Its going to be interesting to see what comes out of this.

Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour speaks to reporters at the United Nations headquarters Friday. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

By Rick Gladstone and Isabel Kershner THE NEW YORK TIMES

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court opened a preliminary examination Friday of possible war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, the first formal step that could lead to charges against Israelis.

Palestinian officials welcomed the announcement of the inquiry by the court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, who described it as required procedure. Israeli officials reacted furiously, calling it an inflammatory action in the protracted dispute with the Palestinians over Israeli-occupied lands.

Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said he would recommend his government not cooperate with the inquiry. He also said Israel would seek to disband the court, which he described as an anti-Israel institution that “embodies hypocrisy and grants a tailwind to terrorism.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, “Palestine considers this as an important positive step toward achieving justice and ensuring respect for international law.”

Read more at Telegram

More: Foreign Press Divided Over Hamas Harassment - Outside Edge Israel News

When Jodi Rudoren, Jerusalem bureau chief of the New York Times, read Monday’s statement from the Foreign Press Association in Israel and the Palestinian territories, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

The association, representing some 480 resident correspondents and hundreds more visiting Israel/Palestine each year, protested “in the strongest terms the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting international journalists in Gaza over the past month.”

The FPA said it knew of journalists who were “harassed, threatened or questioned over stories or information they have reported through their news media or by means of social media” and accused Hamas of “trying to put in place a ‘vetting’ procedure that would, in effect, allow for the blacklisting of specific journalists.”

“Every reporter I’ve met who was in Gaza during war says this Israeli/now FPA narrative of Hamas harassment is nonsense,” Rudoren tweeted, referring to Israeli accusations that Hamas pressure on foreign reporters had helped massage the messages coming out of Gaza in the last month.

Rudoren’s Tweet was followed by a furious email exchange with the FPA, in which Rudoren denounced the statement as “dangerous.”

Crispian Balmer, last year’s FPA chairman and former Jerusalem bureau chief for Reuters, told Haaretz the FPA was not in the habit of issuing such protests without very good reason.

“When I was on the FPA board, we took our statements very seriously,” said Crispian Balmer. “They were never written on a whim and were only issued after broad consultation - either face-to-face at a board meeting or via a stream of email exchanges. Our prime concern was always the well-being of the foreign press pack and we would not pull our punches if we thought our members needed vocal support. We would certainly never issue broad statements condemning the behavior of one side or the other if we did not feel that a good number of our members had been impacted.”

Even more intriguing, Rudoren’s deputy at the NYT, Isabel Kershner, was one of the FPA board members who approved the statement. How could two colleagues from the same newspaper observing the same sequence of events come to such different conclusions?

“I was not in Gaza during the height of the hostilities, I have only been here a week,” Rudoren told me. “But in conversations with many colleagues, those who were here from NYT and other major news organizations who I trust, I have not heard about harassment, intimidation, censorship or threats. There have been a few anecdotes re Hamas people shooing photographers away from fighters’ faces at the hospitals, asking people not to shoot this or that, and yes, names and phone numbers were taken down in a spiral notebook of who was here, but nothing that these veteran war correspondents consider unusual.”

“I am confident the FPA based its statement on detailed reports from members regarding their experiences on the ground, and only had the best intention of protecting journalists and journalism, as it always does. But I found the wording of the statement overly broad, and, especially given the narrative playing out in some social media circles regarding foreign correspondents being taken in by the Hamas narrative and not reporting on the war fully or fairly, I was concerned that it undermined what I consider to have been brave and excellent work by very talented people,” she said.

Rudoren wasn’t actually there. Her conclusions are based on talking to colleagues. But several other reporters who spoke to Haaretz agreed with her. British freelancer Harry Fear was reporting for Russia Today TV when he was asked to leave Gaza by three plainclothes Hamas officials at Al-Shifa Hospital, apparently for referring to rocket launches near his hotel. But Fear said he did not feel he had been subjected to intimidation or interference for the four weeks he reported from Gaza, where he has worked intermittently since 2012.

More at Haaretz, including THIS:

Some reporters received death threats. Sometimes, cameras were smashed. Reporters were prevented from filming anti-Hamas demonstrations where more than 20 Palestinians were shot dead by Hamas gunmen.

More: Stop the Anti-Semitism When Talking Gaza

By Dean Obeidallah

Criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza is one thing. But anti-Semitism is quite another. Keep it away. Far, far away.
At a crowded Muslim-American event I attended Sunday in North Jersey, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim elected to Congress, spoke about a range of issues. The audience, many of whom have supported Ellison since he was first elected in 2006, cheered many of his comments, but the biggest applause line came when Ellison said: “There’s absolutely no place for anti-Semitism in discussing Israeli policy.”

And that reaction is not atypical in my experience. On Saturday, I attended another large Muslim-American event in Long Island, New York, and that same sentiment was expressed there.

Muslims, like Jews, are a minority faith in America. Consequently, we have endured our share of vicious barbs launched by hate-group leaders, elected officials and even clergy members of other faiths. This has made us keenly aware of the pain of being demonized simply for our faith. That is why Ellison and I and the Muslims I know find it so despicable to see instances of anti-Semitism arise over the conflict in Gaza.

