Read Laila el-Haddad’s account of how Israeli F-16s today bombed President Mahmoud Abbas’s presidential compound near the area of downtown Gaza where she and her family live:
- Israeli fighter jets have been roaring forbodingly, and with great intensity, over Gaza’s skies all morning. So we figured it was only a matter of time before an aerial attack ensued. Predictably, we soon heard two consecutive powerful explosions that rocked the city-again we wondered, sonic boom or bomb attack? Since we could hear the jets roaring beforehand we could only assume it was a real attack.
The local radio stations and Palestine TV confirmed this: Mahmud Abbas’s presidential compound was under attack. Israeli F-16s bombarded Abbas’s helicopter launchpad/runway which is located near his office in the presidential compound in Gaza City, and another location in northern Gaza that security forces use to train.
Hospitals reported two injuries.
So the question becomes, why would they attack the presidential compound? Most certainly, there are no Qassam rockets being launched from there…
Further north, nearer the area from which renegade Palestinian factions intermittently launch extremely primitive Qassam rockets into Israel, a 42-year-old Palestinian man was killed by the Israeli assault as he stood in a field. And seven Palestinians, including a 6-month-old baby were injured– two of them reportedly in a critical condition.
That AFP report cited there continues:
- [President] Abbas condemned the air strike and called on the international community to intervene to stop the violence, in a statement issued by his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
“Continued arbitrary shelling in Gaza is an unjustified escalation,” he later told reporters.
“They (Israel) are trying to complicate the life of Palestinians and finish destroying Palestinian institutions after destroying so many in previous years.
“I address myself to Arab countries, the UN, Russia and the European Union to explain that these acts complicate the lives of Palestinians and have serious repercussions on the humanitarian, social and economic situation.”
An Israeli military spokeswoman said a wave of air strikes was ordered after Palestinian militants fired four rockets that exploded near Israeli communities without causing damage or casualties.
“We attacked an open area that it is unpopulated inside Gaza City. There was no intention of attacking the building that is near it,” she told AFP.
“We wanted to pass a message. We want to make it understood that Israel and the IDF (army) will not tolerate the firing of Qassam rockets,” she added.
Israeli strikes have repeatedly failed to put a halt to the rocket attacks, with the armed wing of the ultra-radical Islamic Jihad claiming to have fired five rockets towards the southern town of Ashkelon on Tuesday. The army could confirm four rockets had been fired without causing injuries or damage.
I can certainly tell you, from my recent trip to Gaza, that the presidential compound is surrounded by residential buildings. Dropping bombs on it from F-16s certainly provides no indication at all that the IAF exercized the “due diligence” required of it under international humanitarian law, that in its military operations it limit itself to striking only legitimate military targets while also taking active steps to avoid civilian casualties.
Anyway, I urge you all to read the rest of Laila’s post about life in Gaza, too.
The fact that no deaths were reported would belie Helena’s claim that Israel did not do the required “due diligence.”
Funny how Helena did not complain about the lack of due diligence when Palestinians were firing rockets into Israel on a daily basis.
What a bizarre (or highly discriminatory/racist) woman!
Israel would ethnically cleanse the occupied territories if it could get away with it. We in the U.S. have paid a heavy price waiting for Israel to realize that it can’t achieve that goal.
So Joshua, don’t talk of “highly discriminatory/racist”. We have soiled our standing in the world supporting Israel’s racist and irrational policies.
It bears noting that two Israelis were killed last week by one of these “primitive” rockets.
Israel would ethnically cleanse the occupied territories if it could get away with it.
That’s a nice, speculative assertion. Persumably Hamas would ehnically ckeanse Israel if they could get away with it.
Abbas’s supposed compound and headquarters in issue in Gaza were abandoned years ago. This is a phoney story. Helena should know better.
Neal, what on earth is the basis of your assertion? Were you there recently? I was. Two security people there were injured in the attack. Why do you come here and make completely unsubstantiated assertions?
Helena,
The compound had previously been abandoned. So says The Jerusalem Post. I have no reason to doubt the The Jerusalem Post story I read. I have a lot of reason to doubt the blog you quote.
