Fabrications, and half-truths in Climate Change denialists' bear party

Global warming deniers had a bear party, a polar bears party. Early this century concerns were raised that the observed decrease in the surface of arctic sea ice in the summer, will lead to their extinction due to loss of habitat. Apparently that did not happen. And now there is a debate as to the exact numbers of polar bears population today, especially in North America. The mainstream scientific community is convinced some impact had taken place. While one Canadian zoologist by the name of Dr. Susan J Crokford introduced data that doubt it. Her data is backed by claims of the Inuit community in Canada, saying that the numbers had increased in a way that threatens the lives of the Inuit population.

For the community of global warming deniers this was enough to turn them both into heroes and a cause for celebration. Their logic, if polar bears are not facing extinction, global warming is not taking place. As one critic of this party pointed out: "If they can push over the polar bears domino, all other examples of climate change are dismissed by association." Ironically Dr. Susan Crokford and the Inuit council are not exactly global warming deniers. While Dr. Corkford had some past association with global warming minimalists, in an interview she gave Glenn Beck, she acknowledged that the surface of the arctic sea ice is decreasing (minute 1:58). And the Inuit council agrees that climate change is taking place, it's just that the Polar bears are not affected by it, not yet. Here is their statement quoted in several news outlets: "Although there is growing scientific evidence linking the impacts of climate change to reduced body condition of bears and projections of population declines, no declines have currently been attributed to climate change," ….. "(Inuit knowledge) acknowledges that polar bears are exposed to the effects of climate change, but suggests that they are adaptable."

To the Inuit council, climate change is a fact, why wouldn't it be? After all they see the changes all around them, changes that their ancestors and their oral traditions do not recall. They also agree with the science that raised the original concerns. In their opinion it did not materialized not because climate change is wrong, but because the bears adapted. Naturally these facts are absent from the denialists bears party.

As the provided link show, the denialists also rely on other dubious arguments. One of them is the failure of worst case scenarios that warned of an ice free Arctic Ocean within a few years. If a concerned and inquisitive mind is honest and authentic than more questions should be asked. Are these the only scenarios? Are there best case scenarios? What is the likelihood of each scenario, or each type of scenario, best, medium, or worst? These questions are not asked by the denialists because propagandists and ideological fanatics do not need to ask questions. Once an argument is formed in-favor of the ideas and causes they promote, they do not need to ask any questions about it. Facts checking and self-criticism are redundant. Without these questions we all allow a deception to occur, as if there were only worst case scenarios to consider. It is important to emphasize here that this deception was helped by the global media giving attention only to the worst case scenarios.

Another denialist's argument is an outright lie, (even if they believe it to be true). "No other icon of 'Global Warming' epitomizes its very own false narrative like the polar bear does for 'Climate Change'." The idea that the size of the polar bears population is an argument that can debunk climate change is ludicrous not just because of the fact that Dr. Crokford and the Inuit council do not make that claim, (on the contrary, they acknowledge that sea ice is decreasing, see above); But for other reasons as well. First, bears are indeed adaptable. As these two videos show, you do not need to be an Inuit or to live near the North Pole in order to know that. Bears are curious creatures that like to explore new territories, and new things. And they are curious enough to test them and benefit from them if they work. It also helps when you are big and strong. Second, we also have to take into account the impact of past preservation efforts. Forth, there is no doubt that there are other factors to look at, factors that experts and local people know better than a Mediterranean person like myself.

The actual size of the polar bears population is therefore no argument against climate change, unless you find a way to exclude all the other factors, and their combined effect. Just think of this lopsided logic. The sun keeps us warm, therefore if we are warm than the sun is shining. If we are cold it isn't shining. Therefore, if its night time and we are warm, the sun is shining. And if it is day time, and we are cold, the sun is not shinning. Giving critical dominance to one factor, without examining other factors, is therefore not the responsible way to handle the data. Unfortunately, the worst case scenarios suffer from a similar problem. But at least they do not manipulate the data.

