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media to provide the meat and gristle on which we all prey upon to survive and provide the best commentary and even historical references and other interesting color as well as opinions and positions well backed up with facts.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
Beyond the Cusp 