Fighting flares along Israel-Gaza border

Contrary to the article’s lead-in, the terrorists attacked Israel first before Israel shot back. Being a Reuters reader, Reuters always makes it appear that Israel shot first until you read the whole article. Better journalism is called for.

Contrary to the article’s lead-in, the terrorists attacked Israel first before Israel shot back. Being a Reuters reader, Reuters always makes it appear that Israel shot first until you read the whole article. Better journalism is called for.

REUTERS I AM MAD AT YOU

THIS IS NOT JOURNALISM!!!!!

THIS IS BEING PARTIAL AND TAKING SIDES!!!

WHY YOU DON´T MENTION THE 30 ROCKETS FIRED AT ISRAEL TODAY?????

WHERE IS THE REPORT ABOUT THE 30 ROCKETS FIRED TODAY

As usual, this story is designed to make Israel look horrible and says nothing about the bloodthirsty terror activities of the Palestinians that actually started this particular salvo.

Why is it that Reuters only presents one side of the Middle East conflict? Why doesn’t it discuss and show pictures of damage and injury to Israelis from the ”militants” who are actually terrorists?

In the spirit of journalistic ethics, I would have imagined images of the million citizens under attack in Israel would find itself among the six images.

All the more reason, when three of those images are unrelated to the story and the remaining three relate to the family morning of a killed terrorist!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, Reuters has disseminated six thousand bits of one-sided propaganda in what appears to be a clearly biased agenda against Israel. Nowhere may one find an accompanying text to the agonizing Gazans’ photos explaining that those they mourn were killed in attempts to launch rockets against Israeli civilian population centers. The three pictures depicting the abhorrent desecration of a mosque has no connection whatsoever to the lead story. The entire slide show is patently aimed to garner sympathy for the Palestinians. Why are they in place? Where are pictures of any of the tens of thousands of Israeli civilians targeted by the Hamas rocketry? Why no pictures of the damage done on Israel’s side of the border? Reuters’ one-sided, prejudiced coverage of the conflict is unprofessional and unacceptable.

I am interested you show Palestinians but no where are there pictures of Israelis who were under siege during the rocket attack? The Israelis did not fire the rockets. Where are the pictures of the Palestinian rocket launchers? This is blatant bias reporting.

Your article gives the impression that Israel attacked Gaza first and Hamas fired rockets in response. In fact, terrorists in Gaza fired the rockets first and Israel responded with strikes killing terrorists. Your article also misleads its readers by implying that Israel may have killed the 2 year old innocent Palestinian child. In fact, as you know, as reported by the BBC, Hamas medical officials lied and told the world media that an Israeli strike killed the child, while Hamas admitted to the BBC that a misfired Hamas missile killed the girl. Hamas was trying to kill innocent Israeli children but failed. Still you follow up that the same medical officials claim the cause of the child’s injuries are not clear. Obviously, if the facts do not fit your anti-Israel agenda, you are happy to print what you know are lies from unreliable sources. That is not journalism, that is vile propaganda.

Reuters will have to be more accurate in their reporting, or they may face losing their credibility and their audience. Whatever happened to unbiased reporting?

No mention at all about the thousands of rockets thrown into Israeli towns, no mention about the unprovoked attacks against innocent civilians in Israel, I guess Jewish blood is cheap.

The pictures shown Israel as the aggressor, which is false.
One would expect a higher quality of reporting from Reuters.

Plosker – Palestinian Girl’s Death: Hamas Owns Up
Posted: 20 Jun 2012 06:51 PM PDT

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
20 June ’12..

When will the media learn? How many times have ubiquitous “Palestinian medical sources” turned out to be less than wholly reliable? In the latest example, the aforementioned Palestinian medical sources claimed that a two-year old Palestinian girl had been killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza.

And why wouldn’t the media accept such a claim, having been conditioned to a) believe that Israel kills innocent children and b) to take Palestinian claims at face value?

In this case however, the IDF moved quickly to deny the accusations. Evidently this prompted the BBC’s Jon Donnison to double-check the veracity of the Palestinian claims resulting in a surprising admission from Hamas. Here is Donnison’s Twitter feed showing the progression of the story until the truth emerged.

(Tweets are shown in reverse chronological order i.e. most recent tweet is first.)

So Hamas has admitted that its own failed rocket launch was responsible for the girl’s death. This didn’t, however, prevent some media from either running with the initial charge or failing to clarify the incident when the truth became clear. AFP, for example states:

In a separate development, an unexplained explosion in Gaza City killed a two-year-old girl on Tuesday evening, medics said.

