My travels have prevented me from following the situation in the Middle East very closely, but what I have seen lately has amazed me. People are, for instance, bemoaning the death of Palestinian youths (and adults) killed by Israelis. What they fail to note is that these killings occurred after the Palestinians (often teenaged boys) were trying to kill Israeli soldiers or civilians using knives, rocks, or cleavers. Other Palestinians are trying to run down Israeli civilians using cars. In other words, the latest wave of “violence” against Palestinians seems to involve mostly self-defense against Palestinian terror attacks.
Yet the world ignores this. Some people in fact appear to fault Israelis for trying to defend their own lives. Newspaper headlines are ambiguous, like this one from today’s ABC News (click on screenshot to go to article). There’s ambiguity about the “attack,” but in fact the two Palestinians were trying to attack Israeli soldiers with knives:
Here’s a headline from the BBC, which was changed three times in an hour after complaints that it was misleading (I suspect it was deliberately misleading, like the one above):
Who were the two men killed? Not Palestinians. They were these two, stabbed to death in the Old City:
Other horrific attacks on Israelis citizens? How about two parents, Eitam and Na’ama Henkin, shot to death in their car in front of their four children in the back seat—children aged 4 months, 4 years, 7 years, and 9 years. Did you hear much about that? I didn’t. Here are the victims:
Perhaps the best summary of the situation I’ve seen has been an editorial in, of all places, the Harvard Crimson, a piece called “Deafening Silence.” I’m not going to cite Israeli opinion pieces, even though their op-eds should be considered at least valid enough to merit a read, even if one doesn’t agree with their content or feel that their views are impartial. But I guarantee there will be those who will also discount the Crimson editorial because it’s written by someone with a Jewish name, Rachel Huebner. But there are links in her piece that allow you to check everything for yourself. A snippet:
But the world is silent.
Imagine that terrorists were stabbing to death Americans who were on their daily walks to the supermarket. Imagine that terrorists were driving their cars into crowds of New York commuters waiting for the train. Imagine if driving on a Chicago highway were dangerous because a lynch mob could surround your car at any moment. Imagine having to kiss your family members goodbye each morning, unsure if you would survive the day. The world would not be silent.
Israel is experiencing an onslaught of vicious terrorism. The attacks are terrorizing the entire country. Citizens have begun sleeping with knives on their bed tables and young parents are drafting wills for their preschool children.
But the world is not listening. Newspapers have failed to document the extent and nature of the egregious murders on their front pages. World leaders have yet to issue condemnations of Palestinian aggression. One could watch a variety of daily news shows and be unaware that anything out of the ordinary has been happening in Israel.
Indeed! If Obama’s said anything about this, I don’t know about it. All we hear are tepid calls for “restraint.”
Until I did a bit of digging the last two days, I had no idea what was going on. And although I’ve repeatedly called for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and for a two-state solution. I don’t see that happening now, for both Hamas and Fatah seem to want the complete extirpation of Israel. This is a dilemma. Further, although Israel has condemned the execrable acts of its own citizens, like the revenge killing of a sixteen-year old Palestinian boy, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, and has tracked down and jailed the Israeli perpetrators, Palestinian authorities (and, of course, imams and other Muslim clerics) not only fail to condemn the violence, but encourage it and glorify the terrorists. Do you think the Palestinian authorities will find and jail those who stab and hack Israeli citizens, or run them over with cars? Don’t make me laugh.
Have a look at this video (one of many you can find without breaking a sweat), in which a Palestinian cleric, speaking on Al-Aqsa television, the official Hamas television channel, says “not a single Jew will remain on this land.” and “We will not leave a single one of you, alive or dead, on this land. By Allah, we will dig up your bones from your graves and get them out of this country.” That, of course, means Israel. If this kind of venom were spewed against Muslims in, say, the U.S., do you have any doubt that people would rise up against such horrible, violent bigotry? But of course it’s ignored because, after all, it’s okay when Palestinian state media says this kind of stuff.
Or if Israeli television called for the total extirpation of Palestinians in such a way, is there any doubt that Americans would put it on the front page of the New York Times, and the world would condemn Israel? Of course they would. But it’s okay when the Palestinians do it.
Huebner continues:
The world must not only condemn the horrific acts of terror; we must also condemn those responsible for inciting the violence. The Palestinian Authority is one group that we must demand be held accountable. In a recent speech on Palestinian TV, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas stated: “We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem. With the help of Allah, every shaheed (martyr) will be in heaven.” He called on Palestinians to prevent Jews from entering the Temple Mount “by any means possible” and declared that Jews “have no right to defile [Al Aqsa Mosque] with their filthy feet.” Days later, he declared the Oslo Accords void in a speech at the United Nations. Throughout the recent wave of terror, Fatah, Abbas’s party, has delivered leaflets in Palestinian towns praising the terrorists, and Fatah Twitter accounts have glorified the attacks. This week, a knife-wielding Gaza cleric called upon his congregants to stab Jews and “cut them into body parts.” He urged some to “restrain the victim, while others attack him with axes and butcher knives.”
The condemnations are not going to happen, for the Western media, as well as some atheist bloggers, have adopted a narrative in which any atrocity committed by a Palestinian is to be ignored or whitewashed (or even blamed on Israel), while vilifying Israeli soldiers and civilians for daring to defend themselves. Yes, the situation is complicated, and there’s a lot to be said for and against both sides (see this thoughtful Daily Beast article, “Inside the Mind of Israel/Palestine”, by Maajid Nawaz, a Muslim). But one thing is certain: these knife, car, and cleaver attacks are terrorism, and their victims had every right to defend themselves. Arguments about the Temple Mount are NO justification for killing. Make that two things that are certain: the other is that the Western media will continue to ignore or downplay the Palestinian terrorism.
