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Showing posts with label Hamas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hamas. Show all posts
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Hamas presents its plan.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Hamas' Gaza: outgoing and incoming
1. Two hi-power rockets, Grad rockets, were launched by Hamas from Gaza today a short distance into Netivot, Israel.
2. IDF Spokesperson: despite rocket fire @ #Israel last night, 115 aid trucks + supply of gas sched to cross into #Gaza [Friday.]
3. IDF Spokesperson: : nearly 285 rockets fired from #Gaza in 2009
2. IDF Spokesperson: despite rocket fire @ #Israel last night, 115 aid trucks + supply of gas sched to cross into #Gaza [Friday.]
3. IDF Spokesperson: : nearly 285 rockets fired from #Gaza in 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
George Mitchell's Mission Impossible - Efraim Inbar
American diplomacy can hardly make a dent in the schism within Palestinian society that is the main stumbling block for progress in peace-making. As long as Islamist Hamas has a powerful grip on the Palestinian ethos and Palestinian aspirations, and as long as its ruthless rule over Gaza continues, Palestinian politics are hostage to the extremists and are unable to move toward an historic compromise with the Jewish-Zionist national movement. Palestinian society, be it in the West Bank or Gaza, is not entertaining reconciliation with the Jews. The shaheed (martyr) is still the role model in the Palestinian media and education system. The writer is professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University and director of the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies. (BESA-Bar-Ilan University)
From: www.dailyalert.org
American diplomacy can hardly make a dent in the schism within Palestinian society that is the main stumbling block for progress in peace-making. As long as Islamist Hamas has a powerful grip on the Palestinian ethos and Palestinian aspirations, and as long as its ruthless rule over Gaza continues, Palestinian politics are hostage to the extremists and are unable to move toward an historic compromise with the Jewish-Zionist national movement. Palestinian society, be it in the West Bank or Gaza, is not entertaining reconciliation with the Jews. The shaheed (martyr) is still the role model in the Palestinian media and education system. The writer is professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University and director of the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies. (BESA-Bar-Ilan University)
From: www.dailyalert.org
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Goldstone Gaza War Report endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council doesn't hold Hamas in violation of humanitarian laws
Quote: "Israel is mentioned explicitly with regards to tens of alleged human rights violations; Hamas is not mentioned in connection with any war crimes."
See: Despite his claims, Goldstone didn’t hold Hamas accountable for terror
By Jonathan Dahoah Halevi
The Hamas de-facto administration and its leaders are never accused of responsibility for terrorism and firing rockets. Rather, nebulous “Palestinian armed groups” are responsible. The theme is repeated in the report’s few references to Palestinian terrorism.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Hamas-Fatah feud
Analysis: Real 2-state problem is the Hamas-Fatah feud
Apr. 17, 2009 Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST
The Obama administration, through its special Middle East envoy George Mitchell, has launched what seems to be an aggressive campaign aimed at pressuring the new Israeli government into accepting the two-state solution.
But even if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman do finally succumb to the American pressure, they, along with Mitchell, will find that the Palestinians themselves are still far from achieving their goal of building a viable and independent state.
In fact, the Palestinians already have two separate political entities, or mini-states - one in the West Bank and the other in the Gaza Strip. These rival entities, controlled by Fatah and Hamas respectively, are acting and dealing with each other like two different countries.
Fatah representatives who participated in the last round of "reconciliation" talks with Hamas in Cairo said upon their return to the West Bank that they felt as if they were conducting negotiations with representatives of another country and not with Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
Repeated attempts by Egypt and Saudi Arabia over the past few months to persuade the two parties to end their differences and form a Palestinian unity government have failed, prompting Cairo and Riyadh to come up with the idea of establishing a confederation between the two "mini-states."
However, both Hamas and Fatah have categorically rejected the confederation idea out of fear that it would perpetuate and consolidate the split between the West Bank and Gaza.
Palestinian Authority officials said that PA President Mahmoud Abbas would ask Mitchell during their upcoming meeting in Ramallah to put pressure on the Netanyahu government to accept the two-state solution as the basis for a "just, comprehensive and everlasting peace" in the Middle East.
Abbas, the officials said, would also make it clear during his meeting with the US envoy that there was no point in resuming the peace talks with Israel as long as the Israeli government remained opposed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, continued settlement activity in the West Bank and demolished illegally built houses in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
Abbas, they added, would also brief Mitchell on the failed attempts to persuade Hamas to form a unity government with Fatah.
Spokesmen from both Palestinian parties have said over the past few days that only a miracle could lead to an agreement between the two sides. The gap between them remained as wide as ever, they noted, adding that the Egyptians were now considering canceling plans to host another round of reconciliation talks scheduled to take place in Cairo at the end of April.
For now, it appears that the Palestinians (and the rest of the world) will have to live with the fact that the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is not a temporary or passing phenomenon.
If the Obama administration is serious about promoting the two-state solution, it must focus its efforts first and foremost on helping the Palestinians solve the dispute between the Fatah-run state in the West Bank and the Hamas-controlled entity in the Gaza Strip.
The divisions among the Palestinians, as well as failure to establish proper and credible institutions, are the main obstacle to the realization of the two-state solution.
Less than half of the West Bank is controlled by the corruption-riddled Fatah faction, which seems to have lost much of its credibility among the Palestinians, largely because of its failure to reform itself in the aftermath of its defeat to Hamas in the January 2006 parliamentary election.
The Gaza Strip, on the other hand, is entirely controlled by the radical Islamic movement that has, through its extremist ideology, wreaked havoc on the majority of the Palestinians living there.
The Obama administration is mistaken if it thinks the power struggle between these two groups is a fight between good guys and bad guys. This is a confrontation between bad guys and bad guys, since they are not fighting over promoting democracy or boosting the economy, but over money and power.
Netanyahu and Lieberman need not worry about accepting the two-state solution, because Fatah and Hamas don't seem to be marching toward achieving the national aspirations of their people.
Apr. 17, 2009 Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST
The Obama administration, through its special Middle East envoy George Mitchell, has launched what seems to be an aggressive campaign aimed at pressuring the new Israeli government into accepting the two-state solution.
But even if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman do finally succumb to the American pressure, they, along with Mitchell, will find that the Palestinians themselves are still far from achieving their goal of building a viable and independent state.
In fact, the Palestinians already have two separate political entities, or mini-states - one in the West Bank and the other in the Gaza Strip. These rival entities, controlled by Fatah and Hamas respectively, are acting and dealing with each other like two different countries.
Fatah representatives who participated in the last round of "reconciliation" talks with Hamas in Cairo said upon their return to the West Bank that they felt as if they were conducting negotiations with representatives of another country and not with Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
Repeated attempts by Egypt and Saudi Arabia over the past few months to persuade the two parties to end their differences and form a Palestinian unity government have failed, prompting Cairo and Riyadh to come up with the idea of establishing a confederation between the two "mini-states."
However, both Hamas and Fatah have categorically rejected the confederation idea out of fear that it would perpetuate and consolidate the split between the West Bank and Gaza.
Palestinian Authority officials said that PA President Mahmoud Abbas would ask Mitchell during their upcoming meeting in Ramallah to put pressure on the Netanyahu government to accept the two-state solution as the basis for a "just, comprehensive and everlasting peace" in the Middle East.
Abbas, the officials said, would also make it clear during his meeting with the US envoy that there was no point in resuming the peace talks with Israel as long as the Israeli government remained opposed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, continued settlement activity in the West Bank and demolished illegally built houses in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
Abbas, they added, would also brief Mitchell on the failed attempts to persuade Hamas to form a unity government with Fatah.
Spokesmen from both Palestinian parties have said over the past few days that only a miracle could lead to an agreement between the two sides. The gap between them remained as wide as ever, they noted, adding that the Egyptians were now considering canceling plans to host another round of reconciliation talks scheduled to take place in Cairo at the end of April.
For now, it appears that the Palestinians (and the rest of the world) will have to live with the fact that the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is not a temporary or passing phenomenon.
If the Obama administration is serious about promoting the two-state solution, it must focus its efforts first and foremost on helping the Palestinians solve the dispute between the Fatah-run state in the West Bank and the Hamas-controlled entity in the Gaza Strip.
The divisions among the Palestinians, as well as failure to establish proper and credible institutions, are the main obstacle to the realization of the two-state solution.
Less than half of the West Bank is controlled by the corruption-riddled Fatah faction, which seems to have lost much of its credibility among the Palestinians, largely because of its failure to reform itself in the aftermath of its defeat to Hamas in the January 2006 parliamentary election.
The Gaza Strip, on the other hand, is entirely controlled by the radical Islamic movement that has, through its extremist ideology, wreaked havoc on the majority of the Palestinians living there.
The Obama administration is mistaken if it thinks the power struggle between these two groups is a fight between good guys and bad guys. This is a confrontation between bad guys and bad guys, since they are not fighting over promoting democracy or boosting the economy, but over money and power.
Netanyahu and Lieberman need not worry about accepting the two-state solution, because Fatah and Hamas don't seem to be marching toward achieving the national aspirations of their people.
Friday, March 20, 2009
" [A Palestinian leadership's] refusal to recognize the inalienable right of the Jewish people to self-determination anywhere between the Mediterranean and the Jordan signals Palestinian society's continuing to define our conflict in zero-sum terms."
Suleiman's 'wisdom' (Or, weaseling-in Hamas)
Mar. 19, 2009, THE JERUSALEM POST
While top Israeli emissaries were in Cairo seeking Gilad Schalit's freedom this week, their usual interlocutor, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, was not. He was in Khartoum and Riyadh on Arab League business.
Suleiman then flew to Washington to see US Middle East envoy George Mitchell and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He is hoping to convince the Obama administration to abandon the conditions set in January 2006, after Hamas beat Fatah in Palestinian elections, requiring Hamas to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept past PLO commitments before the international community will deal with the Islamists.
In the wake of all that's happened in the past three years, Suleiman has concluded that an ever-more entrenched Hamas needs to be accommodated if the Palestinians are to speak with one voice and function in the international arena. Several EU states already flirt with Hamas, discreetly. Russia and China do so openly.
Suleiman has come up with a work-around to overcome international insistence - or what's left of it - on what Hamas must do to join a Palestinian government. What if Hamas vaguely promises to "respect" previous PLO commitments rather than declare its outright acceptance of them? Instead of dwelling on who recognizes whom, and how, isn't it better to have Hamas and Fatah acting responsibly together?
FOR ISRAEL, however, who recognizes whom, and how, goes to the heart of the conflict - since the refusal to recognize the inalienable right of the Jewish people to self-determination anywhere between the Mediterranean and the Jordan signals Palestinian society's continuing to define our conflict in zero-sum terms. So if Suleiman's creative diplomacy ushers Hamas into a Palestinian government without it having to change its stripes, he will be undoing decades of painstaking steps Palestinians and Israelis have taken toward mutual recognition. That would put a question mark over the entire Oslo edifice, which has been preserved by successive Israeli governments.
Put differently: If the international community turns its back on the most elementary prerequisites for Palestinian-Israeli cooperation - mutual recognition, non-belligerency and adherence to past agreements - it will be tearing asunder the existing basis for relations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
ISRAEL HAS long made a "nuisance" of itself trying to elicit recognition from Palestinian leaders - the only way to establish that the conflict has moved onto a non-zero sum basis. And that recognition seemed forthcoming.
On December 7, 1988 Yasser Arafat declared in Stockholm: "The PNC accepted two states, a Palestinian state and a Jewish state, Israel. Is that clear enough?" And leading up to the September 1993 Oslo Accords, Fatah's central committee and the PLO's executive committee endorsed the deal in which the Palestinians recognized Israel.
Yet the extent to which Israelis may have been deluding themselves was blatantly exposed this week, when Fatah leader Muhammad Dahlan declared on Palestinian television: "I want to say for the thousandth time, in my own name and in the name of all of my fellow members of the Fatah movement: We do not demand that the Hamas movement recognize Israel. On the contrary, we demand of Hamas not to recognize Israel, because Fatah does not recognize Israel even today."
Actually, Palestinian moderates have been making this point time and again.
On October 3, 2006, Mahmoud Abbas told Al-Arabiya TV that he didn't expect Fatah, let alone Hamas, to recognize Israel. But a Palestinian government, qua government, had no choice but to "function opposite the Israelis on a daily basis," and it could hardly do so if its ministers didn't "recognize" their Israeli counterparts.
Thus Palestinian "moderates" have had no change of heart about Israel: It's just that Israel has leverage over the day-to-day lives of millions of Palestinians, who are also dependent on international hand-outs and diplomatic support. Realpolitik forces their governing authority - but not them - to "recognize" Israel. In other words, if one has cancer, la sama'ha Allah, doesn't one "recognize" that fact and seek palliatives pending a cure?
