Remember these tools? The ones who aired the Al-Dura hoax, inspired mass murder against non-Muslims, and then tried to bully skeptics into silence? Old habits die hard:

French public television network France 2 on Tuesday revealed they had aired photographs that allegedly showed destruction caused by the Israel Air Force during Operation Cast Lead, which were in fact taken during a different incident in 2005, one in which Gaza civilians were killed by an explosion caused by militants in the Strip. The footage aired on Channel 2 on Tuesday afternoon showed dozens of dead bodies, including Hamas gunmen and citizens, which the channel said were killed by an IAF bombing raid on January 1st. It later came to light that the channel had instead aired footage of the devastation caused after a truck full of explosives blew up in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp.

Wrong year, wrong cause. Though probably an honest mistake that has nothing to do with eager anti-Israel demonization in the France 2 newsroom. These things just happen.

References:
* French court rules in favor of journalist who called al-Dura video a hoax [Israel Insider]
* France2 begins to sweat, tries to bully [Augean Stables]
* French TV airs photos billed as damage from Cast Lead, actually from 2005 [Ha'aretz]

Previously:
* UN Palestinian Stooge: "It's Obvious" That Israeli Attack Violated 48-Hour Truce That No One Knew About Until Now
* AFP Helpfully Provides Crisp Example Of Institutional Anti-Israel Media Bias
* Predictable Media Meme Congealing: Israeli Self-Defense Is Bad For Obama

This incident has the potential to become Cast Lead's Qana: a humanitarian disaster, caused by the use of human shields, that leads the international community to force Israel into a ceasefire. It turns out that the Palestinians have been using that school as a mortar launching pad for years...

... and that's what happened this time. That and a bunch of secondary explosions from the weapons they were storing inside:

Schools, hospitals, and holy places - three locations that are supposed to be sacrosanct and off-limits according to all civilized laws of warfare. Hamas already had the hospitals and mosques covered. Now the educational facilities that terrorists had long ago tangled up with weapons production and storage.

References:
* Hamas: We Will Murder Jewish Children All Over The World (Plus: Diplomats Trying To Stop The IDF From Winning) [MR]
* US urges restraint after Qana but no ceasefire [Reuters]
* UN School Used by Terrorists As a Weapons Dump [LGF]
* Gaza Hospitals Overflowing With Hamas Weapons, Palestinian Vigilante Murder [MR]
* Hamas's Militarized Mosques Not Immune From Israeli Jets [MR]
* UN Schools Notorious for Shielding Terrorists [LGF]

Previously:
* Video: Hamas Brags About Using Women And Children As Human Shields
* Video: Hamas Prepares Army Of Women And Children To Be Suicide Bombers During Urban Warfare
* Hamas Forcing Civilians To Stand On Roofs They Know Are About To Be Hit

This morning's conference call - organized by Friends Of Likud - was with former Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon. He discussed a bunch of other things above and beyond Hezbollah: post-operation Gaza scenarios, Arab-Israel fifth column considerations, peace process strategy, etc. But I have a bunch of Hezbollah links that I need to dump and - since he's a recognized Lebanon expert - this is as good a hook as any.

The good news is that he was unequivocal that Hezbollah doesn't have the wherewithal to attack Israel right now. It's not that they don't want to. It's just that they're deterred by a potential Israeli response. For all that the Lebanon II ground campaign was unsuccessful, the IAF proved that it can level urban infrastructure at will. Cast Lead, in turn, proved that the Israeli government is willing to let it.

The bad news is that Ya'alon never thought Hezbollah would launch Lebanon II either. His famous line was that their Iranian-supplied missiles would rust in launchers. 4,000 strikes on Israeli cities later, not so much. Plus Israel's current Head of Military Intelligence, Amos Yadlin, thinks that Hezbollah intervention is a real possibility:

Head of Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told the cabinet Sunday that Hezbollah might carry out a limited attack in the north via a Palestinian terror group in response to the Israel Defense Forces ground operation now underway in Gaza. A government source in Jerusalem said that the military is on high alert in the north against a flare-up. The source said many reservists have been called up for service in the north... "Hezbollah might carry out a low-profile attack by means of a Palestinian organization that would be limited and not set the border alight," Yadlin said. He added that forces also remained on high alert in light of a possible Hezbollah strike against an Israeli target abroad." He said the date to watch for was February 14, the date last year on which senior Hezbollah operative Imad Mughniyeh was assassinated.

I didn't blog this report when it came out but a US army study concluded that Hezbollah is the very model of an effective post-conventional fighting force. And Nasrallah is painting himself into a corner: the more vociferously he demands Arab action against Israel the more striking it becomes that Hezbollah is sitting on the sidelines. If he keeps up his strutting Hezbollah will have to launch at least some token rockets. The domestic cost shouldn't be a factor: they're already functionally in control of Lebanon and, according to the logic of US foreign policy sophisticates, any Israeli retaliation would only help them. So why haven't they attacked? The x-factor is how much Iran wants to keep them in reserve as a deterrent against an IAF attack on Natanz. By all indications: a lot.

