre says, “The rocket launching squads deliberately situate their launchers near houses to camouflage themselves and to protect themselves from the Israel Defence Forces. The attacks carried out by the terrorists only disrupt the daily lives of the Palestinian population and endanger them.”
According to the centre, Hamas used similar tactics when the Israeli army raided Gaza in March 2008 and in October 2006.
It goes on to say that the Palestinians have paid a heavy price for Hamas’ policy, which has turned civilians into virtual hostages and forced them into a situation of “unending combat” with Israel.
Citing a “fundamental contradiction” between the needs of Palestinian civilians and Hamas policies, the centre points out that Hamas has continually attacked Israeli crossing points, thereby interrupting the flow of food, water, medical supplies and petroleum into Gaza.
In addition, Hamas has targeted a nearby power plant in Ashkelon that provides Gaza with two-thirds of its electricity.
Justifying Israel’s bombing of the Islamic University on Dec. 28, the centre says it housed a weapons research facility in which long-range rockets for use against Israel were developed.
The centre also claims that the majority of the workshops that manufacture rockets are in densely populated neighbourhoods.
“Situating them in the heart of the civilian population endangers the welfare of local residents, both because of ‘work accidents’ and because it exposes them to possible IDF attacks.”
As well, the centre says, the extensive system of arms smuggling tunnels were built in urban settings, thereby exposing civilians to Israeli bombing raids.
And in contravention of international law and moral principles, Hamas has recruited children for operational missions, the report states. …
Finally, the United Nations itself admitted today that Hamas has stolen and cynically sold humanitarian aid destined for its own people — for a second time this week — according to an article in the Jerusalem Post, “UNRWA suspends Gaza aid after Hamas steals supplies:”
… It was the second time this week that Hamas stole UN supplies transferred to the Gaza Strip for impoverished Palestinians.
The first incident took place Tuesday evening when armed Hamas police broke into a Gaza warehouse packed with UN humanitarian supplies and seized thousands of blankets and food packages.
The seizure took place after UNRWA staff earlier refused to hand over the aid supplies to the Hamas-run Ministry of Social Affairs.
“We received a phone call this morning from UNRWA officials that they have decided to suspend their deliveries after Hamas stole supplies from one of the organization’s warehouses in the Gaza Strip,” explained a senior official.
The official said that the IDF noticed the trend already during Operation Cast Lead last month, when despite the fighting, Israel transferred close to 80 trucks a day to the Strip.
Nuaf Atar, a Fatah operative captured during the operation, told the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) that Hamas government officials “took over” humanitarian aid Israel allowed in to the Gaza Strip and sold it when it was supposed to be distributed for free.
UNRWA Spokesman Sami Mshasha confirmed that the organization had suspended its deliveries to Gaza after Hamas stole its supplies. …
Hamas’ behavior is beyond cynical — “evil” is the only suitable word. Hamas’ “beliefs” are antithetical to everything that the Western/democratic world holds dear. The international press is still dominated by a politically-correct, group-thinking crowd whom dilutes all sense of right and wrong, indulges in moral relativism, and clings to a dogmatic “multiculturalism.” Our mainstream media still insists on seeing the Palestinian/Israeli conflict as rooted in Jewish and Western imperialism, and framing the Middle East’s morass as an extension of the history of the cowboys (Jews) versus the Indians (Palestinians).
The reasons for media bias are myriad, including factors such as “white guilt,” an academia infiltrated with half-baked, leftist “intellectuals,” hypersensitive cultural sensitivity, and anti-Semitism, but there are glimmers of hope appearing, such as Georgetown University’s Program for Jewish Civilization (PJC), which:
… proves that determined administrators and committed professors can confront the anti-Israel scholarship of Middle East studies departments. …
What will it take to convince our largely mindless press that the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is in truth a clash of cultures, pitting civilized, democratic, and free market values, held by the Israelis, against the barbaric, totalitarian, and corrupt lack of values largely held by the Palestinians in specific and Arab/Muslim world in general?
Perhaps the notion of historical strength, success, and triumph of democracy over totalitarianism will eventually sink in (again) into the minds of the politically-correct. It won’t be easy, but at least nowadays there is an alternative news source: the blogsphere (e.g., IsraPundit, netwmd.com, Phyllis Chesler, Barry Rubin, Daniel Pipes, etc.).
Pinch me. I’m dreaming. …
UN: IDF did not shell UNRWA school
Top UN official blasts Hamas for ‘cynical’ use of civilian facilities
Would the UN have made these admissions five or more years ago?
The evidence for Israel’s success is undeniable, and analogously, so is the steady progress being made in Iraq. The media is supposed to stay ahead of the curve, yet people are increasingly turning to blogs to get information (see also here and here). When this press of ours finally realizes how far behind it is, it may have to do what comes very hard to humans: get out of denial and change for the better.
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Cross-posted at netwmd.com and nmisrael.org
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