I am not an anti-semitic, I will happily criticise any regime with equal vitriol if they conduct themselves in a similar fashion to the NAZIs of WWII. I am also not a pacifist - although I have reservations about the reasons for going to war in Iraq and the subsequent management of the aftermath, I think it needed to be done.
Relatively few people know the history of the state of Israel. People are unaware of the part played by the Jewish terrorist group 'Irgun' in the formation of the state, the massacres of Palestinian people or the bombing of innocent civilians which they carried out in their 'cause' to create a Jewish state which is now Israel. If anyone can be bothered to search for Irgun on the internet, most will no doubt be surprised at the parallels between that group, and Hezbollah and HAMAS. Irgun members have served in senior government and military posts in Israel, and some may still remain.
Israel has a long history of disproportionate responses to terrorist attack by Palestinians or their supporters; forced migration, demolition of family houses (because a single member of the family was a Palestinian activist), extended imprisonment without legal representation, annexation of territory, to name but a few. Does this not remind anyone of the NAZI "final solution"?
The amazing thing is that they have got away with such extreme inhuman acts for so long. When similar regimes appeared in Europe, Europeans acted to dismantle those regimes by force. In comparison, the UK and the USA in particular sell weapons systems to what is in essence a terrorist state.
The USA makes a big deal about spreading democracy to the Arab states, yet when HAMAS are democratically elected to govern the Palestinian people, somehow that doesn't count as 'real democracy'. Why not?
Let's examine the latest outbreak of violence in the region:
1. Palestinians kidnap one Israeli soldier.
2. Israel attacks the Palestinian territories, killing many civilians and demolishing large chunks of the Palestinian infrasructure.
How is this in any way proportionate? To continue;
3. Hezbollah (probably) kidnap 2 Israeli soldiers.
4. Israel mount an all-out war on Lebanon, attacking (amongst other targets) Beirut airport and power stations, and bridges.
Proportionate? Who are you kidding, Israel. How is a power station a valid military target in the context of this Blitzkrieg? Destroying bridges and attacking the airport can be justified in a strict sense in that it makes it harder for Hezbollah to escape or move materiel and personnel around, but that must be weighed against the devastating effect on the local population who are trying to escape from your killing ground. continuing;
5. Hezbollah launch relatively inaccurate and ineffective rockets across the border into Northern Israel.
Israel then try to blame their war on this, ignoring the fact that the rocket attacks _were_in_response_ to the attack by Israel and trusting that the general public are stupid enough to forget that fact. Maybe Israel are right, and the majority of people really _are_stupid? How else can they get away with this.
6. It transpires that US aircraft carrying ammunition to supply the Israeli NAZIs are stopping-off in the UK to refuel.
WTF are the USA doing supplying ammo to the Israelis in these circumstances? Why aren't the British Government summoning the US Ambassador to the Foreign Office and instructing him that under no circumstances are they to use the UK for transit of war materiel to Israel? Poodles.
7. As well as supplying one side of the combatants with weapons, the USA go through the motions of negotiating a settlement to the conflict.
How can they really take account of the views of the victim state (Lebanon) while at the same time actively participating in the conflict by supplying Israel with ammunition to bomb Lebanon with? Do they think the public (particularly the Lebanese) are deficient large ammounts of brain tissue? Maybe they're right, but I somehow doubt it.
8. Israel bombs a village, killing at least 54 civilians, 34 of them women and children. One was a one-day-old baby.
I suppose that the day old baby might have grown up to be an Hezbollah terrorist. This is the second time that Israel has inflicted civilian casualties on this village, in 1996 over a hundred were killed when Israel "accidentally" pounded the village with anti-personnel ammunition - the accident must have been that they left a few innocent civilians alive by mistake the first time so they decided to try again.
9. The USA and the UK start to back-pedal on their support for Israel's actions.
I wonder if that means that arms supplies to Israel via the UK have suddenly stopped? Call me a cynic, but I doubt it.
