UNRWA Gaza chief stumbles across the truth and then apologizes…
…to his real bosses, the Palestinians:
The head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza apologized on Tuesday for comments he made to Israeli TV in which he said that IDF strikes on the Strip appeared to be “precise” and “sophisticated.”
UNRWA Gaza director Matthias Schmale’s interview on Sunday with Channel 12 prompted outrage from the Hamas terror group that rules Gaza and other Palestinian organizations, which accused him of exonerating Israel for the death of civilians in the 11 days of fighting that ended with a ceasefire on Friday.
In the interview, Schmale was asked about the IDF’s assertation that its military strikes were very precise. He responded: “I’m not a military expert but I would not dispute that. I also have the impression that there is a huge sophistication in the way the Israeli military struck over the last 11 days.”
He also said that there were not currently any shortages of food, medicine or water in Gaza as Israel had reopened the crossings.
The title of this post is a riff on Churchill’s saying: “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” Schmale goes it one better by apologizing for his stumble, because in doing so he stepped on Hamas’ and other Palestinians’ toes:
“Recent remarks I made on Israeli TV have offended & hurt those who had family members & friends killed & injured during the war that has just ended. I truly regret to have caused them pain, & reiterate following points I have made through countless interviews & tweets,” he tweeted.
“There is no justification whatsoever for killing civilians. Any civilian killed is one too many. It is simply unbearable that so many innocent people have paid with their lives,” he said, adding that “military precision and sophistication are never a justification for war.”
“Many people were killed or have been severely injured by direct strikes or collateral damage from strikes. In a place as densely populated as Gaza, any strike will have huge damaging effects on people and buildings,” he said.
There is an old tradition of Palestinian encouragement of civilian casualties of its own people by placing military targets among civilians. This has been known for decades (I’ve written about it many times on this blog, for example in this post). Anyone who isn’t aware of this cold-blooded and yet effective ploy on the part of the Palestinians is ignorant or in denial.
The Israelis helpfully pointed it out once again:
The [Israeli] military describes such civilian casualties as being the unfortunate result of Hamas’s strategy of intentionally operating within densely populated areas to use the residents as civilian shields. Human rights groups, however, regularly accuse Israel of using disproportionate force in such situations.
“Disproportionate force” is garbage. Israel already shows remarkable forbearance in its strikes. But the Israelis are supposed to endure strikes on its own people from an aggressor, and not strike back – or strike back in some perfect way that satisfies its enemies?
As I said, it’s absurd. But it works as propaganda. The left in this country is fully onboard with the Palestinian narrative, and has been for years, and more and more people are now on the left. The UN has been fully onboard for decades, and is a great enabler of the Palestinians as well (here’s the latest from that august body).
And then there’s the current US administration, which is continuing in Obama’s footsteps of rewarding the Palestinians:
In the past two weeks, the Biden administration has rolled out pledges to deliver $75 million in assistance to Palestinian areas; $40 million for security assistance to the Palestinian Authority; $150 million to the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA; and $15 million for COVID assistance. Also pledged is $10 million that goes to Palestinian-Israeli people-to-people programs.
US officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have said the spending will comply with congressional restrictions, and comply with laws banning (with a few exceptions) direct assistance to the Palestinian Authority as long as it pays subsidies to the families of Palestinians who have killed Israelis or Palestinians — a longstanding PA policy.
That’s not enough to assuage skeptics, who cite a government watchdog report released last week that said that, from 2015 to 2019, US aid officials did not sufficiently verify whether money meant to reach only nongovernmental organizations in fact ended up with terrorists.
What’s more:
State Department officials have thus far declined to outline what mechanisms, if any, it has put in place to stop a tranche of aid money from reaching Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip and is responsible for initiating a deadly conflict with Israel this month. The State Department admitted this week that it could not guarantee the tranche of money will be kept from Hamas.
“As we’ve seen in life, as we all know in life, there are no guarantees,” a senior department official said.
U.S. aid money has reached Hamas and Palestinian terrorists in the past, prompting the Trump administration to stop sending aid in 2018. One of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s first moves after taking office was to resume the aid without preconditions.
That’s life is not really an adequate response. But they have no intention of giving an adequate response, and they simply do not care what the Palestinians use the money for. It’s money that satisfies the left, and that’s good enough for this crew.
“There is no justification whatsoever for killing civilians.”
Yet, the Hamas rockets are not targeting military bases. They expressly target civilians. Israeli strikes target, as precisely as possible, Hamas facilities. Civilians who are in close proximity become collateral damage. And Hamas lives for these casualties. It is their primary propaganda weapon against Israel. Anyone who doesn’t see this is totally based or unable to reason clearly.
