Misery Index

IDF reported that Hamas was firing mortar bombs at Israeli soldiers from the UN school. 

The infantrymen returned mortar fire into the school grounds, the army said. Defense officials told the AP that booby-trapped bombs in the school triggered the secondary explosions which killed the Palestinians on the site.  The following video was released via the IDF showing Israel firing upon Hamas targets with secondary explosions.  It is unclear whether the school is included in these videos.

“Hamas has in the past fired at Israel and at troops from inside schools, cynically using civilians, as is proven by UAV footage,” the army said.

The UN said hundreds of people from a Gaza City refugee camp had gone to seek shelter in the school…

“I am appealing to political leaders here and in the region and the world to get their act together and stop this,” said John Ging, the top UN official in Gaza.  “They are responsible for these deaths.”

RANT ON

Of course Hamas will say that Israel hit the school and that they had nothing to do with it.  It’s not like Hamas has used schools before as weapons dumps right?  Especially since that exact school had been used before to fire rockets and mortars for Hamas.  And there is a 2007 video of Hamas firing mortars into Israel from this same school yard.

Now you may think Israel was wrong for firing on a school however, do you think its right that Hamas is firing mortars from the same location with innocent civilians inside?  But the thought to ponder in all of this is WHY WAS THERE A SECONDARY EXPLOSION today?  And WHY did the UN allow Hamas to CONTINUE to use this location as a firing point since it was revealed in 2007?  Just thoughts to ponder!

And last week a science teacher and headmaster at a UN school was killed.  By day he was a teacher, at night, he built rockets for Islamic Jihad.  Hamas hailed him as a martyr who led Islamic Jihad’s “engineering unit” – its bomb makers.  Although the UN denies any knowledge of this, and his family denies the claim while Islamic Jihad posters filled his home, the man’s body was wrapped in an Islamic Jihad flag at his funeral.

At the UN school, a handwritten notice was posted on the gate at the entrance to the school declaring the man “the chief leader of the engineering unit”, would now find “paradise”.

It is also known that Hamas hides weapons at schools.

Meanwhile, back to today, hundreds of innocent civilians had headed to a UN school for safety.  And Hamas decides to use the grounds around the school to fire at Israeli troops, knowing full well that Israel would fire back at them.  Then when Israel did fire back, it set the booby-traps off INSIDE the school.  Nice guys, them Hamas eh?

So how can you fight a terrorist organization, that uses schools as weapons dumps.  That fires weapons from schools and school yards, while innocents are inside? And what kind of government puts its own innocent civilians at risk, while that same government should be protecting its own innocent civilians?

But yet, neither Israel nor Hamas (Palestine) has a monopoly on what is right or what is wrong either.

Via The Jerusalem Post and the New York Times

According to Razi Hashmi, the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ executive director, America should take immediate steps to end Israel’s “illegal and immoral” offensive against the Gaza' Strip’s Hamas rulers. “We as Oklahomans and as Americans should be concerned about this conflict because our taxes are going towards Israel,” Hashmi said.  “We should not allow our government to give Israel a blank check to allow the destruction of hopes for peace in the Middle East.”  However in a rather confusing statement, Hashmi also said as an American citizen, he agrees with the U.S. description of Hamas.

During the demonstration, one protestor held a sign that showed a swastika inside the Star of David.  According to Hashmi, the man carrying the sign, identified only as a college student from OK City, was asked to leave and the sign removed a “couple of minutes” after the demonstration started.  Also according to Hashimi, the man has been banned from future protests organized by the organization.  According to Hashmi, the organization distributed rules before the demonstration that no offensive signs or banners would be tolerated.  “The Star of David is a sacred symbol of faith and Muslims are stressed by Islam to respect all symbols of faith and I apologize,” Hashmi said.  “This [sign] does not reflect our personal views.”

However, unless the video below was taken within the first few minutes of the protest, the sign is seen during the demonstration.  But then what do you expect from a group who defends Hamas?

Michael Barlow, past president of the Jewish Federation of Greater OK City watched the protest commenting, “War is unfortunate, but the question is:  What is Israel to do, with scores of missiles being shot into Israel population centers daily?”  “How long do you allow missiles to be shot into your country from another country?”  Barlow added that it is difficult for Israel to negotiate with Hamas leaders when they do not recognize Israel’s right to exist.

United Methodist minister Rev. Andres Tevington of the Church of the Servant in OK City said the Israelis and Palestinians should quit “illegitimately calling on the name of God” in this fighting.  “We call upon the U.S. to help both sides see there is a different way to do this,” he said.

Rev. Kristen Brown, a United Methodist minister attended the protest saying, “I saw that this isn’t really a religious issue, this is an issue about people who are living under military occupation for 40 years and they’re in a very desperate situation,” she said.

RANT ON

What irritates me more and more, is the use of children in these protests.  How can a child, who is aged 2-7 years old, have a mental ability to understand the protest, and understand the purpose of these signs, or the babies swaddled in bloodied cloth they carry?  How can these children make a voluntary choice at their age to make a voluntary consent to participate in these protests.  Any child who is a minor, should not be allowed to participate in these protests, if they are a credible organization, who is looking out for a child’s best interest.  These children do not have the mentality to make an informed consent to voluntarily participate in these protests.  This is nothing more than encouraging racism.

