The Double Standard
Eamon McDonagh on Z-Word blog about proportionality in time of war and the political hypocrisy of Europeans:
... it may have escaped your attention that last Thursday Spanish forces killed 13 members of the Taliban without suffering so much as a scratch on their own side.
We know that they were members of the Taliban because there were independent NGO or ICRC people on the spot who checked and made sure that none of the dead were civilians who grabbed the family AK47 and stuck their heads outside when they heard the firefight start, don’t we? It’s inconceivable that the Spanish soldiers on the spot might have sought to avoid future embarrassing questions by making sure there was a weapon close to each dead Afghan, isn’t it? Even to hint at the possibility of such a thing would be to stain the honor of a noble army, wouldn’t it?
El País of Madrid is the newspaper that reports the story. If a Palestinian falls over and twists his ankle within sight of Israeli soldiers El País is quick to talk of the thirst for blood inherent in the makeup of the only army in the world that has mostly Jewish members.The Israeli journalist, Ben Dror Yemini, in the past, drew attention to the exact same double standard in the reporting and attention given to events in war time. Here is a reminder, via Solomonia:
We, Israelis, owe no explanations to the Europeans. They owe us explanations. The Taliban has not fired any rocket into any European city. Hamas shoots into Israeli towns. The Taliban does not proclaim a sacred desire to kill all Europeans. Hamas promotes the killing of Jews in its charter and Hamas leaders repeat this instruction religiously in their sermons. Yet Europeans continue fighting in Afghanistan, justifying their war on the grounds that they are at war against a central faction of Islamic fanaticism, just like Israel fights against the Hamas. Moreover, the Hamas' threat to Israel's security and future is far greater and more immediate than any threat the Taliban poses to Europe.
So why are Europeans allowed to conduct a war on territory that is thousands of miles removed from their homes, kill hundreds or thousands of innocent civilians and claim that their cause is necessary, while Israel cannot do the same? By what right do they absolve themselves while condemning Israel?
Proportionality
Thousands of Taliban fighters die each year as compared with "just" a few tens of European soldiers. Hundreds or thousands of civilians die in Afghanistan, as compared to zero civilian casualties in Europe. So you, in Europe, purport to lecture to us, Israelis, about war ethics and "proportional responses?" Are you for real?
Just so as to remind and to ask you why you think Europeans' blood boils at such high temperatures when it is Israel, engaged in a defensive war against an implacable and relentless enemy, that does the killing? What exactly is it about Israel that causes this aberration?
posted by The Contentious Centrist @ Monday, September 07, 2009
29 comments
29 Comments:
"What exactly is it about Israel that causes this aberration?"
Let me guess: they don't have direct access to Dead Sea? They envy our ability to "lenagev" humus? Our football is so superior to their pitiful level?
Well, I have exhausted my three chances.
Good god, you people are hypocrites. If it weren't for the Israeli govt. funding Hamas in the late 70's in a slimy attempt to undermine secular Palestinians you wouldn't now be dealing with these guys! Chickens coming home to roost, anyone?
Israel did not fund Hamas in the late 70's in order to undermine secular Palestinians. Israel encouraged law-abiding non-violent Islamic Societies to operate in the public arena as a counterweight to the activities of violent and criminal anti-Jewish PLO groups. The fact that the PLO was secular and the religious societies were religious was neither here nor there. Until 1987, the year of Hamas' founding, the Islamists did not engage in violence.
You could argue that the policy was misguided, risky and unlikely to succeed, but that does not make it hypocritical or slimy. The secular Palestinians of the late 1970's were carrying out bombing and shooting attacks on Israelis and Israel was correct to try to undermine them, using a wide variety of tactics.