The Israelis, meanwhile, might have their own reasons for wanting to take shots at Hezbollah - and not all of them are military. Any conflict between the two would nonetheless leave northern Israel and most of Lebanon devastated. Which is one of many, many reasons why the Lebanese government is trying to prevent Hezbollah from heating up the border. Lebanese officials say their efforts are working. But Barack also said that Israel wouldn't retaliate against Hamas - right up until Israel retaliated Hamas.

So we're back where we started: they're a bunch of genocidal fanatics and anything is possible.

References and previously after the jump...

Rodger Thomas has what could well be the first 'shopped picture of 2009. And wouldn't you know it, the photo involves Israel's Gaza offensive and comes from some of the world's worst photoshoppers at FARS:

I'm pretty bad at spotting these things - it took me multiple tries to see the cloned elements on the Lebanon II Hajj pics - but the debris in this picture does look awfully large. Stan - who does have a good eye for these things - agrees. Offered for your consideration.

References:
* FARS News [Are We Lumberjacks]
* MSM Division Of Labor: NYT Provides The Misleading Anti-Israel Headlines, Hamas Stringers Provide The Fake Pictures [MR]
* Iran: You Suck At Photoshop (updated) [Boing Boing]

Previously:
* Hamas Savages Publicly Mock Shalit Again
* MSM Division Of Labor: NYT Provides The Misleading Anti-Israel Headlines, Hamas Stringers Provide The Fake Pictures
* Israel Draws a Line in the Sand: Only Low-Ranking Terrorists To Be Freed. For Shalit. For Now. Maybe.

A NATO country and EU candidate with 70 million Muslims that the US National Intelligence Council expects to be a nationalist, Islamist regional power by 2015? Good times:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's toxic comments Sunday that Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip would lead to punishment from Allah and Israel's "self-destruction" drew a protest from the Foreign Ministry, which told Turkey's ambassador to Israel that these words were "unacceptable" among friendly nations. Erdogan, speaking at a municipal election campaign rally in Anatolia, said Israel was "perpetrating inhuman actions which would bring it to self-destruction. Allah will sooner or later punish those who transgress the rights of innocents."

For the last few years Turkey has been at the center of US-Syrian peace talks. Though don't read anything into how their Prime Minister is willing now to call down divine wrath on Israel. Before this week their political echelon was totally impartial. But you know who's going to be particularly psyched about this? The Turkish military.

References:
* US intel agencies see stronger, Islamic Turkey in 2025 [Jihad Watch]
* Israel: Erdogan's words 'unacceptable' [JPost]
* Awww... Turkey's So Pissed Off At Israel That They Might Not Help Israel Give Syria Back The Golan [MR]

Previously:
* This Summer's War With Syria - Syria Calling Up Reservists?
* Turkish Officials Working To Reinterpret Holy Books, Trigger Muslim Reformation (Plus: Uh Oh)
* Awww... Turkey's So Pissed Off At Israel That They Might Not Help Israel Give Syria Back The Golan

I think he just misspoke though. He obviously meant just the Zionist ones:

Zahar directed his message to Hamas' troops, and promised them victory over the IDF. "We must be patient until we are victorious, Allah will help us," he said. Hundreds of Hamas terrorists have been killed since the "Cast Lead" operation began last week, including 100 since the start of Israel's ground operation, and several of the group's senior leaders have been assassinated. Dozens have been taken prisoner as well. The Hamas leader called to murder Israelis and Jews worldwide, including children. "The Israelis have sentenced their children to death... They have legitimized the killing of their people all over the world," he said. Hamas' platform calls for all Jews to convert to Islam or be killed, based on an Islamic saying (Hadith), and the group has not refrained from targeting children in the past. Hamas will destroy synagogues and Jewish schools as well, Zahar said, just as Israel destroyed mosques in Gaza. Israel bombed several mosques used to store rockets and ammunition.

When that happens, of course, billions of people will shake their heads and tsk tsk about the cycle of violence. The part where Hamas's mosques and schools are packed with explosives - in distinction to the synagogues and Jewish schools that aren't - that won't really come up. It's probably not a relevant distinction anyway.

For what it's worth Hamas is actually doing pretty badly and may be on the verge of a complete meltdown:

As the IDF operation in the Gaza Strip entered its 10th day, Hamas has begun sending conflicting messages regarding its intentions. These contradictory messages, Palestinian political analysts said, reflected the state of confusion in Hamas and raised questions as to who was calling the shots in the Gaza Strip. While some Hamas leaders have been openly signaling their readiness to accept a new cease-fire, others are still calling for pursuing the fight against Israel "until victory." What is clear is that Hamas is now desperate for a lull in the fighting. But it is also eager to score some kind of a "military victory" before a cease-fire is reached.

The vast majority of Israeli casualties have been through the two separate friendly fire incidents that happened in the last 24 hours. Those are tragic deaths and they are in every way heroic battlefield deaths. But they weren't caused directly by the Hamas war machine so they're not a reason to believe that the IDF can't dismantle Hamas's army piece by piece - given enough time.

But there was a gigantic explosion at a UN school in Gaza this morning. The IDF says it wasn't them yet Reuters has been running with the headline "Up to 40 killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school" for hours. So the international community may step up and save Hamas yet.

References and previously after the jump...

Compare...

