JoeSettler made a mistake, and Israel is going to pay for it

It's not often that I'm wrong, and some of you might revel in that I made a mistake, except that the mistake I made is a bad one. Two weeks ago I read into Obama's statement, following his spectacularly bad Syrian fiasco that he would actually be dealing with his mess at home, and finally leave Israel alone. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Even worse, at the UN, Obama made it abundantly clear that he plans to double down on his pressure on Israel. He made it appear that he is linking that to dealing with Iran, though it's clear he won't do anything at all with Iran, that needs doing, except maybe invite Rouhani to dinner and a photo op. So, he just going to concentrate on making things bad for Israel. Obviously feels he hasn't screwed up the rest of the Middle East enough yet, so he needs to destabilize the only stable country in the region. Gee, thanks.


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UN Employee Wages Media War Against Israel

Since Friday afternoon, Israel has been targeted by over 150 rockets from Gaza. The Iron Dome anti-rocket system has been working well at about a 90% hit-rate, which has kept serious rocket strikes to a minimum.

The Palestinians have been waging the war through their most effective weapon they have -- lying, and using the media to spread their lies. Fake Imagery is one of their fortes.

So...Palestinians have been using this photo everywhere on facebook and twitter to accuse Israel of "war atrocities"


The photo is from 2006, and the girl died in an accident!

So who started the campaign to smear Israel? Honest Reporting has the scoop:

Our guest post from the IDF revealed how a photo, allegedly depicting the results of Israeli air strikes in Gaza in recent days, have been proven false.

The offending photo was originally tweeted by Khulood Badawi.

Khulood Badawi happens to work for the OCHA – the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs where, according to a UN Contact List, she works as an Information and Media Coordinator.

A Google search reveals that Badawi has a history of activism in a range of pro-Palestinian non-governmental organizations, some of them radical and politicized. While this background may not in itself disqualify her from a career with the UN, it is absolutely unacceptable that a UN employee working specifically on dissemination of information to the media and public tweets malicious and false information to libel Israel.

Read it all at Honest Reporting.

More examples of Palestinian Fauxtography at the IDF Spokesman's Blog.

PS: Want full time war coverage? Let me know in the comments...

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Self-Defense is not a War Crime

To all the loonies supporting Benedict Goldstone's report on Israel (including Israeli Arab MK's, J-Street, terrorists, and others), here's a video from Colonel Richard Kemp delivered at the UN's special "emergency condemnation of Israel session" this past Friday, the 16th of October 2009.

Kemp is a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan. He served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. He spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee.



Excerpt:

Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.

Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.

The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.

The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.

Either watch the video, or read it all here.

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