I don’t know what the solution to the Israel/Palestine situation is, but I know hypocrisy when I see it. If you’re going to condemn Palestinian citizens killed by the IDF, even accidentally, you must also condemn Israelis citizens deliberately killed by Palestinian terrorists. Why this hypocrisy exists—well, I’ll leave you to discuss it below. Just remember, liberals have a proud tradition (at least until recently) of being open to the possibility that they might be wrong.
“I haven’t been following the situation in the Middle East very closely, but … the latest wave of ‘violence’ against Palestinians seems to involve mostly self-defense against Palestinian terror attacks.”
Quote, unquote, violence?
The “deaths” of Palestinians….
The “rocket mortar” which “killed” some “small children”…
Etc.
Perhaps one ought to follow a situation more closely before making absurd statements.
You know that image that you think your comment evokes? It doesn’t.
Perhaps you shouldn’t be nasty to the proprietor. My putting quotes around “violence” was meant to show that the media portray this as one-sided violence. Yes, it is violence, but in self-defense against violence.
And perhaps you should read the Roolz.
The Palestinians are living in terrible conditions without the means to do much about it.
This needs to change because it’s wrong to allow and cause this suffering and because it’s the way to stop Palestinians becoming terrorists.
On the other hand, the Palestinian Arabs have a higher standard of living and better health care (thanks to Israel) and higher life expectancy than the surrounding populations of Arabs. They may well feel oppressed, but their own leaders are the main culprits. If it weren’t official policy to destroy Israel, and if the Palestinians weren’t urged to go out and kill Jews because they are “suffering”, then there might be some hope of peace.
Sorry! I didn’t mean to be anonymous! Previously the name was filled in automatically and now you have to enter it each time, and I forgot.
I’ll ask you exactly the same question I ask everyone else with your position on this issue: Why don’t the young Jews whom have had rockets fried at them in their homes, whom have been subjected to terrorist violence, whom live next to a place run b organizations that expressly state their desire to violently expunge all Jews from Israel, not qualify as innocent children?
I was aware of the recent spike in Palestinian attacks. It’s certainly been reported in UK newspapers and news programmes.
No doubt if similar attacks were happening in America it would be headline news around the world, but that’s partly because America gets an inordinate amount of press attention anyway. The kid who was arrested for bringing the clock into school, which was a relatively trivial event by global standards, has had stacks of articles written about it in the UK.
The New Zealand papers (which are not up to much at the best of times) have made it fairly clear that there has been an upsurge in knife attacks on Israelis.
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I don’t watch much TV news but have heard these attacks reported for some weeks on BBC Radio 4, along with the security dilemma that this places Israeli authorities under, particularly in Jerusalem. The thing is there are a lot of human caused disasters competing for our attention – & Syria comes uppermost at least it seems to in the UK.
The world stood by when millions of Jews were killed in the 1930s and 40s. Very little has changed.
We get a slightly — only slightly — less biased version here in France. The latest Le Monde article has the somewhat neutral title, “Knife attacks don’t stop in Israel.” They correctly point out that Muslims are attacking Israelis. They also point to one of the sources of the problem, the rules indicating who may use or pray and at what times on the Esplanade of the Mosques.
We all agree that religion leads to horrible situations. But when it gets mixed with politics, economics and nationalism, the brew is toxic. And yes, of course, it is terrorism.
I personally see one side about as bad as the other at this point, but I am no expert. It seems like knowing the history of the region is of no help. Until the UN and the USA and her allies get in there (politically and economically, not militarily) and force the two sides to come to an agreement — with the commitments by each which that implies, the future looks dim.
I meant “proximite source”, of course.
Yeah, I get what you’re saying. The one side wants to exterminate the other, dig up the bones of all the dead and remove every trace from the country. The other side doesn’t.
So, yeah, they are “about” the same.
How can the two sides come to an agreement if one of them wants to exterminate the other and the other wants to live? How can the UN and the USA and her allies force the two sides to come to an agreement if the UN, the allies and a dangerously large part of the USA don’t give a damn of one side is exterminated because they want to appease the other, numerous and strong side?
The express reason for this post is to examine the strange and hypocritical media reporting and I can see nothing in error about this. Where is the simple condemnation of the terrorism by the Palestinians. Since most people would be forced to acknowledge who’s side is responsible for starting this round of violence, why the failure to report that? Even the Secretary of State, who said he was stopping by to talk about this said nothing.
It’s that same old apologetics & fear or maybe we just don’t give a damn.
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I often see posts containing the single word, “sub”. What are they?
Sorry to get off the subject…
It’s the only way you can subscribe to the thread without writing a comment.
You can write anything or nothing – it’s all about getting access to tick the subscribe box. Sub – short for subscribe.
I don’t think there’s much hope of a peaceful solution in this generation…nor in any future generation so long as Islam remains respectable.
When a generation is born in which people laugh at the idiocy of thinking that superheroes really do ride off into the sunset on the backs of flying horses…in that day, the tenets of Islam will have to stand on their own merits, and they will surely go <splat />. And then those children will be able to see that it’s in their own best interests to stop being so goddamned fucking insane.
b&
Indeed, where can you start a negotiation when your opponent’s opening is that they feel you should be eliminated from the face of the earth?
Even that would be something we could deal with.
The problem here…isn’t just that the Muslims think the Jews should be wiped from the face of the Earth.
The problem is that the Muslims think they’ve been personally ordered by the ultimate in unquestionable authority that the Jews should be wiped from the face of the Earth or else the Muslims will be infinitely tortured.
And, ya gotta admit, if you can convince your shock troops that you’re the authorized representative of the ultimate in unquestionable authority and that said authority will infinitely torture anybody who questions your own authority…well, if you can pull that off, you’ve got yourself some damned effective shock troops.
