Palestinian Authority and Where Did the Euros, Dollars, and Pounds All Go?

 

The Arabs are blaming Israel and the occupation and colonial oppressive rule for their money woes. Initially their audit by Tariq Dana, a senior research fellow at Birzeit University, as reported in the Arab Palestinian Authority (APA) news service, Ma’an News Agency, reported that the APA suffers from deeply ingrained corruption. But perhaps the APA is not entirely to blame as after all the APA was birthed from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which itself suffered from the very same deeply ingrained corruption. Of course it almost goes without saying that the PLO passed their tradition and systemic deeply ingrained corruption on into the very similar structure adopted in the whole flesh by the APA. According to the report, the APA corruption is, in effect, a self-enforcing system dependent upon the graft and deceit formed through what the report named, “patron-clientelism” which pretty much mimics what in the Western nations is called crony capitalism except that there is little to any capitalism in the APA ruled areas. The report claimed that all this ingrained corruption which will be near impossible to weed out as it is simply the way things get done, will get done and always have gotten done ever since during the management by the PLO used a system, “during the 1980s, the PLO leadership used the Sumud (steadfastness) Fund…which was formally channeled through the Palestinian-Jordanian joint committee…to award their supporters and exclude others.”

 

In the report Dana noted that, “After the Oslo Accords, the patron-client regime was unsurprisingly inherited by the (A)PA and constituted the backbone of its institutional base.” It was mentioned that the corruption was “associated with the personalized and unaccountable style of governance of late PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian political leadership.” Using the first audit of the APA back in 1997, because, after all, every organization waits for four years after their inception to submit to a formal audit as why find out what is wrong at the start when maybe it could be repaired, found nearly forty percent of the APA budget, equaling around three-hundred-twenty-six-million dollars, was misappropriated. Dana continued pointing out that there is a continued system of corruption which has been strengthened through a massive public sector of “over 165,000 civil servants who are fully dependent on salaries guaranteed by international aid to the (A)PA.” The report further pointed to another problem area spawning from, Dana explained, “The dysfunction of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and the complete absence of legislative monitoring of the governmental budget have freed the presidency and the executive from institutional checks-and-balances and public accountability.”

 

 

Yasser Arafat takes oath to be the greatest of all when it came to setting up a culture of deeply ingrained corruption as head of the PLO. When the PLO was granted authenticity as the (A)PA, Yasser Arafat brought that culture of deeply ingrained corruption with him. Upon the death of Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, his faithful second in command all these years, proved to be no slouch when it came to continuing the culture of deeply ingrained corruption. Now the world continues, especially the Europeans, contributing the billions of Euros, Dollars, and Pounds we can never ask as to where they all have gone. We know, but must never speak or the whole house of cards will fall and all will be wearing the blame.

 

 

The report went into an area which seemed unusual for an audit but proved interesting to read, at least more interesting than any of the numbers and other banalities. The report cited an explanation that the APA public sector may be massive and corrupt, but it also is very fickle for employees. It gave the following example, “If employees express criticism of (A)PA policies, they are likely to be forced into early retirement, denied salary payments, or arbitrarily removed from their posts. They may also face a series of punitive measures, including denial of promotion or transfer to distant areas.” Special mention went to the Ministry of Local Government which is an interesting way by which the APA uses money distributed to those recognizes mukhtars, tribe heads and heads of influential families allowing them to speak on behalf of those who they control thus extending further the propagation of the corrupt hierarchical system.

 

But the best part of the entire report are the conclusions as to who is to blame and from where this deeply ingrained corruption was imposed upon the APA and the PLO likely before them. Yes, you guessed it, Israel. The only way to explain this stretch is to quote the report as given in the article. According to the report the APA corruption “played into the hands of the Israeli government, whose intention in signing the Oslo accords was to create a client state that they could continue to control through the rents distributed to the (A)PA via international donors, coupled with a strategy of territorial fragmentation and containment.” Even worse, “Israel has repeatedly contributed to and exploited corruption in the (A)PA. It has done so in order to place the blame on the Palestinians for their economic ills and to distract attention from the devastating impact of its colonial policies on Palestinian social and economic development.” And further, even if the corruption was not any base for the economic problems, the report concludes, “Although corruption within the (A)PA is undoubtedly harmful economically, it is worth noting that its effects are a distant second to the impact of systemic Israeli destruction of the Palestinian economy.”