When will the Palestinians accept Israel as a fact of life? Going on 73 years now and they’re still clinging to the hope that the UN, or Iran, or someone, anyone will dismantle Israel. What a way to live your life. Insanity doesn’t quite describe it.
I’ve been told that violence is never the answer.
Violence is the answer when violence is the question.
“When will the Palestinians accept Israel as a fact of life? Going on 73 years now and they’re still clinging to the hope that the UN, or Iran, or someone, anyone will dismantle Israel. What a way to live your life. Insanity doesn’t quite describe it.”
Oh… I’d say they might hang on to the idea of a lost homeland for let me thinkkk now… How about Two Thousand Years, give or take? Yes… that sounds about right.
Nearest I’ve got to a Vespasian or Titus coin is a Galba Denarius. It’s in pretty good shape for its age. But not as good shape as the Jews after spending two millennia obsessing about making it back home. Not sure that the Palestinians will be any different in that regard. Sure they have a crappier intellectual tradition but their cuisine isn’t atrocious and they breed. Do they ever breed. And they’re a story-telling lachrymose history culture. Where’ve we seen that before? Early days, early days.
Frankly I don’t care one way or the other about the morality of the issue. The Palestinians are hardly a charming race and the founding myths of modern Israel don’t bear too much close scrutiny. Possession is 9/10 of the Law, Right of Conquest… these are good enough for me. Israelis can do proper indoor plumbing. Fellaheen cannot. I like flush toilets. But asking ‘Why don’t the Palestinians just Get on with Life?’ ignores some fundamental truths about who we are as humans and the nature of defeat and humiliation.
It would be kinder to just wipe them out. I’d recommend closely reading Nietzsche first and *not* crying out in pain whilst doing the dirty deed 😀
Of course that won’t happen. The Final Solution will be to dump them all on the West, have a nice moral preen, and *we’ll* get to digest the undigestable. And the Beat Goes On as History Rhymes Again.
J. J.,
“When will the Palestinians accept Israel as a fact of life? Going on 73 years now and they’re still clinging to the hope that the UN, or Iran, or someone, anyone will dismantle Israel.”
If Isreal still exists; 100 years from now, 500 years from now, a thousand years from now… Muslims will not accept Israel’s existence.
They’re not clinging to hope that someone will dismantle Israel. It’s a matter of faith that Israel will be ‘exterminated’. Allah has declared it in the ‘sacred’ Quran and nothing can change that. Allah has placed that command upon the shoulders of every Muslim. Inshallah, when Allah decides it is time to end Israel, no force on earth will be able to prevent Israel’s destruction.
Were talking a theological imperative. One with no ‘wiggle room’ whatsoever because in the ‘sacred’ Quran, Allah has both declared that once land becomes Islamic it MUST remain so forever and that the Jews are the most despised of Allah’s creatures.
Joe Biden’s promise that US aid money will not go to Hamas is laughable.
The Left loves the Barbarians like Iran and her cannon fodder, Hamas, et al.
If this ever changes, wake us up — PLEASE.
The maze of tunnels would be a horror to clean with infantry but the tunnels of that “Metro” system go to “stations” that are shefters and fighting positions that are obvious and near the surface. It looks like the IDF didn’t give a damn about the endless trunnels as long as the station destinations were hit. Smart tactics. No sane government would send troops door-to-door when the opposition facilities are exposed to modern weapons and technology. I’d bet that knocking over that communications center that was surrounded by civilian apartments, buried a bunch of “worthies” under 13 floors of rubble. That adds some extra worries for the Hamas gangsters. As I recall, the army used bulldozers and tanks on their senior “brothers” in Egypt.
I wonder if the IDF does contract work. We could supply more bulldozers.
I figure if they’re going to Bulldoze Palestinians, they ought to act like a proper ally just for once and demonstrate some reciprocity and good will by bulldozing at least one Rachel Corrie for every Palestinian. 100 for every 1 would be better. Not that I’m soft on Palestinians, just that there’s a backlog of Corries.
Bunch of inept babbling fools. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature would use “precise” as an indictment of IDF aggression and the targeting of civilians. The “apology” just highlights the fact that Hamas got thier butt kicked. I hear it was all part of the IDF program of converting tunnels to tombs. I rather enjoyed the one about dumping 13 stories of rubble on the “heroes” hiding in the basement. Will there be a “coming out” party next month?
Gunna take one heck of a narrative to drown out the laughter….