But, at the same time…help those shock troops realize that they’re being had by pointing out that the purported ultimate in unquestionable authority is a really bad childish faery tale with the superhero riding off into the sunset on the back of a flying horse, and the whole thing should rapidly collapse of its own weight.
Incidentally, that’s what the “little people” argument is all about. It’s not that those who espouse it are afraid that people who abandon the gods will become wanton criminals. It’s that they’re afraid that those people will take up pitchforks and ride the priests out of town on rails.
b&
For me, the creepy thing about Islamism is that it is a totalitarian system but without a human leader who can be debunked. Under other totalitarian regimes the leader could be caught (or commit suicide) and he could be shown to be a fallible jerk or anyway not divine. People did awful things because they had permission from the leader to behave without inhibition. But with Islamists they have the same permission to behave abominably but the leader on whose behalf they are acting can never be caught or exposed as a jerk, and so the permission continues as long as there are believers.
That is exactly why blasphemy is of such vital importance whilst it utterly terrifies the religious.
And also why you should never pass up an opportunity, in the case of Islam, to remind people that Muhammad rode off into the sunset on the back of a flying horse, and that he had a prepubescent sex slave.
When nobody can hear Muhammad’s name without thinking of flying horses or child rape, we will finally be free from his tyranny.
b&
In-group/out-group. Same as it ever was.
Mishegoss and mayhem.
I follow mostly Dutch media and they have reported almost every attack to this date. The government however hasn’t spoken about this issue yet. The tone of reporting varies depending on news agency. For example, here is the Dutch Public Broadcasting organisation NOS:
http://nos.nl/artikel/2063596-drie-palestijnen-gedood-in-incidenten-met-israeliers.html (Three Palestinians killed in incidents with Israeli’s)
http://nos.nl/artikel/2062884-tieners-met-keukenmessen-zaaien-angst-in-jeruzalem.html (Teenagers with kichen knives sow fear in Jeruzalem)
This headline is from today’s left wing newspaper Volkskrant:
http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/israelisch-leger-doodt-twee-palestijnen-na-aanval-met-messen~a4167782/ (Israeli army kills two Palestinians after attack with knives)
Most news reports here are fairly neutral in my opinion. It’s hard to make a neutral news report and I can see that the newspapers struggle with it.
I cannot read the articles, sorry, but what you say about the 2nd and 3rd story does look neutral. However, the first one is not really, unless it explains it better than saying Palestinians killed in incidents with Israeli’s. A journalist has to do better than the word “incident”.
I agree with you. The word incident is too mild. This attack follows a pattern of violence that has emerged over the last weeks.
It should be possible to understand and condemn at the same time. Various Palestinians (all Muslims so far? I don’t know) have attacked random Israelis. I might suppose they’re motivated by frustration over the lack of any sort of progress toward that two-state solution we used to hear about. Trying to kill randomly chosen people is a pathological response to a real problem.
Until there are authorities on both sides that really want to resolve that problem, I see no hope. The Netanyahu government is not such an authority. The Abbas, um, whatever it is, seems a little better, though not much.
And of course religion poisons everything.
Almost from “time immemorial” (i.e. the rise of Islam) people always found a reson for Arabs to attack Jews. Whether it was a “frustration over the lack of peace process” or whatever other reason that was convenient for that time. Here is a good review, going back only to 19th century: http://david-collier.com/?p=1151
Abbas, who incites his people by calling them to “defend Al-Aqsa” (which is in no way attacked), talks about Jews defiling Al Aqsa with their dirty feet, paying huge salaries to convicted murderers of Jews, accusing Jew of “executing an innocent child”, when this “innocent child” (13), who just stabbed seriously two Jews, is spoonfed by a nurse in an Israeli hospital and very much alive, seems to many a much better bet to get peace than Netanyahu. The same Abbas who refused to accept peace proposals which gave him almost all his demands (except the so called “right to return”). Who proudly say that he never agreed to the slightest concession in negotiations with Israel (in contrast with Netanyahu, who agreed to many concessions) and who refuses to return to the negotiation table while Netanyahu publicly states that he is ready for negotiations any time, any place. Strange.
Also, there were three agreements on the table over several decades, negotiated by Israel and the PLO. At the last minute, Arafat pulled out.
Why should Israel try again? How many times will the Palestinians pull away? When will they stop calling for the annihilation of Israel and all Jews? Lets call terrorists what they are – terrorists.
Israel should try again because what’s the alternative?
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is a sign of insanity.
Islam is the problem. Many Muslims are brainwashed by Islamic dogma to behave that way.
What about all the Christian and/or secular Arabs? Are they behaving differently? Islam is one of the problems.
Judaism is another. Too many people, not enough land is another. Certain aspects of Mideast cultures seem to be another.
But I ask again, what is the alternative?
You asked again despite my cancer about doing things over and over?
The alternative is to eliminate as many terrorists as possible.
Cancer?
So your solution to the problem is to kill terrorists. Apparently that’s never been tried, because if it had it would fall under your category of doing the same thing over and over. Besides, however many terrorists you kill, how does that solve the problem? You just end up making more. I suppose we’ll have peace once all the Palestinians are dead, but that seems a bit much.
So what is your answer? You just wave negotiate around, without details. How can that change? Let’s hear your solution.
I have no solution and I suspect there is none. But the only thing that offers any possibility, however slight, of a solution is negotiation. It’s almost but not quite hopeless, whereas every other course is completely hopeless. If you disagree, what is your proposal?
Aren’t the Jews also terrorists for how they treat the Palestinians? Isn’t this a case of religion versus religion, and instead of lots of love being spawned as one would expect from decent Gods, a lot of evil results?
No, when they are the ones attacked in 1948, 1967, 1973 etc. , they have a right to protect themselves. When Isreal left Gaza, the Palestinians continued to fire thousands upon thousands of rockets at innocent civilians. Once again, they try to protect themselves.