Good point and all (I suppose the massive generalisation was on purpose) but this is bollocks
'Thousands of Taliban fighters die each year as compared with "just" a few tens of European soldiers'
Considering Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad ( who, like Hamas, evolved from Muslim Brotherhood) were active at the same time as Hamas and were most certainly being closely scrutinised by Israeli intelligence,the idea that the intention behind the funding of Hamas by Israel was for any other purpose than to create a fissure in the Palestinian resistance is farcical.
try this: Israel "aided Hamas directly ‑ the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization)," said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies."
or perhaps:
""The thinking on the part of some of the right-wing Israeli establishment was that Hamas and the others, if they gained control, would refuse to have any part of the peace process and would torpedo any agreements put in place," said a U.S. government official who asked not to be named. "Israel would still be the only democracy in the region for the United States to deal with," he said.
According to former State Department counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson, "the Israelis are their own worst enemies when it comes to fighting terrorism. The Israelis are like a guy who sets fire to his hair and then tries to put it out by hitting it with a hammer. They do more to incite and sustain terrorism than curb it," he said." (Published on the June 18, 2002)"http://www.marxist.com/MiddleEast-old/hamas_0803.html
Omar: You are making two different arguments here.
You first said: "If it weren't for the Israeli govt. funding Hamas in the late 70's in a slimy attempt to undermine secular Palestinians"
And then: "the idea that the intention behind the funding of Hamas by Israel was for any other purpose than to create a fissure in the Palestinian resistance is farcical."
Of course Israel's intention was to create a fissure in Palestinian "resistance" (terrorism) by propping what they thought would have been a more benign indigenous Palestinian movement which would not be taking orders from the PLO.
But from your initial comment I got the impression that you believe Israel supported the creation of Islamic organization in order to thwart secular Palestinians, out of sheer malice against those fun-loving secular Palestinians.
Perhaps you would enlighten us as to what your position actually is.
And another thing, perhaps you could explain why it was wrong of Israel to try and create a fissure in "Palestinian resistance". Wouldn't the Palestinians have been better off today if they had taken the road of compromise and peace which would have given them what they claim to want: their own statehood?
There's no inconsistency, Noga. PLO/ Fatah officials were THE political representatives of the Palestinian populations in the Occupied Territories during the 70's and 80's. For "resistance" you could just as well use the term "people." So the Israeli plan was to not simply to "combat terrorism" or create a "more benign indigenous movement" but to actively promote chaos and internal strife amongst the Palestinian population ( and I would say it has largely succeeded) because it's fairly obvious that Israel
has very little appetite for peace
if it means all but the tiniest morsel of land by which the Palestinians can claim statehood. Palestinians have consistently compromised but Israel invariably adds another hoop to jump through or moves the goalposts again.
...Or elects a right-wing fanatic who tears up any previous agreements.
Just to bring this back to the post; this may help answer- to all but the most blinkered Zionists-"What exactly is it about Israel that causes this aberration?"
Given the suffering of Jews, perhaps the rest of the "civilised world" expects you would possess the insight not to repeat such behaviour? Just a thought.
Playing Machiavellian games with people who've legitimate claims and then screaming "anti-Semitism" when others call you on it doesn't help. Shame on you.
CC asked: "What exactly is it about Israel that causes this aberration?"
And Omar finally comes around to answer the question:
"Given the suffering of Jews, perhaps the rest of the "civilised world" expects you would possess the insight not to repeat such behaviour?"
Antisemitic? Nah, legitimate criticism of Israel's policies...
The PLO/Fatah of the 1970's and 1980's was conducting an "armed struggle" whose purpose was to bring about the military defeat of Israel and the liquidation of the "Zionist presence" in Palestine. Why did such people deserve more consideration from Israel than law-abiding, non-violent Islamic Palestinian groups? Israel has no quarrel with Islam, only with Islamist supremacists who seek to dhimmify the Jews. Hamas did not exist until 1987, and was confronted by Israel immediately after it chose the path of violence.
Since when have US State Department officials and people like Cordesman, Johnson and "anonymous" acquired stature or credibility in fighting terrorism? The incompetence and sloth of the US Government agencies entrusted with the task of capturing and liquidating Al Qaeda and its leaders are scandalous, and they are the last people on earth who should be lecturing Israel about how to combat its enemies.
"Antisemitic? Nah, legitimate criticism of Israel's policies..."
