Tuesday, December 30, 2008

How Hypocrisy on 'Terrorism' Kills

By Robert Parry
December 30, 2008

Israel, a nation that was born out of Zionist terrorism, has launched massive airstrikes against targets in Gaza using high-tech weapons produced by the United States, a country that often has aided and abetted terrorism by its client military forces, such as Chile’s Operation Condor and the Nicaraguan contras, and even today harbors right-wing Cuban terrorists implicated in blowing up a civilian airliner.

Read on.
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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

On this subject I couldn't disagree with you more. Every country was born out of "terrorism" on some level but please, don't compare creating a country out of colonialism with vowing to destroy a country and overrun it, which is Hamas's desire. And don't compare defending oneself against indiscriminate attacks with missiles purposefully aimed at civilians and suicide bombers, which is what you're doing. At some point every war is "terrorism" and at some point given that definition you might as well just give up and be overrun by your enemies. Hamas has no intention of negotiating with Israel, nor has the Palestinian leadership for 50+ years. You are naive in the extreme.

Tue Dec 30, 01:35:00 PM 2008
Anonymous said...

Well said Mr. Parry. I see the truth is painful to some of Israel's apologists

Tue Dec 30, 06:49:00 PM 2008
Anonymous said...

Who knows maybe we're all wrong on some level. Regardless of what it may seem like on surface; almost everything Hamas & IRI forces were doing so far aligns perfectly with what Zionists always wanted! And in other issues it lines up perfectly with that of certain other powers (Masters) of the Globe. Perhaps that's simply because dictators are often puppets (one way or many)!

Prove me wrong, but isn't WAR what the "Zionists" want, not peace? Well IRI is giving them that, by brainwashing Hamas and/or other forces in lebenon, etc.

When it comes to M.E Real Politics, there is no SIDE!
It's all about this Evil game of Power & Wealth in any cost.
That's what Real Politics is suppose to be (or was so far) isn't it?

IRI "Real Think Tanks" do not reside in M.E., and they certainly don't give a damn about ANY Nation or ANY Religion.Yours included!

This is the first and most important Variable we actually know for sure (!) So Match everything against that and see what you get...

God Bless

Tue Dec 30, 11:11:00 PM 2008
Anonymous said...

After 9/11, people around the world said, "We're all Americans." But after Iraq was attacked, did you see anyone say, "We're all Iraqis"? There's a double standard right there.

I still remember after the first Gulf War started, Ronn Owens, a popular talk-show host in San Francisco, made a mockery of an Iraqi woman in a news clip, who was mourning her child, crying, "Why? Why?" He dismissed it as propaganda from Saddam Hussein. Regardless of how one felt about the first Gulf War, one couldn't help but shudder at such lack of empathy in the media.

Wed Dec 31, 12:23:00 AM 2008
Tom said...

"It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians" - See important blog post: Israel Attacks Gaza Again

Wed Dec 31, 12:18:00 PM 2008
Terrible said...

Maybe if the terrorist Israelis weren't trying to literally starve the population of Gaza to death the people of Gaza wouldn't have to defend themself from the Zionist terrorism by any means neccassary.

Wed Dec 31, 01:58:00 PM 2008
Anonymous said...

There is one word that captures best the ideas expressed in this article: immoral. Hamas has expressly dedicated itself to the destruction of Israel and since it assumed power in Gaza it has embarked on a campaign of terror against Israeli citizens through ceaseless rocket fire. Mr.Parry's position would lead to the further terrorizing, injury and death of more Israelis. The only moral course here, i.e., the only course which would protect and save the lives of Israeli citizens, is the total destruction of Hamas.

In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza leaving the Arabs an opportunity to build a peaceful and productive society. Instead, they elevated a brutal terrorist group to power which has followed the path of war and destruction. The Arabs must now be taught in harsh terms that one reaps what he sows. Until the Israelis get this message--ignoring the various Jew-haters that emerge from under their rocks any time Israel has the audacity to protect its citizens--Israel will be doomed to suffer at the hands of these butchers.

Wed Dec 31, 02:11:00 PM 2008
Anonymous said...

Dear Bob,

You spoke to hundreds of my high school students in DC when I was working with a civic education organization. I wanted to say a very, very belated thank you for this, and hope you influenced those students to speak truth to power.

