Beijing's Global Strategy for Preeminence in Science, Technology and Academia

"China not only seeks influence at an institutional level but will also target individual academics who focus on China, seeking to ensure that they act in the CCP's best interests either through professional inducements or, if that doesn't work, by intimidation."

"China appears prepared to use levers, such as research funding and travel opportunities, to cultivate relationships with academics, and to encourage them to change their research direction or course content in line with CCP objectives."

"Pressure is exerted on institutions, academics and students to prevent engagement with topics that harm the positive narrative presented by the Chinese Communist Party."

"Once established in academic institutions, these students are in a position to identify and exfiltrate valuable information, data and intellectual property back to China."

"In its quest for economic advantage, China often acts in plain sight -- directing, funding and collaborating on academic research for its own ends."

British Parliament Intelligence and Security Committee

 

"China has been aggressive in its interference activities ... It has been particularly effective at using its money and influence to penetrate or buy academia in order to ensure its international narrative is advanced and criticism suppressed."

"This is particularly acute when it involves the so-called ‘Five Poisons’ [Taiwanese independence, Tibetan independence, Xinjiang separatists, the Chinese democracy movement and the Falun Gong]."

Julian Lewis, Committee Chair

"You say something they don't like, they deny you a visa."

"The student bodies are infiltrated. We know there are meetings through the middle of the night and the following morning some Chinese students can get rung up by somebody at the cultural and education section of the embassy to ask them: Why did you say that? Why did you do that?"

Professor Steve Tsang, School for Oriental and African Studies

Two students walk through Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport to catch a chartered flight to Manchester in the UK. The plane will take 74 Chinese students to the UK. Photo: VCG

 

Evidence has been revealed of Chinese officials approaching academic lecturers in Britain, to promise them "professional inducements" in the form of research funding and travel opportunities, as part of the manner in which British universities had been "bought" by the Chinese Communist Party. The British Parliament's intelligence and security committee through their extensive investigation produced a 200-page report revealing details of Beijing's concentrated program to inveigle itself into British academia.

Beijing seeks out a prominent place in the global field of science and invention, seeking influence worldwide as a driver of both through a scheme of interdependence which links into its 21st century role as the world's production source of consumer products of every description and dimension. In the UK the report points out that its universities were "turning a blind eye to the risk" in becoming reliant on China for financial support. The University of Surrey accepted a $13-million donation from Huawei to find its 5G6G Innovation Centre.

Chinese state authorities are also evidently intimidating British academics and students by a Beijing directive to infiltrate and purloin research to benefit the People's Liberation Army. One witness interview of Professor Steve Tsang revealed that within six months of accepting his new status within the School for Oriental and African Studies, a political councillor from the Chinese embassy offered him anything he would like, for his 'cooperation'. "It is as blatant as that", he reported.

Access to visas is also being used as leverage, affirmed by Professor Tsang. "If you are an academic and specializing in China, and your entire academic life is focused on China, the threat of not being permitted to travel to the country of your academic focus becomes a very powerful threat." Years previously it was revealed that scientists at leading universities, including Cambridge, Edinburgh and Manchester, worked on projects with researchers at China's nuclear weapons research institution.

Dozens of scientific papers were published by British academics working alongside scientists from a Chinese institution on an American sanctions list, reflecting its research into developing Beijing's nuclear arsenal. Investigative journalism at The Telegraph uncovered that situation. There are over 90 Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs) working out of the U.K. -- partially financed by the Chinese embassy -- monitoring the activities of Chinese students. A situation the committee recognized as resulting in a "culture of fear and suspicion among Chinese students in the U.K."

The largest overseas contingent of students on study visas in U.K. universities -- over 120,000 -- are Chinese students. A number greater than in the rest of Europe combined. Five times as many students are sent by China to the United Kingdom, as compared to the country that comes in second for its students studying abroad; India. In Canada, a similar situation prevails, with 60,000 student visas issued at last count, down substantially from the year before which stood at 90,000, as Chinese relations with Canada sour.

