I was thinking about the conclusions that could be drawn from the following brief news item from Israel tonight (and like most attacks against Israelis it will not be reported on any mainstream British News outlet):
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Two Palestinian terrorist attacks near Jerusalem leave one Israeli dead, six Israelis injured
Thursday night, Jan. 24. Palestinian gunmen opened fire on an Israeli border checkpoint near Shuafat on the old road to Pisgat Zeev, Jerusalem. One border guard was killed, and his female partner left in serious condition from shots in the chest. The two gunmen escaped before Israeli forces arrived on the scene and set up a manhunt.
At Gush Etzion, southeast of Jerusalem, two Palestinian gunmen clad in Israeli uniforms burst into the Makor Haim yeshiva (school). Wielding guns and knives, they injured three Israelis, one seriously. In a shoot-out in one of the buildings, the two gunmen were shot dead.
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What conclusions can be drawn from this news? Recently my MP quoted body counts as the ultimate 'proof' of Israeli brutality and responsibility for 'the cycle of violence'. More Palestinians are killed than Israelis, so ispo facto the Israelis are the guilty party. In tonight's attacks only one Israeli dead (known so far), but two Palestinians dead. So Palestinian dead outnumber Israeli dead by two to one. The Israelis are therefore twice as brutal as the Palestinians. Do you think my MP might start to see the problem with his logic? Don't hold your breath.
Also, according to that MP's logic the only reason for Palestinian terrorism are the roadblocks and checkpoints which prevent their freedom of movement. Therefore the Israelis should lift all the checkpoints and everyone will live happily ever after. But the problem with that logic is that it is ONLY the roadblocks and checkpoints that are preventing massacres against Israeli citizens every hour of every day.
In truth the Palestinians have become emboldened in their terrorist actions precisely because of apologists like my MP and the media in the West. It is the same reason why they bombard Israeli cities from Gaza with total impunity because the media turns a blind eye to it and expects the Israelis to grin and bear it. In the rare cases where Palestinian terrorism is reported in our media the apologists do not issue unequivocal condemnation, but rather seek to 'explain' and 'justify'.
Despite what the apologists for Palestinian terrorists want to think, the basic problem is not Israeli 'occupation' (the dispute and Palestinian terrorism existed long before 1967), it is not the Israeli response to Palestinian terrorism and its attempts to quell it, it is not even the Palestinian violence itself. The basic problem is the complete refusal of the Palestinians to recognize the right of the Jews to have a Jewish State in any part part of the Jew's historic homeland. And because of apologists like my MP they will continue to kill Jews because they will never be be aware that it is simply WRONG to do so.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Reflections on the Gaza situation
Naomi Ragen captured the bitter irony of the Gaza situation very well
Picture this: the electric plant which supplies 70% of electricity to the Palestinians in Gaza is in Ashkelon. The Palestinians in Gaza have been shooting kassam rockets at the
plant ever since the "disengagement" i.e. the abandonment of Gush Katif. Now, Palestinians are crying that they don't have enough electricity. They are complaining about Israeli sanctions against them. They are going to the U.N.
The truth is, Israel has not stopped supplying electricity to Gaza. Not only that, but Israeli electric company employees are risking their lives to do so.
Mickey Tsarfati, head of the union of electrical workers, said: "It is unbelievable chutzpah for them to complain. We have not stopped supplying them with electricity for a minute. And they have not stopped logging bombs at us for a minute." Many of the workers who fix the lines to Gaza daily are residents of Sderot. It has happened more than once that bombs fell next to their homes as they were fixing the lines to supply electricity to the bombers.
Now the U.N. and the Quartet, and the Arab League are all getting demands to stop Israeli "sanctions" against the Gazans....
You tell me what other country would be supplying electricity to people who are bombing their children on a daily basis, and risking their lives to do so.
The situation is indeed unprecedented in the history of the world. One country A under brutal, unprovoked and continual attack from a neighbouring country B whose government is committed to killing or expelling every citizen of A. Yet A is not allowed to defend itself, and also has to supply its enemy B with the means for their further continued attacks. And the whole world has sympathy only with country B.
Even if you try to think of analogous situations in history it is impossible to come up with anything as far fetched. The closest I could think of was 1940 Britain: No longer with any forces on mainland Europe. No active allies. All alone against the Nazis who occupy the whole of Western Europe including France next door from where they threaten to invade. Night after night German bombers blitz London. Now imagine that, when the RAF sent up its brave pilots to confront the Nazi planes, there was an outcry from the rest of the world about Britain using disproportionate force and about it 'creating a cycle of violence'. Even this analogy does little justice ot Israel's comparative plight. For a start, unlike Britain, Israel is completely surrounded by deadly enemies, so for the analogy to work you would have to imagine that Ireland, Scotland and Wales were in the hands of the Nazis. And you would also have to imagine that there was no British Channel separating Britain from France. Moreover, it would have had to be the case that Britain supplied the fuel for the Nazi warplanes and that the rest of the world condemned Britain when it threatened to withhold that fuel from the Nazis. And you would also have to imagine that the rest of the world (including countries like the USA, Canada, and Australia) were openly rooting for the Nazis even though they were not involved in the fighting.
But the worst shame about where the analogy breaks down is that Israel has no Churchill to lead them. Someone who, above all else knows that there can never be any compromise with the Nazis.
Picture this: the electric plant which supplies 70% of electricity to the Palestinians in Gaza is in Ashkelon. The Palestinians in Gaza have been shooting kassam rockets at the
plant ever since the "disengagement" i.e. the abandonment of Gush Katif. Now, Palestinians are crying that they don't have enough electricity. They are complaining about Israeli sanctions against them. They are going to the U.N.