The biggest lie in the quote is the impression it create, as if other "icons" of climate change had also been debunked. They haven't. To start with these "icons", indicators, are too numerous to debunk. They come from the fields of biology, ecology, climate sciences, oceanography, and demography, and various inter disciplinary fields of research. There are not enough scientifically trained denialists to debunk all of them.

The icons they have targeted have missed the mark by a mile or more. For example, the Great Barrier Reef in Eastern Australia has been a point of concern for a long time. Here, denialists have on their side Dr. Peter Reed, a marine physicist from James Cook University in Northern Queensland. His "debunking" of those concerns is based on faults he found in 9 old studies he reviewed and dozens of others that he ignored. This gross selectivity a major short coming and I am been diplomatic here.

When it comes to the most immediate concern, the rise of sea level, denialists rely on another gross selectivity. They pick trends of decrees in the sea level that do not change the total trend, and use that as an argument against the existence of the total trend. This manipulation of data had been dubbed cherry picking by main stream science. And as this video shows, it has a simple explanation.

This video also shows that there is more than one type of scenarios as to the progress of climate change.

This cherry picking practice is used in the related debate regarding the amount of Arctic sea ice, and it is easily debunked, as I show in the image I have provided below, a child can do that.

While the population of polar bears may or may not have been affected by the decrease in Arctic sea ice, one species had defiantly been affected, human beings, us. As the ice decreases new economic opportunities opened up, in the form of new trade routes, and access to undersea row materials. These opportunities are so hot that leading powers on this planet are now engaged in a new competition, often described as 'the New Cold War'. Armed forces alongside science research crews and representatives of commercial interests, private and governmental, are racing across the new ice-free portions of the Arctic Ocean. The title of this new race may suffer from sensationalism; if so it is only drawback it has as 'icon' of global warming. It will be interesting to see how denialists "debunk" this icon/indicator.

The protesters at the Gaza border fence are not unarmed and are not protesters, and here are the evidences.

And now that I have your attention let me be more specific. The constant attacks, since March 2018, on the border fence between Israel and the Hamas control Gaza Strip, by civilian looking crowds, are not protest. And the "protesters" are not unarmed.

Yes, there were real protesters at some distance from the border fence, tens of thousands of them, for many days, and yes, they were unarmed; and yes; they were unharmed. But the attacks on the border fence are a totally different kind of activity, and only those engaged in it were harmed by Israeli forces. 

The border fence is a military installation protecting Israeli civilians from violent infiltration by armed squads of Palestinian terrorists. These are members of organizations that have a rich record of murdering high numbers of Israeli civilians.  Attacking it and removing it opens the way for these armed groups to reach Israeli communities, putting at high risk the lives of the Israeli civilians protected by this fence.

It is interesting, to put it mildly, that while the world’s media had largely accepted the fact that most of the Palestinian killed when attacking the fence are members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad; they still treat the wounded as innocent nonviolent protesters. After all, both the wounded and the dead were hurt in the same circumstances, attacking, violently, the border fence. Isn't it common sense to assume that the wounded are also members of these armed groups? The statistics does not support this common sense. It also does not challenge it. The statistics simply does not exist. Those who can publish it are on the Palestinian side of the border, and they are not doing it. Now, why would they act this way? Are they trying to hide something?

A suspicious behavior is not a proof of guilt. But it adds up along with other evidences. And here they are:

The first are these figures. They are from the United Nations Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA. And they were published on the 25^th of April, in the Ha'aretz English edition.

This map shows two things: first, that the wounded and the dead were hurt in the same circumstances, attacking the fence at the same places. It also shows the selectivity of the IDF, its effort not to kill and not to maim. While the numbers of wounded in each location is in the hundreds, the numbers of the dead are not higher than 10, for each of the locations. Such a gap can only exist if the Israeli side had made an extreme effort not kill. And as it is shown by the rest of the evidences: also not to maim. According to the article, 408 Palestinians suffered from gas inhalation. In order to suffer from such an injury, the victim has to be in some kind of a confine space. For this to happen in the open areas of the Gaza border fence, and to a large number of people, two conditions must be met. There has to be a massive amount of tear gas released, in huge volumes. And the people been targeted has to be in huge numbers themselves. This way they create confine spaces that magnify the effects of the riot control gas. This means that this less violent mean was given a huge preference over the more violent means of live ammunition.

