Muslims continue to lie about Jews in America

This is really not to be believed, but the sad fact is that what you're about to read is true: Muslims are profane bigots, losers really, and worse, are insufferable miserable hateful bastards, who will go to any length no matter how foolish they come off, to villify Americans and Jews.

Does the word Ryan sound like the word Zion to you?

It does to Muslim misanthropes. To be honest, it's astonishing that Islam still thrives considering how backward and myopic and superstitious it is, but then again, that it still exists after 1,400 years of its own barbarism, cruelty, raping, pillaging, killing, murdering, and thieving, it merely proves that there are a lot more stupid people in this world than previously estimated.

Following are excerpts from an episode of an Iranian documentary series on Hollywood cinema, alleging Zionist conspiracies in the film, "Saving Private Ryan," which aired on IRINN – the Iranian News Channel on May 27, 2008.

Via MEMRI:

Narrator: The concentrated efforts of the Zionist lobbies in America have led the U.S. government to be the greatest supporter of the regime occupying Jerusalem. In recent years, following the exposure of certain information, hatred towards the Zionists has developed and intensified among various sectors of society in this country. Therefore, some of the efforts of the Zionist propaganda machine are intended to improve the image of Zionism, and to paint a false picture of the historical role of the Zionists in American society.
[...]
Dr. Majid Shah-Hosseini, an Iranian film critic: [In "The Matrix"], Zion symbolizes the utopian Jewish Zionist land. These are the roots of Zionism. How come in such a popular and seemingly fictional American film, the utopia of liberty and humanity, which heralds the era of modernity – in the technical, rather than theoretical sense – is symbolized by a Zionist name – "Zion"? Moreover, names may be selected for their rhyming value. "Zion" sometimes becomes "Ryan," as in "Saving Private Ryan." They exploit even the similarity of names. The Jewish Steven Spielberg, whose previous film, "Schindler's List," reflected Zionist goals, and who turned the false story of the holocaust into an influential movie, is now making a new movie, about Private Ryan.
[...]
Murtaza Ali-Abbas Mirzai, an Iranian documentary filmmaker: In "Saving Private Ryan," one sees that they are the ultimate plunderers. The scene in which the officer puts some earth from various countries into cans was just a preview of what they are doing now – taking the land of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the European countries.
[...]
Narrator: While the blacks and other minorities protest the fact that Hollywood ignores their role in American history, but to no avail, prominent films like "Saving Private Ryan" highlight the role of Jewish soldiers. By exaggerating this role, the Zionists seem to be trying to achieve legitimacy for their post-war actions. In the military cemetery shown in the opening scene of the film, the picture has been edited to draw attention to the Jewish graves among others.
[...]
Among the more unpleasant scenes of the film are the scenes in which a Jewish soldier directs his rage towards German POWs. When he sees some German soldiers wearing jewelry with symbols of his religion, this soldier has a fit of rage and attacks them. In these scenes, the film director presents a completely sympathetic view of this soldier's rage towards the helpless POWs. It seems as if this cry of rage is the cry of Zionism validating the crimes perpetrated by Zionism after the world war.

Click here to see the actual footage showing fugly bloated Muslims fake scholarship as they expound on how Israeli lobbyists exploited the film, Saving Private Ryan.

Alert: Jews living in Denver, Colorado - Do not vote for Rima Barakat-Sinclair

Who is Rima Barakat-Sinclair? Oh, she's just another Muslim terror-apologist and Jew-hater running for office as a Republican for a State House seat in Colorado.

Wake up, Denver Jews. Do NOT vote for Rima Barakat-Sinclair unless you can live with the sin of stabbing your Jewish brethren in their backs. Excerpted from Israel-Hating Republican:

Forty-eight-year-old Rima Barakat-Sinclair has been a resident of Denver since 1987. Never having held political office before, she is currently running as a Republican for a State House seat in Colorado’s Sixth District, which is heavily Democratic and features the largest per capita Jewish population in the state. With the self-identified aim of working “for better understanding among peoples of different backgrounds,” Barakat-Sinclair has participated in numerous “interfaith dialogues” to promote “more tolerance” and create “a stronger united America.” She pledges undying allegiance to such ideals as “upholding the Constitution,” defending “individual freedom,” promoting “small government,” enacting “prudent tax and spending policies,” “investing in our children,” guaranteeing “freedom of religion,” and recognizing “the sanctity of human life.”

Oh, and by the way, she is a Muslim activist who considers Israel to be a nation of bloodthirsty monsters who indiscriminately murder innocent Palestinian women and children for no reason other than to satisfy their own beastly compulsions.

While working as a contract translator for CNN in 2003, Mrs. Barakat-Sinclair was part of an interfaith delegation of Christians and Muslims who paid a friendly visit to Yasser Arafat at his Ramallah headquarters, where, since December 2001, Israeli troops had been keeping him under virtual house arrest in an effort to derail his terrorist activities. Favorably impressed by the most prolific Jew-killer since Adolf Hitler, Barakat-Sinclair would later reflect: “I know the accusations about him [Arafat] supporting terror, but he was so confined and surrounded that to me it seemed more like visiting a tourist attraction than visiting a head of state. It was very, very weird.” Arafat’s main message to his visitors, she expanded, was that he felt “robbed of his legacy” because “the peace process had not gone forward.” Added the star-struck woman, “He [Arafat] flirted [with me] a bit, in a very nice way, you know, saying, ‘I like your hair, your long braids.’”