An Israeli military spokesman denied there was any air strike in the area at the time.

How is this an “unexplained” explosion?

The unreliability of Palestinian medical officials is highlighted by Israel Hayom:

Emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya told the Palestinian Maan news agency in a statement that Hadil al-Haddad, 2, was killed and her brother injured on Tuesday in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City.

But despite the Hamas official’s admission to the BBC, another Hamas medical official told Reuters on Tuesday that the cause of the child’s death was not clear. Witnesses told Maan that al-Haddad was killed when terrorists launched a rocket close by.

Israel Hayom picks up on something that the international media doesn’t want to tell you – that medical officials in Gaza are under the direct control of the Hamas governing authorities, particularly the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

It’s high time the media cut out the unreliable sources.

Unreliable sources and factual accuracy are part of our Six Secrets of Media Objectivity. View our slideshow here.

Link: http://honestreporting.com/palestinian-girls-death-hamas-owns-up/

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy “Love of the Land”, please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the “Subscribe” box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.
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Kushner – From Israel: Face of Things to Come?
Posted: 20 Jun 2012 03:00 PM PDT

Arlene Kushner..
20 June ’12..

When last I wrote, a member of an Israeli crew working on the fence being constructed on our border with Sinai — precisely to prevent infiltration into Israel — had just been killed by terrorists who had crossed over from Sinai. (According to one report, one terrorist shot by the IDF was wearing a suicide belt, and planning considerably greater damage.)

This followed by two days the launching of two Grad Katyusha rockets from the Sinai into the Negev.

Then, very shortly after the attack at the fence, rocket attacks from Gaza began.

The army statement at that time was that there was no connection between the Gaza rocket launchings and the terrorist attack out of the Sinai. Such coincidental timing left me a bit dubious.

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While the situation is still muddled and confused in many ways, I would like to begin today with a report from Barry Rubin of the GLORIA Center. Rubin said (and this has now been confirmed) that the terrorists who attacked at the fence adjacent to the Sinai had come out of Gaza. When he wrote, there were unconfirmed reports that these men were Hamas.

“This event follows a report in Haaretz newspaper, attributed to Israeli security officials, that the Muslim Brotherhood had asked Hamas to attack Israel…This story was not picked up by other Israeli newspapers, suggesting either that it was wrong or that it had been a security leak which the army had then stopped.”

The significance of this is considerable, according to Rubin: “…we are now at the beginning of Egypt’s involvement, directly or indirectly, in a new wave of terrorist assault on Israel.” He sees the possibility that Egyptian Islamists would not only provide support to Hamas, but allow Hamas infiltration into Egypt and Hamas bases on Egyptian soil, where Israel would not be able to pursue them.

http://www.gloria-center.org/2012/06/and-now-it-begins-attack-from-egypt-signals-muslim-brotherhood-hamas-jihad-against-israel/

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I share this speculative piece by Rubin not because it is correct in all its details. In fact, according to a report today, the Israeli Air Force has now hit the cell in Gaza — near Rafah — that orchestrated the terrorist attack at the Sinai border on Monday. One terrorist from that cell who was killed, Raleb Armilat, was Islamic (or Global) Jihad affiliated, not Hamas; he was an aide to a senior member of IJ, who was badly wounded.

So much for Hamas having gone into Egypt at the Brotherhood’s behest.

But, as I pointed out earlier, it was Hamas that celebrated the apparent (it is not a sure thing even now!) win by the Brotherhood candidate in the Egyptian presidential elections. And I’ve just picked up from the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center the fact that the Egyptian press had reported that Hamas operatives played an active role in the uprising in Tahrir Square (something denied by Hamas). What is more, Hamas does seem to be involved in the launching of rockets out of Gaza now (much more on this below). So Hamas involvement cannot be ruled out.

We’re going to need a spread sheet to keep track of all of this. For there are Bedouins active in terrorism in the Sinai as well, and there is an Al Qaeda presence. (An obscure Al Qaeda affiliated group, Mujahedeen Shura Council of Jerusalem, actually claimed responsibility for the Monday attack at the fence.)

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What I’m most interested in is Rubin’s larger point regarding possible cooperation of Islamic terrorists in Gaza with Islamists in Egypt. This should be not be taken lightly. The situation is in flux and increasingly radicalized, this does not promise a whole lot that’s good at our border.

