Israel being pounded to the delight of the Palestinians - but it's all her fault

The rocket barrage against Southern Israel continues relentlessly - another 15 rockets today causing widespread damage and also injuring a 9 month old child. Elder of Ziyon reports on how the Palestinians are rejoicing in the terror they are causing. And Israel is afraid to hit back not just because of 'world opinion' but now also for fear of upsetting the Egyptians. Yet look at what the top 'World News' headline is at this very moment on Google News:

The Palestinians have now manipulated the western media to the extent that they simply cannot lose. No amount of rockets or terrorism they commit will even be reported any more, while even if Israel, does not respond (or restricts itself as it has done the last week to targeting only terrorists in the act of firing rockets) the media will say they are causing the problems.

The time has surely come for Israel to defend its citizens once and for all. Forget 'world opinion' which will damn Israel whether it acts or does not.

Dealing with anti-semitic hatred

A powerful piece by David Keyes at Israel Hayom highlights the inevitable consequences of Israel's decision to allow Hamas to thrive on its doorstep. Nothing comparable would be allowed by any other nation on earth.

FresnoZionism provides the details of how it was Egyptian soldiers who were guilty of murdering Israeli Officer Pascal Avrahami last week, providing further proof of how logic was turned upside down by Israel's bizarre apology. As he says:

Egypt should apologize and compensate Israel for the death of Avrahami. Of course this won’t happen. The rules in the Middle East say that Israel is always wrong, that Arabs are allowed to kill Jews with impunity, and that Israel should apologize for existing.

Barry Rubin talks about the anti-semitic conspiracy theories that dominate the Arab narrative.  He writes:

Then yesterday a correspondent wrote me asking if what an Arab professor told him was true: that most Arab leaders, including Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and also Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, were secretly Jewish.

Whenever a large number of Muslims feel animosity to any particular leader there is inevitably a widely-held conspiracy theory that the leader is either Jewish or funded by Israel. This is not restricted to Arabs in the Middle East. I know many supposedly intelligent Asian Muslims in the UK who, for example, are now convinced that Ghadaffi is a Jew. Three years ago I was shocked to see a documentary in which every student in the top private school in Kabul believed that George Bush was evil because he was a Jew. Yet I have since discovered that many Muslims in the UK are also convinced that Bush is a Jew.

Multicultural London 2011

Richard Millett reports on the demonstration that took place in London yesterday. It is clear that in 'multicultural' Britain the sensitivities of everyone are considered except those of Jews.

The casual anti-Israel, anti-semitism tsunami continues

While Israel is being bombarded by terrorists,  the casual world-wide anti-Israel tsunami continues, from boycotting Jewish owned chocolate shops in Australia to demonstrations in London against any attempt by Israel to stop terrorism. And you certainly cannot avoid it even if you stick to show business news. The Sunday Telegraph Magazine (that's the same Telegraph today which could not find space in its 500-odd pages for any mention of the unprecedented attacks against Israel) has a feature today on the actress Kirsten Dunst and look what is in the very first paragraph:

"The actress's latest film, Melancholia, was a favourite to win the Palme d'Or until its director Lars von Trier, joked during a press conference that he 'understood Hitler', adding, 'Israel is a pain in the ass'.

This actually happened in May (although I never read anything about it). After some google searching I discovered that von Trier was ejected from the festival, but only on account of his Hitler comments, not the fact that he had demonized an entire country.  And Dunst provides the following 'understanding' of von Trier:

"It came from a very dark and twisted sense of humour,..., obviously it is not something he actually believed".

In fact von Trier has stood by his 'Israel is a pain in the ass' comment but has half-heartedly apologised for describing himself as a Nazi. So that's all right then. And of course, the incident did not stop the Festival glorifying von Trier anyway - his film still picked up awards (including best actress for Dunst).

On a brighter note: there are a couple of showbiz people prepared to stand up for Israel (and have, of course, been accused of being loony right-wingers for doing so) in its time of need. Take a bow Glenn Beck and John Voight.

