07-Dec-17: Gazan rockets fired at southern Israel this evening may have crashed into Gaza

The whipping up of furies among Palestinian Arabs and those who stand with them continues apace in the wake of the decision by the White House to finally take formal notice of Jerusalem being the capital city of Israel these past seventy years.

It's still early evening and the reports are somewhat contradictory. Israel National News says this about the rocket attack that happened around 6:15 this evening (Thursday):

Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed in Israel Thursday evening. Warning sirens [Tzeva Adom] were sounded in the Shaar Hanegev and Hof Ashkelon (Ashkelon Coast) regional councils in the western Negev Thursday evening. Shortly after the sirens were sounded, an IDF spokesperson reported that two rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel. Both of the rockets landed in open spaces. There are have been no reports of injuries or of damage. The rocket fire comes after the Hamas terror organization which rules the Gaza Strip warned that the “gates of hell” would be opened in the region following President Trump’s announcement Wednesday that the US recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

But other sources, including the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz and this Australian source quoting the IDF say the two rockets fell short - meaning they crashed ob the Gaza side of the border. This happens frequently and the injuries to Gazan Arabs along with the property damage are often hushed up. We will adjust this report once we know for sure.

Reuters says of Gaza that

dozens of protesters gathered near the border fence with Israel and threw rocks at soldiers on the other side. Seven protesters were wounded by live fire, one was in a critical condition, the [Hamas-controlled] health ministry said... Member of armed groups including from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, appeared at a news conference in Gaza, their faces hidden by masks and called for a resumption of armed resistance in the West Bank.

Xinhua, reporting from Gaza, said around 7:15 pm that not two but six Gazan rockets were fired at Israel in the previous hour. It also focused on the public statements of the Islamists:

The Islamic Hamas movement called on Thursday for a Palestinian "popular uprising" against U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital... "Tomorrow [Friday] will be a day of public anger and the launching of an uprising under the name of Intifada of Jerusalem Freedom," said Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh during a public speech. He reaffirmed that Friday would be "the beginning of a new movement" to fight Israel's plan of occupation of West Bank and Jerusalem. "Trump will regret this decision," said Haniyeh... Describing Trump's recognition as "a turning point in the history of the Palestinian cause," the Hamas leader stressed that Jerusalem "has always been the source of victory, the beginning of revolutions and the starting point of uprisings."

Most people with whom we talk here think we're likely to experience less calm in the hours and days ahead.

UPDATE Saturday night, December 9, 2017: Times of Israel reported late last night (Friday) that "the Tawhid al-Jihad group claimed responsibility for the attack on social media. The small, radical group is affiliated with al-Qaeda." The Wikipedia entry for the the group claiming to have fired the rockets says

Jahafil Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad fi Filastin (Arabic: جحافل التوحيد والجهاد في فلسطين‎, "The Armies of Monotheism and Jihad in Palestine") is a Sunni Islamist Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai peninsula, and is the branch of al-Qaeda in Gaza. The establishment of the group was publicly announced on 6 November 2008, with communiqués vowing loyalty to al-Qaeda, after having "received the messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri." Various forms of the "Tawhid al-Jihad" label have appeared in relation to developments in the Gaza Strip. The size of the group is not publicly known.

A group of the same name claimed to be behind the kidnapping and murder in 2011 of Vittorio Arrigoni, a high-profile foe of Israel described in various sources as a pacifist supporter of the Palestinian cause, a member of the Palestinian-aligned International Solidarity Movement, and a blogger reporting from the Gaza Strip. He had been living there after sailing in on one of the flotillas to Gaza in 2008. The terrorist regime of Hamas blamed his murder on Israel, unsurprisingly. Some time later, it became evident that this same offshoot of Al Qaeda - or a group using the same name - were actually responsible. We wrote about the tragic affair in three past posts: "14-Apr-11: Gazan jihadists grab Italian journalist, threaten to murder him in name of glorious revolution"; "15-Apr-11: For the record, Hamas is blaming Israel for the murder of the Italian hostage" and "20-Feb-13: Following up a 2011 Gaza murder".

17-Oct-13: Lessons learned now we know why all that cement was needed

Elliott Abrams, writing today on the blog site of the Council on Foreign Relations, reflects on that story of the destruction by the IDF of an elaborate and expensive tunnel running from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into Israel. We wrote about it here: "13-Oct-13: Gazan tunnels: what lies beneath the surface". 

Abrams begins with a review of the pressure put onto Israel in 2010 following the Mavi Marmara affair in which a Turkish vessel, provocatively bent on violating Israel’s defensive blockade of Gaza and carrying zero humanitarian cargo, was forcibly stopped by Israeli naval forces. Several people were killed. 

The incident did Hamas some good: the violence and the publicity increased pressure on Israel to loosen the terms of  the blockade. Already in 2009 Pope Benedict had offered his prayers that the embargo would be lifted so that reconstruction could move faster, and in March 2010 Ban Ki-Moon had said that the Gaza blockade was causing “unacceptable suffering.” On June 1, the day after the ship was seized, Secretary of State Clinton said “the situation in Gaza is unsustainable and unacceptable… Palestinians’ legitimate needs for… regular access for reconstruction materials must… be assured.” She pressed Israeli officials to allow more building materials to enter Gaza, as did British Foreign Secretary William Hague. Former President Carter visited Gaza two weeks later and said the embargo causes “death, destruction, pain and suffering to the people here.” The Quartet called “for a lifting of the blockade on Gaza so that crucial reconstruction work can take place….” And this was the trope from virtually every EU government. And so the cement flowed; Israel lifted its ban. 

Now, as Abrams points out, we know what was actually happening. Housing and hospitals were built? Nope. Reconstruction of vital facilities? Nope again. Tunnels, and in particular a very serious one, sixty feet beneath the earth's surface, and 1.5 miles long, entirely dedicated to enabling a terrorist attack on Israel.

Construction appears to have been started two years ago—after cement began to flow into Gaza... What’s interesting here is not Hamas acting as Hamas always does: as a terrorist group that is uninterested in the welfare of the people of Gaza. What’s interesting is the number of proponents of lifting the blockade of Gaza who have now admitted error. The number appears to be zero. Not one has acknowledged that allowing construction materials into Gaza allowed Hamas to construct more tunnels, and that Israel may have been right to prevent their arrival. Being a critic of Israel apparently means never having to say you’re sorry.

Can you think of a single reason why Hamas will not try to do the very same thing again?

1-Aug-13: Escalating troubles in Sinai and Gaza: Is it still news if Israel can't be blamed?

Rafah, near Gaza's border with Egypt: Each of the tents and
canopies covers a tunnel mouth [Image Source: Majed Abusalama]

Linda Gradstein, writing for The Media Line (and Ynet) describes a steadily growing shortage of fuel in the Gaza Strip, with serious and visible consequences. A Gazan economist she quotes says only about 25 percent of the required level of fuel is now available, and cars are lining up for hours at gas stations. Sewage treatment plants have been shut down, with untreated effluent being dumped into the Mediterranean. Naturally, this - along with the ecological mess it causes - is going to be blamed on the Israelis.

But in reality the cause is Egypt and Hamas.

Gradstein says the Egyptians have shut down 80 percent of the tunnels, numbering in the hundreds, that run between Egypt and Gaza. An extensive security crackdown waged by the transitional Egyptian government is underway right now. It's directed at the Sinai-based gunmen and terrorists about whom we have written here frequently.

