Israel's double standard

[Englander]

Nasrallah didn't mean to
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 16 August 2006

During the past month, Hezbollah's Katyushas killed 18 Israeli Arabs among the 41 Israeli civilians who died in the war. Clearly, Hassan Nasrallah didn't mean to kill them. But as someone who knows that many Arabs live in northern Israel, and as someone who knows that the launchers for his inaccurate Katyushas cannot choose the target they will hit - the fact that it was unintended is meaningless.

More than anyone, Israelis should understand Nasrallah's claims that this was "unintended," identify with the primacy he attaches to the "unintendedness" relative to the fatal results, and identify with the disjunction he creates between the rationale that is inherent in the war machine he has built and his subjective will. "We didn't mean to" is a mantra that is frequently recited in Israel when there is a discussion of the number of civilians - among them many children - who are killed by the Israel Defense Forces. To this, the claim that "they" (Hezbollah and the Palestinians) cynically exploit civilians by locating themselves among them and firing from their midst is automatically added.

This claim is made by citizens of a state who know very well where to turn off Ibn Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv to get to the security-military complex that is located in the heart of their civilian city; this claim is repeated by the parents of armed soldiers who bring their weapons home on weekends, and is recited by soldiers whose bases are adjacent to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and who have shelled civilian Palestinian neighborhoods from positions and tanks that have been stationed inside civilian settlements.

"We didn't mean to" is the cousin of "I didn't know," and both of them are close neighbors of the double standard. What is permitted to us is forbidden to others. What hurts us does not hurt others (because they are "other").

IDF soldiers have killed 44 children in Gaza since June 28, when the failed campaign to release abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit began. That is 44 children out of the 188 people the IDF has killed in Gaza - civilians and armed men, most of whom had embarked on a doomed fight against the invading tanks. The last three who were killed, on Monday, were three farmers from Beit Hanoun who were hit by an IDF shell - about as precise as a Hezbollah Katyusha - instead of the rocket launcher it had been intended to hit.

More at;
FromOccupiedPalestine

[idontwantaname]

1. double standard indeed. *sigh*

1) http://jta.org/page_view_breaking_story.asp?intid=4255

Petition wants U.N. reparations for Israel

Pro-Israel advocates launched a petition calling on the United Nations to
provide reparations to Israel for damage caused by Hezbollah.

The petition says the “U.N. Security Council failed to discharge its
obligation. It allowed Hezbollah to entrench itself in southern Lebanon and to spread
its terror to the people of Lebanon.”

As of Thursday afternoon, the petition had garnered more than 34,000
signatures.


2) Editorial in the 8/11 Forward:

Friends of Israel should begin planning now to direct a portion of its fundraising proceeds to Lebanese relief, in the hope that other international relief agencies will reciprocate and direct a portion of their Middle East aid to rebuilding northern Israel.

[breakaleg]

11. They have got to be kidding!

[Igel]

2. Interesting.

The Catholic monks taught Muslims something. Casuistry.

If I have a sniper's rifle and I'm trying to wound a hostage taker, and I'm trained and have reasonable skill in hitting my target, I still know there's a chance I might miss and hit a civilian.

I could be somebody in the same situation with a copy of a rifle from the mid-1800s, which had inherently lousy aim--and I might not have any training. If I shoot, it's highly unlikely that I'll hit the person I'm aiming at.

But they're the same. Really. We can't make judgments based on intent, knowledge, or even statistics. Because the judgment may not be 'correct'.

Even if I'm a policemen in the first case, and a gang member in the second. Being shot at in the first case, and shooting at others because I think they're inferior and should die in the second.

But really, they're the same. Both kill civilians. Point out a particular, assume it's the only thing that matters, and overrule everything else.

Using the same kind of reasoning, I'm fairly sure I could show that there's no difference between Islam and Hinduism, and Muhammed was a nudibranch.

[msmcghee]

3. Ooops, wrong place for this comment. Self delete.

[IntiRaymi]

13. David vs. Goliath?

I wonder if you would be interested in siding with Goliath.
The establishment vs. the upstarts, and the upstarts won, according that Myth known as the Bible.

[msmcghee]

4. Your post seems so reasonable to the casual (uninformed) obserever.

It is incredibly wrong however, because it supposes that the state of conflict that exists is shared equally by the parties - therefore whatever ethics apply in the conflict apply equally to both parties.

It fails to consider the single most important fact - a fact that has existed since November of 1948. That is, that Israel is defending her territory and the lives of her citizens from hostile attacks from groups that have overtly pledged to destroy Israel.

The UN does not have a policy of conflict resolution that says there is no difference between attacker and defender. The UN rules state that it is a terrible crime to attack another nation and its citizens - and that a nation defending itself from such an attack has great leeway in stopping that attack from succeeding.

Your myopic view is the product of very poor understanding of history and international relations between civilized nations - and is better classified as religious-like myth than reality. Like most true-believers you gladly warp reality to fit your religious-like convictions.

