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Saturday 21 November 2009

A disproportionate animus

Wednesday, 14th January 2009

Having given Sir Jeremy Greenstock from the ‘conflict resolution’ group Forward Thinking virtual free rein to promote the cause of Hamas, BBC Radio Four‘s Today programme (0846) gave an unchallenged hearing this morning to a yet more dubious individual. Alastair Crooke is the former MI6 spook who runs Conflicts Forum which – with its masthead slogan

Listening to political Islam, recognising resistance

-- doesn’t even bother very much to pretend that it is anything other than a partisan for Hamas and Hezbollah. Crooke pops up in the media whenever there are attempts to confer legitimacy on the Islamic jihad -- a role which came to light when he was abruptly recalled to London by the Security Service, having been a bit too open about his attempts to suck up to Hamas but which he has subsequently tirelessly pursued, not just with Hamas but also with Hezbollah. I have written about this character and the damaging and dangerous activities of his Islamist ‘resistance’ support group here, here and here. Needless to say, Today made no mention of any of this but presented Crooke as a neutral observer of the Middle East scene. In his interview, Crooke took a swipe – of course – at what he called the

uncontrolled collateral damage visited upon civilians

in Gaza by the Israelis. This is the line that the UN has been pumping out day after day. At a press conference on Monday, United Nations Relief Coordinator John Holmes said that, according to latest Palestinian Ministry of Health figures, the death toll then stood at 884.

Mr. Holmes, who is also Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said that, of those killed, 275 were children and 93 women –- 42 per cent of the total –- and also included 12 medical personnel. Three thousand eight hundred and sixty people had been wounded, including 1,333 children and 587 women. Forty-nine per cent of the wounded were women and children. He stressed that those figures could not be independently verified, but that they sounded plausible.

But Israel puts the civilian total far lower. The Jerusalem Post reported:

Based on intelligence and information obtained by the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration, the IDF has determined that at least 400 of those killed are known Hamas operatives. The IDF believes that among the remaining 500, at least half are Hamas operatives.

While today Khaled abu Toameh reported:

Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip said Hamas lost several hundred of its fighters in Israeli air and ground attacks over the past 18 days. At least 2,500 Hamas gunmen were wounded during the same period, the sources told the Jerusalem Post.

As well as members of other Palestinian terror groups being among the dead:

Palestinian reporters in the Gaza Strip estimated that at least 150 gunmen belonging to these groups had been killed by the IDF.

But of course, such figures don't seem 'plausible', do they, because they don't come from Hamas. Certainly, all civilian deaths are much to be regretted, whatever the number may actually be. But the statistics are important because propaganda from one side alone is being accepted uncritically and is being used to demonise the other side – whose own estimates aren’t even being reported to provide a measure of balance, in a situation where the real numbers are difficult to verify. What people don’t realise is that the ‘UN figures’ – which are assumed to be authoritative – actually come from Hamas. The UN is simply regurgitating them. Worse than that, the UN is putting about claims of specific Israeli ‘atrocities’ which Israel has firmly denied, but which have not only been promulgated by the media -- thus further inflaming the Arab street -- but have been persuading previously well-disposed diplomats to withdraw support for Israel’s operation in Gaza on the basis that it has gone too far. The UN makes no attempt at balance. When giving out the Hamas statistic for the number of children who have been killed, it makes no mention of any Hamas operatives among children and teenagers, even though Hamas use even very young children regularly as human shields, human bombs and gunmen. It does not mention the fact that the mosques are being used as military bases: this Israel Defence Forces video shows a mosque from which Hamas was firing missiles and which contained an anti-aircraft cannon and ammunition. It does not mention the smuggling of terrorist equipment into Gaza in the humanitarian convoys -- as described here when

photographic and night vision equipment, apparently intended for terrorist use, was discovered in trucks crossing from Israel two days ago.

