This illustration pretty much sums up what I observe is happening whenever Palestinian and Israeli forces engage each other in combat. I'm no fan of the IDF - the Israeli Defense Forces (who can be pretty ruthless), but unless Palestinian militants stop hiding behind their own civilians, then I will never fully support the cause that they claim to espouse.
In every pro-Palestinian web page I view, most of the pictures include civilians who were killed during Israeli military strikes against Palestinian territory. While I do not doubt that many Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israelis, what I find unacceptable is the way these web pages are completely silent about the way Palestinian militants fire rockets on Israeli civilian neighborhoods, and then subsequently hide in their own civilian neighborhoods when the IDF pursues them to retaliate. They hide in places where women and children are located, and complain loudly to the international media when these same women and children are killed alongside their comrades-in-arms.
And it's not just the militants. I've never encountered a Palestinian civilian - in person or online - who did not pledge their hearts and their will to the destruction of the state of Israel. They willingly shelter Palestinian militants even though Israel consistently announces that any civilian who does so will be considered hostile by the IDF.
Now, being a civilian myself, I certainly know how it feels to be supportive of one country's own armed forces. If this country ever goes to war against another, say China, I think I would also shelter AFP soldiers if the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is pursuing them here in Batasan Hills. (Heck, I might even throw a rock or two against advancing PLA soldiers...if I still have my cojones when that time comes.) But if my whole family dies because my home, where AFP soldiers are holed up, received multiple direct hits from PLA artillery fire, I'm not gonna do a Palestinian and denounce the injustice of the PLA killing civilians. I'll be angry, yes, but I'm not going to be a bleeding victim.
At least you get to see this conflict as something more complex than what the media feeds us. I swear, all CNN does is parrot Hamas talking points and show pictures Hamas sends them. It's like free PR!
ReplyDeletehi chito! i don't fully support the palestenian cause either...
ReplyDeletebut I do want to point out one thing wrong in that cartoon... palestinian terrorists and the IDF are not equals. they are not of the same size, resources, and capabilities, they are not on the same level field, and clearly, they are not capable of inflicting the same damage on each other... which one has nuclear power, the full support of the US, and now, it seems, even the mute backing of the rest of the arab world? how many israeli civilans have been killed over the past few years? not more than 20, from what i heard. how many gazans over the past month? more than a thousand just in this ongoing war. how many palestinians are still living as refugees? millions. so perhaps if the IDF soldier is portrayed as shooting down on someone a third of it's size might be a little more accurate...
i'm not saying the hamas is justified in what it has been doing but there is a reason why they're so desperate... and perhaps even why they were elected to power.. and if anyone actually wants peace, that is something that needs to be considered. so i don't disagree with anything you said, just with the illustration ;-)
Thanks for your comments Jera. I'd also like to point out that the illustration I used was obviously not meant to show the relative size of the IDF vis-a-vis the Palestinian militias. In my last paragraph, take note that I also used as an example two armies which had very disparate levels of strengths (PLA vs. AFP). As I clearly stated, what I was against was the practice of the latter of hiding behind civilian populations when they are being pursued by the former - and this is the message behind the illustration.
ReplyDeleteThis is also the reason why I'm not easily swayed by death toll rates. While I have little reason to doubt the published figures, I feel that this does not tell the whole story. From where I stand (and I admit, this might be subjective), willfully targetting and killing one civilian is a lot worse than unintentionally killing 100 civilians in the process of pursuing hostile forces who are hiding behind them. Others, of course, might have different moral standards.
On a very remotely-related point, I don't think Israel would be stupid enough to use nuclear weapons (even low yield ones) on areas that are so close to their own territories. We can say that Israel's nuclear capabilities are negligible in as far as using them against the Palestinians is concerned. As for the US being Israel's "ally", the vaunted Jewish lobby has never done more than make "turning a blind eye" an official US position on Israel-Palestine relations - which is very much similar to the official position of many Arab countries surrounding Israel.
Hi Chito, obviously the cartoon had its own biases which seeks to totalize the conflict into a single misleading narrative: that the only reason civilians die in Gaza is because Hamas forces hide behind innocent people. It's a case of stripping away the responsibility from the people who pull the trigger. It legitimizes ethnic cleansing and simplifies the roots of the conflict as merely an exercise of violent tendencies.