Barakat-Sinclair was a key participant in an October 2005 conference sponsored by Sabeel, a Jerusalem-based organization that supports a “one-state solution” to the Arab-Israeli conflict, where Israel would continue to exist, but not as a Jewish state. Barakat-Sinclair led a workshop on the topic of the so-called “Right of Return” of those Palestinian refugees who (for the most part) voluntarily had left the region during the 1948 Arab invasion of Israel. At that time, the refugees sought out safe haven during what they anticipated would be a brief war that the Arab allies undoubtedly would win, and they fully expected to return to their homes within a few weeks -- once the fighting had stopped and the Jews had been crushed. Instead, the Arab armies were defeated. Barakat-Sinclair now calls for the re-admittance not only of the relatively few surviving people who were among those 725,000 original refugees, but also for the admittance of several millions of their descendants, a move that would transform Israel overnight into an Arab-majority state dominated by Muslims sympathetic to the aims of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

In a July 2006 interview with CBS television, Barakat-Sinclair stood truth on its head when she condemned Israel’s “imprisonment of five million Palestinians” who, for their part, were “trying to resolve this conflict peacefully.” Israel had responded to those peace efforts, she said, by engaging in “more and more land-grabbing,” by erecting a wall “literally imprisoning hundreds of thousands of people,” and by incarcerating more than “ten thousand prisoners,” including women and children, “for no reason.” “Israeli soldiers now are known to be just bombing and killing babies,” she added for good measure. (Click here for video of this interview.)

Four months later, Barakat-Sinclair charged that a “depraved” Israel routinely carried out “massacres” by means of “the regular use of disproportionate firepower against a trapped population in Gaza” -- thereby demonstrating “the level of contempt with which the Israel government views Palestinian lives.” She told tales of sadistic Israeli soldiers beating handicapped people, gunning down women and babies, opening fire on crowds of beachgoers, breaking into homes at night and murdering entire families in their beds, and riddling children with bullets while the youngsters were merely harvesting strawberries. Likening Israel’s “mass slaughter” of Palestinians to the horrors that existed under “slavery, [South African] apartheid and Nazi concentration camps,” Barakat-Sinclair said that Israel “has turned back the clock to the time of the barbarians” by engaging in “the systematic indiscriminate murder of civilians and the illegal collective imprisonment of a whole nation.”

“As Americans we must understand that the world sees the United States as a collaborator in this endless carnage,” says Barakat-Sinclair. “The F-16s that drop Israeli death decrees upon the Palestinians were ‘Made in the USA.’ We finance and enable the perpetrators to commit these crimes with impunity and in violation of our own laws.”

Just as Barakat-Sinclair places no limits on the lies she is willing to tell about Israel, so is she prepared to go to any lengths to avoid criticizing Islamic terrorists. Indeed she has claimed on the air that the Hamas Charter does not in any way call for Israel’s destruction. Yet that document decrees plainly, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” The Charter further contains numerous calls for violent jihad to counter “the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine.”

Barakat-Sinclair also has defended Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi against his critics, calling him “a renowned Muslim scholar.” A disciple of the Muslim Brotherhood -- which Islam expert Robert Spencer describes as “the parent organization of Hamas and al-Qaeda” -- Qaradawi is a supporter of Palestinian terrorism who has been barred from entering the United States since 1999.

Barakat-Sinclair is a member of the Steering Committee of Muslims Intent on Learning and Action (MILA), an organization that seeks to increase Muslims’ involvement in the American political process. Her own current candidacy is a reflection of that mission.

To pass herself off as a conservative Republican, Barakat-Sinclair has had to resort to considerable deception. For instance, she falsely represented herself at the District Assembly as a pro-life opponent of abortion. Her duplicity on this issue eventually would come to light, however, when a researcher tracked down a quote where Barakat-Sinclair had told the Rocky Mountain News on August 14, 2004: “I would like to have a president who is pro-choice.”

Barakat-Sinclair’s opponent in the upcoming Republican primary (slated for August 12th) will be Joshua Sharf, a contract web developer whose professional career also has included work as a talk radio host, a financial analyst, and a defense and intelligence consultant for such projects as satellite systems and missile defense. In 2004 and 2005, Sharf served as an election judge, and in 2006 he was a delegate to the Colorado Republican state assembly. A blogger at his own View From a Height website and at Brent Bozell’s Newsbusters, Sharf is running as a traditional conservative Republican, and not, despite the overwhelmingly Democratic makeup of the district, as an identity candidate.

