A blog for all seasons; A blog for one; A blog for all. As the 11th most informative blog on the planet, I have a seared memory of throwing my Time 2006 Man of the Year Award over the railing at Time Warner Center.
Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue
That's a curious situation. Fatah is nominally in charge of the PA, but that's only because Hamas refuses to recognize the PA since Hamas won elections and Fatah refused to turn over power to them. It's been a power struggle ever since, and the Palestinian civil war ensued with Hamas taking control of Gaza and throwing Fatah from rooftops.
What the UN really means is that they're looking for some kind of way to put Fatah in charge of Gaza, and that is a marginal improvement over Hamas. Fatah has managed to keep violence against Israel down in the West Bank, but they too seek Israel's destruction. More importantly, Fatah lacks legitimacy in the eyes of Gazans, who feel that not only is Fatah corrupt, but that they're collaborators with Israel. It would be an uphill battle for Fatah to gain the trust of Gazans, who still think that Hamas is their best option.
That's truly a sad situation for those Palestinians who just want peace and quiet. Their leaders are genocidal ideologues who seek Israel's destruction and can't accept Israel's destruction. They refuse to negotiate with Israel on anything other than hudnas allowing Hamas time to regroup and rearm for the next phase of their long term war against Israel.
A ceasefire isn't going to stabilize the situation. Victory by Israel will. I keep saying this but it bears repeating. Hamas will not stop its war against Israel until Israel is destroyed. They will continue engaging in a cycle of violence until such time that Israel's will to defend itself has been worn away by media and diplomats who prevent Israel from responding to attacks. It has repeatedly happened over the past six months, where diplomats will excuse the rocket fire from Hamas as isolated incidents. Hundreds of rocket attacks during the so-called ceasefire are isolated incidents? That's not a ceasefire. That's a war, and only when Israel responds with force to put Hamas' capabilities to attack Israel out of business does the world respond with horror.
Diplomats still don't get it. They think that Israel should turn the other cheek and take Hamas rocket attacks without responding. That's the word from none other than Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki. He's got his audiences to deal with - Iraqis who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but his own government doesn't tolerate terrorists operating inside Iraq either.
Hamas rejects international observers in Gaza. That makes sense. Why show the world what the terrorists are doing in violating international law at every turn. They're busy engaging in war crimes by using human shields, operating without uniforms so as to mingle with civilians, using schools (even UNRWA operated ones), UNRWA refugee camps, hospitals, and residences to carry out attacks against Israel. Hamas wanted to turn the urban areas of Gaza into a warzone with the express purpose of maximizing casualties among civilians.
Shortly after 9:00 p.m., Jewish families living in the neighborhood heard a loud explosion. Residents went out to see what had caused the blast and saw that one bomb had been set off in a courtyard and that a second bomb had not yet exploded. Police were called in and safely defused the second bomb.
Neither bomb caused injury, but a child who was playing near the scene of the attack was badly frightened, local Jews said.
Police initially reported that the attack had targeted a known criminal and was apparently criminally motivated. However, by Friday morning police released a second statement, reporting that the attack was apparently “motivated by nationalism” -- in other words, that the attackers targeted Jews simply because they hate Jews.
The attackers managed to flee the scene and have not yet been arrested. Officers said Friday that they were working with Arab and Muslim contacts in the city in an attempt to locate the terrorists.
The media continues its old tricks, claiming that Israel rebuffs peace efforts, when in fact Israel says that there's no way that Hamas will ever agree to any of them, and Hamas agrees - and Hamas proves Israel's point by carrying out still more attacks on Israel.
Noah Pollack makes an argument that I've been making as well (HT: Israellycool). Ceasefires delay peace. They certainly aren't a substitute, and Hamas considers ceasefires to be hudnas in any event. That's why Israel's victory is absolutely necessary in this conflict.
UPDATE: Reports in the Guardian claiming that sources within the Obama Administration are urging low level clandestine contacts with Hamas are untrue, according to a new report from the Jersualem Post.
The Obama spokesperson was responding to an article in Britain's Guardian daily on Friday, which asserted that three people with knowledge of discussions held in the Obama camp said that while the president-elect will not approve direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on, his advisers are urging him to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, in light of the growing recognition in Washington that ostracizing the terror group is counter-productive policy.
"The president elect's repeated statements [about not dealing with Hamas] are accurate," Anderson said. "This unsourced story is not."
Let's hope that the Jerusalem Post report is accurate.
Bob Owens continues taking CNN and the propagandists to task for continuing to lie, obfuscate, and deny that there was ever anything wrong with the videos purporting to show doctors attempting to resuscitate a young Palestinian child.
The problems with the video are numerous, and I've outlined quite a few of them here. Bob has still more analysis.
There's no evidence suggesting that the boys were killed by gunfire or missile or rocket fire - depending on which version of events the CNN or Channel 4 propagandists come up with. You would expect to see cratering, pock marks, scorch marks, shrapnel, and other evidence that the area was fired upon. There's nothing to indicate that the damage and condition to the roof was caused by an attack in the current conflict at all. If anything, the rust stains and damage is consistent with poor construction and spalling of concrete over time exposing rebar. Damage to the galvanized roof panels is consistent not with a recent attack, but a much earlier incident of undetermined origin because damage to such panels do not rust overnight.
It's also interesting that there were quite a few photographers around to take photos of Dr. Mads Gilbert in multiple heroic poses (here, here, or here) - whether it was looking concerned at the bed of a young patient or waiting for patients at the hospital entrance. No one seems to have followed him around when supposedly attempting heroic measures to save the life of the victim portrayed in the propaganda video? No one questioned this self-described Maoist over his support for al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks on the US that killed nearly 3,000 people. Curious. The New York Times had reporters in the same hospital, but didn't question Gilbert about his colleague's CPR techniques. Curious.
These so-called doctors are engaging in medical malpractice if they're indeed providing care to live patients. If they aren't live patients, then engaging in doing show codes for the cameras is blatant propaganda and CNN and the networks who air the video without noting it as such should be rightfully slammed for spreading lies and propaganda.
"It's absolute nonsense," Paul Martin, co-owner of World News and Features, said of accusations leveled by bloggers at videographer Ashraf Mashharawi.
"He's a man of enormous integrity and would never get involved with any sort of manipulation of images, let alone when the person dying is his own brother," Martin said. "I know the whole family. I know them very well. ... [Mashharawi] is upset and angry that anyone would think of him having done anything like this. ... This is ridiculous. He's independent."
Raafat Hamdouna, administrative director at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, said Friday that "Mahmoud Khalil Mashharawi, a 12-year-old, was brought to the hospital, and he was breathing, but he was hit in the head and all over his body by shrapnel. He died later in the hospital. He was treated by the Norwegian team. When he was brought in, he was breathing. The team did their best to save him. I am not really sure if they even tried to rush him to the surgery room, because he was badly hurt."
Mashharawi's video footage originally appeared on British television's Channel 4 and later on CNN. It showed futile attempts by doctors to resuscitate Mashharawi's 12-year-old brother, Mahmoud, after he and his 14-year-old cousin, Ahmed, had been wounded in what the family said was a rocket attack from a remote-controlled drone Sunday. Video
Genuine? Who carries out chest compressions as the man on the right in the video does? If you tried doing that on a person, they would die from a failure to actually get blood flowing. The lack of ventilation would mean that the person would suffer irreparable brain damage from a lack of oxygen. The efforts were futile because the doctors didn't do what the video claims they were doing - attempting to save the child's life.
The same people who are administering the hospital, treating terrorists, and whose life depends on being in Hamas' good graces are not going to honestly say anything that might result in them being treated to Hamas hospitality - thrown off a roof or executed as a collaborator with Israel as so many other Palestinians have witnessed and done.
I want to see a completely unedited version of the hospital footage as the one CNN and Channel 4 has published shows clear signs of editing and that the sequence of action may have changed.
How is it that doctors who have viewed the tape scoff that Gilbert and the other "doctor" were engaging in CPR to save the person's life, while we've got journalists and the videographer's employer saying that everything was legitimate. Whose side to take on that one?
Governor Rod Blagojevich, who was accused of attempting to sell Barack Obama's US Senate seat to the highest bidder has been impeached, the first time in Illinois state history. The Chicago Democrat was impeached by an overwhelming majority.
In a historic vote, the Illinois House has impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich, directing the Senate to put the state’s 40th chief executive on trial with the goal of removing him from office.
