*Thanks to Middle East Eye, which published an abridged version of this post here:
Over the past months, ISIS, which had been fighting the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, changed tactics and swept east from Syria and conquered vast swaths of largely-Sunni territory in western Iraq. In the process, it massacred thousands of Shiites, Kurds, Yazidis and other minorities in its path.
More recently, ISIS developed a new tactic which both riveted and horrified the world. Gruesome videos of an ISIS executioner beheading westerners kidnapped in the violence of the Syrian civil war have swept social and mainstream media. These radical Islamists are odious. They ought to be, and have been rejected by the world, including Sunni Muslims themselves.
But there has been a strange transformation in the western attitude toward the Islamist group: when it was slaughtering Arabs and sweeping across hundreds of miles of Iraqi desert, we paid little heed. Yes, there were expressions of concern and security officials debated about the failure of the U.S. strategy to prop up a dysfunctional Iraqi government whose army wilted in the face of ISIS. But there were no calls to arms. No vast mobilization of international will to address the threat.
That only resulted from what, for ISIS, was a brilliant media tactic—airing and disseminating the executions of westerners via social media. When one of our own was beheaded before our very eyes, then ISIS became something it hadn’t been while it was confining itself to killing Arabs: it became evil personified, an enemy of western civilization, a force that must be exterminated. What had been merely a menace when it practically conquered an entire country (Iraq), became Satan himself when it killed three westerners. As a result, we mounted an international campaign costing over $400-million so far to roll back ISIS.
Less than a year before, in the midst of the Syrian civil war, foreign powers were falling all over themselves to fund and arm ISIS, the Nusra Front and Al-Qaeda offshoots. The Gulf States led the charge. Saudi power-prince Bandar ibn Sultan, who was its intelligence chief at the time, provided the radical Sunni fighters with hundreds of millions, if not billions, as Yossi Melman notes:
…Myopia…afflicted Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – all allies of the United States, driven by hatred for…The governments of these countries either turned a blind eye to the burgeoning Al-Qaida branches, or even encouraged charity organizations and influential sheikhs to fund or provide religious support for the anti-Shi’ite struggle by Al-Qaida.
…The Saudi architect of this policy was Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former ambassador to the US and until a few years ago chief of Saudi intelligence and its national security adviser. Approximately one year ago, when the Saudi royal family realized that it had helped create this uncontrolled monster, Prince Bandar was forced to step down – though his deteriorating health was given as the official reason for his resignation.
At one point, Bandar even secretly visited Israel to coordinate Saudi intelligence operations in Syria, Iran and elsewhere with his Israeli intelligence counterparts.
In other words, we helped make ISIS the monster it is. But once it escaped the bonds we created and began wreaking havoc like a golem, then we forget it was us who created it.
Drone War on the Muslim World
Our drone counter-terror strategy too has elicited outrage throughout the region. In our fervor to root out Al Qaeda, we’ve killed over 3,000 Muslims in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We are universally condemned for this. It only makes our purported enemies stronger, offering them an immensely attractive recruitment tool. But what do the drone killings offer us? Only 4% of the dead are actual Al Qaeda militants. Most of the rest are civilians caught in the crossfire. What is it accomplishing?
And why is our rage for vengeance against ISIS pure and noble while the Muslim counter-reaction is bestial and uncivilized?
Let’s also not forget the millions of Iraqis and Afghanis killed during our invasions and occupations of their respective countries. Though some may claim there were important principles we were defending, it becomes clearer with each passing day that whatever those principles may’ve been, our expenditure in blood and treasure was for naught. Iraq is closer than ever to ethnic dissolution and God only knows what’s in store for Afghanistan as the Taliban becomes even stronger and challenges our allies there.
Do we believe the citizens of these countries will forgive and forget what we did there? Or that Muslims the world over will do the same?
Terror in Gaza
When Palestinian militants kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers a few months ago, Israel sent 10,000 soldiers to find them and track down the killers. This operation turned into a massive pogrom: 7 Palestinians were killed in protests, 500 were arrested, most having nothing to with the crime. Thousands of private homes were ransacked by the invading troops.