The link is already mentioned by Henry James who also, before I corrected him, chose to re-write the story, based, remarkably, in part on The Jerusalem Post story. His version sounds a lot like that of your blogger. Here, in any event, is the link to The Jerusalem Post story. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1143498797152&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The key phrase in the story is as follows – again, already posted by me -:
I criticized the quoted blog story because it is no better than the 45 minutes for Saddam to deploy WMD’s story from the Blair administration (i.e. a gross exageration to make a phoney point). Again, it was not Abbas’ headquarters. It was not anything at the time of the attack and the attack.
So, why does the blogger write: “So the question becomes, why would they attack the presidential compound?”? The answer: phoney propaganda.
I would take your post more seriously if you also told the Palestinian Arabs to stop sending rockets at the Israelis. That violates, as you note about the Israelis, International Law. What is good for the goose is also good for the gander.
What we have is advocacy and propaganda rather than concern for International law and human rights. And that is immoral and harms an important cause: International law and human rights, exposing it to the criticism which it critics employ, namely, that human rights and International law are phoney.
Tell the HAMAS government to take steps against those who do these sorts of things rather than, as HAMAS has done, applauding such activity. Then, your blog post might have made a legitimate point.
Based on your approach, I can only assume that humanitarian law and human rights are merely a political tool exploited by you. And that, to me, sets back the worthy cause of human rights, as noted above.
Absent evenhandedness in your assertions, there is a lack of credibility. A phoney story for a phoney cause!!! And not impressive at all.
Correction:
The Jerusalem Post has updated the story so the material I quoted is no longer on the URL I cited. The bombing is still at an abandoned cite – as I said. However, Abbas also has a real headquarters in the general area.
According to the article:
The material you cite is still phoney propaganda for the reasons I cited.
[Shortly after the shelling in Beit Lahiya, F-16 fighter jets dropped two missiles on Abbas’s helicopter pad inside an abandoned police base near the Palestinian leader’s presidential compound. The missiles landed at the Ansar 2 compound about 100 meters from Abbas’s office. Two police officers were wounded during the missile strike.]
So, this JePo story clearly suggests that PA campus was attacked of which Abbas’s office is a part. Note also that his chopper pad was struck.
To participate in a meaningful discussion, one needs to be able to make good abstracts of news stories. If you can’t do this, it is all over. If you enjoy pointless bickering, it is your problem.
Yes, of course I call for the ending of all uses of violence. This includes the Palestinians’ use of rockets against Israel (which though primitive do on occasion inflict real casualties) and Israel’s use of the far more lethal means of violence including aerial bombardment, artillery shelling, etc. I also call for the end of all structural/administrative violence like those border closings that are intended to coerce whole civilian populations into complying with the will of a foreign government, and which inflict real harm on those populations.
I’ve written about my opposition to the use of all violence on numerous occasions. On this occasion I wrote that Israel’s actions were– as the Israeli military spokesperson herself indicated– clearly escalatory. That is, in return for what she said were four Qassam rockets that caused no damage in Israel, Israel had ordered air strikes and other escalatory actions. These resulted in one death and the wounding of seven people.
Moreover, the spokesperson admitted that these actions were ordered for “message-sending” reasons– that is, for reasons of political coercion rather than military necessity.
In running an occupation (which is what Israel is still doing w/ regard to its control over all access to and airspace over Gaza), military necessity is the only allowed reason for the occupying power to undertake military action. Thus, trying to respond to the sources of rocket fire or supply lines leading to them would be allowed. But ordering a purely “message sending” aerial bombardment of a militarily unrelated location would not.
So Neal, Joshua, I haven’t seen you express any regret over the Palestinian casualties. Can this possibly mean that you don’t care about them as much as you would about Israeli casualties?
Helena,
Well, I do not ever favor people getting killed. So, I do have regrets.
The problem on reading your posts is that your condemnation of Palestinian Arab violence sounds like crocodile tears. I am sure you would say that about my regrets as well. However, I do not play the International law or Human Rights card – other to point out that it should run both ways in reply to those who do use that card – because I believe those causes are, at this point, hopelessly undermined by phoney human rights organizations which, in reality, are advocacy groups for pet causes.
Of course, I do support human rights and International law – but only when it is not used as propaganda. It is too important a thing for that.