Sigh... right on cue.
Omar:
You don't seem to get it, do you? The second you start an argument involving Israel and Palestinians with "Given the suffering of Jews...", you have forfeited any claim to rationality.
Listening to you, one might be excused for inferring that what you are prescribing is that Jews, having suffered, should allow Palestinians to kill them and take over their land.
When rationality about Jews flies out of the window with a shriek, then we are in the presence of antisemitic sentiment.
Which is exactly the point people make when they complain about "criticism of Israel" being antisemitic. It's not legitimate criticism that is antisemitic. It's the choice of some "critics" to hold Jews accountable for the Holocaust by denying them their right to their own state, a Jewish state, in their historical homeland. This is not "criticism" about checkpoints and barriers. This is antisemitism, plain and simple.
There is nothing anti-Semitic or irrational in " given the suffering of Jews..."- Zionists frequently claim a historically unique suffering ( and therefore a unique insight )to justify a need for a Jewish homeland( though where this unique insight was when Israel was selling arms to the racist South African regime or providing training to brutal Latin American juntas you may know the answer to).
Your post asked a rhetorical question that was meant to imply that criticism of Israel (particularly in Europe) was in fact a nefarious anti-Semitic plot of some kind and not , as I pointed out , a reasonable expectation that those who claim the moral highground ,as Zionists often do, cannot then engage in similar brutalization of a people under the auspices of "self-defense".
You're fight for a homeland simply cannot be excused if it means the extermination of a people who have an equal claim on the land. The world expects Jews, more than most, to understand this concept.
"Stamp your feet and shout "Never Again!" / Now you are the fascist just like the blue-eyed men."
"Victim's Inquisition"
by Heart Attack
(Jesse Malin's old punk band)
"the extermination of a people "??
And this you consider "legitimate criticism of Israel"?
You seem to command quite a good understanding of the English, which means that you can have no excuse for abusing language in this perverse manner. It is done with deliberation and awareness. An abuse of language with the purpose of demonizing a country and a people, to what end?
What should happen to Israel, Omar?
Omar, as Noga stated--and most of Israel's supporters state time and time again--criticism of Israel is to be expected. What matters is the content of the criticism.
Is one a critic of specific Israeli policies (settlement development, for example) or of Israel in general?
Does one hold all Jews responsible for Israeli policies or those Israelis who actually formulate policy?
You seem to be one of those people who makes blanket condemnations of Israel as a state and by extension all Israeli citizens and by extension the Jewish people.
Learn a little history. The early Zionists purchased the land from absentee landlords, they did not force people off the land by force. When the state of Israel was established, it was the Arab states who attacked. This is common knowledge to anyone who has dared to learn a little about the history of the region and not buy into the standard lefty narrative.
"Does one hold all Jews responsible for Israeli policies or those Israelis who actually formulate policy?"
Try your rhetorical traps on others, mate. Many of the most eloquent,incisive critics of Israel are Jews; Noam Chomsky, Uri Davis, Jeffrey Blankfort, Israel Finkelstein, etc, etc. But I guess they must be the "self-hating" kind who follow the "standard lefty narrative." Seems to be an awful lot of them , eh? Wonder why?
"Absentee landlords?" LOL! That's one (rather warped) way of looking at it! You Zionists are always good for a chuckle.
It isn't about "rhetorical traps," Omar. It's about understanding the difference between critiquing the policies of a state (Israel) and critiquing an entire people. Most people understand the distinction. Except those like yourself who throw around the claim that Zionists declare "all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic." It simply isn't true.
"Seems to be an awful lot of them..."
Hardly. They just seem numerous because you are part of that milieu. When you break out of your ideological blinders you would see that the vast majority of Jews do not see things the same way as Finkelstein et al.
There has been much scholarship on the issue of absentee landlords. I don’t expect you to be open to learning anything that challenges the nonsense you read but here is some info on Jewish land purchases/absentee landlords:
(http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Arabs_in_Palestine.html)
"Despite the growth in their population, the Arabs continued to assert they were being displaced. The truth is from the beginning of World War I, part of Palestine’s land was owned by absentee landlords who lived in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut. About 80 percent of the Palestinian Arabs were debt-ridden peasants, semi-nomads and Bedouins.