The media (and the Israeli government) have gone mad

When I reported Thursday that the media was adopting its usual anti-Israel bias in the reporting of the unprecedented terrorist attacks and subsequent rocket barrage (over 150 attacks on Southern Israel in the last 3 days  - live coverage of the continuing rocket bombardment in Israeli is here) even I did not expect the extent of how bad things would be. Take a look at today's Telegraph - the only serious newspaper in the UK that is supposedly 'sympathetic' to Israel (in fact, like the Sun, it has not been 'sympathetic' to Israel for several years now). Despite the fact that terrorists under the control of Iran are mounting an unprovoked war against Israel, the ONLY mention of Israel in its massive Sunday edition is a brief paragraph stating that Israel's 'killing of Egyptian security guards' has led to the Egyptian ambassador from Israel being recalled. No mention of the terrorist attacks; no mention of the death in Beersheba yesterday, no mention of the school destroyed or the fact that 20% of the entire Israeli population are in shelters unable to move. Nor does any of this information appear anywhere else in any Western media outlet at all (although, of course you will find plenty of mentions of Israel 'pounding Gaza', even though they are not this time - more of that below).

The incident with the Egyptians is well covered here and here. What is especially bizarre about this is that Ehud Barak - the worst politician in Israel's history - actually apologized to Egypt. Remember Barak is also the person who, before looking at the evidence, apologized for the  'killing' of Muhammed Al-dura in September 2000; although this was subsequently proved to be a hoax it directly led to a thousand Israeli civilians being murdered in the subsequent intifada and the entire Muslim world has been indoctrinated about the Al-dura myth. Barak's motives this time were the same as in 2000. He feels that apologising for something the Israelis were not responsible for is worth doing if it can 'help calm things down'.

But the ineptitude of the Israeli government extends beyond Barak. Now that it is clear the war launched last Thursday is being directed by Iran and its proxies Islamic Jihad (as opposed to Hamas) the government has decided to do nothing (presumably for fear of offending President Obama), and has abdicated from its responsibility to defend its citizens from attack. Even worse, it is actually relying on the Egyptian military to do its job for it in the Sinai now -  a move that is monumentally stupid on two accounts: 1) The Egyptians will not halt the terrorists, but will actually provide direct support to them and 2) It allows an Egyptian military presence in the Sinai, even though this breaches the conditions of the 1979 peace agreement, and hence ensures that within a short number of years Israel will be facing a Sinai war with Egypt.

These are very worrying times indeed, all the more so for the fact that Barak is in charge of Israel's defence.

Multiple terrorist attacks against Israel produce the usual media response

The multiple terrorist attacks against Southern Israel today have resulted so far in at least 8 dead Israelis, including an entire family in a car hit by an anti-tank missile. Although this is an enormous story, both because of the scale of the attacks and the fact that the terrorists came through (the now terrorist supporting) Egypt as well as Gaza, it is already clear that the Western media will be following the standard guidelines for reporting it (if they do at at all). So, for example, at 3.00pm (4 hours after the story broke) it did not appear at all on the BBC News website homepage, which listed the following items:

• A-level passes rise for 29th year
• Man arrested over phone hacking
• Man Utd to sell off stake in club
• Stock markets see further falls
• Funerals due for riot death men
• Libya rebels 'take' key refinery

Nor did the the story feature at all at that stage in Google News 'top stories'. Most revealing (albeit no longer surprising) is the fact that Haaretz (the idiotic left-wing Israel newspaper) was trying to convince readers in its first reports of the attacks (which it has now removed) that these were not terrorist attacks at all.

But at 5.45pm when Israel responded by killing the leader of the group in Gaza who  organized today's attacks, guess what news headline suddenly appeared on the BBC news home page? "Israel pounds Gaza after attacks". And Google news now had the headline (via the Guardian) "Israel launches Gaza air strikes in retaliation for Eilat attacks".

And of course, in stark contrast to the coverage of the Norway attack last month, you will certainly not be seeing in any of tomorrow's newspapers the names, let alone the life stories, of the Israeli victims.  Nor will there be either widespread condemnation of the perpetrators or of the Islamic indoctrination of anti-Semitic hatred which inspired the attacks. But no doubt there will be plenty of voices condemning Israel for daring to defend itself.

19 August update: The death toll is up to 9 from yesterday's attacks and the whole of Southern Israel is under rocket bombardment at the moment - 10 injured, for example, by rockets reaching as far north as Ashdod. Yet, true to form, the entire Western media is totally ignoring these acts of war. Not a word about yesterday's - or today's attacks - on ANY of the major TV and radio news channels this morning (I checked BBC, Sky News, LBC).

Demonsrations

Been in Israel for the past couple of weeks (hence lack of postings). Have been mingling with the demonstrators here (will post pictures etc when I return) and even joined the very big march on Saturday night (despite my severe misgivings about how this has all been controlled by hardline leftists). Very interesting to compare the peaceful nature of the demonsrators here (many of whom have genuine social grievances) with the violence now in the UK.