10. Israel declares that they will stop air attacks on Lebanon for 48 hours.
11. In spite of (10) above, air operations continue over Lebanon.
This just adds to the image of duplicity earned by the Israeli NAZIs.
What has been achieved by the Israeli terrorist tactics? The Blitzkrieg has been rolling for two weeks, have they taken out the Hezbollah rocket launchers? Have they caused irreparable damage to Hezbollah? No, but they have caused a mass-migration of refugees, destroyed swathes of Lebanese infrastaructure, and killed at least 800 people, many of them women and children. If the keep going for a year or so, maybe they will achieve total genocide in lebanon, something which Adolf Hitler and his fellow NAZIs failed to do. They have also boosted support for groups like Hezbollah - I know that if my electricity and water supplies were disrupted, my home destroyed, my family members murdered by the Israelis, I would be first in the queue to join a group like HAMAS or Hezbollah.
What started this again? Oh yes, the nasty terrorists kidnapped 3 Israeli soldiers. Obviously, the Israeli NAZIs have no concept of "proportionate response".
Don't get me started on the US attitude to Iran and North Korea developing Nuclear weapons - why aren't they objecting to Israel's Nuclear weapons?
Joe McGonagle
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6 comments:
I tend to have developed the same opinions as you Joe. However, Hezbollah terrorists never target military installations etc... but have been quite content to send their missiles into areas where the ordinary Israeli population live. The Hezbollah terrorists have been quite willing to bomb cafes, restaurants, buses, etc... in the past. I believe that Hezbollah and the mindless suicide bombers would much rather kill civilians than military personnel - or at least that is what has happened in the past, innocent people on their way to work, children on their way to school.
But I also suspect that you have "hit the nail on the head" in your comments about the U.S.A. and the U.K. The only logical reason that I can think of that explains their attitudes/actions is the massive financial gains to be made out of warfare. Maybe a bit simplistic but never the less, probably true.
I sympathise with your obvious anger.
Thanks for the comment Geoff.
My main point was that the Israelis _consistently_ react disproportionately to terrorist attacks, and that it is this which perpetuates the support for the terrorists. Ultimately, Israel's security problems are self-inflicted. The USA's blind support for Israel is what makes them so hated by the the Moslem states. We are going to be pulled down in the quagmire by our "close relationship" with the USA. Blair the poodle needs to be put down before he gets us all into deeper sh*t.
I think this is a splendid blog, Joe. Well done.
I also think Geoff is possibly a little muddled over Hezbollah; they are not the ones who have bombed cafes, buses etc in the past. As far as I am aware, this has usually involved Hamas.
Hezbollah came to prominence when Israel invaded Lebanon and refused to move out.
Believe it or not, they are not among those who have sworn to eradicate Israel either. Their current complaint is over the illegal detention, without trial, of a number of Lebanese citizens. The idea of kidnapping the Israeli soldiers was supposed to have been a way of gaining a bargaining chip to try to secure the release of these Lebanese currently held in Israel. It was probably not a smart move as it seems it was just the excuse the Israelis had been waiting for.
I agree that they don't generally target military installations; they just fire their rockets and wonder where they land. So they aren't specifically targetting anything, they are just hitting back with whatever they have.
The problem nowadays is that people (and our media in particular) tend to lump many groups together as they are all Muslim. It is perhaps too complicated for them to try to explain the whole range of groups, parties, sects etc in the Middle East.
This results in people making comments such as Geoff's and allows the likes of Bush and Blair to keep repeating the "War on terror" mantra. The scrap between Hezbollah and Israel had nothing to do with terrorism until two weeks ago. Who knows where the events of the last couple of weeks will now lead? Even we in the West understand the logic of "If you are my enemy's friend then you too are my enemy".
