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Hamas Tag

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.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 23, 2014 10 Comments
Remember when Katie Zavadski of NY Magazine, Sheera Frenkel of Buzzfeed and Jon Donnison of the BBC reported that Hamas was not behind the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens, Gil-ad Shaer, Naftali Fraenkel and Eyal Yifrach? That gave rise to the widespread false meme that Israeli invented the Hamas connection in order to start the Gaza war (never mind that the Gaza war actually was started and continued due to Hamas rocket fire on Israeli cities, not by Israeli reaction to the kidnapping). Since then, Hamas representatives repeatedly have admitted it was a Hamas operation. Indeed, they bragged about it, though Hamas denies that the most senior Hamas officials were involved. Israeli spokesmen not only identified the murderers, but also how they were funded and coordinated by Hamas operatives in Gaza and Turkey. Israel has been searching for the two murderers for several months. Israel finally found them last night in Hebron. After a firefight, the two were killed and Hamas, once again, admits they were Hamas operatives, as The Times of Israel reports:
Marwan Kawasme and Amer Abu Aysha were both killed during an early Tuesday arrest attempt in Hebron, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.... At around 3 a.m., the forces descended on the house where the suspects were believed to be hiding and began firing heavily on the home. Both were killed after refusing to surrender. “We opened fire, they returned fire and they were killed in the exchange,” IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told Reuters. “We have visual confirmation for one. The second one, we have no visual confirmation, but the assumption is he was killed.” Hamas confirmed in a statement the two were killed, Israeli media reported. “Two members of the Izz A-Din al-Qasam brigades, Marwan Kawasme and Amer Abu Aysha, were killed after a journey of sacrifice and giving,” Hamas spokesman Hussam Badran said in a statement. “This is the path of resistance and we walk it side by side.” An armed bulldozer was also used to destroy the home the two were in during the operation, Israel’s Channel 10 news reported.
The Jerusalem Post further reports:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 27, 2014 13 Comments
Israelis Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, just held a press conference. Netanyahu, facing increasing criticism at home, laid out the case why the Gaza conflict was a success: Hamas lost 5-7 years of military tunnel and rocket build-up, over 1000 fighters (including from other terrorist groups), and numerous senior leaders, but receive no benefit in the ceasefire agreement. Israel gained diplomatically among more moderate Arab states, and limited losses from rockets and ground combat. I'll have my own take on this (which basically agrees with Netanyahu) later. I'll post the video when available. Here are some live tweets:

Posted by David Gerstman on August 27, 2014 5 Comments
Three recent articles have critiqued the media's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially in the context of Operation Protective Edge. Previously, I covered Richard Behar's takedown of reporting from Israel in Forbes and yesterday Prof. Jacobson highlighted Matti Friedman's expose from Tablet Magazine. Behar focused on what gets left out of reporting from the Middle East. Friedman concentrated on how the media's narrative shapes the reporting from the Middle East. To be sure, both covered other issues, but those were their respective focuses. Earlier this month, former correspondent Mark Lavie wrote Why Everything Reported from Gaza in Crazy, Twisted. Lavie explains "why you don’t get the whole story."
Besides the budgetary limitations, news organizations often hesitate to send reporters into Gaza at all because of the constant danger, and not from Israeli airstrikes. In 2007, BBC reporter Alan Johnston was kidnapped by Palestinian militants and held for more than three months. Many other foreign journalists were kidnapped there and held for a day or two around that time. There have been no kidnappings recently, but the message was clear—foreigners are fair game. The message was heard and understood. For lack of an alternative, news organizations began to rely more and more on local stringers, giving the regime considerable leverage through intimidation. It’s expected that news organizations will deny all this—it’s part of the dance.