Sharf has accurately characterized Barakat-Sinclair as “a terror apologist, and an avowed enemy of Israel, with no credible conservative credentials.” “When engaged in anti-Israel propaganda,” Sharf observes, she usually goes by [the name] Rima Barakat. When engaged in broader political work, she goes by Rima Sinclair.…”

Taking a page directly out of the leftist playbook, Barakat-Sinclair has cast herself as a victim, dismissing Sharf’s criticisms of her affinity for Islamic extremism as evidence of her opponent’s Islamophobic bigotry. Complaining that “these attacks on me have intense emotions of hate and militancy behind them,” she laments that her detractors “hate my religion, my very being.”

In an effort to gain favorable press coverage for her political campaign, Barakat-Sinclair has turned to the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs, a project of the Council for the National Interest (CNI). CNI’s stated mission is “to restore a political environment in America in which voters and their elected officials are free from the undue influence and pressure of a foreign country, namely Israel.” Specifically, the organization calls for: “total withdrawal of Israel from all occupied territory”; “an end to all acts of aggression, provocation, and retaliation by Israel”; “American recognition of a totally independent state of Palestine”; and “an elimination of all unaudited U.S. aid to Israel.” In short, CNI is no friend of Israel.Barakat-Sinclair’s case is vitally important because it offers a vivid illustration of how a Muslim radical can effectively wage bloodless jihad against the West by infiltrating the government and gaining a platform from which to infect the entire body politic. Her strategy is wholly consistent with the plans that were laid out in a secret 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum on “the General Strategic Goal…in North America.” Explaining that the Brotherhood’s mission was to establish “an effective and...stable Islamic Movement” on the continent, this document outlines a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” for achieving that objective. It states that Muslims “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands...so that...God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions.’”

Rima Barakat-Sinclair is the living embodiment of that strategy. Those who oppose this strategy must place their principles above party identification.

Al-Dura Trial: Karsenty Wins in Paris

The truth emerges about Palestinianism, Palestiniasts, Pallywood and the al-Dura hoax. Via HonestReporting. com:

The iconic images of Mohammad al-Dura's alleged death in Gaza inflamed Palestinian sentiment and provoked terrible bloodshed. Despite the evidence that Israel was not responsible for firing the bullets that hit al-Dura, and doubts as to the credibility of the footage taken from the scene, this libel has continued to prevail.

HonestReporting has brought you the news directly from the trial of Philippe Karsenty, who accused France 2 and its reporter Charles Enderlin of knowingly broadcasting doctored footage of the al-Dura incident.

To recall, France 2 successfully sued Karsenty who then appealed against the verdict. At the appeal trial, some of the raw footage taken during that fateful day in Gaza was aired to a packed courtroom that witnessed numerous examples of "Pallywood" staging of events. France 2, however, only made available some 18 out of 27 minutes of footage that apparently exists.

Evidently, these scenes and the unreliability of France 2's cameraman Talal Abu Rahma has convinced the French appeals judge. Philippe Karsenty has won the appeal against his libel conviction.

Media commentator Tom Gross, who has previously reviewed (see our exclusive video) the al-Dura affair for HonestReporting, said in response to the verdict:

Today's ruling shows there are serious doubts about France 2's version of events, and that the entire world press - including the American TV networks - were irresponsible in being so quick to take at face value the claims of a local Palestinian cameraman working for France 2, a cameraman who has admitted his partisanship.

Karsenty said in a statement released after his victory:

The al-Dura lie is an assault on our ability to think, to criticize, to evaluate, and finally to reject information - especially the right to reject information on which we base our most cherished assumptions. One of Europe's most cherished assumptions is that Israel is a vicious Nazi-like entity that deliberately murders Palestinian Arab children. Moreover, polls conducted in Europe have identified Israel as the greatest threat to world peace, greater than Iran and North Korea, Pakistan and Syria. The al-Dura hoax is one of the pillars on which these assumptions rely.

Now it is time for France 2 to acknowledge that it created and is continuing to perpetuate the worst anti-Semitic libel of our era.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

At the time of writing, the full judgment had not been released to the media. However, Take A Pen's Endre Mozes was in the courtroom delivering firsthand accounts of proceedings to HonestReporting. Mozes spoke with some of the lawyers involved who had seen a copy of the judgment prior to its forthcoming release.
Amongst his observations and the comments from these lawyers was the court's acceptance of the argument that protagonists operating in non-democratic regimes such as the Palestinian areas are inherently less reliable and should be carefully scrutinized as should have been the case with Talal Abu Rahma.

Essentially, the court decided the level of doubt associated with the al-Dura footage warrants deep analysis. It is perfectly legitimate to question it, not libelous.

Philippe Karsenty's efforts have opened up France 2 to scrutiny and serves as an example of how the media should be held accountable for their material and the consequences of their reporting. France 2's al-Dura footage has been shown in court to be unreliable and possibly fake. Along with a number of investigations concluding that Israel was not responsible for the bullets that allegedly killed the boy, the icon that is al-Dura - the edifice upon which so much hostility has been directed at Israel, aided and abetted by a willing media - comes toppling down.

WHERE IS THE COVERAGE?

