An affidavit obtained exclusively by +972 reveals what appears to be the first documented case of a ‘human shield’ used by the Israeli military during its invasion of the eastern Gaza town of Khuza’a.

Ahmad Abu Raida, now 17, was separated from his family by Israeli soldiers on July 23 as he and his family were trying to flee to safety. During Abu Raida’s five-day captivity, an Israeli soldier, who insisted he be called “captain,” repeatedly asked the boy about alleged Hamas tunnels and rocket launching sites in his neighborhood.

“I told him I did not know,” Abu Raida, who was 16 years old at the time of the incident, said. “‘I’m young. I’m 17 years old. How am I supposed to know these things?’ I said to him, but he became angry and started punching and kicking me.”

Abu Raida’s case was documented by Defense for Children International-Palestine, which released a statement Thursday based on the affidavit it collected. +972 spoke with the 17-year-old earlier today.

…Abu Raida described being taken out of the house the following day, at about 1 p.m., by a soldier who “made me walk in front of him and [ordered] me in broken Arabic to [turn] ‘left and right’. He was walking about three meters behind me.”

The soldiers then took Abu Raida to two houses, ordering him to “[g]et in and see if there are tunnels or not,” according to the 17-year-old. He told them that he did not find any, which prompted the “captain” to physically assault the child.

“He started punching and kicking me. He even brought a wire and hit me with it on my back,” Abu Raida told DCI-Palestine.

Here is Abu Raida’s complete account of the abuse:

“I was crying and begging him to stop, but he did not show any mercy. He kept hitting me over and over. He poured a glass of water on my trousers. He insulted me using very dirty words that I am familiar with, and other dirty words that I have never heard of. Even soldiers who did not speak Arabic insulted me as well. They threatened to ‘shove a stick into my … bottom’ if I did not tell them where the tunnels were.”

…On July 26, according to the affidavit, Abu Raida was ordered to climb down into a hole and dig for tunnels. When he replied that the hole was the beginnings of “a sanitation well,” the captain “took off his helmet and hit me with it on my head,” said Abu Raida.

After complaining that he was feeling ill and could not dig anymore, Abu Raida was taken to a relative’s house, where soldiers again interrogated him about alleged Hamas tunnels:

“I told them I did not know anything about the tunnels, so they would slap me across the face or on my neck, or punch me or kick me whenever they wanted,” Abu Raida said.

After a night of repeated questioning and physical abuse – including being forced “to sit and stand up again more than 60 times” – Abu Raida was asked the following morning if he would “work for them as a spy.” After he refused, a soldier “pointed to the police dogs they had with them and said, ‘You see that dog, it’s better than you.’”

According to the affidavit, at around 1 p.m. on July 27, the fifth day of Abu Raida’s captivity, the soldiers allowed him to put his clothes back on and released him.

Anyone who even glances at this “testimony” objectively can see that it makes no sense. Israelis relying on a 16-year old to search for hidden tunnels? Spending 5 days with him while fighting is going on? Making him dig tunnels with his bare hands?

And yet there are no photos of injuries from his being repeatedly kicked, punched, slapped and hit with various objects like helmets and wires.

The charges are so absurd that only a crazed anti-Israel activist could believe it.

Not surprisingly, the original affidavit that +972 received “exclusively” came from DCI-Palestine.

How reliable is DCI-Palestine?

I researched that last month:

DCI-Palestine lied about the number of children killed in Operation Cast Lead, and they consistently report kids killed by Palestinian Arab rockets as being killed by Israel. Even when other NGOs confirmed that children were engaged in fighting during Cast Lead, DCI-P claimed that they couldn’t find any good witnesses so they counted them as being innocents.

DCI-Palestine openly admits that it “develops its programs and acts according to Palestinian children’s needs and Palestinian priorities.”

In other words, its objectivity is zero.

DCI-Palestine describes its methodology here:

Initial identification of potential human rights violations
Al Mezan and DCI-Palestine identify potential violations through two main avenues: victims’ reports and field monitoring. Al Mezan is a well-known Gaza-based human rights organisation in operation since 1999 and victims of human rights violations regularly contact one of Al Mezan’s three offices located across the Gaza Strip for assistance; in addition, Al Mezan’s five experienced fieldworkers based throughout the Gaza Strip use their strong community links to identify potential cases of human rights violations. Similarly, DCI-Palestine receives reports from children and parents in any of its four West Bank offices and through Gaza-based fieldworkers; however, most investigations are initiated following ongoing and proactive field monitoring from nine fieldworkers across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

This means that the way DCI (and Al-Mezan) work is that every case of “torture” that they document is either self-reported or they go out of their way to find them. And if there are inconsistencies, what do they do?

Fieldworkers frequently go back to the source in order to verify details and correct any data inconsistency.

An organization that admits up front that it is biased says that rather than discard any inconsistent testimony as being unreliable, they go back and massage the reports until they fit together better with the other “facts” that they handpicked to begin with!

This is a fancy way of admitting that they coax the “witnesses” to lie, or at the very least to shade the truth until they fit the agendas of the Israel-hating NGOs.

DCI-P claims that some 75% of under-18s arrested are tortured. But they hand-pick the people who make the most ludicrous claims to come up with this utter fantasy of a statistic.

For some reason, +972 thinks that there is something magic about an “affidavit” that makes it less likely that it is a lie.  But the fact is that any kid in Gaza who seeks fame and fortune can go to the DCI-Palestine website, make up a story, and have a team of “professionals” work at making sure that it fits their explicit anti-Israel agenda. You just know they use leading questions to elicit the most insane responses.

