Via Aish: Today In Jewish History

Av 10

In 2005, the government of Israel began the Gaza Disengagement, where 9,000 Jewish residents were evicted from their homes. Despite mass rallies against the disengagement, and an orange-ribbon campaign, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon implemented the plan with the hope of reducing security concerns and diffusing the demographic problem of Gaza’s 1.5 million Arabs. Upon completion of the evacuation, all 21 Jewish communities in Gaza were bulldozed and destroyed. Only the synagogues were left standing; these were then torched by Arab mobs.

Israel was acting lawfully in imposing and enforcing its blockade against Hamas, and by the way, it is Hamas – who the Palestinian Arabs elected – who are the ones intercepting  the humanitarian funds and soft goods contributed by Jew-hating American leftists and Europeans so that they can exchange them to purchase weapons, kassam rockets, mortar shells, plastics, and bullets to kill Jews with.  If Palestinian Arabs are having difficulty getting food and equipment, it’s their own fault.  The other fact is that there is NO occupation of Gaza anymore.  Israel demolished those communities years ago and pulled each and every Israeli citizen out and redeployed all their forces outside the recognized boundries of Gaza territory.  What there is now is an economic blockade. Economic blockades happen in times of armed conflict and are NOT against international law. Jew-haters have been believing the hype too long: those who live in Gaza are no longer occupied and Israel has the right to defend herself and protect her citizens.  How great it would be if we had a President in the White House that cared about protecting America’s borders with the same passion that Israel cares about protecting hers.  Via NewsRealBlog:

Israel’s blockade against Hamas, which Egypt was also instituting at its border, is perfectly legal under international law according to the law of blockade which was derived from customary international law, codified in the 1909 Declaration of London and updated in 1994 in a legally recognized document called the “San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea.” As required by this international law, Israel declared the blockade, notified it to all belligerents and neutral states, and blockaded only the area under enemy control. Hamas rules Gaza and is engaged in armed hostilities with Israel, which it has vowed to destroy.

Under international law, Israel can forcibly board a ship headed for the belligerent area controlled by its enemy to search for arms even if the ship’s passengers and cargo were all true peace-loving humanitarians. In this case, the so-called humanitarian flotilla included a number of non-humanitarian Islamic jihadists, some of whom were armed and ready for a fight.  Muslim Brotherhood, for example, was represented in the flotilla.  This terrorist sponsoring organization is not known for its peace loving humanitarians.

Via Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center:

The Turkish IHH, which plays a central role in organizing the Gaza flotilla, is a humanitarian relief fund with a radical Islamic, anti-Western orientation. Besides legitimate philanthropic activities, it supports radical Islamic networks including Hamas, and at least in the past, even global jihad elements.

IHH was outlawed by Defense Minister Ehud Barak in 2008 because of its role in Hamas’ global fund-raising.

As part of its connections with the global jihad, IHH supported jihadist terrorist networks in Bosnia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya. This was manifested by logistic support for the transfer of weapons and money.

In 2006 the Danish Institute for International Studies reported that in the past IHH had connections with al-Qaeda and global jihad operatives. According to the study, Turkish authorities received information in December 1997 that senior IHH figures had purchased automatic weapons from radical Islamic organizations.

The office of the organization in Istanbul was raided and activists were arrested. During the raid, Turkish security forces found weapons, explosives, instructions for making IEDs and a flag with a jihad message.

IHH purchased three of the nine ships in the flotilla – a passenger ship and two cargo ships.

On May 21, Muhammad Kaya, head of IHH office in Gaza, said there was a plan to send flotillas to Gaza every month.

Click here to read about polygamy in Islam occurring in Gaza, and if you do bother to read this pathetic article about the “poorpowestinianpeepull”, try to skip the typical British deceit and anti-Israel commentary. Via The Economist.

In the crisp fourth floor office of Fahmi al-Atiri’s Islamic dating agency in Gaza, he explains that polygamous marriages were increasingly popular – a sign of fertility and status.

After all, Gaza’s burly interior minister, he noted, had six wives, though in accordance with Islamic tenets he had had to let two of them go.

For the sake of appearances, Atiri felt obliged to set a good example, though in a nod to gender equality had let his first wife select his second.