Israel's failure to insist that Fatah adhere to its commitments hasn't brought peace any closer, but blurred the distinction between moderates and extremists.
We're not sure which is more disheartening - Suleiman endeavoring to cover up Hamas rejectionism, or Fatah reveling in its own.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1237461629121&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
Suleiman's 'wisdom' (Or, weaseling-in Hamas)
Mar. 19, 2009, THE JERUSALEM POST
While top Israeli emissaries were in Cairo seeking Gilad Schalit's freedom this week, their usual interlocutor, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, was not. He was in Khartoum and Riyadh on Arab League business.
Suleiman then flew to Washington to see US Middle East envoy George Mitchell and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He is hoping to convince the Obama administration to abandon the conditions set in January 2006, after Hamas beat Fatah in Palestinian elections, requiring Hamas to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept past PLO commitments before the international community will deal with the Islamists.
In the wake of all that's happened in the past three years, Suleiman has concluded that an ever-more entrenched Hamas needs to be accommodated if the Palestinians are to speak with one voice and function in the international arena. Several EU states already flirt with Hamas, discreetly. Russia and China do so openly.
Suleiman has come up with a work-around to overcome international insistence - or what's left of it - on what Hamas must do to join a Palestinian government. What if Hamas vaguely promises to "respect" previous PLO commitments rather than declare its outright acceptance of them? Instead of dwelling on who recognizes whom, and how, isn't it better to have Hamas and Fatah acting responsibly together?
FOR ISRAEL, however, who recognizes whom, and how, goes to the heart of the conflict - since the refusal to recognize the inalienable right of the Jewish people to self-determination anywhere between the Mediterranean and the Jordan signals Palestinian society's continuing to define our conflict in zero-sum terms. So if Suleiman's creative diplomacy ushers Hamas into a Palestinian government without it having to change its stripes, he will be undoing decades of painstaking steps Palestinians and Israelis have taken toward mutual recognition. That would put a question mark over the entire Oslo edifice, which has been preserved by successive Israeli governments.
Put differently: If the international community turns its back on the most elementary prerequisites for Palestinian-Israeli cooperation - mutual recognition, non-belligerency and adherence to past agreements - it will be tearing asunder the existing basis for relations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
ISRAEL HAS long made a "nuisance" of itself trying to elicit recognition from Palestinian leaders - the only way to establish that the conflict has moved onto a non-zero sum basis. And that recognition seemed forthcoming.
On December 7, 1988 Yasser Arafat declared in Stockholm: "The PNC accepted two states, a Palestinian state and a Jewish state, Israel. Is that clear enough?" And leading up to the September 1993 Oslo Accords, Fatah's central committee and the PLO's executive committee endorsed the deal in which the Palestinians recognized Israel.
Yet the extent to which Israelis may have been deluding themselves was blatantly exposed this week, when Fatah leader Muhammad Dahlan declared on Palestinian television: "I want to say for the thousandth time, in my own name and in the name of all of my fellow members of the Fatah movement: We do not demand that the Hamas movement recognize Israel. On the contrary, we demand of Hamas not to recognize Israel, because Fatah does not recognize Israel even today."
Actually, Palestinian moderates have been making this point time and again.
On October 3, 2006, Mahmoud Abbas told Al-Arabiya TV that he didn't expect Fatah, let alone Hamas, to recognize Israel. But a Palestinian government, qua government, had no choice but to "function opposite the Israelis on a daily basis," and it could hardly do so if its ministers didn't "recognize" their Israeli counterparts.
Thus Palestinian "moderates" have had no change of heart about Israel: It's just that Israel has leverage over the day-to-day lives of millions of Palestinians, who are also dependent on international hand-outs and diplomatic support. Realpolitik forces their governing authority - but not them - to "recognize" Israel. In other words, if one has cancer, la sama'ha Allah, doesn't one "recognize" that fact and seek palliatives pending a cure?
Israel's failure to insist that Fatah adhere to its commitments hasn't brought peace any closer, but blurred the distinction between moderates and extremists.
We're not sure which is more disheartening - Suleiman endeavoring to cover up Hamas rejectionism, or Fatah reveling in its own.
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1237461629121&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
A senior Fatah leader, Muhammad Dahlan, admitted March 16, 2009 on Palestinian Authority television that Fatah - just like Hamas - still does not recognize Israel.
Furthermore, he said that the Palestinian Authority's apparent "recognition" is to make the PA "acceptable" to the international community, and therefore allow it to continue to receive international aid:
"I want to say for the thousandth time, in my own name and in the name of all of my fellow members of the Fatah movement: We do not demand that the Hamas movement recognize Israel. On the contrary, we demand of the Hamas movement not to recognize Israel, because the Fatah movement does not recognize Israel even today."
It is only the Palestinian Authority government, Dahlan insisted, that must "recognize" Israel - not out of conviction or sincerity, but in order to receive the needed help of the international community. This help would not come, says Dahlan, if the PA government did not "recognize" Israel.
The inherent contradiction between the Fatah, headed by "Chairman" Mahmoud Abbas, not recognizing Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, headed by "President" Mahmoud Abbas, "recognizing" Israel, was not challenged by the interviewer.
This is not merely Dahlan's opinion but apparently official PA ideology. It is nearly identical to the 2006 declaration made by Mahmoud Abbas himself that while PA ministers have to "recognize" Israeli ministers across a negotiating table, for functional purposes, this does not imply political recognition by Fatah of Israel:
"Hamas is not required to recognize Israel... It is not required of Hamas, or of Fatah, or of the Popular Front to recognize Israel."
-- From Palestinian Media Watch http://www.pmw.org.il
Friday, February 6, 2009
Sign at peace protest didn't convey peace
Peace groups that tolerate calls to destroy Israel don't seek peace!
This message is to the sponsors of the January 16 peace rally at Nollen Plaza: Middle East Peace Education Project -- AFSC, Catholic Peace Ministry; DMCW; Veterans for Peace –DM; Methodistfederation for social action— DM chapter; DM Palestine group; Islamic Center of DM; Socialist Workers Party; Students Activist Against War—Drake University; International League for Peace and Freedom -- DM
Sponsors: Work for a permanent, two-state solution for a Jewish Israel and an Arab Palestine. Repudiate those groups -- including Hamas -- whose stated goal is to destroy Israel. Theirs is not the road to peace. Do not tolerate signs calling for Israel's destruction in your rallies. Repudiate those signs now! Publicly.
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Here's what the peace groups tell the media ......
But does the following match their message?
| If not, the sponsors of the rally must repudiate the blatent rejection of peace that is part of their message.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090206/OPINION04/902060341/1038/Opinion
The peace groups that regularly hold demonstrations in Nollen Plaza should be ashamed of tolerating in their Jan. 16 rally a sign that implicitly called for the destruction of Israel. The homemade sign read: "Gaza will never die. But Israel will." The triumphalism expressed by that sign, carried apparently by a student from the West Bank, should repel all who desire a real, lasting and honorable peace to be reached by the current adversaries, based on mutual, and enforceable, acceptance. That's not peacemaking. For peace groups to align themselves with this ideology, siding politically with Hamas, is abhorrent. comments to jcrc@dmjfed.org ----------------------------- If your e-mail does not display the photos, view the photos online at http://jcommunitynews.blogspot.com
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Wednesday, January 21, 2009
A View from the Target Zone
Haim Harari[Dr. Harari is one of the most prominent physicists in Israel. -- ed.]
January 2009
These words are written a short distance away from the most northern hit, so far, of the Hamas missiles, which are methodically aimed only at civilian population in Israel. You may refer to this message as "A View from the Target Zone".
For eight years, approximately 5000 rockets have been sent deliberately into Israeli population centers, by the Hamas terrorists. The rockets are extremely inaccurate. The good news is that they often hit an empty field. The bad news is that, when they do hit buildings and people, they kill, maim and destroy. It is a very ugly game of Iranian Roulette.
But the most significant fact is that the undisputed purpose of the rockets is to kill civilians in a random manner. Since they miss entire towns, they could not possibly be aimed at military or strategic targets. No claim is made by the Hamas of anything other than a deliberate attempt to kill civilians within Israel. The world knows about the rockets but rarely mentions that they are aimed only at the civilian population and at nothing else.
The Hamas consistently refers to Israel itself as "the occupied territory". It refers to any town in Israel as an "illegal settlement". Its declared aim is to destroy Israel. It has proudly endorsed, initiated and sent numerous suicide murderers into Israeli buses, supermarkets, shopping malls, weddings and other crowded places. It explicitly states that it will continue to do so. Since Israel succeeded in preventing the suicide murders by a combination of the protective wall, other defensive measures and good intelligence penetration, the missiles became the preferred way of killing Israeli civilians.
Hamas is declared to be a terrorist organization, not only by Israel, not only by the US, but also by the European Union, who is not suspected of being pro-Israeli. This is the same European Union that refuses to label the Hizbullah as a terror organization, but repeatedly and officially declares the Hamas as such. Hamas is fully funded and largely controlled by Iran, a country openly and totally committed to the destruction of Israel, while continuing to enjoy trade with much of the western world.
The Hamas media, and especially its independent TV station, carry daily children programs (including programs for kindergarten age) depicting the Jews (and not only the Israelis) as pigs, dogs, scum of the earth and creatures that must be killed. One of these program features a rabbit which eats Jews. There is plenty of documentation of these programs, including animations and programs with child presenters. Major western news media never report on this phenomenon, while some of them publish op-ed pieces by declared Hamas leaders.
The favorite hour of launching the daily Hamas rockets during the last eight years was 7:45 in the morning, but only on weekdays. Why? Because this is the time in which the streets are full of Israeli children, on their way to school. No one wants to waste rockets when no children are in the streets, during the weekend.
Eight year old children in the Israeli town of Sderot, a few miles from the Gaza border, live, since they were born, with these rockets. They know no other life. When the alarm sounds, they have exactly 15 seconds to reach an improvised cover. Eighth grade children, age 13, have never gone to school, since kindergarten, without the real threat of having a rocket hit them on the way. Their parents have never felt safe about sending their child to school. It is very difficult for anyone living in a normal safe place, to imagine what it means to send your child to school, every single day, for eight years, with the fear that he or she may never reach school because of a missile attack, aimed at killing the children. The world seems to accept this.
Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip in 2005. Not one Israeli soldier or civilian remained there. Everything was ready for the people of Gaza to start a new life and economic development. There was no blockade, border crossings were open. Instead came increased shooting of rockets into Israel, a Hamas coup, throwing Fatah Palestinians from roofs of buildings to their death and torturing their own people in their prisons. It is regrettable that Israel did not react with full force to the very first rockets after its withdrawal from Gaza, but there was always the naïve illusion that perhaps talks, discussions, verbal threats and temporary closings of the border crossings, might do the job. What Israel did not take into account was that Iran, directly or through Hizbullah, was paying the Hamas operatives, per rocket launch.
Through the elaborate system of tunnels dug by the Hamas under the Gaza-Egypt border, thousands of tons of explosives and larger and better Iranian missiles have been continuously smuggled into Gaza. The Israeli Government stupidly agreed in mid 2008, to a six-month cease fire. During the "mock cease fire", many rockets were launched into Israel by a variety of real and fictitious Palestinian organizations, with a clear Hamas sub-license, pretending that the Hamas itself is observing the cease fire.
In the meantime, the Hamas could successfully prepare for the next round. It acquired Iranian rockets that were equally inaccurate, but carried larger warheads, had a longer range and contained numerous tiny still balls, in order to increase the civilian casualties over a larger radius. Again, the inaccuracy of the rockets guaranteed that they could only be sent into random civilian targets. But now the rocket range covered a population of close to one million Israelis and the damage is much more significant.
Larger and better rockets were now stored in mosques, schools, hospitals and normal apartment buildings. Mortars were added to the menu of shooting at Israeli civilians. Schools financed by the UN were used in order to launch mortar shells and missiles. The greenhouses left intact by the withdrawing Israelis were destroyed, their metal parts were converted to primitive rockets and their locations became favorite launching areas. Launching rockets at the Israeli population brings a much better income than growing strawberries and flowers in greenhouses.
Whenever Israel opened the border crossings to supply Gaza with basic food and fuel, the Hamas was attempting to blow up the crossing points. Providing too much food and fuel would disturb the flourishing black market totally controlled by the Hamas chiefs and their allies. It would also spoil their propaganda machine. Most supplies were transported through the tunnels from Egypt, under Hamas auspices, creating a lucrative business for the Hamas "families".
The absurd notion that Israel must supply fuel, electricity, food and medication to an outlaw region controlled by a terror organization, became a permanent mantra in the western media. Israel was supposed to provide the Hamas with raw materials for the rockets launched at its citizens, with electricity for the machinery used to produce these rockets, with food for its designers and manufacturers, and with building materials in order to construct safe bunkers for the Hamas leadership under schools and hospitals. On one hand the Hamas was claimed to have been the legitimate democratically elected government of the majority of the population and on the other hand the population, that allegedly elected these thugs, was declared innocent and suffering. The inconsistency was never pointed out.