So far, despite access to Reuters and Associated Press wire reports, only Jewish and Israeli media have published the trial verdict. The mainstream media has regrettably remained silent. Is the same media that did so much to propagate the al-Dura libel without verifying the facts now too embarrassed to admit that they may have erred?

If your local media outlet has not covered this story, write to it and ask why not. While Philippe Karsenty has had his day in court, the State of Israel and all of those victims of the terror and violence fueled by images of al-Dura deserve nothing less.

Some of our own subscribers were not even in their teens in 2000 when the al-Dura case occurred and may not even remember it. Some of those who do remember have questioned why we should continue to pursue this case several years later.

We believe that, irrespective of how long it may take, the truth will emerge. Accountability and justice do not dissipate over time. HonestReporting will continue to hold the media to account and to revisit those cases where an injustice has been done.

COMING SOON - THE BIG LIES

HonestReporting will be bringing you the court's full judgment as part of a brand new interactive resource - The Big Lies. Using multimedia resources, including audio and video footage, al-Dura is but one of a number of case studies where untrue accusations have been reported as facts. This exciting resource will enable you to examine the lies, how the media presented them, and the real facts, as well as further resources to counter the next "Big Lie".

Mubarak accuses Israel of faking tunnel smuggling evidence

You'll notice that the Egyptians accuse, but offer no evidence other than their perennial hatred as a starting place for their accusation. This should come as no surprise; this is what Arab nations do when they won't take responsibility for curing their own country of its pernicious infiltration of Muslim terrorists. From Egypt's Mubarak Says Israel Faked Smuggling Evidence:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has accused Israel of fabricating evidence it says implicates Egyptian security forces in helping Hamas militants smuggle arms into Gaza, Egypt's state news agency MENA reported on Thursday. Israel had sent a videotape to Washington showing this.

"Our officials (saw the pictures)...and I'm informing you that they're fabricated pictures and computer work.... Anybody can make pictures of arms smugglers....I can organize pictures of an Israeli man and an Israeli woman smuggling arms and plotting a terrorist operation," Mubarak said.

"Anyone who tries to accuse Egypt of cooperating with arms smugglers, I tell him he's a big liar....If the way we deal with the arms smuggling is not good enough for you, please, do the work yourselves."

Good. If Egypt won't cleanse themselves of their infection, it will be just fine to watch the IDF purge the tunnels themselves.

'Teddy bear' teacher gets to live

Gillian Gibbons got out alive, and apologizes to the murderous Muslim mob who wanted to throw her in front of a firing squad. From MSNBC via Jihad Watch:

A British teacher jailed after she allowed her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad was released Monday and then boarded a flight back to Britain hours after Sudan's president pardoned her, a British Embassy spokesman said. The teacher, Gillian Gibbons, said she did not intend to offend anyone and had great respect for Islam.

She was pardoned, as if she had committed murder. But she didn't commit murder; all she did was allow a Muslim student to name a teddy bear after his own namesake, Muhammad. This all makes sense if one believes the hype that Islam is not a conquering, imperialistic, territorial, barbaric and aggressive theosophy which has evolved into a "religion of peace", in spite of the overwhelming empirical historical evidence that it is not.

NGO Bias in pre-Annapolis Political Statements on Gaza

Promoting Accountability in the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Via NGO Monitor:

A number of influential international NGOs claiming human rights and humanitarian objectives have published highly political statements in advance of the Annapolis peace summit (November 27). Most use similar rhetoric (see below) and repeat one-sided condemnations of Israeli policy in response to attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza, including accusations of “collective punishment” and blame for a “humanitarian crisis”. Following the pattern of the past decade and the 2001 Durban strategy of demonization, these NGO statements largely ignore systematic Palestinian violations of human rights, and use pseudo-legal language to deny Israelis the right to self-defense against terror. As a result, these publications lack credibility.

This wave of NGO statements began in September 2007 after Israel's decision to declare Gaza a "hostile territory" in response to ongoing rocket attacks, and the political campaigns have increased in the build-up to Annapolis. The groups active in this campaign include Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, Christian Aid, the Alternative Information Centre, and ICAHD (funded by the European Union). In addition, Israel-based political NGOs funded by the New Israel Fund, including Adalah, B’Tselem, Gisha, and Ha-Moked, as well as PCHR, Al-Haq, Al-Mezan use highly publicized petitions to the Israeli High Court as a means of promoting these claims.

On November 23, 2007, over 40 NGOs — led by Christian Aid (a powerful UK registered charity often involved in anti-Israel campaigns) and including War on Want and Trócaire (Irish Catholic Church Aid) — issued a joint statement to coincide with the conference. The declaration again condemns Israel's policy on Gaza, accusing Israel of making "a mockery of international humanitarian law" and following "the illegal policy of collective punishment...serving to deepen despair and frustration in Gaza." The statement goes on to call for an end to the international isolation of Hamas.

Key Politicized Quotes from NGO statements:

Amnesty International
Nov. 24 Press Release: "Annapolis talks must lead to immediate, concrete action on human rights"

-Most of the statement consists of condemnations of Israeli activities; three of the four subsections deal exclusively with Israel.

