Hypocrisy’s finest hour

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Hypocrisy’s finest hour
Op-ed: Revelations of West’s crimes in Afghanistan highlight anti-Israel hypocrisy
Shaul Rosenfeld
Published: 07.30.10, 00:29 / Israel Opinion


In an interview with PBS earlier this year, Richard Goldstone was quite amazed by a question regarding the suspicion that he and others may, heaven forbid, adopt a double standard in respect to Israel, compared to their attitude to other states, such as the US for example.

Such claims were looked into, Goldstone said without batting an eyelid, adding that the US adopted far-reaching steps in order to protect innocent civilians in Iraq. He further noted that as opposed to Israel's war crimes and vengeful policy in Operation Cast Lead, the Americans made sure to protect innocent civilians, while apologizing in cases where they erred, for example in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Indeed, why the hell should the “bold apartheid objector” (who, as we may recall, happened to enforce racist laws in the past and send dozens of blacks to the gallows) care about some insignificant, trivialities? For example, the fact that during Operation Just Cause in December 1989, US troops in Panama killed 300 to 1,000 civilians; or that in October 1993, a UN force (mostly comprising US units) killed more than 500 Somali civilians, while “carrying out an operation,” of course.” Elsewhere, 460 to 2,000 civilians were killed during NATO bombings in Kosovo in 1999; in December 2004, in a campaign against Islamist forces in Iraq’s Fallujah, the Americans killed more than 6,000 civilians and obliterated about 10,000 civilian homes. Yet those who determine Israel’s guilt in advance have no use for such humdrum information.

Meanwhile, such trivialities are not at the top of David Cameron’s agenda either. And so, a day after the disclosure of 92,000 documents showing that coalition forces in Afghanistan killed hundreds of local civilians without reporting it, the new British PM found the time (of course, in Turkish PM Ergodan’s presence) to explain why Israel’s flotilla raid was “completely unacceptable,” why Netanyahu must order a “swift, transparent and rigorous inquiry” into the incident (as if Israel hasn’t done so thus far,) and why Gaza is a “prison camp” (of course, Israel’s “blockade” is at fault.)

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