Posted by New Neo on August 27, 2014 10 Comments
No, they don't come right out and say they support Hamas, but that's the effective message of the petition these historians signed, which condemns Israel for "war crimes," and asks the US to withdraw military aid from the country. And Hamas? It's never even mentioned. It's as though it doesn't exist. Many of the original signers are members of the hard left. Even I recognized that fact from some of the names, and Ron Radosh---who was once a prominent leftist himself---recognized many more:
As a historian who has studied the American far Left for many years, and decades ago was part of, I immediately noticed that many on the initial list of signers are veterans of the already old New Left and either supporters of or fellow-travelers of the defunct Soviet Union and the Communist movement. Indeed, I know many of them personally, and are aware of their old affiliations and political allegiances.
I looked up the first eight or so people on the list, and it was an interesting exercise.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 26, 2014 7 Comments
Another Gaza ceasefire has been announced, this time without a time limit. Via The Times of Israel:
Army Radio quotes “the most senior and official” Israeli government source confirming that Israel has accepted the Egyptian proposal for an open-ended truce. The official says the terms do not include any response to Hamas demands, including those for a seaport, airport, prisoner releases, or transfer of funds to pay salaries. He adds that those issues will be discussed in a month, if the quiet proves itself. Hamas’s spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, is hailing victory for several reasons, Army Radio reports — for example, because it imposed what he calls an “air blockade” on Israel, a reference to the suspension by many foreign airlines of flights to Ben Gurion Airport for two days last month. It also forced Israelis close to Gaza to flee their homes, he says. They can return now, he says, because Hamas has decided they can — not because Netanyahu has decided they can.
Needless to say, Hamas is claiming a great victory even though it got almost no concessions in the Egyptian proposal in the streets:
Fireworks and celebratory gunshots are heard in the Gaza Strip as its residents celebrate what Hamas spokesmen have hailed as a resistance “victory” against Israel, Al Jazeera reports.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 26, 2014 15 Comments
I hate when people refer to a column as "important," because the reality is that few columns are important in the real world. But I consider the column at The Tablet written by former AP Middle East reporter Matti Friedman to be important. Readers have been emailing and tweeting the link at me at a somewhat furious pace. Friedman lays bare both the explicit and implicit biases of media coverage of Israel and how that bias is part of a larger narrative seeking Israel's destruction. Here are some excerpts from An Insider’s Guide to the Most Important Story on Earth, but of course, go and read the whole thing and share it widely:
The lasting importance of this summer’s war, I believe, doesn’t lie in the war itself. It lies instead in the way the war has been described and responded to abroad, and the way this has laid bare the resurgence of an old, twisted pattern of thought and its migration from the margins to the mainstream of Western discourse—namely, a hostile obsession with Jews. The key to understanding this resurgence is not to be found among jihadi webmasters, basement conspiracy theorists, or radical activists. It is instead to be found first among the educated and respectable people who populate the international news industry; decent people, many of them, and some of them my former colleagues....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 25, 2014 8 Comments
Slowly, we have seen numerous accounts of how Hamas intimidated foreign journalists into not covering Hamas' use of facilities such as Shifa Hospital and firing of rockets close to hospitals, apartment buildings, religious compounds and U.N. facilities. But it has come slowly, and mostly after reporters had left Gaza. And only after reporters were caught deleting tweets and pulling down stories that exposed the truth. Even Hamas admits to intimidating and controlling journalists -- and brags about it. The Foreign Press Association also admitted to the intimidation, after the fact. Now another report, via Elder of Ziyon, from a Dutch journalist (emphasis added):
Since the war started, one population group in Gaza has disappeared from the streets: people in uniform. Army green uniforms, blue-grey uniforms, black uniforms, they were all over the place. From one day to the next they are gone, the men and the few women (of the women police unit) with a weapon or a truncheon in their hands.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 22, 2014 30 Comments
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made headlines at a recent press conference by specifically comparing Hamas to ISIS. As if to prove Netanyahu right, Hamas conducted the execution without trial of several alleged collaborators on Thursday, followed up by a reported 18 today. This is on top of dozens previously executed. Many if not all of these were conducted in public. Hamas has been known to drag bodies through the streets, although it's unclear if that happened this time. CNN reports:
Hamas executed 18 suspected informants for Israel in Gaza on Friday, the Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV reported. This comes one day after an Israeli strike in the Gaza city of Rafah killed three senior leaders of the Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing.
The Times of Israel adds:
The witness said masked gunmen lined up the seven men in a side street and opened fire on them. He spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for his own safety. Other witnesses told AFP that six of them were grabbed from among hundreds of worshipers leaving the city’s largest mosque, by men in the uniform of Hamas’s military wing. They were pushed to the ground. One of the masked men shouted: “This is the final moment of the Zionist enemy collaborators,” then the gunmen sprayed them with bullets.

