The Spanish press about the Operation Pillar of Cloud (III).

An article was published by Público under the title Los bombardeos israelíes sobre Gaza se ceban con los niños (The Israeli bombings on Gaza hit the children) on Monday, November 19th, 2012. Such a suggestive title is embellished with another suggestive item: a photograph showing dead Palestinian children. It is explicitly told in the article that the Operation Pillar of Cloud is hitting Gazan children like the Operation Cast Lead did four years ago.

Such a politically motivated, irresponsible use of dead children by part of the Spanish press just sucks.

Meanwhile, Público reported that Lior Hayat, who works for the Israeli Embassy in Madrid, had to cancel a speech at the Carlos III University because his safety couldn't be granted due to the protests held by pro-Palestinian students.

The Spanish press about the Operation Pillar of Cloud (II).

On Tuesday, November 20th, 2012, El País published an article by Ana Carbajosa under the title El sur de Israel pide mano dura (Southern Israel asks for firm hand). This time we can read this:

"Running towards bomb shelters has almost been the only routine in Ashkelon during these days. Here, like in the rest of Southern Israel, life was broken last Wednesday, when the targeted killing of Hamas' military chief started an intense launching of Palestinian rockets. (...) [Ashkelon's] (...) 130,000 inhabitants have been living under the danger posed by rockets for years."

It's easy to observe an inherent contradiction within this paragraph. First it is written that the targeted killing of Ahmed Jabari "started an intense launching of Palestinian rockets" which made the life in Southern Israel to be "broken", when later it is written that Ashkelon residents have been being attacked  with rockets "for years". These two ideas are necessarily incompatible, being only the second the right one.

The Spanish press about the Operation Pillar of Cloud (I).

On Wednesday, November 14th, 2012, the Tzahal began the Operation Pillar of Cloud (also known as Pillar of Defense) through the targeted killing of Ahmed Jabari, who was a key member of Hamas' Izz ad-Din al Qassam Martyrs Brigades; this was in response to rocket and mortar attacks perpetrated by Hamas and other terrorist organizations based on the Gaza Strip during the last years. Israel has been targeting other locations since then, while Palestinian terrorists have been firing more rockets.

Spanish daily El País published an article by its correspondet in Jerusalem, Ana Carbajosa, on Sunday, November 18th, under the title El Ejército israelí golpea a la población civil de la franja de Gaza (The Israeli Army hits the Gaza strip's civilian population). The article contains the photograph of two Palestinian children killed; only in an annexed photogallery pictures of Israeli civilians under fire are also shown. The article also deals with the Israeli strike against a building used both by the press and Hamas itself, but omitting that this Palestinian terrorist organization was present there.

Meanwhile, online newspaper MÁSPúblico has published an article on Monday, November 19th, under the title Los muertos de Gaza tienen nombre (The dead from Gaza have a name). At the moment of writing this article of my own, 84 names of Palestinians killed during the Operation Pillar of Cloud have already been published. MÁSPúblico's article reads that the list will be updated. Not a single Israeli civilian killed is named.

How to incite hatred against Israel even when it comes about the Netherlands.

On Monday, November 5th, 2012, El País published an article about the problems of the new Dutch coalition cabinet (composed of liberals and social democrats), under the title El Gobierno de centroizquierda holandés se estrena con un alza de costes sanitarios (The Dutch centre-left Government makes its debut with a rise in sanitary costs). In the second paragraph is written the following (translated as accurate as possible, between quotation marks):

"The last Dutch centre-right government (in minority), headed by [Mark] Rutte himself, had to hand over the demands made by the xenophobic leader, Geert Wilders, in exchange of his support in the Parliament, and aligning himself with Israel. That produced moments of major embarrasment for a country which has boasted about its tolerance. At the beginning of this year, for example, the Netherlands were the only E.U. member which rejected to address a report concerning the violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians."

One could ask Isabel Ferrer, the author of the article and El País' correspondet to The Hague, why being aligned with Israel prevents a sovereign State like the Netherlands to be still considered a tolerant country; specially when an A.D.L. report published in March 2012 shows that Spain is less tolerant than the Netherlands towards Jews by almost all indicators, as well as the most intolerant country (when compared to Poland, Russia, Germany, France, the U.K. and the United States) towards Jews and muslims, according to a Pew Research Center report published in 2008.

Not in Spanish news: Palestinian rockets hit Israel ahead of the new school year.

