"Jews rejected child sacrifce - now it's Hama
"Jews rejected child sacrifce - now it's HamaPart of the advertisement

Britain's left-wing Guardian newspaper is to run a controversial advertisement condemning Hamas's use of human shields as "child sacrifice" - the same ad that was rejected by another British paper, The Times.

The ad, co-written by Nobel Prize-winner and holocaust-survivor Eli Wiesel and US Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, is entitled "Jews Rejected Human Sacrifice 3,500 Years Ago, Now It's Hamas' Turn", and calls on "true Muslims", as well as world leaders, to condemn what it brands as Hamas’ use of "child sacrifices". It is sponsored by Rabbi Boteach's This World: The Values Network organization.

"In my own lifetime, I have seen Jewish children thrown into the fire," Wiesel writes in the ad. "And now I have seen Muslim children used as human shields, in both cases, by worshippers of death cults indistinguishable from that of the Molochites.

"What we are suffering through today is not a battle of Jew versus Arab or Israeli versus Palestinian. Rather, it is a battle between those who celebrate life and those who champion death. It is a battle of civilization versus barbarism."

The ad was rejected by The Times, which claimed by way of explanation "that the opinion being expressed is too strong and too forcefully made and will cause concern amongst a significant number of Times readers'."

The advert has already run in a number of major US publications, including The Times' sister publication, the Wall Street Journal, as well as The New York Times and The Washington Post.

But the decision to run it in the Guardian - which is well-known for its hostile editorial line towards Israel - will come as particularly surprising, and raises further questions about The Times' decision not to run it.

Condemning the decision by The Times to reject the ad, Rabbi Boteach accused the paper of "catering to bigotry."

Hamas use of human shields throughout the conflict has been well-documented - whether by firing missiles from heavily-populated areas; using schoolshospitalscemeteries and mosques as arms depots, rocket launchpads and military bases; or simply encouraging Gazans to act as human shields.

A Hamas "urban warfare" manual captured recently by the IDF shed further light on how Hamas uses Gaza's civilian population in its fight against Israel.