Israel: The Double Standard

So, we've got the same old game playing out again:

Hamas murders three civilians. Hamas is to blame for that, Israel retaliates. Then Israel kills over 1400 civilians (approx. 85% of the casualties in Gaza are civilians), and what do they say? That's also Hamas' fault. And the (American) media go along with that without even a little critical thinking.

What is going on in Israel right now is very simple and very ugly: Likud, under pressure from the fringe parties even further to the right, is making sure any attempts at a serious peace plan under Obama/Kerry are completely ruled out. They are setting the stage for more annexations, more discrimination, further steps towards creating an ultra-militarist apartheid-state based on religious inequality. The Israeli people are victims of their far-right leaders to almost the same extent as the Palestinian people - Netanyahu is willingly and wittingly providing Hamas with free PR and new recruits, all so that the Israeli arms industry, in which many leading Likud figures have a financial interest, and the military, likewise, can keep running the show. Meanwhile, the Israelis are bombarded with propaganda no less extreme, though less transparent and more professional, than the kind Hamas unleashes on the Palestinians, forcing the reasonable parties in the Israeli parliament further to the fringe, while the actual lunatic fringe takes ever more power.

So, when Hamas kills three civilians, that's a terrible crime. This I agree with. It also means Israel has a right to capture and try the guilty people.

It DOESN'T give Israel the right to engage in what pretty much amounts to genocide, to massacre the civilian population, to create a phoney-baloney ceasefire engineered to be violated (what kind of ceasefire includes the right of one side to continue destroying the enemy's infrastructure and continue attacking him?), to attack UN buildings, to basically tell the civilized world it can go fuck itself while the frankly evil people who now run Israel have conscripts commit mass murder for them.

This is not freedom, this is not democracy. This is not what the people who spent the first half of the 20th century preparing for the creation of the state of Israel with blood, sweat and tears worked for. This is not what countless resistance fighters during WWII died for.

How can the world accept this? If this were some other country, the response would be totally different. Imagine the communist Mujaheddin-e Khalq of Iran launching an attack, killing a total of four Iranian civilians and about forty soldiers to which the Revolutionary Guard responds by shooting to bits an entire city, killing over 1600 people, more than 85% of them totally unrelated to the Mujaheddin. Would the world be talking about how Iran has a right to defend itself?

Yes it is a double standard Israel can kill thousands and when Hamas tries to defend itself they get crucified. And america and Britain go along with it because if they support Hamas they lose israeli support. If they support Israel they are hated in all of the middle east so basically the west can't do anything without angering someone.

[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]

How can the world accept this?[/QUOTE]

We'll accept it as soon as we realize how potent the Israeli lobby in Washington is. The US bankrolls the entire thing. Israel gets 1/3 of the US' annual foreign aid.

Hamas isn't "hiding bombs in schools." That's a propaganda talking point. But even if it were true - where the hell else can they put them? It's the most densely populated area in the world. 3 million people are crammed into a space half the size of Washington DC. Israel appears to be kindly offering civilians clemency in the form of a chance to leave before they bomb them. One slight caveat - there is no place to go, as they need to pass through Israeli checkpoints.

It's a classic case of the oppressed becoming the oppressor. This will go on for decades until the world clues in that this is the apartheid regime of our generation. Until then, the world will continue to drink the kool aid.

All that said - 9 countries voted against granting Palestine statehood in the UN. Even GERMANY abstained, for crying out loud. But where are these 138 countries who voted in favour of the motion now? Something else is going on here. Where are the sanctions? Where is the outrage? Is post-holocaust guilt still lingering and the world is accused of appearing anti-Semitic if they're the first one to stand up for what is obviously right?

This is what mainstream media should look like:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/31/un-official-chris-gunness-breaks-down-sobs-uncontrollably-israeli-shelling-gaza-school-video_n_5636731.html

Yes my country is told palestine is evil when most of the Palestinians voted hamas in to end Israeli occupation

[QUOTE] [b]Jefffab1995 wrote:[/b]

Yes my country is told palestine is evil when most of the Palestinians voted hamas in to end Israeli occupation [/QUOTE]

And that's just it.

For all their flaws, they were still democratically elected.

And just like apartheid in South Africa where the ANC were labeled a terrorist organization, that's exactly what has happened here.

Yeah, and this is what the media are really doing (although it is an extreme example): http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/31/russell-brand-gaza-sean-hannity-fox-news_n_5636947.html

When Geraldo Rivera is the voice of reason in a news show, you know something is terribly, terribly wrong.




