During 2011 the IDF achieved an unparalleled low civilian casualty record during operations targeting terrorists

The IDF operations were targeting the indiscriminate launching of rockets into civilian areas by Hamas and other terror groups.

Happy new year folks, other bloggers have reviewed the year far better than I could so I shall just say good night to 2011 with this under-reported nugget of information concerning Israel's counter-terror operations.  This is from American thinker full text below, also check out Qassamcount for an online record of continuing indiscriminate terror attacks against civilians by Hamas/Islamic Jihad.  I'm off out now so happy new year folks!  This makes the 'we are all Hamas now' crowd look stupid but we already knew they are stupid.  From American thinker: 

In a year-end review of countering rocket fire from Gaza, the IDF reports that its retaliatory fire killed 100 Palestinians, including nine civilians. The rest were combatants linked to Palestinian terror organizations. Put another way, the Palestinian fatality toll included 10 fighters for every civilian.The one-to-10 noncombatant-combatant fatality ratio is unique among conflicts around the world. No other army can boast of similar records of minimal civilian collateral damage. In fact, the United Nations estimates that 30 civilians are killed for every 10 combatant fatalities in conflicts elsewhere in the world. That's three times as many non-combatants as combatants.


The IDF's record is the more remarkable when one considers that Palestinian terror groups are deeply embedded in civilian neighborhoods, requiring ever greater IDF pinpoint accuracy in retaliatory strikes as well as extensive intelligence inside Gaza to select proper targets. Also, quite often, IDF commanders will forgo ordering an attack when the potential for civilian casualties seems too high.
Yet, if one reviews mainstream media reports in 2011 about the continuing Gaza conflict, scant attention is paid to the paucity of Palestinian civilian casualties. Headlines regularly announce that "Israel killed 3 Palestinians" -- leaving readers in the dark about who these casualties are or, worse, concluding erroneously that they're probably civilians. And virtually never do reporters dig into the lengths to which the Israeli military goes to spare civilians.


This remains most notable in coverage of Israel's counter-terrorism incursion into Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009. To this day, media like the New York Times, abetted by spurious reports from human rights organizations and the UN's notorious Goldstone report, still buy into Palestinian casualty figures hook, line and sinker, vastly exaggerating Palestinian civilian fatalities while overlooking hundreds of combatant fatalities.


The IDF, which conducted a detailed post-offensive investigation into Palestinian fatalities, found that there were 1,166 Palestinian fatalities, including 709 combatants, from what was dubbed Operation Cast Lead. And it identified every one of them. In three weeks of grueling ground combat, in the face of terrorist fire from amidst Gaza civilians, the number of Palestinian combatant fatalities still substantially exceeded the number of non-combatants -- by a margin of 6 to 4.


These breakdowns, however, were mostly ignored by mainstream media, while overall casualty totals were vastly inflated by the Palestinian side and by self-appointed human-rights groups. And, more often than not, combatant-versus-noncombatants breakdowns never made it into print.
To this day, the New York Times, in referring to Israel's 2008-2009 Gaza offensive, simply mentions that 1,400 Palestinians were killed. Which falsely suggests that Israel used disproportionate force. A breakdown of civilians and non-civilians would throw light on what actually happened. But that king of reporting is not fit to print in the New York Times.
In similar vein, the UN's Goldstone report accepted largely pro-Palestinian statistics to buttress its gross libel that the IDF deliberately targeted civilians.


Ironically, Hamas -- long after the ground war was over -- accepted breakdowns much closer to the truth. Why? Because, on reflection, phony big numbers for civilian deaths and phony small numbers for combatant deaths were apt to minimize Hamas's "heroic" resistance against Israeli forces. So, Hamas belated announced that it had lost 600 to 700 of its fighters - a range quite close to the IDF's conclusions.
But this also is of little interest to Western reporters determined to martyrize Palestinians while maligning Israel and its military.
Leo Rennert is a former White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief of McClatchy Newspapers

The Picture says it all - Best Wishes to the Shalit Family

Image taken from my friend Chas's excellent blog, he has had to modify his campaign ribbon.  Congratulations to all of those involved in the campaign to free Gilad.  I will leave it there.

Jonathan Sacerdoti on Al Jazeera discussing the Gaza flotilla incident

Brilliant performance by Jonathon on English Al Jazeera. Note how his opponent in the debate Dr Gharda Karmi seeks to dismiss his arguments instead of actually addressing them. Well done Jonathon! Anyone wishing to discuss further can join in the comments section below.

Israel is not lost at sea.. Evidence shows their troops acted in self defence

Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmara. The ship
was sent by the Islamist IHH organisation. More
on them below. Also watch the video on the BBC website I've
linked to and decide how 'peaceful' those protesters were?