As I say about the human rights card – and you can confirm my views by asking Jonathan Edelstein, who has heard my views on his website -, it has been a humanitarian disaster. The world’s worst human rights abuses have occurred in silence, with nobody saying booh.
I typically point out the Jihad against the Christians and animists of Southern Sudan, about 2 million of whom were butchered by the Jihadist government in Sudan up till about 2003 (and, of course, now we have the Darfur matter in which the Jihadists turned on those insufficiently Islamized).
Large numbers of children in Southern Sudan were taken from their families and forced to convert to Islam. Food was used as a weapon in the war – a major no no under International law, to say the least – including for purposes of forcing people to convert. And slavery (i.e. selling people at auction) was reinstituted such that there are slaves in Sudan and all over the Gulf states, while phoney human rights activitists said almost nothing.
Then there was the Congo. Again, nobody said booh. Millions died.
Where were the human rights groups on all of this? Nowhere to be seen. Where was International law? Nowhere to be found. AWOL. Why? Because, in my view, human rights groups have become propagandists, not people who favor human rights. So, when it suits an agenda, people complain and something might, perhaps, be done. Otherwise, people can be killed like they are flies.
When the human rights abusers are a favored group or their are business interests, nothing is said and nothing is done. At present, the world’s champion human rights abusers are pretty rather often in Muslim dominated countries. That includes Sudan, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc., etc. All are far, far worse than the Israelis. That is why there is mass flight of Christians from Muslim countries. As you know well, millions and millions and millions of Christians have fled from the Muslim regions over the last 10 years. And, the death toll for Christians due to Muslim violence has been staggering – millions and millions of people killed. Since 1990, an average of 160,000 non-Muslims are killed by Muslims per year in the Muslim regions. That is a staggering number of people.
Now, I do not claim that the Muslims are unique. The Chinese have done a lot of bad stuff. The West has done a lot of bad stuff. So have the Israelis. But, to single out the Israelis when they, by the standards of the region they reside, are fourth rate abusers at most is, to me, to turn human rights and International law on its head.
In the case of Israel, we have a dispute in which there is right and wrong on both sides. Two groups who have – but do not necessarily pursue – legitimate causes. But mostly, there is too little land so there is not much way for those involved to compromise or cede land or anything else. And, then there is the rise of revivalist Islam which makes compromise on the Muslim side something that cannot realistically be predicted, especially with HAMAS – a group which opposes human rights and International law on principle -.
Now, the human rights groups have turned Israel into a cause celebre, something it has no business doing as Israel is itself a victim as much as it causes problems. In doing so, some of these groups have even adopted a position on the dispute’s outcome, rather than staying neutral. And that approach, frankly, is unforgiveable as it totally destroys human rights as anything but propaganda. Such groups claim, as I believe HRW does, that Israel must take in the children of refugees – something with essentially no historical precedent and which that group applies to Israel, but not to other situations – at least so far as I know.
Now, it is for the Israelis and the Palestinian Arabs and other Arabs to resolve – or, as appears likely given the current state of that region – or not. How it is resolved is not the business of HRW or any other group. It is those involved.
One last point: Jonathan Edelstein says that it is not proper to claim that Gaza is occupied. He says that control of borders, etc., is irrelevant, according to the case law. Having read the decision regarding Israel’s barrier, the decision’s definition of occupation also renders Gaza non-occupied.
In any event, basic decency regarding the Palestinian cause, as Palestinian Arabs advocate that cause, would note that it is not a just war by any standard understanding of a just war. The very tactics adopted (i.e. the massacre as the primary manner of violence) show that to be the case. And the cause – especially with HAMAS in power – is not limited to what is necessary for Palestinian Arabs to have the opportunity for a good life. Rather, it seeks to destroy the potential for a good life for the Israelis. So, we have an unjust cause, at least as pursued by Palestinian Arabs.
When, will you turn to the Palestinian Arab cause and point out the difference between what Palestinian Arabs fight for and what would be a just cause? And when will you condemn their entire tactical approach as unjust and illegitimate? At that point, your calls for Israel to behave different might mean something. Otherwise, they are just plain propaganda.
