Hamas Lies And the media believed it.

[King_David]

It’s the Mideast equivalent of "Dog bites man," but it took the media nearly a month to recognize its sheer obviousness: Hamas lies.

Hamas lies systematically, instructing civilians to misinform the foreign press. It lies habitually, with a formidable record of mendacity from previous conflicts. And it lies guiltlessly, convinced that the objectives of ‘resistance’ supersede quaint notions of truth-telling.

Nonetheless, since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge over a month ago, Western media have relied on Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry – as here, here and here – for casualty tallies. As one reporter told the Washington Post, when it comes to body counts, the Hamas Health Minister Ashraf Al-Qidra is "the only game in town."

For his part, Qidra has acknowledged that he considers any fatality who has not been claimed by an armed group as a civilian. And for its part, the Hamas leadership almost never admits its operatives have been killed – and instructs Gazans to do the same. Consequently, Qidra’s running total labels three-quarters of Gaza deaths as civilians.

The result has been thundering condemnation of Israel for “indiscriminate” bombing (according to the United Nations Human Rights Council), and even targeting civilians deliberately (as per The Guardian). “The world stands disgraced,” bellowed the head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency on July 30, in words run by The Guardian in a banner front-page headline the next day. Human Rights Watch charged Israel with "collective punishment," and even the United States – the Jewish state’s closest friend – lamented, "Israel has to do a better job to avoid civilian loss of life."

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/08/12/hamas-lies-about-the-gaza-civilian-death-toll-and-the-media-bought-it

[djean111]

1. Only half of the dead are civilians.

[King_David]

2. From the OP :

"Objective analysis of the available data reveals that rather than civilians making up the “vast majority” of Gaza deaths – as the media regularly reported – the proportion appears closer to half. Hundreds of dead civilians are hardly reason to celebrate, but a 1-to-1 civilian casualty ratio is remarkably low by the grim standards of war. Coalition efforts in Afghanistan, for example, produced a 3-to-1 ratio, and 4-to-1 in Iraq. Given Hamas tactics of firing rockets from densely populated civilian areas, the toll in Gaza could have been immeasurably higher."

[intaglio]

3. Israeli lies and propaganda are even more disruptive and misleading

The source for this is the blanket assumption that all males aged 20 - 29 are likely to be militants. There's no actual evidence for this, just bigotry and propaganda.

The disparity between male and female deaths is just as easily accounted for by women and children being secluded and men having to seek supplies or act as medics, brave men such as Rami 'Abd al-Haj 'Ali and 'Aaed al-Bura'i.

Ambulance driver Rami 'Ali recounts attacks that killed paramedic 'Aaed al-Bura'i and injured team sent to rescue him, both despite coordination with Red Crescent

Of course those on this board who display a loathing of the Palestinians and regurgitate swathes of Israeli propaganda will denigrate B'Tselem as a source.

[bravenak]

4. Oh! So i guess it's okay to bomb UN shelters then.

Since hamas is so bad. How many children did they kill during this operation? Oh, that's right, ZERO.
How many did the IDF kill? Over 400.
What was Hamas' rate of soldiers to civilians killed? 20 or so soldier for every civilian? Seems like they did a better job at avoiding killing civilians.

Screaming out HAMAS!! Is not going to work anymore. Not scared of Hamas. I am scared of the IDF killing more babies.

It takes a special type of sickness to justify killing children because the other guy is bad too.

[cornball 24]

5. There is only one word to accurately describe this

distortion of the truth--BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[King_David]

6. Agreed

Here is a front page NYT article about the manipulation of the numbers.
BBC had similar article too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113477266

[cornball 24]

7. So relieved to know that you agree that the article written by Oren Kessler is

BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[King_David]

8. No I think he's pointing out how Hamas manipulated the data

There's been quite a bit written about it in NYT BBB and USN and WR

[840high]

9. ....

[King_David]

10. ?