Humanitarian aid update - 5 Jan 2009 - Fuel replenishment - The fuel depot at Nahal Oz [in Gaza] is scheduled to convey some 200,000 liters of fuel both for the power station and other humanitarian needs. The depot was closed for the last week due to security concerns that impeded the ability to operate the crossing... Also, Nahal Oz fuel depot operated and conveyed 215,000 liters of heavy duty diesel (required for the Gaza power station), 93,000 liters of diesel for the use of various UN organizations and 50 tons of cooking gas for domestic uses.

... and contrast:

Six countries reported a complete shutoff of Russian gas shipped via Ukraine on Tuesday, in a sharp escalation of a struggle over energy that threatens Europe as winter sets in. Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Croatia and Turkey all reported a halt in gas shipments from Russia through Ukraine. Croatia said it was temporarily reducing supplies to industrial customers and Bulgaria said it had enough gas for only "for a few days."... Ukraine's state gas company Naftogaz said Russia's gas giant Gazprom had sharply reduced its shipments to Europe through pipelines crossing Ukraine, triggering the cuts.

The current temperature in Sofia is well below freezing. At night it's been hovering around 20F. That means that there will actually be people freezing to death - huddling in their homes until their bodies just give up - if Russia and the Ukraine don't work this out. I have no doubt that the international community will treat this genuine humanitarian crisis with the same level of concern that they've brought to bear on the nonexistent humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Although no one really criticized Russia for turning back aid envoys during their Georgia invasion and there's a remarkable absence of condemnation about their recent Georgia landgrabs. I'm sure there's a different explanation but it almost seems like there's a double standard or something.

References:
* Humanitarian aid update [Israel MFA]
* Russia Shuts Off Gas to 6 European Nations [Fox News]
* IDF coordination chief: There is no humanitarian crisis [MR]
* Russians turn back aid convoys inside Georgia [JPost]
* Russia retakes Georgian village near South Ossetia [JPost]

Previously:
* Russian Warships Head Off For "Combat Training" In Atlantic And Mediterranean
* Great News: Russia To Sell Cutting Edge Anti-Aircraft Missiles To Iran (Plus: Iranian Navy Doubles Down)
* Russia Running Out Of Israeli Enemies That They Haven't Provided With Cutting-Edge Military Tech

Not the first time that they've pulled this off:

Hamas continued its rocketing of innocent Israeli civilians on Monday afternoon, with a Grad-type rocket slamming into an empty kindergarten in Ashdod in the most recent attack. No one was wounded in the attack, though massive damage was caused to the building, and thirteen people were treated for shock. Also Monday afternoon, nine people were lightly wounded when two Grad rockets were fired at Ashkelon. A building was damaged in the attack, which came moments before two more rockets hit open areas in Beersheba and another hit Ashdod. Several people were treated for shock following the attacks.

Dozens of missiles - some scoring direct hits - have been indiscriminately launched at Israeli civilians in the last 24 hours. Hamas's mid level soldiers are bragging about how they have even bigger rockets and other "tools" that they haven't used yet. The good news: given that the IDF's Gaza intel was top-notch and that they've already captured some Hamas operatives, Israel might well know what's coming. The bad news: Israel might well know what's coming.

References:
* Hamas Now Literally Bombing Israeli Schoolhouses [MR]
* Grad-type rocket slams into empty Ashdod kindergarten [JPost]
* 32 rockets fired at southern Israel [YNet]
* Hamas' military wing: We have tools that have yet to be used [YNet]
* At least five Hamas operatives captured during ground op [JPost]
* Hamas's "Big Surprise" - An Attack On Dimona That Will Trigger A Full-Blown Regional War? [MR]

Previously:
* 10 Mortars Fired At Israeli Schools And Hospitals In Last 48 Hours
* 12 Rockets Fired At Israeli Schools And Hospitals Monday
* Grad-type rocket slams into empty Ashdod kindergarten [JPost]

The headline is "Israel Rebuffs Peace Efforts, Driving Deeper Into Gaza." Since Israel is willing to stop all military activity provided that Hamas meets its truce conditions, the headline could just as easily have been "Hamas Rebuffs Peace Efforts, Forcing Israel To Drive Deeper Into Gaza"...

Mashaal told him that any offer for a ceasefire "will involve an immediate end to the Israeli aggression and will have to take into account the human rights of the people in Gaza, an end to the blockade and a permanent opening of all the crossings, including the Rafah crossing."... The Hamas leader briefed the Iranian official on the recent developments in Gaza and said that "the enemy was surprised by the people's determination and morale." He added that "Israel committed a great sin when it attacked Gaza." During his meeting with Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ramadan Salah, Jalili praised the Gaza residents' "resistance", expressing his support for the rocket fire and acts of terror against Israeli soldiers.

... but that wouldn't have had the same anti-Israel feel:

Backed by fire from air, sea and land, Israeli troops and tanks tightened their grip on Gaza on Monday, rebuffing diplomatic efforts to end the 10-day assault. A cavalcade of foreign would-be mediators, including President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, headed to the region in quest of a cease-fire, as Israeli forces took control of Hamas rocket-launching areas in Gaza and seized high-rise buildings overlooking Gaza City after slicing through the center of the beleaguered territory on Sunday. The reported death toll of Palestinians passed 500 since the Israeli assault began, including 100 said to be civilians.