This is especially the case in Europe. While the media have noted that in large part the rallies there opposing the Netanyahu government’s military action in Gaza have been peaceful, there has been an alarming amount of anti-Semitism on display.
“Gas the Jews” and “Death to the Jews” have been heard at some rallies. Firebombs have been thrown at synagogues in France and Germany, and Jewish-owned businesses in Paris have been vandalized. As Daniel Schwammenthal, director of the American Jewish Committee’s Transatlantic Institute explained to the International Business Times, “If you attack a synagogue, explain to me what this has to do with being concerned about Gaza. You just want to hurt the Jews.” He’s 100 percent correct.

This type of conduct is despicable. Period. There’s no “but” or “let me explain why I said or did that.” It doesn’t matter how much you are angered or heartbroken by the image of children being killed in Gaza. And being of Palestinian heritage, I’ve been very aware of the suffering of Palestinian civilians well before social media has recently made this information instantaneously accessible. So I say this as someone who is very supportive of Palestinian humanity.

Anti-Semitism is morally wrong. It’s just like racism, Islamaphobia, homophobia, or any other type of hate. It can’t be tolerated, defended, or contextualized regardless of the form it manifests.

More at Daily Beast

More: Terrorist Rams Jerusalem Bus, Killing One - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News

One person was killed and several wounded on Monday after a digger rammed into a bus in Jerusalem.

The incident, now determined a terrorist attack, took place in the Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood. Five people were lightly wounded: the bus driver, three passengers and a police officer.

An Israel Prison Service officer who was on the scene as the attack unfolded joined a police officer in firing toward the digger driver, who was consequently killed. The IPS officer was lightly wounded while trying to pull the assailant out of the vehicle.

More at Haaretz

More: Soldier Kidnapped in Rafah, in Attack by Hamas During Truce; IDF Hunting for Him

US-UN plan for 72-hour ceasefire and talks falls apart, as Hamas breaches truce with Rafah attack and kidnapping; after five soldiers killed Thursday, IDF death toll rises to 61

The Times of Israel is liveblogging events as they unfold through Friday, the 25th day of Operation Protective Edge. The US and UN announced a 72-hour truce from Friday morning to be followed by negotiations, but the truce quickly collapsed as Hamas carried out an attack in Rafah in which a soldier was kidnapped. Thursday saw 90 rockets fired at Israel, several Israelis hurt by mortar fire, ongoing IDF strikes at Hamas targets in Gaza and tunnel demolitions, and US criticism of an Israeli strike that killed a reported 15 people at a UN school in Gaza on Wednesday

Five IDF soldiers were killed late Thursday in a mortar attack inside the Israeli border; 61 soldiers and three civilians have been killed on the Israeli side in the 25 days of fighting, while Gazan health officials put the death toll there at over 1,400. Israel says hundreds of those are Hamas fighters.

Read more: Soldier kidnapped in Rafah, in attack by Hamas during truce; IDF hunting for him

Many of the Israel supporters are the cause of the current war in Gaza. You caused this war out of love and empathy. You caused this war because you could imagine the pain of your son, your brother

Benjamin Netanyahu Welcomes Gilad Shalit

Israel Supporters Caused the War in Gaza.

Noara Erakat’s article Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza—Debunked argues against five of Israel’s recurring talking points” I will look at her arguments and hopefully demonstrate that they are false. I have listed the full text of her argument .

1) Israel is exercising its right to self-defense.
As the occupying power of the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Territories more broadly, Israel has an obligation and a duty to protect the civilians under its occupation. It governs by military and law enforcement authority to maintain order, protect itself and protect the civilian population under its occupation. It cannot simultaneously occupy the territory, thus usurping the self-governing powers that would otherwise belong to Palestinians, and declare war upon them. These contradictory policies (occupying a land and then declaring war on it) make the Palestinian population doubly vulnerable.

This is a clever argument essentially stating you cannot make war on yourself and that nations have an obligation to protect their citizens.

Debunking the Debunking of Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza

More: Belgian Physician Refuses to Treat Jewish Patient Over Gaza Op - Jewish World News Israel News

A Belgian physician who refused to treat a Jewish woman with a fractured rib suggested she visit Gaza to get rid of the pain.

The physician made the remark on Wednesday while manning a medical hotline in Flanders, Belgium’s Flemish region, whose capital, Antwerp, has a sizeable Orthodox Jewish population, the local Jewish monthly Joods Actueel reported Thursday.

The woman, Bertha Klein, had her son, who is American, call the hotline at 11 p.m.

“I’m not coming,” the doctor reportedly told the son and hung up. When the son called again, the doctor said: “Send her to Gaza for a few hours, then she’ll get rid of the pain.” According to Joods Actueel, the doctor confirmed the exchange, saying he had an “emotional reaction.”

Health ministry officials were looking into the incident, according to the monthly’s online edition. According to Joods Actueel, the doctor knew the patient was Jewish because of Klein’s son’s American accent.

The family called a friend, Samuel Markowitz, who is an alderman of the Antwerp district council and a volunteer paramedic. He called the doctor to confirm the exchange, and also recorded their conversation.

Hershy Taffel, Bertha Klein’s grandson, filed a complaint with police for discrimination.

This is the kind of thing that you see all the time at Arutz Sheva or Pamela’s blog and tend to not give it too much credibility, but this is from Haaretz which is a reliable news source.