The Glasgow CSSA incited flash mobs to confront Hong Kong demonstrations. "There is Chinese embassy involvement in these demonstrations ... They surrounded us in a circle, waving Chinese flags, singing the national anthem and being hostile", one Hong Kong student narrated. The Joint Intelligence Committee chairman spoke of intimidation examples the Chinese authorities use: "sometimes with the vice-chancellor getting a phone call, sometimes at student body level, to try to discourage universities from allowing speakers on issues like Tibet or Xinjiang".

Beijing exploits research programs at British universities for the benefit of the Chinese military. The People's Liberation Army, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, sent approximately 500 military scientists to U.K. academic institutions in the decade up to 2017. "Once established in academic institutions, these students are in a position to identify and exfiltrate valuable information, data and intellectual property back to China", the committee pointed out.

 

People walk across a street near a large screen promoting the Chinese People's Liberation Army in Beijing  Andy Wong/The Associated Press

"Beijing is using a 'workaround strategy' for postgraduate researchers to study cutting-edge technology at Canadian and U.S. universities after Washington began denying visas for some Chinese students on the grounds that they might steal intellectual property with military uses, according to a Canadian Security Intelligence Service report."

"The Dec. 21, 2021, report, labelled secret ...  said the strategy sends some scholarship students to Canada from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with the aim of gaining access to critical high tech."

"The Chinese government’s game plan includes training these Chinese citizens on how to avoid drawing too much attention when studying abroad."

"The CSIS report lays out how China is using students to obtain technology that could be of benefit to the Chinese military, such as quantum computing, big data and artificial intelligence. The report was shared across key government departments and with the CIA, FBI and Britain’s domestic intelligence service, M15, as well as Australian and New Zealand authorities."

The Globe and Mail, Toronto

Protesters march from Chater Garden to the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong on September 8, 2019. Photo by VIVEK PRAKASH /AFP/Getty Images

The Moral of the Story: Beware, Take Care, Be Wise

"The Government of Canada [should] demonstrate stronger leadership on the issue of procurement and national security, including at the highest echelons -- the Prime Minister, ministers and senior officials."

"[Government should] prohibit Chinese state-owned enterprises, partial state-owned enterprises, including companies receiving undisclosed government subsidies, and technology companies from obtaining federal contracts related to information technology or security equipment or services."

"[The Privy Council Office should look] to develop, implement and oversee a policy to direct all government departments and agencies to review current contracts with China related to information technology or security equipment or services."

"The Committee heard that the federal government should not always choose a supplier based mostly on the lowest price when evaluating bids for security equipment."

"Where circumstances warrant, it should put greater emphasis on national security risks."

"Throughout its study, the Committee became concerned that federal departments and agencies did not collaborate to assess potential threats to Canada's national security when the government was procuring a replacement of security screening equipment in Canadian embassies."

"The Committee recognizes that closer collaboration among federal departments and agencies is required."

House of Commons Government Operations Committee

 

Government procurement infamously selected a Chinese company's X-ray machines to be installed at all Canadian missions abroad until the absurdity of awarding such a contract to a Chinese company was highlighted by an investigative journalist, in the wake of Beijing arresting and charging two Canadians with espionage and imprisoning them on those trumped-up charges in an effort to apply pressure to have Canada release Huawei's CFO who had been detained by the RCMP at a stopover in Vancouver honouring an extradition request by the U.S.Department of Justice.

Relations with China have since descended to their lowest pitch, with Beijing threatening repercussions should Canada decide not to permit Huawei to take part in Canada's 5G upgrade as the rest of the members of the Five Eyes group (an integrated, collaborative intelligence-sharing between members, U.S., Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada) have done. Even under those strained relations, the Liberal government still decided to proceed in partnering with CanSino, a Chinese pharmacological company to joint-produce a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, which Beijing chose to cancel unilaterally.

The Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, tutored and mentored by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, hungered for a free trade deal between Canada and China. Canadian corporations headquartered in Quebec see such a free trade agreement with China as a profitable venture, sitting on the Canada-China Business Council continuing to promote business with China despite Beijing's hostility and threats.

