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Surprising
Support for Israel, not Hamas
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The current Hamas assault on Israel has lured the predictable coven of
Palestinian nationalists, Islamists, Leftists, and antisemites from the
woodwork to bash the Jewish state. But, more surprisingly, Israel is getting
support, or at least restraint and fairness, from unexpected sources:
- United
Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: "Today we face the risk
of an all out escalation in Israel and Gaza with the threat of a ground
offensive still palpable and preventable only if Hamas stops rocket
firing."
- The Lebanese
Internal Security Forces detained two persons for having fired
rockets into Israel.
- Egyptian
security forces seized 20 rockets on their to being smuggled into
Gaza.
- Mahmoud
Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority, attended a Ha'aretz
"peace conference" in Israel the day the current fighting
began and has infuriated Hamas by his willingness to continue to work
with the Government of Israel.
- Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser
Judeh demanded that Israel "stop its escalation immediately,"
but balanced this with calls for "the restoration of complete calm
and avoidance of targeting civilians" and "the return to
direct negotiations."
Jordan's Foreign
Minister Nasser Judeh.
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The media too is displaying an unwonted fairness to Israel.
- The BBC published
an article, "Are #GazaUnderAttack images accurate?" about
pictures claiming to show the effects of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and
found that "Some of the images are of the current situation in
Gaza, but a #BBCtrending analysis has found that some date as far back
as 2009 and others are from conflicts in Syria and Iraq."
- CNN's
Jake Tapper asked former PLO legal advisor Diana Buttu about a tape of
Hamas spokesmen encouraging civilians in Gaza to protect homes of Hamas'
leaders with their bodies. When Buttu retorted by calling this a racist
accusation, Tapper replied, "It's not racist, we have video …
That's not racist, it's a fact."
Overshadowing all these indications, but less surprising, Rasmussen
reports that likely American voters by a nearly 3-to-1 margin (42 to 15
percent) blame Palestinians more for the conflict in Gaza than they blame
Israel (according to (about a survey conducted on July 7-8, just as
hostilities began). This is perhaps the single most important statistic about
the conflict from outside the Middle East, certainly more so than Security
Council votes.
Comments: (1) In large part the coolness toward Hamas results from
the belated realization that Islamists pose a greater threat than Zionists.
But media sobriety suggests that, in part, it also follows from a weariness
of Hamas' vile tactics and revulsion against its hideous goal of destroying
Israel. (2) As Hamas'
goal in this war is political, this lesser support is of supreme importance
to it. (July 11, 2014)
Related
Topics: Arab-Israel
conflict & diplomacy, Media This
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