Beware of 'Pallywood' Magic

IPT News

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3816/beware-of-pallywood-magic

Fighting between Palestinian terrorists in Gaza and Israeli troops all but guarantees civilian casualties. With the fighting comes heart-wrenching photos of the dead and wounded, along with their grieving loved ones.
Each death represents a human tragedy.
But sometimes, reality is not enough. Some Palestinians have been caught faking images or appropriating them from other conflicts. This form of propaganda has been dubbed "Pallywood," and the nascent conflict already has several examples.
Tablet Magazine's Adam Chandler exposed one, a terrible image of a grieving father holding his dead child as mournful doctors look on helplessly. Hamas's military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigade, sent the picture out on Twitter. It's a dead child all right, but it took place in Syria, not Gaza, and had nothing to do with this week's violence.
It's powerful to see the wounded being rushed into ambulances, and in the crucial battle for public sympathy, some Palestinians put on a show for international news cameras, as the web site Honest Reporting shows in this video.
The video shows a Palestinian in a beige jacket being hustled away due to an apparent injury following an Israeli airstrike. Moments later, it appears the same Palestinian has miraculously recovered.

Mainstream Media's Equivalenc​e Game

Leo Rennert

Here we go again. Four years ago, during and after Israel's antiterrorist counteroffensive in Gaza, mainstream media reported that more than 1,000 Palestinians were killed, while Israeli fatalities were only a miniscule fraction of that total. This left readers and viewers with a distinct impression that Israel had used excessive force. Israel, in effect, was depicted as the brutal Goliath against an outgunned David. 

The reality, however, was quite different. Israel was engaged in an asymmetrical conflict in which Palestinian terrorist groups deliberately targeted civilians, while Israel was bending over backwards to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties. As a result, most Palestinian fatalities were combatants, while most Israeli fatalities were civilians, or noncombatants. This distinction, however, was never made clear to readers and viewers because mainstream media simply lumped together combatants and noncombatant fatalities in a single total figure. 

Into The Fray: Aargh!!!

By MARTIN SHERMAN, JPOST
Despite the deadly display of hi-tech pyro-technics by the IDF, the depressing sense of déjà vu conveyed by the events unfolding in Gaza comprise a devastating indictment of Israel’s past and present political leadership.

Aargh: A word that proclaims sorrow, annoyance, anger, depression, hopelessness – The Urban Dictionary.

Watching the morning newscasts and the spectacle of Israelis scuttling to shelter from incoming projectiles, launched by implacable enemies, from areas voluntarily ceded them by a democratically elected government, which reneged on an election pledge not to do so, it was difficult not to succumb to the urge to yell: Aargh!!! For the sorrow, anger and hopelessness was almost overwhelming.

But worse – much worse – was to come.

CAIR Civil Rights Manager Endorses Hamas Terrorism Against Israel

Daniel Greenfield

Cyrus McGoldrick is CAIR’s Civil Rights Manager in New York and a product of Columbia’s notorious Middle Eastern Studies department.

CAIR already has extensive links to Hamas, so it’s no surprise that during the Hamas attacks on Israel, McGoldrick’s Twitter account began trending Hamas’ way.

Cyrus McGoldrick began describing the assassination of Hamas leaders as the death of “resistance leaders”

Cyrus McGoldrick @CyrusMcGoldrick

Israel is murdering civilians and resistance leaders alike. The colonial project of Israel was founded on violence & is fueled by it. #Gaza

14 Nov 12

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Then there were prayers for a Hamas victory.

