Leftists’ and Libertarians’ Propaganda War Vs. Israel
“For the Palestinian people, death became an industry, at which women and children excel. Accordingly we created a human shield of women, children and elderly. We seek death as you [Israelis] desire life.” — Fathi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas (2008)
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Someone posted the following note on Facebook: “Israel vs palestine… corporate welfare state versus social welfare state.. statism leads to war…”
The poster identifies himself as a Libertarian. Let me clarify that I am not a Libertarian.
What’s wrong with that statement? It’s the Israel-Palestine moral equivalence trap.
If the dogmatic leftists and liberals believed Israel is the main aggressor or the ‘terrorist state’, some Libertarians, particularly those who identify themselves as ‘antiwar’ and anti-interventionism crusaders, regard Israel and Palestine as moral equals and morally guilty.
My position on this issue is: No, Israel and Palestine (including all its enemies) are not moral equals.
I posted the following reply:
While I agree that statism is the cause of war, it is always the most statist society that starts initiates military conflicts. There is no moral equivalence here. There is the good/moral side and the evil/immoral side in this issue. The nation that adheres to peace has all the right to self-defense, and it is this nation that deserves international support [or even military aid]. Israel is the rightful owner of their territory and it should not have given up Gaza and West Bank in the past. Giving up Gaza is one BIG, FATAL mistake Israel did in the past. Despite giving that piece of land to the so-called Palestinians in a futile attempt at appeasement, the Israelis received thousands of rockets from Hamas in return. It simply shows you can never appease an enemy that’s determined to kill you.
How would you deal with an enemy state whose Charter clearly states: “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews)”?
Israel a corporatist state? Well, America and the Philippines are also corporatist states. Does that mean Israel is no longer entitled to any right to self-defense? Does that mean that a ‘corporatist state’ must not defend itself or retaliate against an invading hostile enemy that is an absolute totalitarian religious state? Does that mean that only a so-called Libertarian state is entitled to peace? But even so-called Libertarian states can be subject of invasion by fascist expansionist, imperialist states!
My understanding is that the Libertariants somehow think, or believe, that since Israel is guilty of ‘statism’ it must forfeit its right to self-defense. That’s since it is a ‘corporate state’, it is inherent guilty or even guiltier than all its surrounding enemies.
In regard to Israel’s sin of ‘statism’, I agree with the following analysis about Libertarians’ hatred of Israel:
True, Israel’s founding fathers were socialists. Born in collectivism, Israel has been progressing, albeit slowly, toward greater economic freedom. Trade liberalization, financial market reforms, increased privatization and decreased regulation have been part of this historical retreat from socialism. But the steady abolition of state subsidies and the enhancement of competition supported by Sharon’s Thatcherite Finance Minister (Bibi Netanyahu) cannot easily offset the effects of endemic violence. Coupled with the slowdown in the U.S. economy, violence is one of the main reasons for the slump in the Israeli economy.
Although Israel’s economy is by no means ideal, it is not much different from Western Europe’s Third-Way economies. Still, most libertarians find Israel particularly repugnant. With a respectable per capita GDP of roughly $17,500, compared to the Palestinian Authority’s $1,000, Israel apparently has nothing to recommend her.
The PA, on the other hand – with no economy, no free speech and press, no independent courts, no sound contract laws, and no individual or property rights – wins the sympathies of legions of freedom lovers hands down. That hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid have done nothing to change this bleak reality bothers anti-Israel libertarians only in so far as to point out that Israel is to blame.
The village IDIOT Noam Chomsky’s latest twitter blood-libel against Israel.
Consider this utterly disgusting article from Inforwars.com that claims that the United States government is a “puppet state” for letting “its entire government and a majority of the subjects, especially those members of evangelical churches, grovel at the feet of the Israeli Prime Minister.” This Libertarian propaganda article also claims that USA is a “puppet state” lacking the power, despite being considered a superpower, “to determine its own foreign policy in the Middle East”.
The Inforwars article’s most egregious claim is as follows:
Today there is international law to protect the Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza. However, every time that the world tries to hold the Israeli government accountable for its crimes, Israel’s Washington puppet vetoes the UN decision.
The notion that Israel is threatened by Palestinians is as absurd as the notion that the US is threatened by Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan, and Iran. No government of any of these countries has ever made a threatening statement against the US. Even had such a statement been made, it would be meaningless. If a Superpower can be threatened by such impotent and distant counties, then it is not a superpower.
I don’t even know what to say. That Libertarian propaganda is not only factually incorrect; it is so immoral and so evil. It simply attempts to tell its libertarian, pacifist, leftist and “green” readers that Hamas’ rocket terror campaign against Israel since the start of the year did not exist. It simply tries to tell its readers that Israel, after giving up Gaza Strip in 2005, remains the aggressor despite being bombed by Hamas rockets.
It is indeed so ironic that both the leftists and the anti-war Libertarians agree on the Israel-ME issue. Yet Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu once said, “Israel can defend itself”. If the issue is foreign aid to Israel, Egypt and now Palestine also receive US aid.
The truth of the matter is, USA now benefits from Israel’s military research and technology. Israel is an ally.
But I do not want to deal with that particular matter, which actually misses (perhaps intentionally) the real, actual issue:
DOES ISRAEL HAVE A RIGHT TO DEFEND ITSELF?
History has it that Israel was strongly committed to peace. It did all it could do to appease its enemies. It gave up Gaza and West Bank, which it lawfully and legally acquired through a war in self-defense in 1967. Former State Department Legal Advisor Stephen Schwebel, who chaired the International Court of Justice in the Hague, ruled in 1970 regarding Israel’s case: “Where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory unlawfully, the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense has, against that prior holder, better title.”