 

The conclusion that the systemic deeply ingrained corruption being caused by Israel must be caused by the Israel Electric Company (IEC) charging the APA for the electricity provided to the areas under their autonomy where the IEC provides electricity for the Palestinian electric provider. The only problem is that the electricity provider is government owned by the APA and they have fallen years behind in their payments. Actually, records show that the Arab Palestinian electric company has not paid for the electricity they have received for at least the past decade, if ever. Further, when the Israeli government has attempted to divert tax monies due the APA to cover their overdue electric bill the European Union and numerous European governments, NGOs and European financed Israeli NGOs go into apoplectic shock decrying the possible end of the world being upon the earth as the APA is being held to normal rules and forced to actually pay for the electricity they have already consumed. The IEC gave notice to the APA that if they made no effort to mitigate their outstanding balance then the IEC would be left with no alternative but to cut off the power provided by the Israeli company. You would have thought that the IEC had threatened to steal all their children’s toys or some other diabolical horrific act by the reactions from all quarters starting with the United Nations, United States State Department and the European Union among other NGOs and nations from every continent reacting with shock and amazement that the Israeli government would permit this private company from cutting power to a group who had not made any effort for over a decade to pay for the electricity they had consumed. The Israeli government instead of turning a deaf ear to the whiners from the world over instead threatened the IEC and then cajoled them and twisted their corporate arms pressing them to continue to provide electricity to the APA free of charge.

 

If anyone believes that the APA in Judea and Samaria are not meeting their obligations, they have nothing on Hamas and friends in Gaza. Israel provides Gaza with most of its potable water and over half of its electricity and receives no payments for these provisions. Additionally, Israel sends a full trainload of tractor trailer rigs with full loads across the border crossing every single day, even on the Sabbath and, believe it or not, even every day last summer including during the Operation Protective Edge. The Israelis continued to transport tons of food and medical supplies every day during the weeks of war with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other terrorist groups every single day despite the fighting. Israel also continued to provide electricity and water as if nothing was different and in complete disregard for the state of war. Why would Israel do something so completely counterintuitive? Oddly enough the reason you would receive from the Israeli government, the IDF or any official in the Israeli government would be that while the people of Gaza elected Hamas to be their government the people cannot be held responsible for that same government they elected and anyways, Israel is not at war with the people of Gaza, just the terrorist groups which conduct rocket attacks and other violent acts against Israelis. Does any of this make one iota of sense? Of course not. Why would the Israeli government do such a thing? Fear of what the world would think and that somebody in Europe, especially in Brussels at the headquarters of the European Union might throw a hissy fit and say mean and nasty things about Israel and that would hurt Bibi’s feelings and we know we must not hurt Bibi’s feelings or that of anybody in Europe, Judea, Samaria, Gaza or at the next meeting of the Arab League or the United Nations Human Rights Council. It sure is not to receive any credit for doing what is right and humane even when it works in direct contradiction to the good of Israel and her people.

 

