Sydney Solidarity Rally: Australian Parliamentarians support Israel, denounce antisemitic protests

Photo of part of the crowd at the Israel Solidarity Rally in Sydney on 3 August 2014.

 Total final attendance estimated at 10,000 .

Many Christian groups joined with the Jewish community, including an order of nuns , the Sisters of Sion.

MESSAGE FROM FEDERAL ALP MPs TO ISRAEL SOLIDARITY RALLY IN SYDNEY, 3 AUGUST 2014

Australia’s friendship with Israel is a strong and enduring partnership. It is a partnership that goes back to the founding of modern Israel, when Australia cast the first vote in favour of creating the modern State of Israel in the United Nations.

Today, Australia’s relationship with Israel is built on the same robust foundations that founded our friendship generations ago: shared democratic values and a common commitment to justice and to the rights, liberty and security of our citizens.

It is in this context that we once again affirm our support for the State of Israel to live in peace within secure borders.  And we also affirm our support for Israel to defend its citizens against attacks by a Hamas, a terrorist organization that continues to reject Israel’s very right to exist.

In a statement issued on Thursday this week, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Shadow Foreign Minister Tanya Plibersek issued a statement that included the following:

“Labor deplores the abuse of civilian facilities for military purposes, including a Gaza school that was used to hide rockets. 

Hamas must stop firing rockets into Israel - more than 2600 so far, and Israel must restrain its response, which has cost far too many civilian lives.”

All civilized nations deplore the loss of innocent lives. And as the IDF continues to defend Israel against rocket attacks by Hamas, we call on Israel to continue to extend its efforts to avoid civilian casualties in its response.

We also support the right of all peoples to protest policies that they disagree with.  But what we have seen at times over recent weeks, alongside the legitimate protests and the heartfelt concerns of people appalled at the loss of innocent lives, is a resurgence of anti-Semitism.  Around the world synagogues have been attacked, blatantly anti-Semitic messages have been emblazoned on placards and social media sites, and anti-Semitic stereotypes have found their way back into the mainstream media. And here in Australia too, anti-Semitism has been rearing its ugly head.

So while we will always support the right of people to speak their minds, to protest, and to advocate for change, we abhor racism in all its forms, and we do not support a right to anti-Semitic hate speech and bigotry of the kind we have been seeing.

We conclude by reiterating that Labor’s support for Israel has been steadfast since before the modern state was founded.

Our support has also been steadfast throughout the long peace process, which is the only path out of the conflict that in the last month has once again erupted into violence, causing untold suffering on both sides. Specifically, Labor is committed to supporting an enduring and just two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, based on the right of Israel to live in peace within secure borders internationally recognised and agreed by the parties, and reflecting the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people to also live in peace and security within their own state.

Thank you.

The Hon Mark Dreyfus QC MP

Senator Deborah O’Neill

The Hon Bernie Ripoll MP

MESSAGE FROM PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE PRIME MINISTER TO ISRAEL SOLIDARITY RALLY IN SYDNEY, 3 AUGUST 2014

At this most difficult time for Israel and international Jewry, my heart goes out to all the families who have had members killed or wounded as we pray for an end to the violence.

Israel as a freedom loving democracy in a sea of instability and antagonism to her, has the right to defend itself against terrorist attacks and protect all its citizens.

Hamas has proven that it is no partner for peace and with it at the helm in Gaza, a necessary negotiated two state solution seems tragically to be a long way away.

I thank all of you here today for Standing Up For Israel

Josh Frydenberg MP

Federal member for Kooyong

Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister    

The gallery of useful idiots

THE CANBERRA DECLARATION ON GAZA

We the undersigned ... condemn the ongoing Israeli military bombardment and invasion of Gaza.

We call on Australian politicians to support an immediate cessation of hostilities and a ceasefire deal which includes an end to Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories and to the blockade of Gaza.... [etc] ...