In a revenge attack, Israeli settlement youths kidnapped a 16 year-old East Jerusalem Palestinian. They beat him senseless with a tire iron, poured gasoline on his body and down his throat, and set him on fire. Though the killers were arrested and are being tried, and Israeli Jews expressed almost universal outrage, there was no mass movement to suppress the radical settler ideology that spawned this murder. Because that ideology is a powerful and mainstream political phenomenon in Israel. To do the right thing, Israel would’ve had to cut off its own right hand.
Israel’s mass violence in the West Bank spurred Hamas to launch rockets in solidarity against southern Israel. Though the aerial assault sent hundreds of thousands of Israelis into air raid shelters, the Palestinian ordnance caused only minor property damage.
Israel’s response was to “go nuclear.” Or, as they say in colloquial Hebrew, “the landlord went nuts.” It invaded Gaza, beginning a 50-day war that took 2,100 Gazan lives including 500 children. 70 Israelis died, almost all invading troops.
This slaughter was for the sake of 3 Israeli dead. I am not saying those Israeli lives were not precious. Nor justifying the kidnapping and murder. But why are 3 Israeli lives worth 2,100 Palestinian? If the world shares Israel’s outrage at the teenagers’ deaths, why not the 500 Gazan kids? If killing three is terror, why is killing 2,100 not?
Terror in Jerusalem
A few days ago, a Palestinian from Silwan drove his car onto the tracks at an East Jerusalem light rail station killing a three-month old baby and young Israeli woman. The crime, for which Hamas acknowledged responsibility, was horrible, even inexcusable…until you consider the pain of 500 mothers and father who lost their children last summer in Gaza. Inexcusable until you consider the settlers of Elad and Ateret Cohanim who have stolen the homes of hundreds of Silwan residents through subterfuge and fraud in an attempt to Judaize the city’s Palestinian neighborhoods. Inexcusable until you consider Israeli Border Police this week assaulting the sacred precincts of the Haram al Sharif and filling its hall with the stench and explosion of tear gas canisters. In fact, the Palestinian wrote a Facebook post a few days before the attack which featured a picture of Al Aqsa in flames with the caption “Al Aqsa in danger.”
Even after you consider such provocations, many will still find the murder of a three-month old baby inexcusable. My point is to remember that terrorism doesn’t arise from a vacuum. A single terror attack always has a context. That the death of one three month old baby was preceded by the prior deaths of many other babies. And that all the babies’ suffering should be treated with the same gravity. And terror always leads to more terror.
In the past few hours, Yehuda Glick, an Israeli settler activist who advocated building the Third Temple and destroying the Muslim holy places on the Temple Mount, was severely injured in a potential assassination attempt. If Bibi Netanyahu and his settler allies want to rebuild the Holy Temple and destroy Muslim holy sites, there is a price that will be paid. This is just the start of it, I’m afraid.
For anyone arguing that such Israeli views are on the fringe, I remind you that Moshe Feiglin, a Kahanist and deputy Knesset speaker, supports destroying the Dome of the Rock and rebuilding the Temple. And the Bayit Yehudi MK candidate, Jeremy Gimpel, told a U.S. Christian evangelical church audience that the Dome of the Rock must be destroyed. One may argue that in the context of another country, such views are those of crackpots and not to be taken seriously. But in Israel, crackpots have a habit of becoming prime ministers and generals. Words are taken as deeds. And deeds kill.
Glick and Gimpel’s origins in the bowels of right-wing American Orthodoxy remind us the nerve toxin that it has injected into the Israeli body politic. Think of the American settler-terrorists who’ve played such a formative role not just in the settler movement, but in the consciousness of latter-day Israel: Jack Teitel, Meir Kahane, Baruch Goldstein. Naftali Bennett is a more polished version of these as leader of the Bayit Yehudi party, but the legacy he brings to Israeli politics is no less toxic.