What can we deduce from all of this? Well, first thing is if the APA has some systemic financial difficulties, it must not be ascribed to the APA as they are the ones who must never be held responsible. Well, if it cannot be the APA, who can we as the powers of the world blame? Well, the United States claims, “not us,” the European Union says, “don’t look at us,” while the United Nations disputes their complicity and the Arab League suggest, “Let’s blame Israel, they did it,” and the others all look knowingly at each other nodding and they all blame Israel. How can Israel fight the world powers, the world media, especially the mainstream media and leftist media and fight the combined power of every United Nations organization, the world’s majority of NGOs and a general sense of anti-Semitism which holds the Jewish Nation as the scapegoat for all the ills of the world? The fight is an uphill fight and it is about to take a particularly nasty turn when Israel goes from being blamed for any and all opposition to the current Iran Nuclear Deal reached between Iran and the P5+1 and soon after Iran turns nuclear then Israel will likely be blamed for not opposing Iran with sufficient stridency and for not taking the necessary steps to prevent Iran from acquiring the necessary tools and abilities to produce nuclear weapons. Then the world will look to Israel and demand what they plan to do about the Iranian nuclear weapons and then demand to know when Israel plans to act. The realty comes down to Israel is demanded to stand down and not act and then blamed when nothing was done. Israel is pushed to act to repair a grand mistake made by other nations and then condemned for acting. It is the old situation of, and we will use blasted for a better and more familiar term; blasted if they do and blasted if they don’t, can’t win for losing. Take it as you wish but the thing the world had best understand, Iran needs Israel as the monster behind the Iranian governments every unsolved problem, that position does not transfer as well to the United States or Europe, so Israel has an upside down insurance policy; in it is the safety which Iran can blame for all its ills while Iran has little use for the Great Satan when the little Satan will do and once the United States is rendered muted as the great Satan then Europe becomes the next Great Satan. Anyway, Israel is well practiced at taking the blame in stride and will depend on being blamed as everyone else tries to explain why they were targeted. Must be wonderful to be any of you.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Media and Anti-Israel Anti-Zionist Slanted Coverage

Read or listen to news reporting which emanates from the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), AFP (Agence France Presse), AP (Associated Press), CNN (Cable News Network), Reuters, Fox News, UPI (United Press International), Yahoo, Google, Al Jazeera, The New York Times, or even if your news comes with a laugh as you get your news from Comedy Central, or the myriad of smaller news agencies, television news, radio news, political talk shows, print media or even blogs including Beyond the Cusp, as all of these rely on the major news reports and other media to provide the meat and gristle on which we all prey upon to survive and provide the best commentary and even historical references and other interesting color as well as opinions and positions well backed up with facts. The problem comes when you are covering Israel and trying to report relatively fairly, though our Zionist roots tend to make our writings have a slant, often the opposite than many of the news reports, due to their omitting valuable and necessary information or taking the word of terrorist leaders without any filter or validations and pass these propaganda as raw unadulterated news, one needs to carefully provide balance and factual backup of your positions. Here at Beyond the Cusp we often refer to our views as being pro-Israel and pro-Zionist as we made Aliyah almost two years past and have enjoyed our new nation and have found the people to be very accommodating, friendly, helpful and finally finding other Jews who feel as we do about Israel and the problematic situation our dear nation has had foisted upon us. As we are all damaged when Israel is damaged and we feel that it is bad enough that so many news sources report about Israel always in a biased, strongly negative light and then we are told that all we need do is talk more forcefully and then our voices will be heard and Israel will have a positive side that might go a far way to negating the perceived negative slant. The difficulty with this suggestion is when Israelis speak more forcefully the reporters write the quote relegating them to have come from someone who appeared as a desperate Israeli, anxious Israeli, enraged Israeli, or simply called a crazed Israeli which negates everything related as the reporter introduction makes sure to discount any pro-Israel opinions by only using the most wide eyed and loud Israeli and pit their frenzied Israeli opposite a Hamas Fatah spokesperson who is telegenic and calm or they simply just have the Hamas or Fatah spokesperson alone with no intelligent counter either way. Last summer’s coverage of Operation Protective Edge and the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) review looking for violation of human rights both have glaring deficiencies which no factual based reasoning could do without, namely facts. Let’s just look at the simple and obvious slanted coverage and review.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission made the slanting of their report easiest to explain as their biasing of their review was by obvious omissions. Their review began on June 13, 2014 omitting the previous months’ provocation which included the kidnapping of three teens by Hamas operatives who then killed the youths burying them in a shallow grave near their Arab community. The review also omitted the ramping of rocket firing out of Gaza which had reached intolerable levels of several hundreds a day reaching Tel Aviv area which was another escalation. Had Israel not had Iron Dome systems ringing Tel Aviv and other areas of heavy population areas intercepting these rockets, including a number of newer rockets with obviously greater range and warheads than during previous confrontations, the Israeli casualties may easily have outnumbered those suffered by Gazans as a number of the largest missiles with as high as one thousand pound warheads would have struck central downtown Tel Aviv and taken down fifty plus story buildings. This too did not manage to be recorded in the ramping of the threats out of Gaza. By starting on June 13, 2014 and concentrating their review on the start of the Israeli response to the ramped up rocket fire into Israel and by their slanting through starting point they managed to make the Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and others rockets fired into Israel to be a response to Israeli unprovoked invasion and not Israeli actions being in response to the kidnapping followed by the increased rocket launches into Israel. Their study further counted the resulting casualties in a manner which portrayed the lack of Israeli casualties pitted against the numbers of Gazan casualties as another sign that Israel was using disproportional force. The reality was completely due to Israel using disproportional defense of their civilians with the Iron Dome missile interception system which intercepted Hamas and friends rockets with an unbelievable rate ranking its success at approaching perfection well over ninety percent with the few rockets which got through being unable to cause multiple deaths was due to the Israeli investment in rocket and bomb shelters and hardening schools and other places where children might otherwise have simply become victims. By concentrating on simply casualty figures the UNHRC was ignoring the fact that the Israelis had invested in defensive measures which kept their people safe while Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, Islamic State and others invested their money on rockets, weapons and tunnel construction which they intended to utilize in a night of mass terror in Israel. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) found unbelievable and unestimated number and existence of tunnels both as an interconnected assault system under Gaza itself and infiltration into Israel with many of the tunnels having dug numerous branches such that it provided multiple exits and deploy points in Israel. They found IDF uniforms with proper unit markings, handcuffs and large plastic locking straps which can also be used as handcuffs along with syringed and sedative drugs which could be used to make anyone captured into a manageable subject barely conscious thus easier to take hostage, maps of the Israeli communities they were probably going to take hostages, these maps included identifying buildings where the most valuable hostages would be located such as schools, day care centers and other similar denotations, motorcycles which would permit the deployment of terrorists and maps of Tel Aviv and bordering areas. They found plans in the tunnels which described in detail a horrific and well thought out plan which would have added to the confusion after a massive rocket assault on Rosh Hashanah attacking the very synagogues in Tel Aviv where the largest were denoted on the maps, the Jewish New Year’s celebration. Israel dodged a bullet by locating and searching the tunnels thus averting a disaster if this plan had been launched during the High Holidays.

