THE CHAOS THEORY - A CIVILIAN IN GAZA DIES

Several months ago, a butterfly flapped its wings in the Amazon and overnight a civilian died in Gaza.

The above is a photograph of the late Sheikh Nizar Rayyan who passed on from this mortal coil yesterday after an Israeli air force attack on his home. Those friends of his in the casual snapshot are top blokes - typical of Gaza's civilian population. Several members of Rayyan's family were also killed. The dead included two of the Sheikh's four wives (presumably there's 18 times that much waiting for him where he's going) and several of his children. The IDF warned of the attack but the Sheik decided to stay along with his family of human shields. In other words, this animal forced his wives and kids to die with him - Palestinian Maan Newsagency.

Those in the mainstream media who are looking after the Hamas interests are falling over themselves to paint this nasty piece of work as a political leader of Hamas rather than a military leader.

BBC claims Hamas considered Rayyan "to be a political leader, but he often wore a military uniform and was close to the group's armed wing," and added that "until now, political leaders have not been killed." - Hamas leader killed in air strike

Reuters says the 49-year-old cleric was "regarded as one of Hamas's most hardline political leaders" in Sights and sounds of Israel's Gaza offensive. The Melbourne Age describes Rayyan as "a hardliner within the Islamist group".

Judge for yourself whether you think the Sheik, who advocated the reintroduction of suicide bombing, is a civilian or otherwise. If you believe he was a civilian who bore no responsibility for the deaths of his family, then you probably also believe that the assorted weaponry in the photo above is available from your local Toyworld store (hat tip: Israellycool)

The media campaign to disinfect and cleanse Hamas and to demonise Israel in the eyes of the world continues unabated notwithstanding the Islamic organisation's campaign of genocide against the Jewish State and notwithstanding its policy of indiscriminately attacking Israeli civilians. Thanks to the eagle eye of blogger Elder of Ziyon we know that Hamas tells a lot of fibs (no surprise there). The Elder has come upon a question and answer section on a Hamas message board site called http://www.almoltaqa.ps/ containing this interesting Q&A:

What is the justification behind the martyrdom operations against the " Israeli" civilians? There is no justification for targeting civilians. It is against Islam to deliberately kill unarmed civilians during jihad. In addition, our doctrine is to target the enemies army, security services, and support apparatus. But it is known that Zionist society is a militarized society. Service in the army is mandatory; and reserve duty continues past the age of 40. Our determined stance is that unarmed persons on both sides of the conflict should be left out of the fighting. However, we will not accept giving the enemy a free hand against our civilians.

Pigs can fly too!

There's no shortage of those in the media making excuses for Hamas and suggesting that Israel should talk to them despite their avowed intention to slit as many Jewish throats as they can find. The Age's David Bernstein got into the act today with this piece - Inadvertent martyrs to the cause of Hamas. Unfortunately, the writer is so mixed up and confused in his attempt to be even handed that he loses the plot half way through to the point where he's making as much sense as the newspaper's cartoonist Leunig whose work is highly regarded by the Iranian regime as the leading edge in anti Semitic daubing.

And while there is no shortage of Arabs who criticise Hamas for starting the fray, some of our nastiest letter writers froth at the mouth in disgusting displays of ignorance and racism. Frothing at the mouth, Elizabeth Attard of North Fitzroy wrote to the Herald Sun that "Israel is now the new Hitler" for acting in self defence against the Hamas fascistas. In the same newspaper a few days ago, the thankfully long forgotten former far left ALP person Joan Coxedge and a family member named Cedric also weighed in with similar attacks on the Jewish State. Does anyone know when she changed her political allegiances to where she now obviously stands well to the right of Atilla the Hun?

So what next?

Over at the Augean Stables they're predicting that a big Pallywood production is about to be unleashed by Hamas to rival Kafr Qana. It would not surprise if some of Gaza's remaining "journalists" are writing their first draft as we speak for publication in the usual places. Canada's National Post is right onto this with Why Israel can't afford to hold back.

"In other recent “massacres” — Jenin, Bethlehem and Qana, for instance — Palestinian and Hezbollah estimates of the number of dead turned out to be grossly exaggerated. Israel’s opponents have mastered such techniques as digging up graves and stealing bodies from morgues to inflate the carnage on the ground, and much of the Western media has reported casualty figures uncritically."

And in a late news flash we can reveal that the man with the green helmet is on his way to Gaza to add to the chaos.