Claim: HAMAS is only Attacking Because of the Siege

OlehGirl has an excellent response to the claim that "HAMAS is attacking Israel because the border crossings are closed."

In addition, I want to add a few things.

HAMAS claims that it is simply using the best tools at its disposal to force open the crossings. However, let's examine what it is, in fact, doing.

• It periodically attacks border crossings that are at least allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza, but not with sufficient strength to actually take them. It does this, knowing that the Israelis (and Egyptians) must respond by completely closing these crossings.
  
• When Israel begins to allow more goods into Gaza, the Gazan terrorist gangs launch rockets and mortars into Israeli towns. They do this, knowing that the Israelis will respond by closing the crossings. 

If HAMAS and other Gazan terrorist groups are attacking Israel because of the closed borders, then why do they attack border crossing stations that are Gaza's lifeline, forcing them to close? And why do they specifically target Israeli border stations when these open further and allow more supplies into Gaza, but generally ignore them while they are completely sealed?

Unlike Israel's use of force against HAMAS, these pointless attacks on border crossings and on Israeli civilians do constitute disproportionate use of force as outlined in Dore Gold's column in JPost, because they have no possible military value, and are simply violence intended to cause misery to civilians (Gazan as well as Israeli).

Disproportionale Use of Force

Dore Gold has an excellent piece in the Jerusalem Post explaining the difference between the use of force and the use of disproportionate force in war.

A Saudi Opinion

This is not a fact-checking post. :-)

I usually read the columns of Tariq Alhomayad, editor in chief of Asharq al-Awsat. He sticks pretty close to the officially sanctioned Saudi government line, which can sometimes be interesting and sometimes discouraging. Yesterday's column (The Blood of Gaza... a Business Venture) is quite interesting. 

Mr. Almhomayed has a factual error (165 Israelis, 44 of whom were civilians, were killed in the war against Hizballah in 2006, not two as the column claims), and there are occasional dives into prefabricated rhetoric, but my intent here is not to quibble, but rather to consider how this might reflect the evolving Saudi position. 

The paragraphs that I find most interesting are these:

And so as was expected today we are facing demands of holding an emergency Arab summit, the question then is what is the difference between this summit [perhaps to be held in Doha on Friday] and previous emergency summits? What we need is not an emergency summit but a decisive Arab stance, a position that will bring the responsible party to account. If this current escalation was caused by Hamas and Iran to prevent the expected negotiations between Syria and Israel, then let us call a spade a spade. And if [the current escalation] was caused to strengthen the Syrian position, then let that be made clear also.

It is also an Arab duty to inform the public that what Hamas is doing in Gaza –and the thwarting of the peace efforts made by Egypt- is equivalent to casting a vote for Netanyahu in the Israeli elections. For the extremist always look for an extremist [on the other side] to justify his position. Netanyahu's ascension to the head of the Israeli cabinet will justify the actions of Iran or Hamas, or even the existence of Hezbollah weaponry, in Arab public opinion.

... The Arabs must call a spade a spade so long as Hamas and those who stand behind the Hamas movement do not hesitate to make accusations and bring charges of treason against the Arab world. Let them bear the responsibility [of their own actions], if only once.

When the collective Arab leadership recognizes that those who beat the drums of war merely want to use fellow Arabs for their own purposes, it greatly reduces the danger to people all over the region, which is for the best. 

Claim: "Gaza Rockets are Harmless Firecrackers"

One of the claims often made by people who are trying to claim that Israel's response is disproportionately harsh is that the rockets and mortar rounds being fired daily from Gaza into Israel are "virtually harmless", "homemade weapons" or "just big firecrackers".

The claim is FALSE.

These are military weapons, lightweight artillery. They are designed to kill people. They are packed with lethal explosives. A few days before operation "Cast Lead," one of these weapons misfired, hit a house and killed two Palestinian girls. After the disengagement, 19 Palestinians were killed when a truck carrying HAMAS men and some unsecured Qassam rockets (which were bouncing around on the truck bed) exploded during a HAMAS parade. The Qassams and Grads in the arsenals of Gaza's rocket crews are lethal weapons.

What the Gazan rockets DO lack is guidance systems, so that they are only useful if aimed at a large, target-rich environment. For Gazan rocket crews, who are trying to kill civilians, the large, target-rich environments are Israeli towns; the targets are civilians.

