Gail Winston, Director of M.E.I.R., Mid East Information Resource

Major newspapers, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, 'et al' all blamed Israel for the seven deaths on the Gaza beach Friday June 9, 2006. (1 & 2) The Israeli Government anxiously took the blame without first investigating or even questioning the facts of the accusations. The Israeli Media jumped in quickly to 'catch a scoop', never questioning the accuracy of the Arab Palestinian claim.

This isn't the first time that Israel takes the blame first, then says they are investigating. By the time they complete their investigation and determine that Israel is NOT at fault, the audience has left the theater. It is too late.

Israel had stopped her retaliatory shelling before the shell on the beach exploded.

As always expected, the Media went into a feeding frenzy, merely on the claim of the Arab Palestinians but the clincher was the pathetic stupidity of the government apologizing. Most recently (June 5th), PM Olmert apologized to Egypt's King Mubarak for the IDF's killing of 2 Egyptian terrorists dressed in Egyptian army uniforms. (3)

Why must Israel always take the blame first? Is this a Jewish tradition or is this government of Jews merely inept? Because we apologize for every possible attack, we are now accused first before we can possibly investigate to learn the truth. This happened with the Mohammed al Dura story in 2000, the so-called "massacre in Jenin" and the killing of 21 people in the Jabaliya refugee camp September 2005. These stories are not over yet. They continue as a tradition today. Newspapermen say: "If it bleeds; it leads."

Some facts of the June 9th story:


1. A shell (or something) exploded on a beach in Gaza.
2. An IDF officer said that all IDF retaliatory shelling in the Gaza area had ceased well before the dramatic explosion on the beach.

3. This is an area from which the Arab Muslim Palestinians has been launching Kassem Rockets daily.

4. Seven Arab Muslim Palestinians were killed. One dramatic picture on the cover of the NYT, page 3 of the Chicago Trib, etc. showed a beautiful young girl screaming in agony over the death of her father lying next to her. This is the lasting image and the entire story to be told. By Monday the NYT headline is: "Errant Shell Turns Girl Into Palestinian Icon". (5)

One commentator wondered how the camera got there so fast or was the scene re-enacted? The truth in the Muhammed al-Dura death was revealed much later when an Italian videographer showed that the line of fire that caught the boy could have only come from the Palestinians not the Israelis.

5. The Arabs removed all evidence of shrapnel that could prove whose shell was to blame.

6. The Arabs removed all the wounded and dead with the shrapnel in them also removed to eliminate any evidence. They refused to have the bodies examined for forensic evidence of what actually killed the seven. Two are being treated in Israeli hospitals.

If this was an Israeli shell, wouldn't the Arabs have left the 'evidence' and gathered the Media to see it, instead of raking the sand to remove any tell-tale fragments?

7. The Arab Muslim Palestinians were known to have other explosives in this area but, refused to co-operate in any way with the Israeli investigators.

8. Hamas vows 'earthquake' after 7 were killed on the Gaza beach, ending a (supposed) 16 month truce, saying it would resume attacks following the explosions (which the Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz, Yediot Aharonot, Ma'ariv and others all said the explosion was 'possibly' caused by IDF artillery fire). (4)

The Hebrew and Anglo Media jumped to the conclusion, as did the government, that it must have been an Israeli shell. Only later were there speculations offered by the Media that the explosion was likely caused by an errant Kassam Rocket.

9. Defense Minister Amir Peretz (in his ignorance) urged Palestinians not to retaliate (because he expected them to.)

The New York Times on June 12th ran an article about a surviving girl. Squeezed into the article was a reluctant statement about the area of the Gaza beach being used as a staging area for crude Kassem Rocket attacks against Israel. Using civilians as human shields and cover has always been the Arab Muslim M.O. (Modus Operandi). IF it was a Kassem Rocket exploding among the civilian cover picnicking on the beach, that would explain their refusal to allow inspection of the area and their sifting of the sand for any residual shrapnel. Also, their refusal to allow forensic examination of the bodies for the manufactured source of the shrapnel further indicates that it was a Palestinian-made Kassem Rocket.

As to be expected, the NYT is following the sympathy theme of the surviving girl and Mohameed Al-Dura making their case, not on the facts but by the outpouring of sympathy and a cover-up of who killed the victims. As they made Mohammed Al-Dura a poster child for their PR war in 2000, now they are using this girl as the "orphan" poster child.

Don't wait for an apology from the sensationalistic Media who slant their reports against Israel deliberately. It rarely come.

