Elder of Ziyon Daily News

Follow-up on Omar Mishrawi's death and the BBC
Saturday night links
Ahmadinejad again calls to "wipe Israel off the map"

Follow-up on Omar Mishrawi's death and the BBC

Posted: 24 Nov 2012 08:52 PM PST

The BBC on Saturday had a long radio piece about the death of Omar Mishrawi, going into details of the horror of a parent at losing a child. In that piece by Jon Donnison (who famously tweeted a photo of a dead baby from Gaza that was actually from Syria) he pretends to address the issues I brought up about inconsistencies in Mishrawi's death:

.., And in the entrance hall, a two-foot wide hole in the flimsy metal ceiling where the missile ripped through.

Despite the evidence pointing towards an Israeli airstrike, some have suggested it might have been a misfired Hamas rocket. But at that time, so soon after the launch of Israel's operation, Israel's military says mortars had been launched from Gaza, but very few rockets. Mortar fire would not cause the fireball that appears to have engulfed Jihad's house.

Others said the damage was not consistent with powerful Israeli attacks. But the BBC visited other bomb sites this week with very similar fire damage where Israel acknowledged carrying out what it called surgical strikes. Like at Jihad's house, there was very little structural damage, but the victims were brought out with massive and fatal burns. Most likely is that Omar died in one of the twenty bombings that the Israeli military says made up its initial wave of attacks. Omar was not a terrorist.

There is a bit of sleight of hand going on here.

Firstly, "very few rockets" does not mean "no rockets." The BBC admits that there were some rockets fired from Gaza in the initial hour after the Israeli airstrike that killed Ahmad Jaabari, when Omar Mishrawi was killed. GANSO does seem to confirm that initially, most of the terrorist fire was from mortars, not rockets, but GANSO misses a very large number of attacks in their list. Ma'an seems to confirm that a few terror groups shot missiles relatively soon after the Jaabari hit.

Secondly, Donnison is clearly implying that Israel's alleged airstrike against the Mishrawi home was identical to the strikes it made against terrorists - meaning that Israel was targeting the Mishrawi home. This makes no sense. Especially since...

Thirdly, the initial wave of Israeli attacks in the hours after the Jaabari hit had a single goal: to take out the Fajr-5 rocket locations in Gaza. There were some hits against suspected terrorists, however the IDF tweeted (a little cheekily) a warning for Hamas terrorists to stay underground.

Fourthly, the idea that an errant mortar (or rocket) could not cause the damage as seen assumes that the projectile does not ignite already flammable materials in the house. As I noted, most Gaza homes have propane and gasoline for heaters and generators because the electric power is not consistent, and apparently the Mishrawis are no exception (see photo in my initial post.)

Fifthly, Donnison repeatedly claims in this story that the house was hit by a missile. However, Mishrawi, in the initial BBC video report, said explicitly, and then confirmed, that the house was hit by "shrapnel," not a missile. The BBC's insistence now that it was an Israeli missile has really very little evidence, unless you trust Donnison's opinion that Mishrawi's house looks identical to those of houses that Israel admits they targeted for killing terrorists - none of whom he names. A missile would certainly leave some traces.

Now, where does Mishrawi live? This BBC broadcast says he lives in the Sabra neighborhood, but that is not true - he lives in the Zeitoun neighborhood, as he says himself in that same initial BBC report.

Why is this important? Because the Zeitoun neighborhood is where there was at least one Fajr-5 rocket site that Israel targeted in that same time period, in the middle of a civilian area.

We've seen secondary explosions in videos from Israel's targeting underground missile sites, and there is no way of knowing where the fire-hot debris from those explosions will land.

Based on this evidence, the most likely explanation for Mishrawi's death now seems to be that shrapnel from a secondary explosion of a Hamas missile or ammunition cache targeted by Israel hit the Mishrawi home and ignited something inside, causing a fireball. A misfired Hamas rocket or mortar is still a possibility, though.

The idea that Israel, which managed to kill less than one civilian for every 30 airstrikes in Gaza, targeted the house of a low-level BBC employee during the initial wave of attacks - while he wasn't home - is simply not believable. Unless you are convinced, ab initio, of Israel's monstrous nature, there are other explanations that fit the incident far better.

But if you are the BBC, it is the only possible explanation.

While this radio story seems a bit like a whitewash to avoid any possibility that any other explanation besides a direct Israeli airstrike killed Omar Mishrawi, there is some good news. Questions were brought up and because they were retweeted and escalated, the BBC could not ignore them.

Yes, Donnison seems to have made up his mind before doing the pretense of research to answer the questions. And, yes, skeptics do not have any champions on the ground in Gaza to look at a story like this critically - we are completely at the mercy of the information and footage that the BBC itself is providing, when the BBC has great incentive not to make their employee look like he is mistaken in his grief and misplaced in his anger. (Is there other footage of Mishrawi's home that would shed light on what really happened? How far is his home from any major Israeli airstrikes on that first day? There are still lots of questions that an objective reporter would have asked.)

But the silver lining is that the Beeb was forced to respond; and we can see that its response is still far from objective (especially the insistence that it was a "missile.")

In the future, hopefully there will be journalists in the area who can overlook the camaraderie that the Western journalists in Gaza seemed to have shared and that can look at stories like this in a truly unbiased way.