But, and this is new, it's also directed at Hamas, whom the new Egyptian rulers accuse of conspiring with the overthrown Morsi government to carry out attacks on Egyptian soldiers and police in Sinai.

The Egyptians say the weapons for those attacks come through the tunnels and the perpetrators can flee into the safety of Hamas-controlled Gaza. hence the crackdown. And Israel? Listen to this:

“Israel is making every possible effort in order to enable the transfer of goods into the Gaza Strip given the current policy,” Guy Inbar, the spokesman for the Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). "We emphasize that Israel does not limit the amount of goods transferred to Gaza and that the Kerem Shalom crossing has yet to reach its maximum capacity. As for today, it is possible to transfer 400 trucks every day, but the demand from Gaza is lower, and on an average day we receive requests for about 300 trucks.” Inbar said that in the last three weeks, 165 fuel tankers have passed via Kerem Shalom at the request of the Palestinians from Gaza.

We visited the crossings last summer and heard the same analysis.

Israeli sources quoted by Gradstein say Israeli fuel is three times more expensive than Egyptian, so sharp price increases are expected. Cement and other construction materials are also in short supply now, and the large and heavily publicized Qatar-funded building projects are currently on ice.

In an Al-Monitor piece on the Egypt/Hamas tensions ["The Silence on Gaza"], Shlomi Eldar looks closely at Gaza's problems and predicts worse ahead:

If, until recently, it seemed to the leaders of Hamas both in Gaza and on the outside that after seven years of a suffocating siege, all their troubles were about to disappear, they are now seeing their world turning against them... [Recently] the skies came crashing down on them. Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, was deposed, and Hamas was pilloried along with him. Egypt’s new regime considers Hamas an enemy. The Egyptian army has launched a far-reaching offensive in the Sinai, and is waging a war of annihilation against the subterranean network of smuggling tunnels in Rafah, which were the main source of food and raw materials for the Gaza Strip. The light they saw at the end of the tunnel just a few months ago went out in a flicker. The markets emptied of goods, gasoline for automobiles has just about run out, and emergency stockpiles of gasoline and diesel fuel are running very low as well. The electricity is turned off every few hours, hospitals report that there is a shortage of drugs, and even cigarettes have vanished from the shops. Right now Gaza is going backward six or seven years to a situation in which it is hermetically sealed off, almost as it was after the Hamas military coup of June 2007. [Eldar]

Eldar thinks it's astonishing that Gaza's growing problems are triggering so little responsiveness among the circle of Hamas-friendly parties in the area.

• "Why isn’t the Al Jazeera network heard broadcasting from the Gaza Strip encouraging the local residents to take to the streets en masse, to tear down the wall around Rafah and burst into the Sinai?" asks Eldar.
• And the recently installed emir of Qatar, Gaza's recent hero, has he gotten lost? From Qatar, there is not "a word of condemnation directed at the new military and civilian leadership in Egypt", says Eldar.
• After all the reports in recent months that Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, "the self-appointed patron of Gaza" was going to be visiting Gaza, it's now off the agenda. Turkey is no longer threatening to send its warships to sail alongside "aid" flotillas as they try to break through Israel’s maritime siege.
• The organizers of the bloody 2010 Turkish flotilla that included the Mavi Marmara, are silent. Nowhere to be seen. Eldar asks: "Isn’t this the perfect time to get the boat ready for another voyage? Isn’t this the right moment to recruit volunteers from Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and the Gulf States to load crates of food and medicine on deck, so that they can be delivered to the people of Gaza, who are under siege?" But they're not coming.
• Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire, who sailed on board the yacht sponsored by the group “Free Gaza” is missing in action. Doing nothing. Saying nothing.

The answer, says Eldar, is obvious. 

This time there is no way to accuse Israel, because it is not involved in the injustice. These days, Israel barely imposes any restrictions whatsoever on the import of foodstuffs, clothing, and raw materials into the Gaza Strip. It is engaged in economic cooperation with Hamas, based on the transfer of goods through the Kerem Shalom border crossing. The real issue is that Hamas preferred to rely on the smuggling tunnels in Rafah, so as not to create a dependence on Israel.

Those smuggling tunnels, by the way, were not only Hamas' preferred option. They were central to the economic well-being of the fast-rising Gazan select nouveau riche, the favoured of Hamas society. And if they are being systematically shut down and destroyed by Egypt, this has implications. Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab Israeli journalist whose writings we quote here often said something prescient a year ago:

If the Egyptian army succeeds in demolishing the underground smuggling tunnels that keep Hamas running, it could mark the end of the Islamists' rule over the Gaza Strip. But if Egypt's new president, Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood tie the hands of the Egyptian army's generals and keep them from completing the mission, Hamas will become even stronger and wealthier. [Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute Website, August 30, 2012]

His article is entitled "How Many Millionaires Live in the "Impoverished" Gaza Strip?". Since he's referring to the place that parts of the media routinely call a concentration camp, how does he answer?:

According to an investigative report published in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, there are at least 600 millionaires living in the Gaza Strip... The Palestinian millionaires, according to the report, have made their wealth thanks to the hundreds of underground tunnels along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Informed Palestinian sources revealed that every day, in addition to weapons, thousands of tons of fuel, medicine, various types of merchandise, vehicles, electrical appliances, drugs, medicine and cigarettes are smuggled into the Gaza Strip through more than 400 tunnels. A former Sudanese government official who visited the Gaza Strip lately was quoted as saying that he found basic goods that were not available in Sudan... Palestinians estimate that 25% of the Hamas government's budget comes from taxes imposed on the owners of the underground tunnels. For example, Hamas has imposed a 25% tax and a $2000 fee on every car that is smuggled into the Gaza Strip. Hamas also charges $15 dollars for each ton of cement, eight cents for a pack of cigarettes and 50 cents for each liter of fuel smuggled through the tunnels. [Khaled Abu Toameh]

The chaos in Sinai is exacting a rising toll in blood. A Turkish news agency says, in a story filed from El Arish today, that

At least 42 people, including civilians and security personnel, have been killed in a spate of militant attacks in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula since July 5, two days after the army ousted elected President Mohamed Morsi, according to a tally compiled by Anadolu Agency. One soldier was killed and another one wounded on Thursday (today) in an attack by gunmen on a security checkpoint in the North Sinai city of Arish.

Al-Masry Al-Youm, an Egyptian news source, today quotes an un-named "security source" saying that interrogations of those arrested in Sinai in the last few days

have proven that there are ties between the extremists in Sinai and foreign intelligence bodies. The same source told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the investigation carried out by the general and military intelligence bodies has shown that the extremists have ties to elements in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as in Gaza... Approximately half of the extremists in Sinai entered Egypt during the rule of ousted President Mohamed Morsy.

All in all, it's unlikely the violence in Sinai and the turmoil in Gaza are going to end quickly though we confess to wondering (despite the fingers pointed at Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Hamas regime) how long before it's all blamed on our side again.

5-Jul-11: If Hamas money is behind the 'humanitarians', what do the 'activists' of the flotilla actually stand for?

No real handcuffs on their wrists but what the hey; they're
not actual peace activists either [Source]

Three Qassam rockets have been fired into Israel from Gaza so far this week [source] with the barest of murmurs (standard practice) from the world's media. (Were they reported where you live?)

That's partly why we're trying not to devote too much space to the 'humanitarians' of the Gaza-bound flotilla. We find it tasteless and offensive that they're being depicted far and wide as peace activists who cry, literally cry, for the suffering of the Gazan Palestinian Arab population.

