“The AP’s building in Gaza collapses after an Israeli air strike. Is the organization’s credibility crumbling too?”

Posted on May 16, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

SPECTATOR
The decline and fall of the Associated Press
by Charles Lipson
May 18, 2021

Once, long ago, in a land far away, the best journalists tried to stand aloof from the stories they reported. The idea was simple and powerful. If journalists tried to be neutral and kept their reporting separate from their opinions, analysis, and speculation, then the public would believe them. Those days are long gone — and the media’s credibility is gone with them. Journalists and media organizations are now smack in the middle of many stories they cover, in part because they want to be. They want to spin them, to set ‘the Narrative’. Imbued with this new mission, many journalists have become partisan protagonists. They have deliberately blurred the lines between facts, analysis and opinion…READ MORE

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“Prior to the attack, the IDF warned the civilians who were in the building and gave them sufficient time to evacuate”

Posted on May 13, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Israel slammed for strike on AP, Al Jazeera Gaza offices in attack on Hamas
by Zachary Keyser
May 15, 2021

Israel came under heavy criticism on Saturday for striking a 12-story tower in Gaza, housing the offices of foreign media affiliates such as the Associated Press, Al Jazeera and other news outlets….The IAF struck the high-rise building, which also housed a number of apartments and various offices, on the notion that it contained “military assets of the military intelligence” of Hamas hiding under the guise of the foreign media outlets, an IDF spokesperson said. “The building housed the offices of civilian media, which the terrorist organization Hamas hides behind and uses as human shields…IDF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus rejected the notion that Israel was seeking to silence the media. “That is totally false, the media is not the target,” he told Reuters….READ MORE

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Bret Stephens: “What can’t be emphasized enough, especially among those who think of themselves as pro-Palestinian: If you want a Palestinian state to exist and succeed, you must also want Hamas to be humiliated and defeated”

Posted on May 13, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK TIMES
For the Sake of Peace, Israel Must Rout Hamas
by Bret Stephens
May 13, 2021

As of this writing, terrorists in Gaza — the word “terrorist” fits people who take indiscriminate aim at civilians to achieve political goals — have fired some 1,750 rockets at Israel since Monday. That’s a number worth pausing over, and not just because it has had the effect of overwhelming Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense. Gaza is often said to be sealed off and utterly destitute. Yet Hamas, which rules Gaza, seems not to have had too much trouble amassing this kind of arsenal, or too many qualms employing it in a way it knew was sure to incur a heavy Israeli response. The usual rule in life is that if you throw the first punch you can’t complain if you’re counterpunched. The test of Western policy and public opinion is whether they will let Hamas break this rule. READ MORE

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“Shortly after midnight on Friday, the Israel Defense Forces appeared to give the impression that a ground offensive was underway, sending Hamas operatives into tunnels and the direct path of a massive wave of Israeli airstrikes”

Posted on May 13, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
An IDF ruse turned Hamas’s tunnels into death traps
by Yaakov Lappin
May 14, 2021

Shortly after midnight, the Israel Defense Spokesperson Unit sent a vague message: “IDF air and ground troops are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip. More details to follow.” It was unclear whether the message was referring to the start of a ground offensive against Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or whether ground units were firing on targets on Gaza. Initial reports of a potential Israeli ground offensive immediately began to circulate. “Now, it turns out this was not a mistake, but deliberate and planned ruse aimed at taking out Hamas forces,” Channel 22 said on Friday. The IDF reportedly led Hamas to believe that a ground offensive was about to begin, leading it to activate its elite Nukhba unit, sending them into tunnels to prepare to take on Israeli ground forces. READ MORE

NEW YORK POST How Israel used a tweet to lure militants to their doom in terror tunnels A misleading statement tweeted by the Israel Defense Forces on Thursday night appears to have been a decoy intended to lure Hamas troops into strategic tunnels that were later bombarded by the Israeli army. The IDF tweet gave the impression that troops had entered Gaza, leading global media outlets to report about a ground incursion, and Hamas and Islamic Jihad, seeing those reports, sent their first line of defense into the tunnels to start taking up positions, the Jerusalem Post reported.