Canada's government under the Liberals refuses to take China's cybertheft proclivities, political and academic infiltration and influence-peddling seriously. It is only very recently that in public fora, Justin Trudeau has stated Canada's opposition to China as a growing threat to the world order in its focus on control, power, monopolistic trade, influence and its soft power working hand-in-glove with its hard power. Investing in vital infrastructure loans to developing countries while threatening Taiwan, Hong Kong, and abusing the human rights of Tibetans, Christians and Uyghurs.

Now, a parliamentary committee has released a report calling on the federal government to place greater consideration on issues such as national security in tendering contracts and favouring bids by Chinese companies, all of which must, by Chinese law, answer to Beijing's call. Apart from the fact that many are state-owned corporations. The concerns expressed go across party lines since the committee is comprised of Liberal, Conservative, Bloc Quebecois and NDP members.

Government officials testified before the committee, along with experts on China and national security. The committee reviewed a threat assessment from the Department of Foreign Affairs, describing the Chinese company selected to install and service its security equipment on contract to the Canadian government with the company in question characterized as "a Chinese state-owned enterprise with direct connections to the People's Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party". 

The X-ray machines were not considered a security risk since their use was in a publicly accessible area, unconnected to embassy computer networks. The committee was informed however, by an official with the government's Centre for Cyber Security, that this view of X-ray machines was outdated; they now typically come equipped with hard drives and USB ports potentially useful to hostile actors "with malicious intent". And that certainly describes Beijing's attitude toward Canada.

The report released by the committee found no effective government strategy in place to manage security risks revolving around China and federal procurement. Stronger security measures were recommended, to focus on screening companies and employees who install and maintain equipment in sensitive federal facilities such as embassies. There is room for improvement at flagging potential security threats.

"We are being introduced in a very rough way to a new world where the rules of the road are decided by the strongest."

"We've always said in Canada that we needed a foreign policy that built on the international rules and regulations… but China is starting to play rogue."

Paul Heinbecker, former Canadian ambassador to Germany, representative to the United Nations 

"Relations between the two countries can't be reset until the two Michaels [Spavor/.Kovrig] are set free. Once that happens, relations should be reset in a different way."

"China is capable of acting aggressively against Canada. China is not our friend and we should stop treating it as though it is. We should form a relationship with China based on mutual needs."

"We should treat China with respect but always protect our own interests and push back when necessary. We also need to find allies who will help us retain our sovereignty in a world where China is trying to encroach on it."

Former Canadian ambassador to China David Mulroney (2009 to 2012) 

China's President Xi Jinping and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are shown at the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan on June 29, 2019   (KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP via Getty Images)

Pride Goeth Before A Fall : U.S.Cyber Security

"At this point, the number of potentially accessed O365 mailboxes appears limited to around three-percent"

"We have no indication that any classified systems were impacted."

Marc Raimondi, spokesperson, U.S.Department of Justice

A US Department of Justice seal is displayed on a podium during a news conference. (Photo by Ramin Talaie/Getty Images)

 

 

The U.S. Department of Justice revealed on January 6 that it too had been infiltrated by malign hackers, presumed to be in service to the Russian Federation. They now are among other key government departments and institutions of the United States of America who have had the gross misfortune to have been cyber-hacked, their anti-hacking systems obviously not up to par, enabling foreign governments to access classified documents, secret data not meant to be seen by any foreign agents. These infiltrations are long in the tooth, estimated to have taken place a full nine months earlier, able to extract at their leisure the data they want, and to leave behind little gifts of intrusively wicked software.

The list of those government departments and American corporations impacted by this hugely successful cyber-hacking is both impressive in its scope and beyond alarming in its potential fallout, leaving the United States at the mercy of a malignant actor should it wish to use what it has extracted for malevolent purposes and there is no reason to suppose it might not. The very width and breadth of the cyber-operation speaks of its ambition and ruthless capability. The question burning in everyone's mind is what the ultimate disposition of the gathered intelligence will represent?