The vote by the House was 114-1 and marks the first time in the state's 190-year history that a governor has been impeached, despite Illinois' longstanding reputation for political corruption.
Rep. Milt Patterson (D-Chicago) was the lone vote against impeaching the governor. Patterson, from Chicago's Southwest Side, said after the roll call that he didn't feel it was his job to vote to impeach the governor. He declined comment on whether he approved of the job Blagojevich is doing.
UPDATE: And for the record, the Chicago story doesn't mention Blagojevich's political affiliation. He's a Democrat, not that it matters to most of the press, who would only find reason to include party affiliation when a Republican is involved - and include that detail in every available headline.
While the call is tantamount to a demand on the parties, Israel's troops won't be required to pull out of Gaza until there is a durable cease-fire. The resolution calls on U.N. member states to intensify efforts to provide guarantees in Gaza to sustain a lasting truce, including prevention of illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition.
In Israel's first official response to the resolution, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said the Hamas rockets fired at Israel Friday "only prove that the U.N.'s decision is not practical and will not be kept in practice by the Palestinian murder organizations."
A Hamas spokesman said the Islamic militant group "is not interested" in the cease-fire because it was not consulted and the resolution did not meet its minimum demands.
Israel launched its assault on Dec. 27 in an attempt to halt years of rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled territory.
Despite the devastating offensive, Hamas has kept up rocket attacks on southern Israel. The rockets fired Friday hit in and around two of the largest southern cities, Beersheba and Ashkelon. Cities within rocket range of Gaza have largely been paralyzed since the fighting began.
The Security Council action came hours after a U.N. agency suspended food deliveries to Gaza, and the Red Cross accused Israel of blocking medical assistance after forces fired on aid workers. It also followed concerns of a wider conflict after militants in Lebanon fired rockets into northern Israel early Thursday, though the border has been quiet since.
That's why we're in the current battle in the first place. Israel finally said enough to the incessant rocket attacks and has gone after Hamas. The UN Security Council's latest resolution calls for a ceasefire process, but Hamas has no interest in abiding by it. It's completely impractical when it puts more conditions on Israel than it does on the terrorists who launched the war in the first place; Hamas. They haven't abided by their own ceasefire/hudnas in the past, and this situation is no different. Hamas has wanted war since its creation, and now it has it in spades.
1. The Security Council stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
2. The Security Council calls for the unimpeded provision and distribution throughout Gaza of humanitarian assistance, including of food, fuel and medical treatment.
3. The Security Council welcomes the initiatives aimed at creating and opening humanitarian corridors and other mechanisms for the sustained delivery of humanitarian aid.
4. The Security Council calls on member states to support international efforts to alleviate the humanitarian and economic situation in Gaza, including through urgently needed additional contributions to UNWRA and through the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee.
5. The Security Council condemns all violence and hostilities directed against civilians and all acts of terrorism.
6. The Security Council calls upon member states to intensify efforts to provide arrangements and guarantees in Gaza in order to sustain a durable ceasefire and calm, including to prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition and to ensure the sustained reopening of crossing points on the basis of the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access between the Palestinian Authority; and in this regard, welcomes the Egyptian initiative, and other regional and international efforts that are underway.
That's why the diplomats don't get it. Hamas has no political interest in stopping the war since their religious obligations trump all.
The resolution makes no mention of how Hamas initiated the conflict, continues violating humanitarian truces carried out over the past several days, or that Hamas is responsible for war crimes by using human shields or incitement to genocide by repeatedly calling for Israel's destruction. Instead, we get a statement that condemns acts of terrorism, which Hamas supporters will once again use to claim that Israel is the one engaging in terrorism. Diplomats around the world continue to downplay Hamas' role in causing the current round of fighting, and that only further fuels Hamas - they think that they're wearing down Israel's will to fight and that the diplomatic war against Israel is taking a toll to the point where the diplomats will force Israel to stop defending itself against Hamas and the Islamists.
As seen by comments on my prior coverage, there are more than a few people who think that Israel is the group engaging in terrorism, not Hamas. It's an up-is-down world, and the Security Council resolution does nothing to address this.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad both believes that it is their religious obligation to destroy Israel at all costs, and the human toll is irrelevant - Palestinian or Israeli. The proof is in the comments from the very hospital where Doc. Propaganda is busy committing medical malpractice. This is a hospital that is crawling with stringers and reporters from around the world and no one else caught this nonsense?
A car arrived with more patients. One was a 21-year-old man with shrapnel in his left leg who demanded quick treatment. He turned out to be a militant with Islamic Jihad. He was smiling a big smile.
“Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting,” he told the doctors.
He was told that there were more serious cases than his, that he needed to wait. But he insisted. “We are fighting the Israelis,” he said. “When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away.” He continued smiling.
“Why are you so happy?” this reporter asked. “Look around you.”
A girl who looked about 18 screamed as a surgeon removed shrapnel from her leg. An elderly man was soaked in blood. A baby a few weeks old and slightly wounded looked around helplessly. A man lay with parts of his brain coming out. His family wailed at his side.
“Don’t you see that these people are hurting?” the militant was asked.
“But I am from the people, too,” he said, his smile incandescent. “They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too.”
Israel is going to oblige this Islamic Jihad fool (or should I say tool) along with all of his friends.
Hamas officials said that as of Friday they would not recognize Abbas's status as president of the PA.
But they also made it clear that they would not demand his resignation for now "because of the war" in the Gaza Strip.
"This is not the time to talk about such matters," said one Abbas aide. "President Abbas was elected by a majority of the people, and as such he's the legitimate leader. He represents all the Palestinians and not only those living in the West Bank."
PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayad told reporters on Thursday that the law calls for holding presidential and legislative elections simultaneously. And since the legislative elections are due to be held in January 2010, Abbas is entitled to stay in office for an additional year, he explained.
However, Hamas and some Palestinian legal experts have openly challenged Abbas's right to remain in power after the expiration of his term.
So, while Hamas is busy attacking Israel and considers Abbas out of a job, none other than President Elect Barack Obama thinks that he needs to open dialog with Hamas.
The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon George Bush's doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say.
The move to open contacts with Hamas, which could be initiated through the US intelligence services, would represent a definitive break with the Bush presidency's ostracising of the group. The state department has designated Hamas a terrorist organisation, and in 2006 Congress passed a law banning US financial aid to the group.
The Guardian has spoken to three people with knowledge of the discussions in the Obama camp. There is no talk of Obama approving direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on, but he is being urged by advisers to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, and there is growing recognition in Washington that the policy of ostracising Hamas is counter-productive. A tested course would be to start contacts through Hamas and the US intelligence services, similar to the secret process through which the US engaged with the PLO in the 1970s. Israel did not become aware of the contacts until much later.
UPDATE: The UN is engaging in a blood libel, claiming that Israel told a bunch of Gazans to move from one building to another, and then proceeded to shell the second location, injuring Gazans. It's par for the course when the UN in Gaza are really a bunch of Palestinians and Hamas supporters and sympathizers; they're not objective observers by any stretch. UNRWA's existence is wholly dependent upon the continuation of the refugee crisis, so they have no interest in seeing the conflict end.
**** CNN HAS YANKED THE VIDEO WITHOUT EXPLANATION****
This video appeared on CNN (HT: Last Mohican) and seemed fishy based on what the doctors were attempting to do. The story supposedly is that the child was injured in an Israeli airstrike by a UAV, and that the kid's brother was videotaping life in Gaza when he was summoned to the hospital to video his brother's death.
The video shows two men working over the body of a victim. One of the men giving chest compressions while the other fiddles with the monitor and appears to put EEG leads on the victim. They declare him dead.
If that was the end of the story, it would seem fishy enough, because you don't give chest compressions to the victim's abdomen as the guy on the right was doing. You also don't fiddle with a monitor that isn't hooked up to the victim although there's several rough cuts in the video so that you can't exactly tell the order of the footage.
I took infant, child, and adult CPR courses several times and they repeatedly drilled into us that you have do respiration plus 20-30 compressions (that's changed over the years), each one placed on the sternum going 1-2 inches and that if you're doing it right, you're probably going to crack ribs. The victim is 12 years old, so a two handed technique is workable, although some CPR techniques suggest using 1 hand and only compressing the chest 1 inch.
The guy giving the compressions isn't even doing it in the right position to maximize the chances for the kid to live. It almost looks like the guy is massaging the kids belly, not his chest. His hand position appears significant lower than it should be.