And how can you call for the end of an “illegal and immoral” offensive against a terrorist organization and still say you support the U.S. designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization?

About his father (who is seen left in the center, wearing the blue shirt) and Hamas, Mu’sab said Hamas betrays the Palestinian cause and tortures its own members.  He also states;

“The Hamas leadership, including my father, they’re responsible; they’re responsible for all the violence that happened from the organization.  I know they describe it as reaction to Israeli aggression, but still, they are part of it and they had to make decisions in those operations against Israel [for] which there was the killing of many civilians.”

Mu’sab has said there will never be lasting peace between Israel and Hamas.

“There is no chance.  Is there any chance for fire to co-exist with the water?”  “Its not about Israel, it’s not about Hamas:  it’s about both ideologies.”

AUGUST, 2008

Mus’ab announced that he left Islam.  From an article on Haaretz titled:  “I’ve left a society that sanctifies terror.” (Right are the three founding members of Hamas with Mus’ab’s father’s picture on the far left)

A moment before beginning his supper, Masab, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, glances at the friend who has accompanied him to the restaurant where we met.  They whisper a few words and then say grace, thanking God and Jesus for putting food on their plates.

It takes a few seconds to digest this sight:  The son of Hamas MP who is also the most popular figure in that extremist Islamic organization, a young man who assisted his father for years in his political activities, has become a rank-and-file Christian.  “I’m now called Joseph,” he says at the outset.

Masab knows that he has little hope of returning to visit the Holy Land in this lifetime.  “I know that I’m endangering my life and am even liable to lose my father, but I hope that he’ll understand this and that God will give him and my family patience and willingness to open their eyes to Jesus and to Christianity.  Maybe one day I’ll be able to return to Palestine and to Ramallah with Jesus, in the Kingdom of God.

Nor does he attempt to hide his affection for Israel, or his abhorrence of everything representing the surroundings in which he grew up:  the nation, the religion, the organization.

“Send regards to Israel, I miss it.  I respect Israel and admire it as a country,” he says.

“You Jews should be aware:  You will never, but never have peace with Hamas.  Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews.  They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death.”

Is that the justification for the suicide attacks?

“More than that.  An entire society sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists.  In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist becomes a hero, a martyr.  Sheikhs tell their students about the ‘heroism of the shaheeds.’

And yet, in spite of the criticism of the place he left, California can’t make the longings disappear.

“I miss Ramallah,” he says.  “People with an open mind. … I mainly miss my mother, my brothers and sisters, but I know that it will be very difficult for me to return to Ramallah soon.”

Below are excerpts from an interview which aired on Al-Hayat TV (Cyprus) on August 19, 2008.  In this video, he talks about his childhood, his father, his involvement with the hatred of Jews, and his path to leaving Islam.

JANUARY, 2009

Fox News did a documentary with Mu’sab Hassan Youself titled “Escape From Hamas” that was shown on Fox News. Below, in six parts, is the entire documentary.

RANT ON

Believe it or not, no rant, but congregations to this brave young man who made a free will decision for himself.  That in itself says a lot since Hamas does not encourage independent free-will thought, but encourages sightless unthinking followers instead.  And obviously the young man was so disturbed at what he realized about Hamas and Islam that he turned his back on his own father and family.  By rejecting Islam he has turned into a apostate which a fatwa can be called on him.  The four major Sunni Madh’hab (schools of Islamic jurisprudence) and the Twelver Shi’a Jafar madhab agree that a sane adult male apostate must be executed since the Qur’an states that Allah (God) despises aspostasy.  [Qur’an 3:72, 3:90, 16:106, 4:137 and 5:54]

Now if only more people would listen to what he has to say and think for themselves instead of being mindless and sightless sheep being lead to a slaughter all in the name of God.

And I leave you with this to ponder.  If all the people in Gaza are just innocent civilians, they why on December 14th, did hundreds of tens of thousands of people show up in Gaza to support Hamas’ 21st anniversary of existence?  Maybe, just maybe, because they support terrorists.

Have a look at BBC’s video of the celebration. 

“The mass rally – with its sea of green flags – is being seen as a show of strength by Hamas…” 

“The Associated Press said the crowds filled an area in Gaza City which can accommodate 150,000 people.”

“In a statement on its website, one of Hamas’ senior officials, Mahmoud Zahar, paid tribute to the organization on its anniversary.  ‘Hamas has gone from stone-throwing to guns and rockets, from a support of a few thousand people to a backing of millions in Arab countries and around the world’, he said.

Fox News said,

“about 300,000 Hamas supporters crowded into a dusty outdoor arena and spilled over into nearby streets.  Many waved flags and sported baseball caps in the Islamic group’s signature green color.”

“The huge turnout at the Gaza rally was a pointed display of strength directed at both Israel and Fatah, and further evidence of the Muslim militant group’s unchallenged control over 1.4 million Gazans.”

So tell me, doe the pictures below, taken on Dec. 14th, 2008s look like a forced celebration of a few innocent non-Hamas supporting citizens of Hamas?  Because to me, it looks more like an entire region of terrorist supporting civilians who are celebrating the existence of Hamas.  And I would assume that 1.5 million people, if they did oppose Hamas, could easily overrun the amount of Hamas terrorists that do exist in Gaza if they really wanted to.