+972, of course, eats this all up without the slightest skepticism.

It is not a mystery that the co-founder of +972 just reiterated that he believes Zionism to be racism.

Informed sources from the Gaza Strip say the Izz al-Din al-Qassam, the military wing of the Hamas movement, is waging a campaign of arrests in the ranks of the movement’s members involving more than 150 members, for interrogation about security leaks.

The sources said that Hamas in a state of internal confusion after the martyrdom of its three leaders Mohammed Abu Shamala, Raed Al-Attar, and Mohammad Barhoum, at dawn on Thursday, and the attempted assassination of the military commander, Mohammed Deif, who lost his wife and his son and daughter on Tuesday.

The sources indicated that the three leaders of Hamas who were killed at dawn on Thursday in Rafah were killed while meeting in a secret underground tunnel at a depth of 30 meters.

The sources said that the Israeli army used missiles and bunker buster bombs with great skill and were able to cause extensive destruction.

The sources indicated that the meeting of the leaders of Hamas in the southern Gaza Strip was in a tunnel under the house belonging to the Kileb family and that the meeting was scheduled to be attended by 9 Hamas leaders, but the raid was carried out after the arrival of the first three leaders.

(h/t Yoel)

Watch: IDF Soldier Reveals Extent of Hamas ‘Human Shields’

The IDF on Sunday posted an interview with Lt. Adam Landau, a combat soldier of the 188th Armored Brigade, who described the cynical manipulation of the civilian population in Gaza by Hamas and its effects on the IDF’s operational ability.
Landau, in describing his experiences in the battlefield of Gaza during Operation Protective Edge, recalled a situation in which his unit was confronted with a terrorist who grabbed a child and ran to escape.
“Just because a terrorist enters into a civilian area, it does not give him immunity. On the other hand, we have to think very carefully before we act, because no one wants to injure innocent civilians,” said Landau of the conundrum. “It makes it very difficult to complete your goal of eliminating a terrorist, because he is hugging a small child.”

A Soldier’s Account from Gaza: Hamas Used Human Shields

570 Rockets Fired on Israel in 5 Days

No fewer than 570 rockets have been fired at Israel over a five day period, the Foreign Ministry revealed Sunday, tallying the total rocket count since Hamas broke an extended ceasefire on August 19.
Of those, more than 260 rockets that were launched from schools, more than 50 rockets from medical facilities and more than 130 rockets from cemeteries, the report added.
The report also includes maps for multiple launching sites responsible for rocket fire on Israeli civilians, in yet another compendium of examples profiling Hamas’s proclivity for using Palestinian Arabs as human shields. The report follows a similar expose by the IDF last week.
The MFA sites listed include the launching site located adjacent to the Jafar Ali Ibn Taleb school in the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City responsible for the rocket fire which killed four year-old Daniel Tragerman Friday.

A Rocket Launched at Israel from a Gaza Medical Facility

Khaled Mashaal in an interview full of lies

UNICEF Gaza Chief Ignores Israeli Children

UNICEF Gaza Field Office chief, Pernille Ironside, held a press conference at the United Nations offices in New York City several days ago, “on the impact on children from the conflict in Gaza.”
Unlike UNRWA – which is charged solely with attending to Palestinian “refugees” – UNICEF is the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund and is charged with assisting children over the world.
Asked how she, and the entire UN Gaza staff, remained neutral in the face of Gaza children’s and civilian hardships, Ironside stated that, “There have been attempts to instrumentalize the UN in Gaza in this conflict.”
“…There have been attempts [by Israel] to try to facilitate military operations against the [Palestinian] civilian population by facilitating the clearance of certain neighborhoods. The UN has refused to be a party to that,” she added, admitting that Israel sought the UN’s help in clearing neighborhoods of civilians in advance of imminent Israeli military operations directed at terrorists and military targets embedded among civilians.
She explained that the Israelis had informed them through “text messages, phone calls, and leaflets from Israel,” with “notice of some hours”, but these were ignored, in effect placing responsibility on the UN for some civilian deaths.

Jews Helping Hamas Are No Voice for Peace

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the group that invaded and “occupied” the Philadelphia Jewish Community Services Building and on Aug. 20 simulated and protested the (legal) blockade of Gaza outside of the UJA-Federation of New York, has declared in northern California, “Zionism isn’t welcome in our town.” There, JVP joined with a radical Bay Area coalition on Aug. 16 seeking to prevent the unloading of Israeli goods in Oakland. The action’s announcement, proclaiming “Stand Against Zionism Everywhere,” extols the “resistance in Gaza [that] is still alive and thriving, despite Israel’s ongoing attempts to destroy it.” This “resistance,” the announcement continues, has “been going on since 1948, since Israel came into existence. And it will not cease until Israeli apartheid falls.”
These are euphemisms. Bringing down “Israeli apartheid” is a call for Israel’s destruction. The “resistance in Gaza” is the radical jihadist group Hamas, responsible for the murder and maiming of thousands of Israelis and causing three wars. The Hamas Charter says “the Jews” caused the French and Communist Revolutions, initiated both world wars, and that the entire world is controlled by Jewish money, in addition to promoting the anti-Semitic “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and calling for Israel’s “obliteration.”
Who, then, is this self-proclaimed Jewish “voice for peace” whose actions in effect support Hamas terrorism?