Meanwhile Western media outlets seem remarkably absent from the startlingly similar anti-terrorism campaign being conducted by Sri Lankan forces. The two military operations aren't totally identical - the Israelis have been provoked far longer and are taking far more extensive steps to avoid civilian casualties - but there's still enough of a resemblance that you'd think they'd be interested. Maybe it's because all of their resources are tied up covering Israel: there does seem to be a glut of enthusiastic photojournalists in the area. And yet they still find themselves - per my post yesterday and LGF's roundup this morning - needing to fake pictures. Almost like Israel is going out of its way to avoid civilian casualties.

References:
* Mashaal: Enemy surprised by determination in Gaza [YNet]
* Israel Rebuffs Peace Efforts, Driving Deeper Into Gaza [NYT]
* How to Fight Terrorists Without Being Bullied By the World: Step One. Don't Be All "Jewey" About It [Ace]
* Maximum Exposure for Gaza Casualties [CAMERA]
* Media Fauxtography Now In Full Swing [MR]
* Staged Photos Pouring Out of Gaza [LGF]

Previously:
* Gaza Hospitals Overflowing With Hamas Weapons, Palestinian Vigilante Murder
* CNN: Israel Is Overreacting Because The Palestinians Are Too Incompetent To Murder Israelis Consistently
* Wherein You're Asked To Evaluate A Very Weird BBC Interview

So if we know nothing else, we know that he's got a sound perspective on dynamics in the Middle East...

Most top U.S. military officials - even members of George W. Bush's administration such as National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley - did not recommend a "surge" or escalation of U.S. troops into Iraq when they were interviewed by the Iraq Study Group last fall, says group member Leon Panetta, a former White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton. Instead of a surge - which the president plans to announce in a speech to the nation tomorrow - these officials recommended at the time that more U.S. advisers be embedded in Iraqi units, Panetta says... I think it's sending the wrong message to the Iraqis... What concerns me is the president's message isn't going to make that clear, and that if the Iraqis fail to unite, there will be no consequences.

... and on the broader intelligence environment in general:

Panetta has managerial chops and a close relationship with Obama but virtually no hands-on intelligence experience. Perhaps more importantly, he's not tainted by associations with Bush-era detention, interrogation of surveillance policies like some of the other candidates who were considered. He's also a much bigger name.

Well at least he's against enhanced interrogative techniques. There's been a veritable epidemic of waterboarding going around so it's good that that's a priority.

References:
* Panetta: Why the Bush "Surge" Won't Work [Newsweek]
* CIA Bans Waterboarding in Terror Interrogations [ABC News]

Previously:
* New Obama Guidelines Already Undermining Military By Chilling Qualified Hires
* Obama's Latest Round Of Deeply Ironic Appointments
* Obama Foreign Policy Appointees: Israel To Blame For Mideast Instability, Sweeping Concessions Necessary

They're all volunteers too. Although since Iran doesn't actually border Israel I think the current plan is to fly them over Jordan on the backs of magical ponies. The ponies will then deposit them on the ground, wait for them to blow themselves up, and immediately carry them off to heaven. That's how it works right?

More than 70,000 Iranian student volunteers have registered to carry out suicide bombings against Israel because of Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip. According to the official IRNA news agency, hard-line student leader Esmaeil Ahmadi said the students want to fight Israel in support of Hamas - Gaza's Islamic militant rulers. Five hard-line student groups and a conservative clerical group launched a registration drive last week to ask the government to allow them to stage the suicide attacks.

Whatever. The Iranian government has more serious business to deal with. Like paying someone to murder Mubarak after he brushed off their officious demand to support Hamas. Although I was under the impression that Iranian students also had their hands full attacking Nobel Peace laureates...

Some 150 protesters stood outside the home and office of Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi on Thursday accusing her of sympathy for Israel, Islamic state's foe, a member of her human rights group said. Abdulreza Tajik, of the Human Rights Defenders Centre led by Ebadi, said he believed they were student members of the Basij religious militia. The crowd tore down a sign of Ebadi's law practice and trampled on it, he told Reuters.

... and they found time to do that and threaten to murder millions of Israelis. Never underestimate youthful vigor.

References:
* 70,000 Iranian suicide bombers ready to fight Israel [YNet]
* Iranians Announce $1 Million Reward For Assassination of Egyptian President Mubarak [Gateway Pundit]
* Iranian Hardliners Threaten Egypt-- Give 48 Hour Deadline [Gateway Pundit]
* 150 Iranians protest at home of Nobel laureate accused of sympathy for Israel [Ha'aretz]

Previously:
* Video: Hamas Prepares Army Of Women And Children To Be Suicide Bombers During Urban Warfare
* Confirmed: Hamas Wants To Use WMDs Against Israel, Trigger Full-Blown Regional War
* Iranian Hardliners Threaten Egypt-- Give 48 Hour Deadline

The Consul-General began with a description of how the Palestinians responded to Israel's disengagement with rockets. That gave me a minute to track down my last post about how it's an obnoxious waste of time to organize conference calls and then spend time discussing how the Palestinians responded to Israel's disengagement with rockets. And that isn't close to my biggest concern about this conference call.