Helena,
Is there a limit of the size of the post one can place here, on YOUR site (Thanks God there is scroll-down button) ?
Is the any (implicit) limit on how far one can stray from the topic of given thread ? (forced converting to Islam in Sudan, Congo, Pakistan, even China etc.) ?
I’m sure everyone can make his/her valid and interesting point without filling 2-plus pages of general history of a mankind. Speaking for myself, I like reading differing viewpoints here, but I don’t like being lectured.
Having read the decision regarding Israel’s barrier, the decision’s definition of occupation also renders Gaza non-occupied.
I don’t really want to hijack this discussion any further, but my opinion on Gaza’s legal status is based on the ICJ’s decision in the DRC-Uganda litigation rather than the barrier case. Specifically, the ICJ found that Uganda’s control of Kisangani airport – which, given the near-absence of road and rail networks in the DRC, was the only outside link to the city – did not amount to an occupation of the city or the surrounding province. Control of airspace, access points and nerve centers may amount to a state of siege, but unless a foreign force exercises “actual authority” over a territory (ICJ’s words), that territory is not occupied. In any event, Israeli control of access to Gaza is not total.
My opinion is as expressed before: that Israeli military actions in Gaza are subject to the laws of war including the rule of proportionality (which the bombing of the PA campus violated), but not the law of belligerent occupation.
Andrew,
I was addressing Helena’s argument. I shall, to the extent possible, keep my posts short. But, for my argument to Helena, it was very important to note just how ridiculous her righteousness regarding Israel’s behavior is. It was not a lecture. I was stating my opinion.
Good point, Andrew.
Neal, time for you to go read the commenters’ ground-rules again… Especially #7, re discourse hogging. (Your comment kicked in at >1,000 words. The ground-rule states 300.)
Feel quite free, meanwhile, to express yourself at any length you please in your own corner of cyberspace.
Helena,
I have no intention of hogging. Sorry. I would, however, appreciate if you respond to the substance of what I post.
The Palestinians nearly hit Ashkelon with their rockets and some greenhouses in the Negev, the Israelis nearly hit Abbas office and also hit some rocket launching sites after the rocketeers had gone. This is a symbolic sort of war except that occassionally real people get killed. The Israelis have better weapons so the real people getting killed are more likely to be Palestinian. This is a kind of “Hot Peace”, I think.
Probably more people are murdered every day in the Bronx than are killed in this “Hot Peace”, so I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.
Neal, if you read the totality of what I write on the blog and elsewhere you would notice that I criticize the actions of many governments and decry the violence and gross rights abuses in many places. Please don’t project your Israelo-centrism onto me.
Helena,
You show a special hostility toward Israel for no apparent reason other than obediance to fashion.
Warren, one point. Shelling areas from which rockets are fired, even after the “miltants” are gone, is not totally symbolic. I believe that the intent is to force them to move from site to site to limit their ability to home in on specific targets by firing repeatedly from the same place. After all, we must assume that those firing the rockets do, indeed, wish to cause harm to Israelis.
JES
I am not at all certain that the Palestinian rocket launchers want to create major damage in Israel. I suspect they know that this can result in a major Israeli reaction in which the Palestinians can lose blood, treasure and territory. They have already lost some sovereignty over northern Gaza due to rocket launches. In other words I suspect the rockets are mostly for internal Palestinian purposes of gathering prestige and so forth rather than expecting an Israeli retreat or damaging the Zionist enemy.
I realize this is speculative and difficult to prove without bugging their private conversations but I think it explains their behavior. Perhaps I go too far in interpreting their ineffectualness as deliberate. But it does seem deliberate.
JES
“Persumably Hamas would ehnically ckeanse Israel if they could get away with it.”
Your point is a non sequitur. America does not give billions of dollars to Hamas. America does not give political cover to Hamas.
Both Israel and Hamas have done terrible things, however, American fingerprints are all over what Israel does. I don’t like paying for oppression.
I reject your attempts to confuse my point. I’m talking about American vs. Israeli interests.
Great reporting on this and so many issues, Helena. It really is too bad that your humanely-targeted approach to investigative journalism is not the norm in this profession today. We need more journalists who will work to highlight issues of social justice, international law, and humanitarian concern without being run aground by those who engage in double-speak to marginalize the reporting of human rights organizations like Betselem and Amnesty International.