-Labels Israel's decision to close its border with Gaza (in response to the Hamas takeover of Gaza and ongoing rocket attacks) as an "arbitrary and disproportionate blockade" (no definitions or criteria are cited) which constitutes "a form of collective punishment."

-Omits explicit mention of Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, including daily rocket fire from densely populated residential areas in Gaza (using Palestinian civilians as human shields – a central violation of international law which Amnesty officials ignore).

-Equates terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians with Israel's legitimate acts of self-defense by referring to "Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups"

-Omits internal Palestinian human rights abuses, including executions carried out by Hamas against its rivals, the use of torture, and fighting in Palestinian areas staged from, and against, residential homes, hospitals. Amnesty's earlier condemnation of Fatah and Hamas human rights abuses in the October 24, 2007 report — Occupied Palestinian Territories: Palestinian factional strife fuelling abuses — has been quickly forgotten.

-Reports that "recent years have seen a welcome and significant decrease in the number of Israeli victims", but erases the context of this decrease – including the security barrier, and anti-terror activities.

-No mention of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held by Hamas since June 2006, in violation of international law

Christian Aid
Nov. 23 press release (with 40 NGOs) – "Joint call to end isolation of Gaza Strip"

-"By sealing off the Gaza Strip, declaring it a hostile entity, cutting fuel and threatening to cut electricity, Israel is retreating from its responsibilities as the occupying power. Not only does it make a mockery of international humanitarian law, the illegal policy of collective punishment is only serving to deepen despair and frustration in Gaza. It does not provide security for either Israelis or Palestinians."

-"[Gazans] now effectively imprisoned and with only a drip-feed of humanitarian aid…"

"End Palestinian Isolation" – Fall 2007 website feature on Israeli Gaza policy

- Blames Palestinian internal fighting and Hamas takeover solely on Israel: “The collapse of the Palestinian unity government after intense fighting between Fatah and Hamas militants is the predictable result of prolonged Israeli blockade and isolation by the international community.”

-Describes Israel's closures are "siege-like conditions", failing to note Israel's ongoing facilitation of medical supplies and other essential goods into Gaza

Oxfam
Nov. 21 press release – "Gaza siege puts public health at risk as water and sanitation services deteriorate"

-Misleadingly labels Israeli threats to curtail fuel and oil supply to Gaza as "collective punishment"; demands "an immediate resumption of fuel supplies to Gaza" to avoid "a public health crisis."

-"As international efforts increase to breathe new life into progress towards peace, the international community is ignoring Gaza’s plight, allowing it to slip further into a crisis. Ordinary civilians in Gaza are being punished for crimes they have not committed, in clear violation of international humanitarian law."

Sept. 19 statement to the media by Oxfam executive director Jeremy Hobbs
-Israel's actions "immoral and contrary to the Geneva Conventions."

Human Rights Watch
Nov. 20 press release: "Gaza: Israel Blocks 670 Students from Studies Abroad" -“Israel seems determined to punish all Gazans, including students, for the behavior of Hamas… Israel should not make young people seeking education pay the price for its conflict with a political or military group.” Sept. 20 press release: "Threatened Sanctions on Gaza Violate Laws of War"

-“Israel has the responsibility to protect its citizens, but not by collectively punishing the people of Gaza, which seriously violates the laws of war.”

-cutting off fuel and electricity violates Israel’s duty as an occupying power

Adalah, B’Tselem, Gisha, Ha-Moked, PCHR, Al-Haq, Al-Mezan
Oct. 30 - Human Rights Organization's Petition to Israeli High Court

-"The petitioners [to the Israeli High Court] argued that the government decision to interrupt electricity and fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip is illegal…"

-"Deliberately obstructing the civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip is illegal. International law does not allow 'minor' punishment. It bans collective punishment entirely.”

-in response to the petition, the Israeli government presented detailed statistics to show cuts would not cause a humanitarian crisis nor impair essential services

Israel Committee against House Demolitions (ICAHD) – funded by the European Union
Sept. 20 letter to the UN

-ICAHD publicized a “letter” to UN Secretary General asking the UN and other organizations to “prevent the starvation siege Israel plans to impose on Gaza.”

-“If Israel wants to be part of the international community, it must obey the norms of the international community”

Alternative Information Centre
Oct. 30 press release

-"'We are declaring Gaza a hostile entity,' announced the Israeli cabinet, while ordering a full embargo on an area where more than one and a half million human beings reside. In other words, one and a half million men, women, children, ill people, and elders are not considered as human beings, protected by international humanitarian law, but merely a hostile 'entity'.” (emphasis added)

NGO Monitor Commentary: Exploiting the Specter of “Collective Punishment” to Condemn Israel

The frequent use of the term "collective punishment" in these statements is highly misleading and inconsistent with international law, morality and common sense. Article 33 of the IV Geneva Convention of 1949 states that "collective penalties and likewise all other measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited [by the Convention]". Drafted following World War II, the provision was designed to outlaw killing of civilians by an occupying power as a retaliatory response to acts of sabotage or resistance. Such acts included Nazi atrocities such as the 1944 Wola massacre of thousands of Polish civilians in Warsaw, Poland.