And it does not mention that, as the ITIC bulletin reports, the Hamas top brass are hiding in a bunker below Shifa hospital, thus using the sick as human shields:

Avi Dichter, Minister of Internal Security, told Israeli Army Radio that senior Hamas figures had taken shelter in the Shifa hospital, situated in an affluent section in the western part of Gaza City . He said that Hamas commanders stayed there, in some instances wearing hospital white coats. Sometimes they throw the medical teams out of their offices to hold meetings. He said that on January 10, terrorist operatives were ordered to come to the hospital to receive their salaries.

The UN doesn’t mention any of these things and instead acts as a mouthpiece for Hamas propaganda because the vast majority of UNWRA’s staff in Gaza are Palestinians – and all Gazans are either supporters of Hamas or are very firmly under their murderous thumb. When asked at Monday’s press conference whether UNRWA was indeed a Hamas front John Ging, UNRWA’s Director of Operations in Gaza, stalled:

He was ‘just not going to answer’ allegations that UNRWA had been infiltrated by Hamas. No evidence had ever been provided by any authority, at any level. Absolutely no official allegation had been made.

It is left to those in Israel who are aghast at the vicious moral inversion of the west’s response to the Gaza crisis to put events into context. Thus Ben Dror Yemini writes ironically:

The refugees believed they found safe haven. They were wrong. The air strike didn't spare their lives. Over 100 were killed. This is not an account of the tragic bombing of the UN school in Gaza. This is the story of the bombing of Korisa in the former Yugoslavia, the strikes carried out by NATO planes, which took place nearly 10 years ago on May 13th 1999. There are other accounts of this type of catastrophe. On April 12th NATO planes killed, accidentally of course, 12 civilians. April 14th saw the death of 70 refugees. On April 27, 16 civilians were killed. On May 1st, 23 civilians were killed when a bus was bombed. On May 6th, 16 were killed by a cluster bomb. On May 19th, a Belgrade hospital was bombed, 3 dead. May 30th saw 11 die when a bridge was bombed. On the very same day an old age home was hit and 20 residents were killed. The next day 11 more died. About the same time, the Chinese embassy was bombed, and a misdirected missile flew 30 miles off course and hit the Bulgarian Capital of Sofia. ‘It was a mistake, sorry’ was the NATO spokesperson's standard response. This is what happens during war. It is sad and lamentable. Europeans are not called upon to cast their memory all the way back to the bombing of Dresden; all they need is to look back to events that happened less than a decade ago, ere they start wagging their admonitory finger at Israel. Because Israel has not killed, nor will it kill, even a tenth of the number of innocent deaths incurred by European democracies in just wars... Thousands of Taliban fighters die each year as compared with ‘just’ a few tens of European soldiers. Hundreds or thousands of civilians die in Afghanistan, as compared to zero civilian casualties in Europe. So you, in Europe, purport to lecture to us, Israelis, about war ethics and ‘proportional responses?’ Are you for real?

In a magisterial analysis Professor Haim Harari of the Weizmann Institute ponders the way Israel is actually behaving in Gaza and the way this is being so wickedly misrepresented by the western media:

During the current operation, when the Israeli Air Force wants to blow up a house which serves as a missile storage, Israel phones every family in the house and gives them 15 minutes to evacuate. The Hamas is then sending the women and children to the roof of the building in order to prevent the Israeli aircraft from making the kill. Israel has now developed a tiny arrow-like missile which can be sent to the corner of the roof, making a loud noise and harming no one, in order to scare away the women and children on the roof, before the real bomb destroys the missile collection or the explosive storage place. Often, the women and children used by the Hamas as a human shield, escape and the house is then blown up, with a spectacular secondary explosion of the stored missiles or other war materials. On other occasions, a Hamas person gets to the roof and prevents the women and children from leaving. In those cases, the operation is not completed by the Israeli Air Force, in order to spare civilian lives, at the risk of having the rockets launched into Israel on the following day. Never in history, has any country made such an enormous effort to avoid civilian casualties, in fighting against murderers who target only civilians and never anything else.No one in Kosovo, Serbia, Georgia or Iraq, was offered such a courtesy by the bombing and attacking powers. This fact is never mentioned by the western media. Many of the heroic commanders of the Hamas are hiding in the central hospital of Gaza, in an elaborate network of bunkers, trusting that Israel will not attack the hospital. Hamas spokesmen issue proclamations from the maternity ward of the same hospital, knowing that Israel will not hit them there. ...But the same western media repeatedly show the pictures of injured or dead children, some of whom were indeed accidentally injured or killed by the Israeli attacks on military and terror targets, and some are obviously fake pictures with red paint smeared on children faces. At least in one case, the same child, obviously painted and not injured, has been paraded in front of various TV cameras by several different men, each declared to be his father by a different network. Children and innocent civilians are, indeed, killed and injured, in spite of all the enormous precautions and efforts of the Israeli forces. This is truly tragic. But the only alternative for Israel is to sit still, absorb the thousands of missiles on its civilian population and wait for bigger, deadlier and longer range missiles to start destroying everything in Israel. Israel is offered a choice between a complete national suicide, on one hand, and an attack on the terrorists, with extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties, but with the knowledge that such casualties must occur when the other side is using children as human shields, storing explosives in mosques, shooting mortars from schools and hiding the perpetrators in hospitals.

It is unfortunately all too clear which of those alternatives many in the west think Israel should have chosen.

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Michael B

January 14th, 2009 8:10pm

Alastair Crooke, along with so many others, reflecting a studied incoherence, a seeming incapacity to see cause and effect, an absence of any moral compass whatsoever, excepting that which myopia, tendentiousness and a certain contorted sense yields. Instead, content with status quo and surface level perceptions; reminiscent of Zbigniew Brzezinski, "realism" types in the U.S.: astutely informed, astutely myopic, and, astutely self-blinkered, obdurate.

YA

January 14th, 2009 8:31pm

"Cast Lead" was a success.

Now it's your turn Mr.President Erect.

Give us "Cast Iron" - in Iran.

HarleyDavidson

January 14th, 2009 9:30pm

Alastair Crooke, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Sharia Law, Labor Party, the BBC, the Guardian, home of Muslim fanatics exported through out the world, Muslims who blow up buses, Muslim doctors who attempt to blow up airports, shoe bombers, rabid supporters who take to the streets and sing the praises of fanatical Muslim terror groups, Muslims who dress up as women in your country to escape their terrorists acts on your own citizens, Imam Abdul Makin in an East London mosque asks why Allah would tell Muslims to kill and rape innocent non-Muslims, including their wives and daughters, according to Islam Watch.

"Because non-Muslims are never innocent, they are guilty of denying Allah and his prophet," the Imam says, according to the report. "If you don't believe me, here is the legal authority, the top Muslim lawyer of Britain."

The lawyer, Anjem Choudary, backs up the Imam's position, saying that all Muslims are innocent.

Is there some sort of mass genetic brain malfunction anomaly prevalent amongst the British public at large? Perhaps a predisposition in the FOREBRAIN - credited with the highest intellectual functions.
maybe the FRONTAL LOBE - in the planning and coordinating of behavior.

Something gotta explain a nation that could produce a Churchill only to revert to an overproduction of Chamberlains. Who are you people?

Roland

January 14th, 2009 10:02pm

This is woefully depressing. First we have Mal venting her fury at someone or other who has the temerity to hold views on Gaza different to her own. Then follows an utterly predicatable chorus of her small band of extremist followers all vying to outdo each-other in invective dripping with rage, hatred and prejudice.

Lucky for us all that Ms. Philips is a mere tabloid journalist with a following only in these strange nether-regions of the blogosphere!

Off to sanity! Goodnight all.

EDDIE

January 14th, 2009 10:11pm

I suppose it is very easy for me to say this because I am not there fighting, but if Israel does not go in there quickly and surgically even risking considerable civilian casualties then she risks another war in two or three years time. This is an existential thing and the casualties are, I agree, awful but in the long term destruction of Hamas would be a really major step towards a long term peace. It would deal a blow to Iran and make it clear that `Israel will risk everything to survive the threat of atomic weapons or rockets from anywhere. Unfortunately it requires incredible determination and bravery in view of the terrible lying propaganda campaign throughout Europe, Sometimes helped by Jews. The argument that this would cause more radicalisation is nonsense. Radicalisation arrived a long time ago and it is really aimed at the stupid West and all those who march against Israel. It would give all leaders in the Arab world to realise that Israel is sadly and must be as ruthless as its enemies.