This felt like - well, a lot like what I imagine San Francisco group therapy sessions feel like. Forced informality. Mantric emphasis on "comfort" and "interactivity." There were even obligatory gestures toward banal dialogue: the General Consul repeatedly asked people who opposed Cast Lead to speak up. With all due respect, no. There might be a place where Israeli officials give anti-Israel partisans the opportunity to vent at them. But that's not what we're supposed to be doing here. And in the meantime those people have DailyKos diaries where they can gleefully celebrate Israeli deaths and team up with anti-Semitic white supremacists.

Israel's new public diplomacy push is vitally important. It was showing some results during the first couple days of Operation Cast Lead, when the world tuned in and discovered that rockets had been falling on Israeli schools and hospitals for eight years. But a week later - an eternity in today's media environment - Israeli officials are losing the media war. They're losing it so badly that journalists have already had time to write process stories about how badly they're losing it.

If the Israel MFA wants to reverse that trend they're going to have to be serious about their new media strategy. Example: Robert Avrech blogs at Seraphic Secret and is an Emmy Award winning screenwriter. He was on the call and tried to make a point about the abysmal image management of Israeli spokespeople. In other words he tried to make a point about an area in which he is an acknowledged expert. First thing that happened: the Consul General apologized in advance for disagreeing with him. Come on. Nobody has time for this. There are places to spare people's feelings - as if Robert is so delicate that he needs that anyway - but that's not this place. Next thing that happened: the Consul General explained that - Arab accusations notwithstanding - the IDF does not intentionally cultivate attractive female spokeswomen. Because we wouldn't want that. Right after that: some kind of expression of faith in the ability of people to sift truth from falsehood. All of that was mere minutes after my attempt to discuss the way that arguments are circumscribed by the infrastructure of new communication technologies. My abortive attempt.

2,500 years ago Aristotle pointed out that, all things being equal, truth will defeat falsehood. The reason he said that was so he could immediately point out that things are almost never equal and that people who want to convey the truth need to learn how to package it. It turns out that Israel has made 90,000 "knocking on the roof" cell phone calls warning Palestinian civilians about impending Israeli attacks. The Consul General expressed confusion as to why that isn't more widely known.

References:
* America's Voices Conference Call - Operation Cast Lead [MR]
* Daily Kos Teams up With Neo-Nazi Group Stormfront to Defend Cynthia McKinney..... [Weasel Zippers]
* Schram: Israel is losing the PR war [Scripps]
* Anti-Israel Photojournalists Struggling To Cope With Extensive Israeli Humanitarian Measures, Low Palestinian Collateral Damage [MR]
* Memo To Israeli PR: Less Inaccurate Economic Talking Points, More Hot Israeli Chicks [MR]

Previously:
* Just A Reminder: Arab Media Is A Cesspool Of Genocidal Anti-Semitic Incitement
* Israel Launches High-Tech Public Diplomacy Outreach To Explain Operation Cast Lead
* Mere Rhetoric: Israeli PMO Posts Videos Of Yeshiva Massacre On YouTube (Plus: MR Going Offline Till Tuesday) [Videos]

How sophisticated:

During his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama promised a new, positive approach to the Muslim world, including "America Houses" offering English lessons in Muslim countries and an "America's Voice Corps" to spread the truth about American values. Mr. Obama's aides have said he will unveil the new approach with a speech in a Muslim capital during his first 100 days in office. But Israel's invasion of Gaza, and Mr. Obama's studied silence about it, threatens to short-circuit his plans for an American image makeover.

See? Because if they knew that we let our women vote, our Jews practice, and our homosexuals live - then they'd like us more. Now you might say "but anti-American propaganda already includes that stuff as reasons to hate the West, which implies that there are fundamental ideological differences between us and Islamist fanatics that the State Department can't do much about." But since State has already spent part of the huge influx of cash that they're getting under Obama - and to the extent that they're giddy about asinine new public diplomacy initiatives - it's better to ignore those details.

USAID is also in for a huge financial boost, by the by, and you know what that means.

And finally, from that same NYT article:

Critics abroad and at home have noted that Mr. Obama's "one president at a time" policy did not prevent the president-elect from speaking out against the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, in November, when he condemned what he called the "hateful ideology" of militant Islam.

That's a good point. Why couldn't Obama issue a pro-forma statement with something like "I unequivocally expressed my opposition to Hamas during the campaign. Furthermore, as a Democrat who supports the bipartisan consensus regarding the importance of the US-Israel relationship, I stand behind President Bush's efforts to establish a lasting ceasefire without compromising the security of our most important Middle Eastern ally." That would go a long way toward dispelling what Jim Geraghty rightly called the "strange and ominous evasiveness" of the surrogates tasked with explaining his position.

References and previously after the jump...

The rhetorical equivalent of the barbarians who used to torture and desecrate POWs in front of opposing armies on the battlefield. Savages:

"Israel has found that it cannot eliminate the resistance," added Hamdan. "Israel cannot stop the rocket fire, even after 10 days of aerial assaults, navy fire and attacks on the ground - the rocket fire has not stopped. On the contrary, the resistance is now targeting strategic places in Israel." Hamas military wing spokesman Abu Obaida reiterated the threats: "We tell the Israelis... Gilad Shalit misses you and we promised to get some soldiers to keep him company." Hamas, he added, will increase its use of long-range fire. "We promise 11,000 prisoners that the Israeli incursion will be the dawn of a new day that will bring about their release, after we capture more Israeli soldiers.

