On most major liberal/progressive blogs, no month will pass without an impassioned condemnation of the only democracy in the Middle East. And there was no need to fear the intrusion of objectivity into this post from Firedogake, beginning, ominously, "ethnic cleansing kicks off in the West Bank."
It is odd that Israel is accused of initiating a policy of ethnic cleansing with "the first eviction of a Palestinian, Ahmad Sabah, from the West Bank to Gaza, forcibly separating him from his wife and children." If it seems odd to remove forcibly an entire people from an area by evicting men and leaving women and children behind, it's only because it is. (One-by-one, I guess.) And it is extremely inefficient, calling into question hyberbole about "ethnic cleansing." But such it is, in the realm of anti-Zionist
The blogger concludes her post by arguing
we as a nation will continue to betray our own founding principles by helping to arm and fund the government of Israel, which is oppressing its Palestinian minority and laying seize (sic) to the people of Gaza.
"Laying siege to the people of Gaza?" Not by any objective measure. Charles Krauthammer, no more impartial than I but entirely accurate, explained
during the Israel-Gaza war early last year
Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis -- 6,464 launched from Gaza in the past three years -- deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people....
At war today in Gaza, one combatant is committed to causing the most civilian pain and suffering on both sides. The other combatant is committed to saving as many lives as possible -- also on both sides. It's a recurring theme. Israel gave similar warnings to Southern Lebanese villagers before attacking Hezbollah in the Lebanon war of 2006. The Israelis did this knowing it would lose for them the element of surprise and cost the lives of their own soldiers.
It was Israel, Krauthammer pointed out, which "gave the Palestinians their first sovereign territory ever in Gaza." He notes the result:
No roads, no industry, no courts, no civil society at all. The flourishing greenhouses that Israel left behind for the Palestinians were destroyed and abandoned. Instead, Gaza's Iranian-sponsored rulers have devoted all their resources to turning it into a terror base -- importing weapons, training terrorists, building tunnels with which to kidnap Israelis on the other side. And of course firing rockets unceasingly.
These are unpleasant facts, but facts nonetheless. But we'll give the last word to what the Middle East Media Research Group says is a communique from "the Gaza-based Salafi-jihadi group Jama'at Al-Tawhid wa'l-Jihad (JTJ)." And a fine excerpt, it is:
As for the descendants of apes and pigs [i.e. the Jews], we bring them the tidings that the wave of jihad is inexorably coming, and they, Allah willing, will taste the bitterness of the blows of the sincere and the harsh imprint of the monotheists [i.e. the Salafi-jihadis] on their lives and their property. Allah carries out his promises and makes his orders come to pass. If in the past they reeled under the blows of the nationalists, the pan-Arabists, and counterfeit jihadists, they will cry [tears of] blood over every drop of Muslim blood they spilled and the [women's] honor and the sanctities they violated when they see the fright of meeting the friends of Allah in battle. They will see men who love to be killed for the sake of Allah as much as they [the Jews] love life, men who throw themselves into the thick of battle and storm fortresses to separate their heads from their necks and to rip their hearts out of their bodies…
Nevertheless, to some people, or at least to one blogger, we "betray our own founding principles" by helping to arm and fund the government of Israel" because, I suppose, there is no threat to the nation by forces inside the Gaza Strip. Even by an organization considering Jews "the descendants of apes and pigs" and which pledges "to separate their heads from their necks and to rip their hearts out of their bodies."
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