Hamas: The War Isn't Over Until Our War-Demands Are Satisfied

So wait, who "wants peace" here again?

The war with Israel won’t be over until the group's demands for a lifting of the Gaza blockade are met, insisting that its fighters would never give up their arms.

"Our fingers are on the trigger and our rockets are trained at Tel Aviv," the official, Mushir al-Masri said, as Egypt struggled to broker a lasting truce between Israel and Hamas, with an Egyptian official saying that Gaza-based militants were refusing to compromise.

You know who thinks Hamas and the Islamic Jihad are responsible for blocking efforts to achieve peace?

Egyptian mediators do.

The Egyptian security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said the Palestinian delegation's stance had hardened after the arrival in Cairo of Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders from the Gaza Strip.

By the way, this picture runs with this article:

A long time ago, our very own Slublog wrote an important post about staged photos in Lebanon, when the Israelis fought Hezballah.

There were so many of the same type of picture -- toys and stuffed animals plainly visible on top of rubble.

Were all these real pictures, or was there some human assistance in setting up such poignant images?

Which would then not be "news photos," but simply staged propaganda.

And so I now ask:

Why is that Palestinian boy "writing" on that battered chalkboard?

What is he writing? What lesson is he doing? And why is he doing it there, in an otherwise empty schoolroom?

School is not in session. The building looks to be in a condemnation-level state.

One writes on a chalkboard so that a class of students may see it.

But there is no class of students to see it.

Did a photographer just happen to chance by this poignant scene, or was there some arrangement for it beforehand?

Did the boy decide, on his own caprice, to begin doing homework in a blasted out schoolroom, or did a Hamas minder suggest that he do so, while simultaneously guiding photographers to the scene?

Oh: A commenter says he's writing "GAZA 2014," and then something unclear underneath that.

Indeed, I didn't look closely, but that is what he's written.

To finger-scrawl "GAZA 2014" would take, by my estimation, about five seconds.

Did the photographer just happen by during this precise five second window?

Think of all the other times he could have walked by -- before the boy was even present; before the boy went to the chalkboard; before the boy began writing; after the boy had finished writing; after the boy had departed the scene entirely.

But he was here, at this moment, for this five-second window at time.

How did that happen?

Just great timing, or what?

Oh: Another commenter (man you guys are smart) notes that he's written, for some reason, the English word Gaza, despite the high likelihood that his actual first, native language is Arabic.

Why?

Who is this intended to be a message to?

posted by Ace at 05:28 PM

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