36 thoughts on “Gaza War, Day 15: 28 IDF Dead, Nearly 600 Palestinian Dead, Bibi Derides Hamas’ “Telegenic Dead” – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. Israel ordered Gaza civilians to evacuate the area of operations. Hamas instructed the civilians to remain in their homes.

      1. because any intelligent human being would leave with his family to save his/their live.
        your reply is absurd.

        1. @ walter benjamin: “Leave with their family?” Really. Leave to where? To what country may they flee? There are already 100,000 internal refugees crowding UN facilities in Gaza. So genius, where should they go? Underground? In the air? Perhaps disappear entirely?

          I find your comments stupid, insulting, & heartless. I have a very limited patience for you given the horrors going on. Either make your comments more intelligent, get some empathy, or you may be not long for this blog.

          1. is it not the fact that the ‘world community’ {and specifically the Arab}would like the Israelis to go back to their lands of origin? like Iraq, Iran and the various European countries?
            you don’t like my comments because you know what i write to be true and thus it does not appeal to your readers nor your stance{?} as a diluted American Jew.

  2. On commercial TV news here in Melbourne, Australia, tonight (Tuesday) (Channel 9) they mentioned 8 killed in one family and 26 in another. They also showed footage which, I imagine, is the man being murdered by the IDF sniper. Hopefully this is registering somewhere in the TV viewing public’s mind/minds …

    1. Stretch, I think these things have registered with a large part of the Australian public for quite a while now. A few years ago a global attitude survey found that about two thirds of the the Australian public had a mainly negative view of Israel. This is likely to have increased with these latest events – but unfortunately these feelings are not reflected in the words and deeds of the political “elite”, the lackeys of the Murdoch press and many of the shock jocks. This disjunction still amazes me.

      Bibi is complaining:
      “These people are the worst terrorists — genocidal terrorists,” he said. “They call for the destruction of Israel and they call for the killing of every Jew, wherever they can find them.”
      One of the most absurd things in Israel’s larmoyant litany about these terrible Palestinians is the complaint that in their schools they are taught to hate the Israelis. As if they have to be taught. Even if they were regaled three times a day on a recitation of the biblical Sermon on the Mount they would still hate and fear Israelis. They have heard about the humiliation, mistreatment and murder of people in their environment since they were toddlers. Does their teacher have to add anything to that?
      One soldier in the “Breaking the Silence “group told an instructive tale. At one of the check points a mate of his who knew some Arabic wanted to start an innocuous conversation with a young boy, merely asking him about his lessons etc. But the little fellow pooed in his pants from the sheer shock of being addressed by an Israeli soldier.

  3. The movie of the wounded Palestinian is of course very hard to watch. However, there’s something I don’t quite understand – where’s the blood? where are the actual injuries? accept for some possible blood on his left hand (not preventing him from apparently using his cell phone in the beginning), nothing is seen. Which is strange, because sniper rifles make a BIG hole.

    1. I paste here an excellent comment to such nonsense from another website
      http://972mag.com/nstt_feeditem/video-sniper-shoots-and-kills-a-man-as-he-searches-the-rubble-of-his-home-for-relatives/

      Where does one begin with folks who claim that scenes like these are staged? Do they think that after hundreds of Gazans have been murdered and thousands more horribly injured, often on camera, that there’s any need to fabricate additional, shocking video footage? Do they think that bullet wounds immediately spurt blood, like in the movies? Sorry guys, M16 rounds are small-caliber, they make very small entry wounds but are designed to tumble around afterwards and rip you apart inside. Alternatively, do they think that Gazans are clever enough to stage fake IDF murders but too stupid to smear a little ketchup on the victim’s shirt? I know we’re not supposed to compare Israelis to Nazis, but this phenomenon of crying “Pallywood!” inevitably recalls Holocaust denial.

      1. OK. Lethal hits (in chest, head or stomach) produce no blood. No stains on the cloth, even after several seconds. Nothing. Right.
        As for the Ketchup, well, seems a bit difficult to reliably put Ketchup while somebody photographs you. And it seems unneeded, as you prove by your attitude.

