On the world political stage, there is only one exception and it's the same for each rule. It's called, "Except when you're killing Jews." Let me explain how it works.
Take for example, Lebanon-- Hezbollah was attacking Israel from its bases set up in southern Lebanon. These bases were built in residential areas to use the local population as human shields. When Israel warned the civilians to get out and then struck back at Hezbollah by bombing its positions that was called "disproportionate response" and "collective punishment". On the other hand when Fatah al-Islam set up its bases in civilian areas and Lebanon warned the civilians to get out and attacked the terrorist group-- the Lebanese attack was praised as a legitimate battle against terrorists.
See how easy it is. Only one rule "striking back at terrorists is OK, except if the terrorists are killing Jews" It works on a lot of things, like building fences to keep out undesirables from other countries (Israel's West Bank Fence vs. the British Gibraltar fence).
Jacob Laskin of Frontpage magazine thinks that is all a double standard. He obviously didn't take International Relations with Faiz Abu-Jabbar at SUNY like I did. It is not a double standard its an exception to the rule---its OK for terrorists to kill Jews. Its as simple as spelling.
Terror and Double Standards
By Jacob Laksin
FrontPageMagazine.com |
Diplomats and heads of state have also lined up against the war. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has deplored the army’s “excessive use of force” and insisted that the “collective punishment of the Lebanese people must stop.” European power brokers have delivered comparably stern rebukes, with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana voicing his vocal disapproval and French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy calling the army’s bombardment an “irresponsible act.”
It will not be lost on the observant reader that the war in question is the Israeli army’s counteroffensive last summer against Hezbollah. Triggered by the Lebanese terrorist group’s illicit capture of Israeli soldiers, its naked violation of Israeli sovereignty, and its ceaseless shelling of northern
It is thus a commentary on the shameful double standards of the “international community” that the Lebanese army’s ongoing efforts to root out the Palestinian terrorist faction Fatah al-Islam from the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon have met with an altogether different reception.
Take the Arab League. In contrast to its resounding silence on the criminal aggression of Hezbollah, the organization has leapt to defend
Equally, when Kofi Annan’s successor Ban Ki-moon recently denounced “criminal attacks” in
No less revealing is what you won’t hear from these sudden converts to counterterrorism. You won’t hear, for instance, the Lebanese army assailed for its “disproportionate” response. This is despite the fact that the army has vowed to fight until Fatah al-Islam has been routed or killed, whichever comes first. As one Lebanese military insider said last week: “It will only end with the final end of this gang.” Parliament member Saad Hariri seconded the army’s position, saying, “We are not in a hurry.” If Arab leaders fear that this is a prescription for a “disproportionate response” against Palestinian refugees, they have kept their concerns private. One need only recall the outraged censure directed at
Nor will you hear every accidental tragedy held up as evidence of the injustice of military retaliation. Remember that during last summer’s war,
Now that Israelis are no longer guiding the missiles, critics seem content to hold their fire. How else to explain that, despite the fact that at least 27 civilians have been killed and 125 injured since the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) began their offensive on May 20, neither HRW nor kindred human-rights watchdogs have directed the same level of scrutiny, not to speak of censure, at Lebanon?
Indeed, next to the relentless torrent of anti-Israel demagogy produced by HRW last summer, its judgment of the fighting in Lebanon is a model of judicious restraint: “Fatah al-Islam militants must not hide among civilians, and the Lebanese army must take better precautions to prevent needless civilian deaths,” is all the organization has had to say on the matter. Not even the fact that the Lebanese army’s shelling has indeed been indiscriminate -- eyewitness accounts attest to countless missiles gone astray and the collateral damage from the current fighting has been said to match the worst days of Lebanon’s civil war from 1975–1990 -- has generated the antipathy with which Israel was forced to contend.
And what of the notorious “cycle of violence”? That thoughtless cliché, intended to equate
Also vanishing in the fog of the current war is another anti-Israel talking point. While
The reality is grim. Under Lebanese law, Palestinians are denied property rights, access to state schools and basic medical services, and even the right to legal work, with poverty rates as high as 60 percent the inevitable result. “There’s just not much sympathy for Palestinians in Lebanon,” says David Schenker, a senior fellow in Arab politics at The Washington Institute. Nor are Lebanese unmindful of the fact that extremism -- including support for groups like al-Qaeda -- “is nurtured in the Palestinian environment.” Unsurprisingly, the military campaign enjoys a “broad consensus in Lebanon, and the LAF’s [Lebanese Armed Forces] campaign ignites popular support,” Schenker observed in an interview this week.
It does not follow from all this that Lebanon is wrong to bring its military might to bear on Fatah al-Islam. On the contrary, whether the army succeeds in destroying the al-Qaeda affiliated terror group has important consequences for US policy in the region. “The United States has a strong interest in helping the Lebanese government root out Fatah al-Islam to prevent it from turning Palestinian refugee camps into bastions of support for al-Qaeda attacks on the U.S. and its allies,” James Phillips, a Middle Eastern Affairs analyst at the Heritage Foundation, tells FrontPage. Phillips points out that, like the Taliban before it, “Fatah al-Islam seeks to violently impose its radical Islamic ideology on Palestinians and Lebanese, disrupt Lebanon’s precarious stability, and use Lebanon as a base for terrorist attacks against Israel and the U.S.”
Of equal significance is that the fighting in Lebanon could bear directly on the U.S.-led war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. Shihab Al-Qaddour, reportedly Fatah al-Islam’s second in command, recently explained his group‘s significance this way: “We adopt guerilla warfare, which no army can vanquish as demonstrated in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.” Defeating Fatah al-Islam would do much to demonstrate that, contrary to popular belief, terrorist insurgencies are not invincible.
That other countries have recognized the justice of
No comments:
Post a Comment