Furthermore, the exploitation of this term to condemn Israel's policy of closing its borders and limiting electricity and fuel to Hamas-controlled Gaza, in response to terror attacks reveals the politicized agenda of the human rights NGO community. And the use of this specific term could be considered an implicit comparison of the Israeli government’s defense measures with Nazi behavior – an odious and entirely inappropriate analogy, reflecting the 2001 Durban strategy of demonization. In contrast, the NGO community has not condemned Hamas and Hezbollah rocket attacks and other forms of terror against Israeli civilians, although these are clearly examples of “collective punishment”.

The NGO network also disregards the ongoing and complex debate which has taken place within the Israeli government, involving the Justice Ministry and Supreme Court, regarding Israel's commitments to the Gaza population under international law. Detailed information (systematically erased from the misleading NGO statements) demonstrates the continued flow of medical supplies and other vital goods in Gaza. For example, between June and Aug. 2007, 50,000 tons of humanitarian food was transferred by Israel to Gaza. (The European Union suspended funding for Gaza’s electricity generators in August, 2007 following evidence that the Hamas leadership was siphoning off revenues.) To compensate for shortages, Egyptian and Israeli utility companies increased their output. The NGO community did not condemn this European policy as “collective punishment.”

In contrast to these politicized and distorted statements, which divert attention from genuine human rights abuses, NGO Monitor recommends a number of human rights and humanitarian issues, which should feature more prominently in NGO campaigns. We urge the NGOs to apply international law universally, and to conduct credible, source-based research in order to monitor the internal Palestinian security failures, including regular kidnappings, murders and intimidation rocket and other forms of terror attacks against Israelis endangering of civilians by Palestinians launching rockets from civilian areas (human shields) abuse and persecution of Christians in Gaza flow of aid and medicines into Gaza, and the role of the Hamas leadership in communicating humanitarian needs to Israel in a timely fashion.

Did French Television Play Fast and Loose with Journalistic Rules in the Al-Dura Case?

The French embrace Arabism and mendacity. Via Did French Television Play Fast and Loose with Journalistic Rules in the Al-Dura Case?:

Did France 2 reporter Charles Enderlin play fast and loose with journalistic rules in order to make his report more dramatic? In the media libel case, the most startling new evidence to emerge from the screening in court of the raw footage is that at the moment when millions of television viewers were led to believe Mohammed al-Dura had died, the boy was in fact alive. The last frames - which come after the heart-rending sequence that concluded the broadcast version - show him lifting his arm and looking towards the camera.

There was some surprise that the "rushes" did not last the full 27 minutes as originally reported, but only 18. According to Enderlin, who was in court, this was because the original cassette had been transferred at the time to a master copy in accordance with standing practice, and several minutes of uninteresting material had been wiped.

New York Times' parallel universe

From WND:

"Palestinians never used to do these things to one another."

That was the first sentence of a New York Times Magazine story by the newspaper's Jerusalem bureau chief, Steven Erlanger.

What are the things Palestinians are doing to one another today that they didn't do before?

putting bullets in the back of the heads of men on their knees;

shooting up hospitals;

killing patients;

knee-capping doctors;

executing clerics;

throwing handcuffed prisoners to their deaths from Gaza's highest apartment buildings;

Is it naivete? Plain ignorance and incompetence? Deliberate disinformation? Partisanship with radical Islamists? Anti-Israeli zealotry? Anti-western pseudo-intellectual ism?

What would possess a New York Times reporter - hardly a newcomer to the Middle East - to lie about the history of "Palestinian" Arabs, who have actually been murdering each other since they adopted the term "Palestinian" as their own identity in the 1960s?

Of course they have been killing and maiming each other. Long before anyone heard of Hamas, the Palestinian Arab movement was stratified into dozens of organizations and political parties and sub-groups. They always killed and tortured and mutilated one another.

And they killed, tortured and mutilated innocent Palestinian Arab civilians who wanted no part of their politics of death. They hanged innocent Christians in the public square following kangaroo trials that would condemn them as Israeli collaborators.

This fratricide has been going on for 40 years. Where have Steven Erlanger and the New York Times been?

Perhaps they have been too busy documenting alleged horrors and atrocities by Israelis. Perhaps it has truly taken this long for them to understand their fantasies about a two-state solution are just that - fantasies.

Erlanger truly seems like a man coming face to face with reality for the first time in his life.

"Gaza today is so far from the hopes of people like James Wolfensohn - the former World Bank president who tried to coordinate economic redevelopment of the 140-square-mile territory between Israel and Egypt after the Israelis withdrew nearly two years ago - as to seem like the other side of the earth," he writes.

Had Erlanger truly placed his hopes for Gaza in the hands of the World Bank? Amazing!