Nothing you wouldn't expect given that they did the same thing in front of 150,000 adoring Gazans - 10% of the Gaza Strip's population - on the eve of Operation Cold Lead. It's doubtful that Shalit is in Gaza any more - they probably smuggled him out through a tunnel months ago and are pretending they don't know where he is - and certainly the Israeli government doesn't want to get anybody's hopes up. Nonetheless his release will apparently remain a ceasefire condition as long as Israel keeps winning.

References:
* Hamas: You cannot stop the fire [YNet]
* Hamas Mocks Shalit During Gigantic Rally: "I Miss My Mom And Dad" [MR]
* Where is Gilad Shalit? [JTA]
* U.S. Initiative To Impose Ceasefire On Hamas [RTTNews]

Previously:
* I Wish I Had An LA Times Subscription, So I Could Cancel It
* Hezbollah And Hamas Escalate Kidnapping Rhetoric, Attempts
* Hamas: One Israeli Boy Is Worth 450 Palestinians

Zombietime's definitive taxonomy of Lebanon II photo fraud:

The four types of photographic fraud perpetrated by Reuters photographers and editors are: 1. Digitally manipulating images after the photographs have been taken. 2. Photographing scenes staged by Hezbollah and presenting the images as if they were of authentic spontaneous news events. 3. Photographers themselves staging scenes or moving objects, and presenting photos of the set-ups as if they were naturally occurring. 4. Giving false or misleading captions to otherwise real photos that were taken at a different time or place.

Photographing scenes as spontaneous news events? Check:

Palestinians are... the only people on earth whose immediate urge, when their friends and fellows are injured, is to grab them and try to twist them into cruel and dangerous positions... The caption alleges that the young man being pulled and twisted like a quid of taffy by his friends here was shot by Israelis using live ammunition. Generally when someone is shot there would be a hole... accompanied by profuse bleeding. At first glance, the vivid red on the arms that hold the feet of the subject alarms the eye but on closer inspection... it is obvious that there is some combination of ugly clothing design... [and] obvious fakery.

Photographers staging scenes themselves? Check:

[A] Palestinian journalist complains that the media and others are manipulating the images going out to the world: "A mother of one of the martyrs stood by the door of the intensive care unit while crying... relatives and those around her were telling her what she should say to the television cameras: 'Say your son [before he died] prayed and went out.' Another tells her: 'Curse the Arab leaders'... The journalists [in the hospitals] are going overboard in their insensitivity and taking advantage of the [difficult] moments, with the explanation that they are showing this to the world. One cameraman told a mourning mother: 'Hit your face, cry, do some action.'"

False or misleading captions? Check:

Accompanying this article are three photographs of a bombed out location. Instead of noting in the captions that these photos were all of the same house, the intent is obviously to make you instead think that these are three different locations. They're not... They are, in fact, three photos of the same house from different angles by AP photographer Eyad Baba. One (of course) with a mother and child posing in front of it, another through a window in an obvious attempt to be poignant, and a third areal view of the entire bombed out area.

The only reason I'm leaving out the WaPo pictures of the healthy-looking children on stretchers is because I can't decide whether Hamas staged the scene or whether the photojournalist did the composition on his own. In any case: do you think they're dumb enough to try to photoshop pictures this time? My basic belief in behavioral conditioning says no. But my appreciation for the shamelessness of anti-Israel journalism says "I wish I had an eye for what a post-smudged clone tool looks like."

UPDATE: Lawhawk has a rigorous writeup on the first picture in this series. A case of changing captions seems transformed a malatov-throwing militant into an innocent bystander. Magical.

References:
* The Reuters Photo Scandal - A Taxonomy of Fraud [Zombietime]
* Can Public Broadcasting Really be THIS Contemptible? [Breath of the Beast]
* Gaza Mourners Exploited [Gaza Mourners Exploited]
* Three Photos of Same Location Accompny AP Article on I/P Conflict [Jawa]
* Anti-Israel Photojournalists Struggling To Cope With Extensive Israeli Humanitarian Measures, Low Palestinian Collateral Damage [MR]

Previously:
* Times Online: These Hamas Guys Are Actually OK Dudes, "Gaza Is A Secular Society"
* Video: Hamas Brags About Using Women And Children As Human Shields
* CNN: Israel Is Overreacting Because The Palestinians Are Too Incompetent To Murder Israelis Consistently

Willfully attacking civilians is off-limits.Full stop. But can we stop pretending that Hamas has somehow "taken the Gaza Strip hostage"? It's just not true:

Hamas... had been legitimized by the Palestinian citizenry in a series of local election triumphs and... in its overwhelming success in the 2006 elections... The Palestinian public understandably saw the Fatah establishment as corrupt, and sought an alternative. But in choosing Hamas, it was plainly not deterred by the Islamists' commitment to the destruction of neighboring Israel, and their determined use of unthinkable means, including horrific suicide bombings, in pursuit of its goals. In the 2006 elections, Hamas won over 65 percent of the vote in the Gaza Strip, including five out of eight PLC seats in Gaza City, three out of five in Khan Yunis and all five seats in Jabalya.

That last part is a good point. We constantly hear about how Hamas won the 2006 election not because they advocated unending war against Israel but because the Palestinians were fed up with Fatah corruption. That's not true of course. But even if it was - so what? The Palestinian public was distraught about stolen EU funds so they embraced pathological genocidal lunatics? That's something people get to do now?