And when we follow the data to its source this conclusion is confirmed. In May 10^th the United Nations Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, published another account, containing statistical information. That account contain the following description: “Each Friday instances took place in which hundreds of demonstrators approached the fence in an attempt to damage it, burning tires, throwing stones and, to a lesser extend Molotov cocktail towards Israeli forces deployed on the other side. On several occasions, demonstrators flew kites with flaming materials attached to them, into Israeli territory, setting crops into Israel on fire.” [Emphasis B.T.] Hundreds of demonstrators in each incident are what it takes to create circumstances of confine space in open fields. And it takes large volumes of riot disposal gas to chase them away.

The publication has its bias against Israel. Demonstrators trying to damage a fence, or any other structure, are not demonstrators. They are violent attackers. In a later part of this publication it gives the legal opinion that there were no justifications for the lethal use of live ammunition, because such means are only to be used as a last resort in response to imminent threat of death or serious injury. But in the above description it mentions the use of several sources of fire by these "demonstrators". Fire, by its very nature, is both an imminent threat of death and the risk of serious injury; not only to the soldiers, but as it spreads through the fields behind them, it is a threat to the civilians living there. So is the removal of defense structures, like the border fence that protects those Israeli civilians from the live ammunition of the other side. Yet this legal opinion claims no such threats occurred. And as their own data shows, Israel did use it as a last resort. First preference was given to riot disposal gas, followed by snipers shooting to wound. Only afterword came the situations requiring to kill the attackers. 

United Nations statistics

This contradiction, of publishing information exonerating Israel, but interpreting it the opposite way, is a characteristic of anti-Israel bias. And it cannot achieve its purpose without manipulating the data to fit the ideological convictions. While manipulated, the additional information the OCHA publication provides, see above, contains more evidences of Israel selective and responsible use of firepower. First, their map shows that the no go zone was limited to the narrow path of the fence. Second, the gender and age distribution of the injured shows a higher representation of male adults. According to this information the number of adults injured is more than 4 times the number of children, and the number of males hurt is more than 15 times the number of females. There are 3 ways of interpreting this. One is that Israel’s preferred target was adult men. Two, is that most of these attackers pretending to be demonstrators were adult men in the first place. The third option is both. We do not know which of the possibilities is correct, because the information is manipulated; manipulated by omissions.
We do not know what they were doing when they were hurt, or by what they were hurt from. We have the general distribution of causes of injuries, but not the more specific ones, per age group, and per gender. This is important because of another omission, within another category of causes of injury called ‘other.’ ‘Other’ suggests a grouping of several categories into one category. This is usually done in statistics when in each of the categories groped together the figures are too small to be significant. In most cases when they are added into a single category, called other or miscellaneous, the final figure is also not very high. In most statistical releases this is one of the smaller categories. And it constitutes a small percentage of the total. Here however, it is nearly a quarter of the casualties, and the second largest category. For this to make sense this category will have to include at least six or seven different causes of injuries. These causes could be the responsibility of Israel, and they could also be the responsibility of Hamas. The article does not detail the category, living the impression that Israel is the only one responsible. But if the IDF is to be blamed, than what means has it used that hadn't been mentioned already? Tear gas, live munition, rubber bullets (the smallest category), and leaflets, all have been mentioned in this report. They have also been mentioned in all other coverages of this situation. However, there is no evidence of other means used; not in an article and not in a photograph. Since, the category of other must be made from several means; it is common sense to assume that at least one of them was caught by camera. Yet no such photo exists.  At the Palestinian side however, there are three causes of injury that are identified easily. The first two are unavoidable. These are accidents of various types that happen whenever there is a large gathering of people. And there are also self-inflicted injuries known as friendly fire incidents, when the violent means used by the Palestinian "demonstrators" accidentally hurt their own side. The third cause is the much covered mass use of burning tires by the "demonstrators." How likely it is for the first two causes to be large contributors for the high percentage of the category 'other,' depends on the level of organization. As for the massive use of burning tires, here there is no way to make an assessment, since no one has done something like this before. Only a careful professional study can answer that question. The lack of such study by the relevant authorities, local and international, is grossly irresponsible. There is no question that this kind of smoke is harmful. And there is no question that children are more vulnerable to it, as they are more vulnerable to any other kind of air pollution. With the popularity of the Palestinian struggle in many parts of the world, and the sympathetic media coverage, it is highly possible that someone else will try to copycat this kind of protest. Denying this information from them puts the lives of their civilians and their children at risk.

