Today, the leftist group Breaking the Silence released a report on how awful the IDF was during the Gaza war.
As usual, the stories have no context and no details, so it is difficult to know what exactly happened.
But I went to the BTS site to see testimonies from Gaza last year. Here was the first one I saw:
There were a few times where it was just too much and I had to say something. Because in two months of fighting, people make mistakes, mistakes happen. It’s our good fortune, and I mean both as a nation and as the IDF, that there are some people who know how to stand up and say, “Hang on, something bad is happening here.” I remember one incident in which there was permissiveness of sort on the part of the upper levels with regard to wanting to open fire, and it was fortunate that somebody stepped up and said something.
What was the story?
Some militant was being monitored, he had been incriminated, and he was on his way to a meeting with other militants, and on his way there he was joined by another person who started walked alongside him, and the moment their paths linked up – despite the fact that it was totally against regulations – the second guy got incriminated too, and nobody knew from where he had popped up. So you couldn’t incriminate him ‘dry.’ And in that case, there were people there who said, “Hang on, this is no good.” And in the end the strike wasn’t carried out, it wasn’t executed. What I’m trying to say is, that sometimes even the commanders up top make mistakes, and I was present during an incident where it was stopped. I can’t know if there were incidents in which it wasn’t stopped, but in my estimation there were cases in which incriminations were made against the regulations.
So someone walking next to a militant was almost accidentally killed and in the end he wasn't because someone spoke up.
Doesn't this show how horrible the IDF is?
Arguably, this shows that the IDF's rules of engagement are too permissive. Depending on the value of the target, according to the laws of armed conflict, the IDF could have killed both of them without the slightest worry about it being a war crime or even immoral.
Akiva Bigman at Mida last year looked at many more testimonies and was equally underwhelmed. Every story he read either didn't show anything very wrong, minor problems or issues that would happen any time you deal with human beings, or at worst, some problematic episodes that don't describe the context of the danger that the soldiers were in at the moment of decision.
I'm seeing other stories that are just as unimportant. But BTS and its sponsors know that most people wouldn't bother reading the stories themselves that often show the morality of the IDF, and will only read the most lurid ones that are cherry-picked for Haaretz.
If any other Western army had a similar initiative to BTS, chances are they would come out much worse.
Yet "Breaking the Silence," as with so many other NGOs, is funded by the EU with the intent to bash Israel and only Israel.
Because you've gotta start somewhere. And, apparently, when Israel is your target, you've gotta end at the same place you start.
(See also NGO-Monitor)
Another BTS post coming up next.
Remember Gabriel Latner, the Cambridge student who stunned the world with his defense of Israel at a debate? My transcript of the speech went viral with over 9000 hits.
He is now working at UN Watch, and here you can see him take on the UN Human Rights Council's hypocrisy.
The topic is a debate on racism and discrimination. When Latner mentions human rights abuses in Cuba and China, he is interrupted by those countries' representatives and the Council president warns him not to continue to bring up cases of council members!
An important video:
One of the best parts of Michael Totten's book was where he described exactly how Hezbollah tries to intimidate and threaten reporters - and how reporters are reluctant to report this story.
There are two reasons for this, Totten says. One is that the intimidation often works. The other, simpler reason is that editors will not allow journalists to be part of the story. (p. 157)
Even though readers need to know the context of how a journalist obtained his or her information, so we can evaluate how accurate it is likely to be, it is the rare journalist like Totten who actually explains the situation. So we see a very skewed view of the world in closed societies.
From AP via Daily Star Lebanon:
OCCUPIED RAMALLAH: A leading Palestinian advocacy group says human rights for people living in the Palestinian territories are at their "worst" in years.
The annual report by the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights said hundreds of people were tortured by authorities in Gaza, ruled by the Islamic militant group Hamas, and in the West Bank, governed by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
It says several people died in Hamas detention and one died while incarcerated in the West Bank. It also says Hamas took 16 prisoners from their jail cells and killed them during the war with Israel last year.
Commission chief Ahmad Harb said other violations include bans on peaceful gatherings. He said rights violations "increased in volume" over the past four years.
Kudos to AP for reporting what is generally unreported.
And brickbats to practically every major subscriber to AP for not bothering to choose this story.
I found this in very few sources; a few Israeli papers and this Lebanese one, plus some generic news aggregators. But when stories about Israel are instantly reproduced in thousands of news sites within minutes, it is very telling that something like this gets all but ignored.
Also, it is interesting that while the original AP story uses a dateline of "Ramallah," the Daily Star says "Occupied Ramallah." I wonder if AP allows subscribers to change their datelines for political purposes.
(h/t Yenta Press)
I just read another ignorant article in OnIslam.com, this one describing the Muslim view of anti-semitism. (Hint: it is very similar to Helen Thomas'.)
The article ends off with
This is indeed our call to Christians and Jews. As people who believe in God and follow His revelations, let us rally to a common formula - faith. History proves that when we all return to the true altruistic teaching of our religions, harmony and a successful civilization will follow.
Whenever I see any Muslim group telling us that Islam was historically tolerant towards Christians and Jews, I feel compelled to dig up a new counterexample.
Today's comes from The encyclopædia of missions: descriptive, historical, biographical, statistical, Volume 1, published in 1891, meant as a reference for Christian missionaries in far-flung places.
It says, in the entry on Alexandria, Egypt:
The Mohammedans have acquired a very bitter feeling toward the Christians and the Jews, and are ever ready to join in any demonstration or insurrection against them, if they have any reason to suppose such a movement agreeable to the rulers of the city. Given a chief of police like the one in office in 1882, and another scene like that of June llth of that year, with all its barbaric horrors and cruelty, would be enacted, for the elements suitable for such an act are ever ready.