Carl

January 14th, 2009 10:30pm

Hello Melanie. Did you see the BBC News tonight? Did you see the beautiful, smiling, two year old Palestinian girl, shot through the spine by an Israeli "soldier"? Shame on the IDF, shame on Israel for all these atrocities.

Marin

January 14th, 2009 10:53pm

Tonight I had the pleasure to listen to Jeremy Bowen who, with a great deal of deference, interviewed President Assad. The president, who apparently needs no introduction on the BBC, appeared to be worried about the spread of jihadism due, of course, to the Gaza conflict. I wonder how many of the people who where listening knew that Syria is on the list of countries who sponsor terrorism. All this is so very sad.

steve

January 14th, 2009 11:16pm

Melanie: You neglect to mention that Tony Blair was on Today immediately before Greenstock and he was extremely critical of Hamas but then that would conflict with your crude attacks on the BBC.

Vision Aforethought

January 14th, 2009 11:32pm

@Carl: This happened during WW1, WW2, Vietnam and other wars where both sides were forced into 'street' fighting on occasion. Yes, like the Middle East, they were innocent victims, however, the difference is the appalling way these children are used as propaganda - and you have bought right into it. Did the Israelis EVER thrust into the lens of TV cameras body parts of ANY individual of ANY age after a suicide bombing in one of their cities? NO! They picked up the limbs, heads and other body parts, burried it all (quickly as is Jewish tradition) and tried to get on with the business of life - trying very VERY hard not to 'hate'.

It is the responsibilities of Hamas / The Palestinian Government to protect it's children, not that of Israel who gains nothing by creating victims out of children.

You aught to be disgusted with yourself for thinking an IDF solider would intentionally shoot a child. Have you met an Israeli soldier? (Who also may have a family and children.) Do you know what training they go through? I didn't think so.

(And any soldier who did commit such an attrocity intentionally would be as vilified by his own people and punished by the law. Unlike those on the other side who are praised for such behavior!)

Dixon

January 14th, 2009 11:39pm

What do Greenstock and Crooke share: They are both v' v' "posh".

Am I being frivolous? I don't think so. In this country, "talking posh" is vastly more important as a putative indication of intellectual authority than either any qualification or grasp of the topic at hand. Lets face it, what do people mean when they say "He sounds educated"...it means "He talks posh".

In this, as in so many ways, we have in these men simply an expression of ceratin peculiarly British maladies ( the class system and romantic attachment to "Arabia" ) that has nothing to do with any modern trend, Nu Laber included.

Dixon

January 14th, 2009 11:42pm

Roland
January 14th, 2009 10:02pm
This is woefully depressing. First we have Mal venting her fury at someone or other who has the temerity to hold views on Gaza different to her own. Then follows an utterly predicatable chorus of her small band of extremist followers all vying to outdo each-other in invective dripping with rage, hatred and prejudice.
Lucky for us all that Ms. Philips is a mere tabloid journalist with a following only in these strange nether-regions of the blogosphere!
Off to sanity! Goodnight all."

Well, she certainly commands YOUR devoted attention, Roland, as you seem to be on here every day!

Dixon

January 14th, 2009 11:44pm

YA
January 14th, 2009 8:31pm
"Cast Lead" was a success.
Now it's your turn Mr.President Erect.
Give us "Cast Iron" - in Iran."

My preference would be "Cast Deuterium".

But phone to warn them in advance.

