I have noticed a trend lately in Israel which I applaud. It’s about time that Israel realised that no matter what it does or does not do, it will be criticised.

Israel could stand on its head with humanitarian deeds that no other nation would dream of performing and it would still be lambasted for being a pariah.

My message to Israel is that since you are going to be a scapegoat for everything that goes wrong in this world, you might as well do what you think is best for your people.

When Israel left Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005 it was for the sole purpose of living in peace with the Palestinians. Did this happen? What would you call a daily barrage of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel? A friendly gesture?

How about the official declaration that Hamas wants to annihilate the state of Israel? That is written in blood in their Charter and they mean every word of it.

During the war against Hezbollah, Israel was very considerate of world opinion and tame in its response to the kidnapping of two of its soldiers on the border. This was a mistake, in my opinion, because what ensued was a flurry of bad publicity anyway for Israel accusing it, as usual, of being cruel to the civilian population of Lebanon.

What is conveniently forgotten is that it is the Arab militants who always start it and Israel is forced to retaliate. And please don’t say Israel should turn the other cheek, because everyone has a right to self-defence.

It is the militant Islamists who always disguise themselves as civilians and, in fact, during this recent Gazan conflict, Hamas again removed their jihadist uniforms so that they could blend in with civilians. This is the method of fighting of cowards who use their own families and babies as ammunition. Israel once again restrained itself and targeted military installations, tunnels and caches and Hamas depended on Israel’s higher ethical standards.

Let’s be quite frank, Israel could have carpet-bombed all of Gaza but chose not to do so out of consideration for the genuine Gazan civilians.

There are now stories coming out of Gaza about atrocities committed by the IDF. This is what the media relishes. The bullshit is piled high in Gaza and is fed to the reporters.

We know who stands to benefit from such accounts. But at long last, Israel has decided that no matter what gross and vile acts Hamas commits, these will be overlooked by an overtly and covertly anti-semitic world while whatever Israel is doing will be analysed ad infinitum and condemned.

So what should Israel do? Listen to the critics who align themselves with the Arabs no matter what the truth of the situation is?

Appeasement does not work and I am pleased that Israel is now declaring that it has had enough of the blatant unfairness of the media, the prejudice of some world leaders and the double-standards of organisations such as the U.N which is overloaded with Arab members.

Israel has had it with the vested interests and I support its decision to stand up for itself and shout “Stuff the lot of you!”

Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported Thursday that a doctor working in Gaza’s Shifa Hospital claimed that Hamas has intentionally inflated the number of casualties resulting from Israel’s Operation Cast Lead.

“The number of deceased stands at no more than 500 to 600. Most of them are youths between the ages of 17 to 23 who were recruited to the ranks of Hamas, who sent them to the slaughter,” according to the newspaper article….

A Tal al-Hawa resident told the newspaper’s reporter, “Armed Hamas men sought out a good position for provoking the Israelis. There were mostly teenagers, aged 16 or 17, and armed. They couldn’t do a thing against a tank or a jet. They knew they are much weaker, but they fired at our houses so that they could blame Israel for war crimes.”

The reporter for the Italian newspaper also quoted reporters in the Strip who told of Hamas’ exaggerated figures, “We have already said to Hamas commanders – why do you insist on inflating the number of victims?”

These same reporters mentioned that the truth that will come out is likely to be similar to what occurred in Operation Defensive Shield in Jenin. “Then, there was first talk of 1,500 deaths. But then it turned out that there were only 54, 45 of which were armed men,” the Palestinian reporters told the Italian newspaper.

(from Honest Reporting)

It’s just as I said in my previous post. Hamas are the purveyors of Bullshit. They tell such porkies that their noses must be a mile long!

A favourite author of mine whose pseudonym is Saki describes one of his characters as “a duck that goes flapping about with forced cheerfulness long after its head’s been cut off.” This quote reminds me of the knight in the “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” movie, who has lost both his arms and both his legs but is optimistic that he is really, really, doing fine and that he is actually the victor in the battle that had just taken place.

Now back to the unilateral ceasefire that Israel has announced. As long as Hamas stops firing rockets into Israel, the ceasefire will endure, but of course, as expected, there was a flurry of rockets into Israel and then Hamas agreed to sit in the naughty corner. After a few hours of sulking it announced that it too was declaring a unilateral ceasefire. So there!

So now we have two unilateral ceasefires. For the time being, that is, until the absentee leader of Hamas, Khaled Meschal, who is relaxing in Damascus, can persuade his gullible followers that they should continue the resistance.

And there’s more…not only are the people of Gaza victims but they are also victors. Easy for Meschal to say, when he is safely away from all the action. So much flapping about from the naughty chair. Hamas has given Israel one week to leave and that’s straight after Israel said it will start pulling out ASAP. Huh? Time to have a pensive suck of the old thumb, I suggest. Make up your mind. Are you winners or losers? Have a good look at what you have done to your people.

Much has been claimed about the disproportionate casualties and deaths in Gaza. I have to agree with that. We have just been told by the BBC that 56% of the population of Gaza is under 16. Assuming that half of the rest of the population of Gaza are women, then it means that about 78% of Gazans are women and children. Given that only about 1/3 of the reported casualties are women and children, it shows that these are significantly fewer than one should expect. This is where the disproportion occurs.

In my opinion, therefore, this comparatively low number of child casualties demonstrates that the Israelis have been extremely cautious about whom they target. This is in spite of Hamas’s nefarious habit of hiding among their civilians and using them as human shields

Let’s face it, the Hamas shelling into Israel has been directed at all civilians, not militants, and it doesn’t matter to Hamas whether the targets are women and children. Whilst Israel fights to protect its people, Hamas use their own as human shields and cannon fodder.

It is Hamas who are responsible for the deaths of their own women and children and according to their infamous Charter, that terrorist organisation would like to annihilate all Jews. If Hamas is prepared to sacrifice their own children to their murderous cause, well, we have to take them seriously, don’t we?

A zoo was discovered to have been wired with Hamas explosives in Gaza. Although I think that it is very laudable for PETA (the animal activists) to rescue a geriatric lobster from a tank in a New York restaurant, where is Peta’s outrage at a zoo being rigged to blow up Israeli soldiers or any Gazan children who might walk by? How about the animals that were left there to be blown up?

Seems as if PETA are very selective about their protests, aren’t they? If they really cared about animals, they would have complained about Hamas’s booby trapping of the zoo.

In my opinion, PETA are above all else politically motivated and animal rights are just a means to an end. You only have to listen to them raving on about wanting to destroy the wool industry in Australia to be suspicious about who is funding them.