August 5, 2014, New York: The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has pointed to emerging and strong evidence that the death of Arab Gazan civilians blamed on an Israeli strike upon an UNWRA school earlier this week -- for which the Obama Administration condemned Israel -- was in fact staged by Nazi-like terrorist group Hamas.
The ZOA has called upon the Obama Administration to retract its condemnation, noting that the evidence now shows that Israel did indeed, as it claimed at the time, fire at terrorists just outside the school, where a missile strike on the road outside is plainly evident; that dead bodies were moved by Hamas from outside the school to inside its courtyard to mislead people into believing that the school itself had been hit; that the body of a small girl was added to the pile of adult bodies to make it look as if all the deaths came from the school, then was later removed, leaving doubt as to whether she was in fact killed; and that the bodies of two dead men photographed outside the school were also later shown inside the school courtyard, indicating they too were moved. (Rick Moran, 'Was a UN School in Gaza Really Bombed? (Update: No, It Wasn't),' PJ Tatler, August 3, 2014).
The Israeli strike directed at Hamas terrorists on the scene reportedly killed ten Palestinian civilians and wounded dozens more at a UN Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA)-run school which was serving as shelter during the on-going hostilities for 3,000 Gazans. This led State Department Spokeswoman, Jan Psaki, to condemn Israel saying, "The United States is appalled by today's disgraceful [attack] outside an UNRWA school in Rafah sheltering some 3,000 displaced persons, in which at least 10 more Palestinian civilians were tragically killed ... We once again stress that Israel do more to meet its own standards and avoid civilian casualties" (' State Department Condemns "Disgraceful" Shelling Of U.N. School In Gaza,' Huffington Post, August 3, 2014).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "Israel has received massive condemnation, including from the Obama Administration over this incident -- condemnation that appeared even before the facts in the case were established.
"Now, after two days, it appears that Israel was correct when it said that it fired at terrorists outside the school and that it did not strike the school directly. It also appears that at least some of the dead bodies shown on television were placed there by Hamas after the event and may not have been killed by Israel action at all.
"President Obama should immediately retract the astonishing condemnation uttered by the State Department over the weekend. It would have bend bad enough to make this condemnation even if Israel had inadvertently struck the school.
"As I said yesterday, can one imagine the outrage in Washington if the Israeli government condemned a U.S. strike on Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces near a school in Afghanistan which inadvertently resulted in civilian deaths? Would this be proper? Would this be the behavior of an ally?
"To add insult to injury, this condemnation came only a few hours after Israel began a partial unilateral pull-back from Gaza that was met by increased terrorist rocket and mortar fire.
"Such condemnation incentivizes Hamas' terrorism and its resort to war crimes against the Jewish state. It makes such crimes pay in the coin of opprobrium for Israel, which, coming from the country supposed to be Israel's best ally, the U.S. reaction can only encourage. This would be bad at any time, but it is inexcusable at a time of heightened anti-Semitic frenzy in Europe and elsewhere. This adds fuel to the fire of Jew-hatred, rantings and actions.
"This is also giving aid and comfort to Hamas. President Obama should immediately apologize that his Administration jumped to conclusions and uttered a false and damaging condemnation of an ally. We strongly urge President Obama to publicly state that Hamas started this war by unprovoked, illegal missile attacks upon Israeli civilians, compelling Israel to take legitimate defensive steps against Hamas to end the threat to its own citizens. We also strongly urge him to condemn the anti-Semitic demonstrations in Europe and elsewhere which have been marked by the most horrific anti-Semitic expression."
1b) Hamas Rules
Journalists in Gaza have to play by them. They should acknowledge that.
By Clifford D. May
The Washington Times
If you’ve been following the conflict in Gaza you’ve seen dramatic pictures of heavily armed Israeli soldiers, their tanks and helicopters. You’ve seen pictures of neighborhoods reduced to rubble, with Palestinian men, women and children in desperate circumstances. What you almost certainly have not seen are the combatants Israelis have been fighting. It’s as though they were fighting ghosts.