So, by omission of the attacks by making the study by the UNHRC begin with the first volleys of artillery and tank fire followed by IDF forces going into Gaza, the UNHRC turned a defensive effort into a calculated assault with an intent to destroy as much of Gaza as they could by the IDF, IAF (Israeli Air Force) and the Israeli Navy. The UNHRC also investigated on site and took every Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Gazans who were chosen for the interviews by the Hamas governing body as unbiased sources while on the Israeli side the UNHRC had specific NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) from whom they asked for representatives for their witness accounts as their debriefing of official spokespersons. The problem comes from the NGOs they questioned all being under the funding umbrella of the New Israel Fund or directly funded by the European Union and individual governments. These are NGOs whose main raison d‘être is to denounce the IDF and any right leaning or actual nationalist or Zionist politician and have an especially deep hatred of Prime Minister Netanyahu and guilt by association any government coalition he heads. These NGOs are almost universally funded by outside entities including anti-Israeli NGOs most often from Europe or the United States, European governments and wealthy individuals and their organizations who particularly hate Israel or simply hate Jews such as George Soros. The UNHRC refuses to use random or official entities to procure information and seek out those who will further their intents to demonize Israel. Thus the UNHRC always will produce a severely biased and derogatory study of Israel, the only nation that the UNHRC bylaws demands that they pass a resolution denouncing Israel for the crime-de-jour before addressing anything else the UNHRC is investigating.

