PAL87
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- Posted: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 04:12:04 +0000
Quote:
“The world stands disgraced” was the banner headline that Britain’s Guardian newspaper put on Thursday’s front page — a quote from a UN official outraged after Israeli shelling killed 15 civilians at a school being used as a shelter in Gaza.
War is hell, and this tragic accident was unusually hellish. So that sort of language is understandable coming from UN officials tasked with keeping Gazans safe. But when those words are selectively lifted for use as a sensational headline in a British newspaper, it raises eyebrows.
Syria’s ongoing civil war has generated more than 170,000 deaths. Islamists are destroying what remains of Christian civilization in Iraq. Russia is igniting the flames of war in eastern Ukraine, with the casualties thus far including 298 dead (80 of them children) in the destruction of Flight MH17 on July 17. And yet the planet’s reputation, we are to understand, somehow survived all this — until it was “disgraced” by Israel’s fighting men and women, who are waging war against a terrorist group that uses human shields. Really?
It should come as no surprise that this sort of coverage is coming from the same British media that promoted the bogus Jenin “massacre” story when Israel fought a similar campaign against Palestinian terrorists in 2002. One can only expect yet more award-winning cartoons from British cartoonists showing leaders of the Jewish state devouring Palestinian babies and the like. Some things don’t change.
But some things do. Unlike in similar conflicts in 2002, 2006, 2008 and 2012, this time around, the Arab world has been extremely muted in its support for Israel’s battlefield enemies.
“After the military ouster of the Islamist government in Cairo last year, Egypt has led a new coalition of Arab states — including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — that has effectively lined up with Israel in its fight against Hamas,” The New York Times reported this week. “The dynamic has inverted all expectations of the Arab Spring uprisings … Instead of becoming more isolated, Israel’s government has emerged for the moment as an unexpected beneficiary of the ensuing tumult, now tacitly supported by the leaders of the resurgent conservative order as an ally in their common fight against political Islam. The diatribes against Hamas by at least one popular pro-government talk show host in Egypt were so extreme that the government of Israel broadcast some of them into Gaza.”
This has led to a bizarre situation whereby some Western newspaper editors are more sympathetic to Hamas than Arabs themselves.
But it is also important to point out that the Guardian, and the leftist elements of the European press more generally, are not entirely representative of the Western media. On this side of the Atlantic, The New York Times has been admirably even-handed in its reporting, providing readers with in-depthcoverage of the tunnel network that Hamas has been planning to use for attacks on Israel.
Putting The Guardian to one side, Western observers now typically understand the despicable nature of Hamas’ human-shield tactics, and the manner by which those tactics affect battlefield casualty numbers. As the Washington Institute for Near East Policy reports, Hamas defensive strategy involves extensive “use of civilians and civilian facilities as cover for its military activity; schools, mosques, hospitals, and civilian housing became weapons storage facilities, Hamas headquarters, and fighting positions … IDF imagery and combat intelligence revealed extensive use of civilian facilities.” In years past, it was only Israel’s supporters who focused on such details. Now, everyone knows it, and can appreciate Israel’s military challenge in dealing with the situation.
Nine years ago, anti-Israeli activists began a campaign to isolate Israel through boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). Naomi Klein, a BDS leader, believes that this time, finally, she and her fellow travellers will get their breakthrough, thanks to Israeli isolation. Writing in the Guardian on July 21, she declared that “Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause.”
That’s been the BDS dream for a decade now. But it’s utterly failing (nowhere more so than Ms. Klein’s native Canada, which remains Israel’s staunchest ally). Israel’s high-tech sector has been booming for many years now, even during times of war. Indeed, if the past is any guide, Israel will respond to the Hamas tunnel menace by becoming a world export leader in tunnel-detection technology, just as past conflicts have helped create local industries dedicated to missile defence and explosives detection.
Any humane observer should hope that this war ends soon — because ordinary Palestinians and Israelis should not have to pay with their lives for the death wish of the Hamas theocrats who effectively have taken all of Gaza hostage. Perhaps when the dust settles and the bodies are buried, these hostages will know — as much of the rest of the world knows — who truly is to blame for Gaza’s agony.