Also scarce in the major media: stories about Hamas deploying civilians as human shields, storing missiles in mosques and UN schools, setting up command posts in hospitals, using ambulances to ferry terrorists to battle, and children to dig tunnels -- with at least 160 killed in the process. And how many stories have you seen about humanitarian supplies flowing from Israel to Gaza in the midst of this bloody conflict and the hundreds of Gazans treated in Israeli hospitals?
The explanation: Hamas restricts what journalists in Gaza may film, photograph and even write about. Hamas threatens and intimidates journalists who do not follow what might be called Hamas rules – rules designed to shape media coverage and influence perceptions around the world.
Let me say this as clearly as I know how: The journalists covering Gaza are brave. I’m not saying they should be braver – much less reckless. I do think they should be honest with their readers and viewers about the conditions under which they are operating: conditions of coercion, manipulation, restriction and censorship.
A few have acknowledged their predicament, mostly on social media. For example, Italian journalist Gabriele Barbati on July 29 tweeted: “Out of #Gaza far from #Hamas retaliation: misfired rocket killed children [today] in Shati.” In other words: having left Gaza he can now say what he would not dare report while in the territory: that it was a Hamas rocket, not an Israeli rocket, that killed 10 people, 8 of them children, at the al Shati refugee camp along the northern Gaza seacoast.
Israeli filmmaker Michael Grynszpan wrote on Facebook that he had met with a Spanish journalist who had just left Gaza and asked him why TV viewers are not seeing Hamas fighters in action. Grynszpan said he was told: “It’s very simple, we did see Hamas people there launching rockets, they were close to our hotel, but if ever we dared pointing our camera on them they would simply shoot at us and kill us.”
An oped in The Australian noted that after TV reporter Peter Stefanovic tweeted that he had seen rockets fired into Israel from near his hotel, a pro-HamaS tweeter warned: “in WWII spies got shot.” French-Palestinian journalist Radjaa Abu Dagga was “detained and interrogated by members of Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigade at a room in Shifa hospital next to the emergency room.” He published an account of his treatment in the French newspaper Liberation – but that article has since been “unpublished” at Dagga’s request.” Why do you suppose?
John Reed of the Financial Times was threatened after he tweeted about rockets being fired from near that same hospital. The Wall Street Journal’s Nick Casey posted a photo of a Hamas spokesman being interviewed from a room in the hospital along with this tweet: “You have to wonder (with) the shelling how patients at Shifa hospital feel as Hamas uses it as a safe place to see media.”After “a flood of online threats,” the tweet was deleted. But Twitter accounts “continued to attack Casey, including him on lists of ‘journos in Gaza (who) lie/fabricate info for Israel’ and ‘must be sued for crimes.’”
Of course, litigation is the least of the perils weighing on the minds of journalists in Gaza. On any day, any foreign reporter could be abducted, handcuffed and hooded, while their captors reviewed their dispatches. If not satisfied with what they see, that could be all she wrote – literally.
Most reporters know that in 2006 Fox reporter Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig were kidnapped in Gaza by a group calling themselves the Holy Jihad Brigades. Both were eventually released but not before, as Mr. Centanni stated, they were “forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint.”
Some reporters slant for other reasons. Last month, NBC News pulled correspondent Ayman Mohyeldi out of Gaza. Many inferred that his bosses found his coverage unbalanced. A few days later, after an outcry from Hamas sympathizers, NBC reinstated him.
Mohyeldi tweeted: “I’m returning to #Gaza to report. Proud of NBC's continued commitment to cover the #Palestinian side of the story.” How to interpret that except as an admission that he covers only one side of the story? Can you imagine a reporter saying he was proud his media outlet was committed to covering “the Israeli side of the story”?
I would argue, too, that never questioning Hamas’ “facts” and casualty figures is not tantamount to telling the Palestinian side of the story. I would further argue that Hamas is not on the side of Palestinians – at least not those who want normal lives for their children and whose highest priority is not exterminating the Jewish state next door.
Finally, a few words on more subtle forms of journalistic bias: Early in the current round of fighting, reporters for The New York Times asked an Israeli military spokesman “about the repercussions of carrying out” operations against Hamas “during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.”