If the number of people, and children, badly affected by the massive burning of tires is high, then that irresponsibility is a criminal one. And if that number is indeed high, and most of the causes of injuries to children are self-inflicted, then the actual situation is far different the picture portrait in this report.

Just how harmless a single tear gas canister is in an open field, can be seen by this Gazan show of. Source Israellycool

Do you consider these pictures to be iconic, heroic, or child abuse?

This data can be dismissed as representing the early part of this confrontation. But a later report, by an anti – Israel site called the Middle East Eye, shows that pattern continued all the way to November. This time among the dead.

This data shows that the overwhelming number of the dead is adult men, nearly five times the number of children, and almost 80 times the number of women. this web site tries to bend the data against Israel by creating a new category, 29 and under, mixing adults with teenagers. it also tries to so by adding the personal stories of those killed. but most of the names on the list do not have a story attached to them. nearly 100 of the 190, were killed "east of ___" major community in the Gaza Strip, without any farther detail as to the location. Only 19 have background stories. But those stories do not represent the complexities of each of those attacks on the border fence. Again, hiding by omissions. They are just doing it differently than the OCHA reports do.   

Why would the preferred target of the IDF be adult men?

Well, these are men at combat age; they can carry weapons, and the can be more effective in tearing down the fence. Tearing down any defense structure is a military activity. It is given to a brunch of the military engineering core known as sappers. Show me where in international law they enjoy special protection the way medical personal do.  

The fact that they could does mean that they do. Evidences suggest they did. There are plenty of images showing these "demonstrators" tearing down the fence. As for been unarmed; the second evidence I bring suggests otherwise. It comes from this picture, published on May 16, 2018 in the Sky news website as a part of an unsympathetic coverage of the IDF.

A detailed analysis shows however, a group of armed men, surrounded by a crowd that includes a lot of young men, some unarmed, some not so clearly. But also many children, a few medics, and at least three men dressed as members of the press. There is no question that children, mostly teenagers, are used as here as human shields, a war crime in its own right. But the most important thing about this picture is that it shows organization. The charge is led by a young man with a flag and an ax. There is a man with binoculars, studying the area ahead. In the back of the left side a group of kids is getting instructions from an adult. And in the middle, a man carrying explosives has a teenager behind him and another in front of him.    

From left to right, an ax at the lead, a pointed chain wheal, explosives, Molotov cocktail, and incendiary liquid in bottles.  

Teenagers and children all over

Medics and press folks in the attacking crowd.

Teenagers around the explosives guy

A group of kids getting instructions from an adult

More evidence of organization 

As a human shield these kids are used as a defensive weapon, defending an armed assault. That picture shows the great length Hamas is going through, in order to get as many as possible of their own children, injured and killed. This makes the efforts by the IDF to bring down the number of casualties among the underage group only more remarkable. To be clear, every death is a tragedy, and every death of a child is an outrage. But who should be the focus of the outrage? Those who deliberately put them in harms way? Or those that go to great length not to harm them, while effectively protecting their own children?

Another picture of Gazan children used for military purpose. 

One reason as to why the Israeli Palestinian conflict has not been resolved, and nine irrelevant ones

Commentary on Bradly Burston’s Opinion piece from Ha’aertz of June 20^th 2018.

