The Fairfield Sun published the article below January 22. The reporter apparently accurately quoted an anti-Israel propagandist, but nowhere was there any reference to the absurdity of the quotes.
We follow the full text by repeating some quotes along with comments about them.
Of particular interest is the repetition of a fraudulent quote falsely attributed to Moshe Yaalon.
The email address for letters to the Fairfield Sun is Fairfieldsun@hersamacorn.com.
We follow the full text by repeating some quotes along with comments about them.
Of particular interest is the repetition of a fraudulent quote falsely attributed to Moshe Yaalon.
The email address for letters to the Fairfield Sun is Fairfieldsun@hersamacorn.com.
Gaza violence sparks clash of opinions at home
Written by Chandler Niles Folsom
THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2009
Israelis pulled troops out of Gaza in time for President Barack Obama's inauguration Tuesday, following a cease fire that ended its 22-day military offensive against Hamas. The fighting took place in the 144-square mile area where about 1.5 million people live.
Israel launched its offensive against Gaza on Dec. 27, announcing it wanted to stop Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israel.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza has reported that Palestinian fatalities have exceeded 1,000, with more than half of them civilians including women and children, and nearly 5,000 have been wounded.
Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, have been killed in the fighting, according to the Israeli Army.
At an Arab summit in Kuwait, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for a national unity government between his Fatah movement and Hamas - in control of Gaza since 2006 - followed by simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections.
On Jan. 9, the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution calling for both parties to observe an immediate cease-fire. The vote was 14-0 with the U.S. abstaining.
Within days, U.N. headquarters in Gaza was hit by Israeli military fire, halting the supply of food and medicine to residents. The facility stored oil tanks used by area hospitals. A U.N. run school was also hit by mortar fire, killing dozens.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon toured the devastated territory Jan. 13 and demanded an investigation.
International aid groups reported a humanitarian crisis as shortages of food, water and medicine in Gaza continued to take their toll on civilians. Fifty thousand Palestinians are now homeless in Gaza, according to recent reports.
According to a Jan. 9 Israeli survey, more than 91% of Israel's Jewish population backs the military actions, with less than 4 percent voicing opposition.
There have been widespread protests against Israel's operation across the Middle East as well as in European cities. On an audiotape released Jan. 14, Osama bin Laden called for jihad in response to Israel's actions in Gaza.
In our area, people from both the Jewish and Arab communities are voicing their opinions.
'The situation in Gaza can be described in a reversed Biblical term of David and Goliath, in which the defenseless civilian Palestinian community in Gaza are being massacred by the powerful and merciless well equipped Israeli army,' says Palestinian-American Khalil Sakakini, a Fairfield engineer.
Sakakini is also a member of the Arab American Anti- Discrimination Committee.
'Israel is a democracy that lives in a very challenging neighborhood,' says Laurie Gross, a member of Fairfield's Congregation Beth El. 'Since its creation as a modern state, Israel has been under attack from her Arab neighbors. If the Arabs put down their guns there would be peace. If Israel put down her guns there would be no Israel.'
Gross is also director of community relations and Israel advocacy with the Jewish Federation of Eastern Fairfield County.
Rocket launchings Was Israel's response to the Hamas rocket launchings an appropriate course of action?
'The use of Israeli Navy, Air Force and ground forces equipped with sophisticated American-made weapons against feeble home-made unguided rockets is totally disproportionate,' says Sakakini, adding that he does not think Hamas should have launched the rockets. 'By the same token, Israel should lift the embargo and stop the indiscriminate killing of the Palestinian community in Gaza.'
Gross views the situation differently.
'Israel, who has long supported a two-state solution with Jews and Arabs living side by side with peace and security, has endured more than eight years under continual attack,' she says. 'No country should sit back while its citizens are under daily attack.'
According to Gross, towns in the southern part of Israel have seen their populations traumatized by daily rocket attacks, and the majority of people living there suffer from stress and trauma, especially the children.
