Showing posts with label WTF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WTF. Show all posts

‘ISRAEL ARRESTING ANYONE DEEMED ANTI-ISRAEL

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FYI - For many years – Israel has been monitoring the social media accounts of pro-Palestinian activists. The Israeli government has a long track record of arresting Palestinians indiscriminately where they can and do detain every day Palestinian citizens in military prisons for up to 6 months without charge. But now they’re actually telling activists they will be arrested for posting content deemed to be “anti-Israel.”



 Last week, Mahmoud Asila from the Old City of al-Quds, was arrested for merely posting a pictureon Facebook that claimed he was in support of the attacks carried out by the Palestinians against the Israeli forces occurring in the West Bank.  Israel called this thought crime “incitement”.
Asila claims that he did, in fact, make the post but he was just voicing his freedom of speech online.
This is drawing plenty of criticism from human rights groups:
“The international law and the four Geneva conventions state that no government has the right to arrest people for their ideas or for what they publish on their pages. But Israel, which is not respecting any international law, will be preventing freedom of speech, especially in Jerusalem al-Quds, to keep controlling the city and humans leading the youth,” Bassem Eid, a human rights activist, told the Press TV correspondent.
But arresting Palestinians for thought crime and political dissidence is not new either.  The Israeli government has arrested Palestinian journalists, raided international news offices located in Palestine, or just flat out killed them.  Many of those journalists are just pointing out what the U.S. State Department described as “institutional discrimination” in its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012.
The growing criticism of the Israeli government is the result of a long campaign of ethnic cleansing wherein land is taken away from Palestinians to build “Jews only” homes.  When a country announces that it will be a sectarian state based on the religious values of one religion – history shows that does not end well.  The new “anti-terror bill,” proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Neyanyahu last Sunday, would do the following if passed according to Ynet – one of Israel’s largest news sources:
  • Anyone deemed to be a “terrorist” will be stripped of their citizenship and deported, including family members of those terrorists who claim support for them.
  • Anyone displaying the Palestinian flag or other flags deemed “terroristic” will be arrested and held without bail until trial.
  • If convicted of “terrorism” or “supporting terrorism” you will be denied national insurance benefits and lose your driver’s license for 10 years.
  • The homes of accused terrorists’ families will be demolished within 24 hours of the terrorist act.
  • Bodies of terrorists will not be delivered to their families, and will be buried in secret, without funeral rites.
  • Businesses that print anything supportive of “terrorism” will be immediately shut down.
  • Businesses can request a file on an employee and fire them for actions committed, even previous to their employment, that are deemed to be in support of “terrorism.”
Not only is this bill “collective punishment” for the families of those who would be accused, but there is no expectation of being found guilty in a court of law.  If you’re Palestinian – you do not have the right to confront your accuser in a court of law … meanwhile – Jewish settlers living next door on illegal settlements receive all of the rights given to them under Israeli law.  To the Israeli government – all of those who would resist the government’s 47 year military occupation are considered “terrorists”.  The Israeli Prime Minister – Bibi Netanyahu – has called kids throwing rocks “terrorists” and helped pass a law that would give 20 years in prison to anyone found guilty of throwing rocks (but not if you’re Jewish).
Any criticism of Israel is considered anti-semitic in nature; meanwhile – in Israel any public calls for genocide of Palestinians are openly accepted and embraced.  Some examples are this Facebook page calling for the murder of a Palestinian “every hour” HERE, this Israeli lawmaker’s call for genocide on Facebook HERE, the blog approved in the Times of Israel called “When genocide is permissible” HERE, the statement on Facebook by the deputy speaker of the Knesset – Moshe Feiglin – to force Palestinians into concentration camps and to exterminate all of those who do not go HERE.  To date – zero individuals mentioned above have even been questioned by the police for their incitement of genocide.
And on the backdrop of all of this is a bill that passed by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinetwhich would call for Israel as a state for the Jewish people and would create an even more obvious distance between the rights of Jews in Israel and everyone else.  Even the Israeli President – Reuven Rivlin – has adamantly opposed it.  As he told the Guardian:
“But not only is the proposed law unnecessary, it is harmful. A quarter of Israel’s population is not Jewish, and probably the most important item on the nation’s agenda should be their integration into the fabric of Israeli society and their participation in the Israeli economy. Giving them the feeling of being at home, of being equal citizens.”
 “Israel is a Jewish and democratic state and all its citizens should enjoy equal rights. We expect Israel to stick to its democratic principles,” said Jeff Rathke, a state department spokesman.
This caused Israel’s economy minister and leader of the nationalist Jewish Home party, Mr. Naftali Bennett, to say via Israel Radio:
 “I say to the Americans: we will manage the matters of the state of Israel ourselves.”
Perhaps Mr. Bennett is suggesting that the United States discontinue the economic and military aidit has been giving the country since 1948, when it first introduced its Declaration of Independence. To date, the U.S. has given Israel over 233 billion dollars (adjusted for inflation), and comprises 1/3rd of the entire annual foreign aid budget.