Dixon

January 14th, 2009 11:50pm

I find consolation in the fact that the BBC, British and European elitist "opinion" counts for sod all in the world anyway. Its absurdly biassed against Israel...I mean all I can do is laugh at it, as obvious as it is, when I see creatures like that Hilsum Rag-Around-Her-Neck on CH4 with her hang-dog expression. But it probably doesn't affect anything even remotely, except to boost the morale of the looney Fascists of Hamas, their Euro-wally supporters, et al.

But that is not necessarily bad, it may encourage them to get over-confident, over-step "the mark" and come the proverbial "cropper".

Adam B.

January 15th, 2009 12:18am

I'm sure that all those who write about their "outrage" at the civilian casualties in Gaza were also writing in blogs about their indignation at every Hamas suicide bombing against Israeli civilians - right?

Roland

January 15th, 2009 12:21am

Carl - well said. Your post should remind everyone here of the true degradation and horror that is being inflicted by the IDF on civilians in Gaza.

I've thought a lot about the nature of Melanie's blogs, and the majority of posts here (partly why I'm here Dixon - a kind of fascination at what's really going on here). Surely, all the rage - the denial of every horror reported, the attempts to shout down any witness to these horrors, or any institution or body which tries to draw the world's attention to them (today, the Re Cross - are they too Hammas stooges?), and Mel's obsession with the media reporting rather than with the events on the ground - surely all this is one enormous attempt to evade reality, to cling onto accepted, comfortable prejudices? It's all just kicking up dust in the face of the truth, really.

Meanwhile, in the real world, horrendous human suffering grinds inexorably on.

Frank P

January 15th, 2009 12:26am

A quadruple whammy Dixon. Excellent!

Dave M

January 15th, 2009 2:15am

"Something gotta explain a nation that could produce a Churchill only to revert to an overproduction of Chamberlains. Who are you people?"

There's some solid evidence to suggest the modern male population has less testosterone, is more passive and less aggressive than in the days of Churchill. What I can say for certain is the specific downfall of this country is connected to the wrong types of people being in leadership positions. The people who've been leading the country for the last two decades are too prepared to "understand" terrorism, tolerating what is unacceptable, concealing feelings of inferiority and negativity. As we know, testosterone is the basic hormone that men need to be constructively aggressive. In H.G. Wells's Time Machine, our time traveller becomes incredibly frustrated when he lands in the future to find a race of people who have no will to struggle, help one another, fight for survival and so on. These are the Eloi and I guess modern terrorists must be the Morlocks. However the case may be, like James T. Kirk, on a personal level I don't believe the essence of man ought to be some kind of understanding, apologetic, excuse-making, let's-all-hug-and-be-friends apologist whose main raison d'etre is not to cause too much upset by rocking the boat.

Jerry

January 15th, 2009 4:38am

I do not doubt that children can be injured or killed in such a vicious conflict, but to blame Israeli soldiers for all the tragic occurrences is a reflection of prior prejudice. It has been reliably reported and confirmed that Hamas members have been attempting to infiltrate Israeli lines dressed in IDF uniforms. Given Hamas' propensity to devalue human life, it should have passed over the minds of those critical of the IDF that Hamas gunmen might have been committing a portion of the atrocities to further their cause. It is a clear sign of preformed ideas that conclusions are reached so easily by those with no more knowledge than that offered by UN workers who were not present at the events leading to death or injury or Palestinian reporters with no confirmation other than their say so, as though there is no history of media manipulation. Truth is also a victim here, but no one cares to notice.

Alcuin

January 15th, 2009 10:11am

Thank you again for bringing to us information that we would never get from the BBC virtual monopoly. If the current crew were running the BBC during WW2, we should be getting regular interviews from Lord Haw-haw, and grilling of Arthur Harris for his "disproportionate" bombing tactics. Bless you.

phil

January 15th, 2009 12:17pm

Carl and Roland I find it difficult to address you ,but sadly it is necessary to address the point that was made ,which was equally as hateful as the death of any child no matter its race .Jewish culture glorifies life not death, and to say the soldier deliberately killed a child is a monstrous and unfounded allegation .If you really cared you would ask why hamas place these innocents in harms way and booby trap buildings that they occupy .