'During the day, school children, their parents and the elderly are all forced to run for bomb shelters on a regular basis,' says Gross. ' Add to this the fact that Hamas targets schools and hospitals, Israel has the right and the obligation to protect its citizens by whatever means is necessary.'
Sakakini says the same is happening to the Palestinian people.
'The whole infrastructure is being destroyed, including schools, places of worships, residential sections,' he says. 'Israel wants to impose a situation on the Palestinians in which Israel has a military domination.'
Sakakini says most of the people living in Gaza are members of families that were driven out of their towns and villages from what is today Israel by the Israeli army in 1948.
'These people lived under the Israeli occupation since 1967,' he says. 'Although the Israeli army and settlers left the strip in 2005, Israel still controls all accesses to the strip. Israel's army can enter the strip at will.'
Gross says the problem stems from Hamas calling for the destruction of the State of Israel and the destruction of the Jewish people, wherever they live.
'They are backed by Iran, who has vowed to wipe Israel off the map,' says Gross. 'Where is the outrage at the nauseating anti-Semitic teaching of tiny children in Gaza, instructing toddlers to die as martyrs while murdering Jews?'
Sakakini counters that the Israeli Defense Force's chief of staff stated that the Palestinians must be made to understand on a primal level that they are a defeated people.
'This can be seen in everyday life of the Palestinians in terms of restriction of movement of Palestinians and goods between Palestinian cities in the West Bank,' he says. 'Palestinians have to go through the humiliation of unnecessary check points. The Israeli occupation has caused an incalculable damage to the growth of the Palestinian economy and its infrastructure.'
Gross says that the Israeli government has made many concessions for peace, voluntarily removing 9,000 civilians from Gaza and the West Bank, in the hope of renewing the peace process and understands that the checkpoints create hardships for many Palestinians.
'Israel is not perfect in its treatment of Palestinians,' concedes Gross. 'But Israel is a country of laws... Despite making many overtures for peace, Israel continues to face non-stop terrorist attacks.'
Sakakini thinks that Israel propagandists convinced the media that Israel's war in Gaza is against the rocket launchers, but that the actual situation paints a different picture.
'Unfortunately the only peace that Israel wants... is a piece of land in which more illegal settlements are being built, roads that only Jewish settlers living in the West Bank settlements and the Israeli army can travel on, and the latest wall of shame that Israel is building on Palestinian land,' says Sakakini. 'This wall is separating farmers from their lands and homes, water resources and any natural growth of towns and cities.'
He believes the Bush Administration's policies in the region didn't help the situation.
'The Road Map that the Bush Administration pursued is nothing but a delaying tactic to help Israel enforce reality on the ground and thus give little to nothing to the Palestinians,' he says.
Gross thinks that Bush's call for elections in Gaza was premature and led to a disaster.
'Elections do not make a democracy,' she says. 'Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and a grateful friend to the United States, no matter who the administration is. All of the United States' administrations have recognized the shared values of Americans and Israelis, and for the most part have all been supportive.'
Biblical roots The Palestinian thinks that the situation between the two peoples can be described in terms of a family inheritance.
'The Zionist movement used the Bible to get the entitlement for the land.' he says. 'As we all know, Abraham became the father of the Arab tribes and Isaac became the father of the Hebrew tribes - thus, this land belongs to both the Arabs and the Jews. The issue is not Arabs against Jews - the issue is about inheritance.'
Will the warring family ever call a truce?
'If the Palestinians want peace and their own state, which, by the way, they could have had in 1947, they must be willing to renounce violence,' says Gross.
'As long as there are Palestinian people, there should be a Palestine,' says Sakakini. 'Israel can't eliminate the millions of Palestinians around the world.'
Can a two-state solution provide lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians?
'The vast majority of Jews and Israelis have supported the two-state solution,' says Gross, who has traveled to Israel 17 times. 'What they need, however, is a partner for peace, not a terrorist enemy that preaches its destruction.'
'I have been talking about a two-state solution with the Jewish American community in Texas, where I lived for 19 years, before the official negotiation even started between the PLO and Israel based on pre-1967 borders,' says Sakakini.