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If America can do this for Israel, why can’t other countries (i.e Saudi Arabia and Egypt) in the Middle East do the same for Palestinians?

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By the way, has anyone seen the Palestinian Authority recently?

The Obama administration’s $225 million request to aid Israel during its war with Hamas may not be enough, warned Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday afternoon.
 
At the request of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Senate Democrats folded $225 million for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system into a larger bill that offers $2.7 billion in emergency funding to deal with the influx of Central American migrants to the southern border. But Reid said Israel will need even more help from the United States if the war in Gaza continues, demonstrating the need to pass the funding package this week ahead of a five-week congressional recess.
 
Reid predicted that Hagel’s aid request for Israel may turn out to be “only temporary” given the steep costs associated with operating Iron Dome, which picks off Hamas’s rockets at a price-tag of $62,000 per missile, according to Reid.
 
(Also on POLITICO: Susan Rice: Gaza death toll 'alarming')
 
“We should not give the Israeli people the minimum amount of aid and then cross our fingers and hope it all works out in the future,” Reid said. “We can do better and need to go further in protecting Israel.”
 
Delivering money to Israel during its pitched conflict with Hamas is sure to receive bipartisan support in Congress, but Democrats’ attempts to tie $2.7 billion in border funding, $615 million for wildfires and the Iron Dome money has not yet moved Republicans to support the $3.57 billion package.
 
Instead the GOP is pushing a standalone bill containing $225 million for Israel, hoping to bypass Democratic attempts to tie the border bill to Iron Dome funding.
Lawmakers Scramble To Seal $225 Million Aid Package For Israel
 
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats and Republicans in Congress vowed urgent support Tuesday for a $225 million missile defense package for Israel, boosting the likelihood that legislation will clear Congress before lawmakers begin a monthlong vacation at week's end.
 
"Let's stop playing games," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., calling the assistance a necessity for the "life-or-death struggle Israel faces."
 
Graham and other supporters made their comments as Israel unleashed its heaviest bombardment yet in the four-week war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. At least 1,200 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 100 Tuesday, according to Palestinian health officials. Israel has reported more than 50 soldiers and three civilians killed.
 
Amid a daily barrage of Palestinian rocket fire, Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system has been credited with knocking hundreds of missiles out of the sky. While the Obama administration has pressed for a cease-fire, it also has backed Israel's desire to replenish its missile defense stockpiles. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel extended Israel's request to Congress last week.

 
Despite Growing International Condemnation, No End to Gaza Violence in Sight
 
DESVARIEUX: Alright. And, Phyllis, the UN on Sunday, the UN Security Council, they decided to actually call for a ceasefire. But, obviously, we don't have one. Why didn't it work?
 
BENNIS: Well, there's a couple of reasons. The broad reason is that the Security Council right now, because of the U.S. veto and threat of veto, is rather paralyzed, is not in a position to enforce anything against Israel, because the U.S. won't allow it. The technical reason is that the decision that they made at midnight or so on Sunday night was not to pass a resolution at all, but simply to issue what's known as a presidential statement, which is a statement reflecting the unanimous views of the council members but that has no authority, no enforcement, no force of international law. It's what they do when the U.S. vetoes or someone else vetoes (mostly it's the U.S.) or threatens to veto and they don't want the U.S. to have to get up publicly and say, we are hereby vetoing a call for a ceasefire.
 
How Did Israel Learn How to Spin Its Disastrous Deadly Policies? From a GOP Pollster, Naturally
The slickness of Israel's spokesmen is rooted in directions set down by pollster Frank Luntz.
 
Israeli spokesmen have their work cut out explaining how they have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, compared with just three civilians killed in Israel by Hamas rocket and mortar fire. But on television and radio and in newspapers, Israeli government spokesmen such as Mark Regev appear slicker and less aggressive than their predecessors, who were often visibly indifferent to how many Palestinians were killed. 
 