But not as good shape as the Jews after spending two millennia obsessing about making it back home. Not sure that the Palestinians will be any different in that regard.
There are 1.6 million Arabs living in Israel, 1.8 million on the Gaza strip, 3 million on the West Bank, 5 million living in Jordan consequent to cross-border migration in 1948-49 and 1967, and just north of 900,000 ‘registered refugees’ in Syria and Lebanon. There is no ‘home’ any more specific than the Levant and there are already 40 million Arabs living there as we speak. Even the sketchy characters associated with the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics are not claiming more than 1.8 million living outside of the Arab world and there’s nothing much that distinguishes those Arab populations from any other Arab population living abroad.
Your statistics likely all correct.
Alas the human heart does not run on statistics and logic… and far less so the tribal heart.
If Israel wants permanent peace it will either have to cease to exist or mutate further into the Irony of Ironies.
Fairness, Reasonableness, Justice, Good Will, etc., etc… ain’t in it. These things have a terrible logic of their own.
A great shame really, as the Zionists were right about the moral and physical improvements having a country to call their own could produce. Just that one little fly in the ointment: it was already inhabited. Sooner or later they’ll have to do the Bad Thing and lose the Other Thing.
Alas the human heart does not run on statistics and logic… and far less so the tribal heart.
Another excuse from an innumerate.
You have no one to ‘go home’ and no particular place for them to ‘return’ to. You do have criminal gangs located proximate to the Jewish population. You can see what they’ve accomplished since 1922.
It’s not my Rodeo. But as I keep saying.. the world of humans does not run on logic.
That’s probably even less so for Arabs… but that’s neither here nor there.
I see little point in dressing these arguments up in Right and Wrong and We paid absentee Ottoman landlords good money, We Made the Dessert Bloom and We only vaporize legitimate combatants, whereas They …(did a bunch of shit stuff and couldn’t properly piss on a plant to make it grow — all true FWIW… Truth and ‘Rightness’ Means Nothing here. Repeat after me, 1000 Times… It’s not a High School Debate — it’s the existential human/group struggle). It all comes down to Might is Right. Just @#$%ing get it done or stop complaining.
The problem is that Israel can’t properly do what needs to be done because they’ve become too attached to their sacred sacrificial victim-hood status — ironic really given that’s also a Palestinian Shtick. And the Palestinians know this. Like the Hedgehog, they know One Big Thing.
The Palestinians can’t win. But they can make Israelis lose their collective soul just by being obnoxious.
Harry Lime’s words from “The Third Man”:
https://genius.com/Orson-welles-cuckoo-clock-speech-annotated
The Jews and Israelis have far exceeded the Borgias in contributions to civilization. The Palestinians have produced neither peace nor tranquility – nor any cuckoo clocks.
The problem is that Israel can’t properly do what needs to be done
Israel has prospered for a century. They’re doing what needs to be done. Your shtick is pretending you know something when you know nothing.
The Palestinians have produced neither peace nor tranquility – nor any cuckoo clocks.
The Arabs of the Levant and of Mesopotamia have their accomplishments. It’s been a pretty unedifying situation the last three generations, however. A qualified exception has been the Transjordan, formerly a backwater; in population and income flow, Amman is now peer to Beirut, Aleppo, Damascus, Mosul, and Basra.
The real issue is that 7 million Israeli Jews are dominating 7 million Palestinians. The fact that this has been going on for 73 years (or 104 if you count the Balfour Declaration) does not mean the domination is stable or permanent. At some point there will have to be a single state between the River and the Sea that is secular, non-ethnic, and non-religious in which Jews and Palestinians are equal citizens. The current Israeli state will have to be dismantled. The Zionist dream is a nightmare.
The rage and hatreds among both Jews and Palestinians are so intense that they cannot negotiate a settlement themselves, and it will have to be imposed from the outside. But no one has the stomach for that. I suspect the current low intensity war will continue until it blows up in some genocidal disaster.
The idea of a state in the area which is “secular, non-ethnic, and non-religious” is a pipe dream.
Here is something to cheer everybody up: since 1994 the USA has provided
$5 BILLION in aid to the Palestinians (read PLO and HAMAS).
And what has that achieved?
Not one F’n thing, aside from allowing the PLO and HAMAS to reward suicide bombers , to buy more weapons and not least of all, filling up the Swiss bank accounts of the PLO / HAMAS leadership (check out where Yasser Arafat’s ex-wife lives. Hint: not in a tent in some refugee camp).