There is only one reason why the Israeli – Palestinian conflict hasn't been resolved in nearly 100 years; and one reason alone. The constant rejection of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state by the Palestinian leadership, historic and current. From the rejection of the first partition plan in 1937; Until the refusals of Mahmood Abbas's to even enter the negotiation room and talk with Benjamin Netanyahu. And this is during and under the auspices of the Obama administration, the most anti settlements president in US history.

None of this is new. And a lot of excuses were made for Abbas's conduct. The problem with those arguments is that they only prove the opposite. If Mahmmod Abbas was truly bothered by Israeli policies such as settlements, checkpoints, security barrier, etc., he should have entered that room and tried to get an agreement that among other things would have ended those policies. With both the US administration and the world public opinion lining to his side, even a failure would have worked for his advantage. Instead, he walked away, not allowing the talks to even begin.

This is a simple and obvious fact. But to the political Left, including the Zionist one this is more than an inconvenient truth. It is an identity crisis, one that has not been resolved since October 2000.

One example is Bradly Burston confused opinion piece in Ha’aertz of June 20^th 2018. There he names nine other reasons for the protraction of the conflict. Those reasons get the title 'both sides suck' suggesting equal share of the blame. The problem with those reasons is that they are not nine, and they are all not relevant to the inability to resolve the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The equivalence they suggest is an absurd, and morally problematic.

Reasons 1, 4, and 5, are different expression of the same thing, street rhetoric. Reason 1 refers to the content of that rhetoric, 4 to the tools of expression, and 5 is a suppose profile of those that spread this language. To be clear, street rhetoric is indeed counterproductive. When political leaders use it, it is known as demagogy. It is then that it is harmful enough to prevent a resolution of a conflict. But this is not what Bradly Burston is talking about in those three reasons. He is talking about nameless and faceless individuals. These are the folks that make up that street. And they can do and they do inflict a lot of harm. The most painful examples are the assassinations of Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin. But even after those horrific tragedies, the peace process continued. Mubarak Kept the Camp David accords, and Netanyahu, the Oslo accords. He even evicted the greater part of Hebron. Both did it reluctantly, but they did it. And yes, Netanyahu has used demagogy in more than one occasion. And it was foolish and nasty for no reason. But he did not use it against Gaza. He used it internally, once against Israeli Arabs, and a few times against the Israeli left.

Bradly Burston also gets the street mostly wrong. Accusing Israel of been a Nazi does not come from Hamas. Hamas, like the PA, advances the story that Jews are related to apes and pigs. Hamas, like the PA, indoctrinate children to welcome the day when all Jews are gone from the land of Israel. And both see those that do murderous violence in the service of that cause as heroes and patriots. And when they die in the process they are martyrs, 'shahids'; in the eyes of both PA and Hamas. Accusing the Israeli side of Nazism, or Nazi like activity comes mostly from the European left, and the American left. The Palestinian side does find it useful, but they have other messages for their people.

Yes, there is a "who was here first debate?" but god is not the authority on both sides, facts are. Those on the Israeli side point to the archaeological record. Those at the Palestinian side point to a mixture of real facts and appropriated facts. Their real facts are the cultural and commercial lives Arabs had in the land of Israel prior to 1948. These cultural and commercial lives did not stop with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. And they did not stop with the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The appropriated facts include the soccer match between the all Jewish, Zionist soccer team of Maccabi Palestine vs Australia in 1939, introduced as the evidence for the existence of an Arab Palestinian state prior to 1948.

The problem with Bradly Burstun's analysis is not only that he gets the street wrong, or mostly wrong. The street talk is not the cause of the perpetuation of the conflict. It is another symptom of that cause, bigotry. Historically it did not stop the peace process, not with Egypt, not with Jordan, and not even with the Palestinians. Only the actions of the leaders had an impact on it. And they have the power to choose if to make street language a tool of policy or not.  

