Thursday, July 31, 2014

An insight into what is really going on in Gaza

A friend has sent me the following letter they received from a close relative in Israel (for obvious reasons I have removed the names). While a lot of it is simply an excellent restatement of what is known to people following the conflict, it also contains some information that has not been previously made public:
"We know from X's job that there are many tunnels. There are several types: Bunkers, hiding places (for pop-out, attack, pop-in), command posts, housing in war for important and rich Gazans, etc. The main type of tunnel that BB has spoken of, consistently, from the beginning of the operation, has been attack tunnels that lead from Gaza into Israel, some into the middle of kibbutzim and moshavim on the border, the others very close to them. Some of these tunnels are two-three kms long!

From the captured Hamas people we have learned that the sole purpose of these attack tunnels being for one huge operation at Rosh hashana this year. They had planned to instantaneously attack the settlements, with crews of ten to fifteen terrorists to each tunnel, slaughtering as many people gathered together in their settlement dinning rooms celebrating the Rosh hashana eve meal as they could and kidnapping others.

These tunnels were considered an existential threat to Israel. The brief history of this operation that has turned into a war: Three months ago, two idiot Hamas operatives decided to do something unilaterally, They kidnapped and immediately killed three young men, aged 16-19. Israel consequently responded by arresting nearly every Hamas operative in the West Bank. These operatives were not only a threat to Israel but also threatened the rule of Abbu Mazan (Arafats' replacement and essentially the PM of the Palestinian State in the West Bank). Hamas responded to this by allowing a slow but steady stream of rockets into Israel. Israel decided to do pinpoint operations to target the rocket launchers and their operators. These launchers are buried in the ground, pre-targeted at Israeli cities. Many of them have pneumatic mechanisms for opening, firing and then closing. Israel has known of these for a long while, hence the 4000 air sorties which have destroyed a good deal of them. The Hamas, courtesy of Iran, have around 30,000 rockets of which perhaps 1/3 have been fired at Israel. About 10 of these 10,000 rockets have got through the Iron Dome defenses and actually caused Damage or injuries. Hamas must show some kind of military gain to the Arab world. The only way they can do this is to fire rockets at Israel.

Hamas has suffered HUGE losses. Officially 1300-1400 Gazans have died so far, 60% of which are males between the ages of 19-35 years old...you work out whether they were combatants or not....Unofficially they have lost at least another 2000 combatants. Their internal terror infrastructure has been totally destroyed. Their main command post, where their leadership cadre are sitting, is under Shee'ba hospital in central Gaza city...You can imagine the type of defenses they have arrange around that facility. I would suggest that they have rigged the whole hospital with explosives waiting for Israel to attack them, unleashing terrible carnage which they would use as a tool against Israel. Perhaps to create a tidal wave of reaction involving attack by Iran (nuclear?), Iraq, Syria and the rest of the Arab world.

When Israel went in, the plan was to neutralize the above mentioned attack tunnels in the above mention pinpoint operation, but the further in we went the more spurs of these tunnel were found. Each tunnel under houses, mosques, schools and clinics and hospitals. Hamas forced the residents to stay in these places so Israel couldn't bomb them. Each tunnel entrance guarded by 10-20 terrorists. Israel will not bomb civilians knowingly, so our boys have to go in and clear the space of civilians, while under attack by terrorist, before they can destroy the tunnels. This is why, to reiterate the above statement "These tunnels were considered an existential threat to Israel". You might also consider how the Hezbollah in Lebanon have been passing their time since the last contratante we had with them apart, of course, from destroying Syria. I hope this explanation wasn't too fragmented. Maybe pass it on to any of your friends who may be starting to doubt what Israel is trying to do."

Letter to my MP about the Gaza crisis and the new funding going to Hamas

(As on previous occasions I am not naming the MP)

Dear XXX

I am sorry to have to write to you again about my concerns with respect to the way politicians (across the board, but especially in the Labour party)  and the media are dealing with Israel's conflict with Hamas.

The media coverage almost universally amounts to a campaign of propaganda and lies on behalf of the terrorist organisation Hamas who have been allowed to dictate the news agenda. There has been no attempt to consider the Israeli perspective. if you want to get a feel for how this coverage is effecting British Jews please see this:

http://edgar1981.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/being-jew-in-uk-how-medias-false.html

(the article provides important links at the end to the critical information that the main stream media is simply covering up because it does not fit their 'Israel aggressor/Gaza victim' narrative).

and here is a report of what happened to my friend in Oxford Street as a result of the antisemitic hatred generated:

http://edgar1981.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/today-in-london-my-best-friends-wife.html