There is a reason for this enhancement of the PR skills of Israeli spokesmen. Going by what they say, the playbook they are using is a professional, well-researched and confidential study on how to influence the media and public opinion in America and Europe. Written by the expert Republican pollster and political strategist Dr Frank Luntz, the study was commissioned five years ago by a group called The Israel Project, with offices in the US and Israel, for use by those "who are on the front lines of fighting the media war for Israel". 
 
Every one of the 112 pages in the booklet is marked "not for distribution or publication" and it is easy to see why. The Luntz report, officially entitled "The Israel project's 2009 Global Language Dictionary, was leaked almost immediately to Newsweek Online, but its true importance has seldom been appreciated. It should be required reading for everybody, especially journalists, interested in any aspect of Israeli policy because of its "dos and don'ts" for Israeli spokesmen. 
 
These are highly illuminating about the gap between what Israeli officials and politicians really believe, and what they say, the latter shaped in minute detail by polling to determine what Americans want to hear. Certainly, no journalist interviewing an Israeli spokesman should do so without reading this preview of many of the themes and phrases employed by Mr Regev and his colleagues.
 
Media Hype and Gaza's 'Terror' Tunnels
 
The Times story even notes: "As part of the propaganda push, the military has also invited a few journalists underground for a tour."
 
That is revealing, since the only thing missing from these nightmarish scenarios of terrorists emerging from the ground to kill innocents is any evidence that anything like this has ever happened. The Times story quotes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying the "sole purpose" of the tunnels "is the destruction of our civilians and the killing of our children." But have there been any such attacks?
 
Journalist and media critic Greg Mitchell has posed this question on his blog (Pressing Issues, 7/29/14), where he reports that CNN's Jake Tapper responded to his queries on Twitter by noting that all of the the tunnel deaths he was aware of have been Israeli military.
 
Palestinian deaths, military and civilian (Intercept)Glenn Greenwald (Intercept, 7/29/14) notes  that the Israel–often credited in US media with taking great care to avoid civilian casualties–has actually killed three noncombatant for every "militant." Meanwhile, only 5 percent of the much smaller number of deaths caused by Palestinian fighters have been civilians, even though Hamas's disregard for innocent life is taken for granted by US journalists.
 
The Right-Wing Agenda Propelling False Claims of Christian Persecution
How right-wing hacks created a sect of victims.
 
If you only consumed the Fox News Network or books penned by Fox “journalists,” you could be forgiven for believing that the streets of America run red with the blood of Christian martyrs or that Bibles are being burned in the streets of San Francisco by marauding atheists.  The claims of religious persecution are laughable even on cursory examination, but this slice of American self-delusion can no longer be ignored.  The manufactured war on Christians provides cover for fundamentalist to perpetrate actualdiscrimination, against gay people, religious minorities and women.  With the latest decision from the Supreme Court creating religious rights for billon-dollar corporations like Hobby Lobby, this wholesale nonsense has gone beyond anyone’s capacity to ignore.
 
To understand the rise of the Christian victim myth, one must trace it to the source: Fox News and especially its affiliated radio and book empire.  Even among the intellectually atrophied, there are a few who stand out for being worse than the rest.  At Fox News, I would argue it’s the trifecta of Mike Huckabee, Sean Hannity and my personal favorite (and the main subject of this post), Todd Starnes.  To understand the creation of the religious victimization myth, I thoroughly examined Starnes’ latest polemic: “God Less America: Real Stories From the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values.”  Forwarded by Huckabee and promoted by Hannity, this Fox News corporate product captures everything that is wrong, untrue and stupid about this ongoing narrative.
 
Is the FBI Creating Terrorists to Pad Counterterrorism Conviction Rates?
 
In addition, there is a good chance that, without the government's active participation, many of those ensnared by the government did not have the mental or intellectual capacity to plan, finance and/or carry out a terrorist event.
 
"Americans have been told that their government is keeping them safe by preventing and prosecuting terrorism inside the US," said Andrew Prasow, Human Rights Watch's deputy Washington director, in a statement. "But take a closer look and you realize that many of these people would never have committed a crime if not for law enforcement encouraging, pressuring, and sometimes paying them to commit terrorist acts."
 
According to the report, entrapment, or what smells like entrapment, is writ large over several of the cases. However, the report points out that proving entrapment is not an easy task for defendants: "In theory, the defendants in these cases should be able to avoid criminal liability by making a claim of 'entrapment.' However, US law requires that to prove entrapment a defendant show both that the government induced him to commit the act in question and that he was not 'predisposed' to commit it. This predisposition inquiry focuses attention on the defendant's background, opinions, beliefs, and reputation — in other words, not on the crime, but on the nature of the defendant. This character inquiry makes it exceptionally difficult for a defendant to succeed in raising the entrapment defense, particularly in the terrorism context, where inflammatory stereotypes and highly charged characterizations of Islam and foreigners often prevail. Indeed, no claim of entrapment has been successful in a US federal terrorism case to date. European human rights law—instructive for interpreting internationally recognized fair trial rights — suggests that the current formulation of the US defense of entrapment may not comport with fair trial standards."
 
"Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in US Terrorism Prosecutions" also "documented the following patterns that raise serious human rights concerns":

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Israel Murders IDF Soldier to Prevent His Capture

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By Richard Silverstein
Sgt. Guy Levy of the armored corps, killed July 26, 2014 by the IDF to prevent his capture
I’ve devoted a good deal of my life to Israel.  I’ve studied, read, visited, lived, breathed it.  Not in the way diehard pro-Israel fanatics do.  But in a different way that matched my own intellectual and political proclivities.  It’s a subject that is rich, varied, troubling, bedeviling, and exhilarating.  But every once in a while I learn something I never thought possible; and I don’t mean this in a good way.
Tonight, my Israeli source informed me that Sgt. Guy Levy, serving in the armored corps, was captured by Hamas fighters.  He had been part of a joint engineering-armored-combat unit searching for tunnels.  Troops entered a structure and discovered a tunnel.  Suddenly, out of the shaft sprang two militants who dragged one of the soldiers into it.  By return fire, one of the Palestinians was killed, while the other fled, presumably with the soldier.
This Israeli report, which was censored by the IDF, says only that the attempt to capture the soldier failed.  It says nothing about his fate.  The expectation of anyone reading it would be that the soldier was freed.  But he was not.  In order to prevent the success of the operation, the IDF killed him.  Nana reports that the IDF fired a tank shell into the building, which is the same way another captured soldier was killed by the IDF during Cast Lead.
I would presume that once the militant fled into the tunnel with his prisoner that the IDF destroyed the tunnel and entombed those within it, including the soldier.  I would also presume that the IDF knows he is dead because they retrieved his body.
To the uninitiated this will seem a terribly strange, uncivilized, even immoral act.  But that’s where I learned something I’d never known before about the IDF.  There is an unwritten secret regulation written by the IDF High Command, but nowhere codified in writing.  Its existence is protected by military censorship.  Journalists have rarely written about it.  When they have it’s usually been in code or by inference.
It’s called the Hannibal Directive.  Though the Wikipedia article doesn’t explain the reference to Hannibal, I assume it relates to the death of the great Carthaginian general, who took poison rather than allow himself to be captured by his mortal enemy, the Romans.  Though Sara Leibovich-Dar wrote in 2003 that the name came from a military computer!
In my long history of dedication to this subject, I’ve rarely seen anything that has disturbed me as much.  The Hannibal Directive is:
…A secret directive of the Israel Defense Forces with the purpose of preventing Israeli soldiers being captured by enemy forces in the course of combat.
…The order, drawn up in 1986 by a group of top Israeli officers, states that at the time of a kidnapping the main mission becomes forcing the release of the abducted soldiers from their kidnappers, even if that means injury to Israeli soldiers.
The order allows commanders to take whatever action is necessary, including endangering the life of an abducted soldier, to foil the abduction…
As happens so often in these cases, an IDF commander instrumental in drafting the order denied the horrific logic of the directive and then offered an example of how he would proceed which only confirmed it:
In a rare interview by one of the authors of the directive, Yossi Peled…denied that it implied a blanket order to kill Israeli soldiers rather than let them be captured by enemy forces. The order only allowed the army to risk the life of a captured soldier, not to take it. “I wouldn’t drop a one-ton bomb on the vehicle, but I would hit it with a tank shell”, Peled was quoted saying. He added that he personally “would rather be shot than fall into Hizbullah captivity.”
In other words, the IDF will do almost everything in its power to prevent capture of its soldiers including killing him.  It might not put a bullet directly in his brain, but it would certainly shell a home or vehicle in which he was situated.
Perhaps there’s a lingering bit of the liberal Zionist I once was here, but I’d always heard that Israel never leaves a soldier behind.  It does everything possible to bring all its troops home, and once captured does everything possible to retrieve or free them.
All this time I was sorely mistaken.  When all hope is lost of liberating the soldier from captivity, he dies.  What’s equally disturbing is that the existence of the directive is an open secret.  Commanders warn their soldiers that no one may be captured and that if you are you must commit suicide.  If you can’t do that, then they will do their best to kill you.  Perhaps they don’t articulate it precisely in those words, but that’s the clear intent.
Lest you think Hannibal is a theoretical regulation, it has been implemented before and captured soldiers have been killed by the IDF.  Most recently it happened during Operation Cast Lead:
During the war there was a case where the Hannibal directive was invoked. An Israeli soldier was shot and injured by a Hamas fighter during a search of a house in one of the neighborhoods of Gaza. The wounded soldiers’ comrades evacuated the house due to fears that it was booby-trapped. According to testimony by soldiers who took part in the incident the house was then shelled to prevent the wounded soldier from being captured by Hamas.
