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Hamas Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 17, 2014 25 Comments
There are numerous reports that after heavy artillery shelling along the border, Israeli troops have entered on the ground in Gaza. Israel i24 News reports that the Prime Minister's office has authorized a ground incursion to destroy tunnels. It's not known if it is a limited incursion or something larger. It comes the same day that Hamas launched an unsuccessful attack through a tunnel near an Israeli Kibbutz. Israelii24 News has live coverage in English: More Live Video Feeds and Live Twitter Feed below As it's obviously a fluid situation subject to misinformation, we've embedded numerous news and local sources on the Twitter Feed below, so you can keep track as events develop.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 17, 2014 14 Comments
The killing of four boys on a Gaza beach has generated enormous criticism of Israel. Israel itself has expressed sorrow at the killing (see Featured Image Tweet). But one fact not reported anywhere except WaPo is that the area was known to be used for rocket launching: This clip is from British news. Note how the interviewer doesn't even attempt to hide his bias. Welcome to British media, and increasingly, U.S. left-wing media. Mark Regev, a spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister's office, held his own and handled it well:

Posted by David Gerstman on July 17, 2014 19 Comments
In the early morning hours today, prior the implementation of the humanitarian ceasefire, the IDF spotted a terror cell infiltrating from Gaza. Aircraft targeted the terrorists in a dramatic video. The New York Times reports:
The Israeli military said it foiled an attempt by Gaza militants to infiltrate a kibbutz through a tunnel early Thursday, hours before the two sides briefly halted fire for a humanitarian lull in which Gaza residents tentatively stepped into the streets, hoping to find one of the handful of cash machines that opened for the first time since the conflict escalated July 8. ... An Israeli military spokesman said it was not immediately clear if all the militants from the tunnel had been killed. Residents of the Israeli border community nearest the exit of the tunnel, Kibbutz Sufa, were told to stay in their homes for several hours after the initial confrontation, which began around 4.30 a.m.

Posted by David Gerstman on July 15, 2014 12 Comments
Prof. Jacobson posted yesterday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted an Egyptian ceasefire proposal. This morning Israel's security cabinet accepted the Egyptian proposal. The New York Times reports:
Israel has accepted Egypt’s proposal for a cessation of hostilities with Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip, the prime minister’s office announced at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, the appointed hour for the start of the cease-fire in the proposal made by Cairo on Monday night. “In accordance with the government directives, the I.D.F. now holds fire,” Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said in a statement nearly two hours later, using the abbreviation for the Israel Defense Forces. “We remain alert and preserve high preparedness levels, both defensive and offensive. If the Hamas terror organization will fire at Israel, we shall respond.”
Hamas, as The Washington Post reported, rejected the Egyptian proposal.
A senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, called the proposal “unacceptable” and complained that Egyptians have not spoken with the Gaza leadership. The group’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigade, wrote on its Web site that the initiative was “not worth the ink it was written with” and “the resistance will continue until all the demands of our people are met.”
Arutz-7 reports that according to the IDF approximately 35 rockets have been fired into Israel since the ceasefire. One hit a house in Ashdod but there were no injuries:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 14, 2014 26 Comments
Egypt has offered a cease fire proposal, as reported by Haaretz at its live blog (times are Israel time):
10:29 P.M. Sources in the Egyptian Foreign Ministry say Egypt has proposed a cease-fire outline to Israel and Gaza: The cease-fire will start at 9 A.M., meaning Israel will stop aerial, naval and ground operations against the Gaza Strip and promise not to engage in a ground offensive or harm civilians. At the same time, all the Palestinian factions will hold their fire. Crossings between Gaza and Israel will be reopened, and restrictions on the passage of commodities and people will be eased, in return for a halt to hostilities. Within 48 hours after the cease-fire, Israeli and Palestinian delegations will arrive in Cairo for continued indirect talks to discuss the details of the truce and its implementation. Egypt will receive guaranties from both sides, and promises to implement the outline. (Jack Khoury) 11:14 P.M. Israel's security cabinet will meet Tuesday morning to discuss the Egyptian cease-fire proposal. A senior minister in the cabinet said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepts the Egyptian offer and will bring it to a vote in the meeting that will take place on Tuesday at 7 A.M. "This is a basic proposal that can be accepted as a starting point and after that further discussions on the specifics can be held," the minister said. (Barak Ravid)
This presents an obvious problem for Hamas.