        1. From the Website “Holistic Survival”
          Emergency survival _Gunshot wounds (2)

          “If you read Part 1 of the Holistic Survival Gun Shot Survival Guide, you remember our initial suggestions for emergency survival are 1 get the victim away from continued live fire 2) stabilize 3) get them medical attention ASAP. This next issue we thought needed an entire post of it’s own, which is bleeding and how to control it. The odd thing is that some gunshot wounds barely bleed at all, with small entry and exit wounds, and most of the damage being internal.”

          I have been told that the new hasbara technique being taught over there is to go in softly and then to smuggle in your critical points. A bit like Mark Anthony’s speech at the burial of Caesar. Must he hard for Israelis who are not exactly known for diplomatic finesse. But Michael was at least trying.”The movie of the wounded Palestinian is of course very hard to watch.” he said. Not bad for a beginner Michael. But you were too impatient. You tried to get your critical point in too soon. A bit more syrup next time might do the job.

          1. 1. I suggest you google “gunshot wounds” (that is, if you have a strong stomach) and compare the pictures to this video (with, again, NO blood at all from SEVERAL shots). Also, every Israeli soldier carries a personal bandage capable of absorbing 0.5 liters of blood and an artery blocker, just for these non-bleeding wounds.
            2. Being soft is generally a good idea. But if I compared you to a holocaust denier, Arie, wouldn’t it upset you a bit?
            3. The movie is hard to watch no matter it’s authenticity.

        2. Michael, I’m not an expert on gunshot wounds, but what would follow if it turned out that this incident were faked? I would imagine that in most wars there’s some fakery or false propaganda on both sides. There have even been fake Holocaust memoirs, but nobody except Holocaust deniers think that proves anything except that people are endlessly perverse.

          Would you then move on and try and argue that all or most reports of Israel brutality in this war was fake? Or is it only about this particular incident?

      2. Were staging the photos the issue, we could all slough it off with giggles. But Bibi is one troubled puppy: If Hamas wants to pile up the dead for the cameras, they first need to have dead people. Why then is the IDF obliging such a devilish plan? Why don’t they just go back to Israel and REFUSE to pile up the dead for the cameras? Instead, they dutifully produce dead bodies which means, of course, that is their mission, yet creating the bodies is NOT an issue for Bibi. For sure — Bibi spares nothing to distinguish US from THEM. Palestinians are devils even when they are dead.

        Bibi is sick because this twisted scenario escapes him, because he believes that the crafty Palestinians are not just dying like they are suppose to do, but in so doing they are cleverly indicting him as well. He apparently believes that his victims are capable of such postmortem craft. Palestinians are evil and vile even when they are dead. Apparently, it isn’t enough just to kill them. Bibi is sick because the fact that HE is killing these people, creating these telegenic corpses, appears to elude him. The bodies of his victims accuse him now through a public medium. He is the killer and now everyone knows it or will know it. These telegenic bodies are his handiwork. Doesn’t he sound mostly bewildered as though he doesn’t know how all these bodies came about, or looked so telegenic at that? It’s like he’s admitting “Ok, yes we killed them, but you don’t have to make a big deal out of it!”

        1. I think now it’s simpler than I expected: His complaint is about the display of dead bodies and how that is being used against him, but he is unconcerned about having produced these bodies in the first place. That’s the nuttiness.

    2. @ Michael: When you complete your degree in forensic pathology get back in touch. No one here cares if you think the video is fake. Nor are we here to prove it isn’t. Believe whatever perversity you wish. But this only proves yr heartlessness and cruelty. Imagine it’s your son or brother dying out there & some idiot like you comes along & tells you he’s not dead because the video is faked. You’d want to slug him or worse and rightfully so. Spare us. You make me nauseous.

  4. Why does Hamas use it limited supply of building materials to build terror tunnels instead of bomb shelters for it’s people?

    Fair question?

    1. @ Blue Moon: No, not a fair question till you answer why Israel uses 20% of its budget for the military when it has millions of children and adults who are poor. Answer that then we can talk about Hamas.