*updated 30 July 2014

Signed by [the morally bereft] -

1. Maria Vamvakinou MP, Labor
2. Melissa Parke MP, Labor
3. Laurie Ferguson MP, Labor
4. Alan Griffin MP, Labor
5. Sharon Claydon MP, Labor
6. Adam Bandt MP, Greens
7. Barbara Perry MP, Labor
8. Andrew Giles MP, Labor
9. Paul Lynch MP, Labor
10. Jamie Parker MP, Greens
11. Lynda Voltz MLC, Labor 
12. Shaoquett Moselmane MLC, Labor
13. David Shoebridge MLC, Greens
14. Dr Mehreen Faruqi MLC, Greens
15. Dr John Kaye MLC, Greens
16. Jeremy Buckingham MLC, Greens
17. Jan Barham MLC, Greens
18. Senator Claire Moore, Labor
19. Senator Nick Xenophon, Independent
20. Senator Christine Milne, Greens
21. Senator Lee Rhiannon, Greens
22. Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, Greens
23. Senator Larissa Waters, Greens
24. Senator Janet Rice, Greens
25. Senator Richard Di Natale, Greens
26. Senator Penny Wright, Greens
27. Senator Rachel Siewert, Greens
28. Senator Scott Ludlam, Greens
29. Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, Greens
30. Senator Sue Lines, Labor
31. Tammy Franks MLC, Greens
32. Graham Perrett MP, Labor
33. Senator Anne Urquhart, Labor
34. Terri Butler MP, Labor
35. Julie Owens MP, Labor
36. Lisa Chesters MP, Labor
37. Senator Gavin Marshall, Labor
38. Senator Anne McEwen , Labor
39. Senator Carol Brown, Labor
40. Senator Doug Cameron, Labor
41. Cassy O’Connor MLA, Greens
42. Senator Jan McLucas, Labor
43. Lynn MacLaren MLC, Greens
44. Jill Hall MP, Labor
45. Jackie Trad MP, Labor
46. Malcolm Fraser, former Liberal Prime Minister
47. Shane Rattenbury MLA, Greens
48. Yvette Berry MLA, Labor
49. Bronwyn Halfpenny MP, Labor
50. Tony Piccolo MP, Labor
51. Andrew Wilkie MP, Independent
52. Senator Lisa Singh, Labor
53. Khalil Eideh MP, Labor
54. Lee Tarlamis MP, Labor
55. Johan Scheffer MP, Labor
56. Katrine Hildyard MP, Labor
57. Janine Freeman MLA, Labor
58. Amanda Fazio MLC, Labor
59. Mary Porter MLA, Labor
60. Ian Hunter MLC, Labor
61. Stephanie Key MP, Labor

Burning Ross Burns' diatribe

From  scathing critique of a shameful diatribe by veteran Israel-basher, former Australian diplomat, Ross Burns, in Jewgle Perth, 31 July 2014:

I read your article in The Australian.  ...you are wrong.  Dead wrong.  The record needs to be set right, and with sufficient detail for the sake of your readers.

....To rebut your shameful diatribe, I reproduce your article with some salient points that both you and your objective readers may wish to consider:

[Follow the link to read the rebuttal in full detail.]

....You Sir, are part of the problem, not part of the solution.  Given the tone and lack of honesty in your article, I believe that you are an apologist for terrorists and a blight on the good name of our wonderful country.....

The real jailors of Gaza are Hamas

TRANSCRIPT OF THE MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS
THE HON MALCOLM TURNBULL MP
INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS UHLMANN
ABC AM PROGRAM, 31 July 2014
……

CHRIS UHLMANN: 

On another and very pressing issue. You have a large Jewish constituency in your electorate, how do you feel about the war in Gaza? Does Israel risk doing irreparable damage to its international standing?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: 

Well Israel risks extinction. Israel faces an existential threat every day. Israel can barely afford to lose a battle let alone a war. Now, listening to Mark Regev earlier on this program, he really set out well what the problem is. I mean, the problems between Palestinians and Israel are immense and complex, but right here and now the fundamental issue that Israel faces is its fights to defend the safety of its people. As long as Hamas is firing rockets into Israel the Israeli defence force has to defend its own population. I mean that’s what we’d expect the Australian Army to do for us.