War is hell, and this tragic accident was unusually hellish. So that sort of language is understandable coming from UN officials tasked with keeping Gazans safe. But when those words are selectively lifted for use as a sensational headline in a British newspaper, it raises eyebrows.
Syria’s ongoing civil war has generated more than 170,000 deaths. Islamists are destroying what remains of Christian civilization in Iraq. Russia is igniting the flames of war in eastern Ukraine, with the casualties thus far including 298 dead (80 of them children) in the destruction of Flight MH17 on July 17. And yet the planet’s reputation, we are to understand, somehow survived all this — until it was “disgraced” by Israel’s fighting men and women, who are waging war against a terrorist group that uses human shields. Really?
It should come as no surprise that this sort of coverage is coming from the same British media that promoted the bogus Jenin “massacre” story when Israel fought a similar campaign against Palestinian terrorists in 2002. One can only expect yet more award-winning cartoons from British cartoonists showing leaders of the Jewish state devouring Palestinian babies and the like. Some things don’t change.
But some things do. Unlike in similar conflicts in 2002, 2006, 2008 and 2012, this time around, the Arab world has been extremely muted in its support for Israel’s battlefield enemies.
“After the military ouster of the Islamist government in Cairo last year, Egypt has led a new coalition of Arab states — including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — that has effectively lined up with Israel in its fight against Hamas,” The New York Times reported this week. “The dynamic has inverted all expectations of the Arab Spring uprisings … Instead of becoming more isolated, Israel’s government has emerged for the moment as an unexpected beneficiary of the ensuing tumult, now tacitly supported by the leaders of the resurgent conservative order as an ally in their common fight against political Islam. The diatribes against Hamas by at least one popular pro-government talk show host in Egypt were so extreme that the government of Israel broadcast some of them into Gaza.”
This has led to a bizarre situation whereby some Western newspaper editors are more sympathetic to Hamas than Arabs themselves.
But it is also important to point out that the Guardian, and the leftist elements of the European press more generally, are not entirely representative of the Western media. On this side of the Atlantic, The New York Times has been admirably even-handed in its reporting, providing readers with in-depthcoverage of the tunnel network that Hamas has been planning to use for attacks on Israel.
Putting The Guardian to one side, Western observers now typically understand the despicable nature of Hamas’ human-shield tactics, and the manner by which those tactics affect battlefield casualty numbers. As the Washington Institute for Near East Policy reports, Hamas defensive strategy involves extensive “use of civilians and civilian facilities as cover for its military activity; schools, mosques, hospitals, and civilian housing became weapons storage facilities, Hamas headquarters, and fighting positions … IDF imagery and combat intelligence revealed extensive use of civilian facilities.” In years past, it was only Israel’s supporters who focused on such details. Now, everyone knows it, and can appreciate Israel’s military challenge in dealing with the situation.
Nine years ago, anti-Israeli activists began a campaign to isolate Israel through boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). Naomi Klein, a BDS leader, believes that this time, finally, she and her fellow travellers will get their breakthrough, thanks to Israeli isolation. Writing in the Guardian on July 21, she declared that “Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause.”
That’s been the BDS dream for a decade now. But it’s utterly failing (nowhere more so than Ms. Klein’s native Canada, which remains Israel’s staunchest ally). Israel’s high-tech sector has been booming for many years now, even during times of war. Indeed, if the past is any guide, Israel will respond to the Hamas tunnel menace by becoming a world export leader in tunnel-detection technology, just as past conflicts have helped create local industries dedicated to missile defence and explosives detection.
Any humane observer should hope that this war ends soon — because ordinary Palestinians and Israelis should not have to pay with their lives for the death wish of the Hamas theocrats who effectively have taken all of Gaza hostage. Perhaps when the dust settles and the bodies are buried, these hostages will know — as much of the rest of the world knows — who truly is to blame for Gaza’s agony.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/07/31/jonathan-kay-this-war-was-supposed-to-isolate-israel-instead-the-opposite-happened/