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.

More: Synagogue in North Miami Beach Vandalized - WSVN-TV - 7NEWS Miami Ft. Lauderdale News, Weather, Deco

wsvn.com

NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (WSVN) — Authorities are searching for the vandals who spray painted anti-Semitic messages on a South Florida synagogue.

Residents who voluntarily patrol the area discovered swastikas and the word, “Hamas” spray painted in red on columns on the Congregation Torah V’Emunah at 1000 NE 175th St, early Monday morning.

“I saw this and then I stopped and I said, ‘Wait a minute. What am I seeing here?’ and then I backed up again and I looked again and I immediately sent a text to the two supervisors,” said resident and neighborhood watchman Yona Lunger.

Residents are now trying to figure out who would want to desecrate their place of worship. “Absolute hate and why are you doing this, what have we done to you? We want to live at peace over here, we’re not fighting with you, we want to get along,” said Lunger. “We don’t go to any mosques, we don’t go spraying, anything like that. All we want to do is get along.”

Some residents are even concerned about their safety.

“I mean honestly it makes you question if it’s safe to walk around, wearing your yamaka, like how safe you really are in America,” said neighbor Josh Rosenberg.

Pictures of the defaced columns were posted on Facebook and many people around the world are reacting. “It’s like disgusting,” said Yossi Rosenberg.

The vandalism has since been removed.

This incident comes a day after a Miami Beach family’s vehicles were egged and defaced with the words, “Jew” and “Hamas” smeared on the windshields.

More at WSVN.

This is a few blocks from where my youngest daughter lives.

Yuval Diskin, former Director of Shabak (Shin Bet) was interviewed by Spigel about the current situation in Gaza.

He’s not hopeful.

More: Europe’s Jews Blamed for Israel’s War

As the fight in Gaza wears on, anti-Semites across Europe are attacking the continent’s Jews under the pretext of protesting Israel’s politics.

Since the beginning of the current war between Israel and Hamas, eight synagogues in France have been attacked. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has asked for Jews to apologize for the actions of the Jewish state. In Germany, a prominent Muslim Imam gave a sermon asking Allah to kill all of the “Zionist Jews.”

The atmosphere in Europe since the beginning of the war has been so toxic that the foreign ministers of France, Italy, and Germany on Tuesday issued a rare joint statement condemning anti-Semitism at pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

All of this presents a troubling paradox for Zionism. The state of Israel was founded in 1948 as a haven for Jews. But in 2014 Europe’s anti-Semites have attacked Jews for the deeds of the Jewish state.

It is a classic anti-Semitic canard to punish any Jew for the perceived crimes of all of them. There is no evidence also to suggest that if Israel did not respond to rockets fired from Hamas, the Jews of Europe would be any safer or the continent’s anti-Semites would be any more tolerant. After all, some of the worst attacks on Jews in France occurred at a time of relative quiet in Israel.

But during a war that has claimed nearly 700 Palestinians and far fewer Israelis, Jewish leaders in Europe say their communities are being held responsible for the actions of Israel.

“If you are a French Jew you should not be responsible physically for what happens 4,000 kilometers away,” Roger Cukierman, the president of the umbrella organization representing the Jewish community in France known as CRIF, told The Daily Beast.

More at Daily Beast.

The latest battle in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas (Operation Protective Edge) continued without any sign of letup. Israel’s military continues ground operations inside Gaza, while Hamas has continued firing rockets and missiles at Israel. Israeli ground forces have taken casualties while Gazan casualties continue to grow.

Thus far, Palestinians living in Gaza have taken the brunt of the fighting. There have been hundreds of casualties and it is still unclear just how many of them are civilians and how many have been Hamas fighters. Media outlets are relying almost exclusively on Hamas and PA sources for casualty counts, and Hamas has been notorious with lying about who was killed and conflating their casualties with civilians.

It is indisputable that Israel has hit civilians, including children in the course of the fighting and trying to hit at Hamas terrorists who are entrenched in urban areas and firing at Israel from within civilian areas. Israel reports that they’ve killed at least 270 terrorists, while the UN indicates that 479 have been killed overall, including 364 civilians, 76 militants, and 39 who they can’t classify. Gaza’s Health Ministry puts the tally at 632 killed and nearly 3,800 wounded.