CHRIS UHLMANN: 

Are you comfortable with the disproportionate nature of what we’re seeing? 

MALCOLM TURNBULL: 

Nobody is comfortable with it – nobody. And can I say to you, least of all Jews in Australia. Jews in Australia and in my electorate are anguished by this because they see the terrible bind that Israel is in, the terrible bind that the civilians of Gaza are in. I mean people talk about Gaza as a prison. Let me tell you the real jailors of Gaza are Hamas. They are the people that are firing missiles from heavily built up areas filled with civilians, filled with children and the Israelis have to try to work out how to eliminate the source of the missiles in a surgical way. That is almost impossible to do without civilian casualties. 

CHRIS UHLMANN: 

Malcolm Turnbull, we’ll have to leave it there. Thank you. 

MALCOLM TURNBULL: 

Thank you.

[ENDS]

"Our ABC" (Australia) interviews an authoritative Israeli for a change, instead of an extremist from the left or right.

From Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Broadcast: 30/07/2014
Reporter: Emma Alberici

[I'm posting this in full, because the ABC will probably take it down as soon, having failed in this program, despite Alberici's naive best efforts, to make Israel look like the "bad guy".... Until it does, follow the link to see a video of the program.]

Dore Gold, Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, discusses the hostilities in Gaza.

Transcript

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Our top story is the hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. And joining us from Jerusalem is Dore Gold, senior foreign policy advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and president of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs. He's also a former ambassador to the UN.

Dore Gold, welcome to Lateline.

DORE GOLD, SENIOR FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR TO ISRAELI PM: It's a pleasure to be with you.

EMMA ALBERICI: Please explain for us why Israel has fired missiles at a United Nations school in Gaza knowing that hundreds of innocent families were sheltering there.

DORE GOLD: Well, you have to take that question apart into two - two elements. Number one, Israel does not knowingly fire into civilian groups of people, into civilian buildings. What has happened is schools, clinics and a variety of civilian residences have now moved from the category of being purely a non-military entity to becoming actual military targets. Israel, however, uses a system of warnings when that happens. The reason why suddenly we find civilians in a school or in other places is because Hamas has a deliberate policy of using these people as human shields. Now, I just want to add one last point on this. The United Nations has already complained that it has found three schools of UNRRA that have been used by Hamas for storing weapons and those weapons in fact have been discovered by the UN. So we have a very serious problem. In many cases, a UN school will be used by Hamas to fire at our troops. In other cases, they're used to store weaponry.

EMMA ALBERICI: Sorry, I was going to say we should go through some of the issues you raise in some detail. First of all, the UN's Chris Gunness has told the BBC just in the last few hours that Israel had been warned 17 times that the school in the Jabaliya refugee camp was housing people who'd been forced to flee from their homes.

DORE GOLD: Well if you're speaking about a specific case that occurred today, I know some event has occurred which is under investigation and Israel always thoroughly investigates these cases. In the past, we have found that when allegations were made about Israeli military activity in a civilian area, we demonstrated very clearly, and the international community accepted our arguments, that these types of events have occurred because Hamas was operating there. That, for example, the other day in a hospital courtyard, a blast went off, injuring - in fact killing some children. And why did that blast go off? Israel wasn't even operating in the area. It was Hamas launching a Fajr-5 rocket procured from Iran at Israel and they mishandled the rocket. So as these kinds of things occur, these events have to be investigated.

EMMA ALBERICI: Excuse me for interrupting. Excuse me for interrupting you there, but I do want to take you back to the UN's claims today that were very simply that you were warned 17 times and the most recent time was just an hour before the fatal attack - warned that there were innocent civilians who were in the school taking shelter after being forced to leave their homes.