Once the border crossing was closed, as a result of the repeated Hamas attacks, the international game of a "humanitarian crisis" was successfully played, with full cooperation of the western media. Famous incidents included photographs of poor Gaza residents with candles and (allegedly) no electricity, staged behind black curtains in full outside daylight (visible through cracks between the curtains). Most western media happily used these fake pictures and, when the lie was exposed, never mentioned it. Hamas leaders were never lacking food, fuel, electricity, luxurious private vehicles and all amenities of well to do black market profiteers.
Very few western journalists remained in Gaza, after several were kidnapped by the Hamas. Almost all reports to western media come from Palestinians, who are either sympathetic to Hamas, or afraid of it, or openly active in its ranks, or all of the above. The reader of the New York Times, or the viewer of a European TV network, never notices who provides him or her with the news. All photographs, both stills and videos, are provided by Palestinian operatives, who would stop at nothing in order to support the propaganda machine. On western TV, Hamas rockets are launched only from empty fields, never from a school or a crowded neighborhood, as it is in real life.
United Nation sources in Gaza are often quoted, condemning Israel for the "Humanitarian Crisis". But these sources are normally employees of UNRWA, the UN agency that, since 1948, makes every effort to perpetuate the "refugee" status of the great-grandchildren of the 1948 refugees. The grandparents of these "refugees" were displaced 60 years ago by a distance of a 20 minute drive and were never resettled because they were receiving free food from the UN. The UN objected vehemently to any attempt at settling the refugees, their children and grandchildren. The few real refugees, who remain alive today, and are 80 year old, were 18 year old when they were displaced. All the terrorists are third or fourth generation "refugees" held as such, courtesy of UNRWA.
These UN organizations employ, by their own admission, numerous active Hamas members. When the latter make statements on behalf of "UN sources in Gaza", the Palestinian journalists never mention to us who these "UN sources" are. The public gets the impression that these are truthful objective sources, while being fed with standard Hamas lies. Western media never disclose to us that the jobs of these people depend on perpetuating the misery of the so-called "refugees".
A Headmaster and science teacher of one of the UNRWA schools in Gaza was a leader in the rocket industry of the Islamic Jihad, a satellite terror organization in Gaza, collaborating with Hamas. The UN strongly denied the Israeli accusations that they are employing such a person, until the man was killed by Israel and was eulogized by his friends as a leader of the Islamic Jihad and a designer of rockets.
When Israeli truck drivers were bringing the humanitarian supplies to Gaza, during the period of Hamas rocket fire, they were frequently attacked by Hamas. At least one Israeli truck driver, supplying the Palestinians, was deliberately murdered. No protest was launched by the UN. But, when during the current fighting, an Arab truck driver, employed by the UN, was accidentally killed, the UN became indignant and stopped all its "humanitarian" activity in protest, to the tune of loud denunciations from all "UN sources".
The Israeli defense forces monitor every detail of this fantasyland by using airborne drones and by a very successful intelligence penetration of the Hamas ranks. They know which apartment building serves as a missile storage place, the addresses and phone numbers of Hamas leaders, which school serves as an ammunition depot, etc.
When the six-month "ceasefire" ended, in mid December, Hamas refused to continue it, launching 90 rockets into Israeli towns and villages in one day. In retrospect, this has prevented a much more dangerous future situation. Had there been an additional "ceasefire", Hamas would have acquired rockets covering all of Israel and possibly much more accurate Iranian missiles. The Iranian supply line of explosives and weapons, together with the flourishing business of smuggled goods, went through the tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border with efficiency and regularity. Had such efficiency been attempted in improving the lives of the Palestinians in Gaza, the entire Middle East would have been an entirely different place. But, coupled with the weapon smuggling, it was essential to create the charade of the "Humanitarian Crisis".
During the current operation, when the Israeli Air Force wants to blow up a house which serves as a missile storage, Israel phones every family in the house and gives them 15 minutes to evacuate. The Hamas is then sending the women and children to the roof of the building in order to prevent the Israeli aircraft from making the kill. Israel has now developed a tiny arrow-like missile which can be sent to the corner of the roof, making a loud noise and harming no one, in order to scare away the women and children on the roof, before the real bomb destroys the missile collection or the explosive storage place. Often, the women and children used by the Hamas as a human shield, escape and the house is then blown up, with a spectacular secondary explosion of the stored missiles or other war materials. On other occasions, a Hamas person gets to the roof and prevents the women and children from leaving. In those cases, the operation is not completed by the Israeli Air Force, in order to spare civilian lives, at the risk of having the rockets launched into Israel on the following day.
Never in history, has any country made such an enormous effort to avoid civilian casualties, in fighting against murderers who target only civilians and never anything else. No one in Kosovo, Serbia, Georgia or Iraq, was offered such a courtesy by the bombing and attacking powers. This fact is never mentioned by the western media.
Many of the heroic commanders of the Hamas are hiding in the central hospital of Gaza, in an elaborate network of bunkers, trusting that Israel will not attack the hospital. Hamas spokesmen issue proclamations from the maternity ward of the same hospital, knowing that Israel will not hit them there. Ironically, of all non-Israelis, the Hamas leaders are the only ones who know for sure that Israel never deliberately hurts civilians. They exploit this fact. The rest of the world buys the Hamas lies and blames Israel for hurting civilians.
Repeated claims of "humanitarian crisis" are made from the same hospital. The doctors in charge never tell us that the hiding leaders of the Hamas are using them and the patients as human shields. Whether the doctors are only scared or are deliberate accomplices, we do not know. Probably some are active Hamas members and others are justifiably scared to speak up. We never hear a word from the International Red Cross regarding the use of the hospitals as the headquarters of terror leaders.
One of the most horrible "impartial" testimonies on the humanitarian situation, in the hospital, is delivered repeatedly to the western media by a "Norwegian Doctor" serving there. The man is well known from his 2001 interviews with Norwegian TV, in which he explicitly supported and justified the 9/11 attacks. Needless to say, none of the networks who bring us the righteous doctor, mention this. He is just "A Norwegian Doctor" attending to the wounded.
Palestinian ambulances are routinely used to move terrorists around. This has also been the Palestinian practice in the West Bank during the terror wave in 2001-2002. An ambulance is an ideal method of transporting a suicide murderer across check points. In the unlucky case that the criminal is caught, there is at least a good press photograph of the ugly Israelis attacking or stopping an ambulance. It is a win-win situation. If an ambulance full of healthy Hamas terrorists and explosives is hit from the air, the pictures are even better for the western media and for Al Jazeera.
Several Hamas leaders are moving around Gaza surrounded by children, and often holding a child on their arms. There are well documented cases in which Hamas terrorists were pulling reluctant children by their ears to accompany them when they move from one building to another. None of this is mentioned by the western media.
Several Mosques, which were used as ammunition dumps, were destroyed by Israel. In every one of these cases, the air photographs showed a primary explosion, from the air missile or bomb, and a much bigger secondary explosion, from the stored missiles or other explosives in the mosque. The secondary explosion is an absolute clear proof of what was hidden at the mosque. The normal beautiful carpets in a mosque would not create a secondary explosion. Western media have these videos, but rarely show them or mention their existence.
But the same western media repeatedly show the pictures of injured or dead children, some of whom were indeed accidentally injured or killed by the Israeli attacks on military and terror targets, and some are obviously fake pictures with red paint smeared on children faces. At least in one case, the same child, obviously painted and not injured, has been paraded in front of various TV cameras by several different men, each declared to be his father by a different network.
Children and innocent civilians are, indeed, killed and injured, in spite of all the enormous precautions and efforts of the Israeli forces. This is truly tragic. But the only alternative for Israel is to sit still, absorb the thousands of missiles on its civilian population and wait for bigger, deadlier and longer range missiles to start destroying everything in Israel. Israel is offered a choice between a complete national suicide, on one hand, and an attack on the terrorists, with extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties, but with the knowledge that such casualties must occur when the other side is using children as human shields, storing explosives in mosques, shooting mortars from schools and hiding the perpetrators in hospitals.
Most Hamas terrorists hide in safe bunkers, leaving their families in the war zone. They are happy to fight to the last Palestinian civilian, not to the last Hamas terrorist. Women and children are moving within the battlegrounds, with Hamas snipers shooting, using them as cover. The women and children are not allowed into the limited space of the Hamas bunkers. More than once, a woman is observed carrying a suicide belt. Israeli soldiers, who are trying to help these women to move safely away from the fighting area, are at a very serious risk of a suicide murder.
When the Hamas terrorists are killed, they are counted by the "UN Sources" as civilians. That is how the "UN sources" reach the huge numbers of dead civilians they are reporting. Interestingly, Al Jazeera almost never shows dead bodies of young males, and the western media, being fed by Palestinian stringers, follow suit.
The Hamas TV ("Al Aksa TV") and Al Jazeera show, 24 hours a day, repeated video clips with loud music, showing injured bloody children, including some body parts. Some injuries are real, some are not, but the videos are shown nonstop between every two news items. The news items themselves are often lies, but that really does not matter. What do matter are the video clips, edited like commercials, brainwashing a worldwide audience and a new generation of future terror sympathizers.
A video taken several years ago in Gaza, surfaced. The video documents an accidental explosion of a Hamas truck, carrying a large number of missiles, among celebrating Palestinians somewhere in Gaza. Many were killed and injured in this accident, and the pictures were devastating. There is no Israeli involvement whatsoever, and the event happened a few years ago. European networks, including France 2, are showing it now as evidence for the current "criminal" behavior of Israel. The French channel apologized later, but the number of people who heard the apology is significantly fewer than those who saw the horrible pictures and believed the lies. In this case, at least, the hoax was delivered by the Hamas and France 2 was apparently the victim, not the perpetrator, as it definitely was in well known previous cases.
Israel opens the border crossings daily, during the fighting, in order to provide basic food ingredients and medication to the civilian population. No one can remember such a gesture in any other war in history, certainly not toward the side that attacks only civilians and repeatedly announces that its only aim is to totally annihilate its opponent. Most of the supplies are captured by the Hamas terrorists and used for their own troops and their flourishing black market, never providing them in an organized way to the population. "UN sources" claim that not enough food is transmitted.
That the Hamas murderers use these tactics, lies and methods, is not at all surprising. That the international community, with all its investigative reporters, swallows these lies so eagerly, without exposing them, is something which demands an explanation.
Haim Harari[Dr. Harari is one of the most prominent physicists in Israel. -- ed.]
January 2009
These words are written a short distance away from the most northern hit, so far, of the Hamas missiles, which are methodically aimed only at civilian population in Israel. You may refer to this message as "A View from the Target Zone".
For eight years, approximately 5000 rockets have been sent deliberately into Israeli population centers, by the Hamas terrorists. The rockets are extremely inaccurate. The good news is that they often hit an empty field. The bad news is that, when they do hit buildings and people, they kill, maim and destroy. It is a very ugly game of Iranian Roulette.
But the most significant fact is that the undisputed purpose of the rockets is to kill civilians in a random manner. Since they miss entire towns, they could not possibly be aimed at military or strategic targets. No claim is made by the Hamas of anything other than a deliberate attempt to kill civilians within Israel. The world knows about the rockets but rarely mentions that they are aimed only at the civilian population and at nothing else.
The Hamas consistently refers to Israel itself as "the occupied territory". It refers to any town in Israel as an "illegal settlement". Its declared aim is to destroy Israel. It has proudly endorsed, initiated and sent numerous suicide murderers into Israeli buses, supermarkets, shopping malls, weddings and other crowded places. It explicitly states that it will continue to do so. Since Israel succeeded in preventing the suicide murders by a combination of the protective wall, other defensive measures and good intelligence penetration, the missiles became the preferred way of killing Israeli civilians.
Hamas is declared to be a terrorist organization, not only by Israel, not only by the US, but also by the European Union, who is not suspected of being pro-Israeli. This is the same European Union that refuses to label the Hizbullah as a terror organization, but repeatedly and officially declares the Hamas as such. Hamas is fully funded and largely controlled by Iran, a country openly and totally committed to the destruction of Israel, while continuing to enjoy trade with much of the western world.
The Hamas media, and especially its independent TV station, carry daily children programs (including programs for kindergarten age) depicting the Jews (and not only the Israelis) as pigs, dogs, scum of the earth and creatures that must be killed. One of these program features a rabbit which eats Jews. There is plenty of documentation of these programs, including animations and programs with child presenters. Major western news media never report on this phenomenon, while some of them publish op-ed pieces by declared Hamas leaders.
The favorite hour of launching the daily Hamas rockets during the last eight years was 7:45 in the morning, but only on weekdays. Why? Because this is the time in which the streets are full of Israeli children, on their way to school. No one wants to waste rockets when no children are in the streets, during the weekend.