Given the central importance of the Middle East in world affairs today I do not find your writing about Israel-Palestine or Iraq to be excessive. (Your many detractors are the ones who have the Israel-fetish.) If anything, you need to devote more attention to the Middle East. Do you have any more investigative trips to Gaza planned? Any chance you could develop a team of reporters who could regularly make trips to the West Bank and Gaza to throw more light on the conditions of the Palestinian people?
More serious investigations need to be undertaken about Israel’s Apartheid Wall, and the daily land confiscations taking place. Israel-Palestine is one of the world’s longest running conflicts, and it is easily the one conflict that foments the most hostility both inside and outside its region. For all of these reasons, it is high time that journalists focus a huge spotlight on the injustices that have rested (under-reported) at the core of this conflict for many than fifty years.
Readers of JWN are familiar with the tactics of your detractors in this comments section, namely David, Davis, Neal, Joshua, WarrenW, JES, Vadim, etc. This “echo chamber” repeats the same tired, old justifications of the Middle East status quo, of Israeli and American Zionist power and control. Given all that is happening in the world today, it is truly Orwellian to read a statement like the following:
the human rights groups have turned Israel into a cause celebre, something it has no business doing as Israel is itself a victim as much as it causes problems
The echo chamber that regularly offers statements like this will never cease, but tens of thousands more readers are turning to JWN for real news and information.
Keep up the great work! Links to other blogs like the one by Laila el-Haddad are especially informative.
“America does not give billions of dollars to Hamas.”
observer- in fact, it is ILLEGAL in America to give any kind of financial support to Hamas. Gee, I wonder why that is? Couldn’t have anything to do with AIPAC, could it?
Neal, it’s absurd to say that human rights organizations haven’t said “booh” about the Sudan or the Congo. Apparently you feel this ridiculous claim is necessary for proving your point that the human rights organizations are biased against Israel, which shows you don’t have a legitimate point to make.
The reason there hasn’t been any serious action on the Congo or the Sudan is, broadly speaking, the same reason there’s no action on Israel’s crimes–it’s not in the perceived self-interest of powerful people in the West to do anything about any of it.
…tired, old justifications of the Middle East status quo…
Whether new or old, a justification is either true or not. Relevant or not. An example of an old justification is the need to survive. Still respectable after all these years, I’d say. For both sides.
The tragedies in the Sudan and Congo are clearly of greater magnitude, as is the tragedy in Kashmir. Yet the NGO’s and the MSM find the Arab-Israeli conflict strangely attractive. It’s not because there is a great loss of life, because there isn’t. So it must be something else. Eventually there will be some sort of two-state solution, and whether the border line is two hundred meters this way or that effects only the parties involved, and will have no impact on the surrounding world.
In 1929 there was a violent outburst in the city of Hebron, not far from Jerusalem. Less than 100 people died, most or all of them Jewish. Episodic violence in the Palestine Mandate area, later Israel and Jordon, has become a commonplace. All the signs seem to be saying that low-level episodic violence will be story for the next several years.
The era of inter-state middle east wars appears to be over of this part of the middle east.
Donald Johnson,
In the Israeli conflict, about 4,500 people have died. In the Sudan, 2 million. And slavery has been reinstituted. And people were forced to convert. This is a complete different and vastly more important and worse problem than what occurs between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. What you write is disgusting and stupid.
I happen to agree that the crimes of the Sudan and the Congo are worse than what Israel is doing, Neal.
You know I’m right about your absurd claims regarding the human rights organizations and you had nothing sensible to say in response.
Donald Johnson,
To answer your question and show you that you are wrong, I did the following searches using Google for site hrw.org:
Search Terms: “hrw.org sudan”
Result: 30,300 hits
Search Terms: “hrw.org Israel”
Result: 26,900 hits
Search Terms: “hrw.org Sudan -Israel” (i.e. Sudan ANDNOT Israel)
Results: 24,800 hits
Search Terms: “hrw.org Israel -Sudan” (i.e. Israel ANDNOT Sudan)
Results: 22,100 hits
Roughly equal, over all. Yet, the disputes are not roughly equal, as you admit. The Sudan crisis has involved two distinct episodes of actual genocide. Millions of people have died in Sudan. Nothing of the kind has occurred in Israel.