I would also like you to read and distribute to your colleagues the following brief first hand report from an Israeli soldier about what he found in one of the Hamas tunnels in Gaza (note: you will not see this type of report in any of the main stream media - perhaps you can answer why?):
"We went into Shuja’iya, to discover and destroy the Hamas’ terrorist tunnels. We discovered there an entire underground city, with multi-shaft, wide tunnels, with Wi-Fi & air-conditioning systems, concrete walls, and stocked to the ceiling with weapons and explosives. Some of the tunnels are so wide, that they can ride back and forwards on Vespa-type scooters. And then came the worst! The Hamas “fighters” started sending towards us 13- and 14-year-old Palestinian children, running at us, wearing explosive-laden suicide-bomber belts!! Those children were death-trapped, and became human bombs, by the community’s adults!! We were trained to fight adult soldiers or any other skilled adults, enabling us to defend our families and countrymen. But this?? We had no other option but, in self-defense, to shoot them at as far a range from us as we could, before the “responsible adult” that sent them used his mobile phone to detonate the belts, and kill us.” One of the Israel injured soldiers ended up by saying, “I do not know if I’ll ever be able to sleep again; the pictures of those poor children, killed by my gun, will probably never leave me!”
In the light of the evidence I am astonished to hear today that the Government is rewarding "Gaza" with yet more millions of pounds of British cash. If that money stood a chance of going to the genuinely needy civilians of Gaza then I would not have a problem. But every penny that goes to Gaza from charities or in aid goes either to Hamas directly or through UNWRA which is 100% staffed by Hamas people or people approved by Hamas. That is why they were able to build one of the world's the most sophisticated network of tunnels under the whole of Gaza (some of which
lead two kilometres into Israel) for the sole objective of murdering Israeli civilians. Just the tunnels that are known of so far are estimated to have cost over $1billion. All that was funded by aid money and much of the concrete was actually provided by Israel after the "International Community" forced Israel to do so 'to help build the civilian infrastructure".

Israel did not start the war, yet Israel is bearing a terrible cost in addition to the loss of many young conscript soldiers - just our of school - who have been sacrificed to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties. Israel is suffering one of the most sustained and comprehensive rocket attacks against one country's civilian population in world history (Hamas has been firing around 150-200 each day now for over 3 weeks against all Israel's cities).  Over 80% of Israel's population has been living in or near to shelters. This includes 2 million children. Everybody seems to care for the children of Gaza but nobody cares for the children of Israel. Apparently the world is angry that Israel does everything possible (through the Iron Dome system and the use of shelters) to minimize civilian casualties because everybody repeats the mantra that "only 3 Israeli civilians have died so far". In fact, all normal economic and social life has come to a halt in Israel and tens of thousands of businesses have gone-  or are about to go - bust. Yet nobody ever considered aid to Israel.

Yours

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

LBC responds to my complaint about their war against Israel


I sent a formal complaint to LBC about what I reported here and have received the following response:
Dear Edgar,

Thanks for your email. We always welcome feedback from our listeners.

As a station, LBC seeks to ensure stories are accurately reported and multiple perspectives are aired, especially on controversial issues. In light of the seriousness of what's happening in Israel and Gaza we are also consistently monitoring our programming to ensure it is fair and balanced.

Generally speaking, across the station's output, when a presenter expresses an opinion, our listeners are enthusiastic about wanting to communicate the opposite viewpoint and to participate in a debate - and, typically, we can achieve balance in our coverage of an issue in that way.

During the hour of his show which focussed on the Gaza conflict, James O'Brien asked whether those in support of the Israeli government's action could fairly be described as "radicalised?" His contention was challenged by a number of different callers all of whom were given plenty of time to question and examine the basis of his argument and to advance alternatives.

That said, we are of course very conscious of how the ongoing conflict provokes strong feeling on both sides and will continue to actively encourage a wide range of views to be expressed and heard on air. This is also a message we have re-iterated to our production team.

On your point about our news bulletins, in fact the newsreader said "with both Israel and Palestinian militants blaming each other for the attack." In neither the scripts nor on-air did the words "Israeli militant extremist groups" appear.

Thanks once again for getting in touch and I do hope this goes someway to reassuring you.

Kind regards,


LBC Complaints
And here is my follow-up response:

Dear LBC Complaints

I appreciate that you have taken the time to respond to my specific concerns.

Regarding your response about James O'Brien:  Just because some people phoned in to respond does not make it right that he equated people who support Israel with terrorists. If LBC ever actually considered any of the multitude of evidence to prove that Israel is the moral participant in the Gaza conflict while Hamas is pure evil, then perhaps people like James O'Brien would have realise how irrational his statement was.