DORE GOLD: Well let me just tell you, I understand how the IDF operates, and I can tell you this: if the IDF, the Israel Defence Forces, knows there are civilians in an area, it will not open fire. If this occurred, it's probably because of Hamas fire or because of a misunderstanding, but I don't want to relate to any specific incident today. Those incidents need to be investigated. But what you're doing is you're micromanaging your questions in very specific areas, which are extremely important, but there's no way that on an investigative television show, several hours afterwards, you're going to figure this out. If you want the bigger picture of what is happening in the Gaza Strip, that can be discussed. But obviously, these kinds of issues have to be investigated, they're sensitive and they require the thorough co-operation between the United Nations and Israel. That co-operation is there.

EMMA ALBERICI: But you are calling into question claims being raised by the UN.

DORE GOLD: There have been other cases. This is a very tragic war, a tragic war that has broken out because Hamas decided first and foremost to launch rockets at Israeli cities, at our population centres in the heart of Israel. And number two, they also decided to launch these rockets, to place their military equipment in civilian areas. Now, Israel has basically three responses it could make with this kind of a war imposed on it. It could respond like the Allies in the Second World War and carpet bomb the enemy. We don't do that. We don't napalm whole neighbourhoods. That is not how Israel operates. We could have also said, "You know what? There's nothing we can do. There are civilians in the area from where they're shooting, it's better we just raise our hands and let our people be pelted with rockets." That is something Israel isn't going to do. We have to defend our people, as any country, including Australia, would. The only logical way of handling a situation like this is what Israel has proposed and what it is implementing. And that is giving sequential warnings to the population, leaflets, breaking into radio transmissions, getting Arabic-speaking officers to call people on their cell phones and send them text messages to move out of an area where military operations are going to occur. 

EMMA ALBERICI: Let me test some of the ...

DORE GOLD: Does the Israeli system work perfectly? No.

EMMA ALBERICI: OK, let me test some of your claims.

DORE GOLD: But does it represent a moral country pursuing a moral war of self-defence? Absolutely and that is exactly what you would do, unless you wanted to do the other two options.

EMMA ALBERICI: OK, there's quite a bit to get through on the issues you've raised there. First of all, the Israeli Defence Force, as you've just claimed, has given civilians ample warnings that they're coming to throw rockets into particular areas, but once made aware that a missile is about to strike, where are those people supposed to go when even the UN shelters are being targeted?

DORE GOLD: Well, first of all, Israel doesn't target UN shelters. What it will do is that if Hamas is firing out of an area, putting our troops at risk, and Israel has ascertained that citizens, civilians are not there, then it will fire to defend its troops. Now where are they to go? That's an excellent question. In fact, if you look at the Arabic leaflets that Israel drops in places like Sudjaia (phonetic spelling), the neighbourhood right across from Nuchelose (phonetic spelling) in Israel, those leaflets have maps on them with red arrows saying where people should go to get out of harm's way. We don't just tell people, "Oh, there's going to be a battle in this area. You better find a place to go." You actually have to suggest to people where they should find refuge and that's exactly what Israel does.

EMMA ALBERICI: I'm challenging you not because of the word of the Palestinian people or even Hamas; it's the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights saying, "The number of incidents, along with the high number of civilian deaths, belies the claim that all necessary precautions are being taken to prevent civilian - protect civilian lives."

DORE GOLD: Well, we have very strong differences with her and her sort of authoritative comments. In the past Israel was charged - there was a military operation in 2008 and 2009, Operation Cast Lead, and many people said that mostly civilians were killed. Well - when actually the war was over. And we looked at the names of the individuals involved and we actually counted what happened in that war. What you found is that the number of civilians hurt or killed in that war was far less than occurs in other wars, in Afghanistan and the history of warfare in general. Israel does the maximum it can do. But unless you've actually gone on a name-by-name basis and looked at who was affected by a battle, you can't just give a speech at the United Nations and say, "70 per cent of the people were non-combatants." I simply can't accept that kind of presentation by a senior UN official.

EMMA ALBERICI: One in eight Gazans have been made homeless and 1,200 - what we're being told is mostly innocent Palestinians - have died, versus 56 Israelis. Do you honestly expect the international community to believe that your response to the threat from Hamas is proportionate?