Another question to be asked: IF that area has become a launching spot for Rockets, assuring Israel's reprisals, why would either Fatah or Hamas not keep the area clear of civilians instead of inviting them to be there.

Are the civilian Muslim Palestinians supposed to be volunteers for martyrdom and also serve as human shields for the Kassem Rocket launching teams? (5)



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"Gissin: Don't blame Israel first"

by Herb Keinon JERUSALEM POST June 11,

Israelis are doing themselves a gross disservice, and playing into the hands of the Palestinians, by presuming that an Israeli shell caused the deaths of seven Palestinian civilians Friday in Gaza, Prime Minster Ehud Olmert's Foreign media advisor Ra'anan Gissin said Sunday.

"We are repeating the same mistakes of the past in taking responsibility when there are other possibilities about who is responsible," Gissin said.

He said that Friday's tragedy on the Gaza beach may indeed be similar to the shooting of Mohammed al-Dura in 2000, the "Jenin Massacre" in 2002, and the killing of 21 people at the Jabaliya refugee camp Sep. 2005. While the Palestinians originally pinned the blame for all these incidents on Israel, it has since been revealed that al-Dura may have been killed by Palestinians [according to an Italian TV video], that there was no "Jenin massacre," and that the deaths in Jabaliya were caused when Hamas activists "mishandled" explosives at a mass rally.

Gissin said that Israel should immediately have raised doubts after Friday's incident about the Palestinian version of events that placed the blame squarely on Israel.

"We jumped to conclusions before the evidence, and we immediately assumed that it was probably an Israeli shell," Gissin said. "But we don't know that for a fact. The Palestinians moved in and destroyed all the evidence. People should be asking themselves, 'why?' "

Just as Israel is conducting an investigation, Gissin said that the international community should also be demanding that the Palestinians conduct an investigation. But rather than doing that, he said, the Palestinians are removing evidence from the scene.

"We look at the area as a battle zone," Gissin said, "while the Palestinians view it as a crime scene, and are interested in making the evidence look like Israel carried out an atrocity," he said.

Gissin said that the evidence "didn't add up" in Jenin to equal a massacre because there were not enough bodies, and in Jabaliya there were too many witnesses to what happened to buy the Hamas line that the explosion in 2005 was the result of missiles fired by an IDF helicopter.

"But now we have a classic case where there is no real evidence, and all we have is a picture of a crying girl on the beach," Gissin said of Friday's incident in Gaza. "Nobody knows how the people there were killed. If it was an Israeli shell, why didn't the Palestinians invite the press to see the remnants of the shell, why have they been so quick to remove the evidence?"

Gissin bemoaned a situation where he said that instead of waiting for the investigation, the Israeli press jumped to the conclusion that it was an errant Israeli shell and reflexively began calling for an end to artillery fire on Gaza.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev, meanwhile, said that considering the circumstances, Israel weathered this particular storm in the foreign media "fairly well." Regev said that none of the serious international news outlets blamed Israel for intentionally targeting the civilians, and that most mentioned that Israel expressed regret and set up an investigation of the incident. Regev said that the Foreign Ministry and IDF coordinated Israel's reaction after the incident and that there were two main messages:

1. That Israel regretted the incident and expressed sorrow for it; that it deems the loss of innocent civilian life unacceptable; but that it was not taking responsibility because an investigation into exactly what happened was continuing.

2, That the violence in Gaza is a result of Palestinian extremists continuing to launch rockets on Israel even though Israel pulled out of Gaza 10 months ago and has neither a single settler nor soldier there.

Regev said that this message did not emphasize the possibility that the Palestinians may have been responsible for the blast, because no one at this point knows exactly what happened. Israel, he said, did stress that it was investigating the incident, and that it was premature to draw conclusions.

This article can also be read at

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150035829904&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFul





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IN CLOSING FROM GAIL WINSTON:

Anyone who tries to tie the hands of the IDF while they are combating murderous Terrorism is responsible for the Terrorists' success at murdering civilians, both Jews and Muslims. What should we do? Bombard them with flowers? What is a reasonable response when they are shelling our civilians with missiles daily?

Because of all the sympathetic articles written by the NYT, and other Media, the Arab Muslim Palestinians will continue to lob shells and plant explosive charges to detonate in civilian areas, both theirs and ours. The Media will all be culpable for the rising number of civilians hurt and killed (both Jews and Muslims) by the Arabs when they see how effective their campaign is to damage their own people.