The Muslim way of War

After Hamas launched Mortars from a school, Israel responded, leading to the school exploding from charges that had been placed there by Hamas, and of course dead children. Little Green Footballs: UN School Used by Terrorists As a Weapons Dump

The use of schools, hospitals and Mosques by Muslims as as weapons stores, firing points and locations for ambushes is nothing new, and not unique to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and indeed goes back centuries.

One of the first recorded uses of a mosque as a weapons dump was in 1687. The Turkish armies, in control of Athens at the time, used the Parthenon, which had been converted into a mosque, as a gunpowder magazine. The Turks were fighting the Venetians, and when a Venetian shell hit the Parthenon, blowing up a good portion of it.

In 1948, Arab snipers shot at Jewish civilians from the minaret of theHassan Bek mosque during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence.

In Iraq, US forces have faced Muslims firing from Mosques, and have seen Mosques used as command posts and weapons storage. of course, whenever US forces fire back or even enter the Mosques, they are condemned for invading sacred Islamic space. See this interesting paper on the subject: At the Horns of the Altar: Just War and Sacred Space in Iraq

As before, Arabs in Gaza have been using Mosques as weapons dumps and firing points, not to mention using hospitals and mosques as command post and of course, schools.

The West, with a military code of honor that eschews using religious, hospital, ambulances, and schools as military fortifications is subject to Muslim cries of outrages destruction of these sites, even as the Muslims fiendishly use them for military purposes, which is in itself a war crime.

Until the western media accurately report the facts, namely that the these buildings were used for military purposes and destroyed in response, and properly attribute the blame upon the Muslims for using them for military purposes, Muslims will continue to fight in this manner, gaining both the utility of the sites, the protection of western hesitation to respond to attacks from such sites, and the beenfit of the western media's blind acceptance and rebroadcasting of the Muslims "outrage" over destruction of these militarily used sites. Indeed, for the media to continue to do so constitutes journalistic malpractice.