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Hamas Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 03, 2015 6 Comments
The First and Second Intifadas were bloody, with thousands killed. The Second Intifada was particularly gruesome, with Palestinian suicide bombers blowing up restaurants, buses and just about every other civilian target they could reach. Israel reacted by constructing the security barrier and launching Operation Defensive Shield. In the past couple of weeks in particular, there has been a surge in Palestinian violence with stabbings, firebombing and rock throwing. The uptick has been fed by deliberate incitement by Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian authority: Some Arab Israeli members of the Knesset also are involved in fanning the flames, like this Knesset member screaming at Jews to leave the Temple Mount:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 18, 2015 6 Comments
Last spring I visited Sderot, the Israeli town on the Gaza border. Sderot is best known internationally as the town most frequently under rocket attack with almost no warning because of the short distance. Sderot has developed extensive shelter systems, as I discussed in Israelis shelter in place near Gaza. The system includes playground shelters like this one: Sderot Israel Children's Playground Bomb Shelter and an underground municipal bunker for city officials to use when under attack:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 16, 2015 7 Comments
Palestinians are among the largest recipients of international aid, per capita, in the world. Yet all we hear about is U.S. aid to Israel, which is entirely military and most of which comes back to U.S. companies because it is required to be spent on U.S.-made equipment. International aid to Palestinians doesn't come back to the donor countries. That includes an average U.S. annual contribution of $400 million. (pdf.) In fact, it doesn't seem to go anywhere productive. Why don't we hear more about this? Because there is no free press in any of the Palestinian controlled areas, or independent NGOs, like there are in Israel. Whereas Israel is under a microscope by dozens of NGOs and hundreds of reporters, Palestinian authorities -- both the PA and Hamas -- are beyond much Western scrutiny. Canada-based Rebel Media has a great video report, Palestinian Authority has been given enough money to equal 15 Marshall Plans -- with nothing to show for it:
Over the last 20 years, various countries, including Canada, have invested over US$30B in the emerging Palestinian state, with little to show for it. Calev Myers of the Jerusalem Institute of Justice explains why. "The international community made a terrible mistake in 1994," Myers says. "In order to push for two states for two peoples, they recognized Yassir Arafat as the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people and helped him create the Palestinian Authority."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 26, 2015 3 Comments
This is the 6th in our look back at the summer 2014 Gaza conflict. On August 26, 2014, the active Gaza fighting stopped with agreement on a ceasefire. How long that lasts is anyone's guess. Hamas is bragging that it has rebuilt tunnels leading into Israel and its rocket stockpiles and production. Hamas had a deliberate strategy of firing from crowded civilian areas both to use civilians as shields and also to run up civilian casualties as part of a media campaign. The international media was bullied on the ground by Hamas operatives, a fact that slowly has leaked out. The latest report from Polish reporter Wojciech Cegielski, I Saw Hamas' Cruel and Selfish Game in Gaza, who describes two specific incidents he witnesses while in Gaza during the fighting:
The first incident happened late in the evening. I was in the bathroom when I’ve heard a loud rocket noise and my Spanish colleague, a journalist who was renting a flat with me near the Gaza beach, started to scream. He wanted to light a cigarette and came to one of the open windows. The moment he was using his lighter, he saw a fireball in front of his eyes and lost his hearing. From what our neighbors told us later, a man drove up in a pickup to our tiny street. He placed a rocket launcher outside and fired. But the rocket failed to go upwards and flew along the street at ground level for a long time before destroying a building. It was a miracle that nobody was hurt or killed.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 23, 2015 6 Comments
Periodically throughout this summer, we are taking a look back at our coverage of the 2014 Gaza conflict. It’s important to do this because a relentless propaganda campaign which falsely portrays the conflict as initiated and continued by Israel, when in fact it was initiated by Hamas rocket fire and continued by Hamas through a series of ceasefire rejections and violations. So far we have covered:
  1. Gaza July 8, 2014 – Hamas Rockets Ignite War
  2. Gaza July 18, 2014 – Ground War After Hamas Rejects Ceasefire
  3. Summer 2014 – “Pro-Palestinian” rallies morph into anti-Semitic hatefests
  4. Gaza 2014: International media in the service of Hamas
Tonight we revisit one of the most notorious Hamas actions, the mass public execution of alleged collaborators without trial. The facts of the alleged collaboration were disputed, including by families, and many of those executed were in fact in Hamas prison at the time of the alleged collaboration. Hamas used the conflict as an excuse to carry out a political reign of terror. In late July, Hamas executed 30 alleged collaborators (via i24 News). On August 22, 2014, another 18 were rounded up and publicly shot to death, after several were executed earlier in the week:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 04, 2015 5 Comments