But when you take a look at who they are, dig into who's behind them and what they are really doing as opposed to what they claim to be doing, you get to quite different conclusions, and it's enraging.

Take for instance Amin Abou Rashed. Not a household name unless you're focused (as we are) on the ways in which Hamas manipulates pretensions to charity and good deeds to mask the nasty reality of its deep devotion to terrorism. Abou Rashed took an active role in the 2010 flotilla that ended with the violence on the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara.

Abou Rashed, like most of the people behind the 2011 edition of Gaza or Bust, comes with some history. A front-organization called Holy Land Foundation was prosecuted by law enforcement officials in the US government starting in 2007. Far from a mere side show, this was America's largest Islamic charity. It was based in Richardson, Texas and originally operated under the name The Occupied Land Fund before its operators got smart to how Americans think. But not smart enough because its assets ended up being frozen by the European Union and U.S. governments. Determining that it was a front for channeling money into the huge maw of the terrorists of Hamas, the authorities outlawed it. AFP at the time (2008) called this the "largest terrorism financing prosecution in American history"[source]. The Foundation's founders were sentenced to life imprisonment [source].

During the Holy Land trial, the authorities produced a letter from Mr Abou Rashed to one of the directors of Holy Land Foundation, Akram Mishaal, a clansman of the current head of Hamas, the Damascus-resident Khalid Mashaal. In his letter, Abou Rashed - today's Flotilla promoter - states names, addresses and bank numbers of what are euphemistically termed “charitable organizations working for Palestine in Europe”. Abou Rashed wrote as a representative of Al-Aqsa Foundation. The American government, via its Department of Treasury, lifted the mask of this "Foundation" revealing it to be a channel for the financing of terror and calling it “a critical part of Hamas’ terrorist support infrastructure.” The allegedly “charitable organizations” cited in Abou Rashed’s document were found by Treasury to be funding  terrorism, principally Hamas terrorism, and and permanent court orders were issued to freeze their assets.

The Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf this past Thursday termed Abou Rashed "the brains behind the Gaza flotilla". The article makes clear that even if he lacks brains, he certainly provided the funding, causing several Dutch journalists and activists to walk off the Dutch flotilla ship citing a betrayal of their non-violent principles. A year earlier, the same paper called Abou Rashed the head of Hamas activities in the Netherlands, so surprised the 'activists' cannot plausibly claim to have been.

That it's incontrovertibly connected to the overt terrorism [source] and intentional child-murderers of Hamas ought to have been a showstopper for the humanitarians giving their support to the Flotilla. But it's plainly not. We find the chorus of highly public support for this faux humanitarianism nauseating. Whatever they may claim to stand for, knowing who is organizing this means the participants in this fleet of fools are revealed as hypocrites who ought to bear full criminal responsibility for the consequences of their vanity.

26-Jun-11: Longing and loving... and standing up for the terrorists of Gaza

Under the title "Why Alice Walker shouldn't sail to Gaza", the celebrated British writer Howard Jacobson - who won last year's Man Booker Prize for his comic novel The Finkler Question - asks some questions of his fellow cultural icon.

Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning African American author and poet, is best-known for her critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple.

Jacobson notes that the flotilla boats now sailing towards Gaza and intending to challenge and preferably break the Israeli-imposed naval blockade will be carrying, according to Walker, "letters expressing solidarity and love." 

But...

Not, presumably, for Israeli children. Perhaps it is thought that Israeli children are the recipients of enough love already... What interest or aspiration do Alice Walker and her fellow travelers share with the people of Gaza? A desire for freedom? Well we all aspire to that. A longing to live in peace? If they have such a longing we must be solid with them in that too, though the firing of rockets from Gaza is not, on the face of it, an expression of such a longing. And what about the declared hostility of Hamas to the very existence of Israel? Hamas, we are often told, is the elected government of Gaza, a government that fairly represents the wishes of its people. In which case we must assume that Hamas's implacable hostility towards Israel fairly represents the implacable hostility felt by the people of Gaza. Are Alice Walker's letters of love and 'solidarity' solid with the people of Gaza in that hostility? [Source]

Alice Walker will be joined by other cultural figures on this week's flotilla boats, some of them Jewish. In making their decision, they ignore what the US government, to its credit, has warned them not to do:

The US State Department on Friday warned American activists planning to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza that they risk criminal prosecution if they go through with their attempt... “Delivering or attempting or conspiring to deliver material support or other resources to or for the benefit of a designated foreign terrorist organization, such as Hamas, could violate US civil and criminal statutes and could lead to fines and incarceration,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement. “Groups that seek to break Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza are taking irresponsible and provocative actions that risk the safety of their passengers,” she said. “Established and efficient mechanisms exist to transfer humanitarian assistance to Gaza... We urge all those seeking to provide such assistance to the people of Gaza to use these mechanisms, and not to participate in actions like the planned flotilla.”  [Source]

Alice Walker and her fellow travelers from several nations appear certain to ignore what Victoria Nuland said. And it's likely they have never heard of a sailing vessel of the same name - the Victoria - a container vessel (IMO 9290165) operated by Peter Döhle Shipping that made headlines here in Israel during March 2011. The affair of the Victoria was almost totally ignored elsewhere. This is a pity because it has some some instructive and relevant aspects.

That Victoria was a ship (like the flotillarati, having multi-national origins: German owned, French operated, Liberian flagged) whose journey originated in the Syrian port of Latkia. It docked in Turkey's Mersin port en route to Alexandria, Egypt. Shortly after it sailed from Alexandria, and acting on intelligence, the IDF forcefully boarded the Victoria on the high seas some 200 nautical miles west of Israel. The ship's paperwork, the bill of lading, said the containers were filled with cotton and lentils.

Some cotton.

Though the ship's crew, innocents like Ms Walker and her pals, had no idea, 39 of its one hundred shipping containers held a massive stockpile of weapons, some 50 tons of C-704 anti-ship missiles, rocket launchers, radar systems, mortar shells and rifle ammunition [source, includes the full shopping list of arms]. Israeli sources  say the Victoria was yet another joint Syria and Iran production, cooperating to send weapons to the terrorists of Hamas in Gaza.

We'd like to say 'happy sailing' to Ms Walker and her cultured and love-minded friends, but it would be insincere. We think they are naïve and silly dupes whose actions are bound to produce more deaths and misery thanks to the relentless terrorism of the Hamas regime in Gaza.

24-Jun-11: Since the flotilla promoters won't tell you this, we have to

Our daughter Malki's beautiful life was deliberately and brutally ended by a gang of terrorists funded, equipped, organized and promoted by the same people who now run the Gaza regime.

When the 'humanitarians' and 'rescue workers' on the audaciously misnamed "Audacity of Hope" and other Gaza-bound flotilla vessels tell you of their noble intentions, ask them if they understand they are providing support to the very people - the actual individuals - who indiscriminately and willfully murdered hundreds of innocent people simply because of their being Jewish. 

Hamas has never concealed its intentions to do this, and its plans to keep on doing it.

One of Hamas' victims, fifteen years old when they stole her life from her and from us, was Malki Roth. Please take a moment to read a few words about who she was and what she did with her life. 

Please keep these ideas in mind when the flotilla and its participants take over the headlines in the coming days.

