Why pick on Syria? - Why not Israel?

I am somewhat amazed at the rather skewed media and political attention that is devoted to the situation in Syria.  The uprising and the bloody response of the government has caused great suffering among many Syrians.  Most of them civilians and some of them children.  However bad the situation is for some Syrians, I am not sure how western intervention will lessen the violence and the bloodshed.  Whether it is direct military intervention or supplying arms to the rebels, the result can only be even more deaths and serious injuries.  However my main concern here is the double standards that are once again on display, both by our media and our western governments.

However bad and appalling the violence is in Syria over the recent months it pales into insignificance compared with the violence inflicted on Palestinians by Israelis.  This week alone the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reported 3 killed, 23 wounded, including 8 children, by Israeli troops.  Their report can be found here.  Other reports highlighted that Jewish settlers were on the rampage throughout the West Bank.

These were not of course isolated incidents.  Israel has been killing Palestinians for over 60 years now.  It was only three years ago that Israel unleashed Cast Lead, their massive murderous onslaught against defenceless Palestinians in Gaza.  This resulted in the deaths of over 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 300 children.  Yet what was the thunderous response of the western governments to this slaughter of the innocents?  Understanding of Israel’s right to defend itself - against civilians?  Regret at the deaths and nothing more.  No condemnation and no referral to the UN.  And absolutely nothing about military intervention to protect the hundreds of dying children.  Nor any chance of arming the Palestinians so they could better resist Israeli attacks.  In this of course our wonderful investigative media was largely silent if not outright supportive of Israel.

The lessons of this seems to be crystal clear.  The outrage against the deaths and sufferings of the innocent Syrians is permitted because the western governments don’t like the Assad regime in Syria.  When the Kuwaiti government was killing its own citizens there was very little condemnation from the western governments.  No surprise to learn that Kuwait is one of the West’s best friends in the Middle East.  And of course Israel can kill as many Palestinians as it can manage with nary a word uttered against.  Just to give a fuller picture of the violence committed by Israelis against Palestinians, here are the figures for the number of children killed since September 29, 2000.  The figures come from If Americans Knew.

Israeli children killed - 124

Palestinian children killed - 1,452

If there was any sense of justice within our western world, then it would be Israel that was in the dock for crimes against humanity.  But which of our brave politicians in the west is going to challenge Israel?

25 Palestinians Killed - Where’s the Outrage?

Last weekend we witnessed yet another murderous onslaught by the Israeli military against defenceless Palestinians in Gaza.  25 Palestinians have been killed and around 80 wounded.   Yet very little has been said in condemnation of these killings anywhere. The ostensible justification for the killings is that the attack was to assassinate Zuhir al-Qaisi, a leader of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC).  The other 24 deaths and the 80 wounded were presumably just unfortunate.  Or perhaps they also deserved to be killed by the Israelis.  That is clearly the view of the Israeli government and the IDF.  The dead, or at least 20 of them, four were admitted to be civilians, were all members of the PRC and thus in Israeli eyes, legitimate targets.  The Israeli claim is that the PRC were about to launch an attack against Israel.  However even this claim is somewhat disputed by Israel’s Defence Minister, who only claimed that the PRC “were apparently involved with preparing a large-scale attack.”   (Emphasis added)  He want to say, “I cannot say yet whether this attack has been thwarted.”

So what was the real reason behind this latest Israeli onslaught?  There are various possibilities, but all seem to come down to the likelihood that Israel wanted some kind of dress rehearsal for any retaliation in the event that it, Israel, does attack Iran.  In other words Israel deliberately provoked the rocket attacks from Gaza in order to test their new Iron Dome anti missile defence system and to prepare the population for further rocket attacks.  Sounds incredible, but then is Israel a rational actor anymore?  This is the provocative title of this article by Jerry Haber, on his Magnes Zionist blog.  Jeremiah (Jerry) Haber is the nom de plume of an orthodox Jewish studies and philosophy professor, who divides his time between Israel and the US.  In it he examines the question of whether the attack was deliberately designed to provoke a response.  Haber also has another post on the morality of extra-judicial killings, with specific reference to these most recent Israeli attacks.  You can read it here.

As regards the lack of response to these extra-judicial killings, in Israel they were a cause for celebration, if not gloating.  Below is a still from Israeli TV.   In it Channel 10’s military correspondent Alon Ben David shows the score:  “Death toll:  Israel 0, Gaza 25”.  Photo: nan10.co.il.  The photo comes from this blog post by Ami Kaufman on the Israeli group blog, +972.

Here in the UK, as in the USA, there has been the usual we must support Israel narrative.  When a US soldier killed 16 Afghanis recently, there was justifiable outrage and the soldier has been arrested.  He will probably face some kind of charge and imprisonment.  No such chance that the Israelis who killed the 25 Palestinians will face anything other than adulation.  And we claim the moral high ground!