Let's imagine that a coalition of genocidal Jewish extremists presented themselves as an "alternative" to the undeniably corrupt Olmert government. Now let's imagine that they won. International media outlets would be howling about Greater Israel and Apartheid and Jewish Nazism. They certainly wouldn't be searching for the nuance in those parties' anti-corruption platforms. And they'd be right - voters don't get to excuse genocidal nutjobs just because they also appreciate the virtues of clean government. You don't get to vote for the KKK because you're upset with bipartisan support for earmarks. I mean - you do if you're the Palestinians. But still.

The last rally that Hamas held before Operation Cast Lead - the quite literally barbaric one where they mocked Shalit - was attended by 10% of the Gaza population. So I'm thinking that maybe there's genuine support for Hamas in the area. And that there are real costs to pretending otherwise:

[P]ity may be a natural emotional reaction, yet it is unethical and immoral. To pity the people of Gaza is to patronize them, in essence implying that they do not control their fate, the state of their government, or their own actions. It is to assume one of two things: Either that Gazans are too stupid to oust the cancerous Hamas presence in their midst, or that they are unable to do so... Hamas' ultimate defeat must not be at the hands of the IDF, but rather, it is an endeavor that must be undertaken by Gaza residents themselves. After all, Hamas is the true reason for their misery. Those who believe that Gazans are capable of this should do away with their pity.

To be clear - again - none of this justifies attacking civilians. Even Hamas's civilian supporters get to be somewhat insulated from the disastrous consequences of their moral and electoral choices. That's just how civilized countries are supposed to conduct warfare. But to blame Israel while piteously maintaining that the Gaza population are merely victims of Hamas's machinations - come on.

References and previously after the jump...

Quick experiment. This is from an otherwise excruciating set of BBC "human interest" interviews. Read it and see if anything strikes you as odd:

MUHAMMAD ABUSHABAN, GAZA CITY - The Israeli army started the invasion in the morning. We have been out of electricity for more than three days and out of water in the house. The invasion started from three areas - two in the North and one in the East. We are living in the middle of Gaza City and are about nine or 10 kilometres from where they are. At the moment the Israeli soldiers are close to one of the most important streets, the eastern street, they are at the beginning of it. They are not only shooting the outside areas, the helicopters and F-16 are covering the ground invasion by hitting as much locations as they can. My home is between the Islamic University and al-Saraia military building. Last night they attacked the military building with two rockets... I spoke in the morning to a friend who lives in a neighbourhood between Gaza City and the northern area, they are close to the area where they entered and right now they are trying to go to the higher place like hills and mountains.

Read it again.

Now: is it just me or do those not read exactly like a military communique describing Israeli troop movements? One might almost suspect that - while Gaza is blanketed by Israel's electronic jamming - the BBC was acting as a conduit for Hamas coordination. That BBC News stringer certainly got lucky. This guy's been without electricity for three days and the two of them just happened to run into each other? And such a compelling and succinct interviewee to stumble into!

If this was meant to be intelligence it was outdated by the time it got posted. And I'm not sure it was - MR reader Jerry had to point it out to me twice before I saw anything strange. But on the second reading it certainly sounds a little amiss. And in any case it raises a particularly thorny problem in the context of new media technologies and urban warfighting: the enemy doesn't need a robust communications infrastructure any more. He has the Internet and willing local stringers. Of course if Hamas was going to communicate over the Internet they'd just set up a chatroom or a closed bulletin board somewhere. But could they guarantee that those wouldn't be infiltrated and shut down by Israel? And what if there's a field operative who has information about Israeli troop movements but no way to get to or power a laptop. It would be easy enough to have instructions in place that say "identify yourself as Muhammad Abushaban and find a reporter."

Not sure. Anyway, the rest of the interviews were pure propaganda - "we need the international community to save our children" stuff. But this one was a little disconcerting.

References:
* Gaza voices: Living with conflict [BBC]

Previously:
* Hamas Thanks "The Media" For Glorious "Victory" In Gaza [Video]
* BBC Reporter Upset At Marine For Underplaying Kinder, Gentler Side Of Taliban Lunatics Who Wanted To Skin British Soldiers Alive
* Shocking BBC Expose! Anti-Israel 9/11 Truther Thinks Gaza Violence Is Israel's Fault

Yeah of course I got lapped again, with Watchers Council results coming out before I've even blogged the nominations. Pretend that isn't true for a little while and mull over the Council nominations from last week.

Of course a lot of the posts revolve around Operation Cast Lead, exploring both the sources of the conflict and the potential solutions. Rhymes With Right treats Hamas's belligerence as a straightforward deterance breakdown. JoshuaPundit extends that point, suggesting that - having started out that way - Hamas's intransigence has metastasized into a genocidal ideology. The historical murkiness of the conflict - a result, as per my post, of deliberate and brazen historical revisionism - is often used to mask the true extent of Hamas's radicalism (because "they're genocidal" apparently isn't good enough these days). SoccerDad tries to untangle some of those reasons, which end up making the Saudi Plan - described even by serious people as 100 years of dhimmitude - get described as magnanimity. Regardless of the reasons, The Razor does the comparative work to demonstrate what it would be like to have 25% of the United States subject to indiscriminate enemy shelling while Bookworm Room's explains the stark alternatives facing Israel.