Another thing Bradly Burstun gets wrong is social media. Bradly Burstun set out in his piece to explain why this nearly 100 years long conflict has no end in sight. The problem is that social media, like Bibi Netanyahu, and Donald Trump did not exist 100 years ago, neither did Hamas for that matter. As for the current role of social media, the idea that armchair keyboard activists from long distance are contributing to the deadlock is so 2009. We are in the era of Russian hacking, fake profiles, and uncontrolled data mining. Within the context of this conflict, in this present day of age, late 2018, social media has two demonstrated roles. One, is as another venue of expression of street rhetoric, there it has the same effect as it had with previous tools of expression. It does a lot of harm on occasions, but not enough to derail the resolution of the conflict. The other function is as a part of a recruitment mechanism for terrorist organizations and/or the encouragement of "lone wolfs" to conduct terrorist activities. Best examples are the Jewish terrorist attacks against Israeli Arabs and Palestinian civilians that came under the banner of 'tag mehir,' price tag. These attacks picked with the mass murder of most of the members of a Palestinian family in the village of Duma on July 31^st, 2015.  There is also the so called 'knifes intifada' of Palestinian teenagers targeting mostly Israeli civilians on both sides of the green line. This intifada gave us a 13 years old stabber, the killing of a pregnant woman in front of her children, killing a teenage girl in her bed, and the killing of an entire family in Halamish on July 21^st 2017. And the more recent tragedies, at Gush Etzion, and Barakan, and those that followed, from both sides; show us that this phenomena has not stopped. And the final example, Daesh, (ISIS); they used social media to recruit people into their organization, and to inspire "lone wolfs'" attacks across Europe and North America.

Bradly Burston demonstrate a strange and surprising lack of the concept of time. He shows a lack of understating of both history and the present day. That makes his argument irrelevant in the most fundamental way. And it does not stop there.

In reason 6 Bradly blames the corruption of both sides. First corruption is not an impediment to peace, or to sound judgment in managing a conflict. Sa'adat was corrupt, Begin was no saint, and King Hussain of Jordan was no role model in the eyes of human rights organizations. And if I have to detail their contribution to the peace process to Bradly Burston, ot to anyone else, then this whole response is a waste of time.

Second, comparing Netanyahu to Hamas is a false parallel. No one in the Gaza strip is investigating Hamas for their corruption. And the corruption Bibi is suspected of is not ripping off the country's infrastructure. Hamas's rule in the Gaza strip most certainly does that. In the first part of his article Bradly Burston describes the ecological disaster the Gaza Strip had become. The main cause of it is the loss of the water aquifer beneath the Gaza Strip. The facts show that Hamas is the only one responsible for this situation. Instead, Bradly Burston alludes to a shared blame with the Netanyahu government. There is no shared blame here. If Israel had attacked the water infrastructure of the Gaza Strip none of its residents would have been able to use it to pump the water out of the aquifer. Because Israel and the IDF remain true to their high moral and ethical standards; that infrastructure remained mostly intact. And that is despite recurring hostilities. This allowed Hamas to manage the use of water as they saw fit. In this case, allowing the residents to pump dry the aquifer. Now it is salinized with sea water and contaminated with sewage that permeated into the empty aquifer. And yes, Israel is under an ecological threat because of that. And no, no one saw this coming. Even the biggest critics and opponents of the disengagement from Gaza did not predict that Hamas will be this criminal in its negligence of its most basic civilian responsibilities. And since they are capable of this level of indifference to the needs of their civilian population, one that had turn most of the Strip into an open sewage dump, be certain that they are capable of lesser monstrosities. Those monstrosities been the confiscation of material sent to the Gaza Strip for civilian purposes and using it for military ones. The best example is the concrete used by Hamas for their attack tunnels.     

Bradly Burston's false parallels are bewildering. He makes a comparison between Hamas' encouragement of the use incendiary kites and balloons against Israelis, with Netanyahu discussing the future of TV broadcasting in Israel. This is like comparing acid with milk; albeit not a very tasty milk. TV broadcasting is not a violent activity that causes a massive destruction of property. Not to mention that there is nothing unusual for heads of states in times of conflict to find time for civilian matters.