• The US Treasury Department
• The US Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)
• The Department of Health's National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA)
• The Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
• The US Department of State
• The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
• The US Department of Energy (DOE)
• Three US state governments
• City of Austin
• Many hundreds more, such as Cisco, Intel, VMWare, and others.

"The installation of this malware created an opportunity for the attackers to follow up and pick and choose from among these customers the organizations they wanted to further attack, which it appears they did in a narrower and more focused fashion. While investigations (and the attacks themselves) continue, Microsoft has identified and has been working this week to notify more than 40 customers that the attackers targeted more precisely and compromised through additional and sophisticated measures."

"While roughly 80% of these customers are located in the United States, this work so far has also identified victims in seven additional countries. This includes Canada and Mexico in North America; Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom in Europe; and Israel and the UAE in the Middle East. It’s certain that the number and location of victims will keep growing."

Microsoft

 

Initially, problems came to light with a classic textbook supply chain attack, when computer users downloaded an update for network monitoring software, a Solar Winds product from a company with an enormous consumer base. Solar Winds was the original victim when hackers implanted malicious code into its software updates, thus creating a backdoor access into its tens of thousands of customers' networks. The hack was operational and unnoticed for nine months. 

EPA

Cybersecurity company FireEye and three federal agencies; the Department of Commerce, Energy and Treasury had in mid-December admitted publicly that they were seriously affected. Also vulnerable was the office of Secretary of State and Homeland Security. Solar Winds has updated its software, but that accomplishes nothing to ameliorate the incalculable damage done to government agencies and private institutions through this unique-in-scope-and-duration hack. "Just because you closed the intrusion doesn't mean that you solved the problem", Neil Jenkins, chief analytic officer of the Cyber Threat Alliance observed, of an attack that went undetected for nine months.

Those affected organizations have two unappealing options before them, quite apart from being in the dismal dark over what they've lost and what the future will bring with respect to the impact of the cyber breach. Corrective action on their systems will allow them a choice between endlessly, frustratingly searching manually through their computers hoping they might be able to eradicate all imprints left by the hackers or the selecting the tedious choice of abandoning the mess they've been left with, and rebuilding from stage one onward. 

Few of those affected by the cyber breach are prepared to admit how badly their operations may have been maimed. Not only is it embarrassing that their security was breached and even more so that there was no discovery and rectification until so many months had passed, and they still would not have realized the breach and the damage had not an incidental discovery been made of a malfunction traced to Solar Winds. To disclose publicly the extent of the carnage to their systems would represent a self-harming disclosure.

"The coming months will present a critical test, not only for the United States but for other leading democracies and technology companies. The weeks ahead will provide mounting and we believe indisputable evidence about the source of these recent attacks. It will become even clearer that they reflect not just the latest technology applied to traditional espionage, but a reckless and broad endangerment of the digital supply chain and our most important economic, civic and political institutions. It is the type of international assault that requires the type of collective response that shows that serious violations have consequences."

"If there is a common lesson from the past few years, it’s the importance of combining ongoing learning with new innovations, greater collaboration, and constant courage. For four centuries, the people of the world have relied on governments to protect them from foreign threats. But digital technology has created a world where governments cannot take effective action alone. The defense of democracy requires that governments and technology companies work together in new and important ways – to share information, strengthen defenses and respond to attacks. As we put 2020 behind us, the new year provides a new opportunity to move forward on all these fronts."

Microsoft

Federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency head, Chris Krebs had been criticized by the Homeland Security Department's watchdog for "poor intelligence sharing with its private and public partners and weak information security for its own system". General Paul Nakasone, head of the National Security Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command had stated back in February of 2020 that U.S. teams were "Understanding the adversary better than the adversary understands themselves."

 

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think-tank based in Washington has suggested a strike-back by the United States, engaging in hacking and releasing information about President Vladimir Putin's personal wealth to shame him for the digital attacks against the United States. On December 27 Mr. Putin gave praise to the work of SVR officials: "extremely important"work, given "the difficult professional operations that have been conducted". There isn't much that Mr. Putin feels shame for and acquiring personal wealth surely isn't one of those incidentals for which he would feel shame.

