Operation Pillar of Defense: What The Mainstream Media Probably Isn't Telling You

Wednesday November 14 2012, Israel assassinated the leader of Hamas in Gaza by hitting his car with a carefully targeted rocket strike. The video released of the attack shows that the Israelis waited until the car was in the middle of the street intersection away from any bystanders and other vehicles, then they blew it up, killing the leader of Hamas. This was the beginning of "Operation Pillar of Defense" by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). They targeted numerous weapons supply depots and caches as well as terrorist headquarters of Hamas over the next number of days. After assassinating the leader of Hamas, Israel dropped tons of pamphlets into Gaza warning civilians to stay indoors and that Israel was only targeting Hamas leaders and known terrorists.


The Background

Israel's Iron Dome defense system launches a counter-missile to destroy an incoming missile from Gaza before it can strike.

Since January 1 2012, Hamas has launched over 800 rockets and mortars into Israel from the Gaza Strip. In Israel, every home in southern Israel is built with a bunker, a safe room to hide and wait out rocket attacks from Gaza. Imagine that folks. Your house being required to have a bomb shelter in it. Your local Walmart and Burger King having bomb shelters built into them to protect employees and customers visiting the store or restaurant for the next time rockets or mortars are launched at your city from across the boarder. There are 365 days in a year. Hamas has launched 800 rockets and mortars from January 1 to November 14. That's an average of over 2 rocket attacks PER DAY! It often comes in waves. The most recent wave began Saturday November 10 (4 days before Israel assassinated Hamas' leader). Over a 100 rockets were launched from Gaza at Israel from November 10 to November 14. November 14, Israel struck back, killing Hamas' leader.

What would the United States do if Mexico or Canada launched even ONE rocket across the boarder into one of its cities? How about if Britain's military and government launched a couple mortars and rockets into France? Any nation living under such war conditions has a mandate to protect its people. Israel is one of the only countries in the world vilified and demonized for doing just that, despite doing it with unbelievable precise care to limit any and all civilian casualties. Hamas, on the other hand, purposely targets Israeli civilians.

Honest Reporting: Operation Pillar of Defense: What You Need To Know

The Blaze: The Truth About Civilian Casualties In Gaza


"Pallywood": Hamas Lies And Plays The Western Media

A video recording showing injured Palastinians being pulled from rubble in Gaza made the rounds on the mainstream news reports like The BBC and CNN shortly after Operation Pillar of Defense began. One popular video showed an apparently severely injured man in a beige jacket being carried out of a damaged building to be taken to an ambulance. Unnoticed by the mainstream media, however, was the fact that 2 minutes later, that exact same man can be seen walking around completely unharmed. The event was staged. The man wasn't hurt. But it would look good for the cameras pulling him and others from rubble, so that's just what the Palastinians did.

The Blaze: Gaza Man Caught Faking Injuries

Gaza man carried passed cameras apparently injured in an Israeli attack.

The same man, moments later, totally fine.

This is known as "Pallywood" in Israel. Palestinians faking injuries, deaths, and staging events for cameras to make Israel look bad. Similar stories in the past have surfaced of Palestinians loading and unloading the exact same ambulance with the exact same injured victims over and over again in the background of news reporters to make it look like dozens of people have been injured. Such staged events are quite common.

On top of this, Hamas and the Palestinians often use victims of their own terrorism to try and pin the tail on Israel and make Israel look bad. For days a picture of Palestinians carrying the dead body of a boy and weeping over him was shown on front pages of western news papers. But as it turns out, the boy did not die from an Israeli attack. The boy died when a Hamas rocket misfired and blew up without ever reaching Israel. That's right. The dead boy used to finger Israel as evil child killers was actually a victim of Hamas's own rockets, NOT Israels!

Warning: The news report below shows the picture that was making the rounds of Palestinians carrying the dead child.

HonestReporting: Gaza Child Killed By Hamas


Hamas: Brutal, Murderous, Uncivilized

New York Post: Hamas Executes Six "Spies"

Hamas in the last few days has executed 6 locals it believes were spies for Israel. Hamas broke into a van these 6 men were traveling in, pulled them from the vehicle, laid them down on the street, a mob of Palastinians surrounded the precedings, Hamas members shot the six men dead, then the surrounding Palastinians proceded to stomp and spit on the bleeding dead bodies of the local citizens accused of being spies. Then, to top it off, the Hamas thugs tied one of the corpses to his motorbike and rode down the street dragging the body through the city. What a lovely people.