Given the lethality of the explosives in Qassam rockets and other weapons being used against Israeli civilians, and the rocket crews' intent to kill Israelis with them, why have there been so few Israeli deaths?

The Israelis have taken drastic steps to protect their people from these attacks:

1. All of the houses along the Gaza perimeter contain reinforced (fortified) rooms, and public areas along the Gaza perimeter have shelters.
   
2. Israel has implemented a radar-based alert system, called "Color Red," which sounds a siren when a rocket is detected. This gives people up to 15 seconds warning, during which they must drop everything and run to the nearest shelter or into the reinforced room in their house, dragging their kids along if they have kids with them. If the kids are not with their parents, they must do this themselves. Heaven help anyone on crutches.
   

Rocket fire concentrated during hours when kids are walking to and from school indicate that at least some rocket crews have explicitly attempted to kill Israeli children.

Unfortunately, many schools are not adequately fortified, and on some occasions, rockets fired toward schools have struck classrooms only minutes after the kids went elsewhere. In cases like this, only the most incredible luck has prevented a massacre.

The Gazan terror gangs also use mortars, which are similar to the mortars used in wars by armies all over the world.

The rockets and mortar bombs are not "home made," as many news sources incorrectly label them. They are designed by skilled engineers, who are constantly attempting to improve their range and lethality, and are manufactured in metal-working and rocket fabrication facilities by skilled professionals who have been specially trained in their construction. They are then stored in quantity in hidden bunkers.

Many of those who deprecate these weapons are simply repeating the claim without thinking. However, the claim is originated by people whose aim is to claim that any Israeli reaction is "disproportionate," and thus to attack Israel for taking any action at all in defense of its people. After all, if these are just big nuisances, and Israel takes action to prevent them, then Israel looks like a bully. But if 8000+ lethal rockets have been fired into Israeli civilian towns since Israel's complete withdrawal from Gaza, that's another matter altogether, isn't it?

Bottom Line:

The rockets that the Gaza terror gangs fire at Israelis are lethal weapons. They are not "harmless," "home made" or "big fireworks." Israelis in Sderot and elsewhere are living in a constant state of fear, and only Israel's unprecedented efforts to protect its people via warning systems and fortified rooms in every house has prevented mass loss of life.

Israel's reaction is proportionate to the daily attempts by Gazan rocket crews to murder Israeli civilians.

Claim: "Genocide" update

Islamic fundamentalists murdered far more Arab Muslim civilians this week in Iraq than the 15 or so who have died in Gaza at Israel's hands during the course of this retaliation. Yesterday alone 20 people were killed in Baghdad by a bomb.

Kind of puts this in perspective.

Claim: "Israel is committing genocide in Gaza"

This claim is not only FALSE; it is absurd.

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic  murder of an ethnic, national, racial or religious group.

Gaza has a population of 1.5 million people. 200-250 of these have been killed by the Israeli air raids. HAMAS itself has said that 80% or more of the casualties are HAMAS military operatives. Gaza authorities have said that only about 15 of the dead are civilians. While my heart bleeds for the 15 and their families, and for others who were wounded, 15 people out of 1.5 million is not genocide. 

Did the Israelis indiscriminately nuke Gazan cities, indicating an intent to commit genocide? No. According to HAMAS, Israel precision-bombed every HAMAS military base and [militarized under HAMAS] police station, as well as ammunition dumps and the offices of HAMAS leaders. These stations and offices had been deliberately placed by HAMAS in civilian areas - in some cases beside schools or mosques - in the hope that Israeli bombs would lead to casualties that would embarrass Israel. The schools and other facilities had not been relocated, nor had they been protected in any way from the risk that the military facilities might be bombed. 

Bottom line: 

Let's dispense with the mad rhetoric and face reality. Calling this "genocide" is a tactic to mislead ignorant people around the world. I'll accept fair and sane criticism of Israel. Gross distortions and lies like this claim do not contribute to rational debate; they only incite the naive to support delusional, violent approaches to dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mission Statement

This blog is starting out as an attempt to fact-check some of the more absurd claims being made with respect to the current Israeli military action against the HAMAS terror organization that currently runs Gaza. 

Each blog post will consist of a claim and the discussion of that claim.