What I am going to say today is not likely to make me many friends.
Not only are there no “good guys” in the Israel vs. Gaza thing, not only is the Israeli reaction way over the top, but I am sick and tired of anybody who says anything bad about Israel being called an anti-semite!
FIne, I concede that it was not a good thing for whatever party is responsible to fire rockets into Israel.
You know what else was not a good thing? A blockade for a year against the legally and democratically elected government, preventing goods such as medical supplies from getting in. Oh, you didn’t know that Hamas was elected to power? I guess we’re only for democracy when we like the outcome!
And what else was not a good thing? “We don’t think you are keeping enough law and order so we’re going to bomb your civilian police and your prisons and completely take away your ability to provide law and order! Yeah, let’s take out the TV station and a place of worship too. We’ll even take out the private residences of some of the people we consider to be in charge. And if a few hundred innocent men and women and little kids get hurt, that’s show-biz.” Never mind that when you do things like that, you give the survivors a perfectly good reason to hate your guts. What, you think the citizenry are going to turn around and say “Oh, well I guess it’s a good thing that we’ve been bombed back to bricks! Truly the Isrealis are our friends for showing us the error of our ways!”
Frankly, the only way Israel’s actions make sense is if the actual goal is genocide.
But you know what else is not a good thing? Calling everyone who doesn’t automatically think everything Israel does is wonderful an “anti-semite.” We can’t even have a discussion of right and wrong when every attempt to bring it up is effectively Godwinned. Heck, when Ezra Klien is accused of being an anti-semite, things have gotten way, way out of control!
Hamas are no saints. But Israel isn’t blameless either. That’s not anti-semitism; that’s a fact.
Update: Firedoglake translates AP coverage; Ezra speaks out on the false binary of “Israel can do no wrong or you are anti-Israel” (and remember, therefore anti-Semite and maybe even a Nazi too); and the ArchCrone on remembering the humanity. These are truly must-read items.
In closing: 21 dumbest moments in business for 2008; virginity pledges still don’t work, they just make young people less likely to use contraceptives; an African priest in America; counterfieting on the rise (so much for John Snow’s “strong currency” theory); our economy is so bad that fewer people are sneaking into the country than at any time since 1976; cheap and nutritious; the WaMu empire was built on shaky loans; and the “Case” Against Christopher Handley is based entirely on a few drawings in books of fiction. If this man is convicted, anybody with a copy of “Lolita” on their bookshelf might be convicted too.
Firing rockets is an act of war.Indiscriminate launching is an act of terrorism.I don’t know why you believe the party initiating action has a moral ability to set an upper limit on the response.Could you please explain?
Mycroft
I said that the rockets were wrong, and I even put it in bold type.
However, the blockade that precipitated them is also an act of war according to the United Nations.
My point is that there were no good guys in this mess. Two wrongs — or 20 or 200 wrongs — never make a right. Under your logic, why not the death penalty for jaywalking? Why shouldn’t police just bulldoze crime-ridden neighborhoods with all the people still in the homes? Because those things would ultimately do more harm than good. Much like the current Israeli actions will ultimately do more to breed terrorists than discourage them.
You *did* indeed declare the rockets were wrong. Isreal has done it’s share of reprehensible things. However, equating the two sets of actors as “equal” in their transgressions glosses over the complexity of the situation. The “duly elected government” (Hamas) openly calls for the *destruction* of Israel. Last time I checked the Israelis weren’t calling for the destruction of any Arab states, they’d really like to be left alone. Israel does nothing, it’s people are kidnapped and murdered, or just murdered. Israel gives back territory, the terrorists move the Qassam launchers closer. Israel gets tired of having it’s people murdered and indiscriminate acts of destruction rained upon it, it responds, and it’s “wrong.” What, pray tell, can Israel do in order to live in peace? If we start “laundry listing” atrocities, the Israelis have a long way to go before they get close to what their opponents have done. (I’m not arguing that should be a goal..those scales are better left unbalanced.)
Mike posits a logical fallacy here.
Pointing out that there is fault to be found on both sides logically implies precisely ZERO equivalence between what proportion of the overall blame each side bears.