Nine Ten Eleven more rockets today. I’m awaiting the UN condemnation of the indiscriminate targeting of civilians, including children, by the Palestinian terrorists. Okay, no, not really, but I like to say that to point out the vast difference in the way Israeli and Palestinian civilians are treated by the world media.
Nine Qassam rockets were fired at the western Negev since early morning Monday. One man was lightly injured and several others suffered from shock.
Additionally, a group of female soldiers suffered shock after one of the rockets landed near them. Magen David Adom paramedics treated the soldiers at the scene and evacuated them. All IDF troops stationed in Sderot are required to wear helmets at all times.
[…] Only 811 out of the 3,000 pupils in Sderot arrived at schools Monday morning, as studies resumed. Some 161 preschoolers out of the 900 children in Sderot’s kindergartens resumed their activities, in sheltered locations.
Every time there is a closure in the West Bank, the wire services are full of quotes from Palestinian children who can’t complete their exams due to Israeli army interference. I don’t expect to see the same from the media, because we all know better than to expect fairness.
………still waiting for the Olmert government to show evidence of a spinal column and hammer Gaza into submission………..(sound of crickets)
Not to trivialize Hamas’ targetting of civilians in any way, but Israeli operations in Gaza do result in vastly higher numbers of civilians deaths than the amateur attacks by Palestinians.
Certainly in the U.S., the opposite of what you claim is noticeable—that is the obious trivialization of Palestinian deaths, or justification by association with terrorism, however loosely defined.
Kris, I have heard your argument a thousand times before, and it is getting rather old. You are conflating a terrorist force that deliberately targets civilians with an army whose specific orders are to target only terrorists. Attacks on major terrorist figures have been called off due to fears of heavy civilian casualties.
This isn’t a numbers game. It isn’t about whose actions kill more civilians. It’s about terrorists continually bombing the civilians of Sderot, almost daily, for six effing years–with absolutely no world condemnation. This is about more than 2000 rockets launched from Gaza more than a year after the IDF left Gaza—which used to be the “reason” the terrorists claimed for the rocket barrage.
Go read this article at Sderot Media, and then look around the videos, to see what the citizens of Sderot have to put up with on a daily basis.
Imagine how you would feel if, day after day, you had to worry about rockets falling on your home, on your car, at the gas station while you were filling up, or at your child’s school. Are you aware that every school in Sderot now has to be fitted with bomb shelters? That they have the younger grades completed but not the high schools? That many schools have been hit?
It isn’t a numbers game, Kris. You are looking at this from an entirely wrong angle.
Substitute San Diego for Sderot, and the Mexicans for the Palestinians, and what do you think the actions of the U.S. Army would be? And world opinion?
That’s what the framing of this argument is all about.
And one last thought: When terrorists live, work, and hide among civilians—when they call for civilians to come shield their homes as the IDF threatens them—how can there not be civilian casualties?
Hezbullah controlled the media completely in Lebanon last year. You never saw the rocket launchers in the civilian homes, because they didn’t allow the media in until after they’d remove all evidence, to make the IDF look like they deliberately targeted civilians.
Read some of the blogs on my Jewish blogger blogroll, particularly some of the Israeli bloggers. Or just keep reading here.
Your eyes will be opened. Granted, I am not objective. But I never claimed to be. And I don’t make stuff up. I simply report the facts that I find in the world media.
Kris, think about it this way – the Palestinian Arabs manage a two-fer in this latest iteration of their genocidal war against the Jews:
One war crime for when they launch their rockets at Israeli homes and schools, and a BONUS war crime for doing so behind the skirts of Palestinian Arab civilians.
And you want to know something else? If ht egood people of Virginia, in the grip of some twisted genocidal mania, started launching rockets at my neighborhood here in Maryland hoping to kill me and my family, all bets are off in the response I would visit upon them.
And I don’t doubt it would be the same for you.
Don’t fall into the Israel Double-Standard trap.
It’s an intellectually and morally lazy way to spend your waking hours thinking like that. Grow a spine. Fight terror. Fight for freedom.
Kris, you wrote:
“Not to trivialize Hamas’ targetting of civilians in any way, but Israeli operations in Gaza do result in vastly higher numbers of civilians deaths than the amateur attacks by Palestinians.”
Well, you just did trivialize it by playing the numbers game.
And then you trivialized it again by calling them “amateur attacks”. Tell that to the surviving family members of the thousands of victim’s of the Hamas “amateur” murders over the years. Do you have the guts to tell them to their face?
Kris, I just had a look at your blog. Scary stuff. At least you admit why you write stuff like that in your banner: “political commentary on international conflict from a (somewhat) rational perspective”.
Somewhat? Give us a break.
Targetting civilians is never pemissible, granted – One innocent life cannot be measured like that… So I won’t repond to accusations of playing a numbers game.
Also (regarding the withdrawal) under the terms of disengagment, Israel continues to excercise control over the Gazan airspace, sea and all border regimes. The economic policies set in place during Oslo are unchanged – Those studying the Gazan economy in relation to Israel, including the Word Bank, agree that the much of the economic devastation unfolding in Gaza is a direct result of closure policies and draconian border regimes which have continued to an even greater extent post-disengagement. And as far as I know, the United States does not operate on the same level of control over Mexico.
It seems to me that it should be in the interest of Israel as well as the international community to prevent Gaza from sinking to such depths… or I’m afraid extremists will continue to bomb Sderot.
Just my ten cents.
Kris, you write:
“And as far as I know, the United States does not operate on the same level of control over Mexico.”
Do you think that may have something to do with the fact that Mexicans (and the Mexican government) aren’t trying to send homicide bombers through the border every day?
Then you wrote:
“It seems to me that it should be in the interest of Israel as well as the international community to prevent Gaza from sinking to such depths… or I’m afraid extremists will continue to bomb Sderot.”