West Bank was not a Palestinian territory; it was first occupied by Jordan after trying to invade Israel in 1947. Gaza was also not a Palestinian land; it was first occupied by Egypt, which joined Jordan in its war campaign against Israel in 1947. There was no such thing as a Palestinian state before 1947 or even before 1917. In fact, the Ottoman empire refused to recognize both the Palestinian and Syrian people during its half a millennium rule.
Today, America is becoming an impediment to Israel’s survival. Yes, USA helped Israel in the past. That’s given. But that does not give the liberals and Libertarians the right to deny Israel of its right to self-defense. That does not give them the right to BLOOD-LIBEL the people who actually want peace!
To so-called antiwar Libertarians: Cut the aid! That’s just fine. Israel can survive. Just don’t blame Israel and its people for defending itself and for retaliating. The Palestinians had all the opportunity to live in peace and compete with Israel in an economic war rather than military war. Obviously the Palestinian State is never interested in achieving peace, as its Charter begins with the ominous warning that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”.
Meanwhile, the picture below, which is obviously an Islamic propaganda, claims “Israel drinks from the river of blood in Gaza”:
The Islamists actually have this almost natural, genetic fascination with ‘blood’. In fact a Muslim suicide bomber once said before killing himself and his victims in 2004: “We will hunt you [Jews] everywhere, when you wake and when you sleep. We are a blood-drinking people and we know that there is no better blood than Jewish blood.”
They even spread a centuries-long rumor that the Jews drink the blood of Muslims and Christians. Unfortunately, millions of people fall prey to these blood-libels and evil propaganda against the Jews.
The truth of the matter is, Hamas has been bombing Israel since the start of the year. This was not reported by the world media. The global media began to work and cover the crisis only after Israel started to retaliate.
But did Israel intentionally target Palestinian civilians as the propaganda photo above claims? The fact of the matter is, Hamas has been turning key civilian areas like schools, hospitals and mosques into military bases. To avoid hitting civilians and violating international laws, Israel has been observing the following principles:
- Israel’s military operation is an act of self-defense, a right enshrined in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. Its aim is to put an end to the more than 8,000 missile attacks on Israeli citizens since Israel fully withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
- Israel’s actions to stop Hamas missile attacks are proportional to the risk faced by Israeli civilians—4.5 million of whom are within missile range—including the real prospect of mass casualties. Israel must not wait for a missile to slam into a school full of children before it takes action.
- Under international law, any state must attempt to minimize the number of civilian casualties of its opponent as it seeks to achieve its military objective. Accordingly, Israel uses pinpoint targeting to achieve its goals, as it did when it eliminated senior Hamas military leader Ahmad Jabari and destroyed key missile launching sites.
- Israel has dropped thousands of leaflets warning Gaza residents to avoid areas being used by Hamas to attack Israel and has made thousands of phone calls to targeted areas to warn citizens they are in danger.
- While Israel makes every effort to minimize civilian casualties, international law also forbids the use of civilians to protect legitimate military targets, as Hamas has consistently done. Article 28 of the Fourth Geneva Convention clearly states: “The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.”
What is clear is that Hamas is determined to complete the annihilation of the State of Israel. As Danny Ayalon in this Guardian article stated:
Every rocket from Gaza is a double war crime. First, the rockets are aimed at civilians; second, they are fired from built-up civilian areas, often close to schools, mosques and hospitals. And about 10% of Hamas rockets fired from Gaza don’t reach Israel, exploding in Gaza. Mohammed Sadallah – a four-year-old killed on Saturday, his body displayed in a press conference with Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s leader – was, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, most likely killed by an errant Hamas rocket.
… Israel has been left with little choice but to root out this nest of hate and destruction. No nation on earth would allow a third of its population to live in constant fear of incessant fire emanating from a neighbouring territory. Our government exercised restraint. We gave the international community time to act. However, there was a deafening silence, demonstrating to Israelis that we had to take action to protect our citizens.
We have to make a moral choice. In any conflict between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.
This statement by Israeli PM Netanyahu appears to be true and self-evident:
“If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel'”
From Facebook:
The Pallywood propaganda that fools liberals, libertarians and fools.
Basic Facts on Israel-US Relations:
On the importance of Israel to America’s military:
Israel continues to help the United States deal with traditional security threats. The two countries share intelligence on terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and Middle Eastern politics. Israel’s military experiences have shaped the United States’ approach to counterterrorism and homeland security. The two governments work together to develop sophisticated military technology, such as the David’s Sling counter-rocket and Arrow missile defense systems, which may soon be ready for export to other U.S. allies. Israel has also emerged as an important niche defense supplier to the U.S. military, with sales growing from $300 million per year before September 11 to $1.1 billion in 2006, due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel’s military research and development complex has pioneered many cutting-edge technologies that are transforming the face of modern war, including cyberweapons, unmanned vehicles (such as land robots and aerial drones), sensors and electronic warfare systems, and advanced defenses for military vehicles.
The U.S.-Israeli alliance has paved the way for the countries to cooperate on far more than just traditional security issues. In part because of the long-standing political and security relationship between the United States and Israel, most Israelis know the United States and harbor positive feelings toward it. Israeli companies looking for a global market for their products have often viewed their American counterparts as partners of choice. So today, Israeli civilian technological innovations are helping the United States maintain its economic competitiveness, promote sustainable development, and address a range of non-military security challenges.
Fight Pallywood/Palestinian propaganda with the TRUTH!
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