[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> Israel rushes to capitalise on terrorist attack

[scotartt <scot@systemx.autonomous.org>]

On Thu, Sep 13, 2001 at 06:47:33PM -0400, Chaim Gingold wrote:

> We must be careful when comparing Palestinian terror attacks with
> those we witnessed Tuesday. In terms of style and substance -- the
> deliberate targetting of random individuals -- they are identical. Drawing
> distinctions of justification based upon underlying motivations seems to
> be a slippery slope. The deliberate targetting of random men, women,
> and children whether they be at the mall, WTC, Pentagon, or Sbarro's is
> unjustifiable under any circumstances.

I do not think that WWII-era British Bomber Command, or American Army Air
Force, would agree with you. For further example, I regard it as right of
the USA to use the Atom Bomb against Japan in 1945. This is indiscriminate
killing of civilians and is perfectly justifiable in that situation (WWII)
by my view and also in the view of many, many others, including my father
who was in the jungles of the Solomon Islands at the time, fighting the
army of that enemy. Without such bomb it is very possible I would not
exist, as my father may not have therefore survived the war. Whatever,
many Americans as well as others would agree this action, while extremely
regrettable, is justifiable. Therefore, in my view, the justification is
*situational* and not subject to blanket, all-encompassing, moralisms
about "any circumstances".

Meanwhile Israeli army is an army of occupation and this army, and
occupying civilians (settlers) also basically indiscriminately kills
civilians and absolutely indiscriminately abuses their human rights and
denies to them, or actively removes, basic comforts such as shelter and
water (let alone electricity).

You talk of propaganda yet the Israeli state has the greatest weapon of
propaganda - the American News Media - at its disposal ever since this
conflict arose via the actions of Zionist terrorists in British Palestine.
The US news media is the greatest mouthpiece in the world for trumpeting
Israeli interests and producing marginalised, de-humanised population of
those whom the Israeli state oppresses daily. Because of this massive
imbalance in the US media the Israeli state is allowed to get away with
its state-sponsored terror actions with a complete impunity that the
Palestinian Authority never will. Please don't come at me with comments
about 'balance'.

Israel is a terrorist state as much as Iran, Iraq or North Korea. Begin
and others were once wanted terrorists whom the British would have rightly
strung up from the nearest gallows on capture (of course after appropriate
British-system trial, something Israeli assassination policy does not
concede to its victims).

Israeli army sees justification in shooting with deadly force, at youths
throwing stones, and demolishing their houses with bulldozers and occpying
their cities with tanks. Israeli settlers of occupied lands see
justification in stealing all the best land and then operating death
squads under the protection of Army units because some outraged
Palestinians see necessary to resist this immoral theft of their land -
land which has been their forefathers for time immemorial. Israeli
religious fundamentalists see justification in seeing their children
excused from compulsory military service whilst the children of secular
Israelis are sent to war in order to protect the interests of those same
religious fundamentalists. The state of Israel commits ethnic cleansing
everyday without fail against the people of Palestine, by refusal to
readmit refugees violently thrown off their land over 50 years ago, and by
*continuing* to confiscate land and deny economic and human rights
opportunities to a people whose land it occupies by force against their
wishes.

Israeli state and its apologists see fit to hi-jack the term
'anti-Semitism', and seek to prevent any criticism of their own actions,
and only condemn the actions of others, when in fact this is the very
policy that the Israeli state carries out - Arabs are Semites too.

Still, whether it is dozens or hundreds, some Palestinian jubilation at
this horrific event does not make their violent resistance the violent
occupation of their land anywhere near the same in either type or scale as
the ramming of jets into their targets in a land far away from the actual
in situ cause of the trouble. And especially, it does not justify Israeli
politicians to link their troubles in completely outrageous ways to this
horrific attack, and to use this attack as a cover to undertake further
operations in its war against Palestine.

Attempts by Israel to link its cause of occupation to the attack on
America by bin Laden, who is not a Palestinian, and not supported by any
major Palestinian faction, are beyond the pale and to me show the hideous
core of immorality of the modern Israeli state.

Whatever this rogue state and its apologists say, I listen with the same
disdain I reserve for other states such as that of the Taliban and their
apologists.

regards 
scot.


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