24-Jun-11: Gazan picture tells more than 1,000 negative/distorting words

Love the caption. Just in time for the coming tsunami of coverage focused on the Gaza 'humanitarian' flotilla, this appeared in yesterday's National Post, a Canadian daily. It illustrates a Kelly McParland article entitled "Dog days in the Hate Israel industry".

16-May-11: On humanitarian aid, prisons and deprivation

A representative of the Hamas regime (the gentleman with the club)
exchanges views with the Gazan public, 15-May-11 [Source: AP]

There is no shortage of good reasons why living in Gaza under Hamas rule is something most of us strongly prefer to not do. The place is a nightmare of religious intolerance and tyranny, political persecution and sovereign malfeasance.

Starvation however is not one of its major problems notwithstanding that we were told the exact opposite by people who knew exactly how much they were bending the truth. In fact, many of the claims that have been made about the alleged suffering of the people living in Gaza are either wrong, or mostly wrong, or hopelessly-spun politically and therefore completely distorted. For instance, when the Islamist political elite of Gaza famously posed in the almost-dark of their parliament building [photograph here] blaming Israel for the gloom, daylight could clearly be seen shining in through the curtained windows as anyone unblinkered by  malice could see in the photos.

A year ago, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron called Gaza "a prison camp" (while visiting Turkey, which makes sense if you understand how some politicians think). Well, it is - if you are kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. He is imprisoned in a black and unvisited hole, far from the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross or anyone else, a prime example of the illegalities and atrocities a failed, rogue state-let is capable of executing when it knows no one is going to call it to account.

Presenting Gaza as a pathetic and helpless victim is central to the myth of the aid convoys and their 'humanitarian' aid. And the latest of the 'humanitarian' ships arrived in the area this morning. An Associated Press report says:

Israel blocks Moldovan-flagged ship from Gaza  The Israeli military says it has blocked a Moldovan-flagged vessel leased by a Malaysian anti-war group from reaching the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Israel maintains a naval blockade of Gaza and restricts goods transferred overland to the Palestinian territory, citing concerns they would be used to attack Israel. The military said Monday that it ordered the ship to return to an Egyptian port where it had been anchored for several days. But it said the vessel disregarded the order, prompting it to fire warning shots into the air. The ship then changed course to return to Egypt. The Malaysian group, the Perdana Global Peace Foundation, says its ship was fired at when it tried to reach Gaza. The military denied firing at the ship. Perdana said no one was injured.

It's a major story in Malaysia at this hour. We wonder whether the 'anti-war' 'peace' activists there know that, largely thanks to the access they had for several decades to high-quality Israeli health care, life expectancy in the Gaza Strip (2010 figures) stands at 73.9 years, which is better than Malaysia's. Not that we expect the 'activists' to be so interested in statistics. Ideological fury is so much more satisfying.

We compiled some additional facts about life in Gaza that are not normally publicized and posted them in an earlier blog entry of ours ["3-Jun-10: So how urgent was the need for humanitarian aid for the Gazans?"] We will be surprised if you don't find at least some of them surprising. Also keep in mind that at least since June 2010, Israel has permitted practically all non-military or dual-use items to enter the Gaza Strip. Whatever.

Which brings us to a unique window in the suffering of Gaza. The video below is made in Gaza by Gazans. View it if for no other reason than it may help reveal what really stands behind the rising tide of 'aid' and 'humanitarian' vessels being prepared to sail on Gaza - and Israel.

18-Jun-10: Some comments from other places

Why Do the Peace Activists Ignore the Violence of Hamas?
Lindy McDowell (Belfast Telegraph-UK)

Gaza, where the flotilla boats were headed, is under the control of the terrorist grouping Hamas which has been responsible for pounding Israeli towns (and Israeli civilians) with increasingly sophisticated missiles for years. It was to protect Israeli families from Hamas suicide bombers that Israel began erecting its security fence in 2002.
    In 2005 Israel (in the interests of peace) moved out of Gaza. The thanks it got were even more rockets (often supplied by Iran) raining down on its civilian population courtesy of Hamas, which charmingly declares itself dedicated to wiping the Israeli people off the face of the earth. Israel, understandably, has insisted on monitoring what materials go into Gaza and, thus, what (potentially lethal) materials Hamas could have access to. All of us in the West live in countries which maintain a similar right to ensure the safety of their own civilian populations. Most countries have reasons why they would not be confident to leave this role up to the international community. Israel has at least six million extra reasons.

Hamas: A Terrorist Thug Group, Through and Through
Anath Hartmann (Washington Times)

"I do not think that Hamas is a terrorist organization," Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan told a June 4 rally. In fact, Hamas has perpetrated bombings and other violence that have killed hundreds of people inside Israel and wounded more than 1,300. Hamas' charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, saying Israel "will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors" and vowing to "raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine."
    But Hamas tyranny is not limited to Jews. Hamas has long had a practice of lynching, maiming and executing Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel or the rival Palestinian political party Fatah. After winning the 2006 Gaza elections on a platform of change and an end to corruption, Hamas forcibly took control of the Strip and blew up Fatah headquarters. The U.S., Canada, Israel, Japan and EU all classify Hamas as a terrorist entity.

Hamas Is to Blame for Gaza Tragedy
Eamon Delaney (Irish Independent)

In a Guardian interview, published on the very day of the flotilla-storming, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal almost jauntily looked forward to the next round of "fighting with Israel." Meanwhile, Hamas continues to be funded by the Syrians and Iranians, anxious to stoke bloodshed, but suitably far away enough not to suffer the consequences. The reality is that Hamas should be blamed for bringing ruin and destruction to the people of Gaza. Hamas now enforces an authoritarian regime and has imposed a repressive Islamic culture. Hamas has cancelled elections and forcibly and bloodily evicted its rivals in the Fatah movement.

Gaza Activists Were Pawns in a Much Bigger Turkish Power Game
Stephen King (Irish Examiner)

For a generation to whom Vietnam and South Africa are either faint memories or battles only read about in history books, Palestine is the most perfect cause. For rebels looking for a cause, Israel makes a classic enemy. Being a Jewish state makes it racist, right? Aren't its most vociferous supporters in the U.S.? What more is there to know? Only the Holocaust prevents even respectable opinion in Ireland from labeling Israel a fascist state. And it helps that Gaza seems so much more winnable than the Tibetan fight for autonomy.
    These individuals who joined 400 Turkish Islamists on a voyage to break the Israeli blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza came, they said, on a genuine, if misguided, attempt to relieve Gaza's suffering. But for the Turkish activists who drove the mission, the flotilla was all part of a much bigger game - a premeditated provocation by a gang of wannabe martyrs bent on violent confrontation and on realigning Turkey away from the West. The impression that Israel/Palestine is the root of all the Middle East's problems is as misguided as it is pervasive. The conflict with Israel merely serves as an effective cover for the region's collective failure to build stable, just and prosperous societies.

7-Jun-10: Just diving

We haven't checked but the Melbourne Age is almost certainly not the only news medium that keeps spinning the report of Israel eliminating several Palestinian terrorists this morning as if it were about some innocent recreational skindivers getting unfairly caught up in the uncontrolled rage of a badly behaved neighourhood bully.

