Matt 24 watch, 250: Video confirmation on Gaza rocket launches from civilian areas -- and of Hamas censorship with media house complicity . . . bankruptcy!

An Indian journalist has now done a story on a rocket launch from across the road from his Hotel and next to Apartments etc; saving the release until he had left Gaza. 

Video:



Note too these twelve examples courtesy IDF footage:



 This, too [Yes, from Israel's Foreign Ministry, they here speak the obvious truth], on Hamas' use of human shields -- a patent war crime:



And, this is what happened in a Gaza Mosque . . . carefully observe the concrete-lined tunnel entrance built into its basement:




(The abuse of a religious centre or the like as a military post turns it into a legitimate military target, for obvious reasons. I suspect, most people don't know that or understand why this is a principle in the laws of war -- for good reason. The same holds for the UN schools used to store weapons and the like.)

Ynet news summarises:

The report by Indian journalist Sreenivasan Jain for Hindi language news channel NDTV went as follows:  "It began with a mysterious tent with a blue canopy that bobbed up yesterday (August 4) at 6:30 am in an open patch of land next to our window. We saw three men making a multitude of journeys in and out of the tent, sometimes with wires.

"An hour later, they emerged, dismantled the tent, changed their clothes and walked away."

The journalist stressed that it is "important to report on how Hamas places those very civilians at risk by firing rockets deep from the heart of civilian zones."

This is a smoking gun on what we were consistently not being told (notice the forty questions for journalists in Gaza here), and it reveals the utter bankruptcy of and complicity in spreading propagandistic censorship and smears on the part of major media houses. 

It is quite clear from this and other cases that have begun to trickle out, that Israel did target primarily militants, and that the Israeli statements that Hamas was attacking civilian centres in Israel with altogether over 3,000 rockets, from behind the shield of civilians in Gaza, is substantially true. So is the point that it is because of extraordinary protective measures that Israel's civilians did not pay a horrific toll -- even as they paid an awful toll in the face of the suicide bombing campaigns from 2000 on.

So, while deaths of civilians on any side are awful, and unfortunately inevitable in war in a built up area (and there is evidence of people being forced back into such areas when they tried to evacuate), the colour painted on that, that Israel primarily targetted civilians in Gaza, is patently not true. Those reporters, editors and news organisations who contributed to that false impression have some serious questions to answer.

The Ynet article also notes:

A day after Operation Protective Edge ended, a truer picture slowly began emerging: foreign reporters leaving the Gaza Strip revealed what Israel has claimed all along – that Hamas is firing out of population hubs and near UN facilities. 

Why didn't they report those facts during the ongoing fighting? According to the reporters, they feared for their lives. "We saw the Hamas men," a Spanish reporter admitted. "But had we dared point the cameras at them, they would have opened fire at us and killed us."

Now that they're out of the Gaza Strip, the reporters are revealing what Hamas tried to prevent the world from seeing. An Indian reporter, for example, documented how Hamas militants launched rockets from a post right outside the window of the hotel where he was staying in the Gaza Strip, shortly before the ceasefire came into effect. The video aired only after the reporter left Gaza. When asked about it, he replied: "There's a conspiracy of silence rooted in fear – no one want to report in real-time" . . . . 

Italian journalist Gabriele Barbati also told the truth about Hamas once he left the Strip, no longer under their threat. In a tweet, Barbati said: “Out of #Gaza far from #Hamasretaliation: misfired rocket killed children yday (yesterday) in Shati. Witness: militants rushed and cleared debris.” He added: “@IDFSpokesperson said truth in communique released yesterday about Shati camp massacre. It was not #Israel behind it.”

Another foreign reporter said that it is an open secret that Hamas uses Al-Shifa hospital as its command center, but that reporters in Gaza would not report that out of fear that it would endanger them.

However, not only foreign reporters were afraid of Hamas' potential revenge. Palestinian reporters also suffered threats when they attempted to criticize the terrorist organization and give truthful reports.
Local Palestinian reporter Radjaa Abu Dagga, for example, reported that he was summoned for questioning at Al-Shifa hospital, where armed Hamas militants attempted to determine whether he writes for an Israeli newspaper. Abu Dagga said that his passport was taken from him, and he was prohibited from leaving the Gaza Strip. Later he published an article in French newspaper Libération, but was forced to remove it after receiving threats.

Reporters in Gaza were subject not only to threats but also to Hamas' manipulations. The Washington Post's Sudarsan Raghavan detailed how the organization's men staged the IDF attack scenes: he said that he was taken to photograph a mosque that had been bombed, and discovered that someone had "prepared" the scene and placed a prayer mat and burnt Quran pages.

He later reported that it was obvious that someone had put them there to create empathy for the Palestinian struggle.

The CBN news website said that apart from mosques, Hamas is also using church compounds to launch attacks. In his report, journalist George Thomas said that Gaza's most prominent Christian leader, Archbishop Alexios, "took CBN News to the roof terrace outside his office to show how Islamists used the church compound to launch rockets into Israel."

There is more, and the report goes on:

Hamas' control of the foreign journalists' coverage during the days of fighting in Gaza was not very sophisticated, but very effective.

First, Hamas determined that the organization's spokesmen could be interviewed only in the the courtyard of Al-Shifa hospital. As a result, long lines of reporters waiting for an interview were created, and during their wait, they witnessed wounded people who arrived to receive treatment. This created the impression Hamas was seeking to convey: a state of immediate emergency and humanitarian disaster.

Secondly, Hamas has never allowed foreign reporters access to military sites attacked by Israel, whether they are bases, rocket-launching sites or other Hamas targets. The dead and wounded of the organization were not captured on film as well, and hence from a media perspective they didn't even exist. All this served Hamas' purpose in creating an impression that all the victims were civilians.