Trump stopped that aid, but Bidet, upon orders of his Obama-commie retread puppet masters, and upon the advice of those incredibly stupid and ignorant Blinken and Rice idiots, the PLO and HAMAS will once again be beneficiaries of US taxpayer largess to the tune of $200 MILLION !!
Just to put things in perspective that $200 MILLION can pay for the college education of 1000 American students (@ 50K per year for 4 years) or pay for medical insurance of 500 American families for 22 YEARS ! (at $1500 / month per family).
The stupidity and ignorance of many (most?) of the idiots in our govt. is way beyond my ability to describe.
Exactly, what good do the morons in our govt. expect as result of this aid?
Is not 27 years of aid to these terrorists – with ZERO results – enough evidence to demonstrate the futility, the stupidity of this policy?
“The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.”
This aid policy just further demonstrates that graduates of the best universities on earth (Harvard, Oxford, etc) do not possess the ability to think or reason and can be incredibly stupid and naive people (see Blinken, Rice, et. al.).
As Orwell put it;” some ideas are so stupid only intellectuals believe them.”
No wonder one reads more and more articles about the upcoming demise and breaking apart of our once Constitutional Republic; violently or otherwise.
By the way, think about this; at the end of WWII in Europe, MILLIONS of folks were permanently displaced and forced to leave regions where their ancestors had been living for hundreds of years.
So far, I have been unable to find any “refugee” camps in Europe as a result of that conflict.
JohnTyler, ditto on the search for refugee camps in India and Pakistan, where there was a massive population exchange accompanied by about a million deaths.
The real issue is that 7 million Israeli Jews are dominating 7 million Palestinians.
No it’s not. The Arab population in the three former Ottoman subprefectures does not equal 7 million. Israel withdrew from Gaza 16 years ago. Israel withdrew partially from the West Bank 27 years ago. The Arab political bosses have had two opportunities to obtain the whole of the West Bank and Arab neighborhoods in greater Jerusalem, and they sabotaged the first and rejected the second. If self-government for the Arabs were the issue, they’d have done something different.
At some point there will have to be a single state between the River and the Sea
Thanks for the wishcast. Such an education. MBITRW, there never has been any such state, bar the approximation of it in the medieval Kingdom of Jerusalem, which was run not by Arab gangsters but by Flemish noblemen.
that is secular, non-ethnic, and non-religious in which Jews and Palestinians are equal citizens.
https://alchetron.com/cdn/pugsley-addams-c3bce0b2-5a1d-4fc0-9965-651ccac23d3-resize-750.jpg
The current Israeli state will have to be dismantled. The Zionist dream is a nightmare.
Hy Goldberg gave you a bad performance review. Get over it.
JohnTyler:
Approximately 12-13 million ethnic Germans were expelled from Poland, East Prussia, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and the Baltic states between 1944-1950. Over one million of them died or were killed in the process. Don’t hear a lot about that outside Germany. Their political organization–the Bund der Vertiebenen, or Union of Expellees–was still active in West Germany in the 1980s, especially in Bavaria. Towns on the Starnberger See south of Munich had signposts pointing to old German-named towns and cities in Silesia (Poland) and the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia). I’ll bet they’re still there.
Bob Sykes:
The thing I most despise about Jew-haters isn’t the animus itself. Hell, I can at least understand the reasons for that (e.g. as explained by the Z Man, Dr. Kevin MacDonald, and our own resident race realist). It’s how few of them are willing to own up to it. C’mon, admit it: what you really want to see is smoking piles of dead Jews. After all, they asked for it by barging in in their usual obnoxious pushy big-nosed way and insisting on having a country of their own in a neighborhood that clearly doesn’t want them. Typical, right? And then making a rather brilliant go of it, which is the really infuriating thing. It must be hard, propping up that massive sanctimonious facade of pecksniffian even-handedness. Suggest you give it up and come clean. Otherwise, you’re going to need a good surgeon (non-Jewish of course–hey, how about a nice New England Unitarian?) for that hernia.
“The problem is that Israel can’t properly do what needs to be done because they’ve become too attached to their sacred sacrificial victim-hood status…” Zaphod
That may be true of Israelis on the left. That’s clearly not the case with Netanyahu and the majority that support him. Rather the 1973 Yom Kippur War is why Israel “can’t properly do what needs to be done”. What saved Israel from defeat in the Yom Kippur War was Nixon sending desperately needed supplies. The ‘lesson’ that Israel drew from that war was that Israel couldn’t survive without American support. From that point forward, America has had the final say in how long and how devastating Israel’s military responses can be… we’re responsible for the conflict continuing. America’s adoption of Just War Theory, that wars must be ‘proportional’, guarantees that guerilla wars never end.
