I'm as disturbed as anyone by the savage beating and murder of the 13-year-old Syrian boy who was involved in a children's protest against the regime. On CNN last night Fran Townsend said it was emblematic of the inability of Arab regimes to deal with the young people who are demanding to be vocal participants in their societies.
Ok. But can the media ever address Palestine? What about the 7-year-old arrested by the Israelis in occupied East Jerusalem the other day? Is this case not in the same category? Police had to rough up his family to get him out of the house. Isn't he emblematic? The former congressman Brian Baird likes to point out that there are 600,000 people under 16 in Gaza-- a couple of them are shown at left, in Nils Andersson's photograph from Nakba Day in Gaza-- and that the future is in their hands, and Israel is caging them in conditions generally far worse than what Arabs are experiencing in Syria.
Everything in this piece was sympathetic and honest right up until the last sentence:
“and Israel is caging them in conditions generally far worse than what Arabs are experiencing in Syria.”
How do you evaluate such a thing and why do you need to prove over and again that Israel is worse that everywhere else? By what scale are things “generally far worse”?
If some reputable agency were to produce evidence that countered this statement, if they were to say that on the definitive scale of global suffering, Arabs in Syria are currently at 8 while Palestinians in Gaza are only a 7.5 would that invalidate the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination?
Of course not.
Time and again people at this site show that they are motivated by a need to single out Israel and humiliate Israelis above their need to seek justice for the Palestinians.
I’ve seen this attitude repeatedly in comments. Now we’re seeing it come from the site’s editor.
I don’t know what you think the cause gains from this unprovable claim, but it just feels hateful and unnecessary. There will be justice for the Palestinians, but it will not come because people hated Israel more.
GF, yes.
If Phil ended his sentence with “and Israel is caging them in.” the strong point would have been made. The reader can make his or her own conclusions.
The “they are also doing it!” or “they are even worse” is a line of reasoning often used by Zionist Hasbarists (where it is even impossible to verify the truth of such statements) and is a distraction from the crux of an argument.
As an example, this was a repeated method of twisted reasoning in Bibi’s recent speech to the US Congress.
@Ellen.
Thank you. I agree. Zionists are rightly picked up on this point when they do it. Thanks for standing up against Phil for the same thing.
Well….I am not “against” anyone. But I do support the point you made.
So how many Palestinians does it take to equal one Syrian, GF? Because it sounds to me like Mr. Weiss is speaking in terms of numerics. Your country kills and imprisons far and above more people than Syria, and what is considered a singular atrocity when done by Damascas is considered business as usual in Tel Aviv.
This is a question of quantity, not quality.
Some of the emotion that you perceive is hatred at how the Israeli-Palestinian issue is handled in the mainstream press and by our politicians. Right now, for instance, when clearly Netanyahu is by far the biggest obstacle (even if one just favors a two state solution), there is this rule that everyone follows which says that you never criticize Israel (or Netanyahu) without saying that the Palestinians are also at fault. The reverse rule simply doesn’t exist in the US–it is perfectly possible for someone to criticize Palestinian terror, for instance, without ever feeling the need to criticize Israeli violence. At most you criticize Israel for “humiliating” the Palestinians. And no matter how often it is corrected, we are always being told that Barak made this generous offer at Camp David and Arafat spurned it and started the Second Intifada. Friedman just repeated that in his latest column. Now that was a situation where fairminded people (like Robert Malley) saw blame on all three sides, but of course the rule here is that if you can pin the blame on the unsympathetic Palestinian leader, you don’t have to say anything to balance it.
It’s probably true that comparisons are unnecessary. There’s no need to rank Syria against Israel on a human rights scale. What is relevant is that we condemn Syria and support Israel.
Everything in this piece was sympathetic and honest right up until the last sentence:
if the last sentence wasn’t there you would have found something else to complain about.
That’s because Palestinian children are “children of a lesser God”. For one Syrian child brutally tortured and killed there are hundreds of Palestinian children imprisoned, abused, mangled and slaughtered by Israel throughout the years.
The slaughter of children is hard to take for those of us who don’t discriminate or politicize our humanity. Enter at your own risk; it you can handle the genocidal acts of Israel against Palestinian children. Hasbarists call this “pallywood”; I call it insane brutality:
link to desertpeace.wordpress.com
And the world continues to ignore and condone Israel’s criminal behavior.
Both GF and Ellen are wrong because both seem unaware or incapable of evaluating the aggregate criminal oppression each regime has inflicted on its subjects over the years.
When one list of grievances far outweighs and outnumbers a second list of grievances the author can easily state that A is worse than B.
You two need to open your eyes and ears.
And whereas Ellen may be looking at this from an objective personal point of view, GuiltyFeat is upset because in Israeli soundbite Hasbara, Syria is associated with evil. To state that Israel is worse than Syria, is to destroy that Hasbara and make things difficult for GuiltyFeat.
Avi never misses an opportunity to miss the point.
I said that all comparisons are reductionist and useless. There’s no point in the “my cancer’s more fatal than your cancer” argument and all it does is highlight the absurdity of people who will do anything to score points against Israel and end up doing very little to help the Palestinians. Maybe they don’t know how. Maybe they don’t really care. Who knows? Which one are you, Avi?
Wasn’t this the same argument I had when I told WJ that the phrase “less occupied” was meaningless? And where were you during that discussion, GF?
I think the real kicker, GF, is if YOU really believed that what Israel was doing was qualitatively the same as what Syria was doing, you are either compelled to oppose sanctions on Syria, or demand sanctions on your own country.
So which is it?
When will the Rachel Maddows, Chris Matthews, Ed, Dylan’s of the worlds going to grow some balls , chutzpah on this issue?
Fran Townsend is an arrogant ass
looking for that website focused on the deaths of children killed in middle east violence. Not finding it
But as always If Americans Knew has many of the numbers
link to ifamericansknew.org