Thirdly, it was clear that Hamas was launching rockets out of populated civilian areas, but the organization demanded that the press photographers not document that, so as to not expose their tactic, nor disclose the location of the launchers.

Now, this is not really new, Hamas has done much the same before. It is therefore irresponsible and complicit for news organisations to report from Gaza under such circumstances and to communicate knowingly false impressions of the course of events that hey knew or should have known would geed into anti-semitic feelings. (NB: As for the notion that Israel is an apartheid, colonialist imposition on the native Arab people of Palestine, and is the occupier of Gaza, it would be wise to read a 101 here -- note response to Mr Commissiong here -- and to peruse the Myths vs Facts documentation here -- note PDF book.)

Ynet news reader Isobel Phillips has it right:

No excuses for this! No one expects reporters to risk their lives for a story, but their publishers, studio anchors etc should have made it very clear that stories were being filed under restrictions imposed by Hamas. In not doing so, they lied to and deceived their audience into believing they were seeing a full and truthful record of events.

Robert Gard is also on target:

  Absolutely! Can't let the media (those who paid the reporters) off the hook. Hamas used the same media tactics during the last dust-up, and follow-up reports set forth the extensive media manipulation and staged photos. Yet these same media organizations returned for another round of manipulation this time. Only when all media, even Al Jazeera, refuse to cover Gaza at all, will the gross manipulation stop.

Aaron Zahavi, too:

 The problem here is that the damage has already been done. Everyone around the world took a massive bite into this terrorist propaganda, and now anti-Semitism/anti-Israel sentiment is insanely high. The media could have at least sent a disclaimer saying that these stories are biased/one sided. But now, everyone believes these false reports and they use it as an excuse to convey their anti-Semitism. I understand that the reporters feared for their lives, and rightfully so, but the media has not done enough to try and convey the truth.

All of this (and more) leads me to the conclusion that -- on fair and well warranted comment -- the integrity of the major media is blatantly fatally compromised and that it is therefore vital for us to assess reportage in accord with the straight vs spin grid . . . if, we have to resort to being informed on any matter of importance by such reportage by such now plainly dubious sources -- including, the once great BBC:

Obviously, good and fair reporting would score a consistent 12 - 16 [with 15 - 16 being expected almost all the time apart from occasional slip ups], and as the reportage falls below that, it is increasingly compromised. The challenge is hard, but once one stands up as an informer of the public influencing how we think, decide and act there is a much higher obligation than for someone not in such a position.

Reporters, editors and media houses, FYI, might and manipulation do not make truth or right. 

The truth says of what is, that it is and of what is not that it is not, and the right is what accords with our duties to others in light of God-given rights: life, liberty, fulfillment of purpose under God, innocent reputation, justice etc.

Yes, my concern is not just on this topic, but on any number of topics where the media are increasingly in violation of duties to truth, fairness and innocent reputation.

For shame!

Let us face the truth and let us -- struggle though we must -- persistently turn from wrong to right, falsity to truth, smearing to fairness. END

Matt 24 watch, 249: Egyptian-American Raymond Ibrahim on the dominant academia-media narrative on Islam and violence

Raymond Ibrahim is an Egyptian-American of Coptic Christian background, a CBN News Contributor, Middle East, Islam Expert and author. In a recent interview, he remarks:

It’s the “elephant in the room” because few things show such remarkable continuity between the past and the present—while still being thoroughly ignored and treated as an aberration by academia, media, and government—as Muslim persecution of Christians. If you look at the true history recorded by both Muslims and Christians during the Medieval era—one Muslim historian tells of how one caliph destroyed 30,000 churches—you will see that the persecution and subjugation of Christians is an ironclad fact of history.

Today, not only do we see Christians persecuted from one end of the Islamic world to the other, but we see the same exact patterns of persecution that Christians experienced centuries ago, including hostility for and restrictions on churches, hostility for the crucifix and other Christian symbols and icons, restrictions on Christian worship and freedom. (I discuss this in more depth here and here.) As for academia and media, they reject modern day persecution of Christians for a plethora of reasons—not least because they tend to be ideologically anti-Christian—but primarily because it contradicts their entire narrative, specifically the notion that, far from being persecuted, Christians themselves are the most intolerant groups, and that Muslims are “misunderstood others” who have been oppressed by the West.

These themes are today so predominant in the West that few can believe they are almost entirely fabricated—but so they are, according to both history and current events, both of which are naturally suppressed or distorted by academia and media in the interest of keeping their ideologically-charged narrative alive . . . .

Along with the aforementioned fallacy of projecting Christian/Western worldviews onto a distinctly different religion/civilization like Islam, secular Westerners almost always try to understand Islam through secular and materialistic paradigms—the only paradigms they themselves are familiar with. Thus the mainstream interpretation in the West is that “radical Islam” is a byproduct of various sorts of material discontent (economic, political, social) and has little to do with the religion itself.

Westerners apparently think this way because the secular, Western experience has been such that people respond with violence primarily when they feel they are politically, economically, or socially oppressed. While true that many non-Western peoples fit into this paradigm, the fact is, the ideologies of Islam have the intrinsic capacity to prompt Muslims to violence and intolerance vis-à-vis the “other,” irrespective of grievances.

Conceptually, then, it must be first understood that many of the problematic ideologies associated with radical Islam trace directly back to Sharia, Islamic law. Jihad as offensive warfare to subjugate “infidels” (non-Muslims); mandated social discrimination against non-Muslim minorities living in Muslim nations (the regulations governing ahl al-dhimma); the obligation to hate non-Muslims—even if a Muslim is married to one—all of these are clearly defined aspects that have historically been part of Islam’s worldview and not “open to interpretation.”

