It’s been said before, but…
Many people ask why there are so few Israeli casualties in comparison with the Palestinian death toll. It’s because Israel’s first priority is the safety of its citizens, which is why there are shelters and warning systems in Israeli towns. If Hamas can dig tunnels, it can certainly build shelters. Instead, it prefers to use women and children as human shields while its leaders rush into hiding.
The article in the WSJ is by Marvin Hier, dean of the Wiesenthal Center. In it, he also mentions that ceasefires are used by Hamas to regroup and rearm, and that this is a pattern. The pattern includes offers by the world to give ever-increasing funds for humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, whose leaders then use it to do everything but truly benefit its people.
My question is: why is this pattern not more widely recognized? It’s not as though it’s hard to see. One can evoke anti-Semitism as the reason, and no doubt this is responsible for a portion of it. But it’s hardly the whole story. There’s also the need on the Left to sympathize with any third world peoples, and the Palestinians have been milking this for decades in their unrelenting propaganda.
But I continue to believe that the media itself has an enormous role, perhaps in great part because of a self-serving need to continue to report favorably on the Palestinians in order to continue its all-important “access” to a story it’s already presenting in such a skewed manner. Why bother?
And I know that the purchase of 3,000 rockets (used in the last year against Israel) could’ve gone to the starving Palestinians.
Sheesh that’s so obvious… Could be in every news article about the cost of such rockets and how much per person that could’ve fed.
On CNN the other day, a Gazan “correspondent” gave a report in which she described the IDF policy of calling to warn civilians that an attack is imminent as “psychological warfare.” “We have no shelters,” she explained.
This really made my jaw drop. What a warped view, and all the more so because it didn’t seem to occur to question WHY they had no shelters — whose fault it might be. This willingness to attribute gratuitously monstrous motives to the Israelis, coupled with a kind of childish passivity and fatalism, seems to be a kind of syndrome affecting the Palestinians, particularly the ones in Gaza who have been left to the mercies of Hamas.
Oops. I meant “occur to her”
Yogi Berra once said “You can see a lot just by looking.”
But first you have to look. Amidst all our complicated commentary about why Israel gets undeserved bad press while the Palestinians get interviewed, isn’t that all of it?
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I think the answer in large part lies in the connection of Jews to capitalism and success. Tie that in with the popular meme in journalism that one man’s success causes anothers failure and it all makes perfect sense. From their absurd perspective anyway.
Israel was a US ally in the cold war against the USSR. Israel is willing to use force to defend its interests. Israel has made its neighbors look bad by building a successful economy.
To the Left, these are unforgivable sins.
Stan,
I think it is the last one that is the worst. Israel is basically a success despite being under attack since its existence. Its attackers are completely dysfunctional. How dare those Israelis?
Neo, Yuck
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/08/barack-obama-gaza-hamas
American Power tracked-back with, “Jews Face World Double-Standard”:
http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/jews-face-world-double-standard.html
The wheels-within-wheels are astounding.
Yes, Hamas could easily have built bomb shelters for its people instead of building rockets and promoting terror. (The dirty little secret is that, had they stopped building rockets and promoting terror, they wouldn’t have needed bomb shelters.)
And what did they use to build those rockets? One common resource was stolen sewer pipes. Now here is an underreported story.
The more you dig into stories like this, the more disgusting it gets… literally.
DiB
You have to understand that the dominant European lens for understanding the conflict is the “Decolonialism” narrative. Israel is the scapegoat for an embarrassing history of European imperialism. You also have to understand that the basic insurgency playbook is the “Algeria” playbook.
What happens on the ground doesn’t matter all that much in determining who wins and who loses. What matters is how the news plays and affects politics in London, Paris, and Washington.
so the Palestinians are dying because they have not built shelters… do you really believe that the IDF are totally innocent in this? Are you not even willing to consider the idea that they are using excessive force?
Do I get to vote? I’ll go with “The IDF is totally innocent.”
No one has produced any evidence that civilians (including children) are anything but unintended collateral casualties. There is evidence that the IDF is trying to minimize civilian casualties, that Hamas is trying to maximize them, and that the world Left and jihadis are trying to publicize them as much as possible.
I don’t think the Israelis are using excessive force at all. I am afraid they will use too little.
Hamas would do their children a favor by throwing down their weapons and surrendering. But I don’t think Hamas is in the business of doing their children any favors.
token lefty without clarity wrote, “Are you not even willing to consider the idea that they are using excessive force?”
It was excessive force that the Palestinians shot over 3,000 rockets in the last year.
It was excessive force that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
In either case – a war that goes on for centuries is IDIOTIC. If we met Japan with a matched force and only allowed ourselves to do as much damage as they did we would do everyone a disservice.
Evil – needs to be stopped.
You lack clarity.
You don’t see a guy who has a knife to a woman’s throat and match that force and put a knife to his throat. YOu USE EXCESSIVE force.
YOU STOP THE ROCKETS !!