Back to the original topic: what I find most disturbing of all is how easily the Israeli right gets away with branding all opposition as "anti-semitic". In my country, we have a JEWISH organisation, called Een Ander Joods Geluid ("A Different Jewish Sound"), which supports a two-state solution and wants Israel to become less militarist - nearly all its members and all of its leadership are themselves Jewish. Israeli officials and the Institution for Dutch-Israeli Relations actually dismiss THEIR criticism of Israel's policies by calling them an anti-semitic hate group. And people don't call them out on that outrageous claim, they just accept it.

It's almost like that other problem haunting society nowadays: you don't have to have any proof when calling someone an anti-semite or a pedophile. If you call someone either with no proof, a vast group of people will believe you, even after someone is hypothetically cleared in court. Jews who do that are no better than Islamic nutjobs who accuse anyone who says they're doing bad things of insulting the prophet Muhammed.

The israelis and palestinians will fight like dogs until one is destroyed so until then this cycle of war then peace will never end

[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]

Yeah, and this is what the media are really doing (although it is an extreme example): http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/31/russell-brand-gaza-sean-hannity-fox-news_n_5636947.html

When Geraldo Rivera is the voice of reason in a news show, you know something is terribly, terribly wrong.

[/QUOTE]
Wow. The propaganda machine is flying high.

It's unreal that the this is what passes for "news" in a supposedly civilized country. How in the world do these people sleep at night knowing well that they are contributing to the deaths of children?

When Fox is the voice of reason it means the US is in deep shit

One of the most nauseating things to bear in mind is that of those ultra-rightist people, like the FOX crew, who are NOW defending Israel, a very significant portion would have either actively supported or would not have given a damn about the horrid treatment of Jews in the decades before WW II.

[QUOTE] [b]Jefffab1995 wrote:[/b]

When Fox is the voice of reason it means the US is in deep shit[/QUOTE]

Fortunately, it has not quite come to that.

[QUOTE] [b]Jefffab1995 wrote:[/b]

The israelis and palestinians will fight like dogs until one is destroyed so until then this cycle of war then peace will never end[/QUOTE]

The Palestinians can't fight. Not only do they not have the ability to build an army, but all incoming food, water, electricity and medical supplies are controlled by Israel. If the world doesn't step up to the plate, then we will see mass genocide as all Palestinians will be wiped off the map. Do the math - at this rate, it would take a century, but this would be the final result.

Problem is - nobody on the world stage wants to be the first to step up to the plate. It would destroy their country, economically and otherwise, at least in the short term. So the status quo will continue, which also includes Israel building settlements onto land that isn't theirs (and the international community offers little more than platitudes).

When the media calls this a war, it's so blatantly wrong. A war implies to sides fighting on some kind of comparable scale. The death ratio is about 20:1. Most of that Palestinian 20 is civilians while the Israeli 1 is mostly soldiers.

You know the propaganda machine is in full vigour when 1000 women and children have died and very few people seem to have a problem with it.

Fox or not the US and Britain are in deep shit

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]Jefffab1995 wrote:[/b]

The israelis and palestinians will fight like dogs until one is destroyed so until then this cycle of war then peace will never end[/QUOTE]

The Palestinians can't fight. Not only do they not have the ability to build an army, but all incoming food, water, electricity and medical supplies are controlled by Israel. If the world doesn't step up to the plate, then we will see mass genocide as all Palestinians will be wiped off the map. Do the math - at this rate, it would take a century, but this would be the final result.

Problem is - nobody on the world stage wants to be the first to step up to the plate. It would destroy their country, economically and otherwise, at least in the short term. So the status quo will continue, which also includes Israel building settlements onto land that isn't theirs (and the international community offers little more than platitudes).

When the media calls this a war, it's so blatantly wrong. A war implies to sides fighting on some kind of comparable scale. The death ratio is about 20:1. Most of that Palestinian 20 is civilians while the Israeli 1 is mostly soldiers.

You know the propaganda machine is in full vigour when 1000 women and children have died and very few people seem to have a problem with it.
[/QUOTE]

And when genocide happens no one will care

And that's not unique to this situation.

Every year the anniversary of the Rwandan genocide comes in early April, and nearly every newspaper in the civilized world has a picture of Kurt Cobain on page 1 and a small mention of Rwanda on page 16.