[whosinpower1]

11. Show me any political group that does not lie, habitually, guiltlessly.

Seems to me, at issue is the proportionality of Israel's response. Well......correct me if I am wrong, but Israel created a no-man's stretch of land extending into Gaza by how far again? They bombed infrastructure, such as the last power plant, several hospitals, schools, a dairy (wasn't there something about a dairy)

Arguing over who is, and is not a combatant makes for interesting wag the tail, but the actual destruction within that strip, we can all see with our own lying eyes.

The four young boys playing ball on the beach........

And then there is the three teenagers......who were abducted, and murdered.....and Israel created this "story", of how hard they were trying to find them, ramping up the angst within the Israeli population, for weeks and weeks.....and then when the bodies are located and confirmed - Shin Bet states that they knew within 24 hours of the kidnapping approximately where the boys were, WHO KIDNAPPED THEM, and that they were dead.

The accusation that Hamas broke a ceasefire and captured an Israeli soldier - only to find out later that the soldier died with his partners - and it was in fact probably an Israeli airstrike that killed him. DNA evidence led to the conclusion he was dead.

Do you know what the difference is when Hamas Lies, versus Netanyahu Lies?

There is no question that Hamas lies for its own advantage. No question about it at all. But so does practically every other political party/player/power when it is to their own advantage, and if they think they can get away with it.

[DanTex]

12. What is it about right-wing think tanks in the I/P group?

Oren Kessler is a Middle East research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank, and formerly a journalist with the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz.

Hmm, the Henry Jackson Society, sounds ominous...

Last week, I wrote about the expansion of the American right-wing website Breitbart News Network into the UK, a prime example of the converging forces of climate denialism, fossil fuel addiction, and xenophobia. The editorial marriage between Breitbart London's James Delingpole and Raheem Kassam gives us useful insight into this perturbing mind-set as it attempts to popularise itself in the British media scene.

But Breitbart is merely one strand in the growing neocon web. At its heart is a nexus of power reaching into the recesses of not just the US and UK governments, but the financial services and fossil fuel industries that lobby them.

As I'd pointed out, Breitbart's managing editor Raheem Kassam is an Associate Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), where he heads up the so-called 'Student Rights' campaign – the HJS-funded and based project widely criticised as anti-Muslim and right-wing.

...

According to a 2008 paper in the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, the Henry Jackson Society has influenced "Conservative party foreign policy discussion," especially the "interventionist convictions" of David Cameron and William Hague.

Indeed, the Society's list of international patrons reads like a 'Who's Who' of American right-wing hawks. Stand-out names include Michael Chertoff, former US homeland security secretary; Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – the notorious Reagan administration-founded, Congressional funded 'NGO' specialising in providing funds on behalf of "a very particular form of low-intensity democracy chained to pro-market economics" to support "handpicked pro-market allies"; Bruce Jackson, foreign policy adviser to Senator John McCain during his 2008 presidential candidacy; Robert Kagan, foreign policy adviser to President Obama's then secretary of state Hillary Clinton and co-founder of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) – the now defunct think-tank closely linked to senior Bush administration officials calling for the military occupation of the Gulf as a stepping stone to global US military hegemony; William Kristol, founding editor of Murdoch-founded neocon rag The Weekly Standard and PNAC co-founder with Kagan; General Jack Sheehan, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic; Richard Perle, PNAC signatory and chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board until 2003; James Woolsey, former CIA director and current Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton – the same giant US defence contractor that employed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, and which runs the US Army's war games on impacts of climate, energy and economic crises for homeland security.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/may/07/henry-jackson-society-neocon-militarism-mideast-oil-gas-energy

I mean, is the whole "DU is for Democrats" rule waived in this group? HWhy not just start posting links to Glenn Beck and Breitbart directly and get it over with...

[Jefferson23]

13. Welcome to the I/P group, you will be amazed at the sources used here...stick around. n/t

[Israeli]

14. Ditto what Jefferson23 just said ....nt.

[Jefferson23]

15. I'm calling it a night...always good to see you posting here, Israeli.