The Age article itself, written by Jerusalem-based Jason Koutsoukis, is basically accurate:

"THE naval commando unit involved in last week's bloody showdown with a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last night shot dead four Gaza militants it claimed were trying to slip into Israel by sea to mount a terror attack... An Israel Defence Forces statement said the latest attack occurred before dawn in waters near the centre of the Gaza Strip. "An Israel Navy force in the area of Nuseirat identified a squad of terrorists wearing diving suits on their way to perpetrate a terrorist attack,'' the statement said. ''The force fired and hit the terrorists.'' Israeli military sources said it was unclear what the men were planning to do, but intelligence indicated that the men had been working on an attack from the sea ''for quite a while''. An unnamed military official later told Israel Army radio that the attack was a morale boost for the elite Shayetet (Flotilla) 13 unit involved in last week's disastrous interception of the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara. 'This will be a shot in the arm for the commandos after the hard week they have been through,'' the official said. Palestinian news agencies reported that the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed wing of the Fatah movement, had confirmed that four members had been killed, with a fifth person missing. Al-Aqsa Brigades spokesman Abu al-Walid Jabri said the gunmen were on a training exercise near the Gaza coast when Israeli navy boats opened fire without warning."

As we said, Jason seems to have it down pretty right.

So then why does the Age's headlines editor describe the former-Martyrs-and-now-actual-martyrs as "divers"? That's the headline that appears on the cover of the paper as well [you can see it on the left of this column]. As editors and most other people know, lots of readers skim; it's headlines that they take away with them.

Given the sensitivities and tensions of the situation on Israel's coast, with Iranian vessels now threatening to raise the stakes by mounting another attack on Israel's defensive blockade of the Gaza port, and with huge crowds of whipped-up Moslems, Arabs and other aggrieved parties throughout the world accusing Israelis of being a "genocidal", "cursed terrorist and murderous state" and of other unspeakable crimes and atrocities, why would a responsible publication want to unnecessarily raise the temperature?

Why sow confusion on something as crucial as terrorism? Do the Age's editors know something they're not telling? Were the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade members shot while practising their breaststroke? What exactly is it that intending martyrs do when they're training?

7-Jun-10: Some call them fishermen

An update on this morning's report about militant activist skin-diving fishermen out for a stroll on the Mediterranean Sea:

In a message sent to media in Gaza, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militant offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction, said the four dead were part of a marine unit training in Gaza's waters. Palestinian naval police said two people are missing. The Israeli unit responsible for intercepting the boat is the same naval commando group involved in last week's raid on a flotilla of aid that attempted to break the Israeli blockade against Gaza.

The rest of it is here.

Worth noting that the Aqsa thugs are not Hamas. Their alliegance is pledged to Mahmoud Abbas, the political head of the Palestinian Authority and of Fatah.

If, as it appears, this is a sign of a power struggle among several contenders to see who - from among the PA, IHH, Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, Turkey and other peace-loving humanitarians - can cause the greatest mischief to the Israelis, then it's a very unwelcome development.

6-Jun-10: It's not that complicated: Is IHH a humanitarian group or a terrorist group?

The thug-enhanced flotilla that sought to break through the Israeli embargo on the port of Gaza was backed by a Turkish organization called IHH (Islan Haklary Ve Hurriyetleri Vakfi in Turkish). Are they pure as the driven snow? Or is this an organization compromised by deep connection to terrorism?

It's worrying and infuriating to see how this straightforward matter is being manipulated so that the credibility of the answer depends on how much you hate Israel.

First, the relatively uncontroversial aspects... IHH was founded in 1992. The CIA began tracking them in 1996 because of a perception of radical Islamist leanings. As one study has observed: "Like many other Islamist charities, the IHH has a record of providing relief to areas where disaster has struck in the Muslim world. However, the organization is not a force for good."

That study explains:

"That's because the Turkish nonprofit belongs to a Saudi-based umbrella organization known to finance terrorism called the Union of Good (Ittilaf al-Kheir in Arabic). Notably, the Union is chaired by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who is known best for his religious ruling that encourages suicide attacks against Israeli civilians.  According to one report, Qardawi personally transferred millions of dollars to the Union in an effort to provide financial support to Hamas"

Their activities caught the attention of Evan Kohlmann, an investigator of terrorist groups. He published a little-noticed essay titled "Shooting the Messenger: A Look at the Facts on the Turkish Aid Group IHH" a few days ago. It's worth a few moments' reading.

When I first published a research paper four years ago with the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) on the Turkish Muslim charitable group Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH), I didn't imagine it would get much of a response outside the academic conference in which it was presented in Copenhagen. However, as a result of this weekend's tragic Israeli raid on an IHH-sponsored flotilla of vessels attempting to break the ongoing blockade on Gaza, the group has suddenly jumped into the headlines, and has become a focus of intense debate over the intentions of the flotilla organizers and the controversial killing of at least 9 would-be participants by Israeli commandos.
...I'm rather mystified why the flotilla killings--whether right or wrong--would have any bearing on the factual question of whether the IHH has engaged in illicit financing and episodic support to extremist groups. The evidence in this regard is fairly weighty, and much of it comes directly from the Turkish government -- not the United States, nor the Israelis.

He describes how Turkish police raided IHH headquarters in Istanbul at the end of 1997 and had its leaders arrested. Five months later, they faced formal legal charges connected with explosives, bomb making and jihad. Evidence was presented from a French source that IHH's true goals were

"overthrowing democratic, secular, and constitutional order present in Turkey and replacing it with an Islamic state founded on the Shariah."

A second line of connection to jihad: IHH was connected to the attempt by a a jihadist, Ahmed Ressam, the so-called Millenium bomber. Ressam was convicted of attempting to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on New Year's Eve 1999. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison, but in February 2010 an appellate court held the sentence to be too lenient, and ordered that it be extended. In that prosecution, the noted French counter-terrorism magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere took the stand and testified that IHH had played what he called "an important role" in the LAX plot:

"The IHH is an NGO (a non-governmental organization) but it was kind of a type of cover-up… in order to obtain forged documents and also to obtain different forms of infiltration for Mujahideen in combat. And also to go and gather[recruit] these Mujahideens. And finally, one of the last responsibilities that they had was also to be implicated or involved in weapons trafficking."

As Evan Kohlmann writes, none of this information is sensitive or secret.

"Nor is it particularly difficult to come by. Turkish government officials have openly acknowledged as much in major Western media outlets."

The French judge was interviewed in the last few days by Associated Press.

The Istanbul-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, known by its Turkish acronym IHH, had "clear, long-standing ties to terrorism and Jihad," former investigating judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

This information is freely available on the web. You don't need to be a terrorism specialist to see and be troubled by it. So why are otherwise credible sources raising snakey questions that undermine the allegations against IHH as if they were part of an Israeli conspiracy? For instance:

• "The IHH has been accused by Israel of funneling support to militant organizations across the Muslim world, a charge the group denies."[Christian Science Monitor]
•  "'Terror' smear against IHH springs from a familiar source" [Mondoweiss - and no prizes for figuring out where that familiar source resides]
• "Israel starts smear campaign in EU against Turkish charity" [World Bulletin]
• "The Islamic charity which largely funded the aid flotilla... Its inspiration is unapologetically religious but the IHH insists its mission is purely humanitarian, despite Israeli claims that it supports the armed activities of Hamas. It is certainly rich. ...It bought a 15-year-old ferry, the Mavi Marmara, for more than $1m (£686,000). It also has some powerful backers in the governing party, the AKP." [BBC]

You don't need to buy Israel's case to see that, being generous, IHH has a murky past and a highly compromised standpoint when it comes to jihad and acts of terror.