Several hours after the assassination attempt, the Border Police, Israel’s crack thug-assassins murdered a suspect in the attack in his East Jerusalem home. They said, as they always do in these circumstances, that the suspect fired first, and Israeli forces were forced to return fire, killing him. We know what we think of this explanation. If the IDF is willing to kill its own to prevent their capture by Hamas, do you think security forces would have any hesitation liquidating terror suspects?
While speaking of Israel and Hamas, let’s recall that the original rapid growth of the Islamic movement was facilitated and encouraged by Israeli intelligence. Just as the CIA exploited the mujahedeen in the U.S. Cold War battle with the Soviet Union, so Israel took advantage of the new Islamic group in its battle against Arafat’s secularist Fatah. How quickly we forget, that in our hubris to promote our own interests, the monsters we create may, like Frankenstein, turn on their creators.
Returning to this past summer’s war, what did the world do in the midst of the carnage? Our State Department and virtually every other western government expressed shock and outrage at the Hamas rockets, but none at the massive killings by the IDF. Gaza today looks like Dresden after it was levelled by U.S. bombers during World War II. Yet does anyone actually believe those generals who ordered the slaughter during Protective Edge will face the justice Nazi generals faced at Nuremberg? Or will they face no judgment, as the British and American generals who killed tens of thousands of Germans in the Dresden fireball?
In other words, there is a massive double standard here. Western lives are worth outrage. They are worth mounting a massive military campaign to oust ISIS. Muslim lives? Not so much.
An Israeli Joan of Arc
In a related matter, an Israeli professor of education, Anat Rimon-Or, wrote a Facebook post about the hypocrisy of western attitudes toward ISIS. In it, she expressed some ideas similar to those here. She even goes farther and claims “heretically” that there is even a spark of the human in ISIS:
ISIL has been defined [by the world] as an enemy with demonic qualities representing nothing more than urge to kill and murder. Like Hamas before it, in July-August of this year [Operation Protective Edge]. It’s necessary to explode this image of the murderous demon, because it has no connection to the [Palestinian] people or organizations to which it is attached. Its sole purpose is to legitimize unjust murder [of Islamists like Hamas or ISIS]. It’s even possible that we’re speaking of a people or the organization that is very cruel. But it isn’t the cruelty that creates the demonic image but the [western] intention to exterminate. This is true regarding Jews, Hamas, or ISIL.
That is why we need to battle against image of the murderous demon. We have to find, behind it, the human utterance, which is always there (even if the organization, for its own reasons, conceals it well), and to point to it as a basis for an agreement that will stop the bloodshed.
Rimon-Or also suggests that instead of liquidating ISIS, the U.S. should pay reparations to the Iraqi people for the decade worth of suffering & mayhem we inflicted on them. She implies that without such mass violence and our invasion, there might not even be an ISIS to fight.
Controversial, perhaps. But the avalanche of hate that befell her was unprecedented even in the trash-talking political culture that is Israel. Right-wing columnist, Ben Dror Yemini, called her a “mad professor.” There were calls for her firing from Beit Berl College, where she teaches education. On TV, an interviewer was so aghast at her views that he talked over her for the entire interview, refusing to allow her to complete a coherent thought. I imagine this was the way the English viewed Joan of Arc before they burned her at the stake: as a radical, troublemaker, enemy of the State, even a terrorist.
So many Facebook users reported Rimon-Or’s post that Facebook censored and removed it. It’s preserved here (in Hebrew).
The nature of political debate is much harsher in Israel than outside. The political climate is intensely nationalistic, chauvinistic, and violent. The room for diverse views is increasingly narrow. Those even moderately outside the rightist mainstream are violently assaulted or intimidated both in social media and by police and hooligans during protests on the streets.
Israel is the canary in the coal mine. If we are not careful, our own societies will become as racist, violent and intolerant as Israel is. Just as drones, racial profiling and similar counter-terror methods got their start there and were transferred to the west, so may this murderous hatred not just for Islam, but for any person or idea deemed “other.”
H/t to Richard Flantz and John Brown for Rimon-Or story.