DORE GOLD: Well, you're using proportionality at war by looking at the number of deaths on either side. Now remember, there wouldn't be a single death had Hamas not fired at us and started this war to begin with. But if you look at the history of warfare, who lost more people? Nazi Germany or Britain? If you use your basis of evaluating things, you'd say, "Well, Britain was in the wrong and Nazi Germany was in the right." You can't use the relative number of losses. 

Now in the case of the Hamas, how did the Hamas spend its money over the last five years? While Israel put money into civilian defence shelters, air raid shelters and invested in a unique rocket missile defence system to protect its people, Hamas didn't provide shelters for its people, it created, first of all, attack tunnels, which allowed its operatives to go under the earth into Israeli territory where they planned to kidnap and kill villagers living near the Gaza Strip within Israel. Moreover, they spent money on rockets, offensive rockets, not rockets to knock other rockets out of the sky. So, if there are losses that have occurred that seem to show that the Israelis haven't had as many dead people as the Palestinians, the basis for that is Hamas policy and Israel should not feel guilty for the fact that it's protecting its own civilians, as you would or any responsible democratic country would.

EMMA ALBERICI: So, even if what you say about the other side in this conflict is true, are you suggesting then that the Israeli military, as sophisticated as it is, the best it can do will always involve the killing of hundreds of innocent civilians?

DORE GOLD: I'm suggesting that modern war, if you study it seriously as you study any other subject, you will find that civilians are affected. Now, they are affected in particular if one side of the conflict, namely Hamas, has a belief in martyrdom, has a belief in putting civilians in harm's way intentionally. We have statements that have been made by Hamas leaders extolling the idea of human shields. And if I may remind you, it was Hamas that perfected the idea of suicide bombing attacks. They were Hamas young men coming into the heart of Israeli cities, going into a pizzeria, into a discotheque or into just a mall, blowing themselves up to kill a dozen Israelis and maim another 30. Now that is what Hamas is all about. In fact, this year, a Tunisian poet wrote in Asharq Al-Awsat, the Saudi newspaper, about the whole Hamas infatuation with the cult of death. This is horrible. It is horrible that these people are given weapons, have money and power. I blame Qatar, that very rich Emirate that's been pouring money into the hands of Hamas, and I blame Iran, which has been supplying weapons so that it can have a Mediterranean base for the extension of its influence. The Palestinian people are paying a price, the people of Israel are paying a price. We want to defeat the Hamas option of hurting Israel and sacrificing Palestinians and we're doing it the best way we can.

EMMA ALBERICI: Just in the last few hours, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has warned that Western opinion is rapidly turning against Israel because of the scale of the action in Gaza. Does that bother you?

DORE GOLD: Obviously this bothers us, but what is your ultimate responsibility as a government? Is it to always first and foremost consider how you're doing in a public opinion poll, or is it to protect the lives of your civilians? We have to protect the lives of our civilians and we have to defeat - I have no other word to call it - an evil regime that wants to hurt Israelis and hurt Palestinians. And these are the results we're seeing. 

Now there's another factor here, I have to say, and frankly it's unpleasant. I think Australia's a country of people who are fair. When they look at a situation that's complex, they don't just get taken in by a TV picture, a snapshot of a small scene of a much larger situation. But much of the international media is having a fest with the damages that are going on in Gaza that have been created largely by the Palestinian Hamas' own policy and this has helped create a very foul anti-Israeli mood.

EMMA ALBERICI: I'm sorry to come in there, we are going to run out of time and I think - I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we have gone over - you've gone over that point a couple of times and I don't want us to run out of time. And I want to ask you: is your government actively considering a reoccupation of Gaza?

DORE GOLD: You know, what Israel has said in terms of its military goals are very simple. Number one, bring the rocket fire to an end. It is untenable for any normal country to have to accept that its people are going to be hit by rockets any time the other side wants to do it. The second element that is in our list of demands of military purposes of our operation is to destroy the tunnels. The tunnels are there not for going from one place to another; the tunnels are being used to go into Israel, to come up next to Israeli towns and villages where operatives of Hamas carrying heavy machines guns will go in and kill our people. We will not allow that to happen. The rest is our military campaign.