If it occurred to these reporters to ask Hamas spokesmen about the “repercussions” of firing missiles at Jerusalem during Ramadan, I missed it.
I know: It would be foolhardy to pose such questions to a Hamas spokesman. I would just ask that principled journalists, once they are safely out of Gaza, tell the truth –not just on Twitter -- about the pressures they faced and the way it influenced their reportage.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------2) Nine Things Voters Can Learn From Michelle Nunn's Campaign Strategy
Last week, National Review gave the Washington beltway a juicy tidbit
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/383894/print> of afternoon reading.
Somehow, its reporter Eliana Johnson got her hands on a leaked copy of U.S.
Senate Democrat candidate Michelle Nunn's campaign plan.
The 144-page memo
http://www.scribd.com/doc/235287519/2014-Michelle-Nunn-Campaign-Memot; rips
the curtain away from the modern campaign. For us writing about Washington
outside the beltway, we see this document as a guidebook on political
communication. Think of it as the Democrats' strategy to win friends and
influence people.
In the next few months, the midterm elections will gear up and candidates
all around the country like Michelle Nunn will run television spots, pose
for photo-ops and kiss babies. By understanding Nunn's strategy, we
understand more of how the politicians are trying to convince us that they
should be the ones going to Congress next year. We also learn how the Left,
specifically, targets certain demographics and plays certain groups to
accomplish its goals.
Here's what we learned reading through the document:
1. The modern campaign takes a lot of science and number crunching.
This may be a no-brainer. However, the memo starts off by looking at the
history of voter turnout in Georgia and estimates how many votes the Nunn
campaign should rake onto their side. The Feldman Group wrote, "[W]e need
1,378,001 votes to win. Rounding up reduces the risk and so 1.4 million is
my recommended goal." For this purpose, the Georgia Democratic Party keeps a
massive voter list, probably with data such as voter history and the like.
In fact, voter data is big, shadowy business
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/12/aristotle200712t; .
2. The Nunn campaign was researching to find out what voters wanted to
hear. When this memo was written in December, Nunn didn't define much of her
message. Only a few months later, when her challenger would be decided in
the Republican primary, would she forge the details of her running platform.
For us not living in the swamp along the Potomac, this shows a candidate is
not motivated by integrity, but by what tickles the ears of the voters
during election season. They certainly ride the winds of opinion.
3. The Nunn campaign said it was looking for groups of Republicans to
endorse Nunn. The Nunn campaign created two political groups to help lend
some weight to their campaign. The groups, Republicans for Nunn and
Independents for Nunn (we're sure there is no pun intended), would be on
call to be quoted in the media. This was an effort to reach demographics
that Nunn herself was not comfortable reaching in person -- like
conservative, rural folks.
4. The Nunn campaign, in conjunction with Georgia's Democratic Party,
has a Voter Protection Program, which is there to deploy people to monitor
the campaign, work the polls, and deal with any "voter protection
incidents." Election law is no joke. Mess with ballots, or manipulate
voters, and you are manipulating the democratic process itself. For this
reason, the Nunn campaign wanted to recruit lawyers or law students. For the
non-law types, it was going to create an outline for those people to bone up
on their election law, then turn around to advise the campaign. Go figure.
5. What kind of voter you are depends on what message you'll hear. In
the memo, there was a PowerPoint slide labeled "CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY"
in which it identifies three kinds of audiences. First, there are the
"Strong supporters." In their mailboxes, Facebook accounts and online ads,
they see messages reminding them to vote, give money or volunteer. Second,
the "Drop-off voters" are probably people who support the candidate but
somehow don't make it to the polls. They need more persuasion when it comes
to getting out and voting. Third, "swing voters" need to be persuaded about
the candidate.
