Why I’m more vocal about Israel’s actions than Hamas’s

Simply put, Israel has given much more suffering than it’s received.

Robert Fisk writes it in TruthDig (originally published in The Independent) like so:

clipped from www.truthdig.com Image by cactusbones via Flickr It all depends where you live. That was the geography of Israel’s propaganda, designed to demonstrate that we softies …don’t realise the horror of 12 (now 20) Israeli deaths in 10 years and thousands of rockets […] [M]y favourite journalistic justification for this bloodbath [is] “The death toll from Gaza is, of course, shocking, dreadful, unspeakable … Though it does not compare with the death toll amongst Israelis if Hamas had its way.” Get it? The massacre in Gaza is justified because Hamas would have done the same if they could, even though they didn’t […] I’m waiting for the same writers to ask how we’d feel if we … came under sustained attack from supersonic aircraft and Merkava tanks and thousands of troops whose shells and bombs tore 40 women and children to pieces outside a school, shredded whole families in their beds and who, after nearly a week, had killed almost 200 civilians out of 600 fatalities. [since the original article, the numbers have risen to almost 500 civilian deaths out of 1000 Palestinian fatalities – M.] […] I pointed out that journalists should be on the side of those who suffer […]

The death toll today since this conflict began?  Israelis, 13.  Gazans, 1,000.

“Murder is murder,” some will say.  Yet the two are not the same.

The slaughter of hundreds of defenseless, malnourished people is a crime of a different order.

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Tags: Palestinians,, Hamas,, Gaza,, war,, middle-east,, genocide,, civilian+casualities,, Palestinians, Monte Asbury

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UN Investigator: Israel commits “massive violations of international law”

Richard Falk, U. N. Special Investigator for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, spells it out (h/t PeoplesGeography):

clipped from www.russiatoday.com The Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Convention, both in regard to the obligations of an occupying power and in the requirements of the laws of war. Those violations include:Collective punishment – the entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants. […] Targeting civilians – the air strikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world […] Disproportionate military response – the air strikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza’s elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians […] Earlier Israeli actions, specifically the complete sealing off of entry and exit to and from the Gaza Strip, have led to severe shortages of medicine and fuel (as well as food), resulting in the inability of ambulances to respond to the injured, the inability of hospitals to adequately provide medicine or necessary equipment for the injured, and the inability of Gaza’s besieged doctors and other medical workers to sufficiently treat the victims. […] Certainly the rocket attacks against civilian targets in Israel are unlawful. But that illegality does not give Israel any right … to violate international humanitarian law and commit war crimes … in its response […] The one Israeli killed today … is the first in over a year. […] The Israeli air strikes today, and the catastrophic human toll that they have caused, challenge those countries that have been and remain complicit, either directly or indirectly, in Israel’s violations of international law. That complicity includes those countries knowingly providing the military equipment including warplanes and missiles used in these illegal attacks, as well as those countries which have supported and participated in the siege of Gaza, which itself has caused a humanitarian catastrophe

Since 2000, fewer than 20 Israelis have been killed by Hamas’ primitive rockets – and only one in the last 12 months. By contrast, 3,000 Palestinians have died, and 300 of them perished in the last few days.

Israel’s enabler is the USA, which provides American gunships, missiles, and bombs. Israel kills with impunity because the US vetoes near-unanimous UN rebukes.

Dispensationalism’s blind faith that Israel’s barbarous government is the Israel of prophecy demands re-evaluation. For the pogroms this outfit carries out make it more resemble the Third Reich than the children of Abraham.

And the USA—with the backing of the Christian conservative set—once again has blood on its hands.

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Tags: terrorism, crimes+against+humanity, Gaza, aid+to+Israel, UN, US+veto, dispensationalism, religious+right, religious+conservatism, Christians+Israel, Middle+East, Israel+bombs+Gaza, war+crimes, Zionism, Hamas, rockets, retaliation, Monte Asbury
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