Robert Scheer: Why Do So Few Speak Up for Gaza?

[laststeamtrain]

Why Do So Few Speak Up for Gaza?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090106_why_do_so_few_speak_up_for_gaza/
Posted on Jan 6, 2009

By Robert Scheer

Why are we so indifferent to the death and destruction in Gaza?

The major news outlets meekly accepted Israel’s banning of journalists from entering Gaza as an excuse for downplaying collateral civilian casualties, our president-elect, Barack Obama, has had little to say about an invasion that will much complicate his future Mideast peace efforts, and most commentators easily rationalize Israel’s many-more-eyes-for-an-eye killings.

Why is it that there is such widespread acceptance, beginning with the apologetic arguments of President Bush, that whatever Israel does is always justified as necessary to the survival of the Jewish state?

<snip>

The high moral claim of the Israeli occupation rests not on the objective reality of a Palestinian threat to Israel’s survival, but rather on the non sequitur cry that “never again” should harm come to Jews as it did in Central Europe seven decades ago.

The basic argument is that Palestinian terrorists represented by Hamas are given to an irrational hatred of Jews so profound that it invalidates their movement, even when they win elections. That was not the view of the Israeli security service when it earlier supported Hamas as the alternative to the then dreaded PLO. Also, history is replete with examples of terrorists becoming statesmen, even within the early ranks of Jews fighting to establish the state of Israel.

One of those was Menachem Begin, who went on to be an elected leader of the new state. But before Begin attained that respectability, back in 1948 when he visited the United States, a group of prominent Jewish intellectuals including Albert Einstein, Sidney Hook and Hannah Arendt wrote a letter to The New York Times warning that Begin was a former leader of the “Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.” The letter urged Jews to shun Begin, arguing, “It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.”

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http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090106_why_do_so_few_speak_up_for_gaza/

[pmorlan1]

1. Thanks for posting.

Scheer is absolutely correct on this and I'm sure that there are people in Israel who agree.

[Libertyfirst]

2. And what do quotes from sixty years ago have to do with the present?

"Never Again" sounds pretty damn right to me. Since you like the past so much, why not go back just a little further and attempt to understand why "never again." Cherry picking historical facts to support an argument is pretty lame.