 

China's Innocence, Canada's Disgraceful Conduct

"United Front work has taken on a level of significance not seen since the years before 1949."
"[China] is increasingly able to use its soft -power 'magic weapons' to help influence the decision making of foreign governments and societies."
Marie Brady, political scientist, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

"Overseas Chinese [should] remember the call from the Party and the people, spread China's voice, support the country's development, safeguard national interests."
Chinese President Xi Jinping

"An organization that once had another purpose has gradually been taken over to serve China's national interest. Where United Front work becomes problematic is when it's engaging persons of Chinese origin who have Canadian citizenship ... to serve the interests of the motherland, when in fact the motherland should be Canada."
Charles Burton, political scientist, Brock University, Ontario

"I have heard of Chinese influence over community newspapers."
"[But] I think the Canadian Chinese community is remarkably resilient and diverse, and for the most part immune to blandishments from the Chinese government."
Jeremy Paltiel, China specialist, Carleton University

"I think there is definitely an attempt to influence domestic public opinion here."
"But from what I can see, the extent of success here is rather limited."
Lynette Ong, professor, China expert University of Toronto

"Our executive committee's background is a combination of Canada, mainland China, Taiwan and Chinese from other Asian countries."
"Support for China is not and will not be a focus ... Our primary focus is to support the Chinese community and to promote Chinese culture in Niagara."
Li Yu, former president, Niagara Chinese Cultural Association

"A lot of people don't think of the long arm of influence of China in Canada, because they're under the influence, to put it mildly."
"Outsiders like me, who is a Hong Kong immigrant ... we see very clearly that this is a United Front effort, a very subtle, soft-power kind of advance into Canadian society."
Cheuk Kwan, head, Toronto Association for Democracy in China

Chinese police are seen patrolling in front of the Canadian Embassy in Beijing last month. A new book, Claws of the Panda, argues that the Chinese Communist Party has spent decades manipulating Canadians.  (GREG BAKER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Canada is comprised of many immigrant populations; it is the defining identity of the country, multi-cultural in origin. Immigrants from Ukraine, Greece, Poland, Germany, Japan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, China, India, the United States, Scotland, Ireland, Britain, France; wherever in the world they come from, including Jews from all over the world, escaping oppression and finding a haven in a Canada that has, in the latter half of the 20th Century forward, extended equality of opportunity and security to all its citizens.

Unsurprisingly, people migrating from other countries find comfort in the fact that their original cohabitants have arrived in numbers to form communities in their new country of habitation. They form clubs and build churches reflecting their own religious commitment and the cultures they left behind, to support one another in their adjustment to their new reality. And even long afterward once they have acclimated socially and culturally, their original congregations remain of importance to them.


In some instances, like the Turkish population in Germany, the government in the original homeland takes on an 'ownership' attitude, viewing their expatriates as a demographic abroad they can continue to manipulate and have control over, to the extent of demanding from their new homeland government especial privileges for their own. Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia's Vladimir Putin are especially given to these unwanted and unwarranted interferences in other countries, the latter with Ukraine.

And, it seems, China has made inroads in Canada by surreptitious means, to retain influence among its once-time citizens, now resident in and citizens of Canada, and to extend that influence to non-Chinese by offering to install and pay for programs that have benefit to China, and ostensibly to Canada. The Confucius Institute is one such organ which Communist China uses to extend a friendly hand, persuading Canadian universities and schools of the bonus it offers in teaching Mandarin and Chinese culture.

The Toronto Chinese Canadian Association once put on a banquet to bid farewell to the Chinese vice-consul who persuaded local Chinese to support the Confucius Institute. Now, Confucius is entrenched at three school boards in the region and on nine university and college campuses across the country, its funding very much appreciated by those institutions. Chinese state-aligned corporations have made large investments in Canadian industry. Suspicions are rampant not only in Canada but in other western countries that China's friendly helpfulness comes at a price.