Eight year old children in the Israeli town of Sderot, a few miles from the Gaza border, live, since they were born, with these rockets. They know no other life. When the alarm sounds, they have exactly 15 seconds to reach an improvised cover. Eighth grade children, age 13, have never gone to school, since kindergarten, without the real threat of having a rocket hit them on the way. Their parents have never felt safe about sending their child to school. It is very difficult for anyone living in a normal safe place, to imagine what it means to send your child to school, every single day, for eight years, with the fear that he or she may never reach school because of a missile attack, aimed at killing the children. The world seems to accept this.
Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip in 2005. Not one Israeli soldier or civilian remained there. Everything was ready for the people of Gaza to start a new life and economic development. There was no blockade, border crossings were open. Instead came increased shooting of rockets into Israel, a Hamas coup, throwing Fatah Palestinians from roofs of buildings to their death and torturing their own people in their prisons. It is regrettable that Israel did not react with full force to the very first rockets after its withdrawal from Gaza, but there was always the naïve illusion that perhaps talks, discussions, verbal threats and temporary closings of the border crossings, might do the job. What Israel did not take into account was that Iran, directly or through Hizbullah, was paying the Hamas operatives, per rocket launch.
Through the elaborate system of tunnels dug by the Hamas under the Gaza-Egypt border, thousands of tons of explosives and larger and better Iranian missiles have been continuously smuggled into Gaza. The Israeli Government stupidly agreed in mid 2008, to a six-month cease fire. During the "mock cease fire", many rockets were launched into Israel by a variety of real and fictitious Palestinian organizations, with a clear Hamas sub-license, pretending that the Hamas itself is observing the cease fire.
In the meantime, the Hamas could successfully prepare for the next round. It acquired Iranian rockets that were equally inaccurate, but carried larger warheads, had a longer range and contained numerous tiny still balls, in order to increase the civilian casualties over a larger radius. Again, the inaccuracy of the rockets guaranteed that they could only be sent into random civilian targets. But now the rocket range covered a population of close to one million Israelis and the damage is much more significant.
Larger and better rockets were now stored in mosques, schools, hospitals and normal apartment buildings. Mortars were added to the menu of shooting at Israeli civilians. Schools financed by the UN were used in order to launch mortar shells and missiles. The greenhouses left intact by the withdrawing Israelis were destroyed, their metal parts were converted to primitive rockets and their locations became favorite launching areas. Launching rockets at the Israeli population brings a much better income than growing strawberries and flowers in greenhouses.
Whenever Israel opened the border crossings to supply Gaza with basic food and fuel, the Hamas was attempting to blow up the crossing points. Providing too much food and fuel would disturb the flourishing black market totally controlled by the Hamas chiefs and their allies. It would also spoil their propaganda machine. Most supplies were transported through the tunnels from Egypt, under Hamas auspices, creating a lucrative business for the Hamas "families".
The absurd notion that Israel must supply fuel, electricity, food and medication to an outlaw region controlled by a terror organization, became a permanent mantra in the western media. Israel was supposed to provide the Hamas with raw materials for the rockets launched at its citizens, with electricity for the machinery used to produce these rockets, with food for its designers and manufacturers, and with building materials in order to construct safe bunkers for the Hamas leadership under schools and hospitals. On one hand the Hamas was claimed to have been the legitimate democratically elected government of the majority of the population and on the other hand the population, that allegedly elected these thugs, was declared innocent and suffering. The inconsistency was never pointed out.
Once the border crossing was closed, as a result of the repeated Hamas attacks, the international game of a "humanitarian crisis" was successfully played, with full cooperation of the western media. Famous incidents included photographs of poor Gaza residents with candles and (allegedly) no electricity, staged behind black curtains in full outside daylight (visible through cracks between the curtains). Most western media happily used these fake pictures and, when the lie was exposed, never mentioned it. Hamas leaders were never lacking food, fuel, electricity, luxurious private vehicles and all amenities of well to do black market profiteers.
Very few western journalists remained in Gaza, after several were kidnapped by the Hamas. Almost all reports to western media come from Palestinians, who are either sympathetic to Hamas, or afraid of it, or openly active in its ranks, or all of the above. The reader of the New York Times, or the viewer of a European TV network, never notices who provides him or her with the news. All photographs, both stills and videos, are provided by Palestinian operatives, who would stop at nothing in order to support the propaganda machine. On western TV, Hamas rockets are launched only from empty fields, never from a school or a crowded neighborhood, as it is in real life.
United Nation sources in Gaza are often quoted, condemning Israel for the "Humanitarian Crisis". But these sources are normally employees of UNRWA, the UN agency that, since 1948, makes every effort to perpetuate the "refugee" status of the great-grandchildren of the 1948 refugees. The grandparents of these "refugees" were displaced 60 years ago by a distance of a 20 minute drive and were never resettled because they were receiving free food from the UN. The UN objected vehemently to any attempt at settling the refugees, their children and grandchildren. The few real refugees, who remain alive today, and are 80 year old, were 18 year old when they were displaced. All the terrorists are third or fourth generation "refugees" held as such, courtesy of UNRWA.
These UN organizations employ, by their own admission, numerous active Hamas members. When the latter make statements on behalf of "UN sources in Gaza", the Palestinian journalists never mention to us who these "UN sources" are. The public gets the impression that these are truthful objective sources, while being fed with standard Hamas lies. Western media never disclose to us that the jobs of these people depend on perpetuating the misery of the so-called "refugees".
A Headmaster and science teacher of one of the UNRWA schools in Gaza was a leader in the rocket industry of the Islamic Jihad, a satellite terror organization in Gaza, collaborating with Hamas. The UN strongly denied the Israeli accusations that they are employing such a person, until the man was killed by Israel and was eulogized by his friends as a leader of the Islamic Jihad and a designer of rockets.
When Israeli truck drivers were bringing the humanitarian supplies to Gaza, during the period of Hamas rocket fire, they were frequently attacked by Hamas. At least one Israeli truck driver, supplying the Palestinians, was deliberately murdered. No protest was launched by the UN. But, when during the current fighting, an Arab truck driver, employed by the UN, was accidentally killed, the UN became indignant and stopped all its "humanitarian" activity in protest, to the tune of loud denunciations from all "UN sources".
The Israeli defense forces monitor every detail of this fantasyland by using airborne drones and by a very successful intelligence penetration of the Hamas ranks. They know which apartment building serves as a missile storage place, the addresses and phone numbers of Hamas leaders, which school serves as an ammunition depot, etc.
When the six-month "ceasefire" ended, in mid December, Hamas refused to continue it, launching 90 rockets into Israeli towns and villages in one day. In retrospect, this has prevented a much more dangerous future situation. Had there been an additional "ceasefire", Hamas would have acquired rockets covering all of Israel and possibly much more accurate Iranian missiles. The Iranian supply line of explosives and weapons, together with the flourishing business of smuggled goods, went through the tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border with efficiency and regularity. Had such efficiency been attempted in improving the lives of the Palestinians in Gaza, the entire Middle East would have been an entirely different place. But, coupled with the weapon smuggling, it was essential to create the charade of the "Humanitarian Crisis".
During the current operation, when the Israeli Air Force wants to blow up a house which serves as a missile storage, Israel phones every family in the house and gives them 15 minutes to evacuate. The Hamas is then sending the women and children to the roof of the building in order to prevent the Israeli aircraft from making the kill. Israel has now developed a tiny arrow-like missile which can be sent to the corner of the roof, making a loud noise and harming no one, in order to scare away the women and children on the roof, before the real bomb destroys the missile collection or the explosive storage place. Often, the women and children used by the Hamas as a human shield, escape and the house is then blown up, with a spectacular secondary explosion of the stored missiles or other war materials. On other occasions, a Hamas person gets to the roof and prevents the women and children from leaving. In those cases, the operation is not completed by the Israeli Air Force, in order to spare civilian lives, at the risk of having the rockets launched into Israel on the following day.
Never in history, has any country made such an enormous effort to avoid civilian casualties, in fighting against murderers who target only civilians and never anything else. No one in Kosovo, Serbia, Georgia or Iraq, was offered such a courtesy by the bombing and attacking powers. This fact is never mentioned by the western media.
Many of the heroic commanders of the Hamas are hiding in the central hospital of Gaza, in an elaborate network of bunkers, trusting that Israel will not attack the hospital. Hamas spokesmen issue proclamations from the maternity ward of the same hospital, knowing that Israel will not hit them there. Ironically, of all non-Israelis, the Hamas leaders are the only ones who know for sure that Israel never deliberately hurts civilians. They exploit this fact. The rest of the world buys the Hamas lies and blames Israel for hurting civilians.
Repeated claims of "humanitarian crisis" are made from the same hospital. The doctors in charge never tell us that the hiding leaders of the Hamas are using them and the patients as human shields. Whether the doctors are only scared or are deliberate accomplices, we do not know. Probably some are active Hamas members and others are justifiably scared to speak up. We never hear a word from the International Red Cross regarding the use of the hospitals as the headquarters of terror leaders.
One of the most horrible "impartial" testimonies on the humanitarian situation, in the hospital, is delivered repeatedly to the western media by a "Norwegian Doctor" serving there. The man is well known from his 2001 interviews with Norwegian TV, in which he explicitly supported and justified the 9/11 attacks. Needless to say, none of the networks who bring us the righteous doctor, mention this. He is just "A Norwegian Doctor" attending to the wounded.
Palestinian ambulances are routinely used to move terrorists around. This has also been the Palestinian practice in the West Bank during the terror wave in 2001-2002. An ambulance is an ideal method of transporting a suicide murderer across check points. In the unlucky case that the criminal is caught, there is at least a good press photograph of the ugly Israelis attacking or stopping an ambulance. It is a win-win situation. If an ambulance full of healthy Hamas terrorists and explosives is hit from the air, the pictures are even better for the western media and for Al Jazeera.
Several Hamas leaders are moving around Gaza surrounded by children, and often holding a child on their arms. There are well documented cases in which Hamas terrorists were pulling reluctant children by their ears to accompany them when they move from one building to another. None of this is mentioned by the western media.
Several Mosques, which were used as ammunition dumps, were destroyed by Israel. In every one of these cases, the air photographs showed a primary explosion, from the air missile or bomb, and a much bigger secondary explosion, from the stored missiles or other explosives in the mosque. The secondary explosion is an absolute clear proof of what was hidden at the mosque. The normal beautiful carpets in a mosque would not create a secondary explosion. Western media have these videos, but rarely show them or mention their existence.
But the same western media repeatedly show the pictures of injured or dead children, some of whom were indeed accidentally injured or killed by the Israeli attacks on military and terror targets, and some are obviously fake pictures with red paint smeared on children faces. At least in one case, the same child, obviously painted and not injured, has been paraded in front of various TV cameras by several different men, each declared to be his father by a different network.
Children and innocent civilians are, indeed, killed and injured, in spite of all the enormous precautions and efforts of the Israeli forces. This is truly tragic. But the only alternative for Israel is to sit still, absorb the thousands of missiles on its civilian population and wait for bigger, deadlier and longer range missiles to start destroying everything in Israel. Israel is offered a choice between a complete national suicide, on one hand, and an attack on the terrorists, with extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties, but with the knowledge that such casualties must occur when the other side is using children as human shields, storing explosives in mosques, shooting mortars from schools and hiding the perpetrators in hospitals.
Most Hamas terrorists hide in safe bunkers, leaving their families in the war zone. They are happy to fight to the last Palestinian civilian, not to the last Hamas terrorist. Women and children are moving within the battlegrounds, with Hamas snipers shooting, using them as cover. The women and children are not allowed into the limited space of the Hamas bunkers. More than once, a woman is observed carrying a suicide belt. Israeli soldiers, who are trying to help these women to move safely away from the fighting area, are at a very serious risk of a suicide murder.
When the Hamas terrorists are killed, they are counted by the "UN Sources" as civilians. That is how the "UN sources" reach the huge numbers of dead civilians they are reporting. Interestingly, Al Jazeera almost never shows dead bodies of young males, and the western media, being fed by Palestinian stringers, follow suit.
The Hamas TV ("Al Aksa TV") and Al Jazeera show, 24 hours a day, repeated video clips with loud music, showing injured bloody children, including some body parts. Some injuries are real, some are not, but the videos are shown nonstop between every two news items. The news items themselves are often lies, but that really does not matter. What do matter are the video clips, edited like commercials, brainwashing a worldwide audience and a new generation of future terror sympathizers.