Anyone who can say that the Israelis were the ones who were attacked in 1967 has a serious problem with reality. At least you didn’t count 1956; there’s some hope.
As for Gaza, how many Israeli civilians were killed in that particular fight? How many Palestinian civilians?
Anyone who thinks Israel started the Six-Day War in 1967 plainly doesn’t remember the hostile armies massing on its border waiting for the signal to pounce.
1967: Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon surround Isreal with 540,000 troops in comparison to the 260,000 troops of Israel. Once again, Israel is trying to protect self. Sorry, but your sense of reality is bizarre.
Even if you close your eyes to Arab armies amassed at Israeli borders, at Nasser’s demand that U.N. remove its peace keeping force from Sinai (obeyed immediately by UN..), to all official speaches of Arab leader promising to vanquish Israel in no time, and you say that Israel had no right to strike preemptively at Egypt and Syria, what do you do with Jordan, who then occupied the West Bank and part of Jerusalem after taking these areas in an aggressive war 1948? Are you not aware that Israel begged Jordan’s king not to join the fight but – in a mistaken believe that Arabs were winning – he gave the order to attack and Jordanian artillery and army obediently went to attack on Israel? If you do not know this fact, you are very badly informed. If you know it but still think that “Israel attacked”, you seem to agree with those who regard the existence of Jews as provocation enough for them to be slaughtered.
About comparing civilian victims of Gaza and Israel much was written, also by the best military experts in the world who said that other armies should learn from IDF how to fight a war in urban areas, with an enemy who uses its own population as human shield, in order to minimise civilian casualties. When people compare these numbers, forgetting about all precautions Israel takes for its own civilian population, forgetting about numbers in other wars, and complain about the ratio of victims, I have a distinct feeling they are less mourning the number of killed Palestinians (after all, Assad killed more Palestinians, not to mention Syrians) and are more unhappy because too few Jews were killed.
It’s really sad that Rabin was killed. Might have been the last chance. Bibi isn’t serious at all; he has to support the settlers.
We know what a reasonable deal would be. We’ve known it for years. Neither side is willing to take that deal. There’s really no way out.
But I don’t find your comment helpful. It seems to be saying that Arabs are just by nature evil and will take any pretext to attack Jews.
I know and admire too many Arabs and Muslims to think that they are evil “just by nature”. However those Arabs and Muslims, who treat their faith with utmost seriousness, have the word of their Profet and of their Allah that Jews must be wiped from the face of Earth. And they are doing their best to fulfill the divine command.
You might find an article by a Kuwaiti columnist – an Arab, a Muslim – quite surprising: http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/8806.htm
Arabs?
No. Plenty of sane Arabs out there — along, of course, with insane ones, just like any other regional demographic. Same with Persians, naturally.
But Islamists?
Yes.
Most emphatically.
When you submit yourself to the will of the ultimate evil alien described in the Q’ran, you make yourself every bit as evil as the Nazis or any other similar hate group.
Even that doesn’t justify visiting upon the Islamists the same evil they would visit on others, of course. Many have come to their senses, and we’ve good reason to think all will given enough generations. And many of the insane only offer talk, not action; it’s only the action the warrants a commensurate use of force in response.
But it does tell us that we shouldn’t get our hopes up unless and until we can disabuse them of this most dangerous of delusions.
b&
How do you know the attackers are Islamists? The PLO at least used to be a secular organization and had prominent non-Muslim members. Now as we know, perceived powerlessness and poor circumstances are conducive to religion, so it’s no surprise that religiosity has been growing in the occupied territories. But what makes you think the West Bank attackers are Islamists?
I don’t know about Ben, but for me a hint that they might be Islamists is their cry “Allahu Akbar”, assertions of those who are arrested that they did it to defend Al-Aqsa Mosgue and Islam, and declaration by some of them that “Yahudi are the enemies of Allah”.
And if you look at a whole serie of Arafat’s statements (when he spoke Arabic, not English – which was later translated into English – there are plenty of his speaches and videos) his “secularism” seems very, very dubious. As well as proposed constitution for the future Palestinian state where Islam is very prominent.
Malgorzata, The Palestinian apologists just make stuff up and never believe in actual facts. It is so funny that you had to explain the basics here.
The suggestion that self-proclaimed martyrs whose last words are, “Allahu Akbar!” are secularists deserve no more serious consideration than the one that the Nazis, whose belt buckles read, “Gott Mit Uns,” were atheists.
b&
It wasn’t the Nazis whose belt buckles said “Gott mit uns”; it was the German army. Some German soldiers were Nazis, and some of them were almost certainly atheists. You pick a poor example.
“Islamist” and “Muslim” are not the same thing. Even “Islamist” and “terrorist who shouts ‘Allahu akbar'” are not the same thing. Be as smug as you like.
Whatever Arafat may have said, there were, at least at one time, prominent non-Muslim members of the PLO. That makes it a secular organization in my mind, even if observant Muslims were in the majority. I even have my doubts that some members of Congress who pander to the religious right are all that religious themselves.
Seriously?
Because not all of the soldiers who were machinegunning Jews weren’t registered members of the Nazi Party and a couple might have been closeted atheists we should ignore the fact that they were all wearing “Gott Mit Uns” belt buckles?
What on Earth are you smoking!?
b&
It does not help at all when politicians use such means to further their own short-term, nefarious aims.
In the late noughties when Al-Qaeda’s ability to pull off the spectacular atrocity was waning, Bin Laden called for a lone wolf tactic: similarly and recently Hamas called for the same approach. This spate of individual lo-fi murders looks to be the result. Despite the fact that some apologizers for Hamas are trying to call this a third Intifada, it reflects more the inability of Hamas to build its own rockets and suicide bombs.
