THE CRIME OF SILENCE
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Rachel Neuwirth
The crime of silence is a crime that most Jews commit against themselves. One of the Ten Commandments says ‘Thou shall not bear false witness', i.e. not to lie. That is a negative commandment - i.e. what not to do. Simply keeping silent might satisfy that negative commandment even if one keeps silent in the face of malicious lies. Too many Jews today do keep silent in the face of malicious lies by their enemies and thus give the impression that those lies may be true. The prophet Isaiah 62.1 has stated the essential positive side of that negative commandment,
THE FIRST CASUALTY IN GAZA
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Rachel Neuwirth
No war has ever demonstrated more clearly than the recent Gaza war the accuracy of the saying of the late Senator Hiram Johnson, “the first casualty when war comes is the truth.[1]” Not only is the general impression created by the reporting of the international media and the United Nations Relief and Works Administration (UNRWA), that Israel devastated Gaza and killed large numbers of Gaza civilians during its counter-terrorist operation of December 2008-January 2009, false;[2] but the specific stories of Israeli atrocities circulated by the media and UNWRA are equally false. This is the conclusion that has emerged from a careful reading of several reports by independent-minded Western journalists who have visited Gaza and investigated the atrocity stories “on the spot,” as well as from the painstaking and careful investigations of the Israel Defense Forces Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), headed by Lt.-Col. Moshe Levi.[3]
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Israel subject to “War Crimes” Propaganda
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Rachel Neuwirth
Most of the American and European media have accused Israel of having committed "war crimes" in its recent "assault" on Gaza, and of waging war indiscriminately on its civilian population. Israel is said to have damaged schools, hospitals, ambulances and mosques and to have inflicted an immense number of deaths and injuries on innocent civilians. The same accusations have been hurled at Israel by the United Nations, by many of the world´s governments, and by numerous pseudo-do-gooder "Non-governmental organizations" (or "NGOs"), such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The International Criminal Court in the Hague is considering whether to file war crimes charges against Israeli military and political leaders, and the nations of the European Community are debating amongst themselves whether to support such a move.[1]
HAS ISRAEL EMPLOYED DISPROPORTIONATE FORCE IN GAZA?
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Rachel Neuwirth
Most of the American news media, nearly all non-American media, and countless pseudo-do-gooder “NGOs” (meaning “Nongovernmental Organizations” which claim to be promoting human rights or humanitarians goals) have depicted Israel’s recent counterterrorist operation in Gaza as a “war crime” and aggression against the innocent Arab civilian population of Gaza. Nothing could be further from the truth. Among the most widely reported and believed of the many lies about the Gaza operation that have been assiduously spread by Hamas’s super-efficient and super-sophisticated propaganda machine, and that that have been disseminated as facts all too willingly by a biased and corrupt news media, are the claims that Israel a) started the war in Gaza and b) used vastly “disproportionate” force, and caused vastly disproportionate casualties, in responding to annoying but relatively harmless attacks by Hamas. These “disproportionate force” accusations are not only fallacies; coming from Hamas and its supporters, they are outright lies. Let us scrutinize these falsehoods in detail and compare them to the truth.
UCLA: Symposium of Hate and Lies
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Rachel Neuwirth
A symposium titled ‘Human Rights and Gaza’ held at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) sponsored by its Center of Near East Studies (CNES) on January 21, 2009, concerned with the recent conflict in Gaza, communicated more falsehoods and malicious slander about Israel that could be found in any academic setting. And given the fierce hostility to Israel on American and European college campuses, that is saying a great deal.