There were many of us two years ago warning exactly what was to become of Gaza following the withdrawal of Israel. It was so predictable! Erlanger, on the other hand, is shocked. Yet he is still the correspondent the New York Times chooses to tell the world what's really happening in the Middle East.

"Rather than a model for a future Palestinian state, Gaza looks like Somalia: broken and ravenous. The civil war that Palestinians insisted could never happen just has, a civil war abetted by Israel and the United States in the name of antiterrorism and stability - another policy that has failed, at least here, where a burning smell still fills the nostrils and where a masked Hamas gunman with an AK-47 recently sat at the abandoned desk of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, lifted up the phone and said: 'Hello, Condoleezza Rice? You have me to deal with now.'"

Notice how this civil war is the fault of Israel and the U.S., according to the New York Times. How? Such details must apparently remain unspoken.

But here's the punch line from the newspaper of record. Despite everything Erlanger has reported about deteriorating conditions in Gaza, this place that was to become one of the wonders of the world thanks to his friends at the World Bank, he remains the optimist when it comes to his friends in Hamastan.

"But the military victory of Hamas may also bring a welcome measure of quiet and security to the 1.5 million people of Gaza, nearly 70 percent of them refugees, who have been living a nightmare of criminal gangs, street-corner vendettas, clan warfare, absent police, corrupt officials, religious incitement and unremitting poverty."

Wait a minute! I thought Palestinians didn't kill each other? Now we find out this has been the life 1.5 million Gazans have known for some time?

And look who is going to save the day - the homicidal maniacs of Hamas!

A Question of Responsibility: Israel Argues in Court that Gaza Is No Longer Occupied

From A Question of Responsibility: Israel Argues in Court that Gaza Is No Longer Occupied:

The Israeli government is arguing in domestic courts that it no longer occupies the Gaza Strip, a designation that under international law holds the Jewish state responsible for the welfare of Gaza's 1.4 million Palestinians. Israel says its legal argument, which appears in at least two cases pending before the country's highest court, is rooted in security concerns that have grown since the January 2006 election of Hamas to run the Palestinian Authority. The Islamic movement derives much of its political power from Gaza, and keeping the Strip's rising militancy from spreading to the West Bank has become a top priority for Israeli security officials. In court filings over the past year, the government has asserted that "with the abolition of the military government in Gaza and in light of the current security situation, the State of Israel bears no responsibility to take care of the various interests of Gaza residents." "The question goes to who is responsible for what is happening in Gaza," said Ruth Lapidoth, professor emeritus of international law at Hebrew University and a former government legal adviser. "In my view, only in the areas that Israel has not given up its responsibility does the occupation continue."

See also Legal Acrobatics: The Palestinian Claim that Gaza Is Still "Occupied" Even After Israel Withdraws

Obama looking for Jewish support

This is just a sickening case of pandering. There is absolutely nothing about Obama that makes me believe he is genuine in this fraudulent attempt to win the Jewish vote. What a Muslim says in public and what a Muslim says in private, are two different things. From YnetNews:

Senator Barack Obama's mystifying position about Israel will be explained on Friday, when the young legislator and candidate for the 2008 presidential election, speaks before American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists in Chicago. Obama, along with the other candidates, will also address the annual AIPAC conference in Washington later this month, but he though it important to make a few statements to the American Jewry before then, possibly due to concerns raised about his attitude towards Israel. 45-year-old Obama is getting stronger in the polls, and is considered a serious candidate although he has only been in the Senate for two years and has not yet left his mark on matters related to foreign policy.

Update: Here is one article that provides a basis for my opinion on Obama and why he is wrong for the United States.

FFOG: International Law Is On Israel's Side

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are just some of the human rights frauds for persisting that only palestinians deserve to live freely while denying Jews the same. Via NGO-Monitor:

BANDYING INTERNATIONAL LAW ABOUT

Amnesty Intl. (A.I.) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) call Israeli demolition of Arab buildings in Gaza discriminatory and against international law. Actually, international law holds that structures used by armed combatants in a war zone lose their neutrality. (During WWII, when the Germans emplaced a machine gun in a farmhouse, were the advancing GIs not supposed to blow it up? Ask Human Rights Watch (HRW) if they, but not the Germans, were supposed to respect its neutrality!)

HRW relies upon unnamed 'eyewitnesses" in criticizing IDF killing of Arabs. It calls the civilians "peaceful marchers," but self-contradictorily admits that some might have been armed. For hours, those NGOs relayed P.A. false claims as their own, of a big massacre in Gaza. They did not investigate. They did not check that the march was a cover for attacks on Israeli soldiers.

ACRI, Physicians for Human Rights, and B'tselem claimed that the IDF barred Arabs from medical treatment. They ignored the fact that P.A. gunmen exploited ambulances militarily (which is the war crime known as treachery), as usual. They are contradicted by the IDF offer to get the Arabs treated in Israeli hospitals (IMRA, 5/24 from NGO Monitor).

Since the Arabs are engaged in a collective war, and their culture encourages deceit, their "eyewitnesses" usually offer propaganda.