Richard,
What do you think of this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjtA3uLTOcM
Is it a fake? Do you think this is restricted to fight the Kurdish or is Turkey working as an intermediate to NATO?
So what? Nothing is shown, other than some Turkish soldiers speaking to two guys who might be ISIS, or might be FSA or Jabhat al-Nusra. The only point is they’re not shooting. We knew this years ago; Turkey is well known for having helped the rebels in Syria.
You should emphasize that Glick and his people seeGaza war and building of the third temple a מלחמת קודש
Meaning jihad but just a Jewish. Version.
The world has been reminded over and over of the Jewish baby killed by a Palestinian Israeli driver, who claimed it was an accident. Meanwhile most people in the world have no idea that a few hours earlier a 4 year old Palestinian girl, Einas Dar Khalil, was run down and killed by an illegal settler as she and her friend, who was injured, alighted from a school bus. Eye witnesses said it was deliberate. Two little girls dead, two drivers claiming accident. The Jewish settler has not been charged; the Palestinian driver was executed on the spot. (Imagine how many innocent Palestinians would have paid with their lives if the settler driver had been executed by witnesses. Crazy Bibi might even have decided to bomb Gaza again in retaliation.)
And another settler hit & run. 13 year old boy injured.
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israeli-settler-runs-over-injures-13-year-old-palestinian
Thank you, Mary, for remindingg of the utter hypocrisy surrounding the two cases.
Inas Shawkat Dar Khalil, 5 years, was killed when a settler from Yitzhar drove though the village of Sinjil with high speed. She was walking home from the kindergarden with her friend, Tulin Omar Asfour, 4 years who was seriously wounded as well.
There’s a photo of Inas circulating on the net, but I prefer this one, where she dressed in a Palestinian dress. In the orginal full-size photo she photographed with al-Aqsa in the background, but you don’t see her beautiful little face. Allah yarhamha.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0VvVhmCMAAXnel.jpg
“drove though the village of Sinjil with high speed”
As it happens, Sinjil is exactly where I was stationed during Protective Edge. That claim above is extremely misleading (Have you ever been there??). The settler drove on Route 60 which is a 2 lane highway in local terms. You made it sound as if he drove through the village itself looking to run over children – which a blunt lie! Route 60 parts Sinjil to two parts – on the west side, most of the village (and the schools) and on the east side, a small number of houses belonging to the municipality of Sinjil and just next to it the extremely rich village of Turmus-aya.
In a channel 2 interview with the mother she said her child traverse that highway everyday – from extremely personal experience – it is one of the most dangerous roads in Israel. During PE me and my soldiers witnessed horrible accidents almost on a daily basis (unfortunately lethal) – mainly because how people (I most say – mostly Palestinian youth) drive there (CRAZY!!!) and because of road conditions.
So, letting a 5 year old child traverse such a road everyday in an area where pedestrians aren’t supposed to cross – I’m sorry to say – is extremely irresponsible.
If you find statistics about the death toll on that road from the outskirts of Nablus and to Jerusalem, and maybe you’ll understand how this was an accident waiting to happen.
By the way, the exact spot where the accident happened is where usually rocks and molotov bombs are thrown at cars passing on Route 60 from Sinjil – again extremely up and personal experience – and is why the driver said he didn’t stop for help and just called the police.
@ shay: So you come here with a smattering of knowledge of local conditions, a strong desire to whitewash the crime, and no knowledge whatsoever of the actual circumstance of the crime. You contradict eyewitnesses who point to the fact that the settler ran the children over. You whitewash him engaging in a hit & run accident in which he killed a child & severely injured another. You offer no explanation nor outrage for why the Occupation authorities have allowed this so-called dangerous road condition to exist. And further you blame bad Palestinian driving, as if this circumstance somehow explains or excuses the murder. Somehow negligent Israeli driving is excused by the fact that Palestinians supposedly drive even worse. You blame parents for not providing another means for their children to cross this lethal road. As if this were Tel Aviv or Haifa and there were multiple modes of moving through the area.
Brush up your Shakeaspeare and hasbara!