Posted by David Gerstman on August 21, 2014 13 Comments
Following up on an airstrike that hit the house of terror mastermind Mohammad Deif, Israel killed three Hamas commanders last night. Raed al-Attar, Mohammad Abu Shmallah and Mohammad Barhoum. While there are still conflicting accounts as to whether Deif was killed or not, including a disappearing death certificate; three of his colleagues were killed. The IDF provided background on the two primary targets, al-Attar and Abu Shmallah as well as Barhoum. 2014-08-21_121035_IDF_Shamlah_Attar
Raed Attar, who oversaw Hamas forces in Rafah, planned major infiltrations and other attacks that killed Israeli civilians. He was directly involved in the 2006 kidnapping of SFC Gilad Shalit, as well as efforts to hold him captive in Gaza. In addition to planning attacks, Attar oversaw the construction of tunnels used to attack Israel through the Sinai Peninsula. As a senior Hamas operative, his major responsibility was to smuggle weapons into Gaza and oversee efforts to train and arm terrorists.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 20, 2014 4 Comments
LIVE feeds added at bottom of post Mohammed Deif is the head of Hamas' military wing. Israel has made several attempt to assassinate him over the years, injuring but not killing him. The latest was last night, but Deif's fate is unknown:
Hundreds of Palestinians turned out on Wednesday for the funeral of the wife and son of the Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, who were killed overnight in an Israeli air strike on a house in Gaza City. Hamas had urged Gazans to turn out in force for the funeral in Jabaliya refugee camp, after an attack which left at least one other Palestinian dead and injured a further 15 people. There were fears that there could be more bodies under the rubble. The fate of Deif, one of Hamas's most senior figures who has survived Israeli attempts on his life in the past, is still unknown.
Hamas asserts Deif is alive, but that lack confirmation. Hamas is trying to say it fired rockets in response to the attempt, but in reality the attempt on Deif came after Hamas broke the truce:
Israel attempted to assassinate Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas' military wing, in Gaza City on Tuesday, Hamas officials said. Israel has not officially commented on the report. Deif's wife and young child were killed in an Israeli air strike, the Hamas officials said. Hamas has not issued a statement on whether Deif was killed, and Israeli sources speculated Wednesday that he likely survived. Hamas officials said the assassination attempt represented an Israeli violation of the cease-fire, but Israel says its air strikes came in response to rockets fired from Gaza while the truce was still in effect on Tuesday.
Background on Deif, from Amos Harel at Haaretz, Who is Mohammed Deif?:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 19, 2014 4 Comments
Update: Looks like the fighting is on again after Hamas and/or other Gaza groups started firing rockets into Israel even before the prior truce was over. The question is, how much will it escalate? More updates and coverage in live video and Twitter feeds at bottom of post:

Posted by David Gerstman on August 18, 2014 11 Comments
Israeli newspapers are reporting on the just disclosed coup attempt by Hamas to dislodge Fatah in the West Bank. The Times of Israel reported:
The Shin Bet said it arrested more than 90 Hamas operatives in May and June, confiscated dozens of weapons that had been smuggled into the West Bank, and seized more than $170,000 aimed at funding attacks. It produced photos of the confiscated weapons and cash and a flowchart of the Hamas operatives who had been questioned, and said they planned a series of massive attacks on Israeli targets, including the Temple Mount, in order to start a widespread conflagration. Indictments are expected to be filed against at least 70 of the suspects. Terror cells were set up in dozens of Palestinian West Bank towns and villages — including in and around Jenin, Nablus, eastern Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Hebron — the Shin Bet said.
There were other details at Ynet:
The plan called for using the intifada as cover to seize rule in Ramallah, which would have been led by the "Mohammed Deif of the West Bank" who currently operates out of Turkey. More than 70 indictments were served in recent days at military tribunals in the West Bank, and they expose the largest coordination effort Hamas has attempted in the area since Operation Defensive Shield more than a decade ago.
The "Mohammed Deif of the West Bank" is Saleh al-Arouri who was also implicated in the planning of the kidnappings and killings of Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel.
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