A video taken several years ago in Gaza, surfaced. The video documents an accidental explosion of a Hamas truck, carrying a large number of missiles, among celebrating Palestinians somewhere in Gaza. Many were killed and injured in this accident, and the pictures were devastating. There is no Israeli involvement whatsoever, and the event happened a few years ago. European networks, including France 2, are showing it now as evidence for the current "criminal" behavior of Israel. The French channel apologized later, but the number of people who heard the apology is significantly fewer than those who saw the horrible pictures and believed the lies. In this case, at least, the hoax was delivered by the Hamas and France 2 was apparently the victim, not the perpetrator, as it definitely was in well known previous cases.
Israel opens the border crossings daily, during the fighting, in order to provide basic food ingredients and medication to the civilian population. No one can remember such a gesture in any other war in history, certainly not toward the side that attacks only civilians and repeatedly announces that its only aim is to totally annihilate its opponent. Most of the supplies are captured by the Hamas terrorists and used for their own troops and their flourishing black market, never providing them in an organized way to the population. "UN sources" claim that not enough food is transmitted.
That the Hamas murderers use these tactics, lies and methods, is not at all surprising. That the international community, with all its investigative reporters, swallows these lies so eagerly, without exposing them, is something which demands an explanation.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
OPINION: January 13, 2009 Wall Street Journal
The No-State Solution
Hamas cares more about Shariah than 'Palestine.'
By BRET STEPHENS
Of all the errors in the West's understanding of Hamas, none is more fundamental than the routine characterization of the group as a Palestinian movement. It is nothing of the sort.
This isn't to say that the Islamic Resistance Movement -- to use Hamas's proper name -- isn't led by Palestinians, or that it's unpopular among them. On the contrary: Even before the current fighting, Hamas was almost certainly more popular than its secular rival Fatah throughout the Palestinian Authority, including the West Bank. The only difference with Gaza is that Israel remains a presence on the West Bank, able to prevent Hamas from gaining sufficient strength to rout Fatah in an armed contest.
Hamas's claim on Palestinian hearts has only gained force in the last three weeks, though whether the feeling lasts will depend largely on how it emerges from the war. But the test of Hamas's Palestinian-ness, as it were, has nothing to do with its popularity. The test is whether it actually believes in something called Palestine. There is scant evidence that it does.
Bear in mind that there has never previously been an independent state by that name; politically, it remains a notional place. The idea of a Palestinian people, referring to the Arab inhabitants of the land, is also of relatively recent vintage. (The late, great Israeli pianist David Bar-Ilan, my predecessor as editor of the Jerusalem Post, was known, as a Jewish child during the British Mandate, as the "Palestinian piano prodigy.")
This isn't to deny, as Golda Meir famously did, the existence of a Palestinian people. But it is to say that a Palestinian people -- as opposed to merely an Arab one -- exists only as a kind of counterpart, perhaps a twin, to the Israeli people. Put simply: No Israel, no Palestine.
That's why the creation of the Palestinian Authority, on the basis of the 1993 Oslo Accords, could only happen once Yasser Arafat's PLO had recognized Israel's right to exist. Israel later learned, at great cost, that Arafat's "recognition" had been a lie. Yet the principle remains valid regardless of the lie.
Hamas, to its perverse credit, does not lie, at least not on fundamental issues. It has never accepted the Oslo Accords. It is sworn to Israel's destruction. Its charter is nakedly and aggressively anti-Semitic; no fig leaf of "anti-Zionism" there. The closest it has ever come to terms with the Jewish state is the offer of a long-term hudna, on the model of the Prophet's 10-year truce with the tribes of seventh century Arabia. "Anyone who thinks Hamas will change is wrong," said supreme leader Khaled Mashal in 2006. Could he be any clearer?
Of course, Hamas enjoys "democratic legitimacy" by virtue of its parliamentary victory in January 2006. And with the quiet expiration last week of Mahmoud Abbas's presidential term, it is the only Palestinian party that enjoys such legitimacy. But this turns out to be no legitimacy at all, since Hamas refuses to recognize the legal basis of the Authority it purports to represent. And this is to say nothing of the putsch through which Hamas came to power in Gaza.
Still, it isn't merely Israel's right to exist, or the Palestinian Authority's, that Hamas denies. It denies Palestine's as well.
The Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is merely an affiliate, has never been keen on the concept of the nation-state. Hamas's charter describes the land of Palestine as an "Islamic Waqf," or trust, "consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day." Hamas's charming slogan -- "God is [Hamas's] target, the Prophet is its model, the Quran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of God is the loftiest of its wishes" -- is tellingly silent on the subject of Palestine.
This isn't so different from the old Soviet model, which disdained nationalism in theory even if it made use of it in practice (and sometimes vice versa). It is nearly identical in its totalitarian aspirations. Above all, Hamas is a revolutionary movement, similar in spirit, if not theology, to Khomeini's revolution in Iran, or Lenin's in Russia.
It's easy to understand why so many Palestinians would be keen to join the movement: What comparable form of moral and political transcendence can a little Palestinian state offer? But in choosing Hamas and the fantasy of pan-Islamism over secular Palestinian alternatives, they are also choosing to abandon Palestine itself. Good luck to them with their corner of the caliphate.
Western pundits and policy experts are now in full-throat about the threat that Israel's war in Gaza poses to the possibility of a two-state solution. It's a shopworn lament. That solution always depended on the willingness of Israelis and Palestinians to treat their conflict as a territorial one, amenable to the drawing of borders, rather than a religious one. Israel made its preferences clear with its Gaza withdrawal. As for the Palestinians, the people who never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity have missed one, again.
Write to bstephens@wsj.com
The No-State Solution
Hamas cares more about Shariah than 'Palestine.'
By BRET STEPHENS
Of all the errors in the West's understanding of Hamas, none is more fundamental than the routine characterization of the group as a Palestinian movement. It is nothing of the sort.
This isn't to say that the Islamic Resistance Movement -- to use Hamas's proper name -- isn't led by Palestinians, or that it's unpopular among them. On the contrary: Even before the current fighting, Hamas was almost certainly more popular than its secular rival Fatah throughout the Palestinian Authority, including the West Bank. The only difference with Gaza is that Israel remains a presence on the West Bank, able to prevent Hamas from gaining sufficient strength to rout Fatah in an armed contest.
Hamas's claim on Palestinian hearts has only gained force in the last three weeks, though whether the feeling lasts will depend largely on how it emerges from the war. But the test of Hamas's Palestinian-ness, as it were, has nothing to do with its popularity. The test is whether it actually believes in something called Palestine. There is scant evidence that it does.
Bear in mind that there has never previously been an independent state by that name; politically, it remains a notional place. The idea of a Palestinian people, referring to the Arab inhabitants of the land, is also of relatively recent vintage. (The late, great Israeli pianist David Bar-Ilan, my predecessor as editor of the Jerusalem Post, was known, as a Jewish child during the British Mandate, as the "Palestinian piano prodigy.")
This isn't to deny, as Golda Meir famously did, the existence of a Palestinian people. But it is to say that a Palestinian people -- as opposed to merely an Arab one -- exists only as a kind of counterpart, perhaps a twin, to the Israeli people. Put simply: No Israel, no Palestine.
That's why the creation of the Palestinian Authority, on the basis of the 1993 Oslo Accords, could only happen once Yasser Arafat's PLO had recognized Israel's right to exist. Israel later learned, at great cost, that Arafat's "recognition" had been a lie. Yet the principle remains valid regardless of the lie.
Hamas, to its perverse credit, does not lie, at least not on fundamental issues. It has never accepted the Oslo Accords. It is sworn to Israel's destruction. Its charter is nakedly and aggressively anti-Semitic; no fig leaf of "anti-Zionism" there. The closest it has ever come to terms with the Jewish state is the offer of a long-term hudna, on the model of the Prophet's 10-year truce with the tribes of seventh century Arabia. "Anyone who thinks Hamas will change is wrong," said supreme leader Khaled Mashal in 2006. Could he be any clearer?
Of course, Hamas enjoys "democratic legitimacy" by virtue of its parliamentary victory in January 2006. And with the quiet expiration last week of Mahmoud Abbas's presidential term, it is the only Palestinian party that enjoys such legitimacy. But this turns out to be no legitimacy at all, since Hamas refuses to recognize the legal basis of the Authority it purports to represent. And this is to say nothing of the putsch through which Hamas came to power in Gaza.
Still, it isn't merely Israel's right to exist, or the Palestinian Authority's, that Hamas denies. It denies Palestine's as well.
The Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is merely an affiliate, has never been keen on the concept of the nation-state. Hamas's charter describes the land of Palestine as an "Islamic Waqf," or trust, "consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day." Hamas's charming slogan -- "God is [Hamas's] target, the Prophet is its model, the Quran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of God is the loftiest of its wishes" -- is tellingly silent on the subject of Palestine.
This isn't so different from the old Soviet model, which disdained nationalism in theory even if it made use of it in practice (and sometimes vice versa). It is nearly identical in its totalitarian aspirations. Above all, Hamas is a revolutionary movement, similar in spirit, if not theology, to Khomeini's revolution in Iran, or Lenin's in Russia.
It's easy to understand why so many Palestinians would be keen to join the movement: What comparable form of moral and political transcendence can a little Palestinian state offer? But in choosing Hamas and the fantasy of pan-Islamism over secular Palestinian alternatives, they are also choosing to abandon Palestine itself. Good luck to them with their corner of the caliphate.
Western pundits and policy experts are now in full-throat about the threat that Israel's war in Gaza poses to the possibility of a two-state solution. It's a shopworn lament. That solution always depended on the willingness of Israelis and Palestinians to treat their conflict as a territorial one, amenable to the drawing of borders, rather than a religious one. Israel made its preferences clear with its Gaza withdrawal. As for the Palestinians, the people who never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity have missed one, again.
Write to bstephens@wsj.com
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Looking beyond the body count; letters to DMR
Below the following Op Ed, links to letters in today's DM Register.
Looking beyond the body count
The Arizona Republic January 11, 2009
To Israel's harshest critics, nothing is more fraught with meaning than body counts: Do the simple math and you'll see many more Palestinians have died than Israelis. Case closed. Israel is guilty of bloodlust.
"Cheap" isn't a strong enough word to describe this distortion. It is a way of turning off the brain, to spare yourself from thinking hard about the real cause of today's crisis in Gaza, or more likely, to tilt the board so Israel cannot win - no matter what it does.
All you have to know about the Israelis is this: If their enemies had the same weapons they have, there would be no Israel today. There would be a second Holocaust. Palestinians and their apologists in the international community actually know this as they weave their fictions that Israelis are wanton aggressors and killers of children.
This is stratagem. Condemn Israel every time it defends itself and you demoralize and ultimately de-legitimize the Jewish state.
But one brave New York Times reporter has gone beyond the shallow logic of body counts to give a glimpse of what is really at work in Gaza. In his Friday story, Taghreed El-Khodary described the crush of critically injured patients at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City that was momentarily intruded by a Hamas fighter.
The fighter demanded doctors treat his less serious leg wound. "Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting," he said, smiling broadly. "When we fire we run, but (the Israelis) hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away."
"Why are you so happy?" El-Khodary asked. "Look around you." There was an elderly man soaked in blood. A wounded baby looking about "helplessly." A teenage girl screaming in pain. A family wailing. "Don't you see that these people are hurting?"
Smiling radiantly, the fighter said, "But I am from the people, too. They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too."
The real perversion of the body-count slander is that it hides a larger truth - that Israel actually cares more about the physical well-being of Gaza's civilians than do their own brothers who call themselves Hamas.
----------------------
Links to Letters to the Editor, Des Moines Register, January 11, 2009
Hamas doesn't allow room for negotiation
On Jan. 3, your front-page headline "Hamas Resilient Despite Israeli Onslaught" had to bring joy and comfort to all of those who want to see Israel destroyed. Let us not forget that the Hamas charter document calls for destruction of the Zionist entity. More
Israel must finally destroy Hamas So-called leaders from around the world, along with the usual caterwauling liberals, want a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. With ground forces now in Gaza after days of aerial attacks, Israel seems unwavering in its resolve to end the terror of Hamas. Hamas must be destroyed. More.
Remember rockets fired into Israel Thank you for printing Richard Cohen's Jan. 6 column, reminding everyone that a steady stream of Qassam rockets fired into Israel is what started this whole mess. I'm amazed at how many commentators who condemn Israel overlook this fact. More.
Looking beyond the body count
The Arizona Republic January 11, 2009
To Israel's harshest critics, nothing is more fraught with meaning than body counts: Do the simple math and you'll see many more Palestinians have died than Israelis. Case closed. Israel is guilty of bloodlust.
"Cheap" isn't a strong enough word to describe this distortion. It is a way of turning off the brain, to spare yourself from thinking hard about the real cause of today's crisis in Gaza, or more likely, to tilt the board so Israel cannot win - no matter what it does.
All you have to know about the Israelis is this: If their enemies had the same weapons they have, there would be no Israel today. There would be a second Holocaust. Palestinians and their apologists in the international community actually know this as they weave their fictions that Israelis are wanton aggressors and killers of children.