Jews actually went out of their way to avoid purchasing land in areas where Arabs might be displaced. They sought land that was largely uncultivated, swampy, cheap and, most important, without tenants. In 1920, Labor Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion expressed his concern about the Arab fellahin, whom he viewed as “the most important asset of the native population.” Ben-Gurion said “under no circumstances must we touch land belonging to fellahs or worked by them.” He advocated helping liberate them from their oppressors. “Only if a fellah leaves his place of settlement,” Ben-Gurion added, “should we offer to buy his land, at an appropriate price.”
It was only after the Jews had bought all of this available land that they began to purchase cultivated land. Many Arabs were willing to sell because of the migration to coastal towns and because they needed money to invest in the citrus industry.
When John Hope Simpson arrived in Palestine in May 1930, he observed: “They [Jews] paid high prices for the land, and in addition they paid to certain of the occupants of those lands a considerable amount of money which they were not legally bound to pay.”
In 1931, Lewis French conducted a survey of landlessness and eventually offered new plots to any Arabs who had been “dispossessed.” British officials received more than 3,000 applications, of which 80 percent were ruled invalid by the Government’s legal adviser because the applicants were not landless Arabs. This left only about 600 landless Arabs, 100 of whom accepted the Government land offer."
This is all common knowledge, Omar.
I can't cut and paste the table legibly,TNC, but it provides a fairly concise rebuttal of the lie of "invalid" Arab land claims/ limited ownership you cite:
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Maps/Story571.html
Ben Gurion,The Hagana,etc, certainly found an alternate way of "persuading" a Palestinian landowner to "leave his place of settlement" rather than "an appropriate price."
As documented by Uri Davis, the main export during Israel's early years was boxes of fruit, from orchards on ,predominantly, annexed Arab land.
As for the critiquing of Israel vis-a-vis it's population. There is plenty of criticism of Israeli/ Zionist expansionism within Israel but ,as was the case following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the majority of Israelis thought the best message to send to Palestinians and the world was the election of a hawk like Benjamin Neytanyahu. After the breakdown of the Barak-Arafat-Clinton summit they went one better and elected a convicted war criminal named Ariel Sharon. So how precisely should Palestinians and those sympathetic to their cause react?
"...a convicted war criminal named Ariel Sharon."
Here is a nice example of how Omar plays around with facts and records to suit his own inclinations.
In which court was Sharon convicted? And for what war crime? Can you cite a reliable source for this information?
I'm still, btw, waiting for that link to the Toronto star article in which link it was reported (according to you) that IDF soldiers knee capped Israeli journalists who were not so favourable to Israel.
"So how precisely should Palestinians and those sympathetic to their cause react?"
Is this a justification for the antisemitic content expressed in the opinions of "Palestinians and those sympathetic to their cause"? And what exactly is the Palestinian cause? Can you articulate its goals and means in simple words?
The table you cited says nothing about whether the Arab owners were residents or non-residents. Based on what I know, the vast majority were the latter.
"Ben Gurion,The Hagana,etc, certainly found an alternate way of "persuading" a Palestinian landowner to "leave his place of settlement" rather than "an appropriate price."
Did this happen before the state of Israel was established or after? If after, you are well aware that the country was in a state of war at that point. A war started by her Arab neighbors.
I don't dispute that Israel annexed land during these wars. Whether that was a proper or improper thing to do I am open to debate. I think it was and I think any country would behave in a similar manner.
But the standard lefty narrative--one you seem to subscribe to--is that the Zionists arrived in the nineteenth century as "imperialists" who drove the Arabs off the land by force. All reliable evidence proves that during this early period, land was purchased. The evidence is available in numerous archives, including the archives imperial powers that controlled the land at the time (British, Ottoman).