6-Jun-10: So while the world is obsessed with flotillas, who's REALLY firing missiles into Israel

On the BBC in the early hours of this morning, we heard an interview with Dr Ahmed Yousef speaking from Gaza.

The BBC's reporter asked the authoritative-sounding Dr. Yousef  (described in various places on the web as "Deputy to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs", "the Hamas government's deputy foreign minister", and "a senior adviser to Gaza's Prime Minister Ismail Haniya") why Hamas would choose now, of all times, with so much concern about humanitarian flotillas and the human rights of the desperate, starving hordes of Gaza, to fire still more Qassam rockets into Israel.

The smooth-talking Hamas official did not hesitate for a second; this is not Hamas at all, he asserted. It's the work of collaborators in the service of Israel, firing into Israel without causing any REAL damage just so as to blacken the reputation of Hamas.

Nonplussed, the BBC's man said "C'mon, it's clearly the work of Islamic Jihad or one of your resistance groups." No, said the cool Dr Yousef, there is no indication at all that Islamic Jihad is connected to the rocket firings. Why would you ever think such a thing? [These are not direct quotes, but reproduced from our memory of the broadcast.]

Memo to Dr Yousef: If you get a free moment between media interviews, give a call to the Associated Press office in Gaza City. They published a claim this past week made by the Gazan terrorists of Islamic Jihad, seeking credit for this week's Qassam rocket attacks on Israel.

If we can locate a voice recording of the BBC interview, we will post it here.

In 2007, Yousef scored a triple-header, with op-eds published in the New York Times, Washington Post and International Herald Tribune in the same week. His thesis then, not so different from now, was that the respectable, sober and serious Hamas regime was abiding by a ceasefire agreement and was not allowing Qassam missiles to be fired into Israel from Gaza. At the time,  Dr. Alex Safian from the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), pointing out that missiles were indeed being fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza, wrote: "It's nonsensical for the Washington Post and the New York Times to open up their pages to what is just pure propaganda."

Some highlights from Dr Yousef's remarkable background: For years, he was director of the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), an Islamic think tank based in Fairfax County, Virginia in the United States. One source says the UASR promotes the ideology of the Palestinian-based terrorist organization Hamas, and frequently hosts terrorist-related radicals at its events. Yousef, who attributes America’s anti-terror policy to a wide-ranging Zionist conspiracy, succeeded Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook [indicted for terrorism when he lived in the US and who now serves Hamas from Gaza] in the UASR position. In December 2004, speaking on the Hezbollah television station Al-Manar, he said the Zionists are behind the events of 9/11. The American portion of his career ended in 2005 when, according to this report, he left the United States and moved to Gaza, becoming close advisor to Hamas' Haniyeh. It has been reported that his departure was related to the possibility of being prosecuted in the Fawaz Damra terrorism trial.

This is not meant to be a light-hearted dig at either the BBC or Hamas. The issue is deadly serious. Telling bald-faced lies to journalists is a tactic that has enabled the jihadists and their useful-idiot friends to create confusion in the minds of ordinary citizens. That their outrageous distortions are treated by analysts, journalists, editors and public figures with entirely undue respect is part of the price we in Western societies pay for subscribing to democratic principles. ["He/she would never tell lies in public like that..."]

It's also a reflection of the fact that most people don't know enough about complicated issues like the rise of jihadism, and the ongoing war of the Arabs against Israel to be able to distinguish fact from shallow hatred-based self-serving fantasy.

4-Jun-10: Beating up on Israel means we have a problem [Daniel Henninger, WSJ]

This op-ed article by Daniel Henninger is reproduced in full from the Wall Street Journal of Thursday June 3, 2010.

Beating Up on Israel

The world's powers find it easier to denounce small nations like Israel than take on large and difficult problems like Iran or North Korea.

Wall Street Journal | June 3, 2010

The ease with which the world's governments condemned Israel over the flotilla incident has been something to behold. The Jerusalem-based correspondent for the Toronto Globe and Mail could not help but notice: "The speed and intensity with which governments around the world condemned the Israeli behavior appear unprecedented." Why?

For starters, denouncing Israel for something like this is convenient for leaders who have failed repeatedly to do anything about more important and difficult problems such as Iran, North Korea or sovereign debt. Also, lesser nations learn by example: The Obama administration's unrestrained criticism of the Israeli government in March over East Jerusalem settlements lowered the threshold for teeing off on Israel.

Still, I can't think of any other nation, no matter how scummy and uncivilized its practices, that produces this response. Or any other event, such as testing a nuclear bomb.

Fast out of the gate was France's nimble President Nicolas Sarkozy, who criticized the "disproportionate use of force." But somehow it is only Israel that seems to elicit the disproportionate use of language.

Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, called the incident "state terrorism." His foreign minister described it as "piracy," "banditry" and "barbarism." Also invoking "barbarism" were Saudi Arabia ("inhuman"), Syria ("blatant defiance of . . . civilized values") and Morocco.

Italy's foreign undersecretary, Stefania Craxi: "the massacre of Gaza." Russia, always light on irony, condemned "the use of force against civilians." The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists: "an open attack on civil society" and the "true face of barbarism." U.N . Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was "shocked."

Denmark, Spain, Greece and Sweden summoned their Israeli ambassadors for an explanation. British Foreign Secretary William Hague extended his sympathy to the families of the victims. The Vatican voiced concern. The president of Bosnia likened the Gaza blockade to the 1992-96 siege of Sarajevo (at least 10,000 dead). The president of the European Parliament drew attention to a breach of the "fourth Geneva Convention." All of this on Monday.

Turning on the evening news in New York City, one saw that a pro-Palestinian demonstration of a 1,000 or so had materialized in Times Square. Identical demonstrations mushroomed on the Champs Élysées, and in the streets of Washington, London, Rome, Cyprus, Oslo, Stockholm and Athens.

Catherine Ashton, the EU's "high representative" for foreign affairs, demanded "an immediate, sustained and unconditional opening" of the Gaza blockade. This is especially noteworthy. Until High Representative Ashton's demand to end the blockade, the EU had been party to a clear, explicit policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. Since 2002, a group known as the Quartet—consisting of the EU, Russia, the U.S. and the U.N., with Tony Blair as its current special envoy—has said that no one could deal with Hamas, the occupier of Gaza, until Hamas fulfilled three conditions: Recognize Israel's right to exist. Renounce violence. Accept agreements already made by previous Palestinian negotiators.

Hamas hasn't met any of those conditions. After Ms. Ashton's outburst, it knows it doesn't have to.

The world's peoples may pay soon for their leaders' display of such a disproportionate double standard. Recall that the other, recent instance when the world's governments deployed their collective authority and wrath was last June, against Lilliputian Honduras. The conclusion is inescapable: The smaller the problem, the larger the world powers' output of hot air. But if a problem is large or difficult—especially if the problem is nuclear—they blink and deflate, and will do so repeatedly.

Example: It emerged this week that the International Atomic Energy Agency believes Iran is pursuing higher-enriched uranium and "the development of a nuclear payload for a missile." The world yawns. Or hides.

In any of the places where men discuss truly monstrous and dangerous plans, in Kim Jong Il's Pyongyang or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Tehran, watching this hyperventilated criticism of Israel for a shoot-out on a boat must strike them as laughable. If one's opponents save their collective status and authority for something like this, then the world is ultimately not serious about who must comply with its rules of behavior. With this unbalanced double standard, the world increases the odds that a truly irresponsible regime will miscalculate.