For example, the obligation to wage expansionist jihad is as “open to interpretation” as the obligation to perform the Five Pillars of Islam, including praying and fasting. The same textual sources and methods of jurisprudence that have made it clear that prayer and fasting are obligatory, have also made it clear that jihad is also obligatory; the only difference is that, whereas prayer and fasting is an “individual” duty, jihad is understood to be a “communal” duty (a fard kifaya). All these intricacies must be understood before Westerners can understand Islam on its own terms.

This of course cuts clean across the dominant narrative, but has the distinct advantage of having good warrant. 

De-spinning context, in short. END

Matt 24 watch, 248: IDF captures a Hamas military manual on the use of human shields . . . precisely because they know that the IDF tries to limit civilian deaths and collateral damage

A CBN news report is eye-opening viewing:



The use of human shields and hostage taking, generally, are war crimes. But then, terrorist groups that premise their strategy on attacking civilians in order to gain media exposure and spread fear that is then manipulated to create a sense of blame transfer, will have little regard for either law or human rights.

Which points to the underlying point: should such groups gain state power, they "naturally" become murderous tyrants -- carrying forward the same "winning" strategy. Which is exactly what is going on all over the Middle East. ISIS, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, the Mullahs of Iran and more fit the pattern.

And which, is exactly what the major media will not address seriously. (Where, of course, those who do report what is not on the agenda will be derided and dismissed as a lunatic fringe.)

Not to mention, those whose policy imperatives seem to be based on what they want to see in the news headlines.Spin, spin, deceitful spin on every hand, when will it end?

It is high time for us to wake up. END

Rom 1 reply, 54: The Real Jesus -- Historian Paul Maier presents new evidence from history and archeology

A historical assessment of several common reconstructions of Jesus:



We need to ponder how the various skeptical speculations that have attained popular circulation came about, and contrast that with the weight of sound evidence. Sad. END

100 years ago this week -- the catastrophe of World War I . . . and pondering what would have happened had Germany won (sometimes, war can only be postponed, and not to your safety or advantage)

This sobering discussion is well worth pondering, even as our own time slides out of control:



Beyond that, let me simply post a snapshot of Capt. Chavasse, the gravestone of the only British soldier to have a VC and Bar in the Kaiser's War (as I heard it called by an elderly Jamaican veteran when I was a child):

Notice, Aug 4th 1917, and that citation from Jesus on a man laying down his life for his friends

Yes, awarded to a medical officer for his courage in trying to save lives under fire, in the end at the cost of his own. END

Matt 24 watch, 247: Somali human rights activist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, broadens the picture beyond Gaza

The Gaza issue points to a broader, deeper problem.

In a recent interview, Ayaan Hirsi Ali therefore notes:

My first participation in this debate between Islam and the West was after Sept. 11, 2001. All the Western people were trying to explain [the attack] away, saying Islam is a religion of compassion, it is a religion of peace, it is a great civilization, and all the things that are done in the name of Islam, they are done by a small minority that hijacked this religion. It is all hijacking, it is not Islam. This premise still underpins American and European foreign policy. Back then we had Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaida and Taliban. It was all fringe. There were 19 men who took airplanes and crashed into the twin towers and the Pentagon. This was a small group of men who were pathological and they twisted Islam to fit their pathology. Now instead of a small group of 19 boys there are millions.. . . . 

When I was a little girl, the Islam that I believed in was transmitted to me by my grandmother, who could not read or write, and by my mother, who also could not read and write. It was absolutely not political. There was no interest in politics, in government, in power. For them it was very spiritual. What it meant was that there would be a moment when the hardship would end. I had never heard the word 'caliph.' We recited the Quran but we didn't know what we were saying. Only really important men went to the mosque. Women didn't go to the mosque. Everyone around me was Muslim, it was our identity, but there was nothing even close to what Hamas is now. 

Then my family moved to Saudi Arabia and for the first time I saw women covered from head to toe in black. Every two or three meters there was a mosque. Five times a day there was a call to prayer. On the streets there are police who are called the police who command right and forbid wrong . . . . 

My grandmother's Islam was something of her own. You can argue that it was not friendly to women, but it was not a political movement seeking to transform the world in its own seventh century image . . . . 

The problem with negotiating with Hamas is that they have a vision, a certain kind of utopia. And for that utopia to be realized, the State of Israel must be completely destroyed. Shariah law has to be established, ideally, all over the world. You can never trust a Jew, you can never trust a Christian. That is the utopia. Women have to behave a certain way, they have to be locked up, it is very totalitarian . . . . 

You asked me about the Islam of Hamas. It used to be the Islam of Saudi Arabia. It used to be very small, relatively, in the modern world. But because of oil money it has now become so profound and so powerful and so widespread. And so disruptive, first and foremost, to Muslims. The people who suffer the most are Muslims. If this type of Islam ceased to exist, the first people to benefit would be Muslims . . . . 

In the Hamas narrative, which is also the Wahabi narrative and the Salafi narrative, you get to ecstasy and self actualization after you die, not before you die, don't be silly. So now you have millions of people who welcome death, and that is very confusing for Westerners to understand . . . .  

Around the time that Israel became independent, Spain, Italy and Greece were also coming out of various forms of dictatorship and they were very poor. Fast forward to the 1980s, and you see that they were building infrastructure. They built a network of tunnels, but these were tunnels built to connect the countryside to the cities or one country to another country, so there would be more trade, more contact. You look at Hamas and you think that they've worked so hard, spent so much money, spilled so much human blood and treasure on building these tunnels, but what is the objective? To destroy and to be destroyed. That is the philosophy of death . . .

