Following the Escalation of Conflict in Hamas - Recommended Reading

It has been a while since I've posted to this blog and I apologize for the silence. Work and other projects have kept me preoccupied. But with the recent renewal of Hamas' terrorist attacks it seems opportune to mention some recommended reading.

• First and foremost when Israel makes the news, I find myself turning to Elder of Zion -- an ironic play on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, it is one of the best Israeli blogs that I know of for up-to-date information, news and commentary on the conflict. (Pro-Israeli bias? Why yes, of course).
  
• Jeffrey Goldberg @ The Atlantic writes from a left-of-center perspective, but still provides beneficial reading. For instance, he notes an alternative timeline to the Gaza escalation (drawing attention to Egypt and Iran's provision of arms to Hamas) as well as commenting on the press' obsession with "proportionality":

  ... The casualty count is lopsided, but why? A couple of reasons: Hamas rockets are inaccurate; Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system is working well. But the Israeli body count isn't low because Hamas is trying to minimize Israeli casualties. Quite the opposite: Hamas's intention is to kill as many Israelis as possible. Without vigilance, and luck, and without active attempts by the Israeli Air Force to destroy rocket launchers before they can be used, the Israeli body count would be much higher. The U.S. judges the threat from al Qaeda based on the group's intentions and plans, not merely on the number of Americans it has killed over the past 10 years. This is the correct approach to dealing with such a threat.

  Jeffrey is also author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, a story of his friendship and ongoing dialogue with Rafiq, a member of the PLO, when he served as a prison guard for the IDF.
  
• CAMERA: Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting - Founded in 1982, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America is a media-monitoring, research and membership organization devoted to promoting accurate and balanced coverage of Israel and the Middle East. On the latest conflict, for example, they point out ten things the Huffington Post got wrong about Gaza (a response to The Huffington Post's Nov. 15 piece, “Ten Things You Need to Know About Gaza,” written by Mehdi Hasan), and wonders at the dearth of media attention to Hamas' instructions to civilians to "stay put"-- employing their use as "human shields" for their rocket positions.
  
• Backspin, the official blog of HonestReporting.com, provides regular updates countering media spin in the BBC and Associated Press (among others).
  
• Yaacov Lozowick is the author of Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel's Wars -- his blog is dedicated to "personal musings on Israel, Jewish matters, history and how they all affect each other."