Palestinians use human shields in attacks

AP/NY Times:

Israeli-Palestinian fighting escalated sharply Saturday, leaving dead 33 Palestinians, including a 13-month-old girl, and clouding peace talks ahead of a visit to the region by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Sixteen civilians were killed, and dozens were wounded, authorities said. In all, 63 people have died since clashes between Israel and extremists affiliated with Gaza's ruling Hamas movement spiked Wednesday. At least 33 were civilians.

An Israeli man was also killed by Palestinian rocket fire that grew more ominous when it struck closer to Israel's heartland. The rocket fire has renewed threats of an Israeli invasion of Gaza.

Hamas said the baby, Malak Karfaneh, died just before midnight Friday in an Israeli strike on Beit Hanoun, a northern town where militants often launch rockets at Israel. But local residents said one of those rockets fell short and landed in the area of the child's house.

...

West Bank-based Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is trying to negotiate a peace accord with Israel, condemned the civilian deaths.

''We tell the world, watch and judge what's happening, and judge who is committing the international terrorism,'' he said.

But Israeli government spokesman David Baker said Israel was ''compelled to continue to take these defensive measures'' to protect more than 200,000 Israelis living under the threat of Palestinian rocket barrages.

Militants ''hide behind their own civilians, using them as human shields, while actively targeting Israeli population centers,'' Baker said. ''They bear the responsibility for the results.''

Israel evacuated its troops and settlers from Gaza in late 2005, but militants proceeded to fire rockets from the abandoned territory. Militants raised the stakes significantly by firing Iranian-made rockets into Ashkelon, a coastal city of 120,000 people.

...

The Palestinian terrorist have to be the most despicable people in the world. They engage in unprovoked attacks on non combatants and hide behind the skirts of women and children to make those attacks. They then pretend to be victims when Israel fights back. The Arab world has for too long ignored the egregious provocations and focused on the Israeli response.

Instead the response to these attacks is described as a massacre or genocide. A favorite phrase in the Arab media is "collective punishment." It never occurs that the term would be more appropriately applied to Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli non combatants. The Arab treatment of this conduct is as disgusting as the actions of the Palestinians. It is a reflection of their ethnic hatred of Jews and their religious bigotry.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more