Reason 6, along with reasons 2, 7, 8, and 9, are a part of his Netanyahu reasons. For obvious reasons he is getting the greater share of the blame. Reasons 2 and 7 are also the same thing, hardline political stand. Is talking tough an impediment to peace or a necessary tool in negotiations between arch enemies? That is open to debate. Negotiating with Hamas has its unique problems. First most of the negotiations that do take place are wartime negotiations. In wartime, enemies on both sides, no matter how bitter, negotiate prisoners' exchange, cessations of violence, arms control, and the welfare of civilians affected by the conflict. In the mad realities of war, any war, this is normal and not unusual. And so is talking though.

And this is war. There are frustrations. And there is a lot of pain, a lot of bitterness, a lot of anger. But Hamas is not just talking though. They are giving orders to do harm.  One good example that was caught on tape: Yikhya Sinuar, head of Hamas' military wing, encouraging the people around him, to attack the border fence and take out the hearts of the people they meet on the other side. Israeli politicians do talk tough on occasions, sometimes as deterrence, sometime as a talk to their base, but never as orders to the troops on the ground.  We do not have to like any of these talks. As a matter of fact it is a good thing that we don't. But when we lose the distinction between the two different examples we lose our moral clarity. And a lack of moral clarity is a key characteristic of Bradly Burston's piece.

Reasons 8 and 9 are also the same thing, both sides are out of control. Israel, because the UN opposes its policies and president Trump support those policies. And Hamas is out of control because the UN takes there side, and Trump takes Israel's side. First, Hamas does not need the UN, Trump, or anyone else to relive them from their constraints. They do not believe in constraints. And they have a charter and an ideology that justifies all forms of violence. Second, Netanyahu does not need to show that the UN is hostile to Israel. The UN has been doing it on its own long before Bibi's political career had begun. Do you remember David Ben Gurion Um Shmum remarks?

Third, what constraints has Israel released itself from? It took the IDF several weeks before it begun to respond to the arsonists sending incendiary kites and balloons into Israel. Those are legitimate military targets, using a tool of war used continuously since ancient times, fire. And they use it to attack Israelis by torching their properties. Yet Israel avoided harming these arsonists, for nearly a month.

Even the image of the IDF troops firing live ammunition at unarmed protesters, does not verify his claim that Israel is out of control. This is from the simple fact that it is not true. During June and July 2018 there were a lot of protesters near the border fence, in the tens of thousands of them, day after day. They were overwhelmingly unharmed. Those that were harmed by Israeli live ammunition were engaged in an activity distinctively different than protest. They were attacking the border fence. This fence serves as an obstacle, preventing terrorists from infiltrating Israel, and attacking and murdering its civilians. Hamas’ intentions and commitment to murder Israelis is an undisputed fact. We all saw that the spates of suicide bombings that took place in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. We saw it in the rockets raining down on the Israeli communities in vicinity of the Gaza Strip. And we see it in the incendiary kites and balloons send repeatedly into Israel, by these “protestors.” The only difference between those methods is their success rate. Israeli defenses along the Gaza Strip make sure that success will be kept at a very poor level. Without that fence, and its protectors that success rate will increase. And it does not matter by how much. The duty of the Israeli army is to defend the lives of Israelis and in these cases that duty demands the defense of that fence; even if it is attacked by an unarmed horde. But it was not attacked by an unarmed horde. It was repeatedly attacked by organized groups, armed with rocks, Molotov cocktails, demolishing devices intended to remove the fence, and occasionally firearms, and those assisting them. (That is as of June 2018, since then thing got a lot worse in the firearms department). And the IDF repelled most of them by using teargas. Only when there was a danger to the fence live ammunition was used, selectively, by snipers. First to wound, and later to kill, when the breach was inevitable. We already know that most of the dead were members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. None of them wore a badge that identified the organizations they belonged to. They were killed by Israeli snipers because they were engaged in activities that threaten the fence and the Israeli civilians living behind it. Those are the kind of activities that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have committed themselves to. It is therefore not surprising that most dead were man, and most of them were members of known terrorist organizations. Those that were killed and those that were wounded were hurt in the same circumstances. Therefore the idea that the wounded are of a different category does not make sense. Since the whole world believes in this irrational perception, debunking it requires another article. One that will be published alongside this one.