Wetherhorn

Israel has been making serious efforts to get civilian non-combatants out of the areas where there is fighting. One such effort was made yesterday when the IDF told Gazan civilians that a particular stretch of road through an open area (no houses) could be used during a specified time by those civilians to leave the combat zone and go south. A lot of people tried. Hamas opened fire on them with mortars, killing several. Then, callously, Hamas tried to blame Israeli air raids for deaths. I saw some footage showing the bodies. It is an open area with nothing that could be considered a target for air attacks. But CNN, without screening pictures, has parroted the Hamas claim. Once again “More people get their disinformation from CNN than from any other source”.

While on the subject of CNN, one of their stories talked about the protection hospitals get under ‘international humanitarian law”. The legal item cited was ratified (so says CNN) by the Palestinians, but NOT by Israel. Nevertheless, Israel has tried to get the hospitals to evacuate because Hamas has been using them for storing, and even launching, rockets and locating command centers in tunnels underneath the hospitals. Israeli attempts to get people out of the hospitals include telephone calls, e-mails, and even leaflets dropped from the air. So far as I know, the hospitals have not been directly attacked. But the CNN report spent a lot of time discussing this as a possible war crime and did not devote even one small sentence to the well-known fact that firing unguided ballistic rockets at population centers is certainly a war crime. The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court has been frequently quoted regarding investigating ‘possible’ Israeli war crimes. The latest time was on CNN this morning.He has yet to make a statement about Hamas war crimes that have been seen on our TV screens regularly.

Did anyone think to ask why there are so many people demonstrating to “free Palestine” and there are no such similar massive demonstrations regarding other conflicts like in Sudan or Ukraine? A British commentator on Sky News pointed out that the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” was actually a call for genocide.

When Israel tries to have civilians leave the combat zone, Hamas calls Israeli attacks ‘Genocide”, and, because Hamas has total control over all media reporting from inside Gaza, that smear is being repeated, uncritically, almost all over the world.

I previously warned about taking reports from inside Gaza as “fact”. That warning has to be extended to include many UN officials. UNRWA employees in Gaza, and their supervisors, are almost all Gaza residents. Unsurprisingly, most of the ‘news’ they get is only from Hamas controlled sources. This does not mean that they always lie, but it does mean their claims should be examined carefully. Gaza, unlike Israel, does not have true freedom of the press.

Finally, US Secretary of State Blinken met with a lot of Arab ministers. They all called for a cease-fire. Blinken voiced support for “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting. The important thing was what was not said. No report that I’ve seen yet mentioned the kidnapped hostages held by Hamas.