An awful lot of hysterical bleating (from people like the Hamas loving Greens) is going on about the fiasco that unfolded this morning at sea, when Israeli troops boarded a ship carrying support for a genocidal terrorist movement; Hamas. What I will do is call for balance and clear thinking from all people concerned with the situation. Those people who support Hamas and that of course includes the militant left can go hang. This blog post is aimed at sensible people and hopefully along with the report by the BBC and BICOM we can at least form a balanced assessment of what actually happened.





What I will also say is this. You're a soldier or police officer facing a hostile crowd that outnumbers you and is attacking you with iron bars, knives and you think you hear shots. What do you do? Oh and in the time taken for you to read this a member of your team has been disarmed and shot by their own rifle. I'm a former soldier who has faced hostile crowds. I would open fire in those circumstances and so would any sensible professional. Unless you just want to watch your friends get bludgeoned to death and hope they grant you mercy when they turn on you? Full text from BICOM follows:





BICOM Briefing: Gaza Flotilla Incident
This brief provides currently available information on the Gaza flotilla incident. Updated information will be provided as it becomes available.





Key Points:



Israeli forces stormed a flotilla of activists' boats attempting to break the blockade of Gaza early this morning, resulting in at least 10 deaths among those on board.
Prior to the incident, Israel offered to transfer the aid carried by the protestors to the Gaza Strip via land borders under the activists' observation, after security checks. Whilst committed to facilitating the flow of aid to Gaza, Israel is concerned not allow the Gaza coast to become a corridor for weapons transfers to Hamas.
There has been an angry reaction in particular from Turkey, the Palestinians, and Israeli Arabs. International organizations are demanding explanations from Israel.
Israeli ministers have expressed "sorrow" at the deaths but stressed that the protestors acted violently to the Israeli forces including with live fire. Israel has also highlighted that IHH, the Turkish group involved in the flotilla, is believed to have a history of support for terrorism.
What happened?



Early on Monday 31 May, a flotilla of six activist's boats headed towards the Gaza coast.
They were met by vessels from the Israeli Navy about 60km from the coast, apparently in international waters. The Israeli navy warned them that that Gaza is under naval blockade. The Israeli navy invited the boats to enter the Ashdod port, north of Gaza. Israel offered to transfer the humanitarian aid to Gaza under the observation of the activists, according to Israeli authority regulations. The flotilla continued to try and reach the Gaza coast.
A team of Israeli commandos from the elite naval Shayetet 13 commando unit boarded the protest boats at around 4am from helicopters. It appears that five of the boats were captured without violence, but that on the largest, the Turkish flagged Marmara, Israel soldiers were met with planned, violent resistance, which Israeli officials described as attempts to lynch the soldiers.



The IDF says they were attacked with "live fire and light weaponry including knives and clubs". Turkish television footage shows Israeli soldiers landing on the decks of the boats and immediately being set upon by men with sticks and planks. In the ensuing struggle at least ten, and possibly as many as nineteen, activists were killed and ten Israeli soldiers were harmed, four seriously. One soldier was stabbed and two were shot with firearms taken from the soldiers.
Who was on the protest boats and what was their aim?
Some 700 activists are reported to be on the boats, including 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland, European legislators and British activists. The Marmara is reported to be carrying more than 500 people.
The organizations involved in the movement include the ‘Free Gaza Movement' alongside other European NGOs, and the Turkish Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH) movement.
The IHH has been accused of being a militant Islamist movement with a record of supporting terrorism. (For a report on IHH by the Danish Institute for International Studies click here.)
Speaking to BBC World News, a spokeswoman for the flotilla, Audrey Bomse stressed that the primary mission of the flotilla was to make a political statement with regard to the human rights of the Palestinian in Gaza and to "break the siege", as opposed to delivering the aid itself.
The groups involved refused requests from Israeli campaigners last week to deliver packages and letters to Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip without any external contact since 2006.



What is Israel's policy on access to the Gaza Strip?
Israel facilitates the daily passage of around one hundred trucks a day of aid to Gaza through its land border. There are no limits on the quantity of aid, but Israel restricts the types of goods it will allow in, because of the state of conflict that exists between Israel and the Hamas regime in Gaza.
Israel is concerned to avoid any action that will strengthen the Hamas government in Gaza, in the context of the divide between Hamas and the moderate Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. In contrast to Gaza, the West Bank has seen considerable improvement in movement and access in the last two years due to improved cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.