Strategically, Hamas, the spawn of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood looks increasingly overlooked and isolated. Sisi in Egypt is cracking down on the MB and in the region the Gulf States, Syria, Iraq and Iran are faced towards the Bashar al-Assad endgame. Despite the military successes of Russia in murdering the rebels, the civilians (who form the majority of deaths so far) and the occasional ISIS thug, it’s possible that even in the medium term Russia’s intervention to prop up Assad is not sustainable. One has only to look at the catastrophic prospects for the Russian economy outlined recently in the Financial Times.
If Assad were to remain in place that would certainly boost Hamas, but for the time being, I suspect they won’t find much practical support in the region. And one would hope, given the lack of an election in the Gaza Strip for 8 years, that their popular support is draining away. Perhaps, we might see the emergence of sane Israeli-Arabs like Lucy Aharish to lead Palestinians out of the nightmare of their anti-Semitic genocidalist leadership to remind them of their secular leaders of previous generations. x
http://www.youtube.com/embed/8rYCQjQkRGs
I find it surprising that you say the world ignores this. I’ve seen over twenty articles about it in the past few weeks, just going to news.google.com (which aggregates from all the big news sites), and more articles on focused news sites. Right-wing news sites in particular have had large featured articles about it. It’s true that I haven’t heard world leaders talking about it, though.
Anyway, as of last week or so the count was that six Israelis had been killed. Israeli settlers also kill Palestinians. According to the last long-term count I remember reading, in an average year about 100 times as many Palestinians are killed by settlers as Israelis are killed by Palestinians in these “random” attacks. But despite the much larger magnitude, it gets far less news coverage, so I would say that if any attacks are being ignored by the world it is those.
It’s true that this recent wave of attacks is unusual. Not just in the number of Israelis killed – normally you might get six in a year, not a month – but also their motivations. Interviews with some attackers have shown them to be young men deliberately trying to spark a third Intifada.
Could you, please, give any source to the absolute astonishing data that Israeli “settlers” killed 100 times more Palestinians in random attacks then vice versa? I follow news from Israel very carefully and I know of two such attacks – one on a 16 years old Palestinian boy (Israeli parpetrators were caught, sentenced and are sitting in jail and will be there for a very long time) and the other where parents and their baby son perished in a fire caused by Molotov coctail. Jews are suspected but the perpetrators were not caught yet. Otherwise Palestinians die either when they are killed in the act of attacking Israelis or during violent demonstrations and wars.
Why do we not hear anything at all in the media about the 40 year occupation of Muslim Western Sahara? Why has it lost its right to self-determination? Why do we not hear of the security forces brutal beatings of the locals? Why do we not hear of the hundreds of ‘disappeared’? Nor of the torture régime? Nor of the theft of their right to vote? Nor of the exiles from their own country?
Is it because the occupying force is the Islamic kingdom of Morocco? What, in the Corbynite narrative, is the one big difference between Morocco/Western Sahara and Israel/Palestine? Obviously, Morocco is Islamic, Israel is not. Why don’t western leftists get equally angry about the Western Sahara?
It’s a common trope of the regressive left to use 2 types of argument: the media blackout/bias gambit dribbling in its furthest reaches to conspiracism, and the whataboutery attack, pointing out that horrible thing over there as if it was a logical response to the vile thing over here.
In the case of the Israel/Palestine debate I will use a whataboutery/tu quoque point, which in my opinion lays bare the crypto-anti-Semitism of some western leftists in the ring. x
Why don’t we hear more about the occupation of Muslim Western Sahara and less about Israel and the Palestinians?
This alone, perhaps, of all the questions raised in this thread is susceptible of a straightforward answer — straightforward enough that even I can venture the attempt. And I will do so on a personal level: As an American — albeit one with no ethnic or religious ties to the region — I feel an exceptional allegiance to the concept of a Jewish homeland. As such, I am an unabashed supporter of Israel. And as such, I also expect much more from my ally, especially when my ally is a functioning democracy, than I ever could from the Islamic kingdom of Morocco.
Moreover, I sincerely hope that a peaceful two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — should one ever, ever come — will have a salutary effect on a host of problems that plague the region, making the matter one of unsurpassed importance. That is why I (and, I expect, the western media) will continue to pay much closer attention to what happens in Israel and the occupied territories, for good or for ill, than any goings on in the Maghreb.
Yup, Ken, one would want to hold Israel to civilized norms, but I think a case can be made for Morocco as well.
As far as I can tell, the first Americans in WWII to die in the European theatre perished on the beaches of Morocco in the opening up of the second front in North Africa. And about 67,000 Maghrebi troops fought alongside the British, U.S. and Free French in 1944 to establish democracy in Italy. If they are good enough to fight with us, they’re good enough to expect democratic norms.
Morocco’s 2 biggest inward investors are France and Spain, the 2 ex-colonial powers and both members of the EU. As Britain is a member of the EU, we have a duty to remind the French and Spanish capitalists that the King of Morocco should be aware of our concerns about Western Sahara.
Yes, the self-determination and democracy in Western Sahara would have less of a global impact than the settlement of the Israel/Palestine issue, but the former is in principle far easier to solve.
And of course, my main point in my original post is that regressive leftists like CJ He-who-must-not-be-named continually focus on the Israel/Palestine debate in order to vent their apologia for Islamism and crypto-anti-Semitism. Like drivers slowing down past a motorway pile-up, they can’t stop looking. x
It is tempting to hold Israel to a different standard, but in the end it is racist (“You can’t expect the Arabs to be any better than they are”) and grossly unfair to Israel. It is like flunking an A student because he isn’t quite up to the A+ standard you have decided he should reach.
I’m not suggesting that a soft bigotry of low expectations be applied to Arabs or Muslims. I’m saying that we should expect more from our allies and from representative democracies than from others. The exact same standards should apply to majority-Muslim or Arab countries as to other nations.