You have every right to ask: what soldier in his right mind would follow such an order.  There are thankfully examples of ones who refused.  But there are a number who didn’t including the tank commander who fired on his comrade in that home in Gaza, killing him.
You also have a right to ask how the IDF could approve such a regulation.  The answer is it didn’t.  It has never been vetted by military lawyers.  If it had been, the High Command might’ve been told it was an illegal, immoral directive which had no standing.  Then the IDF would have to implement an order its highest legal authorities had deemed treif.  That would never do.  So neither the generals, nor the Judge Advocate has ever delved into the matter.  It is yet another example of the national security state refusing to examine the deepest, most troubling principles on which it is based.
Implementation of the Hannibal Directive comes on the heels of the freeing of Gilad Shalit after five years in captivity.  The nation freed 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in order to release Shalit.  Israeli hardliners screamed bloody murder about freeing murderers with blood on their hands.  Some said it would have been better if Shalit had died rather than face this ignominy.
I believe that Benny Gantz and Bibi Netanyahu aren’t prepared to go through such a trauma again.  They believe their constituency would understand if they killed a soldier rather than lose him to capture.  Let’s make no mistake about this: it is a purely political calculation.  A nakedly, cynical political calculation.  It suggests that the interests of the nation trump the life of the individual.  These are considerations of an authoritarian state and not a democratic one.  A democracy values the individual.  It recognizes that the nation cannot exist without the individual.  Even that the nation should not exist unless it respects and values that individual.
The Hannibal Directive perverts such principles.  It embraces a fascist perspective in which the individual is subsumed within the mass.  He has no specific individual value unless he is serving the interest of the nation.  And his interests may, when necessary be sacrificed to the greater good.
I thank Dvorit Shargel for raising an important, and thorny issue. She implored me to consider the trauma of Levy’s family hearing their son was killed not by Palestinian fire, which would be painful enough, but by his own comrades.
It’s very doubtful the IDF would tell the family the truth unless it had no other choice. So then the question is, should we allow the IDF to lie just to cover up the use of the Hannibal directive and allow the family to believe he was killed by the enemy instead of his own?
My answer to this reluctantly is No. The greatest good is served by transparency. By knowing the truth, telling the truth, forcing everyone involved to explain what they did and why. Secrecy and pandering helps no one, even the dead soldiers’s family. I am sorry if this causes them added suffering. But blaming me is blaming the messenger not the real culprit.
Here is some of the discussion around the matter conducted by military ethicists (if there can be such a thing):
Dr. Avner Shiftan, an army physician with the rank of major, came across the Hannibal directive while on reserve duty in South Lebanon in 1999. In army briefings he “became aware of a procedure ordering soldiers to kill any IDF soldier if he should be taken captive by Hizbullah. This procedure struck me as being illegal and not consistent with the moral code of the IDF. I understood that it was not a local procedure but originated in the General Staff, and had the feeling that a direct approach to the army authorities would be of no avail, but would end in a cover-up.” He contacted Asa Kasher, the Israeli philosopher noted for his authorship of Israel Defense Forces’ Code of Conduct, who “found it difficult to believe that such an order exists,” since this “is wrong ethically, legally and morally”. He doubted that “there is anyone in the army” believing that `better a dead soldier than an abducted soldier’.
On this point however Asa Kasher was apparently wrong. In 1999 the IDF Chief of StaffShaul Mofaz said in an interview with Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth: “In certain senses, with all the pain that saying this entails, an abducted soldier, in contrast to a soldier who has been killed, is a national problem.” Asked whether he was referring to cases like Ron Arad (an Air Force navigator captured in 1986) and Nachshon Wachsman (an abducted soldier killed in 1994 in a failed rescue attempt), he replied “definitely, and not only.”
The legality of the order has never formally been examined by the IDF’s legal department. According to Prof. Emanuel Gross, from the Faculty of Law at the University of Haifa:…”Orders like that have to go through the filter of the Military Advocate General’s Office, and if they were not involved that is very grave,” he says. “The reason is that an order that knowingly permits the death of soldiers to be brought about, even if the intentions were different, carries a black flag and is a flagrantly illegal order that undermines the most central values of our social norms.
I hate to harp on this, but liberal Zionists enjoy claiming Israel is a nation of laws.  That it upholds the rule of law.  But this is clearly not the case.  No democratic nation would permit such a directive after undergoing legal review.  So the answer in Israel is simply to prevent it from undergoing any such review.  It allows the flourishing of a secret code that governs critical aspects of the Israeli military.
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#WTF : Israeli ambassador Dermer who must have been high at the time suggests that the IDF deserves Nobel Peace Prize for ‘unimaginable restraint’

