Elder of Ziyon reports in Terrorists brag about causing Gaza civilians to die:
This is a deliberate strategy by the terrorists. Not only are they hiding behind civilians, they are hiding as civilians.Boston Globe columnist, Jeff Jacoby, asserts "Yes, it is anti-Semitism," in the Boston Globe:
This makes it sound like the IDF has astoundingly bad aim.
But to understand it, one can read between the lines of this gloating article from the Islamic Jihad mouthpiece, Palestine Today:
In other words, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have made an official tactic out of using civilians as human shields and out of shooting at Israel as civilians. They are proud that the number of apparent (and real) civilian casualties has increased in recent days.
Their war policy is to violate the Geneva Conventions brazenly and officially. Their aim is to maximize the number of civilians killed in Gaza.
The video shows this policy in action. If Israel manages to hit the rocket shooters, they get counted as "civilians," and any bystanders on that street who get killed are icing on the cake for Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Since the dead are "martyrs" anyway, they can justify this sick and cynical use of their own people as just another shortcut to Paradise, and each dead civilian is a victory for them, each dead body a literal prize to be photographed and shown off ad infinitum on Arab websites and TV networks.
We've always known this, but they have not usually been as forthcoming about it as this article indicates.
The Arab-Israeli conflict induces strong passions, and the line that separates legitimate disapproval of Israel from anti-Semitism may not always be obvious. But its's safe to assume the line has been crossed when you hear someone urging Jews "back to the ovens."
The Danish website Snaphanen posted a photo the other day of a pamphlet being distributed in Copenhagen's City Hall Square. On one side it proclaimed: "Never Peace With Israel!" and "Kill Israel's People!" On the other side: "Kill Jewish people evry where in ther world!" The leaflet's spelling left something to be desired, but its message of genocidal anti-Semitism couldn't have been clearer.
Likewise the message in Amsterdam on Saturday, where the crowd at an anti-Israel rally repeatedly chanted, "Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the gas." And the message in Belgium, where pro-Hamas demonstrators torched Israeli flags, burned a public menorah, and painted swastikas on Jewish-owned shops.
Only marginally less vile is the message that has been trumpeted at demonstrations from Boston to Los Angeles (see video) to Vancouver: "Palestine will be free/ From the river to the sea" - a restatement in rhyme of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped from the map."
Let's say it for the thousand-and-first time: Every negative comment about Israel is not an expression of bigotry. Israel is no more immune to criticism than any other country. But it takes willful blindness not to see that anti-Zionism today - opposition to the existence of Israel, rejection of the idea that the Jewish people are entitled to a state - is merely the old wine of anti-Semitism in its newest bottle.
The claim that anti-Zionism isn't bigotry would be preposterous in any other context. Imagine someone vehemently asserting that Ireland has no right to exist, that Irish nationalism is racism, and that those who murder Irishmen are actually victims deserving the world's sympathy. Who would take his fulminations for anything but anti-Irish bigotry? Or believe him if he said that he harbors no prejudice against the Irish?
By the same token, those who demonize and delegitimize Israel, who say the world would be better off without it, who hold it to standards of perfection no other country is held to, who extol or commiserate with its mortal enemies, who liken it to Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa, who make it the scapegoat not only for crimes it hasn't committed, but for those of which it is a victim - yes, such people are anti-Semitic, whether they acknowledge it or not.
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