This is stratagem. Condemn Israel every time it defends itself and you demoralize and ultimately de-legitimize the Jewish state.
But one brave New York Times reporter has gone beyond the shallow logic of body counts to give a glimpse of what is really at work in Gaza. In his Friday story, Taghreed El-Khodary described the crush of critically injured patients at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City that was momentarily intruded by a Hamas fighter.
The fighter demanded doctors treat his less serious leg wound. "Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting," he said, smiling broadly. "When we fire we run, but (the Israelis) hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away."
"Why are you so happy?" El-Khodary asked. "Look around you." There was an elderly man soaked in blood. A wounded baby looking about "helplessly." A teenage girl screaming in pain. A family wailing. "Don't you see that these people are hurting?"
Smiling radiantly, the fighter said, "But I am from the people, too. They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too."
The real perversion of the body-count slander is that it hides a larger truth - that Israel actually cares more about the physical well-being of Gaza's civilians than do their own brothers who call themselves Hamas.
----------------------
Links to Letters to the Editor, Des Moines Register, January 11, 2009
Hamas doesn't allow room for negotiation
On Jan. 3, your front-page headline "Hamas Resilient Despite Israeli Onslaught" had to bring joy and comfort to all of those who want to see Israel destroyed. Let us not forget that the Hamas charter document calls for destruction of the Zionist entity. More
Israel must finally destroy Hamas So-called leaders from around the world, along with the usual caterwauling liberals, want a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. With ground forces now in Gaza after days of aerial attacks, Israel seems unwavering in its resolve to end the terror of Hamas. Hamas must be destroyed. More.
Remember rockets fired into Israel Thank you for printing Richard Cohen's Jan. 6 column, reminding everyone that a steady stream of Qassam rockets fired into Israel is what started this whole mess. I'm amazed at how many commentators who condemn Israel overlook this fact. More.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Sen. Grassley: Hamas should expect to be shot back at.
Senator Charles Grassley (Iowa) on Hamas' provocation.
The essence of Senator Grassley's response to a reporter's question on "The Talk of Iowa" broadcast 12/30/08 on Iowa Public Radio.
Question: Is Israel's response too much in response to Hamas rocketing into Israel?
Sen. Grassley: Hamas presumably doesn't want peace with Israel, so whatever their logic, Hamas tries to kill Israelis by lobbing rockets into Israel. Now, if they'd stop, Israel would not strike back at them in Gaza. But otherwise, what would you expect the Israeli government to do? It would be the same thing you'd expect President-elect Obama to do when he gets to be president. If Americans were being shelled, you'd expect him to defend America. If Israel is being shot at from Gaza by Hamas, Hamas should expect to be shot back at. I mean, that's just the way the world works.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Ceasefire endures its 26th consecutive day of shelling from Gaza into Israel
More than 20 Qassam rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip over the weekend. (Ha'aretz, Dec. 7, 2008)
There has been fire from Gaza 34 out of the 35 days since November 4. (elderofziyon.blogspot.com)
More than 20 Qassam rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip over the weekend. (Ha'aretz, Dec. 7, 2008)
There has been fire from Gaza 34 out of the 35 days since November 4. (elderofziyon.blogspot.com)
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
"Critics seem to dismiss the basic cause-and-effect connection between Hamas-led violence and the plight of the Palestinians."
The Gaza Blockade A Fact Sheet
(November 24, 2008)
The State of Israel set up a blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2006 after the terrorist organization, Hamas, obtained control of the area. In recent months, in response to barrages of rocketfire from Gaza into Israel, sanctions and security around the area have been increased.
Although Israel has tolerated many months of rocket attacks on their cities, international outcry from the United Nations as well as worldwide media has focused almost entirely on the Palestinian plight in Gaza, which they assume to be a result of the blockade.
Despite the terror onslaught, Israel sends thousands of liters of fuel into Gaza every day, and electricity from Israeli power sources is not being witheld. Interestingly, Palestinian Authority sources maintain that there is not a shortage of fuel in Gaza. They accuse Hamas of stealing thousands of liters of fuel from local Gazan companies and then telling the media that there is no fuel left. Fatah members also claim that Hamas is lying about the fuel shortage "crisis" for propagandistic reasons. On November 24, 2008, Israel opened the crossings to the Gaza Strip and allowed through humanitarian supplies, including medicine, food and fuel.
Additionally, the Ministry maintains that commercial crossings between Gaza and Israel have been kept open - especially since the June 19, 2008, "state of calm" which allowed for a 50% increase of material goods into Gaza. The materials that are allowed into the terrority include medicine and medical supplies, food, some fuel and building materials. Gazans in need of medical assistance in Israel have continued to be allowed in. Even after the "state of calm" was broken by Hamas, those Gazans seeking medical treatment in Israel were still allowed to do so although they were chaperoned during the process. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs posesses daily delivery statements from Israel into Gaza since the June 19 agreement. These published statistics prove that the media and the High Commissioner for Human Rights are incorrect in reporting that the Israeli government has been preventing humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
Indeed, Hamas is not only witholding supplies from the Palestinians in Gaza but the organization is also spending all of its resources on weapons of terror instead of material goods that a government is expected to provide for its citizens.
The relative peace in Israel for the last several months was broken in early November 2008 when Hamas again began to fire rockets into Israel in response to Israel's raid of an illegal militant tunnel from Gaza. Israel has maintained a "calm" front and has not retaliated to these rocket attacks with military measures. Instead, Israel increased security around the Gaza border on Tuesday which prompted criticism from the United Nations.
Later on November 18, 2008, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, called for a stop to the Israel-enforced blockade of Gaza. Pillay declared that the situation in Gaza was one that impeded upon the humanitarian rights of the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. The suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza, she claimed, was the fault of the Israeli government. Only in Pillay's last sentence did she mention Hamas' rocket attacks on Israel - the sole reason for the imposed blockade.
The Israeli representative to the United Nations, Aharon Leshno-Yaar and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took strong offense at the High Commissioner's statement and her inaccurate assumptions. Pillay's blatant oversight of Palestinian violence towards Israel was especially outrageous because over 170 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israel in the past ten days alone.
UN critics question why Israel did not open the Gaza blockade during the nearly six-month ceasefire and allow for supplies to be delivered to the Palestinians. The UN's assumption that Israel has not permitted the entrance of material goods into Gaza, however, is simply incorrect and has been formed out of Hamas-led media ploys.
Media critics and the United Nations have consistently ignored the terrorist attacks on Israel in favor of a focus on Palestinian suffering. As always, they seem to dismiss the basic cause-and-effect connection between Hamas-led violence and the plight of the Palestinians. Were Hamas and, for that matter, the PA willing to maintain a legitimate ceasefire, Israel would feel secure enough to dissolve the blockade of Gaza.
Sources:
The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ha'aretz, The Jerusalem Post
Yedioth Acharonot
The Gaza Blockade A Fact Sheet
(November 24, 2008)
The State of Israel set up a blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2006 after the terrorist organization, Hamas, obtained control of the area. In recent months, in response to barrages of rocketfire from Gaza into Israel, sanctions and security around the area have been increased.
Although Israel has tolerated many months of rocket attacks on their cities, international outcry from the United Nations as well as worldwide media has focused almost entirely on the Palestinian plight in Gaza, which they assume to be a result of the blockade.
Despite the terror onslaught, Israel sends thousands of liters of fuel into Gaza every day, and electricity from Israeli power sources is not being witheld. Interestingly, Palestinian Authority sources maintain that there is not a shortage of fuel in Gaza. They accuse Hamas of stealing thousands of liters of fuel from local Gazan companies and then telling the media that there is no fuel left. Fatah members also claim that Hamas is lying about the fuel shortage "crisis" for propagandistic reasons. On November 24, 2008, Israel opened the crossings to the Gaza Strip and allowed through humanitarian supplies, including medicine, food and fuel.
Additionally, the Ministry maintains that commercial crossings between Gaza and Israel have been kept open - especially since the June 19, 2008, "state of calm" which allowed for a 50% increase of material goods into Gaza. The materials that are allowed into the terrority include medicine and medical supplies, food, some fuel and building materials. Gazans in need of medical assistance in Israel have continued to be allowed in. Even after the "state of calm" was broken by Hamas, those Gazans seeking medical treatment in Israel were still allowed to do so although they were chaperoned during the process. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs posesses daily delivery statements from Israel into Gaza since the June 19 agreement. These published statistics prove that the media and the High Commissioner for Human Rights are incorrect in reporting that the Israeli government has been preventing humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
Indeed, Hamas is not only witholding supplies from the Palestinians in Gaza but the organization is also spending all of its resources on weapons of terror instead of material goods that a government is expected to provide for its citizens.
The relative peace in Israel for the last several months was broken in early November 2008 when Hamas again began to fire rockets into Israel in response to Israel's raid of an illegal militant tunnel from Gaza. Israel has maintained a "calm" front and has not retaliated to these rocket attacks with military measures. Instead, Israel increased security around the Gaza border on Tuesday which prompted criticism from the United Nations.
Later on November 18, 2008, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, called for a stop to the Israel-enforced blockade of Gaza. Pillay declared that the situation in Gaza was one that impeded upon the humanitarian rights of the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. The suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza, she claimed, was the fault of the Israeli government. Only in Pillay's last sentence did she mention Hamas' rocket attacks on Israel - the sole reason for the imposed blockade.
The Israeli representative to the United Nations, Aharon Leshno-Yaar and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took strong offense at the High Commissioner's statement and her inaccurate assumptions. Pillay's blatant oversight of Palestinian violence towards Israel was especially outrageous because over 170 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israel in the past ten days alone.
UN critics question why Israel did not open the Gaza blockade during the nearly six-month ceasefire and allow for supplies to be delivered to the Palestinians. The UN's assumption that Israel has not permitted the entrance of material goods into Gaza, however, is simply incorrect and has been formed out of Hamas-led media ploys.
Media critics and the United Nations have consistently ignored the terrorist attacks on Israel in favor of a focus on Palestinian suffering. As always, they seem to dismiss the basic cause-and-effect connection between Hamas-led violence and the plight of the Palestinians. Were Hamas and, for that matter, the PA willing to maintain a legitimate ceasefire, Israel would feel secure enough to dissolve the blockade of Gaza.
Sources:
The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ha'aretz, The Jerusalem Post
Yedioth Acharonot
Monday, November 24, 2008
Holy Land Foundation trial ends in convictions
Jury finds American Muslim charity guilty in illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas
Holy Land Foundation defendants guilty on all counts
03:44 PM CST on Monday, November 24, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN and TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
jtrahan@dallasnews.com; By TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
A jury on Monday determined that the Holy Land Foundation and five men who worked with the Muslim charity were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
The unanimous verdicts are a complete victory for the government, which streamlined its case and worked hard to carefully educate jurors on the complex, massive evidence presented in the trial. Guilty verdicts were read on 108 separate charges.
The prosecution victory is also a major one for the lame duck administration of President George Bush, whose efforts at fighting terrorism financing in court have been troubled, even though the flow of funds seems to be effectively shut down.
It was the second trial where the government attempted to convict the men and the now defunct Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation itself. It took the jury eight days of deliberations to reach its decisions — less than half the time it took jurors to deadlock end up with an almost complete mistrial last year on the first go-around.
“My dad is not a criminal!” sobbed one courtroom observer after the verdicts were read. “He’s a human!”
“It’s a sad day,” said Mohammed Wafa Yaish, Holy Land’s former accountant and himself a witness of the trial. “It looks like helping the needy Palestinians is a crime these days.”
Before he read the verdict, the judge had ordered all observers to remain civil and respect the proceedings.
In the trial’s second, overflow courtroom, reaction to the verdicts was subdued. Family and friends left quietly. Several said they didn’t want to talk.
One supporter of the defendants who identified himself as Adel said, “It’s politicized. I don’t think there is justice. I know these guys. I think everything is lies.”
John Wolf, a friend and member of the Hungry for Justice coalition, said he’d know the defendants for 12 years.
By 3 p.m. Monday, jurors had been sent back to the jury room to determine if Holy Land assets should be forfeited to the government because of several convictions on money laundering charges related to the case.
Opening statements at the Earle Cabell Federal Courthouse in downtown Dallas began Sept. 22. Over the past two months, prosecutors attempted to prove that five former charity organizers used Holy Land, once the largest Muslim charity in the U.S., to funnel an estimated $60 million to the militant group — most of it before 1995.
Hamas was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1995, and the trial centered on the $12 million the government said Holy Land and supporters funneled to the group after that date.
Defense attorneys argued that the foundation was a legitimate, non-political charity that helped distressed Palestinians under Israeli occupation. They accused the government of bending to Israeli pressure to prosecute the charity, and of relying on old evidence predating the 1995 designation.
Holy Land was formed in the late 1980s, and was shut down by U.S. government regulators in December 2001. The case was indicted in 2004.