Rockets from Syria land in Golan Heights after Lebanese Katyusha attack

Five rockets from Syria landed across the border with Israel in the Golan Heights overnight between Saturday and Sunday.
The rockets landed in open areas and no injuries were initially reported. Multiple alert sirens sounded in the Golan Regional Council warning of the attack.
The projectile strike from Syria came hours after a separate incident on Saturday night in which a rocket fired from Lebanon hit a building in an open area in the Upper Galilee.
Two children were lightly injured by shrapnel and four people were suffering from shock as a result of the attack.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency, citing its correspondent in Tyre, said the rockets were fired towards Israel and that the Lebanese army had encircled the suspected launch area.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Erez Border Crossing with Gaza closes after mortar attack seriously injures two

Projectiles continued to rain down on Israel on Sunday from Gaza with a mortar shell seriously injuring two people at the Erez Border Crossing with Israel at around 1:00 p.m. Magen David Adom paramedics evacuated the two to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon. MDA was treating a third victim in moderate condition at the scene.
Following the attack, the Defense Ministry decided to close down the crossing. The IDF struck a launcher used by Hamas to fire on the crossing.
The Erez crossing had remained open throughout Operation Protective Edge to transport injured Palestinians to Israel for medical treatment.

2 Israelis Wounded in Grad Missile Attack on Be’er Sheva

A 70-year-old man and his wife paid the price for age and the lack of shelter within immediate reach on Saturday night when they had to make a run for it in a Grad missile attack on Be’er Sheva from Gaza.
Two Grad missiles exploded on an apartment building in a residential neighborhood in the Negev city as the older couple was rushing to reach a shelter, having heard the Code Red incoming rocket alert siren.
But they weren’t quite fast enough, and the missiles hit the building before the couple was able to reach shelter.

Ynet: “July War” Was Goal of Hamas Commander Killed This Week

Ynet, Friday, profiled Raed al-Attar, one of the Hamas commanders killed by Israel Wednesday night.
Al-Attar, who had been considered a favorite to succeed Mohammed Deif head of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, had a twenty year career in terror. In 1994 he took part in an ambush that killed an IDF officer. In 2001 he planned an attack on an IDF post in Gaza that left four soldiers injured. In 2006 he was one of the planner of the Gilad Shalit kidnapping.
Most recently al-Attar was viewed as the architect of the “July war.”

IDF Eliminates Hamas Finance and ‘Justice’ Head

The IDF on Sunday assassinated another Hamas leader, Mohammed al-Ghoul, who was responsible for transferring funds to the terrorist organization and was the “Justice Minister” in the Hamas government.
The pinpoint airstrike in northern Gaza took out al-Ghoul, confirmed the IDF. Palestinian Arab reports have confirmed the appraisal, saying al-Ghoul was killed in an airstrike on his car.
In pictures circulating in the Arab reports of al-Ghoul’s ruined car the Hamas leader’s body can clearly be seen. Likewise, numerous wads of US dollars can be seen inside the burning car, money that presumably was on its way to fund terror attacks.

Israel charges 3 Hamas members captured in Gaza

Israeli prosecutors filed indictments against three Hamas members captured in Gaza and accused of planning attacks, including one who intended to cross into the country using a paraglider.
The indictments were filed in Beersheba District Court against Mahmad Kadra, 28, from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, along with Mahmad Abu Draz, 23, and Mahmad Abu Tir, 36, both from Gaza City.
All three are members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, according to the indictment filed by the Southern District Attorney’s Office.
The men were captured by the IDF in Gaza battles during Operation Protective Edge.

At funeral of child killed by Gazan mortar shell, mother says: We thought you would bring peace

Hundreds of people attended the funeral Sunday of Daniel Tragerman, the four-year-old boy killed by a mortar shell fired at Kibbutz Nahal Oz from the Gaza Strip on Friday.
In her eulogy on Sunday, Tragerman’s mother Gila said the family always thought that her son would be the “youngest leader that would bring the peace,” adding that peace would hopefully come in his death.
“Daniel, they wanted us to say goodbye to you yesterday, we decided to wait another day – and say goodbye in the light and not in the darkness. I wish you always stay with your charming smile. We love you so much, we don’t want to part from you,” she said.

Frustrated Gaza Belt Residents Protest Outside Netanyahu’s House

Gaza Belt residents protested outside the Prime Minister’s House in Jerusalem on Saturday, after a series of rockets Friday caused several communities to evacuate.
The protesters put some remains of rockets at the entrance to the compound, and asked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to meet with them personally – as well as work towards security and peace in the long term.
Frustration at the constant barrage of rocket fire on Gaza Belt communities – which has been an ongoing issue for roughly fourteen years- came to a head Friday, after four year-old Daniel Tragerman, hy”d, was killed by a mortar shell in his home community of Nahal Oz.
During the demonstration, the residents had a moment of silence and lit candles in Daniel’s memory.

To the wounded IDF soldiers: You are not alone

For hundreds of IDF soldiers wounded in Operation Protective Edge, the battle is far from over. In some ways, it has only just begun. The valor and determination they displayed fighting in the Gaza Strip will be required of them again now during their long and daily rehabilitation process. They will not be there alone. We will stand by them on their long and complicated path, until they win this new battle that they face – the battle of mind over matter, the battle of full rehabilitation.
Over the past few weeks, disabled IDF veterans mobilized and came to visit and encourage the new casualties at the hospitals and rehabilitation wards. They went through the various wards, embraced and encouraged the wounded, shared their personal rehabilitation stories and, most of all, promised them and their families that we are all here for them.