On August 2, 2014, in the middle of the Gaza conflict, we ran the A.F. Branco cartoon that is the featured image to this post. It's a fitting occasion to revisit the media bias that frames the international view of the 2014 Gaza conflict, as the fourth in our series looking back at our coverage. Our first three posts were: As before, we are focusing on revisiting our contemporaneous coverage. The international media is extremely sensitive to discussions of its bias, so much so that when, in June of 2015, the Israeli Foreign Ministry produced a comical short cartoon video poking fun at international media bias, the international media blew a gasket. The Foreign Ministry took down the video, though it was captured by others: Was this unfair to the international media? No, it was very fair, though overly simplified (just like the media's coverage of Gaza). Our posts from the summer of 2014 reflected the media bias. In that conflict, the media played a key role in covering up Hamas use of civilians as shields:

Posted by Miriam Elman on July 27, 2015 12 Comments
Yesterday July 26, 2015, Jews worldwide marked Tisha B’Av, an annual fast and day of mourning that commemorates the destruction of the first and second Temples. The 37-acre Temple Mount compound (roughly about the size of 15 football stadiums) in Jerusalem’s walled Old City, where the Temples once stood, is Judaism’s most holiest site. The Jewish Temple, replica Jerusalem The Temple Mount (Har HaBayit) has been the focus of Jewish longing for millennia. According to Jewish tradition, it’s the location in which God’s “shekhina” (presence) is thought to reside. The area is also considered sacred to Muslims who call it the Haram al-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary, and see it as the third holiest site in Islam. It is commonly considered the “furthermost sanctuary”—the site from which the Prophet Muhammad made his Night Journey to the Throne of God. Today it houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. [caption id="attachment_136002" align="alignnone" width="600"]The Dome of the Rock The Dome of the Rock[/caption] Tisha B’Av is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on July 23, 2015 6 Comments
For the second time in a few weeks, India has abstained at the United Nations instead of voting on an Israel-related resolution. On July 3, 2015 India abstained from weighing in on a UN Human Rights Council resolution condemning Israel for 2014 Gaza conflict. The anti-Israel resolution passed with 47 votes in favour, with the US opposing, and India amongst 5 nations abstaining. Then on Monday, Israel unsuccessfully tried to table a resolution to challenge the official recognition of Hamas-linked NGO in the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). It is fair to ask: why abstain? Israel is one of India's leading defense partners, and an emerging trade partner. But considering the fact that until recently India was referred to as the "23rd Arab state" for siding with Arab-block on every anti-Israel resolution at the UN, this is a huge diplomatic shift for the world's largest democracy. Since India normalized diplomatic ties with the Jewish State in 1991, Israel has become India’s partner of choice when it comes modernizing the country’s military capabilities. The government is collaborating with Israel in agriculture, water management, and renewable and clean technologies; and India’s technology-driven IT giants have made significant investments in Israel’s innovation and startup ecosystem.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 08, 2015 2 Comments
On June 12, 2014, three Israeli teens were kidnapped and murdered in the West Bank by a Hamas-affiliated group. The bodies would be found on June 30. During June, an intensive search was conducted for the teens and the murderers, including the arrest of many Hamas members in the West Bank and a crackdown on its operations. Militants in Gaza fired a total of 62 rockets into Israel during June (even before the kidnapping), and Israel retaliated by targeting rocket crews and militants in Gaza: On June 30, 2014, 16 rockets were fired into Israel by Hamas, leading to more Israeli targeting and a massive Hamas rocket offensive. Hamas or other militants fired over a dozen rockets a day the first few days of July, and then on July 7 as Israel retaliated with airstrikes, the daily count grew to 80 rockets on July 7 and 156 on July 8.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 07, 2015 7 Comments
Just the other day we noted how Bosnian soccer fans in Vienna joined a "pro-Palestinian" protest, and waived Palestinian flags as the chant "Free, Free Palestine" turned into "Kill, kill the Jews." On the streets of Europe, and in the minds of open anti-Semites, there is no practical difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. As similar event just happened at a Dutch soccer match, where chants of "Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas" were mixed in with chants praising Nazi burning of Jews. The Jewish Forward reports:
A Dutch soccer club is working to identify fans who chanted anti-Semitic slogans about the Holocaust during a match with a rival team from Amsterdam. The chants were documented on Sunday at Galgenwaard Stadium in Utrecht, a city situated 40 miles southeast of the Dutch capital Amsterdam, during an honor division match between Amsterdam’s Ajax team and FC Utrecht, the De Telegraaf daily reported. Utrecht supporters chanted the slogans to insult rival fans, whom they often call “Jews” because of the historical Jewish presence in Amsterdam, which is sometimes colloquially called “Mokum” after the Yiddish word for “place.”