Chinese intelligence services and Chinese technological giants are known for their industrial infiltration and military espionage escapades. Under President Xi, a "massive expansion" of China's soft power has emerged, much of it within the auspices of the United Front Work Department, an offshoot of the Chinese Communist party, which forges links with officials in foreign missions to influence the Chinese diaspora.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, at a fundraiser held on Nov. 7,2016 at the West Vancouver mansion of B.C. developer Miaofei Pan.

Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the Wenzhou People’s Government

Infiltration for the sake of befriending foreign political and economic elites, with the aim of promoting Beijing's agenda all helps in expanding a China-centric economic bloc. A goal of the United Front is to advance opinions on issues such as acquisition by Chinese companies of Canadian natural resources and technology. The decision Canada has yet to make about Huawei's involvement building Canada's 5G telecom network a critical issue at hand.

Huawei's close ties to the Chinese state makes accusations of corporate espionage logical, enough so that the U.S., Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand have all backed off allowing Huawei to take part in their 5G trials, leaving Canada the only member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance to not yet having decided to leave Huawei out. Which has led China's ambassador to Canada to issue none-too subtle threats of 'repercussions' that might accrue.

Such 'repercussions are already being seen by Canada in China's fury at the arrest on December 1st in Vancouver of Huwei's chief financial officer on an extradition warrant issued by the U.S. justice system which led China to arrest two Canadian businessmen and commit another Canadian to death for drug smuggling out of China. Canada under this Liberal government has been ingratiating itself with China in the search for a free trade deal and in its zeal to have a seat at the revolving UN Security Council.

There are 211 accredited 'diplomats' from China in Canada at the various Chinese missions. The U.S. with ten times the population and with huge trade between China and the United States, rates a comparative fewer 276 accredited representatives of China, while the United Kingdom has 38. Of that 211 in Canada, it would be interesting to know how many are accredited in China's intelligence apparatus and outreach to Canada's very large Chinese diaspora.

Canada's recently removed Ambassador to China, John McCallum boasted in an interview with Chinese foreign and domestic reporters to which major Canadian news outlets were not invited, that his sons were married to Chinese women. While he was a backbencher, he was the recipient of $73,000 worth of trips to China paid for by pro-Beijing business groups and the Chinese government.

His ill-considered reassurances of the welfare of Huawei's Meng Wanzhou's bid to escape extradition to the U.S. which forced Justin Trudeau's hand in firing him, has given aid and comfort to China and stoked the furnace of concern over the fate of Canadians arrested in China in furious retaliation against Canadian law honouring a commitment with its neighbour on extradition.

"McCallum was merely stating the truth when he observed that Meng has a strong case against extradition, which he rightly said was politically motivated."
"Although what he said is 100 per cent true, his words seem to have fallen on deaf ears at home. Those who had attacked McCallum should feel ashamed of themselves... the political mess that Ottawa is floundering in could get a lot worse if it chooses to accede to the U.S. request for Meng’s extradition despite the problems with the case that McCallum, among others, has pointed out."
China Daily

John McCallum, Canada's former ambassador to China, arrives at a fund-raising event at a Chinese restaurant in Vancouver, B.C on Jan. 25, 2018.

BEN NELMS

Thwarting Infiltration

"We saw a totally irregular event and severe attack, which was clearly orchestrated by Hamas leaders on the ground who were urging the rioters on, and to run toward the fence, to assault the fence."
"[Hamas attempts] to use civilians as human shields and as a disguise for terrorists trying to infiltrate into Israel."
Lt.-Col.Jonathan Conricus, IDF spokesman, Israel 

          A Palestinian protester slings stones towards Israeli soldiers during clashes with Israeli troops along the Gaza Strip border with Israel, east of Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Friday, March 30, 2018. (AP/Adel Hana

Hamas, recognized as a terrorist group by most Western governments as well as some in the Middle East itself, has long been known to use Palestinians living in Gaza as living shields. In shooting off rockets and other types of deadly missiles into Israel, the locales from which the weapons are aimed across the border tend to be within crowded urban centres, including schools, mosques, hospitals and other areas of urban density. Inviting a military response from Israel targeting the area from which the missiles were fired. The purpose being to deliberately place civilians in harm's way.

