The Guardian: Israel Is Only Justly Defending Itself

If even The Guardian publishes online a comment siding with Israel, by no less than Israel's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon, it must really mean that it is becoming obvious to everyone with an ounce of brain that, defending itself after years of restraint, the Jewish state is only doing what any other country in the same situation would do.

Are The Guardian's falling readership numbers making the paper take into more consideration the opinions of people who are not totally blinded by ideology?

Hamas leaves Israel no choice:

Israel will not allow the lives of its citizens to be endangered. If only Gaza's leaders felt the same.

Hamas's charter includes the aspiration that "The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews)". While many concentrate on its death-cult worship, its bloodthirsty killing of adversaries, or its contempt for women, Christians and homosexuals, it is this aspiration for genocide that is at the root of Hamas activities. This is the primary reason why Hamas, the governing regime in Gaza, will never recognise or accept a peace accord with Israel in any form.

Since Israel left Gaza in 2005, thousands of rockets have rained down on Israeli cities and towns in deliberate contravention not just of international law, but all humanity and morality. While some might suggest the so-called blockade is the cause of the attacks, it is actually a consequence. The restrictions were only implemented two years after Israel left Gaza, when it was clear that instead of building a "Singapore of the Middle East", Hamas was interested in importing stockpiles of weapons from places like Iran. Instead of building a future for its people, Hamas built an open-air prison for the million and a half inhabitants who fell into its grasp.

However, Gaza was never enough for an organisation whose raison d'etre is the annihilation of Israel, and whose charter begins with the ominous warning that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it".

Every rocket from Gaza is a double war crime. First, the rockets are aimed at civilians; second, they are fired from built-up civilian areas, often close to schools, mosques and hospitals. And about 10% of Hamas rockets fired from Gaza don't reach Israel, exploding in Gaza. Mohammed Sadallah – a four-year-old killed on Saturday, his body displayed in a press conference with Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's leader – was, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, most likely killed by an errant Hamas rocket.

Hamas leaders frequently declare that their people actively seek death. Fathi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas, stated in 2008 that "for the Palestinian people, death became an industry, at which women and children excel. Accordingly we created a human shield of women, children and elderly. We seek death as you [Israelis] desire life."

Hamas seeks conflagration and war. Death and destruction is seen as a win-win calculation, as any Israeli death is considered a glorious achievement and every Palestinian death that of a "holy martyr", providing badly needed propaganda locally and internationally. Seemingly there are not enough deaths for them, so Hamas's military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, has been busy sending out pictures of massacres in Syria, claiming they were taken in Gaza.

Israel has been left with little choice but to root out this nest of hate and destruction. No nation on earth would allow a third of its population to live in constant fear of incessant fire emanating from a neighbouring territory. Our government exercised restraint. We gave the international community time to act. However, there was a deafening silence, demonstrating to Israelis that we had to take action to protect our citizens.

Those who refused to condemn the attacks on Israeli citizens have no right to condemn Israel's response to establish peace and quiet for its citizens. This is the basic obligation of any sovereign nation, and we will continue taking any action necessary to achieve this aim.

In the face of this undeniable truth, the usual accusation is that Israel is responding with "disproportionate force" or carrying out "collective punishment". I urge all who make this accusation to consider that Israel has successfully targeted in excess of 1,300 weapons caches, rocket launchers and other elements of Hamas's terrorist infrastructure. Yet despite this, the number of Palestinian casualties remains around one for every 13 strikes, the majority killed being active members of Hamas and combatants.

Israel will not allow its citizens' lives to be endangered. The international community must call on the Palestinian leadership in the Gaza Strip to take the same approach with its own people.

Wikipedia Unreliable, CNN Says

Just a confirmation of what we already noticed.

This article on CNN on Wikipedia's unreliability refers to Wikipedia business and celebrity pages, but the easiness with which inaccuracies and misleading statements can spread on that online 'encyclopaedia' is true for all of it, especially if they are politically correct and pro-Islam.

Just look at the Wikipedia entry for Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the Islamic and Arabic chief centre of learning in the world. At Al-Azhar subjects that we would not normally associate with a prestigious university are taught as part of the curriculum, such as "The Treachery of the Jews" and "Islamic Jihad and Its Various Forms", as illustrated in the above video of a programme shown on the Egyptian Al-Rahma TV. The video is entitled Egyptian Cleric Miqdam Al-Khadhari on the Benefits of Al-Azhar Curricula: The Only Textbooks to Militarize the Students and Teach Jihad and Hatred of Jews Extensively.

According to Faith Freedom, Al-Azhar University curricula encourages extremism and terrorism.

And even the ultra PC New York Times reported this, happened in 2009:

Inside Al Azhar Mosque, a 1,000-year-old center of religious learning, the preacher was railing on Friday against Jews. Outside were rows of riot police officers backed by water cannons and dozens of plainclothes officers, there to prevent worshipers from charging into the street to protest against the war in Gaza.

“Muslim brothers,” said the government-appointed preacher, Sheik Eid Abdel Hamid Youssef, “God has inflicted the Muslim nation with a people whom God has become angry at and whom he cursed so he made monkeys and pigs out of them. They killed prophets and messengers and sowed corruption on Earth. They are the most evil on Earth.” [Emphasis added]

On top of everything else, this continuous reference to animal epithets is speciesist, as well as anti-Semitic.

And now, just a few days ago, we have this (from Breitbart):

Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Dr.Ahmed El-Tayyeb has called for enacting an international law that bans the denigration and desecration of Islam and its sanctities, which he said, have been violated by some "fools" who do not know the value of social peace between peoples, and do not mind fueling discord.

Dr.El-Tayyeb also demanded the punishment of those who committed such a "heinous and shameful '' act against Islam's Prophet Mohammad, peace and blessing be upon him (PBUH), calling meantime on the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to work for issuing such a law that would criminalize the insulting of Islamic sanctities and those of all universal religions, which, he added, would cause the disturbance of world peace and threaten international security, both are responsibilities of the UN and its Secretary General.

Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar , the oldest religious university worldwide, likened what happened against Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) to claims of insulting Semitism that has resulted in verdicts against several people all over the world, including thinkers and scientists.

El-Tayyeb added in his statement that silence does not befit officials at this dangerous and critical situation, stressing that such a "foolishness" should not go unpunished.

Interestingly enough, another Wikipedia entry, on Islam and Antisemitism, says:

Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque and Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar University, and "perhaps the foremost Sunni Arab authority", has been criticized for remarks made in April 2002, described Jews in his weekly sermon as "the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs." [Emphasis added]

Despite all this, the Wikipedia page on Al-Azhar University does not make any mention of anti-Semitism or jihad, and the only reference to freedom of speech is to say that Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy in October 2007 "drew allegations of stifling freedom of speech when he asked the Egyptian government to toughen its rules and punishments against journalists". But the naughty Tantawy was "a supporter of then Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak", so it doesn't count.

Overall, someone who didn't know anything about Al-Azhar University, reading Wikipedia would get the impression that it's an erudite, nice place where everything is hunky-dory as befits a religion of peace.