(h/t JS for much of this)

Saturday night links

Posted: 24 Nov 2012 05:45 PM PST

From Ian:

Colonel Richard Kemp: Special Interview: Former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan VIDEO

Leave Israel Alone!

"Jews are not promoting brainwashing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non-Muslims. Jews don't hijack planes; they don't kill athletes at the Olympics; or blow themselves up in restaurants. There's not a single Jew who has destroyed a church; there's not a single Jew who calls for the death of infidels.
Perhaps the world should examine the respective values which exist in the Middle East. As Netanyahu said: 'If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel."

Charles Krauthammer: Why Was There War in Gaza?

"Hamas considers all of Israel occupied, illegitimate, a cancer, a crime against humanity
Why was there an Israel–Gaza war in the first place? Resistance to the occupation, say Hamas and many in the international media.
What occupation? Seven years ago, in front of the world, Israel pulled out of Gaza. It dismantled every settlement, withdrew every soldier, evacuated every Jew, leaving nothing and no one behind. Except for the greenhouses in which the settlers had grown fruit and flowers for export. These were left intact to help Gaza's economy — only to be trashed when the Palestinians took over."

Sarah Honig: Another Tack: A-Dawla ma'ana
Our successive confrontations with Gaza are an explicit acknowledgement that disengagement has failed, that we are not disengaged.

"When the blood-curdling battle cry exhorting the masses to slaughter the Jews, "Itbach al-Yahud," was first shouted on April 4, 1920, by Arab marauders rampaging through the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, it was accompanied by another mantra: "A-Dawla ma'ana" – the government is with us.
That was the first brazen reverberation of the trust that Jews can be attacked with impunity, that no deterrence exists. It was since oft-chanted during the perpetration of other atrocities during the British Mandate era masterminded by Haj Amin el- Husseini, most notably the hideous Hebron massacre of 1929."

Hamas: Truce agreement says nothing about stopping the flow of weapons into Gaza
Izzat al-Rishq, a member of the terror group's political bureau, says Israel is trying to protect its image after defeat

IDF chief of staff: As the dust settles, Hamas will realize the price it has paid
Benny Gantz pays hospital visit to soldiers injured by Gaza rocket fire, says all aims of Pillar of Defense were achieved

'Taking down Hamas is a necessity, not just for Israel, but for humanity,' says
estranged son of terror group's founder
'We need to educate the Palestinian public that Israel is not the enemy,' Mosab Hassan Yousef tells Israel's Channel 2

Richard Millett: Palestinian Ambassador to Britain: "The only solution is one state"

He finished his speech with this:
"We (the Palestinians) are the only, the only, country in the Middle East that are practicing democracy par excellence."
and
"I think they (Israel) should be lucky to have the Palestinians as their neighbours."

A View From Israel: Truth will prevail

"Netanyahu said that Hamas was committing a "double war crime, by indiscriminately targeting Israeli civilians while they hide behind their own.
"The moment we draw symmetry between the victims of terror and the unintended casualties that result from legitimate military action against the terrorists – the minute that false symmetry is drawn, the terrorists win," he said.
No matter what happens, foreign governments must be made to understand this. Israel's future depends on its ability to stand up to pressure and fight for what is right. Citizen journalists can surely assist and the last few days have proven that diligence online is not only useful, but influential in spreading the truth.

Israel Hatred at the Huffington Post

"In recent months, the Huffington Post entered the world of video news with its debut of "HuffPost Live." One might suspect that it was little more than a video version of the leftist website founded seven years ago by Arianna Huffington. Yet a blog known as HuffWatch has been documenting the content at both websites and has discovered a grim, though unsurprising reality: both Huffington Post and HuffPost Live are repositories of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel vitriol. Leading the charge at HuffPost Live is host/producer Ahmed Shihab-Eldin."

BBC Watch: BBC Radio 4 gives Durban architect Mary Robinson free rein

"Nobody mentioned the Bar Ilan speech or numerous subsequent occasions upon which representatives of the current Israeli government have confirmed its commitment to a two-state solution and nobody pointed out to Mary Robinson the considerable irony of her making baseless accusations against a democratically elected Israeli government during a discussion on democracy."

BBC's Donnison suggests (Gaza) rioters may be farmers… or scrap metal collectors

Indonesian Hard-Liners Register Volunteers to Wage Jihad Against Israel
The Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) distributed registration forms to volunteers willing to wage jihad against Israel at a protest in front of the US Embassy on Friday.

Tel Aviv creeps up on Silicon Valley as top start-up center
The Startup Genome project crunches the numbers — lots of them — and concludes that the TA metro area is a great place to found a new venture

"While missiles pounded southern Israel and the IDF prepared to rout Hamas terror in a ground campaign, Israeli technology was once again proving its versatility. The world was stunned last week at the effectiveness of the Israeli-developed Iron Dome anti-missile system as it began shooting down Hamas rockets — and it was stunned again a few days later, when an international study declared Tel Aviv to be the second best place in the world for start-ups."

Ahmadinejad again calls to "wipe Israel off the map"

Posted: 24 Nov 2012 03:55 PM PST

From the official Iranian Mehrnews Arabic site:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that resolving the Palestinian issue does not need war, but requires a unified Islamic decision to remove the Zionist entity off the map.