The truth is, Israel has not stopped supplying electricity to Gaza. Not only that, but Israeli electric company employees are risking their lives to do so.
Mickey Tsarfati, head of the union of electrical workers, said: "It is unbelievable chutzpah for them to complain. We have not stopped supplying them with electricity for a minute. And they have not stopped logging bombs at us for a minute." Many of the workers who fix the lines to Gaza daily are residents of Sderot. It has happened more than once that bombs fell next to their homes as they were fixing the lines to supply electricity to the bombers.
Now the U.N. and the Quartet, and the Arab League are all getting demands to stop Israeli "sanctions" against the Gazans....
You tell me what other country would be supplying electricity to people who are bombing their children on a daily basis, and risking their lives to do so.
The situation is indeed unprecedented in the history of the world. One country A under brutal, unprovoked and continual attack from a neighbouring country B whose government is committed to killing or expelling every citizen of A. Yet A is not allowed to defend itself, and also has to supply its enemy B with the means for their further continued attacks. And the whole world has sympathy only with country B.
Even if you try to think of analogous situations in history it is impossible to come up with anything as far fetched. The closest I could think of was 1940 Britain: No longer with any forces on mainland Europe. No active allies. All alone against the Nazis who occupy the whole of Western Europe including France next door from where they threaten to invade. Night after night German bombers blitz London. Now imagine that, when the RAF sent up its brave pilots to confront the Nazi planes, there was an outcry from the rest of the world about Britain using disproportionate force and about it 'creating a cycle of violence'. Even this analogy does little justice ot Israel's comparative plight. For a start, unlike Britain, Israel is completely surrounded by deadly enemies, so for the analogy to work you would have to imagine that Ireland, Scotland and Wales were in the hands of the Nazis. And you would also have to imagine that there was no British Channel separating Britain from France. Moreover, it would have had to be the case that Britain supplied the fuel for the Nazi warplanes and that the rest of the world condemned Britain when it threatened to withhold that fuel from the Nazis. And you would also have to imagine that the rest of the world (including countries like the USA, Canada, and Australia) were openly rooting for the Nazis even though they were not involved in the fighting.
But the worst shame about where the analogy breaks down is that Israel has no Churchill to lead them. Someone who, above all else knows that there can never be any compromise with the Nazis.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
BBC now even attributes Hamas murders to Israel
Today Hamas claimed responsibility for the killing of a foreign volunteer in a western Negev kibbutz. The Jerusalem Post reports that 20-year-old Carlos Andres Muscara Chavez from Quito, Ecuador, was working in a potato field in Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, when he was shot by a Palestinian sniper.
But if you read the BBC report about this murder of an innocent civilian, you will be led to believe that it was the Israelis who killed him. In the report here the headline says "Israeli Gaza City raid kills 16" and the first paragraph reports:
Since the report only refers to the "Israeli raid" (and of course says nothing about the barrage of rockets into Israel that preceded the raid and which injured a woman and 7-year-old child) the implication is that the sniper must have been Israeli. In common with BBC reporting on Israel, as analysed by Honest Reporting, today's story again uses explict headlines involving "Israelis kill Palestinians" but when Palestinians kill Israelis the prepetrators (and often even the victims) are never mentioned explicitly. The BBC today have managed to provide both examples of the bias identified by Honest Reporting in the same story.
But if you read the BBC report about this murder of an innocent civilian, you will be led to believe that it was the Israelis who killed him. In the report here the headline says "Israeli Gaza City raid kills 16" and the first paragraph reports:
- "At least 16 Palestinians, including at least 13 militants, have died in an Israeli raid in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, reports say. Medical sources and witnesses said the deaths came after Israeli tanks pushed into eastern suburbs of Gaza City. A farm worker in southern Israel was also killed by sniper fire from Gaza. "
Since the report only refers to the "Israeli raid" (and of course says nothing about the barrage of rockets into Israel that preceded the raid and which injured a woman and 7-year-old child) the implication is that the sniper must have been Israeli. In common with BBC reporting on Israel, as analysed by Honest Reporting, today's story again uses explict headlines involving "Israelis kill Palestinians" but when Palestinians kill Israelis the prepetrators (and often even the victims) are never mentioned explicitly. The BBC today have managed to provide both examples of the bias identified by Honest Reporting in the same story.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Our Palestinian friends
I found this image (of a Palestinian 'infomer' being mutilated after a public execution by Islamic Jihad) on the Winds of Jihad website, and further references to it on Atlas Shrugs. Both sites refer to an Islamic website that boasts the picture and proudly proclaims
"This is a picture of a Palestinian mother stepping on the corpse of her son who betrayed the Muslims by helping the Israelis. If all mothers were like this, Our lands would be liberated in no time."
However, I do NOT believe the woman is the mother. After some digging it appears the woman is the mother of an Islamic Jihad member and she was invited to crush the head of the executed man. What is certain is that this took place with hundreds of people watching in Jenin (which is of course under the control of our friends the Palestinian Authority) in 2006. More information about it can be found in this video (the video lasts about 5 minutes and the relevant bit is near the end, but you should watch the whole video anyway). Please note that because the video shows graphic evidence of Muslim violence it is likely to be removed by YouTube at any time (the Islamists are well organised in complaining in numbers to YouTube to get any video they do not like removed and YouTube, who are happy to host the most vicious anti-semitic and pro-Jihadist videos, usually succumb to their demands).