You have the cause-and-effect precisely backwards. Israel would be more than happy to open up the airspace and the borders if the Palestinian Arabs wouldn’t abuse the privilege by maintaining the war of terror against Israeli civilians.
What is a “draconian border regime”? Refusing entry to bomb-laden child-killers? Call me draconian then – I’ll go out on a limb and say that’s a good thing to enforce. Do you know how many israelis have died because, time and again, they have relaxed the border crossings only to have more Palestinian Arab hoimicide bombings. Enough is enough. Palestinian Arabs want to elect Hamas knowing full well the genocidal agenda? That’s THEIR choice. You want to tout democracy for them? They have a responsibility too. It’s beyond me why you won’t look at the Hamas-Mickey Mouse culture of death in Gaza and ask the Palestinian Arabs why they bring this situation on themselves.
It’s the coward’s way out to blame the Jews for the misfortunes of others, Kris.
Imagine Mexico elected a government whose main platform was the destruction of the United States and the death of every US citizen. And then imagine they started bombarding Arizona and California’s civilian population centers with rockets, and sent homicide bombers through the border stations.
Would the US government impose “draconian” border closures and would it correct in doing so, Kris?
Don’t answer, it’s a rhetorical question.
There is a Gazan city near Sederot which is a favorite site for launching Kassams. There are a number of other settlements near Gaza, too, subject to Kassam fire.
In the US, when a skunk becomes roadkill, it can be smelled for miles around, and people say, “Pee-uuuu, someone must have hit a skunk.” So why doesn’t Israel fire some artillery shells full of skunk odor, or something worse smelling, right into the center of Gazan cities whenever Kassams are falling? These could also be dropped by small parachute from remote controlled
planes.
Other non-lethal means could be used, too. I’m just not sure why Israel doesn’t use this time period to do some experimentation.
Kris, you know what your problem is? It’s two-fold, actually.
You apply a double-standard to Israel that is both unfair and immoral. Unfair because you do not look and think critically into the order of events and the nature and motivations of the actors involved. And you are not a student of history, that much is blatantly obvious. Immoral because you refuse to allow the Jews the right to defend themselves, to RESIST this war against their very existence.
Secondly, you are guilty of condescension to the Palestinian Arabs. Why won’t you hold them to the same standard of behavior one should expect from any civilized people? Is it because their behavior is uncivilized? Well, it is, and you seem unable or unwilling to critically examine why that is the case.
You are guilty of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Kris, you did play a numbers game, with your first comment:
To pretend that you are now above such things is to reframe the argument.
You also say:
Israel would be very happy to stop Gaza from sinking to such depths. But Israel has not had an honest peace partner since Arafat returned from Tunis. It was a huge, huge, HUGE mistake to let that thug take over, but it is also a mistake that the Arab world forced on Israel, once they declared in 1974 that the PLO was the “sole representative of the Palestinian people,” thus turning to terror rather than to peacemaking, and tying Israel’s hands. (The fact that Israel further screwed up by allowing Arafat to return from Tunis and take over the territories is a mistake the Israelis have had to live with for more than 25 years.)
I presume you are aware that the PLO was formed in 1964, and launched terror attacks on Israel prior to 1967, the year that Israel occupied Gaza and the West Bank. I presume you also know that the Arabs never stopped launching attacks against Israel, and that the PLO was formed to destroy the state of Israel. They’ve never actually changed their charter.
As to why all this “ancient” history is valid: You have a lot to say about the closures in Gaza. But you seem to have missed the fact that every time the Karni crossing reopens, the Palestinians launch terrorist attacks via the Karni crossing.
There is no effect without a cause.
I feel very much sympathy for the Sderot, whose agony I cannot comprehend, indeed. The targeting of civilians is always reprehensible, and I feel sorrow for all who are victimized by it.
However, what is being referred to as the “number game” still serves a purpose. International observers must understand which populations in a conflict suffer the must as a result of direct and/or indirect violence of another actor or group.
For example, in Darfur rebels have attacked the Kahrtoum government since decades, but the international community MUST favour the perspective of the innocently persecuted Darfurians, wouldn’t you agree?
As to the claim that Hezbollah fighters sheltered themselves and their weaponry among the civilian population: The only source concerning this claim which seems a) uninterested and b) scientific would be Human Rights Watch, which investigated one third of the cases in which civilian sheltering was claimed to have taken place. It found not one validation. It might have taken place, but it does not seem to be a common denominator.
So let me get this straight, Jonas. If terrorists murder civilians, it’s a bad thing. But if the army of those civilians make the terrorist population suffer more than their own, then the terrorists are the ones who deserve international sympathy?
That is, quite frankly, an Alice-in-Wonderland, totally screwed up, and morally reprehensible view of terrorism.
Your Darfur analogy makes no sense. Hamas is not “rebelling” against the Israeli government. They are actively trying to destroy the Israeli nation and replace it with an Islamic caliphate. Read the charter. That has always ever been the role of all the Palestinian groups, including the PLO.
Cite your HRW investigation. I don’t believe they investigated one third of the cases. Hezbullah did not let any outside investigators do any such thing while the war was on. The media were not allowed near any sites until after Hezbullah removed the missile batteries. I can show you Israeli video that proves the opposite. Unless you can show me fact-based pictures, timed immediately after the attack, you’ve been played by Hezbullah.
Which is unsurprising. The terrorists have been manipulating the media since the 1960s. They learned at the feet of their Soviet masters.
How do these people think straight enough to even order a slice of pizza?
It must be Israel Derangement Syndrome.
Yeah, I didn’t think they’d come back with any citations.
Never should have approved the comments in the first place. I should have checked the URL first. What a waste of effort.