Ben Gurion, the Haganah, Etzel/Irgun, etc. come much, much, later. I am open to disagreements on a lot of things, but not basic chronology.
What archival evidence (primary sources) did Uri Davis use to support his conclusions? Any at all? Or did he simply repeat the claims in secondary sources that agreed with his particular perspective?
I am not from the historical school that views history as simply a matter of competing narratives. I require evidence. And for historians, that evidence is located in primary sources.
I understand many Israelis are critical "of Israeli/ Zionist expansionism," I have many friends who are critical in this way. However, the radical left, Palestinian nationalists and Islamists, are not critical of "Zionist expansion" but of the foundation of Israel. Or, in their words, "the Zionist entity." To put it another way, these political forces view the establishment of Israel as "Zionist expansion" whereas the vast majority of the Israeli critics you refer to (not counting the loony left) are talking about the expansion into the territories known as the Gaza Strip and the "West Bank" i.e. Judea and Samaria.
Excellent well made point in the OP Noga.
The funny or not so funny thing is that much of Europe is going to be in the same pickle that Israel is in, in the near future. Fighting a terrorist war against Islamic supremacists in the streets of Paris, Malmo, and London, etc.
I predict "apartheid walls" being erected in many cities.
Idiots.
PS - They still have me banned at Harry's Place.
;)
I'm afraid as I only log on from work ,I have to post on-the-run and cannot respond with quite the depth and frequency the subject demands. However ,TNC, you cannot possibly be serious in suggesting that out of the more than 1 million Palestinians who populated the lands in question prior to 1948 the majority who owned land were "absentee landlords"who sold their holdings to Jews. There is no doubt that land sales to Zionists occured but not in sufficient quantity to justify the huge land grab that was the state of Israel. The shortcomings of the semi-feudal ,Musha' system combined with often unpredictable yields through the 20's and 30's placed enormous economic pressure on Palestinians with small-to-medium holdings ( as the British offered nothing but lip service).Plenty did sell but many more later became absentee through death, expulsion or terror and ,this being the case, the land should still be inherited by their families, not taken by Zionist interests.You say any other country would do the same thing but if the parallel of Swiss bank reparations for stolen Jewish property during WW2 is valid ( and it most certainly is) then so is the case for annexed/reposeseed Palestinian land. If Israel was in a state of war with her Arab neighbours she most certainly used it as an opportunity to all but eliminate the Palestinian presence in Palestine. According to Israel Shahak, Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights report "Arab Villages Destroyed in Israel" ( Documents from Israel 1967-1973, p.47 )the number of Arab villages prior to 1948 was 475 which, post-1948, was reduced to 90. Again, your contention that Jews bought-up most of the land from absentee landlords is questionable as ,"... until 1947, individual or corporate Jewish land ownership in Palestine did not exceed 7 %, or 10% of the land that subsequently came under Israeli rule post- 1948 "(Davis "Israel: An Apartheid State, p.18). This is the reason why the establishment of the State of Israel is seen as a "Zionist expansion." As to Uri Davis' sources, he is prone to yawn- inducing, lengthy quotations including one, in "Israel: An Apartheid State" p.19, from The Jewish National Fund report, "Jewish Villages in Israel" p.xxi, that-to paraphrase- admits that " 88 % or 20,225,00 dunums within the 1949 Armistice lines belongs at law to Arab owners, many who have "left" the country" ( emphasis added). These are facts and evidence, TNC, and while they may contradict the Zionist narrative, your slinging around terms like "loony-left" or "standard lefty-narrative " reveals you to be as blinkered and selectively biased as you claim your opponents to be.