A high-profile Norwegian doctor who has said the September 11 terrorists were justified in their attack is now treating patients in Gaza and is being accused of presenting "hard-core propaganda" to TV interviewers in his telling of the conflict between Hamas and Israel.
Dr. Mads Gilbert has become an unofficial advocate of the Palestinian cause, his critics say.
International media reports, including those from the BBC, CBS, CNN and FOX’s sister station Sky News, present Gilbert as an ordinary doctor.
But a look at his record shows that Gilbert, 61, is a political activist and member of the Norwegian Maoist "Red" party, and he has been involved in solidarity work for the Palestinians since the 1970s. He has criticized the international aid organization Doctors Without Borders for refusing to take sides in conflicts.
Gilbert volunteers at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza with the Norwegian Aid Committee (NORWAC), an aid organization funded by the Norwegian government, and he has been interviewed by the media on a variety of issues. Israeli government officials have said Hamas hides weapons in the hospital where Gilbert works.
Who was really taking the video footage? Was Gilbert really treating this patient properly or was he simply engaging in propaganda for the purpose of attacking Israel? By the looks of it, I'd say that there's reason to question the medical treatment that this person received.
I think it also calls into question reports of casualties and the cause of death as reported from these Gazan facilities. I don't put it past Gilbert or anyone else operating under Hamas to honestly report causes of death or to conduct themselves honorably or morally when Hamas routinely goes through these same hospitals shooting collaborators.
OK, as a neurosurgeon (like Sanjay Gupta!) who has seen plenty of trauma, that was NOT a real resuscitation. It was not even a good fake. The doctors involved in a code, especially for a young child, are anxious and tense, and would be huddled at the bedside and looking at the child and at the monitors, not pacing around and chatting as Gilbert is doing while the bearded guy taps on the chest. Also, this is a death due to rocket trauma. Aside from a tiny round spot that looks like it came from an IV, there is no blood there, not on the sheets, not on the doctors. It was obviously not head trauma, because you see the purported victim's head later, with not a scratch; it's not exsanguination due to a traumatic amputation, since the arms and legs seem intact too. this would have been chest or abdominal trauma. What's the injury here, folks? Where are the chest tubes? Where is the blood?
And the nurse who commented above is correct, this is not what family looks like at a code. They look as though they were instructed to cry. If your child is dying in front of you, and Dr. Gilbert is pacing around, not bent over your child, you get hysterical. I know of several instances of doctors having their teeth knocked out when they came to tell a family member that a child had died, and that is here in the States.
Finally, it defies belief, even if you take the video at face value, that nobody comments on the idiocy of sending your kids to play on the roof in the middle of a war zone. No one at CNN thinks that this is peculiar?
UPDATE: CNN pulled the video without explanation, but Charles at LGF has saved it for posterity via YouTube:
The video also appears on Channel 4 News:
Both videos show signs of editing and jumping during the treatment of the victim. Channel 4's reporter is pontificating and engaging in nothing but propagandizing.
The fact is that this video has now made its way around the world courtesy of CNN and Channel 4 and the lies and smears get spread by CNN without a moment to check to see if any of this checks out.
Once again, former President Jimmy Carter chooses evil over good. He sides with terrorism over a state's right to defend itself from terrorism.
“I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.
After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action.
Knowing that we would soon be seeing Hamas leaders from Gaza and also in Damascus, we promised to assess prospects for a cease-fire. From Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was negotiating between the Israelis and Hamas, we learned that there was a fundamental difference between the two sides. Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza.
We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day.”
There was one way this Gaza campaign could have been avoided: Hamas could have chosen not to repeatedly and incessantly attack Israel with kassams. But for the kassam attacks, Israel would not have launched Operation Cast Lead. The problem of course is that but for Israel's existence, Hamas would not be firing those kassams at Israel. Therein lies the rub. Hamas cannot tolerate Israel's existence. Israel just wants to be left alone and to do so, Israel must stop Hamas from attacking. The world, and Carter, seem more interested in stopping Israel's ability to protect itself than getting Hamas to quit its genocidal campaign.
If Carter truly seeks peace, he should be demanding nothing less than the unconditional surrender of Hamas, but he refuses to make such a case.
Hamas is a terrorist group. Carter speaks up for Hamas and against Israel, which is doing what it can to stop the thousands of rockets fired against Israel since 2000, the hundreds fired during the last ceasefire (6-month hudna that didn’t even make it 5 days before Hamas started firing kassams again), and which has never made a humanitarian gesture of its own unilaterally.
Israel is forced to make concessions in the name of a peace process. Hamas demands concessions while doing nothing.
You want a humanitarian gesture that Hamas should do - release Gilad Shalit unconditionally. That wont happen because Hamas needs him in order to press Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli jails.
Where was Carter to denounce Hamas when it violated the hudna over the summer by firing rockets just six days into the truce? Where was Carter to denounce Hamas for continuing to hold Gilad Shalit for more than two years? Where was Carter to demand Shalit's release as a good faith gesture to Israel? Carter has repeatedly met with Hamas over the past year, and has come away with nothing but egg over his face.
And Carter has the temerity to blame Israel for the current fight in Gaza?
Israel unilaterally left Gaza in 2005; Hamas and Fatah could have built a state using the greenhouses and other infrastructure left by Israel and/or donated by Israeli and Jewish groups seeking peace. Instead, they razed the greenhouses, turned the former Israeli communities into terror training camps and launch facilities for the kassams. Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza because Fatah wasn't fighting Israel enough. Hamas gave Gazans the war they wanted, and Israel has obliged by going after the Hamas that controls all that happens there.
Jimmy Carter is supporting evil and opposing the good. That makes him evil.
Editors who assemble the hornbooks that law students use in law school are always on the prowl for interesting cases and ones that have interesting ethical and moral dilemmas.
You can bet that they're salivating over the possibility that this case makes it all the way to a decision, and that the case doesn't settle before then.
What's the issue? Well, a couple is seeking a divorce. That's nothing new and matrimonial law books are replete with cases. I don't think any of them have ever included a demand for $1.5 million for the kidney that the husband donated to the wife, who later engaged in adultery.
A Long Island surgeon who dumped his wife after she allegedly had a steamy affair wants her to give back the kidney he lovingly gave her, or fork over the $1.5 million he claims the organ is worth.
"I saved her life and then, to be betrayed like this, is unfathomable. It's incomprehensible," said Dr. Richard Batista, 49.
"I feel humbled and betrayed and disregarded. This divorce is killing me."
Batista, a vascular surgeon at Nassau University Medical Center, claimed his wife left him after getting physical with her physical therapist.
He said the couple married on Aug. 31, 1990, in "a very nice, lavish wedding," but two years later, the relationship began a "slow downward trend."
Since he filed for divorce in 2005, he said, she has made it increasingly difficult for him see their three children.
"The main reason the doctor is doing this is because of how he's been treated in this case," said Dominic Barbara, Batista's lawyer.
They are asking for the $1.5 million as part of the distribution of assets based on a medical expert's estimated value of the kidney.
So, what are the key issues here? Does the doctor have a right to recover the value of the kidney? Was it or was it not a gift?
I tend to think that the court, if it makes it that far, will find that the donated kidney was a gift and it is not to be counted as an asset divisible for distribution purposes. From an ethics standpoint, I think the court would be on shaky grounds if it allows the value of the kidney to be included.
Batista apparently found out that his wife was cheating when he discovered that she was doing the paramour's laundry along with the family's laundry. Ouch! No wonder he wants the money...
MSNBC reports that Hamas and Israel are having technical discussions via Egypt based on the Egyptian-French proposals. It can't even wait a few paragraphs before engaging in rampant bias:
Even as the Israeli government tentatively welcomed the cease-fire proposal from Egypt and France, the Israeli military was instructed to continue its assault on Hamas.
Israel said it needs guarantees that any cease-fire will halt rocket fire and prevent Hamas from rearming, while Hamas demands that Gaza's blockaded border crossings be opened.
Despite the reservations, the proposal could mark the first sign of a possible exit from 12 days of bloodshed in Gaza, accompanied by continued Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel.
Hamas broke the 3-hour truce yesterday afternoon with a rocket barrage against Israeli cities, but that gets nary a mention. Instead, we're told that Israel is going to continue to attack Hamas even as it pursues diplomatic options. Funny how that works.