[mike_c]

5. believing that this conflict began in November 1948 is equally...

...myopic. See http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13199.htm

[idontwantaname]

7. as long as were posting videos...

some insight... surely a cure for myopia?

http://ifamericansknew.org/stats/cap-prisq.html

[mike_c]

8. thanks-- I'll have to watch it later....

No quicktime on this computer (I assume that's why it's not working for me).

[mike_c]

12. wow-- that is a powerful video....

Thanks-- I finally got a chance to watch it. Everyone should see that video.

[msmcghee]

9. It is true that Arabs and Jews had conflicts . .

. . with each other before that date. However, that is the date that the Arab attacks became directed at the state of Israel - and by other Arab states declaring a state of war against Israel that became a nation on that date.

In 1948, no Palestinian state was invaded or destroyed to make way for the establishment of Israel. From biblical times, when this territory was the state of the Jews, to its occupation by the British army at the end of World War I, Palestine had never existed as a distinct political entity but was rather part of one empire after another, from the Romans, to the Arabs, to the Ottomans. When the British arrived in 1917, the immediate loyalties of the area's inhabitants were parochial -- to clan, tribe, village, town, or religious sect -- and coexisted with their fealty to the Ottoman sultan-caliph as the religious and temporal head of the world Muslim community.

Under a League of Nations mandate explicitly meant to pave the way for the creation of a Jewish national home, the British established the notion of an independent Palestine for the first time and delineated its boundaries. In 1947, confronted with a determined Jewish struggle for independence, Britain returned the mandate to the League's successor, the United Nations, which in turn decided on November 29, 1947, to partition mandatory Palestine into two states: one Jewish, the other Arab.

The state of Israel was thus created by an internationally recognized act of national self-determination -- an act, moreover, undertaken by an ancient people in its own homeland. In accordance with common democratic practice, the Arab population in the new state's midst was immediately recognized as a legitimate ethnic and religious minority. As for the prospective Arab state, its designated territory was slated to include, among other areas, the two regions under contest today -- namely, Gaza and the West Bank (with the exception of Jerusalem, which was to be placed under international control).

As is well known, the implementation of the UN's partition plan was aborted by the effort of the Palestinians and of the surrounding Arab states to destroy the Jewish state at birth. What is less well known is that even if the Jews had lost the war, their territory would not have been handed over to the Palestinians. Rather, it would have been divided among the invading Arab forces, for the simple reason that none of the region's Arab regimes viewed the Palestinians as a distinct nation. As the eminent Arab-American historian Philip Hitti described the common Arab view to an Anglo-American commission of inquiry in 1946, "There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not."

[mike_c]

10. again, you're being disingenuous about the crimes zionists committed...

...prior to the partition. They pursued a deliberate policy of displacement and dispossession against the Palestinian inhabitants of the British Mandate, and they are STILL in violation of international humanitarian law with regard to allowing refugees to return to their homes. Israel is a bald-faced apartheid state. The world knows how to respond to apartheid.

[MrPrax]

14. Give it a break...

Using one set of imperialist justifications to support another one is really missing the point.

But I ask you...if the UN has the power to wave a magic wand and produce countries, then maybe the UN should just arbitrarily CREATE a Palestinian state...or would the "the surrounding Jewish state (try) destroy the Palestinian state at birth."

The fact of the matter if the situation ultimately comes down to the right of conquest - which is your entire argument - they WHY complain about Arabs wanting to destroy Israel and take it over all the time?

The game will always be in play, no? Or does it stop simply because Israel doesn't want to play the game anymore.

From the standpoint of non-Jews, Israel possess 200 nuclear warheads. What IF it comes to pass that the non-Jews decide...shit Allan Dershowitz is right dammit...we have every right to protect ourselves.

What happens if Israel is given the 'Iraq' treatment? You got a crystal ball? If Israel can exist through a stroke of a pen, then it can disappear just as easily, no? You act as if Israel is something cast in stone. It's not...Israel can be finished as quickly as you say 'sanctions'.

It is ultimately in Israel's best interests to solve these problems and one of these problems is continuing to occupy land that was NEVER -- I repeat -- NEVER part of the original mandate. You seem to forget this part while the whole time the settlements continue to be built on disputed land.

Rather than grabbing a bit of Balfour (a racist), a dab of Churchill, some Truman, throw in some Ottoman empire and a tea party in Frisco in 1947 to make your point...maybe winning hearts and minds should be the order fo the day. The arrogantly racist policy where Israel seems to think that defending Israel at any costs is not likely to win many non-Jewish friends who will soon realize that they TOO are the 'terrorist' and they TOO might get bombed on behalf of Israeli security.

Long-term, Israel will lose...history tells us this.

You like history, right?

[mike_c]

6. hmmm-- strange posting error-- self deleted duplicate...

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