We should, thus, expect more from Saudi Arabia (based on the first factor) and from Pakistan (based on both) than we do from some of their neighbors that are neither allies nor democracies. Unfortunately, both those countries now fall woefully short of the standards they should be meeting.
google of “Israeli “settlers” killed 100 times more Palestinians” produced…
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/08/price-tag-attacks-and-the-definition-of-terrorism/400202/
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4394072,00.html
Both articles you gave links to write about “price tag attacks” which mostly consist of painting anti-Arab graffiti, more seldom slashing tyres of Arab cars etc. The Duma crime (about which I wrote in my previous comment as well as about the murder of 16 year old Arab boy) are the only killing of Arabs by settlers (and there are still great doubts whether it were really the Jews who commited the crime in Duma; BTW, Jews who killed Muhammad Abu Khudair were NOT settlers). To paint graffiti, slash the tires etc. is reprehensible and Israeli police is arresting the perpetrators. But it is not the same as, for example, slashing the throats of parents and their three children, the youngest 3 month old, kidnapping and killing three boys on their way home from school and many other real killing. I take it that you mixed up murder and vandalism against property.
Some contend that this vandalism of spraying hate messages on property constitutes terrorism.
I suspect that remaining Fogel children and Henkin children and so many other Jewish orphans would much prefer to have a hate massage sprayed on their homes than to have the rest of their familise butchered.
Seriously?
You’re equating graffiti with mass murder?
How do you even manage to look at yourself in the mirror?
b&
+1. Thank you Ben.
“Seriously?” – I think both sides are behaving very badly. No, mass murder and graffiti are not the same and I’ll say that murder is the worst of the two. I will draw your attention to the fact that graffiti constitutes a hate crime (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_crime). You may also note that these activities are on the rise – quadrupling from 515 case in 2007. (ref. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settler_violence)
For additional reading, I link to the UN Human Rights Committee Report 21 November 2014, http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CCPR/C/ISR/CO/4&Lang=En
in particular paragraph 16 which indirectly addresses the graffiti. Paragraphs 10, 13, 14, and 15 are also of concern.
The UN Human Rights Committee Is a joke. It is populated by the countries that are the biggest abusers of human rights.
For French speakers, ‘The Battle for Human Rights’ from 2009 by Caroline Fourest and Fiammetta Venner showing for how long the UNHRC has been usurped by sharia and authoritarianism.
« Nous pensions aller à une réunion de l’ONU contre le racisme et nous avons assisté à un déchaînement raciste » – “We thought we were going to a UN conference against racism and found ourselves in a racist storm.” Before Saudi Arabia got to lecture the rest of the world on Human Rights, Gaddafi’s Libya was there.
The film contains eye-opening scenes from the UN floor of the alliance of authoritarian régimes such as Cuba and China with the Islamic States in which they attempt to shut down debate on human rights abuses. 54 minutes long. x
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sbd8ixGw2s&feature=share
The fact that you’re continuing to make a big deal out of Israeli graffiti whilst Palestinians are murdering Israelis demonstrates you’ve not the slightest clue what human rights are about.
b&
Maybe your right Ben. I should drop my donations to Doctors without Borders
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/gaza-one-year-after-2014-war-abject-misery-across-gaza-and-west-bank
and Amnesty International
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/violence-spirals-in-israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories
I’m very late for bed but I will attempt to find the report I read, although it was about nine years ago. What I recall is that over 90% of actual killings were done by IDF, although the attacks were initiated by settlers (civilians). The ratio was dropping over time, although it went up and down. (At the end of their data, it was less than 50:1. At the beginning it was well over a hundred.)
I remember reading in 2014, according to ‘UN (OCHA) figures’, which I never tracked down the original source of, that settlers have committed about 260 attacks per year on average in the last decade or so, but many of those were just “attacks” against property (often arson) and the actual violence was usually nonlethal – such as stone throwing, beatings, or shooting at Palestinians from afar but not hitting (or not killing) them. 260 attacks per year is a lot, but most attacks don’t result in death.
Reportedly, Palestinians who attempted to defend themselves or their property from these attacks were usually attacked by IDF. And indeed, almost all settler-initiated violence that ended in a killing that I can remember followed a similar script: settlers attacked someone or tried to burn their farm, IDF stood by, the victim fought back, IDF shot them. But I don’t have reliable numbers on that.
I know me recalling reports from memory is not interesting, so I looked at B’tselem. In this decade, excluding the war, an average of 7 Israeli civilians and 108 Palestinians civilians were killed per year, which is only a ratio of about 15.4 – quite far from the almost 50:1 ratio at the end of the report’s data (and even farther from the almost 100:1 long-term average). It seems roughly half of the Palestinians were killed in self-defense while very few Israelis were killed in self-defense, so the ratio of ‘innocent’ Palestinians killed would be somewhat less than that. It’s still disproportionate, especially compared to media coverage which was my point, but much less than 50x or 100x.
On the other hand, those are just killings in general between Palestinians and Israelis, not killings in ‘terror attacks’ specifically, so who knows.
Anyway, I will sleep now. I’ll look more after I wake up, and if I can’t find a reliable source then I will consider the report to have been dubious and not repeat it.
Just comparing the number of killed people on Israeli and Palestinian side is very misleading. One side is doing its utmost to defend its civilians (bomb shelters, Iron Dome, alarm system), while the other is doing its utmost to become martyrs and to use own civilians as human shields. Even your later ratio of 15.4 is not reliable, not to mention the 50 something. I’m very sorry to say but neither B’tselem nor (UN) OCHA) are reliable sources. They interpret what they are told in the way which is the worst possible for Israel. OCHA’s anti-Israeli bias is rather famous. In at least one occasion UN had to dismiss one of OCHA’s employees, a certain Khuloot Badawi, who circulated on social media a picture of a Palestinian girl killed in an accident on a play ground as a victim of Israeli brutality. This lie was so blatant that UN couldn’t pretend that it was raining. When it comes to B’tselem: this organization employs only Palestinian researchers. Jews from this organization normally do not venture into Palestinian territories. For a long time their main researcher, named Atef, was trusted by them implicitly and their reports were based on what he and his Palestinian colleagues told them. That is, until Atef was on a video spewing hatred to Jews and denying the Holocaust. B’tselem tried to defend him but the outrage was such that they finally had to dismiss him. That was about your sources. On the other hand we have a very strict code of conduct in the IDF and an judicial inquiry to all killings. My conclusion: you were misled.