The Spanish press didn't hesitate to report about the shelling of the al-Fakhura school in the Gaza Strip during the Operation Cast Lead a few years ago; Matanza en escuelas de la ONU (Massacres at UN schools) is an example of this, a very unfortunate one, by the way, because of its obvious bias against Israel.

But when it comes to Palestinians firing rockets ahead of the new school year in Israel, Spanish mainstream media remains silent.

News bulletin in English on these recent events, here.

Not in Spanish news: refugees with Palestinian backgrounds singled out and rejected by Jordan.

The current civil war in Syria has caused a large humanitarian crisis which includes tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the country. One of the countries bordering Syria is Jordan to the south, so the Hashemite Kingdom is one of those refugees' destinations. Many of those who are fleeing Syria are people with Palestinian backgrounds and, according to a Human Rights Watch report, they're being constantly singled out and rejected by Jordanian authorities, as reported by The Jerusalem Post's Ruth Eglash on Wednesday, July 4th, 2012. Excerpts from the article below:

"(...) The population balance between Jordanians with Palestinian heritage and those without is a contentious issue in the Hashemite Kingdom.

According to the HRW report released on Wednesday, since mid-April Jordanian authorities have been singling out Syrians of Palestinian origin, sending them to holding facilities in or around the town of Ramtha. In the meantime, other Syrian refugees have been allowed to move freely in Jordan if they have a local guarantor."

When Israel rejects a hypothetical Palestinian return to the Jewish State due to the demographic threat it objectively represents, Israel is labelled as "racist". But when the country which rejects Palestinians under the same premise (i.e., a demographic threat) is not Israel, then there is no reason to report about it.

At least, not here in Spain.

Palestinian prisoners in... Palestine?

On Monday, May 7th, 2012, El País published an article by Ana Carbajosa under the title Israel deniega la excarcelación a dos presos palestinos al borde de la muerte (Israel rejects to release two almost dead Palestinian prisoners). Excerpts from the article below (translated as accurate as possible, between quotation marks):

"Adameer, the Palestinian association which provides legal counseling to many of the prisoners, denounces that penitentiary authorities have begun a campaign of reprisals against the strikers, who are said to be deprived of visits, access to lawyers and all kind of personal goods. Some of them are even confined in isolation cells, according to Adameer."

All these measures are actually applied in the jails of almost every single democratic State. It's a way to fight against those prisoners who don't adapt themselves to the rules of the jail or who incite others to commit rebellious acts.

Ana Carbajosa's article also deals with the Israeli administrative detention:

"However, institutions like the European Union have criticized in the past the 'excessive use' of this Israeli legal precept, which according to the international legislation should be applied in very exceptional cases and to prevent damages which couldn't be prevented in another way."

Precisely an exceptional case is that of Israel. It's not a country which fights against terrorism under the same circumstances Spain or the Federal Republic of Germany have fought under against E.T.A. and the Red Army Fraction, respectively. Israel fights terrorism in the context of an armed conflict, thus making the terrorists enemies of the State during wartime. And enemies of the State during wartime, irrespective of the fact that they're terrorists or not, are not held in the same conditions as conventional criminals.

More examples of Spanish newspapers denouncing Israel's treatment of Palestinian prisoners are Público (Thousands of Palestinian prisoners go on hunger strike), El Mundo (More than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners go on hunger strike) and ABC (Barbecues to disrupt the hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners), for example.

But there is something the Spanish mainstream media doesn't talk about, at least not usually: those Palestinian prisoners who are held by their fellow Palestinians in Palestinian territory. The Jerusalem Post, however,  informs about it. For example, on Sunday, May 13th, 2012, this Israeli newspaper published an article by Khaled Abu Toameh under the title Fatah prisoners held by Hamas go on hunger strike.

And Hamas can't argue that the prisoners it holds are enemies of the State during wartime. Actually, those Palestinians held (or something even worse than just being held) by Hamas are mainly political prisoners who are suspected to be members of al-Fatah, the faction which fights against Hamas for the Palestinian political hegemony. It should also be noticed that Hamas is a terrorist organization and not a legitimate authority which could be legally recognized as such. What Hamas pretends when arresting Palestinians suspected to be members of al-Fatah or to support it, is to terrorize its fellow countrymen, warning them neither to show any sort of sympathy nor to join or help main Hamas' political rival in Palestine.