MSNBC, along with much of the rest of the media will focus on the Palestinian death toll, all while ignoring all the rockets fired against Israel for the past eight years with deadly intent (or the past six months during the so-called ceasefire in violation of international law). Hamas gets a pass on its actions, but Israel's response in the face of incessant violence is scrutinized with the goal of preventing Israel from responding altogether.
Where are all the appeals demanding that Hamas stop attacking Israel and releasing Gilad Shalit as humanitarian gestures? So far in this war, Israel has provided all the concessions and all the humanitarian gestures. Israel sends in food shipments, although warehouses are quite stocked with foodstuffs to the point that there are no food shortages. Israel sends in fuel, even as Hamas has repeatedly attacked the fuel depots that supply Gaza. Hamas has attacked with the intention of shutting down power in Gaza, but the media only bothers to pay attention when Israel cuts the power to the very terrorists who use that power to build their weapons for use against Israel.
Morally bankrupt diplomats, including representatives of the Vatican are quick to compare the situation in Gaza to the concentration camps, despite the fact that Hamas is a terrorist group and a national representative of the Palestinians who sought out war with Israel, hides behind the very civilians and couldn't care less how many Palestinians die since the greater the number, the sooner international pressure will be brought to bear to stop Israel's destruction of the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
Israel wanted nothing to do with Gaza after it withdrew unilaterally in 2005, and yet instead of building a viable society, Hamas launched directly into a war with Israel that has brought nothing but grief and ruin to Gaza and caused misery to all Israelis living within rocket and mortar range. Israel wanted quiet, but got a rocket war instead.
No other nation on the planet would tolerate months of rocket attacks from an enemy that seeks its destruction, and yet we've got diplomats from around the world racing to denounce Israel's actions to defend itself from terrorism and the jihad seeking its destruction.
So, what is Hamas' end game? It's the same as it has always been. It wants Israel destroyed. Anything it does short of an unconditional surrender with the destruction of all of its weapons will be in furtherance of its political and religious obligations.
The Hamas Charter makes that abundantly clear. It's a melange of political and religious doctrines and religious obligations. The call to destroy Israel is a religious obligation.
The Hamas Charter also shows how Israel's war is a war that the rest of the West is fighting against Islamic terror since the goals are the same. Laura Mansfield provides more details on the similarities between Hamas and al Qaeda. Keep in mind too that Zawahiri was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which has spawned more terror groups than you can shake a stick at. Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood.
The goals are the same - to destroy Israel and establish an Islamic caliphate under Islamic law. The methods are similar - suicide attacks, mass murder, mass casualty incidents, and jihad against Israel and the West. Pundits and diplomats are quick to cite Israel's violations of international law, but ignore one salient and inconvenient fact. Hamas not only precipitated Israel's response, but its actions have violated international laws at every turn.
Hamas has broken just about every international law or convention with its use of weapons specifically targeting civilian populations, operating without uniforms, using civilians as human shields, hiding weapons and equipment in civilian facilities including schools, hospitals, residences, and mosques, and has engaged in massive and rampant war crimes up to and including the incitement to genocide of the people of Israel. Invariably, human rights groups like Amnesty International and media (including Israel's own Ynet) complain bitterly about Israel's military actions, but ignore why Israel's military is slogging through Gaza going after terrorists in the first place.
Beyond the real and deadly physical violence in Gaza, the propaganda war extends online. I know I'm part of that war, because I'm busy providing facts and details that debunk the Palestinian agitprop that is coming out of Gaza courtesy of a sympathetic media. Still others are engaging in hacking opposition websites, and that's an activity I simply can't condone. I'd much rather see the Palestinian propagandists exposed as the anti-Semitic bigots that they are. I want to see that they get exposed to the antiseptic light of day.
The discussions in Cairo got underway hours after at least three missiles from Lebanon landed near the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, slightly injuring two Israelis, and the Israeli army responded with fire. The rockets from Lebanon raised concern that they could presage a second front in the conflict that would complicate peace efforts and revive memories of the bloody war between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in 2006.
But the Israeli Army later dismissed the rockets on Thursday as “a minor event” and, in Lebanon, the government said Hezbollah had distanced itself from the attack. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora of Lebanon immediately condemned the rocket-fire. In a statement, Lebanese Information Minister Tarek Mitri said: “Hezbollah assured the Lebanese government that it remains engaged in preserving the stability in Lebanon and respects Security Council resolution 1701.”
UN SCR 1701 requires UNIFIL to disarm all militias operating in Lebanon. Hizbullah is saying that they had nothing to do with it. Israeli forces believe that it was yet another Palestinian terrorist group. That terrorists are still firing rockets shows that UNIFIL has not done its job. Again.
Lebanon is responsible for the attacks, and those attacks are an act of war and while the Lebanese and Hizbullah claim that Hizbullah had nothing to do with the attacks, absolutely nothing happens in Southern Lebanon without Hizbullah approval.
Iran is pulling the strings here as Iranian diplomats were busy meeting with Hamas thugs in Damascus. That's no coincidence. It's a mapping out of long term strategies and you can bet that Hamas and Hizbullah were coordinating strategies and tactics to take pressure off Hamas as Hamas is on the ropes. Opening a second front would achieve those goals, and a similar tactic evolved during the 2006 Hizbullah war, when Hamas attacked Israeli communities with their rocket attacks to try and divert attention and Israeli forces from Hizbullah targets in Southern Lebanon.
For Israel, a failure to respond is a sign of weakness and shows that Israel will continue to tolerate random and sporadic attacks, which gives terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizbullah hope that they can gradually increase the rocket fire without incurring Israel's wrath.
The violence has a chance of stopping permanently - true peace - if Hamas surrenders unconditionally. The alternative is that Israel will again be threatened by Hamas attacks as soon as it has regained its strength and rebuilt its weapons caches.
UPDATE: I'm not alone in noting UNIFIL's absolute failure to carry out the terms of UN SCR 1701 and all the related Security Council resolutions. UNIFIL's existence is based on its requirement to demilitarize Southern Lebanon and disarm all the militias operating there. Hizbullah is the biggest, and they're in a stronger position now than they were in 2006. Other terrorist groups operating there do so with Hizbullah's blessings. Richard Fernandez takes UNIFIL and the media to task. He notes that no one is holding the terrorists and regimes responsible for supporting them accountable for their actions to the point that terrorists have free reign to operate in places like Lebanon or Pakistan.
Meryl Yourish looks at Iran opening a second front against Israel via Lebanon to take pressure off their proxies Hamas in Gaza.
UPDATE: Not all civilians are created equal. Terror master Nizar Rayyan who died in airstrikes last week along with his four wives and 11 of 12 children had so thoroughly indoctrinated his children that they begged to be martyrs alongside him.
According to his surviving children, the death of the Rayyan family children was not an accident: Rayyan had trained his wives and children to die with him as "martyrs."
Surviving family members spoke to local Arab media and said that in the days before his death, Rayyan had repeatedly asked his children, "Who wants to die with me as a martyr?" The children would respond, "Yes, daddy, we all want to be with you alive or dead."
Rayyan's adult daughter, Wala, said even the younger children wished to die with their father. "If In the days before his death, Rayyan has repeatedly asked his children, "Who wants to die with me as a martyr?" you had asked my four-year-old sister Aisha, who died in the attack, she would have told you that she preferred to die as a martyr," Wala told Ma'an news.
One of Rayyan's daughter-in-laws said she was offered the chance to die with the family. She stopped by the family's large home in Jabaliya and was asked by Rayyan if she wished to die with him, his wives and their children. She agreed to die, but later left the building, shortly before the IAF strike.
They wanted to add their bodies to the propaganda body count.
UPDATE: More Hamas propaganda, courtesy of CNN:
No mention that Hamas uses civilian areas as weapons caches and ammo dumps, only that Israel destroyed homes. The narrator omits those kinds of details - it would get in the way of the narrative. No mention too that Hamas violated the 3-hour truce yesterday or that Hamas tried to sneak in equipment courtesy of one of those humanitarian aid convoys that the UN operated.
Chicago public school bureaucrats skirted competitive bidding rules to buy 30 cappuccino/espresso machines for $67,000, with most of the machines going unused because the schools they were ordered for had not asked for them, according to a report by the CPS Office of Inspector General.
That was just one example of questionable CPS actions detailed in the inspector general's 2008 annual report. Others included high school staffers changing grades to pump up transcripts of student athletes and workers at a restricted-enrollment grade school falsifying addresses to get relatives admitted.