Here's what happened then:
On 11 June 1882 a row over a fare between an Egyptian donkey boy and a Maltese man triggered a riot in the city in which several hundred people were killed, including about 50 foreigners.
Must have been those Zionists.
From MEMRI, quoting Al Masry al-Youm:
The Camp David Accords signed between Egypt and Israel have expired and no longer govern the situation, Arab League secretary-general and potential Egyptian presidential candidate Amr Moussa has said.
Moussa, who participated in the negotiations with Israel in 1978, made the statements during a discussion with Egyptian youth.
He added, "What governs the relationship between the two countries is the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 and the Egyptian-Israeli treaty."
Can Israel take back the Sinai - and its oil fields - then?
From YNet:
A recent survey conducted by Pechter Middle East Polls, in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations, ahead of the possible Palestinian bid for statehood in September, revealed that given a choice, the majority of east Jerusalem residents would prefer to remain Israelis.
The survey sampled 1,039 Palestinians living in all 19 neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, and was supervised by Dr. David Pollock.
Perhaps the most striking finding regarded the residents' citizenship preference, after a two-state solution is reached: When asked if they preferred to become citizens of Palestine or remain citizens of Israel, only 30% chose Palestinian citizenship. Thirty five percent chose Israeli citizenship and 35% declined to answer or said they didn’t know.
When asked if they would move to a different home inside Israel if their neighborhood became part of Palestine,40% said they were "likely to move to Israel" and 27% said they were "likely to move to Palestine" if their neighborhood became part of Israel.
What makes these numbers more amazing is that they reflect attitudes shaped by decades of media incitement against Israel and of generations being inculcated with an ethos of a fake historic Palestinian Arab nationalism.
The idea that 40% would actually pick up and move their families to live in Israel is in itself astonishing, and proves more than anything else that Israel treats its Arab citizens better than they expect to be treated in "Palestine."
(h/t Joel)
From Michael Scott Doran in an IHT/NYT op-ed:
The turmoil in the Middle East is not unique. Half a century ago, a similar series of revolutions shook the ground beneath the Arab rulers. The immediate catalyst was the Suez crisis. After Gamal Abd al-Nasser, the charismatic young Egyptian ruler, nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956, the British and French, in collusion with Israel, invaded Egypt to topple him. They failed; Nasser emerged triumphant.
...In the 1950s, the dominant ideology, pan-Arabism, focused on external threats: gaining independence from imperialism and confronting Israel. In contrast, today’s revolutionary wave is driven by domestic demands: for jobs and political representation. Yet the underlying ethos of both revolutionary waves is very similar. Then, as now, the people in the street believed that the existing order was dominated by corrupt cliques that exploited the power of the state to serve their own interests. In addition, then, as now, the revolutions tended to topple leaders aligned with Washington.
Although there is no personality like Nasser towering over the revolutionary events, there is one state taking a leaf from Nasser’s book: Iran. Under Nasser, Egypt opposed British and French imperialism, which it worked to associate in the public mind with Israel. Iran is taking a similar stand today against Britain’s “imperial successor,” the United States. And like Nasser, Iran has created an anti-status-quo coalition — the resistance bloc which includes Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.
The bloc’s strategy seeks to turn the anarchy of the Middle East to the disadvantage of the United States. As the revolutionary wave expands political participation, the bloc will insinuate itself into the domestic politics of its neighbors. In countries divided along ethnic and sectarian lines, it will use terrorism and work closely with partners on the ground who are willing to make direct alliances, as we have already seen in Iraq and Lebanon. In more homogeneous countries, such as Egypt, the bloc will resort to more subtle and insidious means — for example, inciting violence against Israel through Hamas, in an effort to drive a wedge between Cairo and Washington.
Although the resistance bloc may not be as influential as Nasser was, it is nevertheless poised to turn the turmoil of the region to the detriment of American interests.
And from John Bolton in the WSJ:
Since the "Arab Spring" began four months ago in Tunisia, U.S. media have focused constantly and generally optimistically on the turmoil in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the rising threat of an Iranian Winter—nuclear or otherwise—is likely to outlast and overshadow any Arab Spring.
Iran's hegemonic ambitions are embodied in its rapidly progressing nuclear-weapons program and its continued subversion across the region. In a case that emphasizes the fragility of aspiring democracies, Iranian Winter has already descended upon Lebanon, where Iran's influence has helped replace a pro-Western government with a coalition dominated by Tehran's allies, including Hezbollah. Last week, departing Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri condemned Iran's "flagrant intervention" in his country.
In Syria, despite substantial opposition to the Assad dictatorship, regime change is highly unlikely. Iran will not easily allow its quasi-satellite to be pried from its grasp, and is reportedly helping the Assad regime quell this week's protests.
Then there's the Victoria, a ship containing tons of weaponry bound for Hamas that the Israeli navy seized last month. The episode recalls the Karine A, a weapons shipment from Iran to the Palestine Liberation Organization seized by Israel in 2002. Clearly Iran has a penchant for arming Sunni and Shiite terrorists alike.
...America's failure to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions—which is certainly how it would be perceived worldwide—would be a substantial blow to U.S. influence in general. Terrorists and their state sponsors would see Iran's unchallenged role as terrorism's leading state sponsor and central banker, and would wonder what they have to lose.
The Arab Spring may be fascinating, and may or may not endure. Sadly, Iran's hegemonic threat looks far more sustainable.
I touched on these themes in an earlier post that concentrated on how a resurgent Muslim brotherhood can only help Iran, despite the Shi'a/Sunni rift.
Read both articles (you need to find the Bolton article in Google in order to read the whole thing - the title is "Iranian Winter Could Chill the Arab Spring" so search for that.)
(h/t David G)