Israel insists that all aid entering Gaza be checked to ensure it does not include weaponry. It seeks to maintain the naval blockade in order to prevent the coast of Gaza becoming a corridor for the smuggling of arms to Hamas. Hamas has made considerable efforts to rearm and improve its arsenal with Iranian weapons smuggled under the Gaza-Egypt border.
Egypt, which considers Hamas to present a major threat to its own security, allows almost nothing to pass through its border with Gaza, but large quantities of goods enter the strip through tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.
For more details see BICOM Briefing: Israeli policy on access to Gaza update - 27/5/2010.



What has been the reaction in Israel?
In a press conference, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak expressed his "sorrow" at the events, but stressed the responsibility lay with the organisers of the flotilla. He asserted that the Israeli forces involved were well trained, and acted only to defend themselves. He further emphasised that there was a well established procedure to send aid to Gaza and that it was unacceptable to allow the boats to reach Gaza without security checks, which would open up a precedent for a smuggling corridor.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said, "Israel regrets any loss of life and did everything it could to avoid this outcome," but stressed, that on the part of the protestors, "Their intent was violence, their methods were violence, and the outcome was violence."
Israeli Arab leaders and parliamentarians have reacted angrily, strongly condemning the Israeli actions, and there have been calls for protests among Israeli Arabs.
Israeli media commentators are raising questions about how this operation was planned and executed. Concerns are being expressed about the impact on Israel's international image and the possible reaction from Israeli Arabs and Palestinians.



What has been the international reaction?
Foreign Secretary William Hague said in statement, "I deplore the loss of life during the interception of theGaza Flotilla." He added, "We have consistently advised against attempting to access Gaza in this way, because of the risks involved. But at the same time, there is a clear need for Israel to act with restraint and in line with international obligations."
There has been a very angry reaction from the government of Turkey, the flag state of the largest ship, who have recalled their ambassador. The Turkish Prime Minister has returned early from an overseas trip. Protestors attempted to storm the Israeli consulate in Istanbul.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the incident as a "massacre" and has called for an emergency meeting of the Arab League.
European Foreign Affairs representative Baroness Ashton has called for an inquiry and for crossings into Gaza to be opened.
Robert Serry, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Filippo Grandi, Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency have expressed shock in a statement and sought explanations from Israel.



What will happen now?
The situation at sea is still unclear and Israeli authorities report that the incident is still being brought under control.
Israel has said it will unload and check the aid at the Ashdod port and transfer the aid that is permitted to enter the Gaza Strip via the usual land crossings on the Israel-Gaza border. The protestors will be handled by Israeli immigration authorities.
Another boat of the ‘Free Gaza' movement is heading towards the Gaza Strip and activists have expressed determination to continue their efforts to break the blockade.

A Quick Portrayal of a Modern Hypocrite and Fool..Colonel Desmond Travers IDF

Desmond here was part of an
investigation team that descended
into the production of propaganda

This is a quick article as I need to gear up for covering the pending election. Not that the election will change a single thing in Britain anyway. British Colonels and occasionally American ones have been occasionally portrayed in the media as blimp like figures. Often this is done for amusement. However that accolade now must surely belong to Desmond Travers of the IDF. No not that IDF this IDF the Irish Forces. So who is Desmond Travers? Well he is a former Senior Officer of the IDF and was one of the panelists that produced the Goldstone report for the UN. That is the report which accused both Hamas and Israel of war crimes during Operation Cast Lead. The Goldstone report is widely used to criticise Israel. In fact it has some authority in many people's eyes as it was produced by a UN body. Even though the body itself is a complete turkey which appointed Sudan as a member on May 4th 2004! Previous members have included Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Cuba. You probably get the point. That was the esteemed body for which Travers worked.

So my concerns for Travers are? Well quite simply the man is not equal to the task of performing an investigation into human rights violations. He has serious baggage, it was his intent from the start to use the report as a means of attacking Israel. This man should not be trusted to run a bath let alone mount an investigation. Read the following report in the Jerusalem Post by Alan Dershowitz. The Goldstone report was never meant to be impartial. In fact it could not possibly have been. Travers would have seen to that himself. He wanted to use the report to attack Israel. Travers has also unsurprisingly made paranoid and anti-Semitic remarks about a 'Jewish lobby'. For proof of that and a video of the man displaying his limited grasp of debating skills look at this piece by my friend Chas Newkey-Burden. Note how Travers evades the question. Also his completely contradicts himself saying that remarks about mosques storing munitions, can only be made if supported by forensic evidence. He states assuredly that no mosque did store munitions in Gaza, yet he he conducted no forensic investigation himself. He then theorises that munitions would not ever be stored in a place of worship, as his ancestors had been insurgents during the Irish war of independence. His ancestors had not done so between 1919- 1921 so therefore Hamas would never do so in 2009! What fatuous nonsense! The video is below:





Desmond Travers is a hypocrite, a political actor and not an investigator and an utterly disingenuous fool. You don't like me calling you that Des? Tough plenty of other people are and you can always sue me. Only I'll use your own words as evidence for this claim.