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Addressing Christian supporters, ambassador to the US says ‘Israeli soldiers are dying so that innocent Palestinians can live’

Times of Israel

The Israeli army should be given the Nobel Peace Prize for its “unimaginable restraint” in Gaza, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, said Tuesday.

During an address at the Christians United for Israel Summit in Washington, Dermer was interrupted several times by hecklers, but delivered a passionate and warmly received speech in defense of Operation Protective Edge, calling Iran the “Great Evil” and accusing the United Nations and human rights groups of inadvertently aiding Hamas in its war against Israel.

“Some are shamelessly accusing Israel of genocide and would put us in the dock for war crimes,” Dermer said. “But the truth is that the Israeli Defense Forces should be given the Nobel Peace Prize… a Nobel Peace Prize for fighting with unimaginable restraint.”

Dermer’s comments followed a statement issued by Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, who on Sunday said that the IDF is the “most humane and bravest army in the world.”

During World War II, the British army responded to German attacks with the “carpet bombing of German cities,” Dermer said. While he was unwilling to criticize the United Kingdom for doing so, he continued, “at the same time, I will not accept, and no one should accept, criticism of Israel for acting with restraint that has not been shown and would not be shown by any nation on earth. I especially will not tolerate criticism of my country at a time when Israeli soldiers are dying so that innocent Palestinians can live.”

At that point in Dermer’s speech, given to a packed auditorium of Christian Israel supporters, he was interrupted by hecklers. “There is a section for moral idiots at the back of the room,” he responded, according to a transcript of the speech posted to his Facebook page.

“Israel did not have to send its soldiers into many of the places they are fighting today. We could have given people time to evacuate these areas — which we did anyway — and then bombed from the air all the buildings that were being used by fighters to store and fire weapons. But we didn’t. As we have done time after time, we are sending our soldiers into this hornet’s nest of Palestinian terror that is booby-trapped with mines and riddled with subterranean tunnels.”

Israel has been harshly criticized for the high number of casualties in Gaza during the current conflict with Hamas. More than 580 people, many of them civilians, have been killed since the IDF launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8, according to Palestinian sources. Israel has lost 27 soldiers in its effort to end rocket fire from terrorists in Gaza, thwart Hamas “attack tunnels” and restore calm to Israel’s cities.

Rather than censure, Dermer said, Israel deserves the international community’s admiration, as no army in history has taken greater care than the IDF to protect innocents.

Observers of the conflict should keep in mind the “moral difference” between Israel and Hamas, the US-born Israeli diplomat said. “It is a battle between a compassionate country that’s dropping leaflets, making phone calls and sending text messages to save Palestinian civilians, and a brutal terror organization that uses hospitals as military command centers, manufactures rockets next to mosques and turns UN schools into weapons depots.”

Hamas is “doing everything to put Palestinian civilians into harm’s way – by ignoring IDF warnings to evacuate, by forcing Palestinians to serve as human shields, and by placing missile batteries next to playgrounds, hospitals and homes,” he said. “And you know why Hamas is doing this? It’s not only because of the evil they represent – and it may not be politically correct, but they are evil. After all, an organization that is capable of producing scores of suicide bombers doesn’t care a whit about Palestinian civilians losing their lives.

“But Hamas also uses its strategy of human shields because it works… Because time after time, when Palestinian civilians die, when those heart-wrenching pictures of women and children appear on television – pictures that would move any decent human being – the blame is placed on Israel and the pressure is put on Israel.”