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The Sheikh Jarrah story at the center of this “cycle of violence,” what the media isn’t telling you

Posted on May 13, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

NATIONAL REVIEW
The Truth about the Sheikh Jarrah Eviction
by Erielle Davidson
May 12, 2021

The east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah has become the latest flashpoint in the Arab–Israeli conflict, sparking the very tension that Hamas seeks to exploit for its own political advantage. Several Palestinian-Arab families living in Sheikh Jarrah face eviction from homes following a ruling from Jerusalem’s District Court. In anticipation of a Supreme Court hearing of an appeal of the ruling, Palestinian Arabs have rioted nightly in Sheikh Jarrah, joining violent Palestinian-Arab attacks related to the Ramadan holy month, and culminating in violent eruptions across the city, including at some of Jerusalem’s holiest sites. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Bassem Eid: This has nothing to do with Sheikh Jarrah It’s about Hamas seeing a chance to seize the narrative and increase its own influence and control over Palestinians in Jerusalem

AUSTRALIA ISRAEL LABOR DIALOGUE Some background to events in Jerusalem Dr Adam Carr: In 1875 some pious Jews bought some land in a semi-rural area just north of Jerusalem, which was then a small town largely consisting of the Old City and a few suburbs to the west. The land was the site of a tomb believed to be that of Shimon HaTzadik, a rabbi of the 3rd century BCE…The Ottoman land register showed that the property was registered in the names of rabbis Avraham Ashkenazi and Meir Auerbach. A small religious Jewish community lived there. Also in this area was the tomb of Hussam al-Din al-Jarrahi, physician to the Arab leader Salah ad-Din (Saladin). His tomb dates from 1202 and was a site of Muslim pilgrimage. The area was known as Sheikh Jarrah after him.

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“With Tehran’s fingerprints on Hamas rockets, countries in the region know they may be next. So why is Biden so keen for a rapprochement with Iran?”

Posted on May 13, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

TIME OF ISRAEL
The Arab street is quiet – and the reason is Iran
by Andrew D. Lappin
May 13, 2021

Ramez al-Halabi, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) official, in a television broadcast from Iraq on May 7th, brazenly disclosed his group’s deep ties to Iran. PIJ, which operates primarily out of Gaza, has, in conjunction with Hamas (also Iranian-backed), been responsible for the launch of hundreds of missiles aimed at Israeli population centers. In his remarks, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors Islamic media in the Middle East, Habai boasted of the terror group buying their weaponry with Iranian money and fielding that weaponry under the supervision of Iranian experts. He was quoted as saying, “I am not sorry, I am proud to say that the rockets that are used to pound Tel Aviv have an Iranian signature on them, the signature of Qassem Soleimani.” READ MORE

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Tel Aviv: Iron Dome filmed intercepting barrage of rockets over Israel

Posted on May 13, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

Posted in Israel & Middle East | Leave a comment

Trevor Noah: You have no idea what you’re talking about, but that won’t stop you from lecturing us

Posted on May 13, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
An open letter to Trevor Noah
by David Harris
May 14, 2021

I just watched your 10-minute monologue on the Israeli-Hamas conflict for your popular television program “The Daily Show” (May 11). Frankly, it wasn’t easy viewing. In fact, I began talking back to the screen, but, obviously, to no avail, so I chose instead to write you this open letter. You framed your comments quite cleverly by suggesting there were competing narratives out there, depending on who was doing the talking and the starting point of their version of history. And then, as if nothing more than a curious third party, you waded into the debate, essentially assigning yourself a certain moral credibility because of your “non-combatant“ status. READ MORE

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Rabbi Vernon Kurtz: “Just when we thought life was getting back to normal here things changed very quickly”

Posted on May 13, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

KOL BETH EL WEEKLY
Rabbi Kurtz Report From Israel
May 2021

…Two requests: Don’t let the media or the general public get away with equivalency arguments. Israel is using surgical strikes to attempt to destroy the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leadership as well as their missiles and armaments. They have issued warnings to vacate buildings in Gaza before they attempt to destroy the intended targets. On the other hand, the terrorists are sending out rockets indiscriminately attempting to kill as many people in Israel as possible and it makes no difference to them whether they are Jews, Christians, Arabs or Bedouin. Secondly pray for the safety of those under attack and for a peace and quiet to reign in the region. READ MORE

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“Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel and a “you can’t murder Jews” extremist, explained that from his point of view it was Hamas that was being unreasonable”

Posted on May 13, 2021 by ArchitectGuy

BABYLON BEE
Tensions Rise In Middle East As One Side Wants To Kill Jews And The Other Side Are Jews Who Don’t Want To Die And Neither Will Compromise
May 12, 2021

Israel has tried to get along with Palestine and other neighboring countries, but a core disagreement between the two groups has increased tensions and made peace seem impossible. For many in the Middle East, what they want most of all is to kill Jews — which they see as a reasonable request. But a majority of Israel is made up of Jews who, first and foremost, do not want to be killed. And neither side is willing to compromise on these desires. “We’re a simple people with a simple desire,” explained Bob Hamas, Palestinian founder of Hamas. “We just want to kill the Jews. We’re not dead set on how. Stabbings. Gunshots. Explosions. Pushing them into the sea. Any of those are fine with us, but Israel won’t allow any of those. Not even strangling. It’s keeping us from living our truth.” READ MORE

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