 Grim reading, but there is more. In answer to what would be needed to lay a basis for genuine peace:

Not unless Islam there is a true reformation of Islam, an irreversible change where Muslim leaders distance themselves from parts of the Quran, from this emphasis on life after death. This needs to happen on a scale where there is a leadership that wants that change and a fellowship that wants to go along with that change and that is extremely difficult for Islam because there is no central leadership . . .

 In short, there are serious problems rooted in the foundational levels, and only a profound transformation can make the needed difference.

In the end, then, the problem is spiritual.

And , I can freely add, the answer is also spiritual -- the gospel. 

Which, truly received, brings peace.

But it seems that the only way we will begin to listen to it, is when we are so sickened by our madness and evil that we discover that we need to turn away from that which leads only to death.North and South, East and West, Black and white, Arab and Jew. But then, it seems that across the Middle East millions are waking up to that hope. END

Matt 24 watch, 246: What's not in the headlined news on the latest Gaza fighting (no prizes for guessing why)

IDF Map showing Israel's exposure to rockets

I have monitored the news on the latest Gaza rocketing -- now reported in some quarters as over 3,000 launched at Israeli civilian centres (most thankfully missing, most of the rest intercepted . . . but some hits) -- and the subsequent counter strikes and ground incursion that has uncovered over thirty tunnels leading into Israel . . . an obvious terror-invasion in preparation most likely intending to use the cover of suicide bombing terrorist attacks to seize hostages.

The news coverage has majored on creating a perception of immoral equivalency between declared genocidal pirates -- Hamas Covenant Clause Seven calls for genocide of Jews by citing an infamous Hadith of Mohammed -- who rocket civilians while forcing the unfortunate people they  oppress to serve as human shields and cannon fodder.

Unfortunately, the result is a cruel choice: 

[a] allow the bombardment to proceed apace until something breaks through the defenses (and no such can be perfect) and kills a large number of Israeli civilians which for a few days at most will silence critics when a reprisal is undertaken . . . and such support will evaporate so soon as any human shields can be shown off by the Pirates as grisly trophies, or

[b] respond to the rocketing, try to demolish the tunnels, trying to minimise inevitable deaths of civilians, while being smeared and denounced left and right. No wonder the Israeli PM has said, Israel cannot afford to lose on the security front . . . they cannot win the PR contest.

Israel has chosen b, at least until the next ceasefire is pushed on them as soon as a decisive result is in prospect. Where, the latest ceasefire seems to have at most lasted an hour or so, ending in an abduction attack:

Moussa Abu Marzouk, the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, did claim that Hamas had captured a soldier. But a senior Hamas source later told this correspondent that this was a misunderstanding, and Abu Marzouk had merely been quoting the Israeli reports. Since Saturday afternoon, the entire Hamas political and military leadership has been chorusing that it has no information on a kidnapped soldier, and indicated that he is not in Hamas hands.

On Friday night, the Hamas military wing stated that “we lost contact with the group of fighters who participated in the ambush, and we believe that they were all killed in the (Israeli) blast. If they did capture a soldier during the fight, we believe that he was also killed in the incident.” The military wing said it did not know where the soldier was, or what his condition was.

Why is Hamas not taking responsibility for the kidnapping? It could be that, for a change, the military wing is telling the truth — that, as a result of IDF activity in the area, the soldier and his captors were killed. It could also be that Hamas is lying, and trying to cover up the fact that it is holding a soldier, because he was seized in breach of the UN- and US-brokered truce, in an action that is causing considerable embarrassment to its allies Qatar and Turkey, who were also signatories to the failed 72-hour truce. Despite Hamas’s lies, the attack on Goldin and the other soldiers emphatically did take place after the truce came into force at 8 a.m. It was carried out more than an hour later . . .

Of course, in Islamised minds, in any contention of testimonies on truth, the Muslim is presumed truthful as "Infidels" are automatically deemed of low character and dismissed. And, with decades of successful polarisation, many across the world will be inclined to doubt the Israelis. But the obviously changing Hamas tales and the admission to knowing of a planned attack lend credibility to the Israelis.

Times of Israel summarises the more or less current state of events:

The US and UN announced a 72-hour truce from Friday morning to be followed by negotiations, but the truce quickly collapsed as Hamas carried out an attack in Rafah in which one soldier, Hadar Goldin, was kidnapped and two others were killed. President Barack Obama led an international chorus demanding that Hamas release Goldin unconditionally.

The deaths in Rafah brought the IDF toll to 63; three civilians have also been killed on the Israeli side. Gazan health officials put the death toll there at some 1,500. Israel says hundreds of those are Hamas fighters. (Friday’s liveblog is here.) . . .  .

Security cabinet decides: No truce negotiations with Hamas via Cairo

The security cabinet decides that it will not negotiate with Hamas, via Egyptian mediators, on yet another truce and will not send a delegation to Cairo today as expected, Channel 2 reports.

The cabinet members met late last night for over five hours and the first reports about the outcome are being published now.

According to an Army Radio report, sources say that this does not mean that in, say, five days or a week, Israel won’t send a delegation, but for now this is the Israeli position arising from Friday’s marathon cabinet meeting.

The Palestinian delegation is expected in Egypt later today.

The same, adds as at 12:23 [Israel time]:

Finnish reporter confirms Hamas war crimes

A television reporter from the Finnish Helsingin Sanomat confirms that Hamas has been firing rockets out of the Al-Shifa Hospital.

The reporter, who is not named in the television segment shot on-site in Gaza, says a rocket was launched “right in the back the parking lot” of the hospital at 2 a.m. between Thursday and Friday.

“Really, it happened right in the area, the sound of it was really loud,” she says, confirming reports that Hamas is committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip by shooting from civilian concentrations, medical centers and other humanitarian institutions.

“It’s true that rockets are launched here from the Gazan side into Israel.”