In the case of the cappuccino machines, central office administrators split the order among 21 vocational schools to avoid competitive bidding required for purchases over $10,000. As a result CPS paid about $12,000 too much, according to Inspector General James Sullivan. "We were able to find the same machines cheaper online," he said.
"We also look at it as a waste of money because the schools didn't even know they were getting the equipment, schools didn't know how to use the machines and weren't prepared to implement them into the curriculum," Sullivan said.
That's $67,000 that could have been spent on books or materials that actually improved student learning.
What has taken Michigan so long to figure out that the Detroit schools are in trouble? Why has it waited until the district was $400 million in the hole? You would think that they would have noticed something was wrong when you have generations of students who are ill prepared for college and work. Why do Detroit residents continue to stand for a product - public education - that wastes money and can't spend the money in the classroom?
Throw in the fact that the state is going to send less money to the district because a headcount will reveal that they have fewer students, and the Detroit school outlook looks bleak. This would be the second time in 7 years that the district is to be taken over, and the teachers union, the DFT, complains that the reason that the district is the current bind is because of what happened the last time. Curiously, you would think someone would actually look and see why the budget went from a surplus to a massive deficit within six months:
Flanagan's action came after months of revelations about the district's precarious finances, in which the administration went from declaring a fund surplus in the spring to announcing a projected $408 million shortfall by June. The board later agreed to massive budget cuts, including layoffs and school closures, but ended fiscal year 2008 in a deficit nearing $140 million
The downturn in the auto industry could certainly play a role in the shortfall, but I suspect that there's more to this story than that.
Gov. David Paterson sees New York's condition as "perilous,'' but the courage to balance the government's budget and priorities can create "a brighter, smarter future,'' though it could take months and even years.
In his first State of the State address, Paterson called Wednesday for "shared sacrifice'' for a future where everyone has access to health care, excellent education and a good job and will breathe clean air and use clean energy.
"We still do not know the extent of the economic chaos that awaits us,'' Paterson told a joint session of the state Legislature. Noting New York entered a recession in August, he said an estimated 225,000 New Yorkers could lose their jobs before the crisis is over, and "the pillars of Wall Street have crumbled.''
Paterson already proposed a $121.1 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year, up 1.1 percent, that includes layoffs, a cut in school aid and 88 new or higher fees.
"We cannot solve our problems overnight or without sacrifice -- they run too deep for that,'' Paterson said. "These problems may last for many more months or even years. But we can solve them.''
Funny then, that the state's budget is higher this year than last by more than a billion dollars and that much of that increase is the result of higher fees and taxes.
Paterson's trying to have it both ways - grow state government all while claiming that he's being fiscally responsible. The sad fact is that by New York standards, he's actually as fiscally responsible as they've come over the past several decades (including Republicans like George Pataki and Democrats like Mario Cuomo and Eliot Spitzer). He's increasing the size of the state budget, but just not as much as the rate of inflation. All the usual suspects - leftists, the unions, lobbyists - will raise a great stink about how their programs are being cut, even though they will still see more money this year than last.
New York truly is in bad financial shape, but Paterson's proposals aren't the solution; they're only sending the bill on to the taxpayers in the form of higher taxes and fees at a time when they can ill afford them.
The state is in such bad financial shape because Wall Street stopped being its cash cow/piggy bank. It isn't feeding Albany with its tax revenues fast enough, so they have to make the money up elsewhere, hence the taxes and fee proposals, including one on soft drinks.
Herb Jackson, who's reporting that story notes that there's questions over where in New Jersey the seat should come from - with Democrats predictably looking to unseat Republicans, and Republicans doing likewise to Democrats. Things are pretty close right now based on population studies.
I'd suggest looking at why the state is losing residents to other parts of the country. Could it be the insanely high tax burden in the state? Reduce the tax burden, and people will be more inclined to stay in the Garden State. Polls have suggested that 49% of New Jerseyeans want to leave the state.
No one in Trenton seems concerned about the correlation between high taxes and losing population - and the resulting tax base.
Whether it was because Israel's political leaders lost their nerve after yesterday's school incidents, are providing a genuine humanitarian relief to Gazans who are caught between Hamas and a hard place, or because they think that Israel benefits from giving Hamas three hours to regroup and rearm, it should be clear that from here on out, the diplomats will dictate what happens, not the Israeli military, which had been crushing Hamas throughout Gaza for the past 12 days. Israel has forgotten a key lesson from the Winograd Report in the process.
Mark Regev says Israel could accept the proposal if it halts "hostile fire" from Gaza and includes measures to prevent Hamas from rearming.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday that Israel and the Palestinian Authority accepted the proposal. Israeli officials will not confirm that.
The precise details of the proposal remain unclear.
Earlier today, Israel ordered a pause in its Gaza offensive for three hours to allow food and fuel to reach besieged Palestinians, and the country's leaders debated whether to accept an international cease-fire plan or expand the assault against Hamas.
With criticism rising of the operation's spiraling civilian death toll and Gazans increasingly suffering the effects of nonstop airstrikes and shelling, Israel's military said opened "humanitarian corridors" to allow aid supplies to reach Palestinians.
Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said the "recess in offensive operations" was aimed at allowing in supplies and fuel and would last from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m local time (6 a.m. to 9 a.m. EST). He said similar lulls in the coming days would be considered.
However, Lerner said that even during the pause "for every attack against the army, there will be a response." Gaza residents reported scattered gunfire and explosions even after it was supposed to have gone into effect, but the scale of fighting appeared to drop.
I have no doubt that the world media will ignore that part and simply call attention to the fact that Israel is continuing its fighting against Hamas and killing civilians.
Hamas will eventually claim to agree to a ceasefire, but continues attacking anyways. The diplomats will see that there's a decrease in attacks, so claim that there is a lull in fighting, and that the ceasefire is in effect. Thus, when Israel strikes back, the diplomats and the media will go after Israel, and ignore Hamas who once again precipitates a conflict in pursuit of its ideological goal - the extermination of Israel.
All of this favors Hamas and their ability to regroup and rearm, all while continuing their war against Israel. It's the hudna, stupid.
The UNRWA is lying and obfuscating about what happened at the Jabilya school yesterday. Keep in mind that if Israel truly intended to attack the school, far more than 30 people would have been killed. The entire facility would have been flattened. Hamas wouldn't have minded that one bit, which is why they were firing from positions in and around the school, hoping to lure Israel into doing just that. The EU is disturbed by the casualties at the school. Figures. Ignore that Hamas causes the fighting by attacking Israel incessantly, and then whine when civilians are injured or killed as Israel fights back.
Does anyone believe that the thousands of rockets Hamas has fired at Israel over the years wasn't meant to kill and maim Israelis? Every last rocket was meant to do so. To manufacture the kassams, Hamas uses sugar and fertilizer; materials that can easily be taken from humanitarian relief and repurposed for making bombs to kill Israelis.
Meanwhile, Hizbullah continues squawking that they're ready to fight Israel. Of course they are; they've had two years to get the latest and greatest weapons into Southern Lebanon courtesy of Syria and Iran with UNIFIL looking the other way the entire time as the Lebanese military is incapable of taking on Hizbullah itself and the Lebanese government has been coopted by Hizbullah.
Hamas has to show something for the fearsome pounding it's received at the hands of the IAF and IDF, so they're going to try and hit Israel with something more than just kassams, mortars, or grad rockets. Suicide bombings would do the trick.
Giving Hamas any pause or break in the fighting means that Hamas can and will use that time not to provide humanitarian relief or to actually do the work of a government of which it is part as the elected leaders of the Palestinian Authority, but to rearm and prepare for the next phase of its war against Israel. Even still, the rockets keep falling on Israel.
UPDATE: Palestinian witnesses counter the UNRWA nonsense and say that Hamas was undeniably using the areas in and around schools as mortar launching facilities. So much for the UNRWA being a neutral party in all this; they know that they've been facilitating terrorism for decades by allowing Hamas and Fatah to build up a terrorist infrastructure in the refugee camps and then by allowing them to openly operate militias. UNRWA is being exposed as nothing more than a terrorist facilitating entity, paid for out of the goodness of US tax dollars (among others). The UN will do everything imaginable to deny and obfuscate their role in the attack, particularly because this isn't the first time that the terrorists in Gaza have done this, nor is it the first time that terrorists have attacked Israel from UN positions either - see the Hizbullah war in 2006 when Hizbullah repeatedly fired on Israeli positions from in and around UNIFIL observer posts, getting UNIFIL forces caught in the line of return fire.