Should the response hit its target located in population areas the calculation by Hamas is the more innocent civilians killed or wounded, the better. That response plays right into their playbook whereby any Israeli military targets resulting in Palestinian deaths make for heart-rending, and extremely useful propaganda played at loud volume to elicit outrage from the international community, responding to charges levelled of Israeli atrocities geared to killing Palestinians.

Palestinians march past a tent city erected along the border with Israel east of Gaza City in the Gaza strip on March 30, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / MAHMUD HAMS)

Not far from the border fence separating Israel from the Gaza Strip are a number of Israeli towns and villages, all vulnerable to attack by Hamas terrorists. Should Palestinians from Gaza -- a captive audience for Hamas whose administration of the strip is one of theocratic domination, rather complicated by the fact that the administrators' purpose of existence as a political-religious terrorist group is to kill Jews and destroy their country -- rebel against Hamas in favour of normalizing relations with a neighbour, they would be identified as traitors and suffer the punishing fate of such.

The Gaza Strip and West Bank would not be 'occupied' were it not for the fact that both represent deadly enemies of Israel and both recognize a self-imposed mandate to destroy the Jewish State, and to 'reclaim' the land on which it sits for Islam and the Palestinians. The 'occupation' is one of self-defence entirely. Insistence on "right of return" for the millions of 'refugee' descendants of the original estimated 750,000 who fled from Israel in advance of a combined Arab military attack in 1948 is one way of destroying the Jewish character of the state.

Flooding Israel with the presence of two million Palestinian Gazans, close to another two million from the West Bank, and millions who reside in Jordan, in 'refugee camps' in Syria, Egypt and elsewhere would unleash bloody carnage on Israelis, which the separating fence curtailed after two Intifadas that butchered Israelis of all ages. The new tactic adopted by Hamas of inciting Gazans to flood into Israel through the separating fence is geared to achieving that goal.

Gaza's Hamas terrorist rulers released these images of members of its military wing who it acknowledged were among 16 Gazans it said were killed by Israeli fire during clashes along the security fence on Friday, March 30, 2018. (Hamas)

Friday prayers invariably lead to clerical encouragement to go forth and engage in jihad, wherever those mosques happen to be located, in the Middle East or across the Muslim world and into the world of the West. Crowds of Gazans attempting to break through the fence using hooks and wire cutters, burning tires and intimidation of the forces who warn that tear gas will be used, then live fire when warranted, shout their eagerness to become "shahids" whenever bodies are taken away in stretchers to waiting ambulances.

Firebombs, explosives, Molotov cocktails hanging from kites and burning tires have no place in peaceful protests. If the energy used to slander and violently oppose Israel were used instead to demand accountability of the Hamas administration by the Palestinians living under their ruinous rule, it would represent reality, instead the fallacious fantasy of Israel's responsibility for the corruption and misrule of the West Bank and Gaza dominates the Palestinian agenda.

The Israeli communities living a mere hundred metres or so from the border are hugely dependent on the Israeli military to keep them safe from the deadly prospect of thousands of Palestinians rampaging into Israel.

"[All those killed were engaged in violence, most were injured by live fire while the rest were merely shaken up by tear gas and other riot dispersal means]."
"[The army had faced] a violent, terrorist demonstration at six points [along the fence. The IDF used]  pinpoint fire [wherever there were attempts to breach or damage the security fence]. All the fatalities were aged 18-30, several of the fatalities were known to us, and at least two of them were members of Hamas commando forces."
"[Israel] will not allow a massive breach of the fence into Israeli territory. [Hamas and other Gaza terror groups are using protests as a cover for staging attacks. If violence continues], we will not be able to continue limiting our activity to the fence area and will act against these terror organizations in other places too."
IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis

A Palestinian protester throws a tire into a fire during clashes with Israeli security forces. (photo credit: AFP PHOTO)