Video:



( The Journalist seems to be displeased that her admission against interest is being "used as an excuse to target civilians in Gaza." That misrepresentation -- yes, it is a turnabout accusation -- itself underscores how much it is an against interest admission. This corroborates the Israeli statement that rockets are being launched at Israel's civilians from behind human shields. Had the Israelis retaliated and hit the Hospital, we would have heard no end of reports on Israeli targetting of Hospitals and the like. This telling admission should tell us worlds about what is going on. Including, Hamas having one of its main headquarters underneath the very same Al Shifa major Hospital. As Algemeiner reports: 

" The Al Shifa Hospital, in particular, has been an area of focus after journalists reported that Hamas was using the hospital as a headquarters, but many of their reports were withdrawn, deleted on social media or actually taken off their newspaper websites because of fears for their safety and retribution from Hamas for reporting the truth." [--> Cf. details here and here.]

  We have already seen cases of rockets being stored in UN schools, which would turn them into legitimate targets under the laws of war. This turns a major Gaza hospital into a Pirate's nest and human shielded launch platform for weapons used to target civilians in Israel. This is the spirit of Molech.)

A second video shows a reporter being used inadvertently as a human shield for rocket launching at Israel, even as he reports on camera live . . . notice how he ducks:


 
(Of course, had counter-battery fire hit the reporter, the news would predictably be on how Israel is targetting reporters. We need to have such reporters answer these forty pointed questions.)

Going beyond, Time Magazine informs us:

Hamas, the terrorist group controlling Gaza, endeavors to turn Israel’s military superiority to its own advantage by portraying the Israeli response to intense rocket and mortar fire as disproportionate and indiscriminate. In doing so, it hopes to turn public opinion against the Jewish state, as well as bolster its own standing at the expense of the Fatah-led Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank.

Fatality figures provided by Hamas and other groups should be viewed with suspicion. Not only do Israeli figures cast doubt on claims that the vast majority of fatalities are non-combatants, but a careful review of Palestinian sources also raises doubts.
Analyses of the casualties listed in the daily reports published by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, a Gaza-based organization operating under Hamas rule, indicate that young males ages 17 to 30 make up a large portion of the fatalities, and a particularly noticeable spike occurs between males ages 21 to 27, a pattern consistent with the age distribution typically found among combatants and military conscripts. Palestinian sources attempt to conceal this discrepancy with their public message by labeling most of these young men as civilians. Only a minority is identified as members of armed groups. As a result, the PCHR calculates civilian fatalities at 82% as of July 26 . . . . 

Scrutiny of Palestinian figures in the current conflict reveals a spike in fatalities among males ages 21 to 27 and an over-representation from ages 17 to 30. Data gleaned from the daily reports of the PCHR show that from July 8, the start of Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge,” through July 26, 404 out of 915 fatalities tallied from daily reports in which the ages were identified occurred among males ages 17 to 30, comprising 44% of all fatalities among a group representing about 10% of Gazans.

Expanding the age range from 17 to 39 and including those identified as combatants whose ages were not given increases that number to 551 fatalities, or 57% of all fatalities, even though this group represents less than one-sixth of Gazans. By contrast, adult female fatalities were less than 10% of total fatalities for a group that comprises a quarter of the total population.

Children, here defined as those under age 17, represented 194 of fatalities, 20% of the total. Any child fatality is a tragedy, but it is important to note that children make up over half the population of Gaza. [--> How many children in Gaza are being induced to play at being child soldiers?]

Despite the discrepancies noted, the substantial number of civilian fatalities leaves room for further scrutiny. In seeking an alternate explanation for the excess of young male fatalities, it might be posited that this reflects some behavioral feature of this group separate from combat-related activities. However, the shape of the fatality demographic makes this unlikely. What feature would explain the sharp increase from age 17, peaking at ages 22 to 25 and then declining rapidly after age 30?

A more plausible explanation is that the age demographic of the fatalities reflects the relative involvement of different age bands in hostilities . . . 

Sobering, and a very different overall picture from what headlined news is telling us.

Nor, should we forget rockets that fall short of Israel, inside Gaza:

Hamas Rockets Exploding in Gaza Strip

Pressure from IDF, poor quality of rockets leads to rockets exploding in Hamas-controlled Gaza

BY: Abraham Rabinovich
July 31, 2014 12:10 pm

JERUSALEM—More than a third of the 140 rockets fired by Hamas at Israel yesterday fell short and exploded inside the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli Army spokesman’s office.

Rocket shortfalls have increased, according to Israeli military sources. They attribute these misfires to the intense pressure Hamas rocket squads face from Israeli air and artillery attacks, as well as poorly assembled rockets.

Some 2,000 rockets have been fired at Israel since the fighting between Israel and Hamas began three weeks ago. Of these, say army officers, about 300 have fallen inside the Gaza Strip. The army spokesman said shortfalls were responsible for explosions three days ago at a hospital and a refugee camp that took dozens of lives. Hamas has denied the accusation and blamed Israel for the blasts.

“We believe that some 70 percent of their rocket arsenal has been depleted [--> presumably, between being depleted and being knocked out by the Israeli attacks from the air and ground] and they are now firing from the bottom of the heap,” a military source told the World Tribune.

 Obviously, the damage and deaths from such short-falls will predictably be blamed on Israel.

The deaths of and injuries to civilians are awful things, but must be set in context: were Hamas to cease from Terrorism and were the Palestinian Arab leaders to seriously negotiate, we would likely have a negotiation clock reset to Sept. 2000, with 100% of Gaza, 97% of the West Bank (with compensating land elsewhere), a causeway joining the two, and development aid instantly on the table.  That these are not on the table and that a weapons blockade is in force -- it seems a fairly porous one -- against Gaza, is the direct result of the piratical, genocide oriented policy pursued by Hamas and its enablers and backers. That's before we get to the double war crime of Hamas' deliberate targetting of civilians while using human shields. There simply is no immoral equivalency. (And we should never forget Israeli "occupation" really and primarily means the mere existence of Israel. With the sound of the ghastly Gharqad tree hadith about a latterday massacre of Jews lingering in the background, as something embedded in the Hamas covenant's Clause 7.)