The IDF, on the other hand, is doing everything to get Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way, said Dermer, a close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Current Government of Egypt: If your a spy for Israel you can enter Gaza if not go home

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Egypt turns back Tunisian plane loaded with medical supplies for Gaza

TUNIS, (PIC)-- Head of Tunisia's al-Nahda party Rashid al-Ghannoushi revealed on Monday night that Egypt has refused to receive a Tunisian plane bound for Gaza loaded with medicines and medical supplies.
Al-Ghannoushi told Al-Jazeera TV network that the Egyptian authorities had refused to allow the plane to land at the airport nearest to the Gaza Strip, pointing out that it was carrying medical supplies badly needed in the beleaguered Strip.
The plane was supposed to fly back injured people who sustained serious wounds during the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza to receive treatment in Tunisia, he explained.
Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki had declared a week ago his country's intention to send a plane carrying medicines and medical supplies for Gaza Strip.
Along the same line, the Egyptian authorities continued to prevent a team of European specialized surgeons from having access to Gaza despite possessing the needed papers for that.
Dr. Mohammed Abu Nada, coordinator for the Forum of Palestinian Doctors in Europe, told Quds Press on Tuesday that they have been prevented by Egyptian army from entering into Gaza for the fifth day despite having official permits allowing their access.
The FPDE delegation includes a number of general surgeons in addition to surgeons specialized in vascular surgery and pediatric surgery.
583 Palestinians were killed and 3640 injured in 15 days of Israeli ferocious pounding of the besieged enclave. Hundreds of homes, hospitals, mosques, and schools were demolished during the Israeli airstrikes, navy shelling, and artillery bombardment.

Related:
Members of UAE 'aid convoy' revealed as intelligence agents - See more at: 


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Video of Israeli sniper killing wounded civilian

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Yesterday, international and Palestinian volunteers accompanied Civil Defence and other rescue crews, as well as family members, into Shajiya neighbourhood in Gaza. They attempted to locate survivors of overnight and ongoing shelling by the Israeli army. A young Palestinian man in a green shirt hoped to find his family. He was shot by an Israeli soldier while crossing an alley between buildings. Two additional rounds struck him as he lay injured on the ground. His dead body could not be retrieved.
The ambulance shown in the video was shelled by the Israeli military, killing paramedic Faud Jaber.
Dr Mona el-Farra of the Red Crescent Society in Gaza told ISM that, “The Israeli military  is targeting medical facilities. 77% of medical facilities in Gaza have sustained damage, some of which have been completely destroyed.”
“They said we would be able to evacuate the injured from the disaster zone, but they have been shelling ambulances,” stated Dr Khalil Abu Foul of the Palestinian Red Crescent, speaking from Shajiya.
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#WTF Egypt denies entry of doctors to help Gaza but phony UAE 'aid convoy with intelligence spies was let in

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Egypt denies entry of Jordanian medical delegation  into Gaza

AMMAN, (PIC)-- Egyptian authorities have denied on Sunday the entry of a Jordanian medical delegation into Gaza Strip via Rafah crossing.
The delegation includes five Jordanian doctors who reached Cairo on Friday en route to Gaza to participate in the treatment of the growing number of injuries as a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the besieged enclave.
The delegation was carrying medical equipment and devices offered by the Jordanian Committee to support the health sector in the Gaza Strip.
The delegates said that the Egyptian authorities barred their entry along with other Arab and foreign doctors.

 Meanwhile Members of UAE 'aid convoy' revealed as intelligence agents that Egypt let in - See more at: 
http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.com.tr/2014/07/busted-members-of-uae-aid-convoy.html
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Israeli scholar says if you want to beat the Palestinians rape their sister's or mother's

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Israeli scholar: ‘Raping sister of Palestinian will deter him’

Dr. Mordechai Keidar, a lecturer on Arabic literature at Bar Ilan University, is well known for his right wing views. Yet today in an interview [Heb] to the Israeli Broadcasting authority given after the finding of the three bodies of Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah (July 1, 2014), he showed what he believes to be the truth about “Middle Eastern culture.”
Keidar: “A terrorist, like those who kidnapped the boys and killed them, the only thing that will deter them, is if they know that either their sister or mother will be raped if they are caught. What can we do? This is the culture that we live in –“
Interviewer, Yossi Hadar: “—Yes, this sounds bad, but…”
Keidar: “It sounds very bad, but this is a lesson. This is the Middle East. Only the knowledge that –
Hadar: “Well, we can’t do things like this –“
Keidar: “I’m telling you, I’m talking about them, I’m not talking about what we can do or not do. I’m telling you what they live in. This is the only thing that deters a suicide bomber. If he knows that when he pulls the trigger, or blows himself up, his sister will be raped. That’s it. That’s the only thing that will bring him back home, to keep the honor of his sister. This is the culture of the Middle East. I didn’t create it, but this is the situation.”
It’s important to point out that Kedar is the chairman of Israel Academia Monitor, a watchdog group that tries to blacklist post and anti-Zionist academics in Israel who speak out against government policies or the state.