Terrorist bomb blast injures 15 in Tel Aviv Israel.

Reuters: Tel Aviv Bus Hit By Bomb: Hamas Celebrates

A bomb exploded on a bus in Tel Aviv Israel today, just hours before a cease fire agreement, injuring 15 Israeli civilians. The day before, Hamas threatened bombings and suicide attacks and after the attack said that this was only the beginning. Additionally, there have been reports of Hamas launching rockets from school grounds and a hospital in Gaza. They have absolutely no qualms about specifically targeting civilians and using their own children and sick as human shields.

The Blaze: Mother Goads Palestinian Girl To Push, Scream At IDF Soldiers

Palestinian girl taunts Israeli soldier.

Lucky boy! You get to show how tough you are next!

In another news report there's a video going around of a Palestinian mother and teenagers pushing children to harass and insult an Israeli soldier to try and goad him into pushing or shouting back. One girl practically loses her voice she's yelling so loud and so much at the soldier. "I spit in your face! Our soldiers are stronger than yours! I'll smash your head!" The mother and older teenagers push other children to harass the soldier too for the camera.


Ceasefire Called

Note that as of late November 21 (8 pm Israel time), despite a bomb having been set off on an Israeli bus in Tel Aviv mere hours before, Israel and Hamas signed a cease fire agreement. Neither side will launch anymore rockets or attacks at each other, for the time being. Now the world waits to see if it'll last.

Secularism Saves, Religion Destroys?

There's a common falsehood that is popular among many atheists and secular speakers out there that secularism is the answer to a harmonious civilization whereas religion inevitably leads to extremism, holy wars, murder and oppression (even hatred) in the name of god and kingdom. Such thinking is entirely inaccurate, as are other beliefs that tend to go along with such an idea.

Secularism is by no means any better than mainstream (or otherwise) religious or spiritual belief systems that exist throughout the world. Somehow these atheists and secularists have gotten it in their heads that secularism and atheism are NOT belief systems akin or comparable to religion. This is absurd because secularism and atheism are very much belief systems that shape an individual's life and viewpoint of the universe, the world, mankind, and the individual within it all. So to pretend that there's a gross difference between secularism and religion is to wear very thick blinders. Both are philosophical ideologies at their core and how they effect a person stems directly from that foundation. Secularism is humanism, a "religion" based on the idea that naturalism is all there is and mankind is an accident of nature and little more than a highly evolved animal. Secularism also wishes to eliminate religion from places of education, public discussion, government (and other authority), even entertainment. For a group that loves to preach about tolerance and diversity, they are actually quite intolerant to ideas that do not jive with their own.

Much is said these days in secular circles about religious extremism. The biggest culprit of religiously motivated or inspired terrorism is found within certain sects of Islam, and this has been true for more than two decades now. However non-religious (or vaguely spiritual) people see this and pin the terrorist (or ticking time bomb) on ALL organized religion. They'll point to historic tragedies such as the Crusades and the Inquisition, both taking place during cultures heavily dominated and invested in either Roman Catholic Christianity or Islam. Clearly religion and belief in god is a great inspiration of horror and evil in the world, right? And so non-religion, such as secular atheism or humanism, must then be the salvation of mankind and the end of human on human violence!... Such a belief or statement could not be more wrong.

The problem of extremism or ideologically motivated violence is by no means restricted to religion. It broaches all kinds of belief systems, all stripes of political bents and ALL viewpoints. Christians can easily understand this because we understand that the broken human condition that causes all of this is sin, which permeates and infects EVERYONE no matter who they are. Sin is like a poison. Left unchecked, it is catastrophically destructive and cruel. Secularism and atheism do not even believe in the existence of sin, believing that morality is in large part a social construct and little else. So who is better prepared to address the corrupted human soul? The ones who reject the existence of both soul and sin, or the ones that know it for what it is?

Is secularism the answer to moderating and regulating religion to prevent catastrophic violence between human beings? No. At best it's no better than religion in this matter. However, it might actually be even worse, because it holds no solid moral foundation or absolute truth. The atheist likes to point to tragedies in history connected (loosely or closely) to religion, things like the Crusades and Inquisition. In the secularist mindset, theocracy (government and power held by organized religion) is inherently corrupt or easily corrupted, mere steps from extremist evil. Yes, those particular horrors of history were awful, but religion is by no means the only factor for such occurrences. Neither is theocracies, or political conservatism. Most wars are not religiously inspired or motivated, merely using religion as an excuse for the real reasons for the war, such as greed and power.