JPost Editorial: Vigilance in the West Bank

The fact is that the apparent quiet in the West Bank could prove illusory. A spark could lead easily to mass unrest. Israel has been lucky, for instance, during the demolition last week of the house of one of those involved in the murder of the teens, that there were not mass protests in Hebron.
The government should consider seizing this opportunity to formulate its plans for the West Bank, including relations with the PA. While some ministers advance proposals regarding annexation, others call for renewed negotiations.
It is important that a message be sent that Hamas is not a role model for Palestinians. While its organizational capabilities in the West Bank have been crippled, its popularity remains unmeasured by votes since PA elections have been postponed time and again. Hamas styles itself as “the resistance,” and the worst possible outcome would be for young Palestinians to see it as a winner. That means that actions in Gaza will affect the West Bank, and Israeli leaders must be cognizant that a misstep in either place could have long-term ramifications for the country.

Rock-Throwing Terrorist Hits Jewish Driver in the Head, Car Overturns

A resident of the southern Hevron Hills is in serious condition from injuries to the skull after an Arab rock-throwing terrorist hit him in the head shortly after midnight Saturday, forcing his car to overturn.
The victim’s wife and baby, who were traveling in the car on their way home, were not hurt.
The terrorist struck between Al Aroob and Carmei Tzur, immediately south of Gush Etzion and one of the favorite launching areas for Arab attacks on Jewish drivers. The IDF routinely stations jeeps in the area, but restraints on dealing with rock-throwers have hampered deterrence,

Police search for missing Jerusalem yeshiva student

Police intensified the search on Sunday for a yeshiva student who disappeared last week while hiking with a friend in the Jerusalem Forest.
Aaron Sofer, 23, was last seen on Friday at midday.
Sofer was described by police as being 1.75 meters tall, with a short red beard, glasses, black pants, a white shirt and a black kippa.
According to the Yeshiva World website, Sofer is from Lakewood, New Jersey.

Free Palestine Scarf ‘An Error’ Claims Charity Following Breitbart London Exposé

Six days ago Breitbart London broke the news that a member of the British Government had paraded around an Islamic Relief charity meeting in the Palestinian Territories wearing a scarf that called for the destruction of the State of Israel.
Following a failure by the British Foreign Office to openly discuss the event, Member of Parliament Bob Blackman called for someone to take responsibility. That someone seems to be the Islamic Relief charity, who were in charge of the event when Dr Alastair McPhail was caught with the ‘Free Palestine’ flag.
The Jerusalem Post reports: “…a clearly embarrassed Whitehall official, who in an off-guarded aside admitted the action was – to say the least – ill advised, declined to comment on the diplomat’s faux pas and instead drew attention to a statement issued by Islamic Relief.”

Scottish Minister Urges Govt to Boycott Israeli Products

Scottish ‘external affairs’ minister Humza Yousaf has a long record of activism within government on the matter of Israel and has now spoken out against businesses with interests in the Israeli settlements, saying contractors doing business with them would be guilty of “grave professional misconduct”.
The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 was introduced to promote “public procurement processes and systems which are transparent, streamlined, standardised, proportionate, fair and business-friendly”. Passed as a means to help small and medium size businesses gain access to Government contracts, an area traditionally dominated by large firms, the legislation appears to be under threat of hijack by ministers with an axe to grind.
Although little known outside of Scotland, Scottish National Party minister Yousaf often finds himself in the papers following his outbursts and interventions on Israel. Following the publication of Scottish Government guidance to businesses on how to deal with Israeli companies, Yousaf was quoted by STV as saying:
“The Scottish Government strongly discourages trade with companies active in Israeli settlements which are recognised as illegal under international law.
“The exploitation of assets in illegal settlements by any company is likely to constitute “grave professional misconduct” for the purposes of procurement legislation.”
Speaking on behalf of the Scottish government in their parliament, Yousaf called for a complete embargo on British arms going to Israel earlier this month. This position goes far beyond the present official line which allows the export of defensive items, including parts for the crucial Iron Dome air defence system.

Caught On Video: Gazan Civilians Risking Their Lives

This next video, originally posted on the Shehab News Agency Facebook page, perhaps shows this last phenomenon in action. Either that, or the people in the video are deliberately aiming for a Darwin award.
Notice how the civilians are standing around, waiting for something, with the camera trained on the area. This is because, we can assume, the IDF warned them, starting with pamphlets and ending with the “knock on roof” technique to warn civilians of the impending strike. This is no coincidental footage of an IDF strike.

Terror chief Deif’s mother-in-law offers him her other daughters

The bereaved mother-in-law of Hamas terror chief Muhammad Deif said she would be “honored” were he to marry her two other daughters, even if they were “martyred” as a consequence.
Deif’s wife Widad and his son and daughter were killed last week in an Israeli airstrike aimed at Deif, the Hamas military commander said by Israel to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israelis in a career of terrorism dating back to the early 1990s.

ISIS to take US to ICC for airstrikes?

Ridiculous, isn’t it, the thought that a designated terrorist organization with a bloody track record of murder and violence can possibly pursue a democratic state through any kind of international institution. And even more ridiculous that the majority of international leaders remain silent on the issue.
Yet that is possibly the situation that could face Israel as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority consider taking their enemy to the ICC (International Criminal Court), essentially on the grounds of legitimately defending its citizens against thousands of indiscriminate cross-border rockets and tunnel attacks from Gazan terrorists.