Regarding your response to the news reports:  I find this almost bizarre. So the newsreader did not say "Israeli militant extremist groups" repeatedly but she DID say repeatedly "..with both Israel and Palestinian militants blaming each other for the attack". That is just as offensive and misleading as what I recalled. Who exactly are the Israeli militants being referred to? The Israeli Government and the IDF provided proof (subsequently confirmed by an Italian journalist who was there) that it was a Hamas rocket that struck the hospital. Are you claiming that the Israeli government and the IDF are "militants" who are morally equivalent to the terrorist organisation Hamas? And in any case why did LBC never follow up on the story and confirm the evidence?

I invite you to read the report below which not only explains in detail why the LBC reporting is fundamentally flawed, but also the devastating impact such biased anti-Israel coverage is having on British Jews:

http://edgar1981.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/being-jew-in-uk-how-medias-false.html

Yours

Edgar Davidson

Being a Jew in the UK: how the media's false narrative on Israel is opening up a tsunami of anti-semitism

Anti-semitism 1933
Anti-semitism 2014



As well expressed in this open letter, there is little point in attempting to argue Israel's case rationally with anti-semites (which includes, sadly, most Muslims, all hard-core leftists, and all self-hating Jews).

What is more important, and more worrying, is the effect the incessant anti-Israel coverage is having on average British people who are being brainwashed into hatred of Israel. The coverage (as summarised here with full details here) amounts to little more than a narrative of propaganda and lies on behalf of the Hamas terrorists who have been allowed to dictate the news agenda, with no attempt to ever consider the Israeli perspective.Left, right, centrist it simply does not matter what their normal political perpsective is. Every single media outlet has bought into the same Hamas lies and propaganda.

So being in the UK at the moment I now have some impression of what it must have felt like to be a Jew living in Nazi Germany in the early days of the Nazis. Simply replace the "Jewish nation" now with the "Jewish people" then - Israel being the "Jew" among the nations. We have the same obsessive, irrational - and completely unjustified - singling out of 'crimes' by the "Jews", violent anti-"Jew" marches every day, and the crescendo of cries to boycott the "Jew". Just as in Nazi Germany the incessant anti-Jew propaganda has had an impact on 'average' people (possibly in many cases bringing out latent anti-semitism). Just 5 years of Nazi anti-Jew propaganda was sufficient not just to convince millions of average Germans that the "Jew" had to be totally exterminated, but made them willing to help carry out the extermination themselves; it is not over-dramatic to suggest that, with the anti-Israel media propaganda now reaching a crescendo, we are close to the point where a large number of average people feel the "Jew" nation must be exterminated. Indeed, even being seen to be a 'supporter of the "Jew" nation is becoming 'illegitimate', as one of the most popular presenters on the UK's most listened to radio stations said yesterday: "any person who defends Israel must be classified as a radical extremist exactly like an Al Qaeda or ISIS supporter". Being considered 'illegitimate' makes me feel there is no place for me in the UK. And this is compounded when I hear celebrities, politicians - and yes erstwhile friends - tweet their support for a terrorist organisation that wants me dead.

The average British person knows absolutely nothing about foreign affairs but (because of the media's total obsession with the "evil of the Jew") is somehow now certain that "Israel is committing genocide against Gaza" and that "Israel is an apartheid state that murders Palestinian children for fun". And the average person who is totally unaware of the hundreds of thousands of civilians murdered by Islamists in dozens of countries in the last two years, somehow knows the names of individual Palestinian children 'murdered by Israel' in Gaza.

Typical of this 'average British person' was a 'friend' on facebook who, having never in her life previously expressed a political view on any subject at all, suddenly started broadcasting passionate pleas about how we had to "stop Israel's genocide against the children of Gaza".  Her view was that this was one of the worst tragedies in the history of the world. When challenged about her views she said she was especially moved by a documentary she had seen by Jon Snow (Channel 4).

Obviously she was not aware that Jon Snow (in common with many BBC reporters) has an obsessive anti-Israel agenda (and judging by this report is also a genuine anti-semite). My reaction was to tell her what the media is NOT telling the public. I said the media is not telling you anything about:

  • The thousands of rockets fired against Israeli civilians by Hamas and the fact that Hamas are the elected government of the people 
  • Hamas storing rockets in schools and hospitals and also firing from them 
  • Hamas rockets falling short in Gaza being the reason for some of the worst incidents of loss of life (at schools and hospitals)
  • Journalist in Gaza being effectively censored by Hamas 
  • Israel only launching its offensive when Hamas refused to stop firing rockets.
  • The damage the rockets cause in Israel nor even the deaths and injuries.
  •  The suffering of Israeli civilians, including 2 million children who have had to live in bomb shelters for 4 weeks now. And the complete shut down of normal life in the entire country (including the shut down of all international flights for 3 days).
  • Israel's relatively low civilian casualty figures being due to the fact that a) the country is living in bomb shelters; and b) it pays for an expensive missile protection system (Iron Dome).
  • Hamas use of human shields in buildings from which they are firing and storing rockets
  • The incredible extent Israel goes to in order to avoid civilian casualties (unlike any other nation in the history of warfare).
  • The dozens of Israeli soldiers now being sacrificed to avoid Arab deaths because the Israeli Government demands they go house to house to find the tunnels and weapons caches rather than bombing those sites.  These guys are simply young conscripts just out of school.
  • The dozens of terror tunnels that Hamas has built (using billions of aid money from the EU and US) and is now using to mount attacks inside Israel (and was planning to use for a major massacre of Israeli civilians). If Hamas had used the money to build bomb shelters rather than tunnels there would have been no civilian casualties.
  • All Palestinian casualty figures are provided by Hamas or "UN sources in Gaza" who are Hamas affiliates who have always been proven to lie about them. The vast majority of those killed are Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.
  • The genocidal Jihadist beliefs of Hamas, including their charter which calls for the destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews in the world.
  • How Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and forcibly removed every Jew (over 9,000). The infrastructure left behind by Israel (including thriving multi-million pound greenhouses) was immediately destroyed by Hamas and the materials were used to build rockets. They have been firing increasingly powerful rockets at Israel ever since. Only when they started to do that did the 'blockade' (which is actually just an attempt at an arms embargo) begin.
I also asked why she does not get similarly upset about the real atrocities carried out by Muslims all over the world and, in particular, why she was not sending similar messages praying for:
  • the children of Syria (50,000 murdered since 2011 by Islamists of one sort or another)
  • the Christian children of Nigeria (10,000 murdered and/or held hostage since 2012 by the Islamists Boko Harum)
  • the children of Iraq (30,000 murdered since 2011 by various Islamists)
  • the children of Libya (10,000 murdered first by NATO troops and then by Islamists sine 2011)
Since sending that message to her  - and engaging with other 'average Brits' on the subject - I was asked to 'provide' proof of the above facts. Even highly intelligent people claimed they had never heard anything about things like the use of human shields in Gaza, Israel's telephone warnings to civilians, the terror tunnels, or even the rocket attacks against Israel. And none were aware of the Hamas charter.

So I decided to compile a set of links exactly for the purpose of informing people who simply have not been told otherwise. Please distribute this link as widely as possible:



 

What the main stream media is NOT telling you about Israel/Gaza: Links to videos and articles

To support this article here is a set of links to send to friends who rely on the main stream media for their news and views of the Gaza conflict.

Videos/articles that summarise some of the key issues and the media lies

Hamas rockets in UN Schools

Who is responsible for most civilian casualties in Gaza (including at schools and hospitals)


The extent that Israel goes to in order to avoid civilian casualties



Israel sacrifices soldiers to avoid Arab civilian casualties

Hamas use of human shields


Hamas embedded in, and firing from hospitals, schools , homes, mosques etc


Hamas killing protestors and ‘collaborators’ (and claiming all such victims as being civilians killed by Israel)
The ‘civilian' casualties

What it is like for Israeli civilians


The Hamas terror tunnels


Disproportionate response from Israel?


Palestinian use of children and indoctrination


The Islamic mentality Israel is up against


Who is Hamas
The 'blockade of Gaza' and relevant recent history of Gaza

Who started the 2014 Gaza war?


Why you should not trust the UK main stream media
Why Israel cannot trust Obama on Gaza

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Obama double standards

The piece by Elder of Ziyon prompted me to produce this.


LBC's war against Israel

For update on this (with LBC response) see here. Also see this update.

On LBC this morning the antisemite presenter James O'Brien said that
"any person who defends Israel must be classified as a radical extremist exactly like an Al Qaeda or ISIS supporter". 
Also, in every main news report on LBC yesterday evening about the (Hamas) rocket that struck the Shifra hospital in Gaza the newsreader said
"Both Palestinian and Israeli militant extremist groups claimed it was the other side whose rocket struck the hospital"
 As I posted yesterday the British media no longer needs to know what is really happening in Gaza as they can just keep reusing this template:




Monday, July 28, 2014

Saving the British media a lot of effort in their Gaza reporting

In order to save British media editors the effort of any novel reporting over the next few weeks I am pleased to be able to present a  convenient, easily adapted template that can be repeated EVERY day until a ceasefire is imposed on Israel <*for the figures simply refer to the method described here>. In fact, it's the very same one they have been using every day for the last four weeks! And what's really great is that it can be used by newspapers of every political pursuasion because they all know there is no alternative view to present!


Please note the template is the copyright of: The Guardian, Independent, The Sun, The Times, Mirror, Express Mail, Metro, Evening Standard, Telegraph, Socialist Worker, BBC, Sky News, Channel 4 News, ITV News, LBC, CNN, Google news, Yahoo News,.Ny Times, LA Times, ....

And of course below is the "News" that must never be seen by the public at large.