I would also like to see this data. Although I would also like to note that the PLO and Hamas encourage citizens to act as human shields, resulting in consistently higher body counts. Also, Israel spends its money on technology to protect its populace, such as the Iron Dome, while the PLO and Hamas does not. They don’t care if their people die- it is good for publicity.
I don’t know what the solution is either. I don’t even know if there is a solution short of an Enlightenment type awakening that puts to rest the notion that this land is divinely sanctioned to one side or the other; or, in the case of Islam, that Allah commands that Jewish people be wiped off the face of the Earth.
As for Obama, I’m not sure what he’s supposed to say or do either. What can he say other than to encourage restraint? We certainly have enough history demonstrating that military action in such situations only worsens things. Look no further than the rise of ISIS. We can’t go into the region and eliminate the existing mentality anymore than we could remove Saddam Hussein and expect western democracy to suddenly flourish. It’s an awful situation, but I think sometimes the “solution” from an outside perspective is to simply stay out of it and condemn the atrocities. Perhaps western media paying more attention would help, but I’m not aware of Islamic extremists ever caring what the Western media says other than to twist the message to fit their own agenda of jihad.
The Enlightenment took several centuries to play out in the west, we can hope such a movement plays out more quickly in the Middle East but there’s no way in hell I see it happening on anything less than a multi-generational time scale.
Here is a carefully thought out canadian take on the Israeli violence situation:
http://www.thebeaverton.com/world/item/1460-local-man-successfully-avoids-saying-anything-controversial-about-israel-palestine-situation
Just to add some data to the idea of a media blackout on Palestinian attacks – my own news sources have covered it pretty well. I have a bevy of blogs, NYT and NPR – and all have reported how the Israel is reacting to a new form of violence.
If the sources you consult aren’t giving you this info, perhaps you should get some better ones. On Middle East issues I generally read Juan Cole and Talking Points Memo.
I like Al-Monitor for long insightful opinions and news about the Middle East. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/israel-pulse
“One could watch a variety of daily news shows and be unaware that anything out of the ordinary has been happening in Israel.”
This kind of thing has been happening in Israel most of my life. It is not out of the ordinary, nor is it expected to change anytime soon.
A necessary condition to any solution will be ceasing all obligation to faith. Until this will continue forever.
I wish that all those who insist that Israeli oppression is the only cause of this, would start putting pressure on Palestinian groups to learn how political activism works.
How odd it is, the way that liberals seem to instantly forget everything they ever learned about political activism (not to mention logic) as soon Palestine is mentioned.
The theory of political activism is a very well developed field. I don’t recall Gene Sharp writing anything about the value of stabbing random civilians until you get shot.
If they want freedom, they are going the wrong way about it. Surely liberals must realize that. It’s dumb, what the Palestinians are doing. I understand their frustration; I even understand how utter hopelessness can make one value ones life less, but this is just pointless.
They also need to start opposing those forces that militate against a successful political strategy for Palestinians — namely these mad clerics who are see this all as a phase in the war against Jews. Ignoring them won’t make them stop.
I do not understand why we are attacking liberals here. Are they the cause of the Israeli-Palestinian problem? I don’t think so.
Even Jerry just defended liberal values.
I should have used the term “regressive left”.
Vice News has some interesting footage, often simply asking Palestinians and Israelis on the streets how they feel about what’s happening.
https://news.vice.com/video/clashes-in-the-west-bank-intifada-30-dispatch-1
One video shows a group of Palestinian teenagers marching through the streets chanting “Hamas, you are the gun, we are the bullets.”
—
It might be worth noting here that the Shin Bet (Israeli secret police) has saved the Al Aqsa Mosque several times from plots by Christian and Jewish maniacs to blow it up.
Reminds me a bit of media coverage of Northern Ireland. Over the years I’ve talked to several folks from abroad, finding out what they thought was going on there. Almost everyone had bought the SF/PIRA propaganda version.
Most seemed barely even aware that there were protestants in NI, or that they largely want to remain in UK, or that the troops were initially sent in largely to protect catholics from protestants.
‘Do you think the Palestinian authorities will find and jail those who stab and hack Israeli citizens, or run them over with cars? Don’t make me laugh.”
What is there to find? The attackers are already dead…
Check the Palestinian attitude to those who live. E.g. “Um Nidal”, a Palestinian mother who sent her 17-yr-old son to blow up some Jews, and also himself in the process. She became a heroine and was elected MP. The mass of Palestinians has a consciousness defined by the God-sanctioned task to kill Jews. Call me a bigot for saying this.
Even when the news coverage seems adequate, there is a funny pattern. The story is more often than not told in the reverse order of events. So, for example, “Israelis kill three Palestinians [that’s the headline that everyone remembers] after the three attacked people at a bus station, killing twelve.” No, it’s not a real case, but just see how the pattern works the next time you read an account of “the cycle of violence”.
I have to say that this is probably the most calm and well-reasoned debate / discussion about the Israel- Palestine situation I have ever seen on the internet. Even though I don’t agree with every point ( I certainly have my stance), at least there is no cursing or degrading. No one is telling anyone else to die or jump off a cliff. All good things.
Hello sir?