UPDATE: I've been warning about this for some time now that the Israeli practice of warning Palestinians of impending attacks was counterproductive. Carl in Jerusalem notes that that's indeed the case; Hamas has been using those calls to organize human shields to protect their vital assets.
UPDATE: Well, the war's back on. Fighting has resumed in earnest, although I'd point out that it never did stop during the 3-hour period.
UPDATE: Aaron at Internet Haganah posts an interesting video showing a Hamas mortar crew firing on Israel. It was apparently taken last summer, and while it shows that the crew was hit by Israeli counterbattery fire, I think the more useful detail is how the terrorists were firing the weapon.
Note how the terrorists are using string to hold up the mortar round in the barrel and are then able to fire it from a distance. These terrorists know that the IAF and IDF is excellent at killing terrorists, and they're trying to fire remotely. It's crude; it's cheap, and it gives the terrorists the ability to cut and run at the drop of a hat because they could set up the launchers anywhere (the center median of a street or near a school) and fire from the relative safety of a nearby building).
You want to know how Hamas can seemingly slip away after firing these mortars and rockets; there you go.
UPDATE: Hamas is busy murdering Fatah and people it considers collaborators - more than 40 of them, and no one is getting particularly upset at those criminal acts. Israel kills civilians by accident after being fired upon by Hamas from UN facilities and the world gets pissed. Fancy that.
UPDATE: Israel is going after those smuggling tunnels again and has warned residents in and around Rafah that they will be attacking. It appears that the Israeli military is going to sweep through the Philadelphi corridor to destroy Hamas' capabilities to regroup and resupply its weapons caches via the smuggling tunnels.
As I've continually reported, Hamas makes money from those tunnels to sustain itself - both by smuggling in contraband and from getting a piece of the action, to say nothing of the weapons, equipment and personnel it brings in. Destroying those tunnels limits Hamas and what they're capable of doing going forward.
Israeli communities continue to be bombarded by Hamas rockets and mortars. Hamas thugs who had been begging for Israeli soldiers to come into Gaza are suddenly scarce and shying from a fight. Gee, what did anyone expect from a bunch of terrorists who hide behind women and children? They're biding their time until the diplomats get to bail them out again. And just as predictably, the diplomats are right on cue: a truce is possible within 2 days. Really?
Hamas has agreed to a truce before? They've continually stated that they will not accept a truce, and they most certainly don't accept Israel's existence.
Nothing has changed to that calculus.
And in an up-is-down world, Amnesty International (and YNet, which published the report) says that the IDF purposefully endangering Gazan civilians, and only at the bottom of the report indicates that Gazan gunmen were a danger to civilians. Nice. Shame on both of them for not only the moral equivalence, but ignoring that the current war in Gaza was wholly the result of Hamas, a terrorist group, firing thousands of kassams into Israel each with the intent to murder Israeli civilians, and Hamas now hides among civilians while carrying out ongoing terrorist operations against Israel. Israeli forces are doing their best to avoid civilian casualties, but any such casualties are the fault of no one but Hamas under international law and common sense (which is sorely lacking among all these so-called human rights groups that suddenly awaken to report on Israel's response while ignoring Hamas and the months of attacks during the so-called ceasefire).
I've separated out the two incidents occurring at UNRWA schools in Gaza from the rest of the Operation Cast Lead coverage because the incidents speak volumes about Hamas, the UN, UNRWA, and Palestinian culpability for the mayhem in Gaza.
Reuters has a photo with the following caption for the incident at a school where three Palestinians were killed.
6 hours ago: Palestinians survey the scene after an Israeli air strike at a United Nations school in Gaza January 6, 2009. An Israeli air strike killed three Palestinians in the United Nations school in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medical workers and U.N. officials said.
What exactly was fired? Machine guns? Because it certainly wasn't anything larger than that - Hellfires blow up cars and leave craters and bombs leave gaping craters. Here? A small hole punched in the wall and smaller shrapnel holes. I think we've got some real questions about what happened at that school.
Israel may have opened fire on Hamas operating in close proximity to the school, and by the looks of it, used limited firepower in the process. The only sources providing details on who was killed or injured in the attack are Palestinians, who aren't exactly going to say that Hamas thugs were involved.
As a vivid reminder of what Israel is up against, here's Hamas busy firing kassams from outside a Gaza school in 2007. Some things don't change. They're still at it today:
More at Gateway Pundit. Hamas is also purposefully dragging children to be human shields in their war with Israel. Here's the visual proof:
So, keep that in mind as the reports come in on the incident in Gaza.
Kenneth at LGF points out that there are now conflicting reports about what happened in or near a school in Gaza. An AP report notes that Hamas fired on Israeli forces from the school and the Israeli return fire set off secondary explosions - meaning that Hamas used the school as a weapons depot:
n Israeli official says Palestinian militants fired on Israeli soldiers from the courtyard of a U.N. school where dozens of people died in fiery explosions.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he said the army is still drafting the country's official response to the incident.
The Israeli official said "hostile fire" was directed at the soldiers from within the school. He said soldiers returned fire and multiple explosions went off, presumably emanating from munitions stored there.
John Ging, head of Gaza operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, said most of the casualties at the U.N. school in Jebaliya, where some 350 people had taken refuge, were outside the building. He did not say whether the artillery came from Israeli forces.
More recent reports indicate that Hamas had boobytrapped the school, and that Hamas set off the explosions resulting in the multiple casualties.
The intended effect was to get the media to blame Israel for the carnage; some will inevitably do so regardless of the facts, but the fact is that Hamas uses human shields and purposefully uses UN and UNRWA facilities from which to carry out their evil intentions.
UNRWA and the UN bear special responsibility for this conflict since they have repeatedly gone out of their way to look the other way as Hamas has built up its military capabilities, while making demands of Israel to concede more of its security to terrorists.
Another way to look at this is that Hamas tried to pull a Beslan massacre. They rigged the school to blow, killing as many people as possible. In both instances, jihadis were responsible for the carnage and the hoped-for victims were mostly children.
An IDF spokesman said that troops had fired mortar rounds at the school, after militants barricaded inside shot mortar shells at the Israeli forces.
"Initial checks ... show that from inside the school mortars were fired at Israeli forces," a spokesman said. "In response, the forces fired a number of mortar rounds into the area."
The army said that the bodies of numerous Hamas militants were found inside the school following the attack.
The attack brought the Palestinian death toll to nearly 600 in Israel's 11-day offensive on the Hamas-ruled coastal territory.
Two tank shells exploded outside the Gaza school, spraying shrapnel on people inside and outside the building, where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge from fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants. In addition to the dead, several dozen people were wounded, the officials said.
UPDATE: Elder of Ziyon has more details about the location of the school, and that it was located in what can only be described as a surburban area of Gaza.
One more thing, speaking of pornography -- we've all seen endless pictures of dead Palestinian children now. It's a terrible, ghastly, horrible thing, the deaths of children, and for the parents it doesn't matter if they were killed by accident or by mistake. But ask yourselves this: Why are these pictures so omnipresent? I'll tell you why, again from firsthand, and repeated, experience: Hamas (and the Aksa Brigades, and Islamic Jihad, the whole bunch) prevents the burial, or even preparation of the bodies for burial, until the bodies are used as props in the Palestinian Passion Play. Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble -- and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I've seen in my life. And it's typical of Hamas. If reporters would probe deeper, they'd learn the awful truth of Hamas. But Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people.
I'd go much further than that; the media's refusal to dig deeper and expose Hamas and its gross brutality and unimaginable carnage is one of the reasons that Israel is in this fight at all. Had Hamas been exposed long ago, Israel would have been able to destroy Hamas before it managed to obtain longer range rockets and missiles affecting still more people. Each time Hamas is on the ropes, they trot out the corpses, and the media reprints and distributes them worldwide and the diplomats force Israel to stop killing the terrorists responsible for putting those children in harms' way. Today is no different.
Are they really budget cuts or are they reductions in the increase in state spending from previous projections? That's the problem when some of these articles are published without any relevant context.