Hamas Sermon: We Pledged before the Commanders of the Jihad to Die for the Sake of Allah

NGO Monitor: Exploiting Medicine for the Politics of Hate

The letter—written by Drs. Mads Gilbert, Paola Manduca, and Swee Ang, all of whom are associated with highly politicized non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—accuses Israel of carrying out a propaganda campaign that “justifies the creation of an emergency to masquerade a massacre.” It makes unfounded allegations that Israel deliberately massacred civilians and uses illegal weaponry. No mention is made of Hamas, or its use of human shields. Israel’s right and obligation to defend its citizens against indiscriminate targeting by rocket fire is absent.
The article’s authors have no expertise in military law or tactics. Any sort of political, legal, or military analysis, such as an accusation of war crimes, is outside their competence. They have no evidentiary basis on which to allege that Israel is motivated by a desire to massacre civilians.
It is a wonder how anyone, let alone a highly regarded medical journal, could take these doctors as credible sources on the conflict. What we are witnessing is the “halo effect”—where NGOs perceived to promote good principles are shielded from scrutiny. Providers of medical assistance and relief enjoy an added degree of credibility, a “double halo effect,” and are rarely challenged on their biases or questioned statements’ accuracy.
This “double halo effect” was in full force for the letter writers, all of whom have extensive histories of acting as anti-Israel campaigners.

The Observer Focuses on IDF Retraction

In the fog of war, initial information or details of events can sometimes be incorrect. Unlike Hamas, the IDF does not knowingly lie and unlike so much of the media, the IDF will acknowledge an error and make the necessary correction.
But such is The Observer‘s (sister paper of The Guardian) apparent desire to discredit the IDF, a corrected error is worthy of a story:
“The Israeli military has been forced to retract a statement claiming that the mortar shell that killed a four-year-old Israeli boy on Friday was fired from or near a United Nations school in Gaza.
A correction later tweeted by an IDF spokesperson, Peter Lerner, read: “After further review, the school the mortar was launched near from is not being used as a shelter by UNRWA but rather a shelter maintained by Hamas authorities in Gaza.”

Time Magazine Accuses IDF of Stealing Palestinian Organs

Time Magazine should be ashamed for giving new life to a horrendous blood libel accusing the IDF of stealing Palestinian organs.
In the middle of a video about the Israeli military, we are told that the “IDF is not without controversy.”
Their example?
“….in 2009 a Swedish report came out exposing some Israeli troops of selling organs of Palestinians who died in their custody.”
The reference is to a completely made up tabloid style article in an obscure Swedish paper, that even the author admitted was not based on any evidence.

BBC News website promotes the anti-Israel defamation of a fringe racist group

IJAN’s raison d’être is its opposition to the existence of the world’s one and only Jewish state. Its methodology includes the adoption of the halo of Holocaust survival as a means of conscripting supposed authority and moral superiority to its claims and statements. At the same time, it uses Holocaust inversion such as the example in this latest statement which – as reflected and promoted in the BBC’s headline – seeks to equate Israel with Nazi Germany by falsely claiming that it is carrying out “genocide”.
The BBC’s dismal record on recognizing and reporting antisemitism means that it comes as no surprise to find that two points which should be perfectly obvious to BBC editors unfortunately require clarification.

An upcoming event with the BBC’s Middle East editor

On the panel selected to provide answers to those questions are Jeremy ‘I see no human shields’ Bowen and Channel 4’s Jon Snow.
The discussion would doubtless be enhanced were Bowen (along with his colleague Orla Guerin) to take the trouble to brush up beforehand on the topic of Hamas’ use of human shields and that policy’s role in causing so many of the civilian casualties which he graphically reported during his recent stint in the Gaza strip.
That, of course, is unlikely to happen but if any of our readers do intend to attend the event and would like to report on it afterwards, we would be interested in hearing from you.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Anti-Israel Protesters Defend Hitler, Police Eject Pro-Israel Man

Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters lined the streets of Westminster today in yet another show of ‘solidarity’ with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Breitbart London was present to document the scenes as demonstrators defended Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, wearing t-shirts with his face on them, and stated that there should be ‘no two state solution’ to the crisis in the Middle East.
One man turned up with an Israeli flag and attempted to peacefully counterprotest on the opposite side of the road to the Gaza demonstrators. He was quickly surrounded, telling Breitbart London he felt “physically intimated”. Police refused to allow the man to protest, possibly in fear of his safety.

#BlockTheBoat Fails to Stop ZIM Unloading in Tacoma

#BlockTheBoat BDS protesters again failed to stop the unloading of the Zim ship, this time the Chicago in Tacoma.
There are reports that the anti-Israel protesters were harassing the Union workers on the site, despite ILWU Local 23 president Dean McGrath making it clear they wanted no part of the conflict and they just want to do their job,
“We are going to do what we do. Move Cargo”.
There are reports that the protesters are also called the dock workers doing their job “scabs” and stalking them during their lunch break – according to the BDSer’s tweets.

Michael Nyman Would Like You To Know He Isn’t Anti-Hamas

Michael Nyman Tweeted: (TIMES OF) ISRAEL MISINFORMATION DEPARTMENT: my name has been added erroneously – without my permission – to an anti-Hamas petition. Fucking disgrace! I am seeking an apology but probably will not get one.
Well if that’s how you feel, Mr Nyman, we’ll be happy to move you onto our list of terrorist lovers and assorted other Israel and Jew haters. Don’t worry, Michael, you won’t have to set your lawyers on Israellycool. We’ve already edited our list to show your approval of Hamas double war crime tactics of using civilian human shields as cover for shooting at our civilians and for their summary executions of anyone they don’t like.
It turns out that the list merely contained ANOTHER Michael Nyman, the Chairman and CEO of the PMK•BNC (the “global authority on entertainment and popular culture” in case you didn’t know). We will amend our list to make this clear.