To its credit, the U.S. delegation on duty at the U.N. Monday managed to dilute the language that a somewhat unhinged Turkey demanded from the Security Council. (Amusingly, what the Turks called the U.S.'s "delays" caused the negotiations to slip past midnight into Tuesday morning when, like Cinderella's pumpkin, Lebanon's presidency of the Security Council expired and passed to less invested Mexico.) Germany's Angela Merkel was also circumspect in her remarks. An adult or two is still on duty.

Set aside the troubling fact that the Jewish state alone gets this routine treatment. Israel should not be immune from criticism. But if the world's powers unload like this only on relatively small, isolated nations like Israel, then clearly the keepers of the world order find it easier to be blowhards than statesmen. And that means we have a problem.

4-Jun-10: Memo to Gaza-focused journalists: Just how complicit are you?

In a thoughtful piece, Yossi Klein Halevy writing in the Wall Street Journal yesterday asks what many of us here are thinking: "Has the world lost its mind?"

The outcry in Israel over the operation against the Gaza flotilla has cut across political lines. Yet unlike the outrage being expressed abroad, the concern here is over tactics, not morality... The assumption that Israel was right to stop the flotilla—and right to maintain its siege on Hamas-led Gaza—is largely a given here... How, Israelis wonder, can pro-Hamas activists wielding knives be confused for peace activists? What is pro-peace about strengthening Hamas's grip on Gaza and thereby reducing the likelihood of a two-state solution? For that matter, what is pro-Palestinian about condemning the people of Gaza to jihadist rule?

It's here.

Shraga Simmons illustrates articulately what it means when the practitioners of the news media lose their minds.



And before we leave all this gloom, a reminder from the estimable Khaled Abu Toameh of what the terrorists of Hamas do when everyone is looking the other way (and even when they're not):

Hamas’s security forces on Monday and Tuesday raided the offices of several non-governmental organizations in the Gaza Strip and confiscated equipment and furniture... and other items, including computers, faxes, cameras, documents and reports, in addition to the keys to their doors. The security agents informed the directors that their organizations were closed. They did not provide any reasons behind this decision. The raids were carried out by agents belonging to Hamas’s Internal Security apparatus...

The rest of his report is here. If you can find this reported anywhere else in the world other than in the Jerusalem Post, please let us know.Given the incredibly passionate interest that currently exists for the rights and freedoms of the Gazans, how can we possibly explain this lack of coverage and outrage?

As depressing as the public demonstrations of hypocrisy and journalistic agenda-following are, there are still some bright spots in the darkness. Check out this bitter-sweet satirical glance at the Turkish hate-boat flotilla jamboree. (And if your language skills are up to it, the Hebrew version is even better.)

UPDATE 13-Jun-10: Now that YouTube has disgracefully removed the satirical Flotilla video clip ("We con the world"), here's a new link that works.

4-Jun-10: With the world's media eyes on Gaza, why don't they face eastwards for a moment and cover this?

Yet more lethal Qassam rockets were fired into Israel last night (Thursday) from the jihadist-controlled Gaza Strip. Four missiles, and fortunately no injuries on the Israeli side. But that was not the intention of the cowardly thugs who fire these explosives off on an almost daily basis in the general direction of Israeli towns, farms and homes. They have absolutely no interest in where these land, even if this means they land on the heads of their own people - as happened this week (yet again).

One of yesterday's Qassams (according to YNet) crashed to earth near the beleagured Israeli community of Sderot; fortunately it struck open area near the town. Another rocket landed in the Ashkelon Beach region, near a kibbutz. Another exploded in an open area near one of the kibbutzim in the Sha'ar Hanegev region. [Israeli news reports routinely refrain from being too precise in describing where the thousands of incoming missiles from Gaza land, to minimize the intelligence reaching the jihadists.] And it appears a fourth crashed short of the Gaza border without reaching Israeli territory.

The two rockets that landed near Ashkelon exploded around 9 pm Thursday night in an open area south of the city. Civil defence alert sirens were sounded in facilities and factories in the city's southern industrial zone, prompting terrified employees to take cover. The municipal authorities in the area, about 55 minutes drive south of where we live, say they have been asked to "maintain full alert ahead of the possible firing of Qassams and Grad missiles", yet another "dividend" for Israelis from the "peace-seeking", "humanitarian" Gaza-bound flotilla.

There are many hundreds of foreign journalists and photographers covering Gaza and the abysmally-misnamed Freedom Flotilla at this very moment. So what does it tell you when you check Google News and see that the only news channels that trouble themselves to report four missiles being fired at Israeli civilians are all Israeli?

What is it about terrorism that causes reporters, photographers, editors and analysts to lose their moral compass, journalistic pride and common sense?

3-Jun-10: So how urgent was the need for humanitarian aid for the Gazans?

How urgent was the humanitarian aid that the cynically misnamed Freedom Flotilla tried to force through Israel's naval blockade of Gaza? We can get some idea of the answer by considering a little-noticed report put out yesterday by the spokesperson's office at the IDF. That report is online here. under the plain-spoken headline "Hamas Refuses to Allow Flotilla Aid into Gaza Strip".

The essence of it is this: 25 Israeli trucks, laden with the so-called aid found onboard the flotilla vessels, are standing by idlely this morning (Thursday) while the Hamas regime that rules the Gazan Arabs plays its eternal game, honed by years of experience, of political-point-scoring while shafting its own population.

The "aid", if that's an accurate term, that arrived on those boats includes large quantities of expired medications, along with clothing, blankets, some medical equipment and toys. Hamas, according to the IDF, "is unwilling to accept the cargo and the trucks filled with humanitarian aid have not been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip. It appears that Hamas is in fact stopping the transfer of the humanitarian aid. Hamas did not explain his opposition to the transfer of the aid." Meanwhile there are reports of additional boatloads of allegedly urgent aid on the way, along with additional boatloads of the same kind of thugs and provocateurs we witnessed in the past few days. A great pity.

Israeli interests have always been to give the Palestinian Arabs, including the Gazans, something to value, something to protect, in their lives. This may be driven by self-interest but it's a legitimate standpoint nevertheless. These interests are served by ensuring a steady stream of goods and equipment into Gaza. Though a good proportion of the world's news media avoid reporting this, the reality is that deliveries from Israel are routine and frequent. So are the two-way transfers of people for for medical, religious, welfare, business or diplomatic reasons.

The September 2009 video above from the Sderot Media Center shows a fairly typical - but largely unreported - scenario: heavily-laden trucks making their way into Gaza from Israel. Keeping the world in the dark about this steady stream of food, fuel and supplies is critical to the success of the Hamas regime in presenting a bogus picture of an oppressed and starving populace yearning for its national rights.

The IDF, which has the data to prove this, says about a hundred trucks deliver aid into Gaza every day, under the watchful supervision of the IDF. During January, February and March 2010, this translated into 95,000 tons of supplies and 1068 tons of medicines and medical equipment on some 4,000 trucks.

Meanwhile the enforced Israeli embargo of Gaza's port is as close as a unilateral action ever gets to being a genuine act of life and death. Hamas, behind all the ridiculous camouflage, is a terrorist organization with a radical theological foundation, whose principal motivation is to bring about the destruction of Israel and us Israelis. If any embargo in history ever made plain sense (and there have been many), it's this one.  