Wed Dec 31, 03:30:00 PM 2008
Anonymous said...

Israel's actions in Gaza are justified under international law, and Israel should be commended for its self-defense against terrorism. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter reserves to every nation the right to engage in self-defense against armed attacks. The only limitation international law places on a democracy is that its actions must satisfy the principle of proportionality.
Since Israel ended its occupation of Gaza, Hamas has fired thousands of rockets designed to kill civilians into southern Israel. The residents of Sderot -- which have borne the brunt of the attacks -- have approximately 15 seconds from launch time to run into a shelter. Although deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime, terrorists firing at Sderot are so proud of their actions that they sign their weapons.
When Barack Obama visited Sderot this summer and saw the remnants of these rockets, he reacted by saying that if his two daughters were exposed to rocket attacks in their home, he would do everything in his power to stop such attacks. He understands how the terrorists exploit the morality of democracies.
In a recent incident related to me by the former head of the Israeli air force, Israeli intelligence learned that a family's house in Gaza was being used to manufacture rockets. The Israeli military gave the residents 30 minutes to leave. Instead, the owner called Hamas, which sent mothers carrying babies to the house.
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Hamas knew that Israel would never fire at a home with civilians in it. They also knew that if Israeli authorities did not learn there were civilians in the house and fired on it, Hamas would win a public relations victory by displaying the dead. Israel held its fire. The Hamas rockets that were protected by the human shields were then used against Israeli civilians.
These despicable tactics -- targeting Israeli civilians while hiding behind Palestinian civilians -- can only work against moral democracies that care deeply about minimizing civilian casualties. They never work against amoral nations such as Russia, whose military has few inhibitions against killing civilians among whom enemy combatants are hiding.
The claim that Israel has violated the principle of proportionality -- by killing more Hamas terrorists than the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas rockets -- is absurd. First, there is no legal equivalence between the deliberate killing of innocent civilians and the deliberate killings of Hamas combatants. Under the laws of war, any number of combatants can be killed to prevent the killing of even one innocent civilian.
In Today's Opinion Journal

REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The Euro Decade and Its LessonsTreasury to Ford: Drop Dead
TODAY'S COLUMNISTS
Declarations: In With the New
– Peggy NoonanPotomac Watch: The Senate Goes Wobbly on Card Check
– Kimberley A. Strassel
COMMENTARY:
Conservatives Can Unite Around the Constitution
– Peter BerkowitzLet's Be Worthy of Their Sacrific
– Karl RoveLet's Write the Rating Agencies Out of Our Law
– Robert RosenkranzObama Promises Bush III on Iran
– John R. BoltonIsrael's Policy Is Perfectly 'Proportionate'
– Alan M. DershowitzSecond, proportionality is not measured by the number of civilians actually killed, but rather by the risk posed. This is illustrated by what happened on Tuesday, when a Hamas rocket hit a kindergarten in Beer Sheva, though no students were there at the time. Under international law, Israel is not required to allow Hamas to play Russian roulette with its children's lives.
While Israel installs warning systems and builds shelters, Hamas refuses to do so, precisely because it wants to maximize the number of Palestinian civilians inadvertently killed by Israel's military actions. Hamas knows from experience that even a small number of innocent Palestinian civilians killed inadvertently will result in bitter condemnation of Israel by many in the international community.
Israel understands this as well. It goes to enormous lengths to reduce the number of civilian casualties -- even to the point of foregoing legitimate targets that are too close to civilians.
Until the world recognizes that Hamas is committing three war crimes -- targeting Israeli civilians, using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and seeking the destruction of a member state of the United Nations -- and that Israel is acting in self-defense and out of military necessity, the conflict will continue.

Fri Jan 02, 10:44:00 AM 2009
Anonymous said...

Well said. Keep it up. The state of Israel is a travesty. I hope old Harry Truman is seeing the abject misery he has inflicted on the Palestinians in particular and humanity in general. Speaking of terrorism, let's mention Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, events which follow the logic of war, as do Hamas's rockets, even more justifiable thereunder in view of their limited impact. Einstein was nobly correct--Israel was and is a horrible idea. It should be replaced with one state--a single all-inclusive pluralistic, non-religious, non-racist democratic republic, open to all. How radical is that?

Sun Jan 04, 02:37:00 PM 2009

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