While I metaphorically allude to that spread sheet, I also want to point out that the various radical groups are not all autonomous and discrete. Sometimes they compete, but sometimes they overlap and cooperate in sharing of resources in order to bolster their mutual goals. What is more, disgruntled members of one radical group sometimes switch allegiance and join another group, thereby adding to its strength and expertise.

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As to Gaza, since I last wrote, the situation has escalated. The last few times there have been rocket launchings from Gaza, Islamic Jihad has been responsible, not Hamas. Some while back I wrote about the eclipsing of Hamas by IJ, with Hamas having fallen out of favor with Iran.

And so at first, the current barrage of rockets was thought to be the work of IJ. But Hamas has taken some credit here, and we’re going to have to watch what’s going on.

Today alone more than 24 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israel. Some 50 have been launched since the attacks began on Monday. The Sdot Negev Regional Council, the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council, and the Eshkol Regional Council have all been involved. Sderot is once again in the line of fire.

Most of the rockets have been Kassams, but a Grad Katyusha struck the outskirts of Beersheva this morning, just as children had reached their schools.

Summer vacation is almost upon us, and parents in the region are reluctant to send their kids to school at all. Once again there is talk about having sufficient shelters for all. Sound familiar?

Some nine people have been injured — one border policeman seriously — and there has been damage to property.

An Iron Dome installation intercepted a rocket launched at Netivot.

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Needless to say, the Israeli Air Force has launched several air strikes in the last few days. The most recent in the north of Gaza this evening, when two terror camps were hit.

Where is this going? Have no answers. Not yet.

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Also an important part of the face of things to come: what has happened at the Ulpana neighborhood in Beit El.

The 30 families who are the residents of the five houses to be evacuated by the end of this month — according to High Court order — last evening struck a deal with the government, with the guidance, encouragement and support of the Rabbi of Beit El, Rav Zalman Baruch Melamed. Beit El mayor Moshe Rosenbaum was also involved, as was MK Ze’ev Elkin (Likud Faction and Coalition Chair). This represents the culmination of several days of negotiations.

Rav Melamed, who heads the Beit El Yeshiva, told his students on Monday:

“Sometimes, we must understand that there are battles that cannot be won. Therefore, it would be best to use this terrible low point for the betterment of all of Judea and Samaria.”

Please G-d, if all proceeds per this agreement, there should be a gain for Judea and Samaria. But even beyond this, Rav Melamed had concern with regard to violence anticipated when the Ulpana residents were to be evicted, and he was eager to prevent this. As the Ulpana residents said in their statement:

“…we are peaceful people. Struggles between brothers tear the entire public, and our community in particular, apart.”

For the dignity and the rightness of this stance, I applaud all of them.

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But, as the residents also made clear, they have agreed with “a heavy heart,” for there is an essential injustice that has been levied against these people that is not mitigated by the agreement.

The agreement in its essentials:

The residents will leave peacefully. They will temporarily reside in caravans (mobile homes). Their houses will not be destroyed, but will be moved to a new location. I was not able to learn what that intended location is (if indeed this has been determined yet). And there seems to be some question as to the logistical feasibility of actually moving those buildings. But this is the deal.

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The government promises to construct 300 new houses in Beit El. This is major. It sets a precedent.

There has been no building in Beit El for some time — no room for building. Now what has been decided is that an army base at the Beit El location will be moved to Migron (I’ll address this at some other point), so that land for housing will now be available (as the property where the base is located will become civilian State land).

MK Elkin made it clear that there were attempts by opponents of building in Judea and Samaria to put up legal stumbling blocks to the building. But they have now been wiped away and there are no obstacles. Those legal objections, as I understand it, had to do with transfer of the military base to civilian use. But all of Beit El began as a military base.

My contact in Beit El tells me that the government agreement to do the building, complete with a timetable for construction, has been put in writing.

What seems to be the case is that back some weeks ago when Netanyahu first made the promise to construct 300 houses in Beit El, the legal barriers had not been defeated. That is, his promise at that point consisted of words (which is why I had picked up rumors that he wasn’t serious). But now, I’m told, the situation is different.

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The last concession by the government is also major: a ministerial committee will oversee building in Judea and Samaria and in the future, no decisions to demolish neighborhoods or communities are to be made by the government, the Attorney General or the Ministry of Defense.

This goes to the heart of the miscarriage of justice that occurred in this instance.