Posted by Miriam Elman on March 29, 2015 7 Comments
In a few days the world’s Christians and Jews will celebrate Easter and Passover. It’ll be a weekend of good food (and at my seder, plenty of good Israeli wine)—but most of all it’ll be an affirmation of freedom and faith, an expression of joy, hope and renewal. But for many people across the planet it’ll be an opportunity to indulge in a bit of Jew-bashing. Brace yourself as the planet’s anti-Semites engage in their annual rite-of-hate, when the internet will soon become awash in the crazy notion of the blood libel. It’s a centuries-old mad idea that Jews kill gentile children for making matzo, the unleavened bread that’s eaten during the Passover holiday. As Lord Jonathan Sacks, emeritus Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, and one of the leading intellectuals of our time, recently wrote in an important article on the resurgence of global anti-Semitism (it’s behind the Wall Street Journal paywall, but his remarks are also captured in this CNN interview):
The idea [of the blood libel] is absurd, not least because even the tiniest speck of blood in food renders it inedible in Jewish law.”
As explained by Sacks, the libel was an English invention, originating in Norwich around 1144. It was introduced into the Middle East in the 19th century, where it helped instigate the targeting of innocent Jews in Lebanon and Egypt (and, most famously, in Syria with the Damascus trials of 1840). This violence and hatred against Jews happened decades before the first wave of persecuted European Jewish refugees arrived in pre-state Israel seeking refuge in their ancient homeland. Zionism didn’t provoke it.

Posted by Miriam Elman on March 24, 2015 5 Comments
Between July 17 and August 5 of2014, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) destroyed 32 tunnels in Gaza — 100 kilometers of concrete-lined and accessorized passageways dug deep beneath the earth’s surface with openings near Israeli homes and kindergartens. Hamas murdered dozens of the nearly 900 diggers in its employ, fearing that they might reveal the tunnel locations to the advancing Israeli army. This vast tunnel project, estimated to have cost some $90 million, was designed to dispatch an invasion force of thousands. In one of the tunnels the IDF found half a dozen motorcycles which would’ve been used to ferry terrorists into Israel, and bring Israeli hostages out. Hamas Gaza Tunnel NYT video These lesser known facts, and hundreds more, are compiled into a new report on the 2014 Gaza War, released last week by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), an Israel-based think tank headed by Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the UN who also served as an advisor to PM Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term in the 1990s. A must-read document, written by the JCPA’s team of legal, military, media, and diplomatic experts, it details what really happened in this war that Israel never wanted, and the disaster that it miraculously averted. Warning: the document is long and dense; it’s not something you can cover in an hour, or even a day. But it’s well worth taking the time to read. The document includes hundreds of hyperlinks to relevant sources and video clips. There’s one of Hamas calling for Israel’s destruction, and another of terrorists infiltrating Israel.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 12, 2015 13 Comments
On March 21, 1997, a Hamas suicide bomber detonated his bomb at the Café Apropo on Ben Gurion Boulevard in Tel Aviv. CNN reported at the time:
A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded Tel Aviv outdoor cafe Friday, killing at least three other people and injuring more than 40 others. Many patrons were dressed in costumes to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Purim. The militant Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. Israel immediately sealed the West Bank and Gaza Strip, barring all Palestinians from entering Israel. The death toll rose to four after an injured woman died at Tel Aviv's Ichilov hospital, a hospital spokeswoman said. Two other Israeli women died at the scene.... The bomb was studded with nails for more deadliness.... "The peace process is threatened not by the periodic disagreements, but by the mentality that says that if we have a disagreement we can go and blow them up," [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu said. "It is threatened by the idea that violence is sanctioned despite negotiations, that you can kill women and kids in a cafe. All the attempts to explain this away, they are a threat to the peace process," he said. "So I would advise the international community to do the right thing, and that is for them to understand nothing justifies terrorism." ...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 06, 2015 15 Comments
One chapter in the saga of Stanley Cohen has closed, another started. Cohen was to report today to prison to begin serving his 18 month sentence, the result of a plea bargain, for concealing and failing to report large cash transactions and failing to file income tax returns for several years. Cohen pledged during his criminal case that he would rather serve 18 months than dine with a Zionist. Twitter - @StanleyCohenLaw - Rather serve 18 mos than dine with Zionist Cohen left for prison with his supporters singing the tune that he was a political prisoner.  Cohen still sees himself that way as well, with the last tweet from his Twitter account, as of this writing, showing him sharing the claim that he's a political prisoner: https://twitter.com/mayasdreams/status/552325601328373760 On January 5, 2015, Cohen issued a statement via Twitter, ending with these words:
Pray for Palestine and Bless the Resistence. Up the Rebels everywhere. They cannot stop us.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 18, 2014 79 Comments
Two East Jerusalem Arabs attacked a synagogue in Jerusalem during morning prayers, using meat clevers, knives and a pistol to kill the Rabbi and three worshipers. The NY Times reports that all four were Rabbis. (added) The Washington Post reports:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Palestinian leaders of inciting violence and promised to “respond harshly.” In the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip, calls over loudspeakers praised the attackers. In East Jerusalem, crowds hurled stones at Israeli police fanning out around the neighborhood where the attackers lived. The Associated Press, citing Israeli police, said those killed included one Briton and three Americans — among them Rabbi Moshe Twersky, who taught at an English-speaking religious school in Jerusalem and was a member of one of the most respected families in Orthodox scholarship.... Twersky’s grandfather, Joseph Soloveitchik, was a renowned Boston rabbi, and his father, Rabbi Yitzhak (Isadore) Twersky, was longtime director of The Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard. Twersky’s brother, Mayer Twersky, one of the heads of Yeshiva University in New York, the flagship American school for Jewish Orthodox studies.