Some of the areas identified for cuts by Governor Corzine:
The state’s contribution into the employees’ pension fund: $115.6 million New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission: $10 million Management salaries: $15.7 million Executive branch employee salaries: $6 million New Jersey Stem Cell Research Institute: $13.7 million Cancer research grants: $7 million Homeland security grants: $1.4 million Office of the Child Advocate: $1 million Office of the Public Advocate: $2.6 million State comptroller: $1.5 million Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike feeder-road maintenance program: $4 million Hunters and anglers fund: $1 million Law enforcement training and equipment: $882,000 Governor’s Literacy Program: $700,000 Mosquito control: $257,000 Department of Transportation ride-sharing program: $240,000
One that should draw a huge red flag? He's looking to cut pension payments by nearly $116 million. That's on top of the already massively underfunded state pension system. Nice. In other words, Corzine is looking to make the pension timebomb in New Jersey even worse by calling for cuts there. Don't hold your breath to see that happen though; the unions would never allow that to happen. The unions also will not discuss givebacks or reductions to their gold plated benefits packages going forward either, despite the fact that the state cannot afford them.
Another program to watch? The state is looking to cut the Stem Cell Research Institute Funding by $13 million. Why is that a red flag when I've repeatedly counseled that the state shouldn't have been involved in it in the first place? Simple. It's very hard to eliminate programs once they've been placed on the budget. Corzine has tried to spend hundreds of millions in debt financing to make the stem cell research center work, but taxpayers voted that down. He's settled instead for spending state money on the program when the state simply doesn't have the money. Now, he's forced to take action. Again, watch proponents try to keep the funding where it is.
Had the state not funded the stem cell research institute in the first place, there would be tens of millions available for other more crucial programs or lower debt financing or other benefits that accrue to taxpayers by the state not spending money it doesn't have and/or taxpayers whose wallets are not even lighter than they already are.
I'm still not sure what the office of the public advocate is, and why it is needed when it handles many of the same functions as the Attorney General's office (particularly the Division of Consumer Affairs).
Meanwhile, one agency that isn't seeing its budget cut? Global Warming. Nice.
UPDATE: Instapundit links. Thanks. By the way, I'm a finalist in the 2008 Weblog Awards Best Small Blog category (as listed as A Blog For All). If you're so inclined, send your votes my way early and often (Chicago rules apply).
[T]hugo Chavez, the socialist leader of Venezuela is having to scale back his socialist operations and among the first to go is his attempts to lure Americans to believe his socialist claptrap.
He's had to stop the low cost oil program in the US. Crashing oil prices meant that Chavez didn't have the money on hand to run the program. Of course, Chavez doesn't have the money to expand his military either, so it's a win-win proposition for those who see Chavez's bellicose statements and his repeated efforts to undermine the Venezuelan democracy by granting himself greater powers at the expense of the people.
Chavez is an economics nitwit, peddling his socialist visions, and Venezuela's economy was already reeling from Chavez's economic programs, so that the worldwide slowdown and lowered demand for oil has meant that Chavez doesn't have the money to spend on his socialist cause.
Hardest hit aren't the people who had been taking advantage of the free oil program, but the useful idiot Joe Kennedy, who had been shilling for Chavez for years. Jammie notes that Kennedy is getting the cold shoulder not only from Americans, but Chavez isn't exactly reaching out to him either.
Overnight, the Israeli military announced that three more Israeli soldiers were killed. They were members of the elite Golani Brigade, whose predecessors defended Israel's northern borders and who saved Israel from ruin during the 1973 Yom Kippur War when their unit went into the breach and stopped the oncoming Syrian armor from pouring down and out of the Golan Heights. The incident involved an errant tank shell, which shows just how difficult things are for Israeli soldiers fighting in the urban warrens of Gaza City and the refugee camps.
Hamas is busy trying to spin things in their favor, but the fact is that Hamas is desperate for a timeout. They've been hit hard, but they need a hudna. There's no way Israel should relent. Now is time to slam the hammer down on Hamas. Israel's future deserves no less than to ensure that Hamas is destroyed.
Speaking of the diplomatic effort, there's much talk, but not a whole lot of action. It's diplomats doing what they do to look important, but not much else. The UN continues to make statements of moral equivalence - putting Hamas and Israel on equal footing when anyone who knows the difference between good and evil would demand that the UN support Israel against Hamas and see that the terrorist group is destroyed. Of course, the history of the UN since 1948 has been one to try and undermine Israel's right to exist at every turn and the anti-Israel lobby is constantly trying to stop Israel from defending itself. Any ceasefire or truce demands concessions of Israel while the terrorists walk scot-free. Just look at Hizbullah in Lebanon. UNIFIL continues looking the other way as Hizbullah maintains their military forces, despite UNIFIL mandates to disarm Hizbullah.
Israeli Defense Minister Barak is prepping for a long term operation, knowing that Hamas has squirreled away significant weapons caches for a prolonged fight. He needs Prime Minister Olmert to give him the time to carry out the necessary operations to take out Hamas leaders and their thugs who have brought nothing but pain and misery to Gaza.
It was at that meeting that ministers confided that Mubarak had told them 'Hamas must not be allowed to emerge from the fighting with the upper hand.'
Hamas believes Egypt is trying to broker a ceasefire and sent a delegation to the city on Monday. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert meantime has told visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy that Israel will not honour a ceasefire imposed by the UN Security Council. It will only honour an agreement that it agrees to, the Israeli prime minister told Sarkozy.
Israel wants the rocket attacks to stop, and the smuggling of weapons from Egypt to cease. Mubarak, whose country patrols the border with Egypt, was insisting Monday there was no smuggling, that supplies to Hamas were coming from ships off Gaza.
Israel has said it is a member state of the UN and should not be put on the same basis as Hamas, which it says is a 'terrorist organization.'
Still, there are two jihadis in particular who are notably quiet about the situation in Gaza. You would think that they'd be out front leading the charge against Israel and the West especially given their prior statements and how they've repeatedly tried to tie everything that happens around the world to Israel and the Palestinians.
You know who I'm talking about: Al Qaeda's own top two - Ayman al Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden.
Both are notable by their silence. Perhaps they're having problems getting their videos out from the undisclosed locations near the ninth plane of Hell or the NWFP (interchangeable under certain circumstances as a little know fact is that Hell can freeze over)? Maybe they're dead? I find it hard to believe that they're having trouble find the words to put together to a video or audio tape, although their propagandists might be having trouble getting the video and audio to sync up properly.
Silence is usually golden, but in this case, it speaks volumes.
Now, it's possible that they will be heard from soon enough. Maybe their next video or audio will mention the situation in Gaza. I just wouldn't hold my breath and I certainly wouldn't expect to hear anything new from them. It's the same story we've been hearing for decades; someone is going to destroy Israel and yet when the latest terrorists and their terror masters try, Israel swats them hard. Each time restraint is mistaken as weakness, although Israel's reluctance means that we have to keep replaying the same stories every few years and more civilians die than if Israel simply fought to defeat its enemies.
The great equalizer, however, is the media war. Hamas still benefits greatly from media sympathizers who will unquestioningly run agitprop for Hamas and savaging Israel's defensive actions. MSNBC is particularly awful at maintaining objectivity in US media. The British media is far worse and I wont even begin to get into the sewers and fever swamps of the state-run propagandists of the Arab world.
I've been going through the photos regularly on Getty Images and Daylife, and if you counted all the photos of injured children and those of injured adults, you'd think that Israel targeted only children. There's a stunning lack of adults being captured on film being brought to the hospitals or receiving medical care at all.
I can't imagine why that's the case. Maybe it has something to do with media bias and the bias of the stringers taking the photos - knowing full well that showing images of terrorists being wheeled in to the hospitals isn't going to make a convincing case that Israel stops bombing, but show a bunch of children dead or injured, and you might get the sympathies sufficiently riled to get the diplomats to stop Israel before Hamas is thoroughly dismembered.
Reuters makes nonsensical claims and headlines, which do nothing but bolster Hamas. They claim that Israel is ignoring the possibility of a truce, but even Reuters had to report that Hamas is urging its fellow terrorists to fight every street and to the last breath and last man. Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades has the details. So does Omri at Mere Rhetoric, who notes the New York Times doing the same thing.
There's a reason that the Gazan hospitals are crowded with patients and it's left out of practically every report. Israel has stated that Hamas is using hospitals as terror command posts, although doctors there deny it (with the omnipresent Hamas thugs at the facilities, there's no way to trust that without searching every inch of the hospital to be sure). Reports also suggest that Hamas thugs have set up hospital facilities for their wounded terrorists, but are taking aid and relief supplies meant for civilians injured in the fighting.
