Friday, November 16, 2012

Always Be Alert to Pal. Propaganda

I saw this 

Today, 3 Israelis were killed as a result of rocket fire from Gaza.

This came after Israel had killed 13 Palestinians, including 3 children and a woman, and injured 115, including 26 children and 25 women since yesterday, 14 November.

This will be presented by Israel – and sympathetic or careless world media – as another justification for Israel’s attacks on Gaza to stop rocket fire. But this narrative is false.

Where there was calm and an effective truce, Israel chose to shatter it, bringing about the current deadly escalation. In general, Palestinians fired rockets, or attacked the Israeli army, as a response to Israeli attacks, seeking to avoid escalation and publicly embracing a truce. Take a look at the sequence:

    On 29 October the BBC reported that “Militants in Gaza have fired 26 rockets into Israel, officials say, amid a flare-up in fighting which shattered a brief ceasefire between the two sides. No injuries were reported from the barrage, in the south of the country.” 

I, of course, noticed, as you did, that "in general" bit.  So, Hamas, every once in a while commits aggression.

And then received this comment:

according to EI's timeline, the fighting began on October 28-29 when a Palestinian fired mortars at Israeli troops. As Abunimah quotes the tangled BBC dispatch: "It came hours after Israeli aircraft hit targets in Gaza, after militants fired rockets following the killing by Israel of a Gazan who Israel said fired mortars at its troops."

EI's apparent alternative theory is that there was a truce in place on November 13 (according to a Reuters story) that Israel broke on November 14 by killing Jabari. Unfortunately, as al Jazeera (!) reported, the self-declared Palestinian truce that was allegedly made on November 12  didn't even make it through November 13, as the Palestinians continued to fire (albeit in reduced numbers). As France24 put it: "Israel launched three air strikes on the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, and militants fired a rocket into southern Israel, hours after Gaza groups said they were ready for a ceasefire with the Jewish state."  But of course the truth is, there was no truce on November 13.
And this:

who declared war first? The official Hamas Charter, written in August 1988, says:
  1. “Israel exists and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it has obliterated others before it”
  2. “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals, and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

Hamas’ charter is itself an official declaration of war, and all who join Hamas are automatically the sworn enemies of Israel.

Caught this:

Israel told the Egyptians the military "would hold its fire on the condition that during that period, there won't be hostile fire from Gaza into Israel," the Israeli official said. "Prime Minister Netanyahu is committed to the peace treaty with Egypt, which is in the strategic interest of both countries," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the diplomatic exchange. Shortly after Kandil arrived, Gaza militants fired off repeated rocket salvoes,





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