Cyrus McGoldrick @CyrusMcGoldrick

#GazaUnderAttack for the last few days. May God protect them and grant them victory. #FreePalestine #Gaza

12 Nov 12

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Security is paramount for Israel

This week's escalation did not start with an attack on a Hamas military commander. It started with the use of Gaza as a launching pad for ideological war

John Howell MP

On Tuesday, I visited the Lebanese border and Golan Heights as part of a Conservative Friends of Israel delegation to the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
Earlier in the week, Israel was hit by errant fire from Syria – likely an act of incompetence by the Assad regime and an incident that was borne out of the continued civil war and increasingly desperate situation in the country. Amidst all this activity on the Golan Heights, little did we know that in the south of Israel, the activities of Hamas were coming to the fore, escalating to the point where Israel targeted a Hamas military leader on Wednesday.

Fake Palestinian 'victim' of Israel attack exposed

Rick Moran

They call it "Pallywood" - Palestinians staging fake scenes for western news cameras using men, women, and children as props.

This example is particilarly outrageous.

From the blog Honest Reporting:

What happens when the cameras turn up at the scene of an airstrike in Gaza and there simply aren't enough Palestinian dead and injured to produce dramatic footage that can be used against Israel in the international media? We've seen it before. Palestinians who appear to be injured or even dead for the benefit of the TV cameras turn out to be nothing of the sort once they are no longer the focus.

Islamists Target Arab Monarchies

Night Watch

11/16/2012

 

China: Update. The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China concluded on 14 November after the Congress elected a new Central Committee and a new Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Comment: NightWatch will report at greater length as details warrant. The two most impressive themes that emerged from the early speeches were that corruption is a threat to the survival of the party and possibly the communist state itself and that the new leadership will have no latitude to compromise the communist political leadership.

Targeted Killings: Good for the U.S.; Good for Israel

Sarah N. Stern

On November 14th, Israeli President Shimon Peres visited a school the town of Sderot in southern Israel. Sderot is the closest border town to Hamas-controlled Gaza and has sustained over 120 rocket attacks in just the prior four days.

"We were born as 'the code red children'", said Chen Malkiel. "Code Red "is the name of the siren that blasts giving residents no longer than 15 seconds to run to shelter."We are children who live in fear and anxiety that at any moment we will hear the code red siren, have to leave our games, our friends and enter the safe rooms", continued Malkiel.

There have been one million people, extending from Ashdod to Sderot who have been receiving a steady barrage of rocket attacks and have fifteen seconds to run for their very lives. Israel has endured over 800 of these attacks from Gaza in the last year.

Why is Israel not allowed to defeat her enemies?

Ted Belman
Many countries condemn Israel’s attacks on Gaza. A few countries including Canada, Britain, Germany and the US support Israel’s right of self defense. With the exception of Canada, the latter go on to recommend restrain with a variety of words.

But no country encourages Israel to devastate Hamas and its rocket arsenal. When they support our right of self defense they imply that should the rockets stop, Israel should stop.

Why is Israel not allowed to defeat her enemies? Especially here where our enemy Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization. Does anyone demand that the US stop killing al Qaeda terrorists. On what basis does the US have the right to kill terrorist who aren’t targeting the US.

"Enraged"

It is noon on Friday and I have scant time to post, and yet I must -- because I am enraged.  Enraged because the world does not want the Jewish State to defend herself, all the saccharine declarations to the contrary.  The world doesn't like Palestinian Arab dead and doesn't like strong moves by the IDF.

 

The issue must be clear:  It is not just a question of Hamas and Islamic Jihad temporarily stopping rocket launchings because that's in their best interest at the moment. It's a question of weakening or destroying their capacity to hit us again when the mood strikes them.  

 

Taking out their weapons -- pre-emption -- is defense.

 

Defense Minister Barak made that clear in his declaration of the goals of Operation Pillar of Defense. 

 

I have sat here for years at my computer, detailing what is being brought into Gaza -- the weapons of growing sophistication.  And all the time, horrified.  Now with Ghaddafi's weapons available to terrorists, it's even worse -- and make no mistake about it, those weapons are being smuggled into Gaza.

 

Gaza and International Law

Eli E. Hertz

What unites Palestinian Arabs is their opposition to Jewish nationalism and a desire to stamp it out - not aspirations for their own state. Murdering Jews is a collective Palestinian Arab effort that requires a collectively sensible response.