6. If the campaign were to get dirty, Nunn would be prepared. Early on,
her campaign was compiling books of information about her possible
Republican opponents. Her staff would gather all the information the public
record had to offer on her opponent. Furthermore, the Democrat Party of
Georgia hired a tracker. His or her job is to show up at press conferences,
county fairs, fundraisers and videotape the opposition candidate whenever
possible. The footage would be transcribed and analyzed for quotes,
developments in the opposition's campaign and for possible attack ads
hitting the airwaves. The campaign's research also went into debate
preparation -- policy documents refuting the arguments Nunn's opposition
would make.
7. Nunn's memo bluntly goes through several demographics and their use
to the campaign. Like a typical liberal, Nunn planned to use blacks and
Latinos for their votes, and she targeted Jews, homosexuals, Asian-Americans
and CEOs for their money. But these are not the only groups the Nunn
campaign targeted. Her campaign viewed religious leaders as "validators" --
people that she could leverage to get voters, especially Latino voters. For
gun owners, Nunn herself wouldn't reach the Second Amendment crowd (probably
not her type of person). Instead, she would target the group around hunting
season, releasing a newspaper ad or two, using people who did own guns as
endorsers of her campaign.
8. When it came to Veterans, Nunn's campaign had plans for them too,
using them as "validators." In her memo, the campaign wrote: "The veterans
community will be organized primarily as validators. The campaign will work
to recruit leaders in all areas of the military community and release their
support prior to the primary. Following the primary, the campaigns will
release their names of a larger number of military supporters, thus showing
growing support." Like many politicians, the Nunn campaign only gives
veterans lip service in exchange for more votes. Such respectful treatment
for the people who chose to bear the responsibilities of uniform!
9. Finally, the campaign has a love-hate relationship with the media
because much of the outreach to voters is played out in the media, which can
write whatever it wants. The campaign's goal is to stick to a set of
campaign talking points and repeat them again and again until Election Day.
The media is hounding the campaign for any crack or deviation in the
message. "In fact -- in 21st century campaigns with wall-to-wall media
coverage and super-pacs able to put millions of dollars behind video behind
a single cellphone video -- a slight deviation from the agreed upon message
could end up being very damaging to the campaign," the memo said. The
communications team even rehearses the stump speech. Part of the team's job
is to "push back against negative research hits" using the strategy to "kill
or muddy the story." Remember that the next time you read a political piece
on a candidate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3)
Media Uncovers Hamas Launch Sites in Populated Areas
Since the start of Operation Protective Edge, Israeli officials have insisted that Hamas was firing rockets from densely populated areas. Even after a month of fighting, scant evidence emerged from the mainstream media.
But now, media sources are emerging with video proof that Hams is, indeed, deliberately putting Palestinian civilians at risk in its offensive against Israel.
NDTV, an Indian broadcaster, ran footage shot mostly out of a hotel window in a populated area of Gaza showing a rocket launcher being assembled and ultimately fired at Israel.
The video starts with the reporter Sreenivasan Jain pointing out a blue tent that suddenly appeared near the hotel partially obscuring from view the work being done putting together a rocket launcher.
“There has always been this question of how Hamas manages to fire its rockets without being detected by the Israelis,” Jain says in the video. “This perhaps is one of the ways of assembling it, under a tent.
“It also establishes something Hamas has always been accused of – that they actually use densely populated civilian areas to fire their rockets,” Jain added, zooming the camera out to show the residential area. “If Hamas does fire a rocket from here, it will have immediate consequences for everyone around here.”
One day later, the film crew caught footage of the rocket launcher firing into Israel, just minutes before the 72-hour went into effect.
During the same period, another video surfaced from France 24 News showing Hamas rockets in civilian areas.
The video shows reporter Gallagher Fenwick reacting to rocket fire just 50 yards away from him. “This was a rocket fired right next to where we’re standing,” he says in the video.
He then shows the rocket launchers still sticking out of the ground in the area. “Israel has repeatedly accused Palestinian militants of shooting from densely populated civilian areas, and that is precisely the set-up we have right here,” he said.
He also noted that about 100 yards behind him was a UN building. “This rocket launching site is right next to a UN facility,” he said.
The issue of Hamas launch sites has been heavily discussed in the media over the past week, especially after the New York Times claimed that it had failed to capture any photos of Hamas terrorists in action. The lastest videos conclusively prove Hamas deliberately fired from civilian areas without concern for Palestinian lives.