But despite their deeply rooted opinions, neither has given up hope.
'I have a great love for this country and look forward to the day when Arab and Jewish children can play together all day and never need to run for a bomb shelter,' concludes Gross.
'There is room for both the Palestinians and Israelis to co-exist as equals, not as one subordinating and occupying the other,' Sakakini offers. 'Any true negotiations must be based on compromises and concessions from both sides to achieve the more illusive peace.'
We now repeat some quotes and comment on them.
Quote: "Israel launched its offensive against Gaza on Dec. 27, announcing it wanted to stop Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israel.."
Comment: There's a good reason Israel made that announcement: it wanted to stop Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israel. (Unlike the misinformation that comes from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, when Israel makes a statement it's generally true.)
Quote: "The Ministry of Health in Gaza has reported that Palestinian fatalities have exceeded 1,000, with more than half of them civilians including women and children, and nearly 5,000 have been wounded."
Comment: The number of civilian casualties was grossly exaggerated by Hamas.
As reported at:
"A continuing IDF investigation into the number of civilian Palestinian casualties during the Israeli offensive in Gaza indicated that only 250 of the fatalities were civilians.
"The military estimates that between 1,100 and 1,200 people were killed during the offensive. Some 700 of are believed to be militants and most are believed to be Hamas operatives."
As reported at
"A continuing IDF investigation into the number of civilian Palestinian casualties during the Israeli offensive in Gaza indicated that only 250 of the fatalities were civilians.
"The military estimates that between 1,100 and 1,200 people were killed during the offensive. Some 700 of are believed to be militants and most are believed to be Hamas operatives."
Quote: "Within days, U.N. headquarters in Gaza was hit by Israeli military fire, halting the supply of food and medicine to residents. The facility stored oil tanks used by area hospitals. A U.N. run school was also hit by mortar fire, killing dozens."
Comment: Hamas combatants fired at Israeli troops either from or near those facilities; Israel returned fire. It's been an unfortunate fact of like that the United Nations has effectively sheltered and even employed terrorists.
Quote: "'The situation in Gaza can be described in a reversed Biblical term of David and Goliath, in which the defenseless civilian Palestinian community in Gaza are being massacred by the powerful and merciless well equipped Israeli army,' says Palestinian-American Khalil Sakakini, a Fairfield engineer."
Comment: The "defenseless" Arabs in Gaza have managed to launch more than 7,000 rockets and thousands of mortar rounds at Israeli cities and towns over the last few years.
There is no massacre; there is and has been a very restrained effort by Israel to end the reign of rockets launched from Gaza at Sderot, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Beersheva.
There is no massacre; there is and has been a very restrained effort by Israel to end the reign of rockets launched from Gaza at Sderot, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Beersheva.
Quote: "'The use of Israeli Navy, Air Force and ground forces equipped with sophisticated American-made weapons against feeble home-made unguided rockets is totally disproportionate,' says Sakakini, adding that he does not think Hamas should have launched the rockets. 'By the same token, Israel should lift the embargo and stop the indiscriminate killing of the Palestinian community in Gaza.'."
Comment: Far from being disproportionate, Israel's defensive measures have thus far been insufficient. Hamas and other terror groups continue to attack Israel and Israeli civilians within Israel, killing one soldier with a bomb after the so-called cease-fire and launching two Kassam rockets at Israel.
There is no "indiscriminate killing" by Israel; even during the recent operation, Israel went to great lengths to avoid harming civilians - the opposite of Hamas' strategy of targeting civilians.
To expect Israel to allow goods to pass freely from Israel into a hostile, Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip is absurd. The call by Sakakini is also incredibly hypocritical, given the Arab boycott of Israel.
There is no "indiscriminate killing" by Israel; even during the recent operation, Israel went to great lengths to avoid harming civilians - the opposite of Hamas' strategy of targeting civilians.
To expect Israel to allow goods to pass freely from Israel into a hostile, Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip is absurd. The call by Sakakini is also incredibly hypocritical, given the Arab boycott of Israel.