But because Israeli policy towards those who wish war and loss on us has always been somewhat optimistic and explicitly humanitarian, Israel's actions have skewed towards trying to bring more good than bad into the lives of the ordinary people who live on the other side of the fence in this neighbourhood. So for example the Israeli lifeline into Gaza - from where lethal rockets by the thousands have been fired indiscriminately over the past decade -has included these little-noticed components:

• Well over a million tons of humanitarian supplies were sent into Gaza from Israel during the past 18 months. That's nearly a ton for every man, woman and child.
• Essential food items including baby formula, wheat, meat, dairy products and other perishables are shipped in daily and weekly.
• There is no food shortage in Gaza. Food and supplies are shipped from Israel six days a week, year round. 
• Fertilizers, other than those considered to be suited for making explosives, are shipped into Gaza regularly.
• During 2009, while missiles were raining down on southern Israel from the jihadist thugs of Gaza, we sent them 738,000 tons of food and supplies.
• During the three months of January to March of this year, 94,500 tons of supplies were shipped in via 3,676 truckloads. This included 48,000 tons of food products; 40,000 tons of wheat; 2,760 tons of rice; 1,987 tons of clothes and footwear; 553 tons of milk powder and baby food.
• Every week through the year, a typical report of activities co-ordinated bt the IDF include hundreds of trucks and about 15,000 tons of supplies. During the week of May 18, 2010 there were more than 100 truckloads of animal food, 65 trucks of fruit and vegetables; 22 truckloads of sugar, some 27 truckloads of meat, poultry and fish; and 40 trucks of dairy products. 
• At holiday times, the rate of transfers increases because Israel thinks this makes sense.
• During the Muslim holy days of Ramadhan and Eid al-Adha last year, Israel shipped some 11,000 heads of cattle into the Strip.
• During 2009, 10,544 Gazan patients along with their companions left the Gaza Strip for medical treatment in Israel. 
• Again in 2009, 382 emergency evacuations from Gaza for medical purposes were facilitated by Israel.
• Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem donates $3 million in aid annually to treat Palestinians in Israel. 
• Keren Malki, which the authors of this blog founded and lead, has provided especially resilient wheelchairs for Gazan children with special needs. Other sources have provided heart-monitors, baby feeding tubes, dental equipment, medical books, ambulance emergency equipment, artificial limbs and infant sleeping bags.
• And let's not forget that Palestinian Arabs, inspired by who knows what unfathomable depths of religiously or politically inspired jihadist hatred, have cynically exploited Israeli medical care privileges to carry out more than 20 terrorism attacks on Israelis and on Israeli medical facilities. 
• Medical equipment and drugs amounting to some 4,883 tons were transferred from Israel to the Gazans in 2009.
• In the first quarter of 2010, Israel shipped 152 trucks of medical supplies and equipment into Gaza. 
• In a typical week (May 2010), 37 truckloads of hygiene products were shipped to Gaza through the land crossings. A CAT scan machine was shipped to Gaza in the same month.
• Cement and iron imports into Gaza have been and continue to be restricted by Israel because of the propensity of the Hamas regime and its hordes of jihadist fanatics to turn them into rockets and bunkers. Still, imports of truckloads of cement, iron, and building supplies like wood and windows are regularly shipped into Gaza, supervised by the IDF and coordinated with NGOs. During the first ninety days of this year, 23 tons of iron and 25 tons of cement arrived via that channel. 
• On May 13th, 2010, Israel admitted some 39 tons of building material to help rebuild a damaged Gazan hospital. [Let's not even mention what the jihadist fanatics of Hamas do with their hospitals.] 
• On May 24th, 2010, Israel admitted 97 truckloads of aid and goods via the Kerem Shalom crossing [which has been repeatedly rocketed and attacked by Gazan jihad groups]. These included six trucks with 250 tons of cement, and one truck loaded with five tons of iron for projects executed and operated by UNRWA.
• A UN report (May 2010) says 120 megawatts (over 70%) of the Strip's electricity supply comes from the Israeli electric grid.
• 17 MWs of Gaza's electricity comes from Egypt. 30 MWs are produced by the Gaza city power station. 
• The supply of electricity to Gaza has suffered considerably since January because of the Hamas tactic of declining to purchase fuel to allow their plant to be operated. According to the IDF, "Israel facilitates the transfer of fuel through the border, and maintains that the diversion of fuel from domestic power generators to other uses is wholly a Hamas decision." 
• 133 million liters of fuel entered Gaza from Israel during the past 18 months.
• The advent of the Hamas regime has been an economic disaster for the Gazans. The United States, Israel, Canada, and the European Union have frozen funds to the Palestinian Hamas government since 2006 by reason of it being categorized as a terrorist organization. Despite this, Israel has done certain things to support trade and commerce, the banking system and the financial market in Gaza. The IDF says: "Gazans produce much of their own food products including olives, citrus, vegetables, Halal beef, and dairy products. Primary exports from Gaza are cut flowers and citrus, with trade partners being Israel, Egypt and the West Bank. During 2009, 7.5 million tons of flowers and 54 tons of strawberries were exported from Gaza with Israeli cooperation."
• Life expectancy in the Gaza Strip (2010) is 73.86. This is better than Estonia, Malaysia, Jamaica and Bulgaria.
• Infant mortality in Gaza is 17.71 per 1000. This is lower than China, Jordan, Lebanon and Thailand.

We plan to post some snapshots here of how Gaza-behind-humanitarian-disaster really looks.

2-Jun-10: Khaybar and humanitarians

Dr Mark Durie, an Australian theologian, a human rights activist and an Anglican church pastor, sent this note earlier today.

The Khaybar Chant and the Gaza flotilla
In these days, the Israel Defense Force's fatal engagement with Islamists on the Marmara has been drawing intense criticism from far and wide. However of particular interest to me was an Al-Jazeera report on the flotilla, showing interviews with an international collection of Muslim radicals on one of the boats. The report includes a scene of a group of Muslim men sitting around on board and cheerfully punching their fists in the air as they recite the popular Arabic chant:

Khaybar, Khaybar ya Yahud, jaish Muhammad sa ya ‘ud [Remember Khaybar, O Jews, Muhammad’s army will return!]

This same chant was also recited during a Muslim demonstration outside the Danish embassy in London [scroll down to the words "Danish Embassy"] on February 3, 2006. One of the protestors shouted to the embassy:

You have declared war against Allah and his prophet. Take lesson of Theo Van Gogh! Take lesson of the Jews of Khaybar! Take lessons from the examples that you can see! For you will pay with your blood!

Likewise, when Amrozi, the smiling Bali bomber, entered the courtroom on August 7, 2003, the day of his sentencing, he invoked this same chant, crying out:

Jews, remember Khaybar. The armies of Muhammad are coming back to defeat you.

It is indeed good to remember Khaybar. In my Quadrant article Remembering Khaybar [a 2003 article archived here], I described the significance of this reference to Muhammad's second victory over the People of the Book (the first was the genocide of the Quraiza Jews in Medina), when the forces of Islam defeated the Jews living at the oasis of Khaybar, enslaving many and subjecting the rest to a dhimma pact of surrender. At Khaybar, the first dhimmis were created, and institution of the dhimma was inaugurated, which came to determine the fate of millions of non-Muslims who have lived under Muslim rule.

The Khaybar chant celebrates the goal of reducing the Jews to the status of dhimmis living under Sharia rule. It is a war cry which summarizes the stated intention of Palestinian radical Muslims.

This was no humanitarian mission devoted to helping the people of Gaza, but the 'army of Muhammad' reciting chants as it psyched itself for jihad against the Jews.