Israel would not have gone into Gaza had Hamas not fired thousands of rockets at Israel.
Israel left Gaza in 2005, and all it got for that unilateral effort was kassams that rain down on Sderot and other Israeli communities throughout Southern Israel. People within range of the kassams have less time to react than they do to read this post. They have seconds.
That conditions for Gazans is bad now is the fault of no one but the Hamas terrorists who wished for a war with Israel, and Hamas all they could to ensure that one would bring the maximium amount of civilian casualties.
None of this matters to the many anti-Israel demonstrators around the world who display their real intentions. It isn't anti-war sentiments driving much of the demonstrators, but raging anti-Semitism. Israel's existence is sufficient for the demonstrations, and the grievance theater surrounding these displays shows just how deluded so many of these people are. They demand nothing less than jihad and the destruction of Israel - in so many words.
Hamas thugs call for killing Israeli children, as though Hamas hasn't been busy trying to achieve that goal. After all, they tried to blow up this kindergarden class. Sadly, that's not a new call either, as Hamas has routinely called for the murder of Israelis of all ages, and has managed to succeed in their terror attacks on occasion. That they haven't killed more people is the result of Israel securing its borders, manning checkpoints to stop suicide bombers and gunmen, and sealing the border with Gaza to prevent terror attacks.
It was that latter part that sent Hamas scrambling for rockets. Since they couldn't infiltrate Israel with suicide bombers, they went with the next best thing - rockets. And they've sent thousands into Israel - each with the murderous intent to slay Israelis.
The UN Security Council will be meeting shortly to discuss the situation in Gaza. I have no doubt that the focus will be on Israel to stop attacking Hamas. Much less discussion will be had on Hamas and dismantling the terrorist infrastructure. The US has already said that it will veto any plan that is unbalanced.
Much will be made of the fact that Prime Minister Olmert rejected a 48 hour ceasefire, but the fact is that Hamas has said that they would never entertain a ceasefire unless Israel stops attacking and destroying Hamas terrorists. Hamas has never said it would stop firing its rockets into Israel.
Bret Stephens posits an endgame for Israel, one that includes the possibility for peace. Key among Israel's options is that it must assert aggressive deterrence, a policy that had been all but abandoned by Olmert in the runup to both the Hizbullah war and the operation in Gaza.
And, as a reminder to anyone who thinks that Fatah is a preferable alternative to Hamas, many Fatah are sympathizing and showing solidarity with Hamas. They have short memories given that Hamas took to throwing Fatah thugs off rooftops in the Palestinian civil war and has been murdering Fatah in Gaza during the current conflict claiming that they are collaborating with Israel. Both terrorist groups have sought the destruction of Israel, but Hamas has been the more violent of the two, if only because Fatah was lured by kleptocracy.
MSNBC continues its pro-Hamas stance, by claiming that 500,000 Gazans are in danger. No word in the headline about the nearly equal amount of Israelis endangered by Hamas rockets that can reach as far as Ashdod and Beersheeba.
UPDATE: Two separate reports from Gaza indicate that Israeli airstrikes have apparently hit two schools. The NY Daily News reports that an attack on one school killed three, while another wire report says that 30 have been killed in a second attack.
No doubt that the anti-Israel brigade will try to do as much damage politically and with the full force and effect of propaganda from the airstrikes if they killed civilians. The problem is that Hamas is operating in and among civilians, and there's no way to know if Hamas wasn't operating in close proximity to those schools at the time of the attacks. Hamas has no regard for human lives, least of all Gazans, who are simply props for use as propaganda against Israel. If they can't kill Israelis with their rockets, dead Palestinians will suffice since it means that they can use the dead to increase pressure on Israel to stop attacking and destroying Hamas capabilities.
Hamas has repeatedly used UNRWA facilities to operate. The Islamic terrorists have used UN ambulances to transport weapons and equipment, and have repeatedly taken advantage of the refugee camps to wage war against Israel. UNRWA has an obligation to maintain the peace, but has repeatedly chosen to look the other way.
UPDATE: Carl in Jerusalem is reminding readers not to jump to conclusions about what happened in Gaza and the early reports of Israel attacking schools. He reminds people of the Qana incident, which was claimed to be a massacre, but turned out to be no such thing. It was a hoax. He also makes the same observation I did that Hamas is using human shields, and notes Israeli radio reports claiming Hamas was dragging children into buildings where they were operating.
UPDATE: Elder of Ziyon notes that the Guardian has published an op-ed agitprop piece courtesy of Hamas terror master Khalid Meshaal. It's full of lies, distortions, and propaganda claiming that Israel is behind the attacks. Elder of Ziyon cuts through the agitprop and rebuts each of the lies succinctly. Sadly, I expect to see Meshaal's writings (or those of other terrorist sympathizers or spokesthugs) included in the Washington Post or New York Times within the next few days as they make the rounds.
This is why Israel is doing what it must. Hamas is steadfast in their demands that Israel be destroyed. Honor and elevate bloody murdering terrorists. That's what they are, that's what they call for, and the world ignores all that to find fault with Israel instead.
Meanwhile Israeli humanitarian aid to Gaza continues to roll into Gaza to help Gazans, who will take the aid and still demand Israel's destruction; Hamas will steal it and/or use it for their terror purposes, but the world finds fault with Israel.
Ah, now this seems odd. We've got a Reuters caption claiming that the following photo is of the school where an airstrike killed 3.
6 hours ago: Palestinians survey the scene after an Israeli air strike at a United Nations school in Gaza January 6, 2009. An Israeli air strike killed three Palestinians in the United Nations school in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medical workers and U.N. officials said.
What exactly was fired? Machine guns? Because it certainly wasn't anything larger than that - Hellfires blow up cars and leave craters and bombs leave gaping craters. Here? A small hole punched in the wall and smaller shrapnel holes. I think we've got some real questions about what happened at that school.
Israel may have opened fire on Hamas operating in close proximity to the school, and by the looks of it, used limited firepower in the process. The only sources providing details on who was killed or injured in the attack are Palestinians, who aren't exactly going to say that Hamas thugs were involved.
UPDATE: As a vivid reminder of what Israel is up against, here's Hamas busy firing kassams from outside a Gaza school in 2007. Some things don't change. They're still at it today:
More at Gateway Pundit. So, keep that in mind as the reports come in on the incident in Gaza.
UPDATE: Jules Crittenden kicks the media like a rented mule for its ongoing horrid coverage of the situation in Gaza and how they repeatedly present only one side of the conflict in any detail - that of Hamas and the Gazans, instead of focusing on why Israel is fighting back against Hamas in the first place - because Hamas couldn't stop itself from trying to destroy Israel.
UPDATE: Kenneth at LGF points out that there are now conflicting reports about what happened in or near a school in Gaza. An AP report notes that Hamas fired on Israeli forces from the school and the Israeli return fire set off secondary explosions - meaning that Hamas used the school as a weapons depot:
n Israeli official says Palestinian militants fired on Israeli soldiers from the courtyard of a U.N. school where dozens of people died in fiery explosions.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he said the army is still drafting the country's official response to the incident.
The Israeli official said "hostile fire" was directed at the soldiers from within the school. He said soldiers returned fire and multiple explosions went off, presumably emanating from munitions stored there.
John Ging, head of Gaza operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, said most of the casualties at the U.N. school in Jebaliya, where some 350 people had taken refuge, were outside the building. He did not say whether the artillery came from Israeli forces.
For additional coverage of the Gaza school incidents, see my separate post here.
UPDATE: I'd been wondering when we'd hear from Zawahiri. Well, here he goes...
We will never stop until we avenge the death of all who are killed, injured, widowed and orphaned in Palestine and throughout the Islamic world," said Ayman al-Zawahiri in a new 10-minute audio recording released today on extreme Islamist Web forums.
The message is entitled "The Massacre in Gaza and the Siege of the Traitors".
Zawahiri refers directly to President-elect Barack Obama saying he has partnered with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whom Zawahiri labels as a traitor to Islam.
So, let's see - Zawahiri still considers the US as the enemy, and that Obama isn't going to be treated any different than President Bush.
The mention of Mubarak makes sense, since Mubarak imprisoned Zawahiri and Zawahiri led the Muslim Brotherhood there before joining up and forming al Qaeda.