EMMA ALBERICI: I want to draw you back to my original question because - I'm sorry, I want to draw you back to the question because certainly early in this military campaign, a reoccupation of Gaza was something being advocated by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

DORE GOLD: Well, you know, I think the Foreign Minister has his views. He brings them to the cabinet and they're discussed and the cabinet makes a decision and the cabinet has not suggested that we're going to reoccupy the Gaza Strip. That is not a position that's been approved by the cabinet. It is a position which the Foreign Minister can fairly bring. It's a small area. Maybe he thinks that's what has to be done. But at the end of the day, those positions are debated and a decision is taken and the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister, the chief-of-staff who have considered this suggestion have decided they have two goals: stop the rockets into Israel and destroy the infiltration terror tunnels that are going to be used to kill our people unless we do it.

EMMA ALBERICI: If your objective is not to reoccupy Gaza, then isn't it about time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to sit down with Hamas to find common ground and negotiate some kind of lasting peace?

DORE GOLD: Excuse me, do you know what you're saying? Hamas is regarded as an international terrorist organisation. Now it's not just that it is a certain category or certain designation by the United States, by the European Union, by half a dozen countries - I believe by Australia as well. It is an organisation, if you read their charter, that calls for the destruction of Israel.

EMMA ALBERICI: Even the British - if I can just interrupt you for a minute on that particular point - if I can just interrupt you on that particular point, even the British Foreign Secretary has just in the last few hours admitted that Hamas needs to be part of a process that arrives at a lasting ceasefire.

DORE GOLD: You know, if you have Hamas as an organisation and you read what its charter calls for: the destruction of the state of Israel, the murder of its population, in fact the murder of all Jewish people. Now, you know, if they didn't come from the Middle East and they came from Europe, an organisation with those purposes, with those goals, would be called Nazis. Do you want us to sit and negotiate peace with that organisation? Wouldn't you want to say the organisation should fundamentally change first? In fact, the quartet, the combination of the EU, the United States, Russia and the UN Secretariat, have said before Hamas can be part of a peace process, it has to recognise Israel's right to exist, renounce violence and accept all past Israeli-Palestinian agreements. That was a smart idea. But to say that suddenly we're going to embrace Hamas with its hateful ideology, which isn't just in a museum, it's something they teach their children, it's something they teach their top people. They have in fact a religious leader named Yunis Al-Astal - I guarantee most people haven't heard of him. He's the most important Islamic legal authority of Hamas. Yunis Al-Astal in 2008 he called for (speaks Arabic) - in Arabic means a holocaust. He called for a renewed holocaust. He is their leader. He is in the Hamas parliament. 

So, unless those voices change, unless someone comes up with a progressive message from Hamas of mutual understanding, of living together, to just say that Israel should sit with Hamas and work out a deal simply isn't looking at what's there. First we have to disarm Hamas. We have to make sure that the Gaza Strip will not have rockets and tunnels in the future. And then we have to work out a way of making sure the Gaza population is rehabilitated, is taken care of without strengthening the military capabilities Hamas to attack Israel or to attack anybody else in the Middle Eastern region.

EMMA ALBERICI: We're out of time, so we have to leave it there. I thank you very much for being with us. 

More evidence Gaza casualty figures are unreliable

From AIJAC, Jul29 2014, by Or Avi-Guy:

My recent blog post pointed out how casualty data from Gaza is unreliable, noting that the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry is the main source of information and data about casualties in Gaza, and in past Gaza wars, this information proved to be inaccurate - exaggerating both the total number of casualties, and especially inflating the percentage of them who are civilians.

Further analysis of the released casualty data, as published on al Jazeera, showed that military age males were more than half of those killed but only 20% of the Gaza population, thus disproving claims that Israel has been indiscriminately attacking civilians during Operation Protective Edge.