Secularism and atheism have a human death count in the multiple hundreds of millions in just the last 100 years alone. The crusades and inquisitions were centuries ago and killed far fewer people on the whole. The inquisitions for instance may have killed a few thousand in all. Secular communism, however, is a very modern social and governmental construct, and it's slaughtered hundreds of millions in far shorter a time period than all religions combined for all of history. Stalin and communist Russia, communist China, and Germany's Hitler and the Nazis in World War 2 were all heavily influenced and inspired by humanism, secularism and naturalistic Darwinism (evolution). In this way you could almost say that communism is the secular version of a theocracy. Germany was the breadbasket of Darwinist thought and evolution inspired eugenics were the heart and soul of much of the Nazi mentality. They rounded up Jews, people of colour, and the physically and mentally disabled for death because they were considered inferior humans, a detriment to the betterment of more highly evolved mankind. These people were relegated to a sub-human status, and murdered and brutalized because of it. Communist Russia and China killed hundreds of millions in the name of preserving their government control and destroying all opposition and alternate belief systems, especially against Christianity. These were and are heavily atheistic and secular driven belief systems and mentalities that dominate in these large scale modern death camps. Secularism and atheism is in no way harmony and innocence. It's hands are as bloody or worse than mankind's biggest and longest lasting religions, and it's happening today right along side Islamic terrorism. The only difference is that it's institutionalized and government sanctioned. The only difference is that all this genocide is done in the name of man and at the cost and eradication of freedom (freedom that Christianity has been a strong supporter and creator of the world over).


The Real Problem

The problem is not religion, or even politics. The problem is mankind's heart in general. The problem is our eagerness and easily corruptible fallen sinful nature. Secularism and atheism don't even have a "higher power" to answer to or provide them direction, instruction, correction or meaning. To them, we're evolved animals, a cosmic accident of chemistry and physics.

True Christianity is based upon salvation, mercy, love, repentance, and compassion. Jesus Christ came and died on the cross when the Jews wanted him to rise up and become a holy warrior king and save them from the Romans. He refused. He came to save our lost souls, to show us a better way, to lead us back to God through love and mercy. The value of a human life and compassionate love are two monumental core tenets in Christianity. Yes, Christians or people who have claimed to be Christian or do things in the name of God have done terrible things in the past and even the present. But so have secularists, humanists, atheists and Darwinists. Examples of this are the Columbine school shooting in the USA (the two young men considered themselves to be cleansing society of religion and being an instrument of natural selection, one even wore a shirt that said exactly that as he shot his fellow classmates dead) and the murder spree a couple years ago in Norway where an avowed evolutionist shot dead 100 teenagers and government workers in the name of attacking Islam and the tolerance of it. The problem is NOT religion. The problem is strong over the top ideology combined with a lack of loving merciful compassion and the heartfelt knowledge that every life is exquisitely valuable.

Secularism is not salvation for the ills of society. It could be better described as oblivious unintended suicide. To eliminate the God given value of human life, of the soul, and to reduce us all to cosmic accidents and lucky-to-have evolved and survived animals in an entirely cold and callous universe is to beg for the de-humanization of all mankind. Human history both ancient and modern paints us a large scale picture of the evil and cruelty that mankind is capable of. Atheism and humanist secularism are at best no better than religions when it comes to these large scale sins. It's because the problem is not religion, or God, or faith, holy scripture, or even politics. The problem is mankind's ability to twist and warp any and all ideologies and philosophies into dark and destructive tendencies for fortune, fame and power. The problem is sin, something we are all guilty of to one extent or another.

Thankfully there's a means of redemption, forgiveness and salvation found through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are all His and He loves each and every one of us. That's a heck of a lot more positive and inspiring than, "We're stuff that stars burped out and that chemistry and physics accidentally patched together into complex animals." In Christianity there's a true possible solution. There's an understanding of the existence and potential of evil and wrong in all of us. Compassion, love, and deeply valuing all human life is the only cure. Those principles go hand in hand with salvation through Jesus Christ.


UPDATE

Added links to a few articles giving more detail and information on the topic.

Whitewashing Darwinism's Ongoing Moral Legacy  (EvolutionNews, Darwinism's influence taboo to discuss)

Slouching Toward Columbine: Darwin’s Tree of Death  (http://blog.beliefnet.com)

James J. Lee, Hostage-taker and Darwinist  (EvolutionNews, Discovery Channel shooting in Maryland, plus a summary of other similar incidents)

From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany  (Amazon.com)