Here is raw video of the police shooting the perpetrators, and of the victims of the attack:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 21, 2014 4 Comments
Lawyer Stanley Cohen pleaded guilty last spring to federal charges related to his scheme to conceal income through cash transactions elaborately orchestrated to cover his tracks. He also failed to file income tax returns. See our prior posts: We noted before that Cohen was obsessively anti-Israel, so much so that he announced he'd rather serve 18 months in prison than dine with a Zionist. Cohen may get his wish, as his plea deal calls for an 18-month sentence, though I don't think the court is bound by that. The sentencing was supposed to take place today, but has been postponed a week because -- according to the court docket -- two new letters, which are not public, were received. In typical Cohen fashion, he claimed political persecution by Zionists, and his supporters sang along with his anti-Zionist conspiracy theories. Because the Zionists made him stock his safe deposit box full of cash, arrange money orders and physical cash transfers to cover his tracks, and fail to file income tax returns -- or something. Those Zionists sure are tricky, aren't they Stan, they made you do all those illegal things and then caught you and charged you, and even made you admit in open court that the prosecutors could prove their case. NBC News reported (and quoted me), Terror Suspects' Lawyer Stanley Cohen Rants Before Prison Sentence:
A Hamas-defending, Israel-slamming Jew, Cohen simultaneously confounds and agitates. He’s known for f-bomb-laced rants against what he calls a “Zionist hijacking” of his religion. He demeans the tax charge to which he pleaded guilty in April as a government attempt “to silence me.” ....

Posted by David Gerstman on October 03, 2014 10 Comments
The lead article in the October issue of Commentary by Omri Ceren is Yes, Israel Won in Gaza. Ceren's central premise is that Hamas built a huge terror infrastructure including tunnels, an enhanced rocket arsenal and specialized training for its terrorists, but "[a]ll of it was gone by mid-August." Hamas' plans for a spectacular terror attack against Israel and a coup against Fatah in the West Bank similarly were stymied. But what really grabbed me about the article was his description of the escalation:
In Gaza, Hamas radically escalated what had been, since the beginning of the year, a steadily increasing stream of rocket fire. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon had declared in January that Jerusalem would “not tolerate rocket fire” and that the “IDF and other security forces will continue to chase after those who shoot at Israel.” February saw more rockets and a large bomb planted on the border. In March, Hamas fired its heaviest rocket barrage since the conclusion of Israel’s 2012 incursion into Gaza—but then the fire steadily decreased throughout April and May.

Posted by David Gerstman on September 23, 2014 2 Comments
Yesterday a jury in a federal court in New  York found the Arab Bank - the largest lender in Jordan - liable for "knowingly supporting terrorism efforts connected to two dozen attacks in the Middle East." The New York Times reports:
Arab Bank, a major Middle Eastern bank with $46 billion in assets, was accused of knowingly supporting specific terrorist acts in and around Israel during the second Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s. The verdict is expected to have a strong impact on similar legal efforts to hold financial institutions responsible for wrongdoing by their clients, even if the institutions followed banking rules, and could be seen as a deterrent for banks that conduct business in violent areas. The plaintiffs in this case, about 300 victims of 24 terrorist attacks, said the acts had been carried out by Hamas, and accused Arab Bank of supporting the organization by handling transfers and payments for Hamas members.
The Times quotes Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on the significance of the verdict.
“What this has done is it’s made the effects of American law felt in far-off places, and that is significant,” said Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former terrorism finance analyst for the Treasury Department. “I don’t think any country, any bank, would want to be cut off from the U.S. financial sector, and they’re going to start thinking very carefully about whether they accept financial transactions” even from people or groups who are not on designated terrorist lists.
The damages were not determined and will be decided at a future  trial.
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