In addition, Hamas’ terror tunnels have also gained signficant attention. An AP article about the impact of the war on Gaza towns includes the following information implicating Hamas in exploiting civilian areas:
Asmahan Ismail Abu al-Rous started wondering a year ago about the cause of the cracks on the walls of her Gaza home. When she asked some of her more savvy neighbors, they told her: Militants were digging an attack tunnel not far away.
“I did not think much about it then. I thought that was the resistance’s business, not mine,” the widowed mother of four said Tuesday, standing amid the ruins of her two-story home in the Shawkah district, an eastern section of Rafah near Gaza’s border with Egypt.
Barely 50 meters (yards) away, according to villagers, is an entrance of the tunnel where Hamas fighters emerged Friday to attack Israeli soldiers. Two Israelis were killed and a third was initially believed to be captured by the militants.
The strategy appears to be consistent with the strategy depicted in a Hamas combat manual captured and publicized by the IDF this week.
This Hamas urban warfare manual exposes two truths: (1) The terror group knows full well that the IDF will do what it can to limit civilian casualties. (2) The terror group exploits these efforts by using civilians as human shields against advancing IDF forces.
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4) Obamacare and the public: The more they know, the less they like
Author: Byron York
Source: Washington Examiner.
Democrats have long believed Obamacare would become more popular once it was fully in place and Americans got a chance to see it up close. So why is Obamacare less popular now than a few months ago? Because it is fully in place and Americans have had a chance to see it up close.
According to new polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has closely tracked Obamacare for years, 37 percent of those surveyed have a favorable view of the Affordable Care Act, while 53 percent have an unfavorable view. That's an eight-percentage-point jump in unfavorability over last month, and a two-point drop in favorability over the same time.
Why the shift? It's not because millions of Americans have suddenly become conservative Republicans. Kaiser found that disapproval of Obamacare has risen across the board. Among Democrats, for example, the law's unfavorable rating jumped six points in July, while its favorable rating fell four points. A similar thing happened among independents and — it hardly seemed possible — among Republicans who already hated the law.
Obamacare's unfavorables also rose among all income groups — people who make less than $40,000 a year, those who make between $40,000 and $90,000 a year, and those who make more than $90,000. The same among all age groups. And the same for race and ethnicity: Disapproval rose among whites, blacks, and Hispanics.
Rather than a shift among some identifiable group, Obamacare's rising unpopularity seems to be a product of the simple fact that, several months into its implementation, more and more people are having personal experience with the law.
Kaiser asked respondents, “So far, would you say the health care law has directly helped you and your family, directly hurt you and your family, or has it not had a direct impact?” Fifteen percent said Obamacare has directly helped them, while 28 percent said it has directly hurt them, and 56 percent said it has had no effect.
The number who said Obamacare helped them ticked up one point in the last two months, while the number who said Obamacare hurt them went up four points. And the number who were not affected went down four points. That suggests Obamacare is directly touching more and more people — and hurting more than it helps.
Another bit of evidence supporting that conclusion came in the June poll from Kaiser, in which researchers asked, “Is your impression of the health care law based mainly on your own experience, what you've seen and heard on television, radio, and in newspapers, what you've learned from friends and family, or some other source?” The number of people who say their opinion of Obamacare is based on their personal experience is rising — 23 percent in February of this year, 26 percent in June. The number who say their opinion is shaped by what they've learned from friends and family is also growing — 18 percent in February, 22 percent in June. And the number who say their opinion is based on what they see in the media is shrinking: 44 percent in February, 37 percent in June.
So more and more, people are basing their opinion of Obamacare on their own experience of those around them, and not on what they've seen on cable TV or heard on talk radio. And disapproval is going up.
A majority of the people who said Obamacare has directly helped them said its prime benefit was greater access to health coverage and care. A majority of those who said Obamacare has directly hurt them said its main effect was to increase their health costs.