Gaza’s evenings now bubble with weddings. Open-topped trucks piled high with boys banging tambourines lead convoys of claxoning cars accompanying newlyweds through the streets.

Restaurants have mushroomed in the city in recent months, but are frequently fully booked for celebrations.

Via JPost:

Egypt is currently building an underground metal wall that will reach a depth of 16 meters, as part of an effort to cut off smuggling tunnels used by Hamas to bring advanced weaponry into Gaza.

Israeli officials said they doubted the wall would be effective, since most of the smuggling tunnels were dug to depths reaching over 30 meters and sometimes even 50 meters.

While Egypt has slightly increased its counter-smuggling activity along the Gaza border, Israel believes Hamas is continuing to bring weapons into Gaza without difficulty.

A victory for factual and historical truth.  A knife in the gut of palestinianism, which is nothing less than a movement to ethnically cleanse Jews from their historical homeland.  Via Washington Post:

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday, in a 344-36 vote, passed a nonbinding resolution that urges President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton “to oppose unequivocally any endorsement” of a UN report that accuses Israeli forces of war crimes in Gaza last winter. Twenty-two representatives voted “present.”

More information via Rep. Berman’s Response to Goldstone on House Gaza War-Crimes Resolution:

* After Judge Richard Goldstone wrote to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.) to say that a resolution denouncing Goldstone’s report was factually inaccurate, Berman prepared a reply discussing some factual inaccuracies in the Goldstone report:

* Goldstone: The “mandate clearly included rocket and mortar attacks on Israel.”

Berman: “The broadened mandate Justice Goldstone sought was discussed, but not voted on, at a UNHRC plenary session. It was then announced via a press release in an altered formulation, more restrictive than the formulation envisioned by Justice Goldstone. The UNHRC did not create a new mandate.”

* When summarizing the results of investigations into alleged Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians, the report states that “in none of the cases reviewed were there any grounds which could have reasonably induced the Israeli armed forces to assume that the civilians attacked were in fact taking a direct part in the hostilities.” The report does not take into account that Israeli soldiers were operating under fire, in an extremely volatile and dangerous environment, in which the enemy was hiding among a civilian population.

* The report uncritically attributes numerous statements to “Gaza Authorities” (meaning, Hamas), while often casting doubt on information derived from the international and Israeli press and from non-government-affiliated Israelis. Perhaps most tellingly, the report appears only to cite Israeli statements when it finds such statements a useful basis for criticizing Israel.

Via Ha’aretz:

Hamas has smuggled a new arsenal into Gaza that would upset the balance of power, Israel believes.

Muslims currently have 160 tunnels beneath the Sinai border that they are using to smuggle longer range rockets, anti-tank missiles and perhaps even anti-aircraft missiles, security sources say. Some of the tunnels are large enough to let small all-terrain vehicles pass.

With the help of Hizbullah, Hamas has drawn up a new strategy of engagement with the IDF based on anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles.

In addition, Iranian technology has been used to increase the range of Kassam rockets Hamas is producing in Gaza to more than 20 km.
Israeli officials believe Egypt has not managed to reduce the flow of arms into Gaza.

Oopsy daisy.   Looks like a member of the “poorpalestinianpeople” tribe left some explosives on a boat off the coast of Gaza that were eventually going to be used to maim and kill Jews. Via Ha’aretz:

An unmanned Palestinian fishing boat laden with explosives blew up on Monday off the coast of Gaza near the Israeli border after Israel Navy soldiers opened fire on the boat. No one was wounded in the blast.

Via NY Times:

American officials said Israeli planes bombed a convoy of trucks in Sudan in January believed to be carrying arms to Gaza during the weeks it was fighting a war with Hamas there. Two American officials who are privy to classified intelligence assessments said Iran had been involved in the effort to smuggle weapons to Gaza and that an operative with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had gone to Sudan to coordinate the effort. One American military official said the strike was one of a series of Israeli attacks against arms shipments bound for Gaza.

Via BBC:

A large stockpile of unexploded weapons fired by the Israeli military during its recent offensive in Gaza has disappeared before UN experts were able to dispose of it safely.

UN officials said they were urgently trying to establish where the arms had gone and have called for their return.

Israel has accused Hamas of taking the stockpile, which was under Hamas guard.