'The treatment being meted out to Israel is qualitatively and quantitatively different from the treatment meted out to any other nation. Ever. It's not just that the tyrannies of the present are not even reported on, let alone seen as a worthy and legitimate target of protest. Even the great progressive causes of the past, such as the campaign against apartheid South Africa, for example, never provoked such hysterical obsession, let alone such a sustained and frenzied onslaught of lie after distortion after fabrication after blood libel. Just like the Jew-hatred of the past, the characteristics of this victimisation are unique; just like the Jew-hatred of the past, it treats the Jewish people as some kind of cosmic evil; and just like the Jew-hatred of the past, ultimately it simply defies explanation. But it is happening, right now, before our disbelieving eyes; it is quite simply a derangement of the world.'
The second article is on Normblog and makes some of the comparisons that I have made in the past. Normblog's piece has many of these comparisons, here are a few:
'Turkey has killed between 30,000 and 40,000 Kurds in the last 30 years; it occupies North Cyprus; it blockades Armenia and denies its own historical genocide. But Israel lacks simple human decency.
Sri Lanka, at the same time that Israel was fighting in Gaza (around 1300 dead) killed about 25,000 of its own civilians in the course of repressing an insurgency. But Israel thinks it's exempt from the demands of common humanity.
Sudan has killed something in the order of 200,000 people in Darfur, with countless rapes and tortures alongside. But Israel lacks simple human decency.
Iran rapes and tortures and murders its own dissidents who ask for democracy; it hangs young gays, it oppresses women. But Israel thinks it's exempt from the demands of common humanity.
Yemen is blockading South Yemen, it lets no food, medicine or water through; unlike Israel, which lets around 15,000 tons of supplies into Gaza every week. But Israel lacks simple human decency.
Egypt is considering a law to strip their citizenship from any Egyptian who marries an Israeli; it persecutes Copts; it blockades Gaza. But Israel thinks it's exempt from the demands of common humanity.
Russia kills 25,000 to 50,000 Chechens, and almost completely razes the capital city of Grozny; its soldiers inflict hideous tortures on their prisoners before killing them; investigative journalists are murdered. But Israel lacks simple human decency.
China kills somewhere between half a million and one and a quarter million Tibetans in the course of quashing Tibet's independence. But Israel thinks it's exempt from the demands of common humanity.
In Pakistan, Christian churches are burned, hundreds of Ahmadiyyas are killed, violence towards women is endemic. But Israel lacks simple human decency.
In Saudi Arabia, no churches are allowed, no Israeli Jews may enter, women are subject to gender apartheid. But Israel thinks it's exempt from the demands of common humanity.
Congo: what can one say about Congo? More than that 5 million - 5 million - people have been killed in its wars, alongside innumerable rapes and hideous tortures? But Israel lacks simple human decency.'
The unfairness of Israel's treatment makes me very angry but I can see no end to it.
2 comments:
You are spot on (as ever).
The under-reporting of the wars in the not-so-Democratic Republic of Congo, especially, should shame any reporter.
How many BBC reporters, for instance, have covered events in Israel and its not-so-occupied territories in the last decade compared to the number that have covered the endless conflicts in DRC (Africa's World War One, as it has been called), or the genocide in Sudan. In both cases VASTLY more people have been killed for all sorts of 'complex historical reasons'. You would have thought that such horrors would have interested and motivated journalists from across the globe. Not so, it seems.
Why does it have to be this way?
Mr. Goat,
Agree with your point about bias against Israel.
I terms of the Ottomans, Kurds, Jews and Armenians, I would recommend "A disputed Genocide" by Prof. Guenter Lewy, himself a Jew.
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