I obviously believe that the Israeli occupation is immoral and that Israel has a great debt to the Palestinians. After all, we came to the Palestinians homeland and without their permission began moving in. Justice and fairness demand a consideration of this fact, and not just the occupation since 1967.
Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to write about the Israel/Palestine conflict without exaggeration or over-emotional language. It is for this reason that I admire the writings in the Electronic Intifada. While the writers are justly passionate about their cause, they don’t make the mistake of dehumanizing Israelis.
This article by Hasan Abu Nimah, former permanent representative of Jordan at the United Nations and the father of one of the magazine’s editors, is a devestating critique of the hypocrisy of Western powers and media in their approach to the conflict.
I have been following the story (mentioned by Abu Nimah) of the 13 year old girl pumped in the head with bullets which, unlike so many other stories of Palestinian children being killed, has gotten some media attention. Today in the print edition of the New York Times, it states:
“On Friday night, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yalon, the army Chief of Staff concluded after a field investigation that there was no evidence to substantiate charges that a company commander fired repeatedly at a 13 ear-old palestinian girl to make sure she was dead, said an army spokesman, Capt. Jacob Dallal. The commander has been suspended for operational errors [sic].”
And so the officer has been exonerated even before, as the article itself notes, the army’s internal investigation has been completed.
Of course the bare faced lies and immoral actions of Israel army’s top brass can’t remain exposed to the world for too long. In the updated web site version of this article, the above paragraph has been changed to:
“A field investigation concluded that there was no evidence to substantiate the charges, but the army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, suspended the commander on Friday.”
This makes it sound as if Yaalon was impressed by the seriousness of the charge and was pressing ahead to uncover the truth despite the filed investigation.
A well-known Israeli comedy group had a famous routine that was based on that “innocent” expression – “as if.” “As if” became a byword for rampant hypocrisy and corruption. Israel’s leadership and its supporters in the U.S. do everything they can to make Israel look as if it was acting morally and properly in its war against the Palestinian civilian population. But as Abu Nimah says:
“Israel’s assault on Gaza killed more children in a few days than the entire number of victims in Taba. It is simply immoral to continue to pretend that there is any difference whatsoever between the two types of terrorism. The point here is not to say that the attack in Taba is in any way excusable or justifiable, but rather to underline that the attacks in Gaza should be treated just like the attacks in Taba, as terrorist outrages, viciously targeted and calculated to kill innocent people.”
Tags: Hypocrisy, Propaganda, War Crimes