The Israeli army actually train its soldiers in specially constructed buildings in how NOT TO cause harm to civilians in urban warfare .They are not in conflict on the Somme ,it is horrible street to street war and sadly there are innocent victims .I am sure neither of you know any other army who trains like this ,but I do not think you want to do you?

The deaths of the innocents are entirely the responsibility of hamas who have been determined to prosecute their devil,s work regardless of the danger it puts the Gaza people in -It would be simple for them to agree that Israel could exist alongside a viable Palestinian state in peace and prosperity ,but instead have chosen conflict and death .You and those like you are deluded whether by hatred or lack of understanding ,I do not know ,but so long as you continue to support an evil regime these sad deaths will go on .on both sides .

phil

January 15th, 2009 12:25pm

Vision Aforethought sorry I may have taken your ground with carl and roland but you cannot be left alone to express your disgust with them .I wonder what motivates minds like their,s ,carls in particular ,as roland has been known to express compassion on occasion -I would like to think they are merely deluded .

andy c

January 15th, 2009 12:54pm

Asked before, but Melanie appears hell bent on criticism instead of being constructive.

What exactly is the path for peace that Melanie would suggest?

Bombing Iran, demolishing Palestine aside seems to figure heavily, but is that it?

Melanie - instead of post rationalising and justifying the increasingly unjustifiable, what, honestly, is your formula for the security of Israel over the next 20 years?

Adam B.

January 15th, 2009 3:13pm

andy c, the path for peace will only be realised when the Islamic world accepts the concept of a non-Islamic state in the Middle East i.e it accepts difference. Unfortunately, we haven't reached that stage yet.

Raymond Joseph Douglas

January 15th, 2009 4:10pm

To Steve, Actually our Tony, for all his faults, does get "it" when it comes to Islamic terrorism and why t5he jihadists hate us.I still remember Blair's speech about terrorism in July 2004 and how impressive it was.I thought Labour activists would try to get rid of him,and they did!

phil

January 15th, 2009 4:58pm

andy c AND YOUR NEVER ENDING ATTEMPTS AT CAUSING TROUBLE -NEVER MIND WHAT OUR SOLUTION IS. what is yours ?we have stated what we believe a thousand times ,have you ever made a constructive suggestion ?-you know one that might actually work and that the militants will accept -let us all know -no holds barred -we do not expect love and kisses from you just a bit of common sense ok

phil

January 15th, 2009 5:01pm

Dixon I could do with a laugh who is Hilsum Rag-Around-Her-Neck on CH4?-;)

Alcuin

January 15th, 2009 5:16pm

Phil: "sadly it is necessary to address the point that was made ,which was equally as hateful as the death of any child no matter its race"

You think that, I think that, Melanie thinks that, and the IDF think that - and try to respect it as far as it is possible in war. The trouble is, Hamas does not, even in respect of its own people. A dead Palestinian, especially a child, is merely a weapon in its propaganda war.

That is where your rationale (and that of the BBC & MSM) fails. In war, ruthlessness works, I am afraid. Hamas, Hezbollah and Putin understand this, as did Nelson, Wellington, Pershing, Patten and Churchill. The liberal literati do not.

phil

January 15th, 2009 5:40pm

Alcuin I do understand ,but I have my morality and if I were to lose that the evil ones would win ,and they will not .I am not a liberal literati (I have been called worse)-I am a pragmatist and in the long run evil has never triumphed .they have had their day and then they had Nurembourg.keep flying the flag -mine is red white and blue ,and presently white and blue alongside .

Dixon

January 15th, 2009 10:27pm

Phil, thats the..er..delectable ( pfa pfa ) Lindsay Hilsum.

As for the Man of B**ls Winston Churchill, and the myriad Chamberlains, don't forget the Big Man was actually half American!

I wouln't place much stock on testosterone levels, after all, Maggie had bigger b£$ls than any of them!

phil

January 16th, 2009 5:40pm

Dixon gracias amigo

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Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'Londonistan', published by Encounter and Gibson Square.

For a complete set of Melanie's articles click here