Israeli commentator Maurice Ross makes some pointed observations:

. . . never again, never, will we walk as victims to our destruction.

People of the world open your eyes and see the humanity of our cause as it contrasts with our enemy Hamas, whose evilness is only surpassed by its wickedness. 

A number of events of this week should be enough to explain to the world that we are not fighting a war with an enemy that observes any semblance of human behaviour. We are fighting a war with an enemy that is obsessed by the very hatred that has consumed their mind.

They have no respect for the normal conventions of humankind. Life to them has no meaning and they perform the devil’s work here on earth.

But the world watches and instead of condemning the devil, it condemns the very people who uphold humanity. The world condemns those, who before the modern conventions of international law were constituted, gave to the world codes of ethical behaviour. The world condemns those who put their own soldiers at risk to ensure the safety of civilians who have been put in the firing line through the devil’s work.

This week in Han Yunes, Palestinian children, staying in an UNWRA clinic, cried for help. 3 Israeli soldiers, 3 beautiful young men called Matan, Omer and Guy, rushed to help them. When they got in the building, the pre-wired clinic blew up, killing the soldiers and injuring 12 others. This is the devil’s work.

On another day, a mentally handicapped man was found chained in a house to prevent him from leaving. Hamas did it so that Israeli soldiers would be extra careful and fall into the booby trap that had been set to kill them and which would also have killed the poor soul chained in the house. This is the devil’s work.

Fortunately, the Israeli soldiers realized that a booby trap had been set, managed to make the area safe and released the poor man.

It has now been verified that on three occasions, rockets have been found in UNWRA schools and that hospitals have been used as ammunition stores. This is the devil’s work.

Doesn’t Hamas know that those schools and hospitals then cease to be schools under International Law and regrettably become legitimate targets of war?

It has now also been verified by an Italian reporter that journalists were stopped, under threat of fire, from showing the true picture of the situation in Gaza; citizens being prevented from leaving; women and children being placed up front; innocents being shot as collaborators. This is the devil’s work.

And the devil’s men rise up out of the tunnels to commit massacres on Israel’s land and take hostages; tie babies to their chests to protect them from bullets; and shoot their own people in the name of Allah, whilst the devil’s accomplices arm them; fail to condemn them; call for Israel to show restraint; and even worse remain silent.

Of course, none of that was in global news headlines. As usual.

It is high time that we return to some basic common-sense:

1] Jews have unquestionable (though too often dismissed) roots in their homeland, and the Modern Israeli state has further legitimacy as the main settlement of Jews driven out from their homes all across the Middle East and stripped of land, houses and posessions.

2] Arabs and other people long settled in the area also have legitimate roots.

3] The Jewish resettlement and development of the land from the 1870's on, is what created the prosperous land we see.

4] For 3,000 years, down to today, Jews in the land have been willing to live with others in peace.

5] From 1946 on there have been several occasions where a peaceful settlement of disputes was on the table, most recently in 2000 which would have resulted in a legitimate Palestinian Arab state [a second one, Jordan being the first and 3/4 of the League of Nations Mandate], but every time that has gone to war, from the Arab side.

6] From 2005, the Arabs had an opportunity to create something out of Gaza, but instead have created a pirate's nest and terrorist base.  This, being consistent with the notorious Gharqad Tree hadith's declaration of an apocalyptic massacre of Jews. 

7] That kind of deep-rooted hostility cannot be negotiated with, save in a context of defeat leading to security for the intended target and abandonment of genocidal intent.

We therefore need to insist on context being given to news and commentary, and on standing up for stopping genocidal madmen before it is horrifically too late. 

Not that such will make a dime's worth of difference to those bent on evil or on enabling it. But, we can wake up, wise up and make some decisions that news sources and commentators who do not respect the wider context in what they say or do be viewed and treated as what they are: irresponsible enablers of genocidal pirates.

And, just maybe, decisive defeat of those pirates is the only way to genuine peace -- even as in the 1940's Germany had to be defeated at horrific cost, including to its civilian population. Let us remember, that that is why men like Churchill, Roosevelt and Eisenhower agreed that bombing was an awful necessity, knowing how many innocents would pay the price.  And knowing, the alternative.

I shudder to have to raise that comparison, but that is what history puts on the table. The implacable and genocidal have to be defeated decisively, they cannot be compromised with. Horrible, though that lesson is. We live in a sin- and evil- maddened world, one that in its perversity refuses to look to its only hope, The Prince of Peace. 

In that context, it looks like patently mad, appalling evil is inevitable and the statesmen facing such a challenge may well be backed into a corner where there are no non-horrible alternatives.

And in this case, I ever hear the ticking of Iran's nuke clock; which may well portend horrors on a scale that dwarfs what is happening already. 

Collectively, we are mad, sin- and evil- mad. 

Please, let us wake up and turn back before we turn horrible nightmares into realities that cannot even be put in words. And yes, that includes taking a second look at ideologies that feed such madness. END

PS: On withdrawing, IDF has issued statistics on the military incursion -- grim reading, and with an implication of significant civilian losses for fighting in urban areas that have not been evacuated [BTW, as there are abundant open areas in Gaza and as the UN commonly sets up refugee centres in such spaces, why wasn't there such a provision? Better yet, why didn't Hamas use these areas for its military bases . . . as Israel does?] -- consistent with statistics from WW II etc:

 Some 900 operatives from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian terror groups were killed in the Gaza Strip in the four weeks of fighting, since Operation Protective Edge was launched by the IDF on July 8, a senior Israeli military source said Tuesday. 