Israel's reaction to nearly ten years of shelling Israeli civilian population centers from the Gaza Strip is nothing more than a measured, fair response, designed to effectively terminate armed attacks and more importantly - to prevent its recurrence. All of Israel’s actions in this regard are supported by international law.

Hamas - a United States designated foreign terrorist organization, by their aggression and initial use of armed force against Israeli civilians and non-combatant Jews in breach of the United Nations Charter, constituted prima facie [Latin: on its face] evidence of an act of aggression - aggression being defined by international law as "the most serious and dangerous form of illegal use of force."[1]

Therefore, the rule of proportionality in this case of continuous aggression, needs to be met by Israeli acts that will induce the aggressor to comply with international obligations. A countermeasure need not be the exact equivalent of the breaching act.[2]

United Nations Resolutions demand of states to combat terrorism and reaffirm their:

"Necessary Battle"

Yesterday, on its FaceBook page, the IDF put up the following message:

 

“We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead."

 

A great message.  I am reading that Hamas and assorted other terrorist leaders are not to be seen. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

So we are waging the battle that is understood in all reasonable quarters to be necessary. 

 

IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai said last night:

 

"We are in the midst of an attack that will continue and grow. There is no hourglass. We received the green light from the Prime Minister and the Minster of Defense.  If I were a senior Hamas activist--I would look for a place to hide.

"...All options that allow us to cause serious damage to Hamas and the other terrorist organizations are on the table."

Credit: IDF

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PMW Special report on Operation Pillar of Defense #1

From the PMW archives:

Al-Ja'abari: "The Jew who comes to the soil of Palestine... is fighting us, and we will fight him
and kill him"

"Sacrifice your souls for the sake of Allah,

until the rats (i.e., Israelis) return to their holes"

"Haifa, Jaffa, and Tel Aviv... all of Palestine"

will be liberated

http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=7990

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Launching what has been named "Operation Pillar of Defense," Israel killed the head of Hamas' military wing Ahmed Al-Ja'abari yesterday. The operation comes as a response to Hamas' and other terrorist organizations' continuous rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip.

Al-Ja'abari was a member of Hamas' political bureau and the leader of Hamas' military wing since 2002. He actively encouraged suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks against Israel.

Al-Ja'abari was Hamas' chief negotiator during the negotiations to release Hamas-captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Netanyahu talks to Obama, Ashton on Gaza operation

TOVAH LAZAROFF

LAST UPDATED: 11/15/2012 06:30

UN Security Council fails to agree on course of action.

Photo: Marc Israel Sellem

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday night thanked US President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden for supporting Israel’s right to defend itself after a targeted IDF assassination of Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari in Gaza.
Obama expressed support for "Israel’s right to self-defense in light of the barrage of rocket attacks being launched from Gaza against Israeli civilians," according to a White House press release.

In his conversation with Morsi, Obama reiterated Israel's right to self-defense and expressed hope that Egypt would play a stabilizing role in the region.

Related:

Israel Bombarded by Rockets, Human Rights Watch Nowhere in Sight

Arsen Ostrovsky

While Israel is being bombarded by rockets from Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, placing more than one million civilians in danger, Human Rights Watch (HRW) is nowhere in sight. Apparently the human rights of Israelis are just not a concern to them. This is just another example of how HRW has not just lost its moral compass, but how the anchor has been thrown overboard as well.

In 2012 alone, Palestinian terrorists in Hamas-controlled Gaza have fired at least 850 rockets and mortars on southern Israel, however you would be hard pressed to find even a syllable of condemnation of the attacks from HRW.

Although the mission statement of HRW might begin with their pledge to be "... protecting the human rights of people around the world," when it comes to the human rights of Israelis, HRW is nowhere in sight.

