Just in case anyone has any serious doubt. My latest in PJ Media:
Children killed on a Gaza beach, Palestinian deaths now over 200 with Israeli deaths numbering only one – the mainstream media is in full anti-Israel mode, as it always is whenever Israel acts to defend itself against the relentless jihad that is determined to destroy the Jewish state. But its attempts to demonize Israel and portray the Palestinians as innocent victims of Israeli aggression founder on the facts, as they always have in the past. The question is increasingly becoming that of whether the mainstream media has any actual interest in the facts. Here are seven that mainstream “journalists” are overlooking:
7. Palestinians cheer as Gaza rockets fly toward Israeli population centers.
Reuters reported that “West Bank Palestinians cheered on Saturday as Hamas militants fired the largest salvo of rockets yet on the Tel Aviv area since the start of the recent escalations.”
This is to be expected from a culture that celebrates death – and the Hamas statelet in Gaza certainly does that. A Muslim child preacher once taunted those he has been taught to hate most: “Oh Zionists, we love death for the sake of Allah, just as much as you love life for the sake of Satan.” This taunt is derived from the Qur’an: “Say, ‘O you who are Jews, if you claim that you are allies of Allah, excluding the people, then wish for death, if you should be truthful.’” (62:6)
And if the Jews won’t wish for death, the Palestinians will wish it upon them.
6. Islamic jihadists fired rockets at the Israeli holiday resort Eilat.
The Guardian reported Tuesday that “several people were injured and cars and buildings were damaged” as rockets from Gaza hit the Israeli resort city of Eilat.
In targeting Eilat, the jihadis showed anew that they love civilian casualties on both sides. They love to target Israeli civilians. And they love to mount jihad attacks from civilian areas, so as to cause civilian deaths by Israeli retaliatory fire, as they then use those civilian deaths for propaganda purposes. They are the ones responsible for those civilian deaths, not Israel.
And when Islamic spokesmen claim that Islam forbids the killing of civilians, that is only half correct. The available hadiths are contradictory (as is so often the case). There are hadiths in which Muhammad forbids the killing of civilians, but there is also this one: “The Prophet… was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, ‘They (i.e. women and children) are from them (i.e. pagans).’” (Bukhari 52.256)
That is, it is permissible to kill the women and children, because they are of the pagans.
5. Palestinian rep to UNHRC: Israel warns civilians before attacks, we don’t.
Last week, the Palestinian representative at the United Nations Human Rights Council, Ibrahim Khreisheh, was asked if the Palestinians could mount a case against Israel in the International Criminal Court. Khreisheh pointed out one problem with this: “The missiles that are now being launched against Israel – each and every missiles constitutes a crime against humanity whether it hits or misses, because it is directed at a civilian targets….Targeting civilians – be it one civilian or a thousand – is considered a crime against humanity.”
Khreisheh also noted that “many of our people in Gaza appeared on TV and said that the Israeli army warned them to evacuate their homes before the bombardment. In such a case, if someone is killed, the law considers it a mistake rather than an intentional killing, because [the Israelis] followed the legal procedures.” By contrast, “as for the missiles launched from our side.… We never warn anyone about where these missiles are about to fall, or about the operations we carry out.”
4. Hamas to social media activists: “Anyone killed or martyred is to be called a civilian from Gaza or Palestine, before we talk about his status in jihad or his military rank.”
Yes, you read that right: Hamas is telling its supporters on social media to refer to all Palestinian casualties as “civilians,” before noting their military rank. In other words, they’re all civilians now in Gaza, and every Israeli strike against them is an unwarranted attack on innocent people. Hamas also advises its media stooges to “begin [your reports of] news of resistance actions with the phrase ‘In response to the cruel Israeli attack,’ and conclude with the phrase ‘This many people have been martyred since Israel launched its aggression against Gaza.’”
Not just social media writers, but mainstream media journalists have heeded this directive, with the death toll of Palestinians and Israelis now a feature of mainstream reporting about the conflict. Never, meanwhile, is it explained that Palestinian casualties are largely the result of its launching attacks against Israel from civilian areas, hoping to provoke a retaliatory strike that they can exploit.
Read the rest here.