Comments from Comrade Karla #2

Today the good comrade rolls-in on some oft-used criticism of Israel.

1. On Israeli "warcrimes": I'm well aware, as an historian, of past Israeli transgressions prior to independence and after. What's more interesting to me is that Arab transgressions, which are monumental and ongoing, and range from deliberate targeting of civilians to deliberate perpetuation of the Palestinian "refugee" problem for domestic political purposes is completely and continually ignored by those who wish to place the entire onus of fault in the region on Israel. I've concluded, after many years of not only study but attempts to engage on the issue, that those who believe such things simply are not interested in an objective discussion of the issues.

2. On the elusive middle-east peace and Israel's "disproportionate response":

Or, as Golda Meir said, "we will have peace with the Arabs when the love their children more than they hate us." If the Arabs truly wanted peace and were willing to accept Israeli as a sovereign state, this conflict would have been over long ago. Defending your country from ongoing missile attack can hardly be considered a jihadi policy; rather it is the jihadis who have brought this upon their own heads. Actions have consequences. One of these days Hamas and their ilk will learn this lesson.

3. On Jews clinging to Israel in the name of Zionism when they should be emigrating to the west:

That's simply unrealistic, nor it is a very serious argument, say compared with the debate about what should happen to the occupied territories or how to resolve the associated issues of settlements, the border, security arrangements or the role of neighboring states. Nor does it seem based on any serious evaluation of the actual situation--non of the Israelis I know are interested in going somewhere else, and why should they? Israel is a sovereign, legitimate state by any understanding of the accepted definition. Try reading the Hamas or Fatah charters to see how they feel about it--hard to see how you can have a peace treaty with an organization who's baseline is destruction of your country and people.

4. On criticizing Israel does not equal anti-Semitism:

No, it actually is a fact that anti-semitism often lurks behind much anti-Israeli criticism--certainly not all, but much of it--do some youtube searches on the sicko stuff being yelled at demonstrations from London to Dearborn about Israel needing more ovens or Hitler didn't do his job. Surely the sick antics of the UN meetings at Durban cannot have escaped your notice?5. On the "unbiased" press coverage of Gaza:Once again, none of this gainsays the fact that coverage of the conflict tends to be biased in favor of Hamas and the "2 minute drive by media" spend little time trying to put together any sort of comprehensive analysis, which ranges from the careless (CNN, Fox, MSNBC) to the outright dishonest (BBC, Al Jezeera, AP, Reuters, etc).