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Mothers of all Palestinians must be killed Says A Israeli MP

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A well-known Israeli politician and parliament member has branded  Palestinians as terrorists, saying mothers of all Palestinians should also be killed during the ongoing Israeli assault on the besieged Gaza Strip.

Ayelet Shaked of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party called for the slaughter of Palestinian mothers who give birth to "little snakes."

"They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists," Shaked said, adding, "They are all our enemies and their blood should be on our hands. This also applies to the mothers of the dead terrorists.”

The remarks are considered as a call for genocide as she declared that all Palestinians are Israel's enemies and must be killed. 

The development comes as many officials from various countries have slammed Israel's  airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. The Turkish prime minister is the latest to condemn the offensive, accusing Israel of massacring the Palestinians.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has lashed out at Israel, saying it is committing state terrorism against the Palestinians in the region. Speaking in parliament, he also questioned the world’s silence toward Tel Aviv’s ongoing atrocities.

Reacting to Shaked's remarks, the Turkish premier said Israel's policy in Gaza is no different than Hitler's mentality.

"An Israeli woman said Palestinian mothers should be killed, too. And she's a member of the Israeli parliament. What is the difference between this mentality and Hitler's?" Erdogan asked.

The developments come as the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has recently said women and children make up a sizeable number of Palestinian fatalities caused by Israeli attacks on the besieged region.

Press TV
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U.S lawmakers boost funding for Israel's Iron Dome to the tune of 621.6 million and that's for a 1 year

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A Senate panel on Tuesday approved a 50 percent funding boost for Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system.

The measure, if it becomes law, would provide $621.6 million for Israeli missile defense programs for the 2015 fiscal year starting in October, including $351 million for the short-range Iron Dome system that has been put to the test over the past eight days.

Congress appropriated $235 million to Iron Dome last year.

The White House had requested about $176 million for the system for 2015, but lawmakers doubled the amount. Congress often increases funding for Israeli security projects sought by the president.

The funding is part of the administration's request of $3.1 billion for military assistance to Israel, the world's largest beneficiary of US foreign aid.

In May, the House of Representatives adopted its own National Defense Authorization Act, which matches the Senate's Iron Dome funding proposal.

The Senate measure is part of an overall Defense Department spending bill backed by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Tuesday that commits $549.3 billion to military operations for 2015.

The package keeps several Pentagon projects that had been on the chopping block, including the tank-killing A-10 planes Senator John McCain described as "the best close-air support weapon in our nation's arsenal."

The measure still has to be approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee and the full Senate.
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Israeli Settler Leader Defends Right to Displace Indigenous Using American Tax Dollars

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Israeli Settlers: Patriots or Invaders?

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Argentine Born Settler in Israel Leader Dani Dayan discusses whether Israeli Settlements are a Natural Extension of Israeli State or Obstacle to Peace


A UN report says Israeli settlements violate human rights and could be prosecuted as war crimes, but many Israeli settlers consider themselves patriots. So what hope is there for peace in the Middle East?

 In a country where settlers are now one of the biggest and strongest political movements, Dani Dayan, a Netanyahu advisor and the outgoing chairman of the Yesha (Settlers) Council, says there is no two-state solution to the conflict and that he is happy with the status quo.
karmi1Dayan has been a major in the Israeli army, a successful IT entrepreneur, and a University lecturer. In 1999 he became an executive committee member of the Yesha Council, which represents the settler movement, and in 2007, its chairman until February 2013. He completely revitalised the movement until his resignation to campaign openly for Binyamin Netanyahu.
Mehdi Hasan goes head to head with Dayan at the Oxford Union, discussing whether Zionism is a colonialist project, whether the so-called apartheid roads are just an urban legend – and more importantly, what is the solution to this protracted conflict?
Dayan claims settlements are irreversible but preaches in favour of dismantling the wall. With a lively audience and robust debate from the expert panel, Head to Head is tackling the hard issues surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Are the settlements a natural extension of the Israeli state or the single biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East? Will the Palestinians ever be able to build an independent and viable state?
Joining the discussion above on  Al-Jazerra are: Dr Ghada Karmi, an academic and the author of The Palestinian Exodus (1999), In Search for Fatima (2002), and Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine (2007); Sam Westrop, a former director of the British Israel Coalition, and a fellow of the New York-based Gatestone Institute; and Hannah Weisfeld, the director of Yachad, a pro-peace, pro-Israel NGO based in London.
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