      1. @Richard

        “.. why should victims listen to an invader who has no right to invade them’

        Because the invaders want to spare the victims lives, whereas Hamas is indifferent to the fate of Gazans.

        1. @ Blue Moon: Israel is far more indifferent and callous toward the lives of Palestinians than Hamas ever could be. That’s why we’re climbing toward 700 Palestinian dead, 140 of them children. Israel wants to spare victims lives but somehow doesn’t manage to do it. I wonder why?

      2. Even the poor in Israel have bomb shelters, whereas in Gaza, only the wealthy Hamas rulers have bomb shelters.

        Poverty in Israel is the result, 1, lack of education, 2, failure to emancipate women, 3, excessive birthrates.

        Tackle these three problems and poverty will shrink.
        Unemployment is not a severe problem in Israel. Note the influx of foreign laborers, many of whom are currently at work.

        Now please explain why Hamas builds terror tunnels instead of bomb shelters for most of the people living in Gaza.

        1. @ Blue Moon:

          wealthy Hamas rulers

          Wealthy? Really. Where do they get all this fabulous wealth? Your comment is not only false & stupid, it’s insulting to everyone’s intelligence. Warning: I have a very short patience level. Don’t tread on me, bud.

          Poverty in Israel is the result, 1, lack of education, 2, failure to emancipate women, 3, excessive birthrates.

          Wrong again. Poverty is the result of racism and social inequity. Lack of education is the direct result of the inadequacy of funding of education for Haredim & Israeli Palestinians. Blaming Israeli Palestinians for their own poverty is deeply racist and wrong. Tackle the problem of racism & economic oligarchy and poverty will shrink.

          Unemployment isn’t a severe problem in Israel? Tell it to the 25% of Israelis living beneath the poverty line.

          Now please explain why Hamas builds terror tunnels instead of bomb shelters for most of the people living in Gaza.

          Now I’m going to explain why I’m moderating you. Because you used the hasbara term of art “terror tunnels” indicating you’re a student of the Hasbara Institute. Second, Hamas made a decision to actively resist Israel rather than sit back and wait for death in bomb shelters. Third, I can’t stand your smugness and tacit cruelty and meanness. So there.

      3. it is a fair question in as much as Israel is surrounded by 400,000,000 hostile Arabs.
        consider the US’s military{defense} budget for 2014 according to what i have read is circa 20% of its budget but has no adjacent enemies.

        1. @ walter benjamin: Really 400-million hostile Arabs? And every one has nothing better to do that sit and nurse their hatred toward Israel? They don’t have to earn a living, raise a family or a million other things that normal people do? And you think that tops on their list is plotting how to destroy Israel? Really.

          The U.S. has no adjacent enemies? Got news for you. When you have nukes you don’t have to be adjacent to anyone to blow them to kingdom come. The U.S. has enemies & competitors around the globe plus a population 50 times Israel’s, not to mention a far more complex military arsenal. Yet our expenditure is on a par with Israel’s proportionally. Meaning Israel is a perpetual war garrison state.

  5. I’m quite disgusted with Obama and his Amazon cabal, he surpasses his predecessor with an ugly and dumb foreign policy. I have written for over a year, the Obama administration has fulfilled all of the PNAC ‘talking points’ on the Middle East.

    I’ve never before witnessed a U.S. president and Secretary of State speaking out of both sides of their mouths. “Israel has a right to defend itself.” At the same time, Obama shows displeasure with the high toll of civilian deaths! Kerry pledged $47m to Palestinians suffering in Gaza. The Minister of Defense from Qatar was entertained in the Pentagon and the White House for signing a $11bn deal for Apache helicopters and Patriot installaties.

  6. Weel, since Vietnam, US army and gvt knows that information is a key point to win hearts and minds and war.

    If you loose control of that, for exemple, all this video horrors leaking from gaza is an exemple of these, you lost the war.
    I think during second Irak war, US army was very cautious to let journalists go to the front war.
    I think most of the information released passed before in US-army prop. machine.
    I wondering how Bibi is controlling or not all these informations? If there is a blocade, why he is not doing a internet blocade also? visibly he is loosing information war.
    I am figuring, how happens to us to have all these informations?

