Oh the irony!
September 8th, 2003
The United Nations stays quiet through suicide bombing after suicide bombing, and through hundreds of innocent Israelis being murdered. But Kofi Annan feels the need to condemn Israel for targeting the leader of Hamas!
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned Israel’s attempt to kill the spiritual leader of Hamas, accusing the state of using excessive force and violating international humanitarian law, the U.N. spokesman said Monday.
So the U.N. doesn’t mind when innocent kids are killed. But G-d forbid anyone should try to take out a terrorist mastermind!
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Dude, what do you expect? Kofi Annan blames Israel everytime he misses the bus.
Yep. Those damned Zionist bus drivers . . .
Annan’s condemned Palestinian suicide bombings plenty of times — the point is that both actions are extra-judicial killings and both violate international law.
No, your point, “me”, is that every time some innocent Israelis are killed, you try to deflect the issue by talking about IDF targetings of terrorists, lumping them together as morally equivalent and then using that to excuse Palestinian terrorism.
Actually, my point is to include the facts that you consistently exclude in your posts, segacs.
For example, not mentioning Annan’s condemnations of Palestinian militants’ actions allows you to draw the facile conclusion that the UN is ‘biased against Israel.’
For example, not mentioning the fact that Israel is in current violation of numerous international and human rights laws allows you to draw the facile conclusion that criticism of Israeli policy is ‘antisemitic.’
That’s my point.
International laws set up to prevent a country from defending itself against attack?
Besides, the international laws you so often quote are violated much more flagrantly by the Palestinian side than by the Israeli one. The difference is that Arafat pretends he has nothing to do with terrorism, while the Israeli government stands behind the IDF’s defensive actions.
You’d excuse terrorism by saying that it’s a “reaction” to Israeli occupation, but you don’t see Israeli defense as a reaction to Palestinian terror and aggression. Why the double-standard?
Bullshit. How exactly do land confiscations, destruction of vital civilian infrastructure and settlement building qualify as ’self-defense’?
Israeli violations of international law include: the military occupation, collective punishment, destruction of vital civilian infrastructure, arbitrary detention, city closures and curfews, population transfer (in and out), extra-judicial assassinations, using excessive force in civilian areas, land confiscation, building of colonies, use of torture, firing on ambulances and journalists….
Show me the ‘more flagrant’ list of Palestinian violations of international law. For Realist, above, show me the (’equally long’) list of Palestinian violations of the road map.
When exactly have I ‘excused’ the suicide bombings? Each of my posts attempts to make the point that both the Israeli army and the Palestinian militants are committing gross violations of human rights and international law, and I think that pressure should be put on both governments to remedy the situation.
But when Arafat’s called a terrorist and Sharon a man of peace, when all the pressure’s put on the PA to ‘dismantle terrorist infrastructure’ while the IDF’s allowed to continue and even escalate its state terror in the territories, this is the biggest double-standard of all.
As for action vs. reaction, all those arguments were made within the context of the road map. I’ve shown repeatedly how, whereas the Abbas got the Palestinian militants to stop their violence against Israeli citizens, Sharon ramped up the raids, settlement-building and assassinations in the occupied territories. It’s quite clear which actions violated the ceasefire and which ones responded to those violations. That’s neither an excuse nor a justification but a statement of fact.
Check your own statement in another post: “Those Israelis who were tensely waiting for the next terrorist attack didn’t have to wait long.” Why the waiting? Well, since Israel had just attempted the assassination of Hamas’s Yasin, a RESPONSE was expectable. You know this as well as Sharon did. His brutal policy has produced two years of the worst violence Israel has known. You think butchering people brings peace? Hell no. Palestinians, like Israelis (like most humans), react to violence with attempted greater violence. It’s a fucked up spiral and it’s never going to lead to a resolution. The only way this thing’s going to get resolved is by both sides taking single, cautious steps back away from the violence rather than forward into it.
I’ll admit, I was no fan of the road map when it was released; it was the same ideas re-heated. But when the militants backed off, I saw some hope. If Israel had responded in kind we might be at a very different place today. Of course that would assume that peace and security is what Sharon actually wanted — an assumption that looks more naive each day.
When I see you put even a little condemnation
of Israeli policy (and I don’t mean ‘I’m no fan of the settlements’, I mean admit the ongoing violations of human rights and international law by the IDF in the territories) on this blog, maybe we can talk again about MY double standards.
You’re excusing the murder of children on a bus as appropriate retaliation for assassination of a terrorist, “me”. Your moral equivalences have no bounds, do they?