In brief, the High Court ordered the evacuation of the buildings in Ulpana because they were allegedly on “Palestinian land” before the issue of whether this is truly the case has been adjudicated. It is currently being reviewed by the Jerusalem District Court; the High Court does not deal with issues of evidence. It may take years for the District Court to examine all evidence, and in the end it may decide that the residents of Beit El were the property’s true owners.

What makes this all the more surreal is that even if the court decides in favor of the Arab who is claiming it, the land will sit unoccupied by order of the IDF, because it is considered a security breach to allow Arab building in the heart of this Jewish community. This very strongly mitigates for compensation to the alleged owner, if his ownership were to be proved, rather than evacuation of the site.

The claim that the land was Palestinian Arab owned was brought by Yesh Din, a far left organization that is funded by foreign elements. That claim was made seven years after the building had been done in Ulpana — it was not as if the alleged Arab owner saw the construction on his land begin and then rushed to do something about it. This alone gives pause.

The High Court relied upon the statement of the prosecutor, speaking in the name of the government, that the houses would be taken down. That prosecutor did not represent the sentiments of the Knesset or the coalition at that time.

Subsequently, when there was a furor about the projected evacuation of these houses, the prosecutor was sent back to the High Court in the name of the government to say that there had been a change in the government’s position. The High Court refused to accept this, saying that the evacuation would stand. This is indicative of an imbalance in the system, and a Court that is predisposed politically in one direction.

For a description of this miscarriage, see commentator Moshe Dann’s article, here:

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=274322

For a more detailed description of what has transpired from the beginning and the way in which those in opposition to Jewish building in Judea and Samaria played the system, see this article by Baruch Gordon, Beit El resident, member of the Beit El Council, activist:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/157040

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© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.

See my website at www.arlenefromisrael.info Contact Arlene at akushner@netvision.net.il

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy “Love of the Land”, please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the “Subscribe” box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.
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(Video) Presenting a Balanced Picture? Reuters Fails
Posted: 20 Jun 2012 01:08 PM PDT

Yarden Frankl..
HonestReportingVideo..
20 June ’12..

Yarden Frankl “…The pictures that accompany news articles go a long way to influencing the perceptions that people have towards the region and Israel.” With rockets falling on Israel in large numbers, what pictures does Reuters choose to show?

See pictures by clicking here

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy “Love of the Land”, please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the “Subscribe” box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.
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And the Real Apartheid Winner is … Palestinian!
Posted: 20 Jun 2012 10:30 AM PDT

Emily Amrousi..
Israel Hayom..
20June ’12..

A well-known radio broadcaster recently told me that, as a settler, I am fine and my arguments may also be convincing. The problem, he said, is the “occupation.” The thought that people might finally stop blaming “the settlers” for the problem felt like a breath of fresh air, pure oxygen. But then the broadcaster continued: people around the world see our apartheid roads in Judea and Samaria and this severely damages Israel’s image. He asked me to consider what I would think if I were a Palestinian and someone told me that I could not drive on certain highways. That fresh oxygen I mentioned earlier quickly turned into non-breathable carbon-dioxide.

One can’t even begin to confront this claim without starting with the firm truth that there are no apartheid highways here. This radio broadcaster was simply perpetuating a made up narrative. There are no highways anywhere in Judea and Samaria which Palestinians are forbidden from driving on, but which Jews are allowed to use. This includes all of the bypass roads and all of the settlement highways. It includes the road inside the community where I live as well, (according to a High Court verdict from just a year ago) which a Palestinian can drive on to get from their children’s kindergarten to the grocery store, just as I drive on it to get from my house to my neighbor’s house. Along the Trans-Samaria Highway there are signs cautioning all drivers to watch out for bicycle riders on the shoulder; both Palestinian and Israeli registered cars drive at the same high speeds. If there is such a thing as an “apartheid highway,” it would refer to highways closed only to Jews.

About three years ago, the High Court heard two highway-related petitions in just one week. One of the petitions was submitted by Palestinians requesting permission to use the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, #443. The other petition was submitted by Jewish settlers requesting permission to use the highway from Talmon, a settlement near Ramallah, to Jerusalem. Both petitions rested on the principle of freedom of movement. Now, don’t fall out of your chairs just yet. The High Court set that the security establishment must allow Palestinians to use highway 443, even if it could endanger Israelis on the road. Yet at the same time, it forbid the defense establishment from allowing settlers to use the short Talmon-Jerusalem highway. Now you should hold on to your chairs: the latter decision was based on the High Court’s concern for settlers’ safety.

