"Let The Jews Die".
Stephen.
Vicky.
It's taken them a while, but the smear merchants against the huge demonstation in London on Saturday are starting to come out into the open.
Fighting on the side of good thinking moderates such as Melanie Philips, we have Stephen Pollard, who has rather unfairly in the past been compared in the looks department to another Pollard, namely Vicky. He came across Lenin's Tomb, which he calls "awful", but that's nothing compared to the photographs which Lenin took that showed the mass of people calling for an immediate ceasefire. They are apparently "obscene". I quite agree, the placards showing the children killed in Israeli air strikes are obscene. In the eyes and minds of numerous Israeli ministers, who said that anyone remaining in the south would be considered a terrorist, and that the clock was going to be turned back 20 years, then those children and everyone remaining are Hizbullah. Hence those of us who oppose the collective punishment imposed on Lebanon are more than willing to take on the same moniker. I'm an atheist, I condemn Hizbullah for their original action, I condemn them for killing innocent Israeli civilians, but to some I'm still Hizbullah. That's fine.
There's similar thinking going on in the mind of Steve Tobias, from sunny Houston, Texas, on the Guardian's letters page.
As an American, watching British media is like viewing events in a parallel universe. There has been incredulity at the Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer's comparison of the Hizbullah assault on Israel to the London Blitz. As I recall south London took some 2,800 hits during all ofthe second world war, which is about what Israel has absorbed in the last three weeks.
Isn't it awful that an American has to remind us Brits of the horror of the Blitz? Have we really forgotten so quickly? It's all well and good talking about how London and Israel have taken so many hits, but perhaps we should look instead at something else, such as how many died. According to Wikipedia, 38 Israeli civilians have died so far in Hizbullah rocket attacks, with 1300 "shocked" or wounded. The blitz, according to the same source, killed an estimated 43,000, with 139,000 injured. The two things are completely incomparable, but fatuous historical parallels are a favourite thing of the right. On Comment is Free, numerous posters have mentioned the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in order to show that "disproportionate" actions sometimes have merit. It'd be a decent point, if you completely ignore the history both of the lead up to the second world war and the constant skirmishes between Israel and Hizbullah, which in the past haven't led to such destructive and despicable uses of force. It also ignores how the horror of WW2 directly led to the setting up of the Geneva Conventions. Everyone recognised then that there are certain things, even in the time of war, that are completely unacceptable. Those who think that they need to be abandoned to fight the war on terror are one and the same with the commentators that perform such hysterical apologetics for Israeli war crimes, while condemning Hizbullah for exactly the same thing.
Over on everyone's favourite cruise missile "left" site, Harry comes out of retirement once more to quote Andrew Murray, saying that there is no way that STWC should become a support group for Hizbullah. Quite right too. Harry then links to some more photos of the demo, prominently showing the few Hizbullah supporters/flag wavers who were on the march. Murray is therefore a stinking hypocrite, surely? Well, if you were actually at the march demanding a ceasefire, as this blog was, then maybe you'd have seen how few Hizbullah supporters there were. As there were at least 50,000 on the march, with it being quite possible that they were 100,000 as claimed, the tiny amount of those waving their flags of resistance were overwhelming outnumbered. Every movement or grouping has a number of blowhards, and Harry's Place is no different.
Out in the real world, another 24 Lebanese civilians have died today. Israel destroyed the last road into Tyre, meaning that the city is now completely cut off, with aid unable to reach those who still remain behind, unless Israel allows ships to enter the port. The UN resolution, which has been roundly rejected by Arab countries, Lebanon and Hizbullah, is still a decent starting point for a settlement. Hilariously though, the revisionism has already begun. Condoleezza Rice, who only a couple of weeks ago was spouting "there cannot be a return to the status quo ante!" now says "We're going to know who really did want to stop the violence and who didn't." Yes, we are. You didn't, and now that you've helped manufacture a resolution which Israel couldn't have dreamed of being better, those who have been calling for a ceasefire are apparently obstacles to peace. The position of the US, along with the ample support of Blair and acquiesence of those around him has meant that the Jews talked about by Pollard have continued to die. Hundreds of Lebanese civilians have died. Still, why focus on the big picture when you can attack those who wanted peace from the beginning?
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I love the way the use the Blitz, don't seem to remember the Americans being around to help out much. If I were them I would be ashamed of even mentioning it.
Posted by
korova |
Tuesday, August 08, 2006 9:01:00 PM