The bias of these NGOs is proved by their accepting one side's press releases unquestioningly. That side's press releases eventually become questioned and isproved. If these NGOs had any fairness and decency, they would stop accepting from a emonstrably foul source. As for international law, how could they not know by now that it uthorizes what Israel does and forbids what the P.A. does? These groups hurl accusations "violating international law" as tendentiously as racists hurl accusations of racism. They are like devils with fake halos glued on. Let us not be manipulated into cowering.

Their bias on the side of terrorists, they amount to accomplices of terrorists. People with humane impulses should stop donating to such organizations. One doesn't "do good" by donating to evil.

TOLERANCE IN THE ISLAMIC CONFERENCE

Although that was the topic of the Intl. Islamic Conference, they didn't allow the non-Muslim observer to comment. He concluded that they don't want an honest dialogue. They allow their people to clash with Western civilization.

The conference presented pointless research, demagogic speeches, and predictable clichés. It presented no practical example of tolerance; it just glorified past eras of Islam, reputedly (but not really) tolerant. It ignored the Koran's later verses that advocate intolerance, as fulfilled by Egypt's current persecution of the Copts and by the death penalty for converts out of Islam. It rejected violence but did not criticize violence against infidels. It was against terrorism, but didn't mention terrorism against Israel and Jews or in Sudan. Its only concern about Sudan was for the country's unity (under Arab repression). It called on Muslims to uphold women's rights under Islam, but mentioned no such rights, as not to be forced to have a painful circumcision. The call went out for democracy, but without recommending the means (IMRA, 5/24 from MEMRI).

This is typical of Muslim conferences and Arab press releases. They tend to be generalized, bland endorsements of safely vague, fine-sounding principles. These offend no one but accomplish nothing. Why hold them? Apparently for propaganda. These conferences maintain a facade of civility. They reinforce the misconception of Islam being a religion of peace. It is militant, military, and not ashamed of it, but it doesn't want to disclose its hand and arouse the lethargic West to a powerful defense.

Palestinian suffering on cue

One picture is worth a thousand words.

On Feb. 7, while photojournalists were recording a seemingly candid expression of "Palestinian suffering", Enric Marti of the Associated Press shot the scene from another angle, including the pack of photographers in his frame.

Check out the fraud perpetrated by "Palestinians" on the entire civilized world, here.

A JAPANESE VIEW OF THE PALESTINIANS

If you are so sure that "Palestine, the country, goes back through most of recorded history", I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine:

When was it founded and by whom?

What were its borders?

What was its capital?

What were its major cities?

What constituted the basis of its economy?

What was its form of government?

Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat?

Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation?

What was the language of the country of Palestine?

What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine?

What was the name of its currency? Choose any date in history and tell what was the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against the US dollar, German mark, GB pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese yuan on that date.

And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur?

You are lamenting the "low sinking" of a "once proud" nation. Please tell me, when exactly was that "nation" proud and what was it so proud of?

And here is the least sarcastic question of all: If the people you mistakenly call "Palestinians" are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over -- or thrown out of -- the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic identity that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat in the Six Day War?

I hope you avoid the temptation to trace the modern day "Palestinians" to the Biblical Philistines: substituting etymology for history won't work here.

The truth should be obvious to everyone who wants to know it. Arab countries have never abandoned the dream of destroying Israel; they still cherish it today. Having time and again failed to achieve their evil goal with military means, they decided to fight Israel by proxy. For that purpose, they created a terrorist organization, cynically called it "the Palestinian people" and installed it in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. How else can you explain the refusal by Jordan and Egypt to unconditionally accept back the "West Bank" and Gaza, respectively?

The fact is, Arabs populating Gaza, Judea, and Samaria have much less claim to nationhood than that Indian tribe that successfully emerged in Connecticut with the purpose of starting a tax-exempt casino: at least that tribe had a constructive goal that motivated them. The so called "Palestinians" have only one motivation: the destruction of Israel, and in my book that is not sufficient to consider them a nation" -- or anything else except what they really are: a terrorist organization that will one day be dismantled.

In fact, there is only one way to achieve peace in the Middle East. Arab countries must acknowledge and accept their defeat in their war against Israel and, as the losing side should, pay Israel reparations for the more than 50 years of devastation they have visited on it. The most appropriate form of such reparations would be the removal of their terrorist organization from the land of Israel and accepting Israel's ancient sovereignty over Gaza, Judea, and Samaria.

That will mark the end of the Palestinian people. What are you saying again was its beginning?

You are absolutely correct in your understanding of the "Palestinians" murderous motives. I am afraid however that you, along with 99% of the population of this planet have missed the beginning of WWIII (the enemy call it Jihad) quite a few years ago. The siege of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, an event to which the latest Nobel Peace Prize winner had
so miserably failed to respond, can be very well used as the day WWIII stepped out of the pages of the Koran and into the current events. I pray the United States and Israel lead the world to victory in this war.

Come to think of it, there is no choice, be you a Christian, or even, believe it or not, a Muslim. (Attributed to Yashiko Sagamori)