Full text on Travers in the Jerusalem Post below:


When Irish Colonel Desmond Travers eagerly accepted an appointment to the Goldstone Commission, he was hell-bent on revenge against Israel based on paranoid fantasies and hard left anti-Israel propaganda. He actually believed, as he put it in a recent interview, that "so many Irish soldiers had been killed by Israelis," with "a significant number who were taken out deliberately and shot (in southern Lebanon.)" This is of course complete and utter fantasy, but it was obviously part of Col. Travers' bigoted reality.

Travers came to the job having already made up his mind not to believe anything Israel said and to accept everything Hamas put forward. For example, Israel produced hard photographic evidence that Gaza mosques were used to store rockets and other weapons. Other photographs, taken by journalists, also proved what everybody now acknowledges to be true: namely that Hamas, as its leaders frequently boasted, routinely use mosques as military munitions depots. When confronted with this evidence, Travers said, "I don't believe the photographs." Of course not; they don't comport with his politically correct and ideologically skewed world-view. This is what he had previously said about why he didn't believe that Hamas used the mosques to store weapons:


We also found no evidence that mosques were used to store munitions. Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion. ...If I were a Hamas operative the last place I'd store munitions would be in a mosque. It's not secure, is very visible, and would probably be pre-targeted by Israeli surveillance. There are a [sic] many better places to store munitions."


But that is exactly what Hamas did, despite Travers' insistence on paraphrasing Groucho Marx's famous quip, "Who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?"

Most disturbing, however, was Travers' categorical rejection of Israel's claim that it attacked Gaza only after enduring thousands of anti-personnel rockets intended to target Israeli civilians, mainly schoolchildren. In fact, Hamas rockets hit several schools, though fortunately the teachers had dismissed the students just before the rockets would have killed dozens, perhaps hundreds, of them.

This is what Travers said about Hamas rockets:


...the number of rockets that had been fired into Israel in the month preceding their operations was something like two. The Hamas rockets had ceased being fired into Israel and not only that but Hamas sought a continuation of the cease-fire. Two had been fired from Gaza, but they are likely to have been fired by dissident groups, [i.e. groups that were violating a Hamas order not to fire rockets]." (emphasis added).

Again, Travers' rendition defies the historical record and tells us more about Travers than it does about what actually provoked Israel into finally taking action to protect some million civilians in range of Hamas' rockets. In fact Israel complied with the cease-fire, under the terms of which Israel reserved the right to engage in self-defense actions such as attacking terrorists who were in the process of firing rockets at its civilians.

Just before the hostilities began, Israel offered Hamas both a carrot and a stick: it reopened a checkpoint to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. It had closed the point of entry after the checkpoint was targeted by Gazan rockets. Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, also issued a stern, final warning to Hamas that unless it stopped the rockets, there would be a full-scale military response.

This is the way Reuters reported it:


Israel reopened border crossings with the Gaza Strip on Friday, a day after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned militants there to stop firing rockets or they would pay a heavy price. Despite the movement of relief supplies, militants fired about a dozen rockets and mortar shafts from Gaza at Israel on Friday. One accidentally struck a house in Gaza, killing two Palestinian sisters, ages 5 and 13." (emphasis added)


Despite the opening of the crossings, the Hamas rockets continued - not none, not "something like two," but many - and Israel kept its word, implementing a targeted air attack against Hamas facilities and combatants.

Not surprisingly, Travers said that he "rejected ... entirely" Israel's claim that its "attack on Gaza was based on self-defense." Instead, he compared Israel's attack on Hamas to the unprovoked Nazi bombing of "Guirnica."

Travers has repeatedly claimed that "no substantive critique of the [Goldstone] report has been received." This is an out-and-out lie. I have read dozens of substantive critiques, and have written a 49-page one myself. The truth is that Travers has studiously ignored and refused to respond to these critiques. And of course he blames everything on "Jewish lobbyists."

Nor was Travers the only member of the commission with predetermined views and an anti-Israel agenda. Christine Chinken had already declared Israel guilty of war crimes before seeing any evidence. Hina Jilani had also condemned Israel before her appointment to the group, and then said that it would be "very cruel to not give credence to [the] voices" of the victims, apparently without regard to whether they were telling the truth. And then there is Richard Goldstone, who told friends that he too took the job with an agenda, which he says was to help Israel! Why any reasonable person would pay any attention to a report written by four people who had prejudged the evidence and came to their jobs with agendas and biases is beyond comprehension.