  7. “I suggest you google “gunshot wounds” “. That’s exactly what I did with the above result. The piece concerned goes on to say that some of these wounds bleed profusely. It all depends. No, comparing me to a holocaust denier wouldn’t do at all. But that’s not in the new manual is it? Softly, softly, is the word.

  8. A hell of a pinpoint operation. Focusing on the Palestinians in this fashion is breeding nothing but enmity from the world. It also wantonly places America’s strategic assets, interests and security in jeopardy.

    Therefore, it has been recommended through official channels that Israel, our stalwart ally, with all of its terrorist hunting operational capabilities and prowess, and ability to safeguard from collateral damage as evidenced here, be sent to Iraq to deal with ISIS, a dire threat to American interests, the region at large, and more dangerous/proximate to the Israel than any other faction in the world. Ignoring them is the equivalent of not buying fire-fighting equipment. We remember what that did in the Mount Carmel scenario, don’t we?

    After all, while Israel’s leadership is myopically considered with Palestine, they’ve forgotten about the far greater and real existential threat looming over their shoulders. CNN’s experts made that clear.

    It will also be a prime opportunity for Israel to finally donate a single troop to the “War on Terror”, thereby cementing their role as the front line of terrorism. I, for one, am excited at the thought. 🙂

  9. Richard: according to a report by Al Jazeera, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan had met with his Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman and proposed financing the Israeli war in Gaza on the condition that Israel eliminates Hamas.

    This may also have something to do with Lieberman’s anti Jazeera outburst yesterday.

  10. Netanyahu Compares Hamas to ISIS – AQ – Boko Haram

    Netanyahu was the arrogance himself, after he managed to ditch Obama and Kerry on the wayside, he was clearly bored by UNSG Ban Ki-moon. As in his best days, Netanyahu came with his ferocious war rhetoric without any visible goal.

    UN’s Ban arrives, says no country would allow rockets to rain down on its cities

    (Ynet News) – Ban praised the Israeli people, saying that “even in the darkest hour the people of this country have such a tremendous capacity for generosity and good.” He then urged Israelis not to despair of the peace process, saying “there is no viable alternative to a two-state solution. No closure, no barrier will separate Israelis and Palestinians from a fundamental truth: you share one future.”

    Netanyahu directly responded to ban regarding the two-state solution option, saying that Hamas is just another manifestation of violent, Islamic extremist organizations like ISIS, al-Qaida, Hezbollah or Boko Haram.

    Hamas’s grievance, he said, “is that we exist. They don’t want a two state solution. They don’t want any solution.”

  11. Netanyahu might be going for broke this time, because nobody will stop him. He could lose an entire infantry division trying to “get rid of the problem”, murdering 4000 Palestinian civilians to get 800 Hamas fighters. He won’t be re-elected, but that doesn’t matter because he finally got the bloodbath he wanted.

  12. I saw Sir Gerald Kaufman being interviewed on Aljazeera last night. He turned 84 a few days ago but he is still fighting the good fight. He called Cameron’s speech in the House of Commons a disgrace, and rightly so. Cameron spent most of his time on talking about that plane – a terrible event, no doubt, but it has happened and nobody can do anything about it now. Meanwhile there is an ongoing bloodbath in Gaza but his comment on that focused first on the rockets as if these were the main thing. Cameron compared Gaza to an open air prison not long ago and one suspects that privately he might entertain other thoughts about Israel’s onslaught. But all these fellows seem to feel compelled to slavishly follow the American line. And then of course the Murdoch press has a big finger in the pie in Britain as well. Murdoch’s demise would be a sanitary event of the first order but his mum lived to the good ripe age of 102, I think, and he might have her genes God forbid. His son and heir seems to have quite different feelings about Israel but he has to follow Daddy’s orders.

    In the PEW survey Britain came out as the Western country with the highest percentage of people feeling mainly negative about Israel but once again one doesn’t see that reflected in its official stance.

    Sir Gerald also said that Israel had created its own enemies. An obvious point but lost on Netanyahu.

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