Re the caption "Israel-the NAZIs of the Middle East", congratulations joe. You have had the guts to say what a lot of people realise but are scared to say publicly. As soon as anyone points out the obvious similarities in behaviour, the Holocaust is trotted out. There were Israelis on the radio today doing just that. The Holocaust was directed at Jews, not the Israelis so that argument is and always has been invalid.
Ther is something perverted and reminiscent of the behaviour of the German armies on the Russian front in the current behaviour of the Israeli actions. First they ensure the roads out of southern Lebanon are destroyed and too dangerous to travel, then tell the population to leave before they start destroying their towns etc. Leave how?
Walking to Beirut is hardly an option.
The attack on the UN observer post was undoubtedly deliberate; a total of 6 hours of phone calls back and forth with a string of categoric assurances that the shelling will stop is evidence that this was no accident. It was obviously done for one reason; the Israelis did not want the UN observers doing their job which was to observe and report on their actions in that area. Then they lie about it being unintentional.
Today they have lied again; first there will be a 48 hour respite then, within a few hours that is forgotten and the IDF announce there will not be any break in the bombing and shelling.
The Israeli government led Condoleeza Rice up the garden path with talk of agreeing to a cease fire within the week. The moment she is out of their air space, this is denied.
While all this is going on and the world is focussed on Lebanon, nobody is watching what is happening in Gaza with the IDF using Palestinian civilians as human shields, indiscriminately shelling housing areas etc.
Good blog Joe, keep it up.
Thanks for the kind comments, Kelvin.
I do seem to recall sporadic missile attacks by Hezbollah in the past, without any direct provocation by Israel, so on that basis it is probably reasonable to consider them as terrorists prior to recent events.
Cheers,
Joe
This is a very thought provoking blog, Joe. I admire the passion with which you argue for the human rights of innocent Palestinians, and wholeheartedly agree that the apparent targeting of civilian areas is absolutely unacceptable. If the civilian casualties are not being inflicted intentionally, they are certainly the result of willful negligence on behalf of the IDF.
I would not, however, brand the State of Israel as a "Nazi state". The word "Nazi" is branded about all too frequently these days, without due consideration of what the term actually implies. Whilst I suspect your intention was to draw parallels with the deliberate targeting of an entire people by Nazi Germany in WW2, I believe it is overstating the case to describe Israel's actions in like manner. Present Israeli actions are disproportionate and counter-productive, on this I think we're agreed. However, we must also be mindful of the threat under which Israel _perceives_ itself to be. Israel has no desire for world domination, nor is committed to the destruction of the Palestinian people per se. Whilst the tactics and strategy employed by the IDF may be reminiscent of the blatant disregard for human life that we identify with Nazi actions during WW2, the mission objective diverges with the Nazi analysis. It's also worth noting that no warring country is entirely blameless in this regard; Dresden was one of the more obvious examples of Allied disregard for innocent life.
I do recognise the double standard that appears to exist within the of governance of Israel and it's allies as regards "value of life". I can see the argument that to consider an innocent Palestinian child to be less worthy of life and protection than his/her Israeli peer may exhibit elements of a Nazi mindset.
So whilst I do not consider Israel to harbour "Nazi" objectives, I do sympathise with where you're coming from in terms of the quite disgraceful attacks we're witnessing day after day on our TV screens.
Hi Dan, thanks for your comments which as always are balanced and well-considered. You wrote:
"Israel has no desire for world domination, nor is committed to the destruction of the Palestinian people per se."
While I agree that Israel has no aspirations towards world domination, it is my contention that they are exercising a slow form of Genocide on the Palestinian people. By consistently targeting their infrastructure (eg power stations), severely restricting their movements, and not allowing them to build up a significant military force, they are waging an economic and social war on the Palestinians. This has the effect of reduced life expectancy, increased infant mortality, and migration of the populus to more stable and hospitable areas (where they have that option).
Whilst not an overt form of Genocide, the ultimate outcome is virtually indistinguishable.
Cheers,
Joe
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