Why am I bringing up these cases now? A week ago, the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria, which despite its name actually exercises full military control over every aspect of the lives of 360,000 settlers, returned Palestinian lands that had previously been confiscated to build an alternative road, one that would not “endanger” Jews in the eyes of the High Court. It would also have finally allowed thousands of Israelis from the Talmon area to more easily reach the major city in their district, Jerusalem.

Here are the facts: 20,000 other Israelis and I live in absolutely legal settlements in the western Binyamin region, established with permission from the proper authorities. Jerusalem sits just on the other side of a mountain, about 15 kilometers as the crow flies; we can see the city’s lights clearly in the night sky. Up through the late 1990s, residents in this area could drive on a highway that reached the city in about 20 minutes. But then, terror struck the roads, and some settlers paid with their lives for the drive. The short highway to Jerusalem was closed for security purposes, and instead cars were diverted to a new 60 kilometer (37 miles) spiral road, heading first west, then east and finally south, requiring drivers to pass through three IDF checkpoints before arriving in Jerusalem.

The state eventually understood that it must provide a reasonable route for Binyamin area residents, so in 1998 they decided to build a new paved highway from the Talmon area to Jerusalem. You might be asking: why punish the Palestinians and confiscate their lands to build a new and comfortable highway for the settlers? First off, Palestinian terror is the one and only reason that these people can’t use the existing highway. Second, the settlers were ready to use the existing highway, but the High Court forbid them from doing so. Third, the new highway was designated for any licensed driver, regardless of license plate color, either Israeli or Palestinian.

Yet this has still not happened and now it appears that it never will. In response to a more recent petition submitted by Yesh Din, a NGO that advocates for human rights, the Civil Administration announced that it had cancelled plans to build an alternative paved highway. So here are the options: if you are a Jew, take the long road, which is totally geographically illogical. If you are an Arab, take the efficient short road, the one closed to Jewish traffic since the start of the first Intifada in December of 1987. If you want justice, and you were born to a Jewish mother, don’t seek it in the Israeli Supreme Court. This, in essence, is the story of apartheid in Judea and Samaria. 　

Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2097

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy “Love of the Land”, please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the “Subscribe” box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.
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Roth – Those rockets keep coming, and the news coverage outside the immediate area is practically zero
Posted: 20 Jun 2012 09:00 AM PDT

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
20 June ’12..

Incoming-missile sirens have been wailing across much of southern Israel almost non-stop throughout the hours of darkness and at about hourly intervals during this morning (As well as throughout Wednesday evening, the most recent at 10:50 pm Y.). It’s continuing as we type these words.

Irrespective of whether Israelis have been killed or injured or terrified, it’s a nightmare – a taste of what full-scale war-by-terrorists is going to be like as the war waged by “our” terrorists gets more sophisticated, with longer-range rockets, more accurate missiles and other outcomes that result from them having better and more technology. “Our” terrorists are cast from the same mould that is producing other people’s terrorists – everyone else’s terrorists. Their weaponry and methodology are similar and getting more similar all the time.

Perhaps this – the realization that the threat which Israel is attempting to blunt – is what prevents editors and their journalists and reporters, analysts and photographers – from properly covering – at street level, ground level – what hundreds of thousands of people living right across southern Israel are living at this moment.

Who knows? Whatever the explanation, this means it’s practically impossible for anyone living outside the immediate region (other than the determined few who tune in to the various blogs and news services created by Israelis) to a real sense of the terror being inflicted round the clock on half of the state of Israel and its residents by the Islamic Jihadists, the Hamas thugs and the other sub-divisions of the global armed-to-the-teeth Islamist hatred movement.

Link: http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.co.il/2012/06/20-jun-12-those-rockets-keep-coming-and.html

Why doesn’t Reuters show a balanced view of events. Why are there only photographs of palestinians? Why isn’t this news story impartial?

This is an example of biased journalism. It is designed to give incorrect impressions of the actual facts of the story. First, the pictures which go with the story give an incorrect and biased impression. The last 3 pictures show vandalism at a mosque; this has nothing to do with the story, but they give the reader the impression that vandalism is part of the story.
Also, there are no pictures showing Palestinians firing rockets toward Israel, nor are there any pictures of the Israelis running for bomb shelters.
Secondly, the beginning of the story gives the impression that the Palestinians only fired rockets at the Israelis after first being attacked. The story never clearly establishes the facts: the Palestinians fired rockets first, and the Israelis responded with air attacks.
This is biased journalism and should not be tolerated by Reuters.