As fighting intensified on the northern outskirts of Gaza City today, a top Hamas leader broke cover to warn Israel that the Islamists would kill Jewish children anywhere in the world in revenge for their own young who have died in the devastating assault. ‘They have legitimised the murder of their own children by killing the children of Palestine,’ said Mahmoud Zahar, in a televised broadcast recorded at a secret location. ‘They have legitimised the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people.’

I have been absolutely overwhelmed by messages pouring in following my column in the Daily Mail today on the Gaza crisis. From these messages I have learned the following:

There is a large groundswell of support for Israel and detestation of Hamas; this is evident among people who are neither Jews nor evangelical Christians (who are usually pro-Israel) and have had no particular view about the Middle East one way or another. This in my view is a significant shift of opinion towards Israel amongst ordinary people.

There is a large groundswell of fury at the BBC in particular but also the print media for what people perceive to be morally bankrupt reporting, with gross prejudice against Israel and the ruthless delivery of Hamas propaganda which is presenting the mass killers of both Israelis and Palestinians as the victims of Israeli aggression and airbrushing the crimes of Hamas out of the picture altogether.

There is huge ignorance and bewilderment  about the most basic and fundamental facts about Israel and the Middle East impasse, and considerable anger that the media has either misled people about it all or]]> 2009-01-05T22:14:32+00:00 http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3206066/the-real-agenda.thtml

BBC World TV has spent much of the day whining that Israel is refusing to allow the international media entry into Gaza despite an Israeli court ruling that it should allow the media in. This is amongst the reasons why it isn’t choosing to do so:

Police were searching Saturday night for a foreign reporter working for an Iranian TV network who reported the IDF incursion into Gaza before the military authorized the release of the information to the public. Also Saturday evening, a reporter for the Lebanese LBC network who was broadcasting near the Gaza Strip said the IDF was moving from Nahal Oz towards the Nezarim junction. The reporter surmised that the military was planning to sever the Gaza Strip in half, effectively isolating Gaza City in an effort to minimize Hamas terrorists’ ability to exploit urban areas. The anchor reportedly stood in a vantage point overlooking the IDF staging grounds and reported military maneuvers. 

To fill the gap, BBC World interviewed a Gazan, Hatem Shurrab of Islamic Relief, who during the night apparently moved his family into the basement to escape]]> 2009-01-04T21:57:47+00:00 http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3206981/an-mp-is-shocked-by-al-beeb.thtml
Three cheers for Tory MP Michael Fabricant, who says he has been ‘horrified and angered’ by the BBC’s coverage of the Gaza conflict, and will be making a formal complaint to the Chairman of the BBC Trust about it:

While paying scant regard to the provocation of 10,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilians from Gaza over the last seven years, the BBC has chosen to broadcast 'human interest' stories reminiscent of salacious photos in the cheaper red top newspapers. Thus I heard a heart rending report from a Palestinian in Cyprus how he imagined - yes: IMAGINED! - Gaza's streets would be running with the blood of dead Arab children. After that, the BBC located individuals in Gaza who have taken the opportunity of repeating over the BBC what they have already said on Al Jazeera. No balance there then. And today I heard an ‘unbiased report from a British aid worker in Gaza, from Islamic Relief’. Oh come on!

But perhaps the worst interview of all was with the Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic who dared to suggest that every country has a right to defend

Such people have made no protest at the bombardment of Israeli towns by more than 6000 rockets in the past six years, deliberately targeting innocent civilians. They have made no protest at the way Hamas has used Gazan civilians as human shields, situating its murderous arsenals beneath apartment blocks, in schools and hospitals and mosques in order to maximise the numbers of civilians killed (in order to manipulate all-too pliable western opinion). No, their protest only starts when Israel finally takes]]> 2009-01-04T00:53:42+00:00 http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3194846/groundhog-day-for-the-fifth-column-of-malice.thtml

So there is indeed now a war. In Gaza. Actually, there are two wars going on: one involving rockets and warplanes, and the other involving the media, as Barry Rubin notes:

Nothing is clearer than Hamas’s strategy. It gives Israel the choice between rockets and media, and Hamas thinks it is a situation of, ‘We win or you lose.’...The smug smiles are wiped off the faces of Hamas leaders. Yet they have one more weapon, their reserves, they call up the media. Those arrogant, heroic, macho victors of yesterday--literally yesterday as the process takes only a few hours--are transformed into pitiful victims. Casualty figures are announced by Hamas, and accepted by reporters who are not on the spot. Everyone hit is, of course, a civilian. No soldiers here. And the casualties are disproportionate: Hamas has arranged it that way. If necessary, sympathetic photographers take pictures of children who pretend to be injured, and once they are published in Western newspapers these claims become fact.

All too predictable – and going to plan, with assistance from the Club of Terror UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who condemned]]> 2008-12-29T17:28:40+00:00 http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3197296/on-the-other-side-from-civilisation.thtml

When Ed Husain famously renounced Islamism there were some who warned that, despite his denunciation of Hizb ut Tahrir and Islamist ideology, he remained dangerously confused and should not be treated as a serious reformer. I thought this was too harsh. He had, after all, bravely taken an enormous step out of the darkness; surely he had to be given time and encouragement to adjust properly to the light. Surely it was a good thing that he was encouraging young British Muslims to turn away from Islamic radicalism. The extreme importance of that task was such that, even when he wrote a stupid and ignorant piece about Zionism, I hoped that if he was now told the truth about the history of Israel and the Jewish people, he would realise the error of his thinking on that particular issue. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

With first this press release from the Quilliam Foundation soon after the start of the current Israeli operation in Gaza, and now his poisonous piece on the Guardian’s Comment is Free today, Ed Husain has]]> 2008-12-30T23:53:47+00:00 http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3189461/intermission.thtml

This blog is taking a break now (wars permitting) until early January. Many thanks for all your contributions, and I wish everyone a happy holiday and a good and peaceful new year.

NGO Monitor details the way in which Christian and other NGOs are using their Christmas message to incite distinctly unseasonal hatred by perpetrating the usual lies, libels and other calumnies against Israel. No mention, of course, of the real abuse of Christians by Muslims, across the third world – as detailed, along with Hindu-Christian violence in India, in the latest bulletin from the Barnabas Fund -- and specifically in the West Bank and Gaza. As Jonathan Speyer reports:

Unremarked upon by the Western media, a systematic campaign of persecution is taking place in the Gaza Strip, and to a lesser extent in the West Bank. The general silence surrounding this campaign aids its perpetrators. The victims are Palestinian Christians, in particular the small Christian community of Gaza. The perpetrators are a variety of Islamist groups, all of which are manifestations of a process of growing Islamic militancy and piety taking place across the region.

...Islamist organizations, empowered by the indifference of the authorities, have begun to target Christian institutions and individuals in Gaza with increasing impunity. Intimidation, assault and the threat of kidnapping

Muslims who fight against the occupation of their lands are ‘Mujahadeen’ and are blessed by Allah. And any Muslim who fights against Israel and dies is a martyr and will be granted paradise. The concept of Jihad is a beautiful thing, and logical to those with a sincere heart. It tells the human being to stand up and fight against those who bring evil and oppression on this earth, and by standing up - roll back that oppression until the people are free from it. There is no greater oppressor on this earth then [sic] the Zionists, who murder little children for sport...Any public attack on Islam and the Ummah is not going to be tolerated by men like me. I have dealt with these Zionists before, a veneer of reason, below which lies a crooked mind plotting and planning to extend their hatred against us.