So, some more investigation.
Search Terms: “hrw.org sudan genocide”
Results: 676 hits
Search Terms: “hrw.org Israel genocide”
Results: 392 hits
Search Terms: “site:hrw.org -sudan -congo -rwanda israel genocide” (filtering out Sudan, Congo and Rwanda)
Results: 124 hits
Search Terms: “sudan -congo -rwanda -israel genocide site:hrw.org” (filtering out Israel, Congo and Rwanda)
Results: 252 hits
Search Terms: “site:hrw.org -israel sudan genocide” (filtering out Israel)
Results: 158 hits
So, probably not quite double as much coverage of “genocide” where it has occurred and is again occurring (i.e. in Sudan) than where it has never occurred and is not occuring in any ordinary understanding of the word (i.e. Israel).
Some more refinement, to determine coverage for each of the genocides in Sudan:
Search Terms: “site:hrw.org sudan south”
Result: 14,500 hits
Search Terms: “site:hrw.org sudan south -darfur” (filtering out Darfur)
Results: 977 hits
Search Terms: “site:hrw.org sudan -south darfur” (filtering out South)
Results: 640 hits
Regarding people killed:
Search: “israel deaths site:hrw.org”
Results: 585 hits
Search: “sudan deaths site:hrw.org”
Results: 583 hits
Search: “israel deaths sudan site:hrw.org”
Results: 160
Search “-israel deaths sudan site:hrw.org” (filtering out Israel)
Results: 475
Search: “israel deaths -sudan site:hrw.org” (filtering out Sudan)
Results: 475
Now, Google searching is not the be all and end all about things. But, it does mean something. Yes, Sudan is covered. But, the coverage is disproportionately – based on the actual horror involved – miniscule. 2 million dead and, right now, hundreds of thousands of more deaths but the coverage is roughly the same as in a dispute where 4,500 people – on both sides – have died.
Neal, what you’re demonstrating is that HRW doesn’t devote coverage in direct proportion to the number of people killed. I think we all knew that already. Literally no one metes out coverage by that standard–if we did, then the news media would cover the death of children in Africa from malnutrition and disease almost to the exclusion of anything else. No one in the US would ever have heard of any suicide bombing against Israel–an attack which kills 20 people woould never be reported by the purely quantitative standard because roughly that many children die of malnutrition or preventable disease somewhere in the world every one or two minutes, depending on what estimate you use. And we could stop most of those deaths with a relatively small amount of money and no shooting.
People who care about human rights at all know about Darfur and the Congo because it’s been well-covered by human rights organizations. They cover human rights issues in every country, whether the quantity of deaths is small or large. That’s how it should be. It’s their role to keep track of everyone. Now it’s true that the I/P conflict will get more attention than, say, Sri Lanka, but that’s because the US is deeply involved and HRW is a US-based organization.
I have some sympathy with a more quantitative approach. We should know a great deal about the human rights situation in countries where we are involved. What I’d say, regarding numbers, is that if we really want to help people overseas we shouldn’t be spending hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq, only to see more chaos and death, but a fraction of that in Africa on public health issues. But if I went as far as you, I’d say we shouldn’t waste any time at all thinking about the I/P conflict(or funding either side). But that’s going too far. However, so is this post, lengthwise, so I’ll leave it at that.
My last paragraph was poorly written. I meant that I have some sympathy with a more quantitative approach, BUT that we also need to be particularly well-informed about countries (like Israel) where the US is heavily involved.
Okay, enough bandwidth used.
Donald Johnson,
I did not seek exact numerical proportionality.
Again, we are comparing apples and oranges. Israel is not a major league abuser. It is a minor league abuser and there is no justification for treating it as a major league abuser. Israel’s conduct is comparable, at worst, to that of the UK in dealing over the years with Northern Ireland. And Israel’s conduct is better than is the UK’s conduct in Iraq.
