Arab Israel conflict
May 30, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The IDF is getting seriously into public relations with timely reports on Twitter. I thought readers might find this one with video depicting the targets struck inside Gaza yesterday of particular interest. It’s got a satisfying motif backed by a tense soundtrack. Hamas terrorists lost a few ordnance depots and other means of destruction in the operation that, according to the video, hit some 65 targets throughout Gaza. This video
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May 29, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The informative IDF Twitter feed reports that “the IDF is currently operating in the Gaza Strip. The explosions heard are related to this activity. Details to follow.” Israel has been taking mortars from Gaza this morning, one of which hit near the Israeli kindergarten featured in the video posted here on Twitter. The Times of Israel reports here. FOX News continues to regurgitate “information” disseminated by “the Gaza Health Ministry”
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May 18, 2018 — John Hinderaker
The American press tried to sell the idea that Hamas’s suicide tactics were somehow related to the Trump administration’s shifting our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Why? Reporters and editors don’t much care about Gaza or Israel, but are determined to make every news story reflect badly on the president. If this Rasmussen survey is any guide, that attempt has failed. Rasmussen finds 51% of likely voters in favor
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May 18, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The worse than worthless United National Human Rights Council delivered its ritual condemnation of Israel today in a special session on Gaza. Before the vote was taken, Gatestone Institute Distinguished Senior Fellow Colonel Richard Kemp spoke on behalf United Nations Watch. In light of the recent NBC News hit piece on Gatestone, I should add that Colonel Kemp’s statement is more informative than everything NBC News has on offer today.
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May 17, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Our print and cable news media outlets have become something like idiots for Hamas this week. They disseminate pure Hamas propaganda and relate the casualty statistics of the “Gaza Health Ministry” as if they derive from a credible source. If not surprising, the ignorance and fatuity on display are amazing. Given the resources available, it really isn’t difficult to figure out what is going on. Has any one of them
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May 16, 2018 — John Hinderaker
Salah Bardawil, a senior Hamas official and spokesman for the terrorist group, said earlier today that 50 of the 62 people who have been killed at the Israel-Gaza border in recent days were Hamas members. No doubt of the “mostly peaceful” variety, as CNN likes to put it. One of the Palestinians who stormed the border wall was captured yesterday by the IDF and talked, on camera, about how Hamas
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May 15, 2018 — Scott Johnson
You can see why NBC News might want to smear the work of the Gatestone Institute (the dirty work I wrote about here yesterday). Gatestone has posted Pierre Rehov’s video Behind the Smoke Screen on Hamas’s Gaza production (below). From inside Gaza, Rehov reports the reality of the so called “peaceful demonstrations.” He invites viewers: “Watch Hamas hate speeches. See how they build their propaganda at the expense of brainwashed,
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May 14, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Within the hour we will move our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. It’s a big day for Israel and the United States. Hamas wants it known that its followers are unhappy about it. Hamas terrorists are staging assaults on Israel today in response. They would like to kill the Jews across the border, but they will be almost as happy to get their own civilians killed. It’s all for the
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May 13, 2018 — John Hinderaker
Every experienced negotiator knows that sometimes, the best deal is no deal at all. President Trump, a life-long deal maker, deserves great credit for recognizing, unlike a long line of predecessors, that there is no reason for the U.S. to pressure Israel into a comprehensive “peace” deal with the Palestinians. That is the background for tomorrow’s opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. The Palestinians are wailing and gnashing their
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May 7, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Hamas continues its war on Israel with its weekly assaults on the border and related activities. It promotes this edition of the war as a “protest” against the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which somehow leaves enough room for the construction of the latest in terror tunnels (see, e.g., this one destroyed last month). The IDF videos below convey the message Hamas is sending and captures a bit of Hamas theater
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April 30, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Taking a quick look around online this morning, the most illuminating piece I can find on last night’s strike on the Syrian army base in Hama is Avi Issacharoff’s analytical Times of Israel column “Resonant Syria strike suggests coordinated US-Israel message to Russia and Iran.” Here is the opening of Isacharoff’s analysis: Hours after a mysterious “earthquake” — 2. 6 on the Richter scale — registered on the devices of
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April 28, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Bret Baier recited something close to the approved Hamas version of the current edition of its continuing war on Israel at about 27:40 of Special Report last night (video here). There really is no excuse for this (which I transcribed from the video): “Weekly protests along the Gaza border with Israel turned deadly again today. Gaza’s health ministry says three Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire while trying to breach
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March 31, 2018 — Scott Johnson
One would have to be a moron not to understand that the Hamas “March of Return” from Gaza to Israel is a variation on a theme. The theme is set forth in its original “Covenant” of 1988 calling for “the liberation of Palestine” (i.e., Israel’s destruction) in the “struggle against Zionism.” (The 2010 revision is, shall we say, subject to interpretation.) Subtlety is not a Hamas selling point. Yet the
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February 21, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In the spirit of the frankly cynical verses of Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” (e.g., the one beginning “Everybody knows that you love me baby”), Professor Richard Landes calls his study of BBC and CNN International media coverage of the Middle East “Everyone Agrees: The BBC and CNN on UNSC Resolution #2334 and Kerry’s Speech.” It is a study of how the BBC and CNN covered (extensively) the passage of UNSC
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January 17, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday I noted the speech of Palestinian Authority President for Life Mahmoud Abbas, referring readers to the Times of Israel account of the speech and Times of Israel editor David Horovitz’s column on it. Abbas had given his speech this past Sunday to the PLO Central Council. My post, however, lacked the text of the speech. Now the invaluable MEMRI provides us a 17-minute video of excerpts posted here and
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January 16, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Mahmoud Abbas is one of the many people to whom President Trump is getting. It is entirely to Trump’s credit that Abbas’s usual shtick has failed so miserably with Trump, as is the contrast with President Obama in this respect. Abbas is a deeply unsavory figure in a world of unsavory figures. Entering the fourteenth year of his four-year term as president of the Palestinian Authority, he lacks legitimacy of
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December 25, 2017 — John Hinderaker
The Associated Press is carrying on a daily war against the Trump administration. Would the AP declare a Christmas truce? Of course not. On Christmas Eve, the AP reported, as it does every year on that day, from Bethlehem. AP reporters Jalal Hassan and Imad Isseid write: It was a subdued Christmas Eve in the traditional birthplace of Jesus on Sunday, with spirits dampened by cold, rainy weather and recent
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