On the domestic front The Provocateur has a breaking story from a smug and unapologetic liberal: contrary to what we've been told dissent is very much not the highest form of patriotism. Quite to the contrary: apparently mild detachment from your birthplace and community is the height of sophistication. And sure there are 2,500 years of ethics and philosophy that go the other way, stretching from pre-Socratic notions of the polis and extending all the way to cutting-edge sociology on constitutional patriotism. But Joel Stein's 4th grade teacher told him that his thoughts were really shiny and he should never hesitate to express them. So he became a journalist, helping to stoke the kind of demagogic double-standards that the Colossus Of Rhodey discusses and that have made political discourse in this country such a pleasure. Those points are sharpened by Right Truth's despondence regarding contemporary politicians and by The Glittering Eye's disgust with the cultural decline that's imploding the US economy. As a society we should be having frank discussions about these issues. Instead we're pretending, per Cheat Seeking Missiles, that Caroline Kennedy is "one of us."

References:
* Year End Weasel Watching [Watcher Of Weasels]
* What It's All About [Rhymes With Right]
* Gaza:A Tale Of Selective Morality and Tribal Warfare [Joshua Pundit]
* Anti-Israel Partisans Set New Record For Decades-Old Trick Of Brazenly Rewriting History, Blaming Israel [MR]
* Talkin' turki [Soccer Dad]
* Walking In Israel's Shoes [The Razor]
* Hamas' "Heroes" -- and the need for total victory over evil [BookWorm Room]
* A Liberal's View of Patriotism [The Provocateur]
* The bar has been lowered SOOO far ... [Colossus Of Rhodey]
* WANTED: Politician to Represent Me [Right Truth]
* Trust [Glittering Eye]
* The Most Ridiculous Story Of The Year: Part 7 [Cheat Seeking Missiles]

Previously:
* Watchers Council Nominations: We Don't Know Much About Obama. Or How To Fix The Economy. Or Really, Anything.
* Watchers Council Nominations - Contradictions Are Not Your Friend
* Watchers Council Nominations - Anti-American Stupidity Is Not The Stuff That Holiday Cheer Is Made Of

There's never any limit on how long Hamas can fire at Israeli civilians: at worst that produces only "concerns." But let Israel launch an operation that looks like it might be successful and the clock starts running:

The army believes the incursion into Gaza will do significant damage to Hamas' standing army and at the same time give Hamas leaders a palpable sense that their rule is in danger. The ground invasion will also accelerate the diplomatic stopwatch. A delegation from the European Union "troika" (Germany, France, Great Britain) will reach Gaza on Sunday, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected on Monday. Translated into military terminology that means the IDF has less than a week to make genuine progress in Gaza.

A proposal to get the UN to declare a ceasefire was quashed by the United States. VDH's description of the situation seems apt:

There is something especially nauseating about the latest Middle East war -- scenes of worldwide Islamic protests with photos of Jews as apes, protesters (in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida of all places!) screaming about nuking Israel and putting Jews in ovens, parades of children dressed up with suicide vests and fake rockets, near constant anti-Semitic vicious sloganeering, Gaza mosques stuffed with rockets to be used against civilians -- all to be collated with creepy Hamas rhetoric about the annihilation of Israel. This is the world in which we now live.... It is now clear that the so-called and much praised "international community," the hallowed U.N., the revered EU, all pretty much are indifferent to the survival of a democratic Israel, or are actively supportive of its terrorist Hamas enemy. Only the U.S. (for now) stands by a constitutional state in its war against a murderous terrorist clique, with annihilation its aim and religious fascism its creed.

Ditto from Roger Simon and Mark Steyn.

References:
*ANALYSIS / Israel's aim in Gaza is to break Hamas resistance [Ha'aretz]
* U.S. quashes Arab-backed Gaza cease-fire resolution in UN Security Council meet [Ha'aretz]
* Creepy Times [VDH / NRO]
* Israel Alone [Roger Simon]
* Mark Steyn: Gaza has its version of rocket scientists [Steyn]

Previously:
* Concise List Of Middle East Failures That Were Going To Happen Anyway But That Foreign Policy Experts Will Now Blame On Israel
* Israel Launches High-Tech Public Diplomacy Outreach To Explain Operation Cast Lead
* EU Diplomats: If Israel Stops Defending Itself We'll Fulfill Some Of The Security Commitments We Screwed Them On Last Time. For Real! Promise!

Official confirmation from a country that devotes enormous resources to just trying to to get left alone:

The upgrading of Israel's military activity was necessary to achieve the goals of operation Cast Lead - to deal the Hamas terror infrastructure a crippling blow and to enhance long-term security for Israel's southern population... This upgrading of military activity was necessary to achieve the goals of Operation "Cast Lead" - to deal the Hamas terror machine a crippling blow and to enhance long-term security for Israel's southern population. It cannot be emphasized enough that Israel has no intention of reassuming control of the Gaza Strip. The expansion of the operation is intended solely to achieve its aforementioned goals.

The IDF isn't the only side lowering expectations. So far 30 Israeli soldiers have been wounded, two of them seriously but according to I