The source added that the Israel Air Force hit a total of 4,800 targets in the Palestinian enclave.

Health officials in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip say that close to 1,900 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting began, most of them civilians and many of them children. Palestinian rights groups have claimed that 84 percent of those killed in the conflict were civilians; Israel disputes those claims. Israel has blamed Hamas for the deth and destruction in Gaza, since it emplaced its rockets, rocket launchers, cross-border tunnel openings and other military infrastructure in homes, schools and mosques, and thus used Gazans as human shields.

Earlier Tuesday, IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said the army had completed its mission of destroying 32 of Hamas’s attack tunnels that cross from the Strip into Israeli territory.

By 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, the Israeli military had withdrawn all of its ground troops from Gaza, as an Egyptian backed, 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire came into effect.

The war in Gaza has claimed the lives of 64 soldiers, 11 of whom were killed by Hamas gunmen emerging from tunnels dug under the Gaza-Israel border, and three civilians on the Israeli side. Over 3,000 rockets have been launched at Israeli cities in the month-long conflict.

Rom 1 reply, 53: Richard Whately on the Fallacy of [Selectively Hyperskeptical] Objections . . . with particular reference to the Christian Faith

Richard Whately, DD was Archbishop of Dublin, and -- having published an article on Logic in the Metropolitan Encyclopedia that met widespread acclaim -- expanded ans separately published it as the famed C19 text on logic, Elements of Logic. 

My attention was drawn (via Andrew Norton) to his observations on the Fallacy of Objections, essentially the same thing as I have discussed (linking to Simon Greenleaf) as selective hyperskepticism, but with a twist: I can object to X so I have a right to dismiss without weighing the balance of alternatives.

Here is the key observation, fr pp. 144 - 5, Bk III Sec. 17:

Similar to this case is that which may be called the Fallacy of objections; i.e. showing that there are objections against some plan, theory, or system, and thence inferring that it should be rejected; when that which ought to have been proved is, that there are more, or stronger objections, against the receiving than the rejecting of it. This is the main, and almost universal Fallacy of anti-christians; and is that of which a young Christian should be first and principally warned. They find numerous ‘objections’ against various parts of Scripture; to some of which no satisfactory answer can be given; and the incautious hearer is apt, while his attention is fixed on these, to forget that there are infinitely more, and stronger objections against the supposition, that the Christian Religion is of human origin; and that where we cannot answer all objections, we are bound, in reason and in candour, to adopt the hypothesis which labours under the least. That the case is as I have stated, I am authorized to assume, from this circumstance,—that no complete and consistent account has ever been given of the manner in which the Christian Religion, supposing it a human contrivance, could have arisen and prevailed as it did. And yet this may obviously be demanded with the utmost fairness of those who deny its divine origin. The Religion exists; that is the phenomenon. Those who will not allow it to have come from God, are bound to solve the phenomenon on some other hypothesis less open to objections. They are not, indeed, called on to prove that it actually did arise in this or that way; but to suggest (consistently with acknowledged facts) some probable way in which it may have arisen, reconcilable with all the circumstances of the case. That infidels have never done this, though they have had 1800 years to try, amounts to a confession, that no such hypothesis can be devised, which will not be open to greater objections than lie against Christianity.

[Richard Whately, Elements of Logic, 9th ed. (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, & Dyer, 1870), pp. 144-45.]

 In short, the good Bishop recommends the principle of comparative difficulties, evaluating systems on comparing strengths and limitations regarding factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory power.

As a case in point, here is an examination of alternatives on the resurrection of Jesus, in light of the minimal facts method. I clip from the NCSTS, unit 1:

 _________________

>> The method, in a nutshell -- and Greenleaf's remarks are also highly relevant, is:

The minimal facts method only uses sources which are multiply attested, and agreed to by a majority of scholars (ranging from atheist to conservative). This requires that they have one or more of the following criteria which are relevant to textual criticism:

1. Multiple sources - If two or more sources attest to the same fact, it is more likely authentic
2. Enemy attestation - If the writers enemies corroborate a given fact, it is more likely authentic
3. Principle of embarrassment - If the text embarrasses the writer, it is more likely authentic
4. Eyewitness testimony - First hand accounts are to be prefered
   Early testimony - an early account is more likely accurate than a later one

Having first established the well attested facts, the approach then argues that the best explanation of these agreed to facts is the resurrection of Jesus Christ . . . . [Source: "Minimal facts" From Apologetics Wiki. Full article: here. (Courtesy, Wayback Machine.)]

Why is that so?

The easiest answer is to simply list the facts that meet the above criteria and are accepted by a majority to an overwhelming majority of recent and current scholarship after centuries of intense debate:

1. Jesus died by crucifixion [--> which implies his historicity!].

2. He was buried.

3. His death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope.

4. The tomb was empty (the most contested).

5. The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus (the most important proof).

6. The disciples were transformed from doubters to bold proclaimers.

7. The resurrection was the central message.

8. They preached the message of Jesus’ resurrection in Jerusalem.

9. The Church was born and grew.

10. Orthodox Jews who believed in Christ made Sunday their primary day of worship.

11. James was converted to the faith when he saw the resurrected Jesus (James was a family skeptic).

12. Paul was converted to the faith (Paul was an outsider skeptic).

[Cf. Habermas' paper here and a broader more popular discussion here. NT Wright's papers here and here give a rich and deep background analysis. Here is a video of a pastoral presentation of a subset of the facts. Habermas presents the case as videos here and here, in two parts. Here is a video of a debate he had with Antony Flew.]