“it is one of the most dangerous roads in Israel ”
I guess it says everything we need to know about your credibility. Sinjil is NOT in Israel but in occupied Palestine !
I started counting your use of ‘extremely’ but quit after ‘extremely personal experiance’….
“the extremely rich village of Turmus-aya”
You forgot to mention the EXTREMELY numerous land confiscations to expand Jewish settlements and the EXTREMELY regular attack by Jewish supremacists ….. This new guy from Hasbara Central is trying to convince us that Palestinians are just ‘extremely’ happy “in Israel”.
http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/place.php?plid=3075
PS. I also saw an interview with the mother who was standing just on the other side of the road and other witnesses to the accident, it wasn’t on Channel Two but on Palestinian television.
@ Richard,
“You offer no explanation nor outrage for why the Occupation authorities have allowed this so-called dangerous road condition to exist”
All over the WB the roads are being renewed and widened. Where this particular accident happened was in a narrow place surrounded with houses – to widened the road you’ll have to demolish them. I don’t think that will go well don’t you?
“As if this were Tel Aviv or Haifa and there were multiple modes of moving through the area.”
There are simpler solutions – car pulling for example, school buses exist there as well. So yes, there is a strong element of parental responsibility.
“And further you blame bad Palestinian driving, as if this circumstance somehow explains or excuses the murder.”
I didn’t say that – I said it’s one of the reason for the high mortality rate of this specific road and was meant to emphasize how dangerous this road is.
And please, come to the WB and have a bit of a drive around – after you’ll be cut by 2 cars from both sides of the road at the same time for racing Need-for-Speed-style, you’ll change your mind very quickly – and probably won’t cross it yourself, let alone a child.
@ Deir Yassin,
What I meant by ‘Israel’ is that it’s one of the most dangerous roads in the whole area. Believe me, I would be extremely (used it again :)) happy for it not to be part of Israel in any form or shape.
“You forgot to mention the EXTREMELY numerous land confiscations to expand Jewish settlements and the EXTREMELY regular attack by Jewish supremacists”
What does that have to do with anything? If it were your child – will you let him cross the road like that because the “rightist occupation government” confiscated land??? I can’t see how that is related at all. Your child needs to go to school in the safest way possible – and traversing an highway isn’t – with settler on it or without them.
Calling it a terrorist act and comparing it to what happened in Jerusalem is wrong! It’s an hit and run accident not some planned plot to kill a child on the road – as portrayed in Pal television.
There are many ways of making roads safer than widening them. In fact, doing so often makes them more dangerous for pedestrians. Traffic engineers the world over know how to make roads safe. I imagine Israel even has one or two of these. The fact that the road is a known dangerous zone & Israel does nothing to protect vulnerable pedestrians speaks to negligence & lack of concern to protect the lives of Palestinian residents.
Poor Palestinians may not have cars in which to “pool.” School buses don’t always take children where & when they want to go. Do you even know whether the school these children attended had school buses? In fact, it’s my understanding that Palestinian school children generally walk to school. I’ve never seen any pictures of Palestinian school children taking buses, though they may.
Blaming Palestinian parents for the death of their own children, who were actually killed by settlers in a hit & run accident is heinous. If you ever make such a statement here again you will be moderated.
As for visiting the West Bank, you pay my ticket & speak with those nice men from Shabak to ensure I won’t be detained, then I’ll be there in a heartbeat. But I won’t be investigating traffic conditions I assure you.
Like typical settlers you make presumptions about what & how Palestinians live that have nothing to do with reality. Blithely declaring children need to go to school safely while having no idea about how they would travel & what means of travel are available to them is simply ignorant.
A hit & run accident is considered very severely in western democracies. It is presumed murder until proven otherwise. Murder & an act of terror aren’t that far removed. I presume this was deliberate murder unless police prove otherwise. Witnesses said the driver deliberately hit the girls. You should be ashamed of yourself defending the killing of children.
I’m about to moderate you if you try this jackassedness in future here. And you may not publish another comment in this thread.