The European and world media entities listed at the top of the article did a similar attitude check during the coverage of Operation Protective Edge. Their reporting hardly ever mentioned the three teens kidnapped and murdered and only obliquely referenced the massive increased ramping of the rockets and mortars launched at Israeli population centers usually claiming that Israel responded to rocket launchings always intoned to imply that the rocket launchings were not a huge deal. One has to wonder how these same broadcasters would cover merely three rockets per day being fired into their home nation’s cities by terrorists who ruled a neighboring enclave as Gaza is to Israel. We all know they would be hailing their heroic forces which would have received orders to go into the neighboring enclave and raze it to the ground and those instructions and orders would have followed an intensive series of artillery and bombing runs designed to completely eradicate the entity and the world would have thought nothing of it. If you doubt that there would be an intense reaction to such just read about how the English reacted initially to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Belfast and around London and you will read about the British calling up reserve troops and placing them at almost every corner in Belfast and the use of heavy equipment in their fight against the IRA. Meanwhile the slant of the coverage was to incessantly keep a running total as provided by official spokespersons for Hamas, like they would never lie, and report on Gazan casualties while stressing that there have been almost no casualties in Israel implying disproportional force used by the Israelis. They never divulged the why almost no Israelis were being casualties. The reason actually was a form of disproportional planning and investment in civilian protections. Hamas and friends had a system of bunkers and tunnels that they could have given shelter comfortably to every living thing in Gaza and still managed to get their people through the tunnels to where they could best attack Israel always with the intent on striking civilian targets inside Israel. When the largest hospital in Gaza was struck the media was very quick to blame Israel sighting their own eyewitness accounts of a projectile striking the hospital and then implied directly that it had to be an Israel projectile. Within minutes the Hamas spokespeople were disseminating that the Israelis had struck a Hospital on purpose and for no reason as there was no military target there. They never requested the IDF look into how the hospital was struck and if they had they would have been shown the four rocket series launched from that location and that the four rockets diverted from their firing location and one struck somewhere in Ashkelon, one struck the Shati Refugee Camp, one went out over the Mediterranean Sea and one struck the al-Sifra Hospital. These trajectories were given in care of the Israeli projection systems mapping (see below map) used for immediate return fire on the location from where the rockets originate.

Radar Trajectory of barrage launched from within Gaza depicting strike points including the short round strike on the Shifa Hospital which Israel blamed by Hamas and Media accepted Hamas talking point unchecked

The biggest piece of omission was the real reason for the disparate numbers of casualties and damage to infrastructure. This was due to a form of disproportionate defense systems provided for the protection of their civilians. As denoted earlier, Israel has a series of shelters and all new residential structures are required to have one room in the units made as a rocket shelter which is fortified to provide what is deemed adequate protection and all large buildings have such rooms easily accessible to those working inside while schools and such are also fortified against rockets nearly universally in Israel. There is a similar system in Gaza which is better known as the terrorist bunker and tunnel systems but the Gazan civilians are not permitted to take shelter within. But such is not the main reason for the difference in these numbers as there was a force multiplier which rendered the vast number of rockets fired out of Gaza ineffective as they were intercepted by the Iron Dome System which track the rockets and determines if they are heading for an area where civilians are likely to be and those it intercepts with an accuracy and percentage beyond expectation. But there is also the attitude difference which was pointed out by the Israeli Prime Minister when he was asked well after the fighting had ended and in an interview by Israeli media which was made available for the asking, still waiting, still? Anyways, Prime Minister Netanyahu stated simply that, “We use our rockets to protect our civilians while Hamas uses their civilians to protect their rockets.” But there is more. While Israel placed the Iron Dome Batteries strategically just outside civilian areas such that they would have the most advantageous angle for intercepting Hamas and friends’ rockets. The Iron Dome systems were the only combat units stationed anywhere near civilian centers unless intelligence predicted a strike was imminent. This stationing IDF units and indirect fire stations such as mortars, rockets, missiles and artillery units outside of built up areas was intended to provide all military targets as far as possible from civilian centers such that any rockets fired at Israeli military would not pose any threat to the civilian population. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, Fatah, al-Qaeda and the rest of the merry bands of terror entities operated exclusively from civilian areas as shown in this video below