Australian Rabbi: Love Muslims and Everything Will Be OK

“We have Muslims who are made to feel like terrorists in the past few years and they report the atmosphere is similar to post-9/11 and it is simply as a result of cultural incompetence,” explained Rabbi Zalman Kastel, of the Together for Humanity Foundation.
He and pastor Brad Chilcott, national director of Welcome to Australia, a non-profit that focuses on issues relating to immigration and asylum, are heading the campaign that is supposed to make Islamic jihadists love Christians and Jews.
The name of the campaign – loving Muslims for 100 years – is a riff on a recent headline, published in the Weekend Australian, that stated, “We’ll fight Muslims 100 years,” according to a report in The Guardian.
It is clear why they will love Muslims for only 100 years and not any longer because if “love” is the solution to Muslim terror, there won’t be any Christians and Jews left in the world in the year 2114.

Quiz: Do You Have What It Takes To Sit On The Security Council? (satire)

Test Your Diplomacy Skills
The Security Council is where the real action happens at the United Nations. But not everyone can handle being part of it. Countries and their delegates must meet rigorous requirements in order to make the cut. See how well you would fare as a Security Council delegate. (quiz)

Suspects Detained in Slaying of Prominent Jewish Couple in Istanbul

The suspected killers were detained at midnight Saturday after fleeing the scene of the murder. A third suspect is reportedly at large but police have provided no further details.
Divers seek to recover murder weapon in slaying of Jewish couple in Istanbul.
According to the testimony, the pair were killed in the bedroom with a knife that was taken from the kitchen, the murder weapon was later discarded at sea. Police divers were able to recover the weapon on Sunday.
Turkey’s Daily Sabah reported that “Footage from police security cameras shows the Uzbek couple leaving the home of Jak Karako late Thursday evening with seven bags of luggage, suspected by police of containing valuable items.”
Following news of the murders on Friday, a source with knowledge of the community, who did not wish to be named, told The Algemeiner, “There is some level of mistrust against the government as a result on recent anti-Semitic incidents. Some believe that the truth about the couple’s murder will never come out, but it will be some manipulated version of what had happened.”

James Foley executioner said identified as British rapper

British and American intelligence services have identified the man suspected of beheading US journalist James Foley as a UK citizen who traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State, the Sunday Times reported.
Government sources said the masked man seen in a video of Foley’s death is known as “Jihadi John” among Islamic State fighters. In the video, released by IS last week, a man with a London accent can be seen brandishing a knife while standing next to a kneeling Foley before beheading him. The gruesome clip ended with footage of Foley’s decapitated body lying on the ground.
Although sources did not officially confirm the identity of the masked man, the Sunday Times reported (paywall) that a London-based rapper, Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, 23, is a key suspect in the case.

Iran says it downed Israeli drone over nuclear site

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard said it has brought down an Israeli stealth drone above the Natanz uranium enrichment site in the center of the country.
There was no Israeli comment on the report.
“A spy drone of the Zionist regime (Israel) was brought down by a missile… This stealth drone was trying to approach the Natanz nuclear zone,” the corps said in a statement on its official website sepahnews.com.

Iran Unveils New Short-Range Missiles, Drones

Iran unveiled a new generation of short-range marine missiles and aerial drones on Sunday, as President Hassan Rouhani said its military doctrine was based on deterring and countering threats from unnamed foreign powers.
The official IRNA news agency said the Ghadir missile, with a range of 100 kilometers (62 miles), is designed to destroy marine targets. It did not give a range for the Nasr-e Basir cruise missile, but said it could “operate in silence,” without elaborating.
Iran also unveiled two new drones, the high-altitude Karrar-4 and the Mohajer-4. The latter can be used to generate maps for both military and civilian purposes, IRNA said.

GoDaddy acquires Mad Mimi

GoDaddy, the biggest domain name registrar and the world’s largest technology provider, has acquired MailChimp competitor Mad Mimi.
American-Israeli Gary Levitt, founder and CEO of Mad Mimi, writes on the company’s blog: “The original team behind the magic of Mad Mimi is still going to be making that magic — and possibly even across the broader spectrum of GoDaddy. GoDaddy was a startup itself (started out of a garage), and it’s a culture and ethos they seek to maintain internally. Mad Mimi will be able to stay flexible, and we’ll still be making improvements based on customer feedback. We’ll never stop listening!”
Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed but Calcalist says the deal is worth between $30-$50 million. The Israeli business daily also reports that GoDaddy is considering opening an R&D center in Israel.

Apple co-founder flies into Israel as rockets fly by

Others may be canceling participation in conferences in Israel because of the Gaza war — but not tech pioneer Steve Wozniak. He flew in over the weekend to attend a conference on education, noting he’s safe and sound.
Wozniak, along with the late Steve Jobs, was one of the two founders of Apple. Wozniak worked with Jobs on the early versions of Apple’s computers and other technologies, leaving the company in 1981 after recovering from plane crash injuries. Since then, he has been involved in a number of ventures, establishing and working with several companies, as well as education — even teaching fifth-grade math for a time.
One of the issues Wozniak feels strongly about is how technology can help kids learn better. On Monday, he will be talking about that issue at Eduaction, a conference on all things educational sponsored by Mifal HaPayis (the Israel Lottery). Profits from Mifal HaPayis, which runs games like lotto, scratch card contests, and other legal gambling ventures, go into the educational system, generally to build classrooms and community centers and to sponsor programs in schools in depressed areas. Wozniak — making his first trip to Israel — is set to be one of the keynote speakers at the conference, which will take place in Holon, south of Tel Aviv.

