Hamas’ strategy of using civilians as human shields is working.
The biggest stories in Gaza War news in the last few days have centered on two purported Israeli strikes in Rafah killing civilians. On Sunday May 26th Israel dropped two small 37-pound bombs to kill two Hamas leaders. These pinpoint bombs killed precisely the leaders they were intended for.
But the Israeli Defense Force says that the explosives appear to have set off a fire in a Hamas fuel tank and a Hamas weapons depot that were planted in the midst of a civilian tent camp. Planted so Hamas could use the civilians as human shields.
Hamas’ human shield strategy worked. Hamas’ own fuel and weapons appear to have killed 42 civilians. But the world media blamed Israel.
On Tuesday, another 21 alleged civilians were killed in yet another tent encampment in the safe-zone of Al Mawasi. Hamas also blamed this on the Israelis.
The Israeli Defense Force says it investigated and found that it had nothing to do with the Al Mawasi deaths. Yet both of these incidents contributed to a growing global outrage against Israel.
The deaths, however, should not be blamed on the Israelis. They should be blamed on the real makers of mass civilian casualties, Hamas.
Hamas are the ones who hide their weapons and fighters among the greatest numbers of civilians. Hamas are the ones who have 311 miles of military tunnels under schools, hospitals, mosques, United Nations buildings, and apartment buildings in Gaza. Hamas are the ones who have 82 tunnel entrances in Rafah alone. Hamas are the users of the human shield strategy.
By the way, having tunnels with your command and control centers under hospitals is a war crime.
The result of blaming these deaths on Israel shows how effective Hamas’ human shield strategy is. Nations are turning against Israel.
South Africa’s ruling party, the ANC, has been allied with the Palestinians since the late 1960s. So in December, South Africa petitioned the International Court of Justice in the Hague to condemn Israel for genocide.
This is an appalling distortion. In fact, it’s Palestinian groups like the Palestinian Authority, Hezbollah, and Hamas whose entire goal is genocide. The Palestinian Authority, Hezbollah, and Hamas are dedicated to wiping Israel and its seven million Jewish citizens off the map. As they put it, “From the river to the sea.” Then they are determined to exterminate Jews all over the world. Their sponsor, Iran, is dedicated to the same cause.
What Hamas and Iran aim for is genocide.
Yet on Friday, May 24th, the Criminal Court of Justice ruled that the party guilty of genocide is Israel. Meanwhile, the chief prosecutor for another world tribunal, the International Criminal Court, has demanded the arrest of Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The ultimate reward for the human shield strategy came when seven nations recognized the so-called Palestinian state. They included Ireland, Norway, Spain, Algeria, Libya, Brazil, and, most surprising of all, Mexico. What’s more, France says it will recognize a Palestinian state when the Palestinians fill several conditions. Meanwhile Israel is striking back by moving to label a major un agency, UNWRA, a terror organization.
How have the Palestinians managed to create such a tsunami of global condemnation? First of all, they are not alone. They are backed by Iran. And they have the support of 55 other Islamic nations, the nations of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the biggest voting bloc in the United Nations.
More important, Hamas’ human shield strategy is backed by a media campaign that has been gaining steam since at least 1980. A campaign to make correspondents from the biggest newspapers in the world as obedient as sheep. A campaign to lead western reporters by the nose.
For example, during the Israel-Lebanon war of 1982, the Palestinian Liberation Organization demanded that all foreign journalists stay in the same hotel, a hotel that was under PLO control. And they let it be known that any journalist who published a story they didn’t like would be tossed out of the country and replaced by a reporter who was more favorable to their cause.
When one correspondent from the Middle East continued to publish stories they didn’t care for, the PLO took him out to the desert and cut him to pieces while he was still alive, starting with his fingers. They took pictures of the bloody murder and slipped those pictures in an envelope under each reporter’s hotel room door. As a warning.
On top of that the PLO lied. In one case, they presented the press with a picture of what they said was a 7-month old Lebanese baby wrapped like a mummy in bandages. The Palestinians said it was a little boy who had lost both his arms and been burned over most of his body. By Israeli weapons.
It later turned out this was not true. The baby had been wounded by Palestinian shelling. Yes, not by Israeli weapons. By a Palestinian shell.
The lies went on. The baby’s burns were minor and healed in two weeks. And both of its arms were still attached. Yet Ronald Reagan kept that photo on his desk. With a caption stating that its injuries were caused by Israel.
All of this took place over 40 years ago. During those forty years the capture of the Western press has inched farther every year. Today the Western media has become a giant bullhorn for Palestinian propaganda. A bullhorn that blasts the false stories produced by the strategy of the human shield.
So when you read that Israel has just committed an atrocity against civilians, ask who put those civilians in harm’s way. And ask what military asset these bad guys were using civilians to shield.
References:
https://worldisraelnews.com/hezbollah-crowdfunding-campaign-sparks-lebanese-criticism/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/28/what-happened-when-israel-attacked-rafah
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-hamas-war-day235-1.7216768
https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-05-29-24/index.html
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2024/05/27/breaking-news/israeli-attack-on-rafah-tent-camp-kills-45/
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Howard Bloom of the Howard Bloom Institute has been called the Einstein, Newton, Darwin, and Freud of the 21st century by Britain’s Channel 4 TV. One of his eight books–Global Brain—was the subject of a symposium thrown by the Office of the Secretary of Defense including representatives from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. His work has been published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Psychology Today, and the Scientific American. He does news commentary at 1:06 am Eastern Time every Wednesday night on 545 radio stations on Coast to Coast AM. For more, see http://howardbloom.institute