Hey Noga, I stand corrected on Ariel Sharon but if he'd been tried anywhere else... well Robert Fisk (a fave read of yours, no doubt) says it better than I could:
"The subsequent Israeli Kahan commission of enquiry into this atrocity provided absolute proof that Israeli soldiers saw the massacre taking place. The evidence of a Lieutenant Avi Grabovsky was crucial. He was an Israeli deputy tank commander and reported what he saw to his higher command. "Don't interfere," the senior officer said. Ever afterwards, Israeli embassies around the world would claim that the commission held Sharon only indirectly responsible for the massacre. It was untrue. The last page of the official Israeli report held Sharon "personally responsible". It was years later that the Israeli-trained Phalangist commander, Elie Hobeika, now working for the Syrians, agreed to turn state's evidence against Sharon - now the Israeli Prime Minister - at a Brussels court. The day after the Israeli attorney general declared Sharon's defence a "state" matter, Hobeika was killed by a massive car bomb in east Beirut. Israel denied responsibility. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Brussels and quietly threatened to withdraw Nato headquarters from Belgium if the country maintained its laws to punish war criminals from foreign nations. Within months, George W Bush had declared Sharon "a man of peace". It was all over."
In the end, Sharon got away with it, even when it was proved that he had, the night before the Phalangists attacked the civilians of the camp, publicly blamed the Palestinians for the murder of their leader, President-elect Bashir Gemayel. Sharon told these ruthless men that the Palestinians had killed their beloved "chief". Then he sent them in among the civilian sheep - and claimed later he could never have imagined what they would do in Chatila. Only years later was it proved that hundreds of Palestinians who survived the original massacre were interrogated by the Israelis and then handed back to the murderers to be slaughtered over the coming weeks.
So it is as a war criminal that Sharon will be known forever in the Arab world, through much of the Western world, in fact - save, of course, for the craven men in the White House and the State Department and the Blair Cabinet - as well as many leftist Israelis. Sabra and Chatila was a crime against humanity. Its dead counted more than half the fatalities of the World Trade Centre attacks of 2001. But the man who was responsible was a "man of peace". It was he who claimed that the preposterous Yasser Arafat was a Palestinian bin Laden. He it was who as Israeli foreign minister opposed Nato's war in Kosovo, inveighing against "Islamic terror" in Kosovo. "The moment that Israel expresses support...it's likely to be the next victim. Imagine that one day Arabs in Galilee demand that the region in which they live be recognised as an autonomous area, connected to the Palestinian Authority..." Ah yes, Sharon as an ally of another war criminal, Slobodan Milosevic. There must be no Albanian state in Kosovo.
I save terms like loony-left for those who deserve the appellation. Many leftist writers are measured and nuanced in their writings.
Davis, who has penned:
"Towards a Socialist Republic of Palestine"
"Israel: An Apartheid State"
"Crossing the Border: an autobiography of an Anti-Zionist Palestinian Jew"
is an expert in cherry-picking sources to fit his political agenda. These are not the titles one would expect from a historian. But Davis isn't a historian, he is an anthropologist. Chomsky isn't a historian either. Nor is Finkelstein. But people like you continue to trot these people out as if they are historical experts. They are not.
Davis, Finkelstein and the other non-historians who like to pretend they are historians, deserve to be called out for what they are. Total nut jobs. I used to run in these circles before I left the left. Once you get outside the scene you are able to see how crazy these people really are.
Ah yes, when the facts and figures contradict your own( though you insist upon them), cast doubt upon the source. It's the oldest trick in the book and widely used by Zionists. So considering you don't "do" narratives and anyone who doesn't(ironically) buy the Zionist version of things (itself a narrative) must be utilising uncredible sources and are thus mistaken. Meaning the only possible correct opinion one can have is, of course, a pro-Zionist one! Sheer genius! Case closed.
All those "loony leftists" I cited probably have better academic credentials than you , I suspect.
"All those "loony leftists" I cited probably have better academic credentials than you , I suspect."
Omar, none of them are historians. That is the issue here. Historians have certain standards when it comes to sources.
I read books written from a wide variety of political perspectives. I may not always agree with their conclusions, but I read them nevertheless. As I mentioned above:
"Many leftist writers are measured and nuanced in their writings."
Perhaps you missed that?
"Historians have certain standards when it comes to sources."
Yep, that David Irving is one hell of a yardstick. Gimme a break, historians can analyse the same "facts" and documents and come to wildly divergent conclusions as to their significance depending on their particular bias.
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