Sunday, January 11, 2009

Irony used to be part of native jewish humour

so the repeated cant that Hammas are terrorists
holding innocent victims in front of them while the israeli army has to shoot them to stop the missiles is based in a model of Hammas as some invading force in Gaza rather than a representative government (however dodgy)
the recent demo by pro-israeli supporters in london led by England's chief rabbi in trafalgar square repeats this sadly incorrect view of the world, which is simply not going to help anyone understand where to go next.

the sad irony is that the british army viewed early israeli settlers just before the declaration of the state of Israel as terrorists - indeed it is pretty hard to see how the Stern Gang's blowing up of the King David Hotel which killed 92 people (significantly more than the last 3 months of Hammas missiles) could be viewed as anything other. Yet the british went on to embrace the state of israel only 2 years later.

one more point: pro-israeli apologists like to say that Hamas cause the civilian deaths by hiding their weaponsmasters behind women and children - aside from the absurd contradiction inherent in this (Hamas are a govnemnet in gaza - they can go anywhere they like - the IDF choose to shoot at them, and could equally choose not to. the Israeli's kill palestinian civilians and must take 100% of the blame. But more critical still, the Israeli's 300,000 settlers in the westbank are doing EXACTLY the same thing (hiding a settlement behind civilians) and then getting a certain level of IDF support (bulldozoing any homestead of a Palestinian daring enough to object with actual action).

perhaps the israelis learn something new again from their own history. in particular, they should learn how long the memories are of victims, since that's where they start from themselves.

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