Posted by David Gerstman on July 13, 2014 6 Comments
The Times of Israel sums up the casualties so far.
As of Saturday afternoon, the death toll in Gaza from Israel’s Operation Protective Edge had climbed to 127 people, after Israeli forces struck 60 targets overnight Friday and into Saturday; Israel had no breakdown on the proportion of civilian and combatant casualties. Among the dead was a relative of former Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh, named as Nidal al-Malash, who the Israeli army said was in a terror cell that was hit as it prepared to fire rockets at Israel. No Israelis had been killed by rocket fire as of Saturday afternoon, though several were injured, including an Ashdod man badly hurt in a rocket strike at a gas station Friday. A Haifa woman suffered a fatal heart attack dashing for shelter on Friday.
The Times also notes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "that all Gaza casualties were 'the responsibility of Hamas,' since the Strip’s Islamist rulers deliberately put Gazans in harm’s way by firing on Israel, hiding out, and storing weaponry among the civilian population." In an implicit admission of Netanyahu's charges, Hamas told Gaza residents not post photographs of rockets being fired from their neighborhoods to social media. Also as the IDF tweets: 2014-07-13_065803_IDF_Warning

Posted by David Gerstman on July 11, 2014 10 Comments
Last month the Editorial Board of The Washington Post endorsed the Obama administration's support of the unity deal between Hamas and Fatah. After reading, Restore trust to douse the fire in Gaza, the Post's take on Operation Protective Edge, it's clear that the editors are still stuck in an intellectual rut. One paragraph in the editorial stuck out as hopelessly uninformed and illogical (emphasis added):
Those goals hardly seem worth the bloodshed — nearly 50 people reportedly had been killed in Gaza by late Wednesday, including civilians — or the economic losses to both Palestinians and Israelis. In fact, neither side wanted war. Hamas had just agreed to back a united Palestinian government with the West Bank-based Fatah movement, while Israel quietly offered a truce before the escalation of hostilities on Sunday. As so often happens in the Middle East, acts by extremists forced these events: the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers allegedly by Hamas militants apparently acting on their own; the revenge murder of a Palestinian by Israeli thugs; the initial firing of rockets from Gaza by small militant groups challenging Hamas’s authority.
First of all how is Hamas's participation in the unity government a sign that "it didn't want war?" In a similar vein former Washington Post blogger, Max Fisher, now at Vox.com, wrote earlier this month:

Posted by David Gerstman on July 10, 2014 10 Comments
As Operation Protective Edge it's worth anticipating the likely response to Israel's latest war against Hamas. Israel will be accused of a disproportionate response and of not taking care to avoid collateral damage. Already there's been at least one incident in which a number of civilians were injured and and 7 were killed. Israel has a policy of letting civilians know when they are about to bomb a target to give them a chance to get of the way. One would assume that observers would be impressed that Israel gives up the element of surprise in order to reduce collateral damage. But that assumption would be wrong, if one judges by the reporting and analysis from the New York Times and Washington Post. Here's how the New York Times reports the incident:
The call came to the cellphone of his brother’s wife, Salah Kaware said on Tuesday. Mr. Kaware lives in Khan Younis, in southeast Gaza, and the caller said that everyone in the house must leave in five minutes, because it was going to be bombed. A further warning came as they were leaving, he said in a telephone interview, when an Israeli drone apparently fired a flare at the roof of the three-story home. “Our neighbors came in to form a human shield,” he said, with some even going to the roof to try to prevent a bombing. Others were in the stairway when the house was bombed not long afterward.
Israel warned the residents and people went into the building. The casualties here occurred because Gaza residents because people intentionally put themselves in danger. The New York Times then informs us:
The Israeli military said that targeted houses belonged to Hamas members involved in launching rockets or other military activity, and that they had been used as operations rooms.
As the Washington Post also reported the story we have an indication that in this case, the Israeli military was 100% correct. After describing the warning call, the "knock on the roof," and the entry of neighbors into the building, the Post reports:
Ahmed Kawarea said he ran home when he heard about the first rocket. The second missile hit when he was in the stairwell on his way to the roof.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 08, 2014 44 Comments
Rockets fired from Gaza were shot down today over several major Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv -- and landed in the Jerusalem vicinity. Hamas landed 5 "naval commandos" by sea. They were taken out by an IDF helicopter gunship. (added) Another video from the Israeli Navy of the same incident: Elsewhere, Palestinians at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem cheered the rockets landing in Israel (via Truth Revolt):