There is one final item and for a change we will try to keep it short. It has to do with the lie that Gaza is the most heavily populated area on earth. How many times have you heard that reported or alluded to in conversations with asides like, Reporter Bob, isn’t it crowded with people all in a closed in area there is Gaza? –Reporter replies, Why, yes, attractive anchor person, you can hardly move in places it is so tight and people at every turn wherever you look (camera pans a large group of Gazans standing around looking innocently going about who knows what but it sure is crowded as camera return to reporter Bob, and that picture about says it all as this is the scene wherever you go. What you never quite figure out is how come whenever they go to reporter Bob he is not surrounded by Gazans getting in the way of the camera as they go about fighting their way through people packed like sardines in a can. Truthfully, if we were to compute density of people during the work week Tel Aviv with its skyscrapers has a higher density than does Gaza City. The reality is very different because as Israel places their military out in the open away from civilians, Hamas and friends lace their military units amidst civilians and often right next to schools, hospitals, hotels where the media stay (as in above video) and also try to gather as many kids near their rocket launches in an attempt to get as many civilians killed as possible. I can hear the propaganda question already of well isn’t Gaza so built up that there is nowhere for the Hamas soldiers to operate? Soldiers?!, we reply. Hamas and friends terrorist forces have places to operate outside of the two or three large metropolises but they choose their locations to endanger the maximum number of civilians as possible. Why would one of the complaints made about the blockade of Gaza in order to keep weapons out also prevents the farmers from getting their goods out to market easily. So, there are farms in Gaza which implies there are open spaces in Gaza. The argument that if they operated outside the cities in the farm areas, then the farmer’s crops might get damaged is a divergence committed to excuse their risking lives of people making the crops worth more than the lives of Gazans. So, crops are to be protected and civilians are worth less than crops, what an argument but the reporters just report that there is no place else for the rockets and command centers to be set up as Gaza is the most densely populated on the plant. Well, yes, if you do not consider Hong Kong, Singapore, Vatican City, The Maldives, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Nauru, Taiwan, Barbados, Malta, Monaco and finally Gaza, yep, the most densely populated place on the planet except for those top ten and that one in the pesky one holding down slot eleven pushing the most densely populated area on earth down to number twelve, oops. If they are instead talking about Gaza City by itself well then we need to compare cities, well it did not make the list of the top fifty cities for population density. Well, I looked hard to find a list which placed the Gaza Strip as the most densely populated nation and the best it came in at on one and only one list at third and otherwise always twelfth give or take a couple of slots and more leaning at even further down the list than twelfth. But what about open spaces you ask? How about my handy-dandy map of the Gaza Strip showing the built-up population-dense areas versus open lands as a picture is worth a thousand words and I promised to keep this short.

Display shows large open areas with little population where Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other combatants could operate without threat to the population.

All done. Hope I was brief enough and did not stray off too far from the point and thanks for visiting.

Beyond the Cusp

Why BBC, Just Tell Us Why the Distorted Reporting!

 