@ Shay
” “You forgot to mention the EXTREMELY numerous land confiscations to expand Jewish settlements and the EXTREMELY regular attack by Jewish supremacists”
What does that have to do with anything?”
Are you playing dumb or are you dumb for real ?
You wrote “the extremely rich village of Turmus-aya”. I have no idea what the ‘extremely rich’ has to do with anything concerning the killing of Inas Shawkat Dar Khalil, and I pointed out that the ‘extremely rich’ village of Turmus’ayyeh has suffered from land confiscation and numerous settler attacks.
The fact is: in occupied Palestine, whenever a Jewish settler hurts, wounds or kills a Palestinian, it’s always an “accident”, the other way around, it’s always a “terrorist attack”, I wonder how much a Palestinian is sentenced for killing a Jewish child (living illegally in the West Bank) in a hit-and-run accident …..
Don’t waste your time to respond: after two comments you clearly stand out as a hasbarist.
There is no point of arguing with people such as Richard. They are the judge, the jury and the executioner (The terrorist who ran his car into the light train station was fumed by blogs and ‘media outlets’ such as this one).
It is an excellent road where both Israelis and Arab drive at high speed. I think around 2000 I got a speeding ticket there for going 120 km/h 🙁 As you said, in every normal country, social services would have checked how a 5 year old was let to walk near a village.
As for moving the road further from the village, it will mean destroying the farmers land for which Richard would once again blame Israel. This does not happen with settlement since they are built at hilltops and roads go through wadis.
@ Ariel:
Since I know the hasbara academy values communicating with the enemy in its own language, I will tell you you meant to write “fueled,” not “fumed.” “Fumes” from this blog don’t inspire anything let alone Palestinian terror. And the word you used doesn’t make sense in the context in which you used it. I write this in order to improve the effectiveness of your propaganda effort. Always happy to help!
Yes, indeed Palestinian “terrorists” read my blog. They need to be inspired & indoctrinated by blogs like this to understand the suffering inflicted on them by Israel. Otherwise, they’d sit back & live peacefully and docilely under Israeli domination like good little Palestinians. You see there are secret codes embedded in this website that tell Palestinians what to do & think. Without this, resistance would cease to exist.
As you implied Palestine is not a “normal country.” In fact not a country at all since Israel doesn’t recognize it & maintains it in poverty & impotence. Which is just the way Israel wants it. Do you think Israel wants Palestinian to have “social services,” a viable economy, security? Or would it prefer Palestine to remain a basket case incapable of mounting any serious resistance to its own oppression?
Almost half a century ago now, in the direct aftermath of the Six Day War, the U.S. made an almost pathetic appeal to Israel to be very careful in its handling of Jerusalem and to make the precipitate annexation of the city undone. This was all the more urgent because King Hussein had intimated that he was prepared to come to an unilateral settlement with Israel, not involving Syria and Egypt (the Israelis ignored him and later lied about it)
(The U.S. archival record no. 314 on the meeting between Dean Rusk, the American Secretary of State, Goldberg, U.S.ambassador to the U.N, and Abba Eban, the Israeli Foreign Minister, on 21st June 1967.)
“Jerusalem. Secretary hoped that Israel would be very careful with regard to Jerusalem as it involved actual or latent passions of an enormous number of people. The matter was very delicate and could be a source of strong anti-Israel feeling in the United States. Eban replied that Israel was trying to put the Christian holy places under Christian control and the Moslem holy places under Moslem control. Eban admitted that Israel had a job to do in projecting publicly its intentions regarding access to holy places.”
329. Memorandum From Acting Secretary of State Katzenbach to President Johnson/1/ Washington, June 27, 1967. … “The Israelis tell us they have not yet finally made up their minds on the position they will take with regard to the West Bank generally, and Jerusalem in particular. So far, we have advised them not to take unilateral actions, nor to present the world with a fait accompli.”
360. Telegram From the Department of State to the Mission to the United Nations/1/ Washington, July 13, 1967, 11:06 p.m. … 6581. Please deliver at once following message from Secretary of State to Foreign Minister Eban reported at Plaza Hotel.