Quote: "'The whole infrastructure is being destroyed, including schools, places of worships, residential sections,' he says. 'Israel wants to impose a situation on the Palestinians in which Israel has a military domination.."
Comment: Hamas and other Arab terror groups used schools, mosques, homes and hospitals to store weapons and ammunition, protect terrorists and launch attacks. At least one mosque was destroyed not by an Israeli bomb, but from the secondary explosions that occurred when the munitions stored in the mosque were hit by the bomb.
Quote: "Sakakini says most of the people living in Gaza are members of families that were driven out of their towns and villages from what is today Israel by the Israeli army in 1948."
Comment: Most of the Arabs who moved to Gaza did so either because of the violence of the war the Arabs started or because they were encouraged to do so by their Arab brethren.
Quote: "'These people lived under the Israeli occupation since 1967,' he says. 'Although the Israeli army and settlers left the strip in 2005, Israel still controls all accesses to the strip. Israel's army can enter the strip at will.."
Comment: Most of Gaza was given over to the Palestinian Authority back in 1994 and Israel left completely in 2005. The Arabs in Gaza have been living under their own (oppressive) government since 1994, not under any so-called occupation.
Israel, like other countries, controls its side of its border with Gaza, but does not control Gaza's border with Egypt.
Israel, like other countries, controls its side of its border with Gaza, but does not control Gaza's border with Egypt.
Quote: "Sakakini counters that the Israeli Defense Force's chief of staff stated that the Palestinians must be made to understand on a primal level that they are a defeated people."
Comment: Sakakini is referring to a fictitious quote, conjured up by Arab propagandists. He is referring to Moshe Yaalon, who actually said something quite different, almost the opposite, that the Palestinian Arabs must be made to understand the Israelis are NOT a defeated people.
The bogus quote is discussed by CAMERA at.
The bogus quote is discussed by CAMERA at
Quote: "Sakakini thinks that Israel propagandists convinced the media that Israel's war in Gaza is against the rocket launchers, but that the actual situation paints a different picture."
Comment: The Israelis could distribute a Kassam that had been launched from Gaza to every family living in Sderot (the primary target) and still have plenty left over. No country can tolerate such attacks. Obviously Israel had to act; obviously, since rockets are still being launched at Sderot, Israel still has to act.
Quote: "'Unfortunately the only peace that Israel wants... is a piece of land in which more illegal settlements are being built, roads that only Jewish settlers living in the West Bank settlements and the Israeli army can travel on, and the latest wall of shame that Israel is building on Palestinian land,' says Sakakini. 'This wall is separating farmers from their lands and homes, water resources and any natural growth of towns and cities.."
Comment: Israel totally left Gaza, uprooting thousands of Israelis. Israel has handed over to the Palestinian Authority disputed territory in the West Bank in which approximately 95 percent of the Palestinian Arabs live. In return, Arabs launched a wave of terror attacks and the government was forced to build a fence by parents who were tired of having their children blown apart in shopping malls, discotheques and pizza parlors.
Quote: "'As long as there are Palestinian people, there should be a Palestine,' says Sakakini. 'Israel can't eliminate the millions of Palestinians around the world.'."
Comment: Only when the Palestine Arabs agree to establish it will another Palestinian Arab state (in addition to the existing one of Jordan) be established.
Quote: "'There is room for both the Palestinians and Israelis to co-exist as equals, not as one subordinating and occupying the other,' Sakakini offers. 'Any true negotiations must be based on compromises and concessions from both sides to achieve the more illusive peace.'."
Comment: This is actually true. Unfortunately, while Israel has already made tremendous compromises and concessions, the Palestinian Authority continues to cling to the same extreme demands they were making in 1993.
It does take two sides to make peace. As long as Israel continues to be the only side prepared to make peace, there will be conflict, including suffering and death.
It does take two sides to make peace. As long as Israel continues to be the only side prepared to make peace, there will be conflict, including suffering and death.