The Palestinian Media echoes the same themes consistently yet even when translated word for word none of the world leaders bother to listen. They constantly claim they hear the plaintive cries of the Palestinian people and the BBC just admitted to translating the children they interviewed by consistently replacing their use of the word “Yahud,” which means “Jew” but they replaced that with “Israelis”. This was the first of the misrepresentations made by the BBC in their special titled; “Children of Gaza” which the BBC claims tells how the children of Gaza were affected by “Operation Protective Edge” last summer. This was reported by Israel National News in their article BBC Admits Covering Up Palestinian Anti-Semitism which the BBC’s own chief international correspondent, Lyse Doucet, explains away this obvious blurring of the children’s statement’s meaning brushing it aside almost as if to claim the difference is meaningless and we at the BBC know what is really in their hearts as they feel as we do about the situation and, as she states, “We talked to people in Gaza, we talked to translators. When [the children] say ‘Jews’, they mean ‘Israelis.’” This revelation comes on top of numerous reports and statistical investigations of the BBC’s coverage of Operation Protective Edge last summer reaching the conclusion that watching the BBC coverage one would be left believing that the Israelis were the aggressors and Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and the rest of the terror groups in Gaza were simply defending themselves. It was particularly noted that the BBC had footage but refused to air these clips depicting Israeli running with their children seeking to reach the shelters within the fifteen seconds they have at best when the “Code Red” sirens sounded in Sderot and refused to show even one of such clips during their entire coverage choosing to emphasize the trauma on the Palestinian children dismissing the damage done by the over twenty thousand rockets and mortars fired at the Israeli communities within ten miles of Gaza, not to even mention the thousands more that have rained down further into Israel where the warning time can approach ninety seconds for the furthest reaches in Israel. Unfortunately, should Hezballah in Lebanon also start a war in support of Hamas and both sides start launching rockets and missiles then the times for the Hezballah rockets and missiles are exactly the opposite with the north of Israel having that fifteen seconds maximum and the south the almost leisurely ninety seconds. I am sure that most, if not the vast majority of British citizens, believe that Israel is at least the size of the British Isles and some possibly equate it with the United States not realizing the actual size of Israel compared to fortress Britain as some history books have cast the British Isles noting the natural mote which has protected Britain from the marching of soldiers onto her shores having to cross the English Channel saving Britain from invasions from before the Spanish Armada right through World War II and the idea of a channel crossing and the cliffs of Dover preventing the Nazis from marching straight into Britain after their victory over the British at Dunkirk. The actual size of Israel is best told by viewing comparative size maps of Israel and other nations. Below are maps comparing Israel to Great Britain, United States, India and Australia Jewish Virtual Library: Israel Maps: Relative Geographical Size.

 

Four Maps of Great Britain, the United States, Australia, and India with to scale map of Israel super-imposed for comparison on each map depicting her actual rather than perceived size.

 

 

This misrepresentation by the BBC is not limited to this one time maligning Israel while absolving the Palestinians and neither is the BBC alone in slanting the news from the Middle East especially when referencing Israel. The most consistent representation that is more bias than outright lying is to depict Israel in every conflict as the aggressor and the party which fired first and sought the conflict while declaring the Palestinians, including terrorist entities such as Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other, lesser in size but not acts or intents, terror groups as the poor oppressed victims who are so weak they only can use rocks against the Israeli war machine. These rocks are currently rockets and ‘guided’ missiles (guided is what makes a rocket a missile but with the untruths in the reporting we figured the superfluous descriptor of guided was necessary) with warheads reaching sizes of 200kg as sits atop the M-75 which is modeled as an exact copy of the Iranian Fajr-5 series which have a range of 75km and which allows these rockets to easily reach Tel Aviv and strike at the Jerusalem metropolitan area as well and possibly reach as far north as Haifa. Hamas building these rockets has only been made possible because Iran provided Hamas and Islamic Jihad with the plans, instructions for manufacture, the necessary specialized equipment and schematics and all other required information and production specifications. The events which preceded the start of Operation Protective Edge included in chronological order initially the Hamas kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens whose kidnappers are still being sought, then three Israeli teens, one mentally different, murdered an Arab teen claiming the right of revenge and now serving time in Israeli prison, followed by an uneasy ten days where over a thousand rockets rained down starting with three or four the first day and ramping up so as to resemble the frog being slowly brought to a boil in a pan of water until they were launching hundreds per day the two days before Israel opened fire with some reaching Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem areas which were fortunately protected by Iron Dome batteries which intercepted rockets, missiles, mortars and other projectiles with approaching ninety-percent interceptions. It was the use of the Iron Dome and the building of shelters in every apartment building (every apartment in newer buildings under new laws and regulations) as well as in general areas and inside most office buildings, malls and other public places while Hamas would place their launchers knowing the Israeli artillery and tanks have return fire computers which allow for placing return fire almost immediately to within a few meters of the launch site and hoping they also hit the nearby shelter, hospital, school, nursery or other locations endangering their own civilians intentionally in attempts to either prevent Israeli retaliations or produce dead civilians, especially children, with which they intend to provide for news outlets to plaster their front page top of the fold captioned telling how Israel targets civilians when the media and anybody following the actual events realize is more propaganda than fact. There are even times Israel has been called to explain their wanton destruction of a hospital or school struck with rocket or artillery fire falsely accredited to Israel. The best example came from Operation Protective Edge when the United Nations built Shifa Hospital was struck with a large warhead which immediately was blamed on Israel. The United Nations, European Union and near countless countries and NGOs went purely ballistic in their condemnations of Israel but further study including inspection by outside observers of the entry angle of the warhead and other information including the IDF return radar systems tracking of the four Hamas M-75 version of the Fajr-5 Iranian-made 100 kg warhead missiles fired which showed the actual trajectories with one striking the Shifa Hospital, one striking Ashkelon, one striking the Mediterranean Sea and one striking the Shati Refugee camp in Gaza. Why Palestinians are kept in a refugee camp that is located in an area turned over to Palestinian control when the buildings holding them resembling more an apartment complex than a refugee camp such that all Hamas and friends need do is take down the fence and let them get on with their lives but they would rather force their own people to suffer so they can include their numbers when attacking Israel in the media for keeping those same Arabs in refugee camps, totally ridiculous and the world, including and especially UNRWA, need to liberate the camps within Gaza as well as those within the areas ruled autonomously by the Arab Palestinian Authority which continues to hold Arabs in refugee apartment buildings near Ramallah and in Jenin among others. Our article which includes the return trajectory tracking of the four rockets was titled How to Spell Hypocrite, US or UN?.

