Ghoulish Hamas Adds "Martyrs" to Cast Lead List

I just saw that at least three more "martyrs" that the PCHR and other human rights groups considered "civilian" were added recently. Two were already on my list of fake "civilians" from other sources, but it still verifies that the methods that my team used to count terrorists were valid.

The two old names I noticed are Ibrahim Youssef Nofal (#106) and Ahmed Badawi (#4).

The new name is #200, ‘Umar Ahmed Hassan Abu Sa’id. His Hamas obituary mentions that he joined the Qassam Brigades in 2004 and was adept at placing IEDs as well as digging tunnels.

And until now, he was counted as a "civilian" in every list I am aware of.
Elder of Ziyon

HRW Bases Its War Opinions on Ignorance

At least Goldstone belatedly realized, to a small degree, his own limitations. HRW has too much hubris to ever issue a correction.

So-called "human rights organizations" cannot fairly judge how a war is waged without basic knowledge of how wars are fought. Ken Roth runs an organization that makes conclusions based on pure ignorance.

When will HRW become as transparent in its methodologies as it demands from those it loves to condemn? When will HRW ever admit that they perhaps didn't have all the information needed to draw their flawed conclusions?

We know the answer. HRW doesn't care about the truth as much as it cares about its own reputation and its own self-image as an arbiter of morality for (selected) nations of the world. So any legitimate criticisms of HRW will be denied, ignored, and downplayed rather than investigated and fixed. It's happened before and it will continue to happen, and we can expect Ken Roth to continue to dissemble rather than do what he demands of others.

Elder of Ziyon

Egypt Warns Hamas Not to Rocket Israel

Egypt has warned Hamas that if it continues to fire rockets at Israel as it has been doing for the last couple of weeks, Israel will retaliate like it did with Operation Cast Lead two years ago (Hat Tip: Daily Alert).

"Egypt has told Hamas the Gaza situation was similar to that before December 2008," said one source, referring to the start of the three-week war Israel waged in the Hamas-run enclave with the declared aim of halting cross-border rocket strikes.

"Hamas does not want a new escalation unless it is forced into it," the source said.

A Palestinian official said Egypt and another Arab country, which he declined to identify, had discussed the issue with Hamas. Hamas officials declined to comment.

...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing foreign journalists in Jerusalem on Tuesday, said militants in the Gaza Strip would be making "a terrible, terrible mistake" if they continued to "test our will to defend our people".

An Israeli air strike earlier that day killed an Islamic Jihad militant. The Israeli military said he had been planning to carry out an attack against Israel.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Gaza, Hamas, Kassam rockets, Operation Cast Lead

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:25 PM

Palestine Free from River to Sea

Palestinians demonstrate in London on second anniversary of Cast Lead.

Human Rights Council Biggest Abusers

In December 2009 the watchdog group UN Watch issued a report showing that the Human Rights Council had effectively become an enabler for human-rights violators, rather than a genuine defender of human rights. Hillel Neuer, UN Watch’s executive director, remarked: “Paradoxically, as our report today shows, the U.N.’s main human rights body has turned into the world’s leading sponsor of impunity for gross human rights abuses worldwide. It’s a case of the foxes guarding the chickens, with countries like China, Russia, Pakistan, Cuba and Saudi Arabia shielding each other’s abuses. Democracies should send a signal by opposing the council’s resolutions, even if they will be outvoted.
.....
Sharp-eyed readers might have noticed that at the very end of its news story on WikiLeaks's release last weekend of documents detailing tens of thousands of casualties during the Iraq war, The New York Times revealed that for most of the last century, the average civilian-to-combatant wartime fatality ratio has been 10:1.

The Times reported (hat tip: Evelyn Gordon): "Civilians have borne the brunt of modern warfare, with 10 civilians dying for every soldier in wars fought since the mid-20th century, compared with 9 soldiers killed for every civilian in World War I, according to a 2001 study by the International Committee of the Red Cross."

Whereas in other modern wars, civilians account for 90 percent of casualties, by contrast in last year's Israel-Hamas war in Gaza less than half of Palestinian fatalities - 39 percent - were noncombatants - and that number would have been even lower had Hamas not stored weapons in civilian institutions and fired rockets from private Palestinian homes which it commandeered.

Operation Cast Lead Reduced Gaza Rocket Fire

If you want to know why the IDF undertook Operation Cast Lead, have a look at this graph, which shows the number and type of rockets (the media have taken the 'Palestinian' custom of referring to them as 'projectiles') launched at Israel from Gaza each year since 2002.