What saved Israel from defeat in the Yom Kippur War was Nixon sending desperately needed supplies. The ‘lesson’ that Israel drew from that war was that Israel couldn’t survive without American support.
Israel has beaten back the Syrian forces by 11 October, before any supplies arrived. The Egyptian forces never got very far into the Sinai. There was a huge run up in the contextual importance of American aid between 1973 and 1984, but then it went into long term decline. American aid to Israel is now in the form of credits to purchase military equipment and accounts for about 1.2% of Israel’s gross domestic product (or about 20% of their military budget).
Bob Sykes, so the only solution is that there is no Jewish state?!
Let me ask you a question, when Arabs chant, first the Saturday people and then the Sunday people, what do you think they’re talking about?
How about here in America, when the Left argues that America was born in the original sin?? Maybe you are not familiar with the argument, but it goes like this, we killed the Indians and enslaved blacks, therefore Western Civilisation must cease and desist. White man (Western Civilisation) =greed. Greed-capitalism and freedom. Question, do you think the solution is to impose socialism and tyranny?
Today we see Jews being chased and beaten here on the streets of America by angry Arab mobs, and we are to believe it’s not Jew hatred, but Zionism?!
How about when BLM, who only masquerades as “Black Lives Matter,” but in actuality is black liberation movement, a Marxist theology who hates America, takes to the street to burn, loot, and terrorise people, do you really think it’s because “the man” oppresses them?!
The only people “dominating” the Arabs in the Middle East are Hamas, the PLO, Hezbollah (Iran) and the lies they tell. BTW, that includes Democrats and their media allies as well.
The only Jewish state in the world is the problem?? The only solution for America’s past is her destruction?? Let us pray your dark and dangerous point of view never prevails.
“Biden” (et al.) are walking a very fine line at the moment—namely that they are truly interested in the survival of the Jewish State and can be relied upon for support; but this “policy”, which was already jettisoned by Obama (in the “Biden” administration’s first incarnation) using that useful tool known as “JCPOA”, and buttressed by UN Resolution 2334, will gradually—and ultimately—be jettisoned entirely by Obama’s current incarnation, once “Biden” decides the time is ripe (and right) to stress the need to redress Palestinian “concerns” in the form of “PLM”.
(Yes, Bob, there is hope!)
“Biden”‘s pledge to “rebuild” Gaza is merely part of this overarching policy (a large part of which is to ignore Iran’s role in Gaza’s “victory”) as was the previous release of millions of dollars to the Abbas government (so-called)…
….as is the current effort to renew the “Biden” administration’s treaty with its ally Iran, which took a shellacking under Trump.
Once again, there is one goal here: to reduce and ultimately eliminate the Jewish State—which is at fault because it has been unwilling, thus far at least, to allow itself to be destroyed; IOW, because it has denied and repressed Palestinian “Human Rights”, which demand the achievement of that illustrious—and humanistic—-goal.
To repeat: Israel is at fault…and will always be at fault until it is somehow eliminated. Erased. Obliterated.
Of particular concern—at this moment in time—is what happens if/when a forward-looking Hezbullah decides that the time has come for Beirut (and Lebanon generally) to be able to benefit from a “Biden”-funded urban renewal project similar to that which has been promised Gaza….
“The Egyptian forces never got very far into the Sinai.”
Actually, years—even decades—later, the Israelis ultimately understood that the Egyptian strategy was never to progress very deeply into Sinai, but just to succeed in crossing the Suez Canal, overrun an undermanned and indefensible Bar-Lev line and establish and maintain a bridgehead on the Eastern side of the Canal of approximately a dozen to 15 kilometers (give or take) before a cease-fire could be put in place.
Had Israel realized this, it would have behaved far differently.
Of course, had the Israelis paid any attention to their spies, their Chief of Staff and/or their PM—and spent less time relying on their wildly erroneous preconceptions—the debacle on the indefensible Bar-Lev line would also have turned out differently.
But that’s 20-20 hindsight….
In case anyone is still wondering, here’s a bit more from “Biden”‘s ally:
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/202105291083028065-irgc-general-urges-israelis-to-pack-their-bags-and-look-for-living-place-in-us-or-europe/
To be fair, though, Iran is being far more honest about this than ANYTHING that has emerged from the “Biden” administration—though admittedly, the “honesty” of the latter is an extremely low bar….
File under: Ya’ gotta believe!!
I know he is an unimportant jackass but one of the reasons that Geraldo Rivera is such a Hamas/PLO apologist and shill is that Hanan Ashrawi is a major influence on him.