Hamas documents its own war crimes

A.P. photo/ Hatem Moussa

Hamas’ web site still documents its war crimes of attacks by mortar, Qassam rocket, and Grad rocket on Israeli cities.

 “Al-Qassam Brigades is declaring its responsibility for the following operations as a response to Zionist aggression on the Palestinian civilians:.”   The web site then lists a number of Israeli cities struck.

Hamas rationalizes its war crimes by: (1) Labeling the Israeli cities “military bases,” as if Israel has no cities; and (2) Accusing Israel of striking Arab civilians as if the Arabs have no military men  (www.imra.org.il, 2/7).

False labeling is one more indication that the Islamist side routinely and deliberately lies about its actions and its accusations.  How much revelation and self-revelation of such deceit will it take for the major media, governments, NGOs, and individual anti-Zionists to stop taking Arab claims seriously?

Commentary has the story of how the Taliban deceived the State Dept. during the Clinton years.  The State Dept. tried diplomacy with the Taliban.  The Taliban dropped hints about expelling Osama from Afghanistan, to keep the State Dept. hopeful of peaceful resolution and away from suggesting military resolution until Osama destroyed the World Trade Center  (February, 2000).

Anti-Zionists purport to stand on high principle.  Where is the principle for all that Islamist deception?  What is humanitarianism about Hamas attacking Israeli civilians?  How valid is Hamas’ excuse, which is a false one anyway, that Israel attacks Arab civilians?  Is it fair of Israel’s usual critics, including the UN and Goldstone, to accept Arab civilian casualty figures in Gaza and elsewhere, when (as I reported earlier) Hamas simultaneously with boasting of terrorism and honoring slain terrorists, and denies that slain terrorists were military personnel?  What ethics have those who accuse Israel of being inhumane but who say nothing, or in Goldstone’s case, deny, that terrorists use their own civilian populations as human shields, the major way by which Hamas fights? 

What rational explanation is there for condemning restrained Israeli self-defense against terrorists who fight from civilian areas against civilian areas?  Readers have told me I contradict world public opinion, in this.  How can one respect a warped world public opinion, based on disinformation and bias? 

In the past couple of days, Hamas apologized to the UN for having committed war crimes, but offered the excuse that it wasn’t aiming at cities.  The excuse is absurd -- Hamas fired short-range rockets into a nearby city.  It knew there was no military base there.  Arab excuses and pretexts should be seen through.

Then Hamas denied apologizing.  (I read the Hamas statement, which did admit firing into Israeli cities.)  Israeli analysts surmise that a Hamas faction objected to apologizing.  Hence the subsequent denial of what happened.  Admissions and agreements garner positive headlines.  The denials usually are ignored or downplayed, no conclusions drawn.  It is a common Arab ruse and media failure. 

What does the ruse indicate?  It indicates that many admissions and acknowledgments by Radical Islam are tactical, insincere, and unreliable.  The West should seek confirmation before accepting apparent agreement. 

The successes of the ruse exploit a media misconception that only the beginning of a story is newsworthy, not the final outcome, not the meaning, and not the revelation that the beginning of a story was premature or a source’s duplicity. 

I believe that new analysis of past events really is news.  The Muslim-Israel conflict has been going on for generations, most people know little about it, and most of their notions are distorted by the big lie technique.  If the West is to survive, it has to report events and their meaning, and develop ideology from reality.  At present, its ideology usually blinds it to reality.