I am sorry, but that is the simplest, bluntest, and most honest way that I can put it.

San Francisco State University funds hatred toward Jews.

Between December 24 of last year and June 26 of this I published ten pieces concerning racism toward Jews at San Francisco State University.  These pieces concerned themselves with facts such as:

1) SFSU funds student organizations, such as the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS), that calls for the murder of Jews, whom they call “colonizers.”

2) In the last academic year, Muhammad Hammad, the former president of GUPS held up a blade, took a “selfie,” and then published it on a social media site and talked about his desire to kill Jews.

3) The adviser to GUPS, professor Rabab Abdulhadi, a malicious anti-Israel anti-Jewish activist who specializes in some semi-academic discipline called “race and resistance studies,” took a university funded trip to the Middle East for the purpose of meeting with various terrorists and their supporters including plane hijacker, Leila Khaled, whom they exalt as a “freedom fighter.”

Of course, anti-Jewish malice is nothing new at San Francisco State University up to, and including, mob violence.  When I was there at the end of the 1990s Jewish students often faced Arab student organizations, in coordination with the pan-African student group, that regularly demonized Jews on the SFSU campus for their support of Israel.

I will never forget walking past Malcolm X Plaza, in front of the Cesar Chavez Student Center, and seeing Arab students and Black students holding aloft an American flag with fifty little Stars of David in it.  I guarantee you that almost every member of the tiny Jewish minority on that campus, who walked by that display, understood very well in a visceral way what they were being told.  It was this:

You better watch your ass.

After I graduated things apparently got worse at SFSU.

Todd Gitlin, sociologist, political scientist, and former student radical, writing in Mother Jones Magazine on June 17, 2002, quotes former director of Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University, Laurie Zoloth:

“I cannot fully express what it feels like to have to walk across campus daily, past maps of the Middle East that do not include Israel, past posters of cans of soup with labels on them of drops of blood and dead babies, labeled ‘canned Palestinian children meat, slaughtered according to Jewish rites under American license,’ past poster after poster calling out Zionism=racism, and Jews=Nazis.”

Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday, December 14, 2004, Cinnamon Stillwell tells us this:

How did such a threatening environment become associated with a campus located in one of the most liberal and tolerant cities in the nation? The truth is that SFSU has a reputation for intolerance that goes back at least 10 years. In this case, Republican students, clearly a minority at SFSU, were the targets. But in the past, such animosity was directed mostly at Jewish students or those seen as supporting Israel. Jews at SFSU have been spat on, called names and physically attacked, as well as censured by the administration for defending themselves, even as their attackers went unpunished.

The case of Tatiana Menaker, a Russian Jewish emigré and former SFSU student, is an example of the latter indignity. After committing the “crime” of responding verbally to another student’s anti-Semitic epithets during a 2002 rally, she found herself persecuted by the administration.

Pulled into a kangaroo court, threatened with expulsion and ordered by the university to perform 40 hours of community service (but specifically not for a Jewish organization), Menaker was later exonerated after seeking legal assistance from the Students for Academic Freedom and the local Jewish Community Relations Council. But the damage was done.

During my time as a student at SFSU (Class of 1996), I was given a preview of things to come. In 1994, the Student Union Governing Board commissioned a mural to honor the late Black Muslim revolutionary Malcolm X. Designed by members of the Pan Afrikan Student Union and painted by artist Senay Dennis (known also as Refa-1), the finished product was problematic, to say the least. Along with an image of Malcolm X, the not-so-subtle symbols of Stars of David juxtaposed with dollar signs, skulls and crossbones, and the words “African blood,” had been painted. Despite the obvious allusion to anti-Semitic blood libels of old, Pan Afrikan Student Union members claimed the symbols represented Malcolm X’s alleged opposition to Israel, not to Jews, as if that was some comfort.

But even as far back as the early-middle 1960s certain anti-Jewish ideologues were already establishing hatred toward Jews as part of the university atmosphere.

I recently did a little digging into the SFSU special collections archives on, what is for me, a defunct project, but came across this interesting tid-bit:

The above is an article from the SFSC Daily Gator dated March 23, 1966.  The Gator reports that for three years running people painted Swastikas over an Israeli flag which San Francisco State College’s chapter of the American-Israeli Cultural Organization displayed for various functions.

The writer and editors, needless to say, assume that the vandals were either random “vandalists” or Nazis.

San Francisco State College, between 1964 and 1966, did not have a whole lot of Nazis among the student population, nor was the campus conveniently accessible from the rest of the city.  There were heart-felt, politically-innocent folk singers there, to be sure.  There were proto-hippies beginning to experiment with psychedelics as a potential means toward an “expanded consciousness.”  There were young, goateed political radicals gearing up for the fight against the Vietnam War and what Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex.”  And there were young “negro” students such as future movie star, Danny Glover, beginning to rethink their relationship with the college and American society, as a whole.

But, Nazis?  Not so much.

The bottom line is that San Francisco State University has a long history of hostility toward the Jewish people that is expressed both in student body activity, which sometimes takes the form of a violent mob, and almost always takes the form of administrative dithering and indifference.