In this telegram from Secretary Rusk to Abba Eban he reports on a meeting the US Ambassador Burns to Jordan had with King Hussein. Hussein had intimated that he would be prepared to reach a unilateral settlement with Israel not involving Syria and Egypt (though Nasser had given him the green light for this). Rusk says about Jerusalem:
.” With the knowledge of King Hussein’s willingness to risk a very great deal, certainly including his own security, it is imperative, we think, that your government take a step in connection with the consideration of the future of Jerusalem that would be in harmony with the courage shown by the King and which will facilitate negotiations in the days ahead of us. We urge that you attempt to make the broadest kind of gesture possible with respect to the future of Jerusalem. We urge especially that you make a generous offer with respect to the future of Jerusalem that would in effect explicitly interpret as interim the administrative arrangements recently placed in effect with respect to that city. We would also hope that your country could offer more explicitly to enter into international arrangements for a city which would assure that all religions and all faiths have access to the holy places. The offer might include a willingness to discuss with Jordan directly or otherwise the future of the old city based on the concept of universality, possibly pointing to Jordan as the spokesman for the Arab world in view of its location in relation both to Israel and to Jerusalem itself.Let me add that as you know our own position on Jerusalem has for some years supported its international character, a position to which we still adhere.”
We know that this appeal was in vain.
It will remain one of the mysteries of history why the US, with al its might, couldn’t get its way on this point and still can’t.
Quote:
“And why is our rage for vengeance against ISIS pure and noble while the Muslim counter-reaction is bestial and uncivilized?”
This is a classic when one group of people commits crimes against another. One can see past policies like “the Manifest Destiny” which was just an excuse to kill and purge the native American population from attractive land areas. Resistance from the tribes were met with massive brutality. In the name of self defence, of course.
The phrase attributed to General Sheridan “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” says it all.
Replaced “Indian” with Palestinian and I have no doubt you could find quite a few settlers nodding with approval.
Richard, a operfect essay. Thanks and wishes for broader publication.
“I and the public know, what all school children learn.
Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return.”
— W.H. Auden
Well actually, the current rate for 3 Israelis isn’t 2,100 but 3,072, as dictated by Hamas in the Shalit exchange.
@ Deir,
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough – the reason I mentioned the wealthiness of Turmus-Aya was to show that lack of funds isn’t the excuse for not having a descent car pull or some other sort of transportation picking up kids to school (since the accident happened during the early hours of the morning and the school is in Sinjil, I’m assuming she’s from the Turmus side).
The matter of illegality of the occupation isn’t the reason that girl died and the fact that you (or the Palestinian press) make it so will only mean that more children will die because of lack of safety awareness (and that, Richard, is what’s being whitewashed here). It was only a coincidence that this poor girl was hit by a settler – tomorrow it could be a Palestinian driver who will – just like I have witnessed during PE, and guess what, I didn’t see you raise a finger to write about that.
@ shay: The child victims didn’t live in the purportedly “rich” village. They lived in a different village, not so “rich.” And even if rich, do you know the family of the victims has a car or other means of providing transport for their children?
More children will die in Palestine because more Israelis will kill them: either in car accidents or at the hands of the IDF or Border Police or whomever. A hit & run accident is NOT a “coincidence.” Again, this is shameful pandering & I find it revolting.
@ Shay
You apparently don’t know anything about this incident: I have no idea what the economical situation of Turmus’ayyeh or school buses have to do here. Inas Shawkat Dar Khalil lived just next to the road she had to cross, her mother was standing close by when she was hit.
The fact is: if a Jewish settler is hit “by coincidence” by a Palestinian, it’s never just an accident. And he would never be relased immediately after a hit-and-run. And of course the occupation is the reason she died, because that settler from Yitzhar shouldn’t be there in the first place.
Why don’t you read Richard’s articles about Ziad Jilani who was executed by the Border Police after being involved in a minor car accident also in Occupied Palestine, that is East Jerusalem.