Yet, we find HRW using the “G” word for Israel. That, frankly, is phoney human rights from phoneys. Such use of the word “genocide” makes a mockery of the real thing. And the real thing is what occurred in Sudan. And, now, the same is going on in Sudan, round No. 2. Sudan should be the central concern of anyone who cares about rights, not a spat over how much land Israel cedes with abuses from both sides in which there have unfortunately been 4,500 deaths.
Now your argument that we should follow Israel more because the US is involved is, to me, absurd. HRW is not part of the US and people killed die the same whether the bullets are American or Russian. HRW is allegedly an international organization directed to exposing human rights abuses without regard to the country where the abuse is occuring. By that standard, Israel is hardly worth mentioning as it is a minor league abuser, comparable – in fact, better than – the UK.
Neal, your style of argument leaves something to be desired, to say the least. Googling on some vague terms, without bothering to take a look at the search results is quite silly. If you bothered to take a look at the “Israel” results, you would see that most (or even all?) the results are HRW reporting on (a) The word “genocide” arising in a way tangential to Israel’s behavior e.g. the #1 result “Arms dealers in Israel, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Albania had no scruples about selling weapons to authorities who were executing a genocide ..” or (b) reporting accusations of genocide by others – e.g. of the Belgian suit against Sharon – the #2 result. We all know that Israel is not committing a genocide in the usual sense of the term, while Sudan and the Congo fit better, so one should expect just what we see. It is also worth noting that it is not entirely illegitimate to call Israel’s longterm behavior towards the Palestinians “genocidal” – for the usual meaning, which I prefer, is actually much more restrictive than the little used original intention of Raphael Lemke, the coiner of the word.
Your death toll for the I-P conflict is of course much too low, probably because you are arbitrarily dating it quite recently. You are reversing a comparison, the UK in NI at its worst in the same time period is comparable to the usual conduct of Israel. One can make a better case that the human rights organizations have a history of pro-Israeli bias – e.g. the accusation of “crimes against humanity” – worse than war crimes – against the Palestinians, but not the Israelis, and a long period of avoiding scrutiny of Israel in the past – see Finkelstein’s Beyond Chutzpah, or old articles by Chomsky for this.
WorldWARren, Neal, Joshua, JES, Vadim, Davis, David, etc.
Don’t get me started with your usual illogic:
“Israel is a minor league abuser”
… so presumably there need be little attention focused on its crimes.
What a joke, this one is. Not even worth taking the pen from its sheath.
John R.
I did examine some of the comments regarding Israel and regarding Sudan. And the genocide reference appeared in connection with Israel’s behavior – an outrageous and false accusation.
I do not consider Finkelstein to be a scholar so I do not take his view seriously.
Israel’s behavior, overall, has been rather good. It just has not been perfect.
Sd,
Compared to Sudan, China, the UK (at present in Iraq), the US (at present in Iraq), Congo, France (in Algeria), among others, Israel’s behavior is rather good. In fact, it far exceeds most of these countries make Israel into a minor abuser. France, in particular, comes to mind. Or, do you really think France did better in Algeria than Israel has done, well, anywhere?
Neal, David, Davis, WarrenW, Joshua, JES, Vadim, etc.
Will you ever learn from thwacking your head on the lowest lying limbs because you look only at the trees and not the forest?
That “thwack” sound is all we hear from your collective echo chamber, regularly reverberating through this comments section.
Any analysis that reduces this fetish of yours to:
“a spat over how much land Israel cedes”
“a dispute in which there is right and wrong on both sides”
“a symbolic sort of war except that occassionally real people get killed”
“low-level episodic violence”
“more people are murdered every day in the Bronx than are killed in this ‘Hot Peace’, so I’m not sure what all the fuss is about”
The way you think, it all seems so “ho-hum” routine.
Could this be because of the “banality” of it all?
This is a 50+ year humanitarian crisis, based on 100+ years of the most astonishing international intrigue … intrigue that gets more intriguing as the years go by.
You would pretend there is little significance that the “pieds noire” eventually went home after utterly failing to form a just, humane, and open society based on the bonds of brotherhood … or that the pale face continues today to learn what the native peoples always knew from listening to the wind… while the “chosen people” are now building a wall of concrete and steel to secure their land grab.
Come on, mates, lift your heads.
Look beyond these narrow limitations, you set for yourselves.
See the forest that our collective survival depends on.