The only real question I have is whether or not the university intends to continue funding anti-Jewish hatred going forward?

But it is not really much of a question.

I know that they will.

Just ask professor Fred Astren, the current SFSU Chair of the Department of Jewish Studies.  He’ll tell you, maybe.

And if he will not, I bet Tammi Benjamin of the AMCHA Initiative and the University of California, Santa Cruz, might have something to say on the matter.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

On the night of August 5, Gaza’s Interior and National Security Ministry posted a comment on its Facebook page decrying the damage caused by publishing names and photographs of “resistance fighters who fell in battle” (shahids), along with information on where they died.

The Israeli military spokesman seized on this comment as a smoking gun: proof that Hamas was deliberately concealing militant fatalities to boost the apparent numbers of civilians killed.

The Israel Defense Forces cannot refute the images of dead women and children that are broadcast abroad, so instead the army is trying to construct a narrative proving that its targets — and the aftermath of its attacks — are legitimate.

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center is a vital partner in constructing this narrative. The center, which is checking the name of each Palestinian said killed in the Gaza fighting (it has gotten to 450 so far), estimates that some 46 percent of them are “terrorist operatives.”

… If concealing the names of fatalities is really part of Hamas’ propaganda strategy, a way of forging a counter-narrative to that of the IDF, then it contradicts the deep Palestinian and Hamas ethos of pride over those who were killed fighting the Zionist enemy.

“Even if Hamas had decided to hide the names of its fallen combatants and their numbers for a long time, the families wouldn’t agree,” a veteran Hamas activist told Haaretz.

Oh, a Hamas activist said it! It must be true!

This is of course a lie. Hamas hid the names of its “martyrs” after Cast Lead, and they were adding new ones for months on their website afterwards. In the end, the 49 that they admitted were killed during the operation ballooned up to between 600-700 that they admitted much later.

No families of the “martyrs” seemed too upset then.

The IDF and Amit center saw the Palestinian Facebook comment as a warning and an instruction not to release information, for propaganda purposes. But Palestinians saw it as an expression of concern. Releasing the casualties’ names would enable Israel to target their families as well by bombing their homes, thus turning even more civilians into “targets” or “collateral damage.”

This is not propaganda; it is the reality in which 1.8 million Palestinians have been living in the past six weeks.

“The occupation gathers this information and testimonies and uses them to excuse its crimes against the civilians and destroy the homes,” the Palestinian Facebook post says.

The IDF’s English translation of the post omits the words “against the civilians and destroy the homes.”

The Facebook post was not the only expression of Hamas being upset at revealing the names of fighters. At the very beginning of the war Hamas’ Interior Ministry released a statement – on Facebook, YouTube and its own website – commanding Gazans (especially those on social networking sites) to call everyone an innocent civilian.

Hass’ supposed debunking of this Facebook post does not address the explicit instructions of Hamas earlier, nor the threats against reporters who crossed the line.

Also, there is no evidence that the IDF targets families of the terrorists they kill afterwards. This is a fantasy that Hamas made up, and a slander that Hass repeats.

Not only that, but PCHR stopped identifying “members of armed groups” in their daily reports in July, before this Facebook post. They never did this in Cast Lead or Pillar of Defense. It seems fairly obvious that Hamas gave them a friendly visit telling them what they are and aren’t allowed to report – and it has nothing to do with supposedly protecting Gaza families of terrorists already killed.

So far B’Tselem has documented 72 direct bombardments that have destroyed buildings and killed their inhabitants. Of the 547 people killed in these strikes, 125 were women under 60, 250 were minors and 29 were men and women aged 60 or older. B’Tselem also gives the name of an operative in Hamas’ military wing who was killed in the bombing.

While B’Tselem’s methods of verifying who is a terrorist are laughable, even they found more than one case of a terrorist killed in the bombings. They found 9 “military branch operatives” hiding in the civilian homes that they could verify. The terrorists B’Tselem identified generally do not share the last names of the families in the houses, meaning that they were either using the families as human shields or the families were knowingly harboring them. That accounts for the deaths of 66 of those killed in those houses – according to B’Tselem.

Chances are very good that there were far more that B’tselem’s telephone researchers did not identify – because Gazans are instructed to lie, the most important fact that Hass is trying to whitewash.

The UN team, Palestinian human rights organizations and B’Tselem are examining every fatality, seeing every body in the hospital, checking every death report and talking to eyewitnesses, family members and survivors.

Another lie. As the Meir Amit Center (that Hass hates so much) and I showed, Al Mezan and PCHR identified a 13-year old as a civilian victim among a crowd of nine civilians – yet the “13-year old” was really 26 and every single “civilian” was a terrorist member of the Abu Rish Brigades. If these NGOs had checked the bodies, as Hass falsely claims, they would have known that the 13-year old was fictional. The only explanation is that these upstanding, tireless “human rights” researchers accepted Hamas’ Health Ministry lies as fact and didn’t bother to check anything.

If the PCHR and Al Mezan Center were anything close to as conscientious as Hass claims, such mistakes would be impossible.

Hass then goes on to make unsubstantiated claims to explain why a lopsided number of victims are young males of fighting age.  CAMERA takes that apart as well.

There is nothing credible in this article. Which makes it perfect for Haaretz.

Interestingly, unlike most of its stories, Haaretz is apparently so eager to push Hass’ Hamas agitprop that it did not place it behind their paywall as they usually do within 24 hours of publication.