Posted by David Gerstman on July 04, 2014 7 Comments
A few articles this week effectively absolve Hamas (and more generally the Palestinians) for the latest escalation in the Middle East and put the bulk of the blame on Israel. I'm only going to focus on two. Max Fisher wrote How Israel is punishing ordinary Palestinians for three murdered Israeli students for Vox. Fisher's premise is in the title. Israel is not justified in striking back, so any retaliation is "punishment." Of course this brought plenty of criticism. David Harsanyi sums up Fisher's illogical case against Israel.
In Fisher’s view, Israel is pining to kill, longing to occupy, aching to inconvenience. Israel wants to waste millions of dollars tracking down Hamas terrorists; it craves the international backlash that will inevitably follow, and it just never feels quite whole until hundreds of its own citizens, and thousands of Palestinians, are put at risk. There’s nothing quite like persecuting the elderly Arab shopkeeper. Mission accomplished!
The Free Beacon asks why GE is underwriting such anti-Israel propaganda and Twitchy put together the best critical tweets.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 03, 2014 13 Comments
And so it continues. All eyes have been focused on the increasingly bizarre facts of the exchange of 5 top Taliban Gitmo detainees for Bowe Bergdahl, someone who may very well be a deserter if reports by soldiers who served with him are accurate. Yet an even bigger event took place just yesterday, as the State Department announced the U.S. was embracing the new Palestinian Authiority coalition government which for the first time includes Hamas, a recognized terrorist group which remains sworn to the destruction of Israel.  Reuters reports, U.S. says to work with, fund Palestinian unity government:
The United States said on Monday it plans to work with and fund the new Palestinian unity government formed after an agreement by the Fatah and Hamas factions, and Israel immediately voiced its disappointment with the U.S. decision. he United States views Hamas as a "terrorist" organization and the U.S. Congress has imposed restrictions on U.S. funding for the Palestinian Authority, which typically runs at $500 million a year, in the event of a unity government. Senior U.S. lawmakers said on Monday Washington should suspend aid to the new unity government until it is sure of the Islamist group's commitment to pursuing peace with Israel. In its first comment since the Palestinian government was sworn in, however, the State Department stressed that it regarded the new Cabinet as made up of technocrats and that it was willing to do business with it.
Following the U.S. lead, the EU and U.N. quickly announced acceptance of the coalition. We now have open conflict between the U.S. and Israel based on the U.S. backing out of understandings with regard to Israeli refusal to negotiate with the PA if Hamas were part of the coalition. Via The Times of Israel:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on April 14, 2014 7 Comments
Stanley Cohen is an activist lawyer most identified with Hamas and other anti-Israeli causes and groups. Late last month The Jewish Daily Forward had an extensive article about Cohen's political journey to anti-Zionism, including representation of Hamas and Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, who was convicted last month. It appears from the timing that Cohen's plea deal was timed to allow him to finish the al-Qaeda trial: Cohen was indicted in August 2012 in the Northern District of New York on a variety of tax-related charges.  The Indictment is embedded at the bottom of this post, but the gist of the claims is that he ran his law practice off the books, including receiving and paying for services in cash without reporting, and failing to make tax filings and reporting for many years. When indicted, Cohen was defiant, claiming it was a political prosecution:
.... I am an advocate for many people the government would like to silence or put in jail: Palestinian freedom fighters, Muslim preachers, North American natives living on Indian reservations, marijuana dealers, anti-war protestors, radical squatters, the homeless, "hacktivists", anti-Zionists and everyone in between. I live my ideology in the job I do, and I try to be aggressive in vindicating the rights of clients. I have challenged the state at every opportunity. I'll keep doing this in the Lower East Side, in Washington, DC, in the International Criminal Court in the Hague, in Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza. It is my passion....
Yesterday Cohen released a statement via Twitter to supporters that he would be pleading guilty today.   Once again, Cohen maintained the prosecution was political.  The statement reads in part:
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