Letters to the Editor
Xanthro
Published Letters: 522 Editor's Choice: 47
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Criticism or Anti-Semitism?
[Read the article: Israel's failed-state strategy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Israel hating has become the anti-Semitism of the 21st century. Open Jew hating is not tolerated among polite leftist society, yet its pull is deep and strong and for far too many it is irresistible. This manifests itself under the disguise of anti-Zionism or anti-Israelism.
The problem is distinguishing between legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and the undercurrent of Jew Hating. A simple test is if said criticism of Israeli differs greatly that criticism of other nations in similar circumstances. Using this test we discover that Juan Cole has passed the line of legitimate criticism of a nation’s actions to merely veiled Jew Hating.
Israelis and Palestinians both claim the same land, a situation similar to Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria and the Kurds, and the Spanish and the Basques to name a couple of the larger such conflicts.
There are more Kurds at 20-25 million than Jews and Muslim combined west of the Jordan River, yet Turkish discrimination against Kurds, and the death of 20 Kurds for every Palestinian, barely registers a whisper from Juan Cole compared to the shouts against Israel. Why the discrepancy? Is it because Israel is a Jewish State?
On August 4th, 2002 the Basque ETA detonated a car bomb Santa Pola Spain, killing a 4 year old girl and a 54 year old man and injuring 40 others, fewer deaths and injuries than caused by Gaza launched Qassam rockets, yet Juan Cole does not deride the effectiveness of such terrorist attacks by belittling the capabilities of the explosives used to murder innocent Spaniards? Why the discrepancy? Is it because the those murdered by rockets “of the sort a teenager might construct with a science kit” have killed Jews by the names of Yuval Abebah, age 4 Sderot, Ella Abukasis, age 17, Sderot, Dorit Binisian age 2, Sderot, Dana Galkowitz, Age 22, Kibbutz Bror Hayil (Killed in Netiv Haasarah), Mordehai Yosepov, Age 49, Sderot, Afik Zahavi (Ohayun) age 4 Sderot.
The September 29, 2004 Qassam attack killed and wounded the same number people as the ETA’s August 4th attack. If Dorit hadn’t been Jewish or been in Israel, would Juan Cole argue that the instruments that cause his death “seldom do any real damage, though a few have harmed Israeli civilians.” Would Juan Cole have deliberately left out the salient fact that a number of children were killed by these rockets if the children were not Jewish?
It’s clear that Juan Cole is guilty of treating Israel substantially differently than he treats other countries, the only differentiation is that Israel is Jewish. He needlessly minimizes and discounts Jewish deaths. Would his argument been that different if Mr. Cole simply stated the rockets “seldom do lethal damage, but a number of Israeli citizens have been killed?” No, because more Palestinians have died, but by deliberating ignoring Jewish deaths, Mr. Cole reveals more than just biased reporting, he rears the ugly head of Jew hating.
Israel, like many countries, has policies that are indefensible and warrant criticism. Israeli’s policy toward the Bedouin in Negev and the disparity between monies allocated toward Jewish and Muslim towns for example. Just as Turkey’s claim that the Kurdish language didn’t exist, or the United States still actively advocating policies designed to disenfranchise minorities.
Real criticism doesn’t dismiss proven instruments of death as teenage science experiments.
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Balance?
[Read the article: Israel's failed-state strategy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gonzo8, please explain exactly how balance reporting allows for an author to claim that weapons, that have killed and wounded a number of children, to be dismissed as merely teenage science experiments?
The facts are that hundreds of Qassam rockets were fired from Gaza and a number of Israeli children have been killed.
How does Juan Cole decided to report this fact? “to stop the ramshackle homemade Qassam rockets (frankly, of the sort a teenager might construct with a science kit) fired from the Gaza Strip by Palestinian guerrillas of the Ezzedin Qassam Brigades at the nearby small Israeli town of Sderot. The rockets seldom do any real damage, though a few have harmed Israeli civilians.” By completely ignoring Israeli deaths as if they are meaningless.