The list of facts is in some respects fairly obvious. 

That a Messiah candidate was captured, tried and crucified -- as Gamaliel hinted at -- was effectively the death-knell for most such movements in Israel in the era of Roman control; to have to report such a fate was normally embarrassing and discrediting to the extreme in a shame-honour culture. The Jews of C1 Judaea wanted a victorious Greater David to defeat the Romans and usher in the day of ultimate triumph for Israel, not a crucified suffering servant.  In the cases where a movement continued, the near relatives took up the mantle. That is facts 1 - 3 right there. Facts 10 - 12 are notorious. While some (it looks like about 25% of the survey of scholarship, from what I have seen) reject no 4, in fact it is hard to see a message about a resurrection in C1 that did not imply that the body was living again, as Wright discusses here. Facts 5 - 9 are again, pretty clearly grounded.

So, the challenge is to explain this cluster or important subsets of it, without begging questions and without selective hyperskepticism. The old Deist objections (though sometimes renewed today) have deservedly fallen by the wayside. [Also, cf. ten video shorts on popular myths here.] 

 We may briefly compare:
 

"Theory"	Match to four major credible facts regarding Jesus of Nazareth & his Passion				Overall score/20
	Died by crucifixion (under Pontius Pilate) at Jerusalem c 30 AD	Was buried, tomb was found empty	Appeared to multiple disciples, many of whom proclaimed & suffered for their faith	Appeared to key objectors who then became church leaders: James & Paul
Bodily Resurrection	5	5	5	5	20
Visions/ hallucinations	5	2	2	1	10
Swoon/recovery	1	3	2	2	8
Wrong tomb	5	1	1	1	8
Stolen body/fraud	5	2	1	1	9
Quran 4:155 -6: "They did not slay him, neither crucified him."	1	1	1	1	4
"Jesus never existed"	1	1	1	1	4
"Christianity as we know it was cooked up by Constantine and  others at Nicea, who censored/ distorted the original record"	1	1	1	1	4
"What we have today is 'Paulianity,' not the original teachings of Jesus and his disciples"	2	1	1	2	6
Christianity -- including the resurrection --  is a gradually emerging legend based on a real figure	5	1	1	1	8
Complete legend/pagan copycat (Greek, Persian, Egyptian, etc)	1	1	1	1	4

  
(I have given my scores above, based on reasoning that should be fairly obvious. As an exercise you may want to come up with your own scores on a 5 - 1 scale: 5 = v. good/ 4 = good/ 3 = fair/ 2 = poor/ 1 = v. poor, with explanations. Try out blends of the common skeptical theories to see how they would fare.)

 Laying a priori anti-supernaturalism aside as a patent case of worldview level question-begging closed mindedness, the above table shows that there are two serious candidates today, the resurrection as historically understood, or some version of a collective vision/hallucination that led to a sincere (but plainly mistaken) movement. 

The latter of course runs into  the problem that such collective visions are not psychologically plausible as the cultural expectations of a resurrection would have been of a general one in the context of the obvious military triumph of Israel. Nor, does it explain the apparently missing body. Moreover, we know separately, that the culturally accepted alternative would have been individual prophetic visions of the exalted that on being shared would comfort the grieving that the departed rested with God. So, an ahead of time individual breakthrough resurrection -- even, one that may be accompanied by some straws in the wind of what is to come in fulness at the end -- is not part of the mental furniture of expectations in C1 Judaism.  Where, hallucinations and culturally induced visions are going to be rooted in such pre-existing mental "furniture."  

Where, also -- tellingly -- the women who bought spices and went to the tomb that morning plainly expected to find it occupied by a dead prophet, one unjustly judicially murdered as so many others had been.  (And if you doubt the account that reports how these women became the first to discover the tomb and to see the risen Messiah, consider how dismissive C1 Jews were to the testimony of "hysterical" -- that very word in English is rooted in the Greek for womb, hustera (reflecting a very old prejudice . . . ) -- women. Such an embarrassing point would only be admitted if the reporter was seeking to tell the full truth as best as he could, regardless of how poorly it would come across to his audience; a C1 audience, not a C21 one.)

The Easter event cuts across all reasonable cultural expectations, and obviously forced a much closer -- transforming -- look at messianic prophetic passages such as Isa 52 - 53 which plainly led to an aha moment.

Moreover, the visions suggestion also runs into the problem of the empty tomb; hence the skeptical resistance to that otherwise quite reasonable fact. 

(Remember, the NT record is that the women disciples who went to the tomb that first Easter Sunday morning to complete the burial rituals that had been hastily begun just before the Sabbath, on finding the grave open and the body missing at first thought the authorities had taken the body. These primary documents subsequently record the Sanhedrin's official talking point as that the disciples stole the body while the guards slept. Oops. The point of agreement is obvious: the body was missing, and neither group seemed to be responsible for it. [Cf below for more.])

You may think that this sort of balance of evidence should be well known and that educated, responsible and reasonable people would at minimum be willing to accept it as well-grounded that Jesus of Nazareth was a significant Galilean Jew and teacher who had clashes with the Jerusalem authorities which cost him his life. Whereupon, his followers then proclaimed to one and all across the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean and beyond over the next several decades, that Jesus was the prophesied Jewish Messiah, and that though shamefully (though unjustly) crucified -- blatantly true by the criterion of admitting an utterly embarrassing claim -- he was risen from death as Lord and eschatological Judge; until Nero would find it convenient to divert suspicion be falsely accusing Christians of setting fire to Rome in 64 AD.

But, sadly, that is not the case.  >>_________________

As usual, I recommend reading here on in context, for a 101. And, the Lee Strobel video:


. . .  will well repay (perhaps, even, eternally repay)  the time taken to watch and ponder it. END