Freedom House Still Doggedly Libelling Israel

Lee Kaplan

Using at best no research, and at worst venomous research, Freedom House chooses to honor the libel which emerges against Israel primarily from the same totalitarian countries Freedom House would have it believe it scrutinizes.

Freedom House, once a reliable guardian of protecting freedom and human rights, continues to slander Israel based on false Palestinian propaganda, which it presents as facts in order to declare Israel "less free" and a violator of human rights.
Freedom House's current research director on Israel, Arch Puddington, was, it seems, less than pleased with a recent Gatestone Institute article slamming the substandard, reckless, and apparently malicious methods to which Freedom House resorts to suppress "inconvenient" information, for example, reports that a member of its Board of Trustees might regard as "politically incorrect".

GNORING THE WARNING LIGHTS ON HEZBOLLAH: THE CASE FOR A EUROPEAN BAN

Matthew Levitt

Henry Jackson Society

To read the full version of the following excerpt, go to:
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/ignoring-the-warning-lights-on-hezbollah-the-case-for-a-european-ban

******************************

Twenty-nine years ago, Hezbollah blew up the U.S. Marines and French army barracks in Beirut, both compounds under the aegis of the Multinational Force sent to Lebanon as peacekeepers to oversee the evacuation of the Palestine Liberation Organization from Beirut. The barracks bombings left 241 Americans and 58 French dead, and came just six months after Hezbollah bombed the U.S. embassy, killing 63, including 17 Americans. Less than a year later, Hezbollah bombed the U.S. embassy annex in Beirut, killing 24.

The red flags in Obama’s foreign policy

Jackson Diehl

Barack Obama spent his first term undoing what he saw as the excesses of U.S. post-Cold War foreign policy, from land wars in the Middle East to insufficient attention to Asia. By his own account, he largely succeeded. But chances are he will spend his second term grappling with the flaws in his cure.

Contrary to the usual Republican narrative, Obama did not lead a U.S. retreat from the world. Instead he sought to pursue the same interests without the same means. He has tried to preserve America’s place as the “indispensable nation” while withdrawing ground troops from war zones, cutting the defense budget, scaling back “nation-building” projects and forswearing U.S.-led interventions.

Friedman vs. Israel

David Gerstman

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Thomas Friedman used the occasion of President Obama's re-election to return to his favorite topic: bashing Israel, in his Sunday column My President is busy. Aside from demonstrating his ignorance about suing Google, Friedman makes a couple of mistakes. 

You should be so lucky that the president feels he has the time, energy and political capital to spend wrestling with Bibi to forge a peace between Israelis and Palestinians. I don’t see it anytime soon. Obama has his marching orders from the American people: Focus on Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, not on Bethlehem, Palestine, and focus on getting us out of quagmires (Afghanistan) not into them (Syria). No, my Israeli friends, it’s much worse than you think: You’re home alone.

1,200 tunnels operating between Egypt and the Gaza Strip- Sinai tribal leader

By Mohammed Mohsin
http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=31784
 
Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat - The leader of the Al-Akur Tribe in Sinai, Arif
Abu-Akr, has revealed that the 1,200 tunnels between the borders of Egypt and Gaza Strip are working at full capacity. Abu-Akr told Asharq Al-Awsat that these tunnels were being used to carry out terrorist attacks, “but we cannot arrest them or present them to justice.”
 
During the transitional period, which was administered by the military, the Egyptian authorities had announced the closure of the tunnels to the Gaza Strip; however, security sources in Sinai have said that many of the tunnels are now fully operational since President Muhammad Mursi’s accession to power at the beginning of July 2012. Security sources also revealed that the governor of North Sinai had lodged a complaint with senior officials in Cairo, but was told: “The tunnels do not represent a problem.”