In yet more evidence that commonly employed casualty claims are unreliable, it has now been shown that the al Jazeera casualty list includes numerous duplicate names - names that appear two, and even three times on the same list. In fact, there have been at least 33-42 duplicate names so far (according to different counts). Other lists of Gazan casualties, which are likely to also be based on the Health Ministry records,  contained duplicate names as well.

Some of the names appeared in slight differences in spelling (yet the age and/or location confirm that it is the same person), some listed different locations (yet the name and age are the same). Among the duplicate names are children listed as fatalities multiple times.

For example, four-years-old Mona Rami Al Kharwat from north Gaza is listed twice, the second time her name is spelled as Mona Rami al-Kharwat, with a small ‘a'.

Yaseen Ibrahim Dieb Alkilani, nine-year-old from Burj Alsalam, is also listed as Yaseen Ibrahim Dib al-Kilani from Gaza city, and possibly even a third time as Yaser Ibrahim dib al-Kilani, 8, also from Burj Alsalam.

Hiba Hamid Alsheikh Khalil, 14 years old from Gaza, is also listed as having been killed twice. The duplication is acknowledged on the al Jazeera site, but the name is still listed as a separate casualty. It also appears a third time, as Hiba Hamed Mohammed Alshiekh Khalil, 13 years old.

Clearly, the lists provided by the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza is full of inaccuracies. Al Jazeera, mainstream media outlets and even the UN then use them, in the absence of other credible sources of data on casualties. One would expect serious journalists and professionals to apply some critical thinking and do a bit of fact-checking (such as checking the list for duplicates) before presenting the numbers as fact. At the very least, they could acknowledge that the source of the information is partisan. But such expectations seem rarely to be met.

This is especially the case when in comes to the often-quoted figure of 75% civilian casualties among Palestinians.

According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre the actual figures are drastically different; out of 775 fatalities analysed (as of 23 July) 229 were militants or terrorists (135 from Hamas, 60 from Islamic Jihad, and 34 from other terror organizations); 267 were civilians; and 279 could not yet be classified.

Reuven Erlich, the director of the Meir Amit Centre recently stated that some of the Palestinian figures that get quoted by the media, the UN and other international organisations "are not worth the paper they're written on... They're based mostly on Palestinian sources in Gaza, who have a vested interest in showing that we're killing many civilians."

One of the possible reasons for the distortion in numbers stems from the fact that the authorities in Gaza tend to identify as ‘civilian' anyone who was not wearing a uniform. However, many of the young men who are involved in terrorist activity in Gaza do not wear uniforms, even while launching rockets and clashing with IDF forces.

Rather than relying on such misleading and inaccurate identification of civilian casualties, the Meir Amit Centre examines each reported casualty's background on Palestinian websites and looks for details about their funerals in order to determine their occupation and to confirm or rule out any affiliation with terror groups.

The rigorous search for identifying details about each casualty leads to much greater accuracy in determining whether the person was a civilian or involved in fighting. This is in contrast to reports about civilian casualties not only from the Gaza Health Ministry, but also from human rights organisations (such as B'Tselem, Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) and Al Mezan), which often rely on biased Palestinian sources or plain naivety, as Elder of Ziyon recently observed. According to a recent post on his blog, PCHR reported that:

"At approximately 11:55 (Friday), an Israeli drone fired a missile at a number of Palestinian civilians in al-Zanna area in Bani Suhaila village. As a result, 2 civilians were killed: Mohammed Khalil al-Buraim, 25; and Mohammed Suleiman Hussein Sammour, 45..."

Yet apparently their definition of ‘civilian' is somewhat stretched - it now includes fully-fledged terrorists:

"Mohammed Khalil Samour al-Buraim, meanwhile, is being celebrated as a mujahid by the Abdel-Qader al-Husseini Brigades Storm Troopers. He was apparently a rocket launcher."

Hamas is killing its own citizens and blaming Israel

This tweet from an Italian journalist proves that Hamas is killing its own citizens and blaming Israel:

Out of #Gaza far from #Hamas retaliation: misfired rocket killed children yday in Shati. Witness: militants rushed and cleared debris
— gabrielebarbati (@gabrielebarbati) July 29, 2014