Overall, the numbers reflect Obamacare's design; it was intended to offer taxpayer-subsidized health coverage to a relatively small group of people (the roughly 15 percent of the population that had no health coverage) by imposing costs on the far larger group who had coverage and were satisfied with it. Given that, it's not surprising more people report a negative than positive Obamacare experience.
What is unclear is how those experiences will affect November's midterms. Democrats have veered between fearing that Obamacare will spell complete disaster, to hoping it might actually be a benefit, to assuming it will be a negative, but maybe not by much.
The answer will depend on those people who say they've been hurt by Obamacare. Will that experience determine their vote? Or will they view their own problems as negligible and base their vote on something else? Democrats have a lot riding on the answer.
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5)-- SURGE OF ISRAELI PATRIOTISM DURING GAZA WAR RANKLES THE NEW YORK TIMES
The New York Times is unhappy with a rightward drift in Israeli society, especially with a surge of patriotism during the Gaza war
In a memo from Jerusalem, bureau chief Jodi Rudoren recounts tell-tale signs of how Israelis rallied around their soldiers, leaving only a tiny leftist fringe to deplore Israel’s use of military power to repel Hamas aggression. Rudoren, you should know, belongs to that ultra-leftist slice of the Jewish state.
Her unhappiness with Israeli behavior during Israel’s nearly month-long counter-terrorism offensive knows no bounds. She finds opinions of ultra-doves few and far between, and quickly rebuked. Israel, she tells readers, became engulfed by McCarthyism. (“Some Israelis Count Open Discourse and Dissent Among Gaza War casualties” August 6, page A9)
As evidence, Rudoren cites a Reform synagogue where she occasionally attends services. A leader of the congregation, she recounts, stood up and declared that he longer felt comfortable reciting a prayer that includes a wish for “shalom, peace for all who dwell on earth.” Why? Because the congregant said, “There really are bad people out there who I don’t wish shalom.”
For the Reform rabbi, Rudoren reports, “it was a devastating moment.” Which, of course, also invokes her own sympathy.
Can you imagine an Israeli congregant unable to pray for peace for blood-soaked Hamas terrorists. What is Israeli society coming too? Rudoren clearly is chagrined.
And there are other ominous signs. Like a peacenik who deplores Israeli leaders’ invective toward Hamas and “Israeli news outlets that cover every soldier’s funeral” but more rarely show the plight of Gazans.
And to top it off, Rudoren adds, things have gotten so bad that the rabbis’s wife “has taken watching Al Jazeera.”
“The signs are everywhere,” Rudoren sighs. The Israeli Broadcasting Authority blocked B’Tselem, a far-left group masquerading as a human rights organization, from running a paid radio ad reading the names and ages of Palestinian childen killed in Gaza.”
Or Bar-Ilan University, which rebuked a professor who expresses empathy for all the war’s victims. Which in turn prompts Rudoren’s favorite newspaper, ultra-left Haaretz, to warn that “McCarthyism is spreading in Israel.”
To Rudoren, who wishes for a more fractious Israeli society during wartime, this is all anathema. “When sons and brothers are on the front line, the thinking goes, unity is more important than robust debate,” she opines. Rudoren, of course, finds this unacceptable.
What makes all this both pathetic and hilarious is that Rudoren and the Times show no concern about real suppression of open discourse and dissent under Hamas rule in Gaza. So anti-Israel is Times coverage thanks to the likes of Rudoren that real Hamas totalitarianism gets no mention at all.
In Israel, a few hotheads may yell “Death to Arabs.” But such epithets pale in comparison with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement in mosques, media and schools throughout Palestinian society – in the West Bank under Mahmoud Abbas as well as in Gaza under Hamas. Where is Rudoren on that angle?
Or what about the Times failure to report widespread intimidation of journalists under Hamas in Gaza to prevent them from reporting and broadcasting not so palatable Hamas doings.
The real Hamas is not on the Times radar. What you can find there instead is the Times perennial target –Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Whose popularity also contributes to Rudoren’s chagrin.
“Several polls”, she reports, “find that as many as nine out of 10 Israeli Jews back the prosecution of the war by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
All in all, a terrible day for Rudoren and the Times.
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