Last year’s trial of the same five defendants ended in a hung jury Oct. 22, 2007. Jurors deliberated for 19 days before they deadlocked.
Even before the verdicts were read, supporters on both side of the aisle were prepared to claim a moral victory.
Critics of the government case argued that even convictions would carry an asterisk noting that it took untold millions of taxpayer dollars, 15 years of investigation and two long, high-profile trials to finally convince a jury of the defendants’ guilt.
“I suspect that they will be viewed much the same way that Mandela was viewed by the black South African population — as freedom fighters who have dedicated their lives to the liberation of Palestine,” William Moffitt, the Virginia defense attorney who represented two former university professors, Abdelhaleem Ashqar and Sami Al-Arian, said before the Holy Land verdicts.
Mr. Ashqar and Mr. Al-Arian were acquitted in trials in Chicago and Florida on similar charges that they steered support to Palestinian terrorists.
Mr. Ashqar was sentenced to 11 years in prison last year for refusing to testify for a grand jury about his Hamas ties. Dr. Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to a charge of supporting Palestinian Islamic Jihad and is being held on contempt charges for refusing to co-operate in another terrorism support investigation. But both are viewed as folk heroes by some in the Muslim community.
Mr. Moffitt said Holy Land and the other cases are “show trials” where the government attempted to use “events that happened over 10 years ago” as evidence of crimes well before statutes specifically outlawing terrorism support were enacted.
“I think that the purpose of these trials was to further, in the minds of the public, the so-called ‘war on terrorism,’” he said. “There are legitimate terrorist organizations out there. But we’ve tried to make every group that doesn’t agree with us like al-Qaeda.”
Mr. Yaish, the Holy Land accountant, said Monday that he was angry that the prosecution brought up the Taliban and al Qaeda during the trial. He called that a fear tactic.
“What does giving charity to the Palestinians in the refugee camps have to do with this?”
“They scared the jurors,” he said. “Fear is the No. 1 government tactic.”
But the Justice Department is likely to claim victory not only with the verdicts, but by trumpeting the shutdown of what prosecutors say was a robust and unsettling American network of terrorist funding.
Holy Land, regardless of the verdict, is defunct. And other international terrorism financing pipelines have been interrupted.
“The government has achieved an awful lot of success here,” said Dennis Lormel, who created the FBI’s Terrorist Financing Operations Section after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and is now a security consultant.
“A lot of people will only look at the win/lose of the jury verdict,” said Mr. Lormel, of IPSA International Inc. “I’m looking at it from the perspective of the flow of funding through charities to terrorists. There’s been an incredible amount written and attention put out on this. That’s a deterrent to those who want to fund terrorism.”
Holy Land Foundation defendants guilty on all counts
03:44 PM CST on Monday, November 24, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN and TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
jtrahan@dallasnews.com; By TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
A jury on Monday determined that the Holy Land Foundation and five men who worked with the Muslim charity were guilty of three dozen counts related to the illegal funneling of at least $12 million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
The unanimous verdicts are a complete victory for the government, which streamlined its case and worked hard to carefully educate jurors on the complex, massive evidence presented in the trial. Guilty verdicts were read on 108 separate charges.
The prosecution victory is also a major one for the lame duck administration of President George Bush, whose efforts at fighting terrorism financing in court have been troubled, even though the flow of funds seems to be effectively shut down.
It was the second trial where the government attempted to convict the men and the now defunct Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation itself. It took the jury eight days of deliberations to reach its decisions — less than half the time it took jurors to deadlock end up with an almost complete mistrial last year on the first go-around.
“My dad is not a criminal!” sobbed one courtroom observer after the verdicts were read. “He’s a human!”
“It’s a sad day,” said Mohammed Wafa Yaish, Holy Land’s former accountant and himself a witness of the trial. “It looks like helping the needy Palestinians is a crime these days.”
Before he read the verdict, the judge had ordered all observers to remain civil and respect the proceedings.
In the trial’s second, overflow courtroom, reaction to the verdicts was subdued. Family and friends left quietly. Several said they didn’t want to talk.
One supporter of the defendants who identified himself as Adel said, “It’s politicized. I don’t think there is justice. I know these guys. I think everything is lies.”
John Wolf, a friend and member of the Hungry for Justice coalition, said he’d know the defendants for 12 years.
By 3 p.m. Monday, jurors had been sent back to the jury room to determine if Holy Land assets should be forfeited to the government because of several convictions on money laundering charges related to the case.
Opening statements at the Earle Cabell Federal Courthouse in downtown Dallas began Sept. 22. Over the past two months, prosecutors attempted to prove that five former charity organizers used Holy Land, once the largest Muslim charity in the U.S., to funnel an estimated $60 million to the militant group — most of it before 1995.
Hamas was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1995, and the trial centered on the $12 million the government said Holy Land and supporters funneled to the group after that date.
Defense attorneys argued that the foundation was a legitimate, non-political charity that helped distressed Palestinians under Israeli occupation. They accused the government of bending to Israeli pressure to prosecute the charity, and of relying on old evidence predating the 1995 designation.
Holy Land was formed in the late 1980s, and was shut down by U.S. government regulators in December 2001. The case was indicted in 2004.
Last year’s trial of the same five defendants ended in a hung jury Oct. 22, 2007. Jurors deliberated for 19 days before they deadlocked.
Even before the verdicts were read, supporters on both side of the aisle were prepared to claim a moral victory.
Critics of the government case argued that even convictions would carry an asterisk noting that it took untold millions of taxpayer dollars, 15 years of investigation and two long, high-profile trials to finally convince a jury of the defendants’ guilt.
“I suspect that they will be viewed much the same way that Mandela was viewed by the black South African population — as freedom fighters who have dedicated their lives to the liberation of Palestine,” William Moffitt, the Virginia defense attorney who represented two former university professors, Abdelhaleem Ashqar and Sami Al-Arian, said before the Holy Land verdicts.
Mr. Ashqar and Mr. Al-Arian were acquitted in trials in Chicago and Florida on similar charges that they steered support to Palestinian terrorists.
Mr. Ashqar was sentenced to 11 years in prison last year for refusing to testify for a grand jury about his Hamas ties. Dr. Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to a charge of supporting Palestinian Islamic Jihad and is being held on contempt charges for refusing to co-operate in another terrorism support investigation. But both are viewed as folk heroes by some in the Muslim community.
Mr. Moffitt said Holy Land and the other cases are “show trials” where the government attempted to use “events that happened over 10 years ago” as evidence of crimes well before statutes specifically outlawing terrorism support were enacted.
“I think that the purpose of these trials was to further, in the minds of the public, the so-called ‘war on terrorism,’” he said. “There are legitimate terrorist organizations out there. But we’ve tried to make every group that doesn’t agree with us like al-Qaeda.”
Mr. Yaish, the Holy Land accountant, said Monday that he was angry that the prosecution brought up the Taliban and al Qaeda during the trial. He called that a fear tactic.
“What does giving charity to the Palestinians in the refugee camps have to do with this?”
“They scared the jurors,” he said. “Fear is the No. 1 government tactic.”
But the Justice Department is likely to claim victory not only with the verdicts, but by trumpeting the shutdown of what prosecutors say was a robust and unsettling American network of terrorist funding.
Holy Land, regardless of the verdict, is defunct. And other international terrorism financing pipelines have been interrupted.
“The government has achieved an awful lot of success here,” said Dennis Lormel, who created the FBI’s Terrorist Financing Operations Section after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and is now a security consultant.
“A lot of people will only look at the win/lose of the jury verdict,” said Mr. Lormel, of IPSA International Inc. “I’m looking at it from the perspective of the flow of funding through charities to terrorists. There’s been an incredible amount written and attention put out on this. That’s a deterrent to those who want to fund terrorism.”
Friday, November 7, 2008
Fmr US diplomat, later a paid lobbyist for Palestinian Authority, testifies for the defense.
Defense rests case in Holy Land trial Friday, November 7, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
Defense attorneys representing five charity workers accused of using the formerly Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation to funnel millions of dollars to Hamas rested their case on a high note Thursday.
The defense finished its weeklong case Thursday with its fifth and most powerful witness, Edward Abington, the former United States consul general in Israel who also later served as the State Department's No. 2 intelligence officer.
He told jurors that while serving as chief U.S. envoy to the Palestinian Authority from 1993 to 1997, he was never told in any of his daily government briefings that the terrorist group Hamas controlled a series of Palestinian charity groups.
The government contends those Palestinian charity groups, called zakat committees, were staffed by Hamas militants when Holy Land sent them more than $12 million after 1995, the year the U.S. designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.
U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis will confer today with prosecutors and defense attorneys on the jury's charge, or legal instructions. Closing arguments will likely begin Monday.
Much of the money that the government contends went to Hamas was raised at radical Islamist and anti-Semitic fundraisers in America in the late '80s and early '90s. Prosecutors say it was targeted to families of suicide bombers and Hamas prisoners.
Defense attorneys say Holy Land – once the largest Muslim charity in the country – was legitimate and provided aid to Palestinian families living under oppressive Israeli occupation.
Mr. Abington lent credibility to those arguments Thursday, telling jurors that Holy Land had a good reputation in the region as efficient aid suppliers.
He testified that, as the de facto ambassador to the Palestinian territories, it was his job to know who controlled what in the region. He said he was aware of where Hamas exerted influence in the area because he had to avoid interacting with the terrorist group's representatives according to U.S. policy.
He said that far from being terrorist financial fronts, the zakat committees were staffed by pious Muslims who used Holy Land's money and other contributions to provide Palestinians much-needed aid. Some of the committees even received funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
On cross-examination, prosecutor Jim Jacks questioned Mr. Abington on his objectivity, given that he became a paid lobbyist for the Palestinian Authority immediately after leaving his U.S. government service.
Mr. Jacks also got Mr. Abington to admit that he had little if any knowledge of which individuals worked on the zakat committees when he was serving in the region. When Mr. Jacks showed him examples of evidence of Hamas members serving on the committees, Mr. Abington said that there is a difference between Hamas being involved in the group's activities and outright controlling them.
Defense rests case in Holy Land trial Friday, November 7, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
Defense attorneys representing five charity workers accused of using the formerly Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation to funnel millions of dollars to Hamas rested their case on a high note Thursday.
The defense finished its weeklong case Thursday with its fifth and most powerful witness, Edward Abington, the former United States consul general in Israel who also later served as the State Department's No. 2 intelligence officer.
He told jurors that while serving as chief U.S. envoy to the Palestinian Authority from 1993 to 1997, he was never told in any of his daily government briefings that the terrorist group Hamas controlled a series of Palestinian charity groups.
The government contends those Palestinian charity groups, called zakat committees, were staffed by Hamas militants when Holy Land sent them more than $12 million after 1995, the year the U.S. designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.
U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis will confer today with prosecutors and defense attorneys on the jury's charge, or legal instructions. Closing arguments will likely begin Monday.
Much of the money that the government contends went to Hamas was raised at radical Islamist and anti-Semitic fundraisers in America in the late '80s and early '90s. Prosecutors say it was targeted to families of suicide bombers and Hamas prisoners.
Defense attorneys say Holy Land – once the largest Muslim charity in the country – was legitimate and provided aid to Palestinian families living under oppressive Israeli occupation.
Mr. Abington lent credibility to those arguments Thursday, telling jurors that Holy Land had a good reputation in the region as efficient aid suppliers.
He testified that, as the de facto ambassador to the Palestinian territories, it was his job to know who controlled what in the region. He said he was aware of where Hamas exerted influence in the area because he had to avoid interacting with the terrorist group's representatives according to U.S. policy.
He said that far from being terrorist financial fronts, the zakat committees were staffed by pious Muslims who used Holy Land's money and other contributions to provide Palestinians much-needed aid. Some of the committees even received funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
On cross-examination, prosecutor Jim Jacks questioned Mr. Abington on his objectivity, given that he became a paid lobbyist for the Palestinian Authority immediately after leaving his U.S. government service.
Mr. Jacks also got Mr. Abington to admit that he had little if any knowledge of which individuals worked on the zakat committees when he was serving in the region. When Mr. Jacks showed him examples of evidence of Hamas members serving on the committees, Mr. Abington said that there is a difference between Hamas being involved in the group's activities and outright controlling them.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Iran-backed Terrorists Fire 35 Rockets at Southern Israel
From The Israel Project. [Excerpt]
On Wed. morning (Nov. 5), Iran-backed Hamas terrorists in Gaza fired 35 Qassam rockets at Israeli civilians in cities and communities in southern Israel. Two of the Qassams hit Ashkelon, a port city about nine miles (15 km) from Gaza; two women and a 13-year-old girl were treated for shock, but no other injuries were reported.