 

BBC slanted over the top coverage which demonizes Israel while turning a blind eye to the terrorism and attacks intended to cause maximum casualties both in Israel and to Gazans who are placed in harm’s way through intentional actions by Hamas and the other terror outfits is almost legendary. After such obvious slanted coverage became too much for even the BBC to presumably tolerate which one incident makes the entire case when a BBC journalist described on air her tears at seeing Yassir Arafat in poor health. In response to serious accusations leveled at the BBC by some NGOs who investigate honesty and accuracy in reporting including tracking biases and other means of distorting the news, the BBC took it upon itself to do an intense internal investigation and to get to the bottom of whether or not there exists any bias intended or accidental in their reporting on everything Israel. Senior Editorial Advisor Malcolm Balin conducted an investigation to determine if such biases existed and to document those instances where such was found and recommend what changes were necessary to correct these minor and unintentional quirks, after all, is not the BBC the news service much of the world tunes into for their information and by which their opinions are determined and if the BBC is presenting biased information the ramifications reach around the globe and can be so detrimental as to completely alter the perception of the world towards the unfortunate victim of such misreporting and slander. Making matters even worse are the near countless numbers of news agencies who use the BBC news feed as their bible when it comes to unbiased and honest reporting and thus any bias or errors, intentional or otherwise, has a rippling affect to the news in places one might not suspect. Additionally, the BBC is often used and quoted in the New York Times, the print and online American version of trusted news and is also distributed world-wide, thus one can start to get their arms around the problems caused by any BBC slanting of news. The Balin Report was completed in 2004 and as of yet unreleased and furthermore the BBC has invested thus far approaching, if not breaching, a nice round number of £300,000 ($460,000 US) fighting against Freedom of Information Act appeals in order to keep their own internal analysis secreted away from the prying little eyes of an anxious world. Why BBC, just tell us why you are so afraid of the report made by your own Senior Editorial Advisor Malcolm Balin’s report, we are sure the report was done with an eye to the kinds of accuracy we have come to expect from you, or is that the problem, a little too much honesty and integrity from Senior Editorial Advisor Malcolm Balin? Why BBC, just tell us why!

 

Beyond the Cusp