Writing The Wrongs: Cause and effect, reversed by the anti-Israel press

Wednesday, April 03, 2013

Cause and effect, reversed by the anti-Israel press

Clashes Resume Across Israel-Gaza Border as Tensions Mount
Israeli-Palestinian tensions rose sharply on Wednesday with a resumption of clashes over the Israel-Gaza border as Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails declared a three-day hunger strike to protest the death on Tuesday of a fellow inmate of cancer, a death that the Palestinians blamed on Israel.
In response to rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel, apparently in support of the Palestinian prisoners, the Israeli military said it carried out an airstrike in Gaza late Tuesday night, its first since a cease-fire that ended eight days of fierce cross-border fighting in November. Warplanes struck two open areas in northern Gaza, causing no damage or casualties.

The AP does it.

Israel, Gaza launch heaviest strikes since truce
Palestinian militants launched several rockets into southern Israel, as Israeli aircraft struck targets in the Gaza Strip early Wednesday in the heaviest exchange of fire between the sides since they agreed to an internationally brokered cease-fire in November.

Both news sources place the cause on Israel. The AP cites Israel first in the headline, and equates the launching of rockets from Gaza with the IDF retaliation for those rockets without noting that the IDF struck Gaza in direct response to terrorists launching rockets at Israeli civilians.

Palestinian terrorists in Gaza fired two Qassam rockets toward the western Negev Wednesday morning, as Israeli children in Sderot and Sha’ar Hanegev were making their way to schools and kindergartens after the Passover holiday. No injuries or damage were reported.

But the cause and effect are always reversed in the Bizarro World of reporting on Israel. As for the AP, well, they actually had the facts straight in their story last night, even if they do minimize the fact that terrorists continue to fire rockets at Israeli civilians.

Israeli planes strike Gaza after rocket fire
Israeli warplanes struck targets early Wednesday in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire toward southern Israel, the first air strikes launched by Israel since an informal cease-fire ended eight days of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hamas-ruled Gaza.
An Israeli military statement issued Wednesday said its planes targeted “two extensive terror sites” with “accurate hits.” Palestinian officials said no one was hurt in the air strikes and no damage was reported in northern Gaza.
The air raids followed the third successful rocket attack on Israel since the November cease-fire. The military reported that Gaza militants on Tuesday fired at least one rocket toward southern Israel. No one was hurt and no damage was caused. The attack was the first since rockets were fired during President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel two weeks ago.

But of course, a story without an anti-Israel narrative cannot be allowed to stand. Thus the update above, blaming Israel for drawing rocket fire from terrorists.
Just another day in the anti-Israel media machine.

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U.S. scholars' group votes in favor of academic boycott of Israel

US-Israeli talks focus on Ahmadinejad's possible ouster

Why reconstruct Gaza without making demands

Ted Belman

The US and EU are putting up $2.3 Billion to redevelop Gaza.

Before advancing any money, why don’t they insist

- that Shalit be release without convicted terrorists being released by Israel in exchange,

- that the US be put in charge of the southern border to ensure that Hamas isn’t rearmed?

- that their three preconditions be accepted by Hamas, i.e. agree to all former agreements,recognize Israel and renounce terror

- that Hamas amend their Charter

- That Hamas disconnect from Iran

The answer is that they don’t want to.

IDF: Civilian Deaths in Gaza Less than 25% of Total

A maximum of 25% of the Palestinians killed in Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli operation are innocent civilians, the head of the IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), Col. Moshe Levi, said Wednesday. According to Palestinian medical officials, Israel has killed some 1,000 Palestinians and more than half of them are civilians. Levi said the CLA had compiled a list with the names of 900 Palestinians killed during the fighting. He said that 150 names were of women, children and elderly, and that the maximum number of civilians killed so far was 250.
Levi also dismissed claims that 43 Palestinians were killed in an IDF attack on a Hamas terror cell that was firing mortars at Israeli forces from within an UNRWA school in Jabalya. Levi said 21 Palestinians were killed in the attack, including a number of Hamas operatives. (Jerusalem Post)

Iranian reformist daily:Hamas hiding forces in nurseries and hospitals

An Iranian reformist daily newspaper has criticized Hamas "for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals." This is reported in today's Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam. The Palestinian daily adds that in response the Iranian government has closed the newspaper.

The following is the story in today's Al-Ayyam:

Headline: "Iran closes a reformist newspaper, for publishing a report criticizing Hamas"

"The Iranian news agency "Irna" reported yesterday, that the Iranian Culture Ministry has closed the reformist daily newspaper "Karjo Zaran", because it published a report that included criticism of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
On December 30 the paper published a statement of a reformist student organization, that has criticized Hamas for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals. The statement was published whilst the Iranian government expresses a unified stands against Israel, and Tehran is overwhelmed by demonstrations against Israel."

[Al-Ayyam, Jan. 1, 2009]
Thanks PMW

Iran-backed Hamas Rocket, Mortar Attacks and Nuclear Developments

9,400+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2003. [1]
3,200+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza in 2008 alone. [2]
6,500+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. [3]
543+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israeli territory during the ceasefire from June 19 to Dec. 19, 2008. [4]
28 deaths caused by rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel since 2001. The dead include Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire ended, Iran-backed Palestinian groups in Gaza fired rockets and mortars that killed an Israeli-Arab construction worker and a mother of four who was seeking shelter in a bus station as a rocket warning siren sounded. [5]
1,000+ people in Israel injured from rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2001, including Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire, 44 Israelis have been injured and 200 have been treated for shock. [6]
Thanks Israel Project

It began with this...

The British Foreign Office, November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the
achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in
Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.2

Signed,
Arthur James Balfour
[Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs]

Syria is an Occupier-Are You Listening World?

Syria Occupies Lebanon. Again. - Bret Stephens (Wall Street Journal)

As of this minute, Syria occupies at least 177 square miles of Lebanese soil. That you are now reading about it for the first time is as much a scandal as the occupation itself.

The news comes by way of a fact-finding survey of the Lebanese-Syrian border just produced by the International Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, an American NGO that has consultative status with the UN. In meticulous detail - supplemented by photographs and satellite images - the authors describe precisely where and how Lebanon has been infiltrated.

Though the land grabs are small affairs individually, they collectively add up to an area amounting to about 4% of Lebanese soil - in U.S. terms, the proportional equivalent of Arizona. Of particular note is that the area of Syrian conquest dwarves that of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms which amount to an area of about 12 square miles.

It would be nice to see the Arab world protest this case of illegal occupation, given its passions about the subject.