Nobody buys your hasbara here.
from this article – “…In fact, the Palestinian wrote a Facebook post a few days before the attack which featured a picture of Al Aqsa in flames with the caption “Al Aqsa in danger.” …”
It would be nice if you could write a blog about the fictitious claims of Palestinians about ‘steelers’ ‘storming’ Al-Aqsa. You present it as a reason for a Palestinian to attacks Israelis but not that it is gasoline Palestinian leaders make up. I believe it is made up for two reason – A. No footage of such ‘storming’ have surfaced in the past 2 months. B. I personally spoke with policemen, some of whom arabs, at the gates of Temple Mount, and they said nothing happened.
@ Ariel: If you’d paid any attention to Facebook you’d have seen video of the Israeli police storming Al Aqsa & exploding teargas cannisters inside it. It’s quite edifying. You ought to break out some popcorn & refreshments & watch it. It will probably give you a frisson of pleasure to see Palestinians scattering through the mosque like mosquitos in the face of the onslaught.
This is video available in my Facebook timeline. This isn’t made up. Just as Feiglin assaults the Temple Mount with True Believing settlers, the police assault it with hate & violence. You think Palestinians have created a fiction in which they make up Israeli assaults? Are they making up the thefts of Silwan homes? Making up the settler pogroms? Making up the 2,100 Gazan dead? The burned mosques and vandalized cemeteries?
You are moderated. It means that if you comment further, every claim you offer will be supported by credible evidence. Nothing you write will be believed without such evidence. Opinions & propaganda will not be published. I put you to a higher standard because you’ve violated the comment rules & are just generally a nasty SOB.
Is SOB is within the limits of the comment rules??
Indeed I saw the video of the police at the entrance to Al-Aqsa but I just call that great police work. What I didn’t see on your facebook timeline is a video of Moshe Feiglin storm Al-Aqsa. If you can post here a direct link, I will deeply appreciate that.
@ Ariel: You call provoking religious holy war “good police work?” That’s all we need to know about you. I’d like to see what you think of tear gas cannisters exploding inside the courtyard of the Kotel. You’d break out your personal IDF issued weapons (or the nearest one at hand) & lock & load.
“Storm” was meant ironically & with a bit of poetic license. If Feiglin could storm the Noble Sanctuary with arms & get away with it he would in a heartbeat. Why is it that hasbarists all have no sense of irony or satire? Universally dull & literal.
Sorry for not being familiar with Umm Kulthum and other Arab artists and poets. ‘Storming’ has a very strict meaning that is far from reality.
Once again, after digging through your facebook timeline, I couldn’t find any footage of settlers or any other civilians ‘storming’ the Temple Mount. Please post a direct link to the video.
@ Ariel: Then you don’t know English, pal. English words must be understood in the context of which they’re used. There is no such thing as an English word having “a very strict meaning” that precludes their use in ironic or metaphorical terms. If you can’t apprehend irony or hyperbole when its used, that’s your problem, not mine. I explained how I used the term and every other reader but you understood. So to paraphrase Shakespeare, the problem my friend is not in the words or the stars, but in yourself.
If you don’t cut out this poseur fakery, you’ll be moderated. I don’t appreciate giving you English lessons. No more comments from you in this thread. Period.
” The burned mosques and vandalized cemeteries?”
Cuts both ways, doesn’t it?
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4586786,00.html
The growth of ISIS goes back to the days of WW1 and the Paris Peace Conference and the dissolution of the British Mandate of Palestine after WW2. That history is one unbroken period of betrayal of Arab nationalism by “The West”. ISIS is not going to make the mistakes which the Arab chieftains made when they promised to attack German units in return for an Arabic state at some time in the future in WW1 with totally antiquated arms. While the map of the ISIS caliphate is much larger and totally unrealistic (it is propaganda) the immediate goal is the establishment of that promised state (via Lawrence of Arabia who knew that he was lying to them: Sykes-Picot!) perhaps minus Israel which is too dangerous to attack directly. Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and all of the Arabian peninsula are targeted.