The attack wasn’t the first time Hamas breached the June 19 ceasefire with Israel; Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorist groups in Gaza have fired more than 50 rockets and mortars at Israel since the ceasefire began. Additionally, rockets and mortar fire have killed 24 Israelis and wounded more than 1,000 others since 2001, when Palestinian terrorists began firing rockets at Israel. The attacks have also caused thousands of Israelis to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Hamas’s latest rocket barrage followed an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Gaza Tues. night (Nov. 4) aimed at destroying a tunnel terrorists were digging just 820 feet (250 meters) from the Israel-Gaza border to abduct Israeli soldiers. During the operation and a subsequent Israeli air strike, six Palestinian terrorists were killed and four IDF soldiers were wounded.
An IDF spokesman stressed that the operation was limited and carried out specifically to remove the immediate threat the tunnel posed to IDF personnel inside Israel. There was no intention, he said, to disrupt the ceasefire which has held for the most part since it began, but emphasized that the construction of the tunnel so close to the border was “a blatant violation of the calm…The tunnel we uncovered was ready for imminent use, forcing us to act immediately.”
Iran-backed terrorists have fired more than 2,700 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli civilians in 2008 alone, and more than 5,800 since Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in August 2005.
Iran provides $20 million - $30 million annually to Hamas in weapons and training.
From The Israel Project. [Excerpt]
On Wed. morning (Nov. 5), Iran-backed Hamas terrorists in Gaza fired 35 Qassam rockets at Israeli civilians in cities and communities in southern Israel. Two of the Qassams hit Ashkelon, a port city about nine miles (15 km) from Gaza; two women and a 13-year-old girl were treated for shock, but no other injuries were reported.
The attack wasn’t the first time Hamas breached the June 19 ceasefire with Israel; Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorist groups in Gaza have fired more than 50 rockets and mortars at Israel since the ceasefire began. Additionally, rockets and mortar fire have killed 24 Israelis and wounded more than 1,000 others since 2001, when Palestinian terrorists began firing rockets at Israel. The attacks have also caused thousands of Israelis to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Hamas’s latest rocket barrage followed an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Gaza Tues. night (Nov. 4) aimed at destroying a tunnel terrorists were digging just 820 feet (250 meters) from the Israel-Gaza border to abduct Israeli soldiers. During the operation and a subsequent Israeli air strike, six Palestinian terrorists were killed and four IDF soldiers were wounded.
An IDF spokesman stressed that the operation was limited and carried out specifically to remove the immediate threat the tunnel posed to IDF personnel inside Israel. There was no intention, he said, to disrupt the ceasefire which has held for the most part since it began, but emphasized that the construction of the tunnel so close to the border was “a blatant violation of the calm…The tunnel we uncovered was ready for imminent use, forcing us to act immediately.”
Iran-backed terrorists have fired more than 2,700 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli civilians in 2008 alone, and more than 5,800 since Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in August 2005.
Iran provides $20 million - $30 million annually to Hamas in weapons and training.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Holy Land Foundation defense begins rebutting prosecution
Monday, November 3, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
KEY POINTS: HOLY LAND TRIAL
The allegation: The federal government says Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation and seven organizers illegally sent at least $12 million overseas to the militant Palestinian group Hamas. The U.S. declared Hamas a terrorist organization in 1995.
On trial: Ghassan Elashi, former Holy Land board chairman; Shukri Abu Baker, former Holy Land CEO; Mohammad El-Mezain, the foundation's original chairman who became director of endowments; Mufid Abdulqader, a top fundraiser and a former city of Dallas public works supervisor; and Abdulrahman Odeh, Holy Land's New Jersey representative. Two others are fugitives.
Possible sentence: The counts carry from three to 20 years in prison, and each defendant faces multiple counts.
---------------
Last year, prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation case told jurors during closing arguments, "Don't get hung up on the names."
For the retrial, following a hung jury in the first case, the government has tweaked its message.
Prosecutors are taking great pains to make sure jurors absorb all the details – including the blizzard of unfamiliar Arabic names – central to their allegations that five charity workers used the former Richardson-based foundation to funnel money to Hamas after it was banned by the U.S. in 1995.
Among the changes:
•Adding new witnesses aimed at plugging holes in their case that were expertly exploited by defense attorneys last year.
•Drumming names and connections into jurors through often exhaustive repetition.
•Rolling out new and more learning aids and charts designed to help jurors access relevant documents – often down to the page number – during what is sure to be extended deliberations.
Prosecutors have been "much more mindful" of how they are "telling the story to the jury," said Donna Diorio, a pro-Israeli blogger who is a regular trial watcher.
"In my view, the prosecution has the defense on the ropes," Ms. Diorio said.
But for Holy Land supporters, it's still the same old evidence.
Noor Elashi, daughter of defendant and Holy Land co-founder Ghassan Elashi, regularly points out what she says is government anti-Muslim bias and juror boredom, on her blog, freedomtogive.com.
"Some jurors sighed, yawned and constantly glanced up at the clock," she wrote after a particularly tedious day of testimony.
This year, prosecutors added six witnesses to their lineup of 10 from last year. Still they managed to shave about two weeks from their presentation, which began the week of Sept. 22 and ended Friday.
Treasury official
Key among the new witnesses was Robert McBrien, with the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees terrorist designation.
He testified that not every Hamas front group is individually outlawed and doesn't have to be for it to be illegal to send it money. This counters the defense argument that the defendants broke no laws because the Palestinian charity groups, known as zakat committees, to which Holy Land gave more than $12 million from 1995 to 2001, are not individually labeled as terrorist affiliates.
A subtle change the government made from last year was recategorizing its more than 500 pieces of evidence, much of which details the defendants' often virulent anti-Semitism and connections to top Hamas officials.
Last year, documents, videos and bank records were identified by a series of numbers. This year, for example, evidence is referred to by the location in which it was found, such as the Holy Land offices, or by the name of the co-conspirator from which it was confiscated. This means names are repeated over and over throughout the case.
To aid jurors during deliberations, prosecutors and federal agents this year also crafted a series of charts to help jurors pinpoint evidence of the most crucial aspect of the case – Hamas control of the zakat committees.
Charity work
For their part, defense attorneys kept the pressure on government witnesses through aggressive cross-examinations.
They routinely elicited testimony from the government's witnesses about Holy Land's aid to desperate Palestinian families caught in the Arab-Israeli conflict, bolstering their points with photos of charity work and thank-you letters from aid recipients.
More than once, they have reminded jurors that much of the government's case dates to the early 1990s.
The defense began presenting its case Friday and has several new witnesses on its roster, too.
Mohamed Elibiary, president of the Freedom and Justice Foundation, a Muslim group based in Plano, said that the government's tweaks mean little to Holy Land's backers.
"The prosecution this time around has presented its case in a more visually friendly and succinct manner. But at the core, there's still the same problem," he said. "The charges are much grander than the evidence is there to prove. What the government has presented, frankly, in the eyes of the [Muslim] community, are associations over past years," not crimes.
Monday, November 3, 2008
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
KEY POINTS: HOLY LAND TRIAL
The allegation: The federal government says Richardson-based Holy Land Foundation and seven organizers illegally sent at least $12 million overseas to the militant Palestinian group Hamas. The U.S. declared Hamas a terrorist organization in 1995.
On trial: Ghassan Elashi, former Holy Land board chairman; Shukri Abu Baker, former Holy Land CEO; Mohammad El-Mezain, the foundation's original chairman who became director of endowments; Mufid Abdulqader, a top fundraiser and a former city of Dallas public works supervisor; and Abdulrahman Odeh, Holy Land's New Jersey representative. Two others are fugitives.
Possible sentence: The counts carry from three to 20 years in prison, and each defendant faces multiple counts.
---------------
Last year, prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation case told jurors during closing arguments, "Don't get hung up on the names."
For the retrial, following a hung jury in the first case, the government has tweaked its message.
Prosecutors are taking great pains to make sure jurors absorb all the details – including the blizzard of unfamiliar Arabic names – central to their allegations that five charity workers used the former Richardson-based foundation to funnel money to Hamas after it was banned by the U.S. in 1995.
Among the changes:
•Adding new witnesses aimed at plugging holes in their case that were expertly exploited by defense attorneys last year.
•Drumming names and connections into jurors through often exhaustive repetition.
•Rolling out new and more learning aids and charts designed to help jurors access relevant documents – often down to the page number – during what is sure to be extended deliberations.
Prosecutors have been "much more mindful" of how they are "telling the story to the jury," said Donna Diorio, a pro-Israeli blogger who is a regular trial watcher.
"In my view, the prosecution has the defense on the ropes," Ms. Diorio said.
But for Holy Land supporters, it's still the same old evidence.
Noor Elashi, daughter of defendant and Holy Land co-founder Ghassan Elashi, regularly points out what she says is government anti-Muslim bias and juror boredom, on her blog, freedomtogive.com.
"Some jurors sighed, yawned and constantly glanced up at the clock," she wrote after a particularly tedious day of testimony.
This year, prosecutors added six witnesses to their lineup of 10 from last year. Still they managed to shave about two weeks from their presentation, which began the week of Sept. 22 and ended Friday.
Treasury official
Key among the new witnesses was Robert McBrien, with the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees terrorist designation.
He testified that not every Hamas front group is individually outlawed and doesn't have to be for it to be illegal to send it money. This counters the defense argument that the defendants broke no laws because the Palestinian charity groups, known as zakat committees, to which Holy Land gave more than $12 million from 1995 to 2001, are not individually labeled as terrorist affiliates.
A subtle change the government made from last year was recategorizing its more than 500 pieces of evidence, much of which details the defendants' often virulent anti-Semitism and connections to top Hamas officials.
Last year, documents, videos and bank records were identified by a series of numbers. This year, for example, evidence is referred to by the location in which it was found, such as the Holy Land offices, or by the name of the co-conspirator from which it was confiscated. This means names are repeated over and over throughout the case.
To aid jurors during deliberations, prosecutors and federal agents this year also crafted a series of charts to help jurors pinpoint evidence of the most crucial aspect of the case – Hamas control of the zakat committees.
Charity work
For their part, defense attorneys kept the pressure on government witnesses through aggressive cross-examinations.
They routinely elicited testimony from the government's witnesses about Holy Land's aid to desperate Palestinian families caught in the Arab-Israeli conflict, bolstering their points with photos of charity work and thank-you letters from aid recipients.
More than once, they have reminded jurors that much of the government's case dates to the early 1990s.
The defense began presenting its case Friday and has several new witnesses on its roster, too.
Mohamed Elibiary, president of the Freedom and Justice Foundation, a Muslim group based in Plano, said that the government's tweaks mean little to Holy Land's backers.
"The prosecution this time around has presented its case in a more visually friendly and succinct manner. But at the core, there's still the same problem," he said. "The charges are much grander than the evidence is there to prove. What the government has presented, frankly, in the eyes of the [Muslim] community, are associations over past years," not crimes.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Holy Land jurors get a sample of Hamas martyr propaganda
Thu, Oct 30, 2008 By Jason Trahan Dallas Morning News
Jurors in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial on Thursday saw some disturbing examples of Hamas propaganda glorifying young suicide bombers.
The poster shown here
is one of several that the Israeli military confiscated from the offices of the Islamic Charitable Society of Hebron, one of several groups in the Palestinian territories that received millions of dollars from Holy Land.
"Avi," one of two anonymous Israeli government witnesses, continued his testimony Thursday that these charity groups were fronts for Hamas, not only because of Hamas propaganda found there, but also because they were led by known Hamas operatives.
This particular poster features 18-year-old Abdel Mu'ti Muhammad Salih Shabanah. According to the FBI's translation, he is a "high school student who preferred the martyrdom certificate over the life's certificate."
It says he was preparing to finish up his school language testing when he "received the signal" to respond to the assassination attempt on Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi.
"So he headed to Jerusalem to attain martyrdom," the poster says.
Here's a news report on the teen's suicide mission. It was part of a wave of back-and-forth strikes between the Israelis and Hamas in 2003.
According to the BBC story, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar "predicted that Palestinian attacks on Israelis were imminent 'to show them that an eye is for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'"
According to the FBI, Holy Land sent the Islamic Charitable Society of Hebron, where this poster was found, about $1.6 million from 1991 to 2001.
Here are more posters found at the society:
ICS Hebron 10.pdf
In all, Holy Land is accused of sending more than $12 million to groups such as this and an assortment of charity groups called zakat committees from 1995 -- when Hamas was outlawed in the U.S. -- through Holy Land's closing in December 2001.
Defense attorneys have strongly criticized the Justice Department for relying on evidence supplied by the Israelis to prove a key point in this case -- that Hamas was in control of the groups Holy Land funded. They point out that none of them are individually listed on U.S. government roster of banned terrorist entities even today.
The government finished with Avi just before noon. Joshua Dratel, attorney for Mohammad El-Mezain, then began cross examination. Avi is thought to be the government's final witness.
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