It is also indisputable that Hamas has no problem firing from civilian positions including schools and UN facilities. For the second time in a week, the UNRWA has found rocket caches in one of their facilities.

#UNRWA finds rockets inside another of its Gaza schools; condemning those responsible (psst, it's HAMAS) http://t.co/HOvdAuShUV

— lawhawk (@lawhawk) July 22, 2014

Hamas has become more brazen in where they’re storing their weapons, all while their leaders cower in underground bunkers while Gazans who aren’t connected with the leadership and don’t have the means to protect themselves are taking the brunt of the damage with no where else to go.

It is also indisputable that but for Hamas firing rockets and missiles at Israel incessantly since even the last ceasefire in 2012 (all but one month had missile/mortar or rocket fire) that Israel would not have needed to invade Gaza once again after the latest rounds of barrages that have landed deep inside Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

The FAA may have succeeded in doing what Hamas couldn’t do directly. After firing missiles in the direction of Ben Gurion Airport, Delta Airlines and a quick succession of other airlines decided that they didn’t want to put their planes in harms’ way. The FAA then ordered US airlines to halt flights to and from Israel for 24 hours. Other airlines also followed suit.

The airlines rightfully don’t want to see their gear destroyed by the missiles or rockets, and that’ll be more than enough to keep them away though it is strange that they are not willing to fly into Israel but haven’t had issues with flights to/from or over other war zones and conflict regions in recent years, including Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ukraine (prior to the shoot down of Malaysian Air Flight 17).

The FAA order and its effect on the conflict can play out in one of two ways. It could force Israel to a ceasefire while Israel has not achieved its goals militarily so as to get flights to resume. If the flights remain shut down, it would have the effect of imposing economic harms on Israel (lost tourism/commerce) and indirectly strengthens Hamas’ hand.

However, the concern for Israel’s economy is just as likely to move Israel to mount an even larger military campaign into Gaza so as to eliminate the threat to Israel’s only international airport and crush Hamas’ capabilities once and for all. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu is likely to opt for the latter, knowing that his country needs the influx of tourists to keep the economy going and a prolonged shutdown would have dire consequences. Israeli public opinion isn’t going to take this kind of existential threat to their livelihood and country; they’re going to press ahead with rooting out Hamas if it means eliminating the threat to Israel’s airport.

Until now, the primary justification for the Israeli ground assault has been to root out the tunnels and bunkers Hamas has used to bring weapons into Gaza from Sinai, store the weapons, and to infiltrate into Israel. The missile attacks near Ben Gurion are the kind of justification that Israel could make to continue its fight inside Gaza - to eliminate the threat to Israel’s economy and transportation networks that fighting to clear the tunnels from Gaza didn’t. It would potentially provide the open-ended invitation for Israel to remain in Gaza, a region Israel unilaterally withdrew from in 2005 as no nation would ever allow its key transit locations to be under constant threat from missiles and bombs.

Meanwhile, the diplomats are trying to formulate yet another cease fire proposal. It’s actually a joke at this point. Everyone knows that the ceasefire agreement is going to end up being the same as all the prior deals between Israel and Hamas. Both sides will promise not to fire on the other beginning at X. Once X plus a given period Y has occurred, Israel will promise Z and Hamas will need to reciprocate with A. The ceasefire deals are essentially fill-in-the-blank and you can substitute the times, dates, and in the end, all that is left are the casualties on both sides to be buried and hospitalized.

It’s nice that the diplomats and EU members are calling on Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza to be disarmed, but there’s no indication of how or who would do what they propose. Hamas seems to have an answer to that question - they’ll keep firing their munitions until they’ve expended their stockpiles. Israel will continue taking that fire until they have forced Hamas to expend all of its weapons.

Gazans will continue to suffer from Hamas actions and Israeli responses and both Israelis and Gazans will mourn their losses and curse Hamas. And that, unfortunately, is the takeaway.

Cross posted at A Blog for All

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