I mostly agree with everything you post and I am a big fan of your books and your intelligence. However I will disagree with you on this . Yes the midia ignored the killing of the jews compared to that of the Palestinians. I dislike islam with all my might but just because palestinians are muslim i have to ignore the injustice . Palestinians are freedom fightess isreal has to go back to its original borders .the occupation is illegal under international laws . When a dictator is killing innocent civilians the world is quick to condemn and take that dictator out by any means possible . Isreal is allowed to terrorise the defenseless Palestinians. Isreal has to accept the two states solution and end the occupation. Can any Americans stay passive in the face of Mexico military occupation? Let’s cut the hypocrisy .. I love the USA , i am a militant atheist but not a blind bias hypocrites . I was taught isreal is holy and need our support that was evil propaganda. All human are equal . Free the Palestinians and the killings will stop . you occupy a group of people and expect them not to fight back and when they fight back you shout anti semitism and terrorism ? It is time we all wake up and overcone manipulations .
For a start, the “occupation” is not illegal under international law. The disputed territories are lands that Jordan conquered and Israel got back, so the “original borders” or that reckoning would include Judea and Samaria anyway, except that Jordan and several other countries attacked Israel in 1948 before any final borders could be established. The Palestinians have said repeatedly that they do not want a “two-state solution”. They want all of present-day Israel “from the river to the sea”–one state, no Jews. But Israel is blamed for not finding a compromise!
I have to wonder about the veracity of the thoughts of an author who presents an argument with such bad spelling, grammar and punctuation.
It’s not that I want to correct all the mistakes but am not sure that someone who is capable of such mangled script is capable of analytical thought.
This is not meant to be a criticism or an ad-hominem but it’s an honest question.
I seriously doubt that English is dela’s native language. In any case I don’t see how your comment could be considered anything but an ad-hominem. Your last sentence doesn’t negate the first two.
Now, that’s your business and for all I know ridiculing dela might be appropriate. At least, I am one who thinks that ridicule is appropriate in certain circumstances. But let’s be honest about it. Polishing it up doesn’t somehow make it not ridicule.
I speak several languages – some fluent, some of them quite atrociously. When I write it is textually clear whether or not I can speak the language well.
The one thing that you will not find in any of my writings, good or bad, is such an erratic use of spaces and capitalisation, strange and inconsistent punctuation, spelling words as they are pronounced (isreal is not even the correct pronunciation of Israel), and more.
So, I am well aware of what it’s like to write foreign languages both well and badly but I’m not commenting on bad writing I’m commenting on bad thought process.
Seriously? It’s as simple as this? I’m not sure that comment like this is just an emotional reaction or a well (or not so well) thought out position.
I can’t disagree with anything you’ve said here. I was merely commenting that the claim from your first comment, that you were not trying to be insulting, seemed very unlikely to be true.
That you spent most of this comment explaining how gifted* you are with languages seems to reinforce that.
* That is not sarcasm, if you speak several languages near fluently you qualify as “gifted with languages.” I wish I were.
Strange logic is strange.
The reason I mentioned my linguistic skills is to show that I’ve entirely considered if the author is a native English speaker. Whether this is the case or not – and I’m certain it is – is irrelevant.
That English might be a second language doesn’t mean that the same construction would not be used in the mother tongue. And my disquiet regarding the content would be the same. Jerry sometimes points this stuff out when he posts unpublished comments from whackos.
That was my point.
A gracious reader would allow that English probably is not the commenter’s first language. Dismissing the content based on its form is ad hominem.
It’s not dismissive, it’s questioning. Badly presented food may taste perfectly good but one would be far more cautious than with well presented food.
Food that’s mouldy or smelly or discoloured could simply be bad and not worth trying.
On the other hand it could be some gorgeous Roquefort or amazing Hákarl or divine Century egg.
I agree with Walt Jones. You should have dealt with the comment on its merits, not on its tone or grammar. I also considered you response an ad hominem and discounted it.
“Free the Palestinians and the killings will stop.”
It didn’t in Gaza. Freeing the Palestinians has the same result as freeing Nazis, i.e., making them kill Jews more efficiently.
This Israeli, Palestinian conflict is a religious, political problem but ultimately it is a human affliction of one people on another and visa versa and it is driving them and us to despair. ‘Nuke them all’ I have heard offered up as a insane solution.
How do you unravel centuries old animosity? Does anyone have a catalyst to start the process? we may think we do but the answer has not been born yet, not one solitary idea or person and that is hard to live with because we are so fucking clever. The misery to outsiders has this self inflicted quality that seems unsolvable.
As to the post I am sure we all suffer from myopic vision, the examples abound, and it is expected or at the very least, should be.
This imbalanced reporting is a given in the sense it is the baseline for mainstream reporting, I think we will never be rid of it and it requires effort to find good reporting that you can trust.
The ‘violence’ is like a baby killing in my own back yard, a mass shooting of school kids, when it is innocents for whatever reason it looms large and where it all comes unhinged.
It seems the “Holy Land,” so-called, is vexed. No prospects for peace in our time. Where there is no will, there is no way.
Palestinians are killing Israelis. Israelis are killing Palestinians. We should pick sides? No. They need to work this out. They are both brutal, and undeserving of sympathy.
Thank you for your compassion.
By this logic, you can happily stay out of any conflict in which the victims try to defend themselves.
“Iraeli authorities recommend carrying guns against terrorist attacks, liberals studiously ignores it”
At least the Israelis are arming themselves to defend against knife attacks, and it is working.
It’s the anti-semitism, stupid
A few days after this stuff started I heard a local news presenter utter words to the effect that some unnamed someone was averring that the presence of increased Israeli forces was provoking further knifings, etc. by Palestinians.
What – the Israelis are not supposed to try to minimize/stop these attacks?
As if police, wherever on the planet, are somehow provoking in their efforts to minimize rioting/looting/burning and restrain certain human primates from doing whatever they please to other primates?