ReplyDeleteI'm no fan of Israel. I'm no fan of Hamas either. But if there's one thing that is evident is that the long-standing blockade against Gaza has inflicted more damage against civilians than combatants. In Israel's refusal to end a choking blockade in exchange for one prisoner of war, it's like rubbing super spiced sea salt to an already gaping wound. It's like saying, "one soldier of Israel is worth the hunger and imminent death of every person in Gaza."
One may question why one should not fully support the Palestinian cause, but I think it is also worth our time and effort to question whether we should idly stand by as another Rwanda or Holocaust happens before our very eyes.
Nonetheless, hats off to people like you who use this form of media to stimulate debate towards an issue that is worth every person's cybertime.
hi again! i just want to point out that im not complaining about portraying just the militias of the IDF and the palestinians as equally matched but of reducing the problem into a military conflict between two equals as if waiting for them to just fight it out is a moral thing to do (since you mentioned moral standards..) also, im not sure what you mean by 'turning a blind eye' when i often hear US officials repeatedly affirming Israel's right to "self-defense" just as strongly and articulately as Israeli officials. If the US doesn't have support for Israel, what do they have for the palestinians then? loathing? finally, (and surely you know that) the point of having nuclear weapons is never having to use it!
ReplyDeleteand i totally agree on the point of responsibility!
Jera, what I actually meant about "turning a blind eye" is when the US ignores the heavy-handedness of Israel when dealing with Palestinian militants. Such heavy-handedness is I think one of the points you were making when demonstrating the imbalance of forces. A lot of rhetoric has been issued by the US gov't throughout the years regarding it's full support to Israel, but really, the US, with all their military superiority, has never prevented rocket fire or suicide bombers from attacking Israeli cities.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Arab countries, it's pretty much the same tactic - pledging undying devotion and support for the plight of Palestinian refugees, but basically doing nothing for them when they are hungry, shelterless and dying, and turning a blind eye to the actions of their militants.
Re: non-use of nuclear weapons - that was why I was curious as to why you brought it up when everyone knows that Israel will never use them against the Palestinians. Obviously, the presence of nuclear weapons has never stopped Palestinian militants from attacking Israel.
But since we're on the subject of nuclear weapons, I do know of a certain country allied to Hamas that is close to developing their own nuclear weapons, and has made the destruction of the state of Israel as it's national policy ever since they overthrew their Shah. This country is comfortably far enough from Israel that they have no qualms about dropping a nuke or two over Tel-Aviv, regardless of possible adverse effects on their allies in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. I'm of course talking about Iran, and if there's something we know about Iran, it's the fact that they hate the Israelis more than they love the Palestinians.
Of course, all this talk of nuclear capabilities in the Israel/Palestine conflict is mostly guesswork, and I merely expounded on it to demonstrate the absurdity of viewing Israel's nukes as an advantage in the conflict.
So are you saying that US support for Israel in no way affects the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because the US doesn't go so far as to militarily defend Israel with its own armies or weapons? Don't you think 'doing nothing' when a far less disadvantaged party is being bullied is practically mute support for the bully or even consent to the act of bullying? Or perhaps you don't agree that Israel has been a bully here? And no, I didn't think nuclear weapons was the subject here, just that I was trying to illustrate (using several examples) how mismatched the two parties are in this conflict, and not just this recent conflict but the larger Israeli-Palestine problem. But thanks because at least I have been fairly warned if I hear that you are supportive of a new war, this time on Iran :-p
ReplyDeleteRe: Q # 1 - Yes, I'm saying that.
ReplyDeleteRe: Q # 2 - Yes, it is mute support. That's exactly what I meant by "turning a blind eye", remember? (And really, Jera, do I need to clarify this a third time for you?)
Re: Q # 3 - Hard to tell who's the bully. It's not mere size that determines bullying, but a determination to take advantage of the weakness of defenseless people. (The bullies aren't always the bigger guys. A useful true-to-life analogy: When I was in Grade 4, my brother who was in Prep was being picked on by some second graders. When I learned about it, I confronted those second graders and would have been able to hurt them physically if they didn't scamper away. So who was the bully, me or the second graders? Hard to tell, right?)
Well, thank you Jera, I think I'm going to let you (and Rino) have the last word on this. We could go on and on interpreting the same situation and still end up disagreeing on some key points. I think I respect you enough to believe that you've looked at both sides of the issue, and I could only hope you respect me in the same way. Let's just agree to disagree on this one, ok?
PS: I'd support a war against Iran anytime. ;-)