PA TV News: No trace of Jewish history in "our land" "Temple exists only in the minds of radical organizations"

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=7905

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Recently, Palestinian Authority TV News exemplified the PA policy of denying the existence of any Jewish history in Jerusalem. In a report about Israel's excavations on the Temple Mount exposing part of the Western Wall, the government-controlled PA TV stated:

"There's [an Israeli] race against the clock to complete the excavations in search of [Jerusalem's] Temple that exists only in the minds of radical organizations."

The Post Targets Israel

Leo Rennert

On Nov. 10, an antitank missile fired by Palestinian terrorists from Gaza at an Israeli army vehicle wounded four IDF soldiers. Retaliatory fire by Israel killed four Gazans, while dozens of rockets and mortar shells rained on civilian targets in southern Israel.
This was but the latest incident in a recent escalation of rocket attacks from Hamas-ruled Gaza against towns, cities, and kibbutzim in southern Israel. Israel's human toll and pain has been considerable. One million Israelis are having to dart toward bomb shelters at a moment's notice when red alert sirens sound. Israeli children succumb to post-traumatic stress. Authorities order schools to close as a precaution against a massive catastrophe if a school were hit with hundreds of kids inside. 

PA President Mahmoud Abbas Presents His Views on the Right of Return

http://www.memri.org/clip_transcript/en/3634.htm
For video
http://www.memri.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3634.htm
 
Following are excerpts from an interview given by PA President Mahmoud Abbas to Israeli Channel 2 on November 2, 2012, and an interview with Al-Hayat TV
a day later.
 
Channel 2 (Israel), November 2, 2012:
 
Mahmoud Abbas: As long as I am here, in this office, there will be no third, armed, Intifada. Never. We don't want to use terror. We don't want to use force. We don't want to use weapons.
[...]
 
Interviewer: You are originally from Safed.
 
Mahmoud Abbas: From Safed, yes.
 
Interviewer: Do you wish to go there?
 
Mahmoud Abbas: Of course. I want to see Safed.
 
Interviewer: To visit or to live?
 
Mahmoud Abbas: No, no. I want to visit with somebody else who is sitting with us now. I visited Safed before once. But I want to see Safed. It's myright to see it. But not to live there.

"Christians in the Middle East"

I want to begin by switching gears today, to consider an important, and much neglected issue.  Last Thursday night, a symposium -- co-sponsored by B'nai Brith World Center, the Menachem Begin Center and the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity in Jerusalem -- was held on "The Present and Future of Christians in the Middle East."

 

That Christians in Muslim and Arab countries in this region have it very difficult was hardly news to me.  But this symposium provided a broader context and some significant information.

The Broader Implications of the Petraeus Resignation: Personal Behavior and Public Office

Barry Rubin On November 11

Genral Petraeus was the hero of the winning surge in Iraq. But he also has the distinction of becoming America’s first Politically Correct field commander. His strategy in Afghanistan was in line with that of the Obama Administration by putting the emphasis on winning Muslim hearts and minds as a higher priority than military victories or even at times the safety of American soldiers. There’s a reason why President Barack Obama made him CIA director.

Leaving aside the question of the resignation’s relationship to the Benghazi debacle, in some ways, his fall is more discouraging than the election results. Don’t these powerful people feel that their duty is more important than their personal self-aggrandizement or pleasure? We should remember, too, that Petraeus’s predecessor in Afghanistan was brought down because of some incautious things said in a magazine interview.

FBI Source: Petraeus Case Held Until After Election to Not Hurt Obama Politically

• Mdeleine Morgenstern

Outgoing CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus’ resignation over an extramarital affair was reportedly held until after Tuesday’s election to avoid “potential embarrassment” for President Barack Obama, according to Newsmax.
FBI agents learned of the affair while monitoring Petraeus’ emails out of concern that the woman, Petraeus biographer Paula Broadwell, may have had access to his personal account, the Associated Press reported.
But an FBI source told Ronald Kessler, the author and journalist who broke the Secret Service prostitution scandal, that rather than having Petraeus resign immediately, the decision was made to hold it until after the election for political purposes: