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KaineD -> RE: Gaza - the facts emerge (3/23/2009 12:51:29 PM)
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I think the situation in Gaza represents a truely disdainful and... what I pretty much consider to be an evil attitude western people have of Muslims. Muslims are not to be trusted. Israel are the good guys. The Palestinians are the terrorists. So what if thousands of them died, the Israelis are not responsible because they had to fight terrorists. [B]Everyone knows Hamas use human shields.[/B]
There's just this reprehensible bias that comes from almost zero fact checking. The Israelis are OUR allies and we must support them. Why? Partly religious reasons? Like I pointed out, there is an undercurrent of feeling in the west that Muslims can't be trusted. There is also the highly succesful propeganda war Israelis have been waging for years, that the Palestinians have no hope of counter-acting.
Initially, coming up to the end of 2008, I was critical in my own mind of the actions of Hamas. What are these stupid rocket attacks going to accomplish, I asked myself. And then, the Israelis let loose, weeks before Obama's inauguration, as we all seen. Well, not seen, as the media were barred from Gaza.
Nevertheless, tidbits of truth were coming out.
I kept up do date, as some of you may know. I realized, in my own mind at least, that the Israelis were going much too far. I also realized, that mainstream media (particularly American media, sorry Americans) were NOT reporting objectively.
Everyday, IDF and Israeli spokes people were on the news stations, giving out their propeganda to journalists and reporters who were not willing to ask any difficult questions. They would talk about how they wanted peace, but they were fighting against extremists, unreasonable people who wanted to wipe Israel off the map. But I looked at their actions, and asked myself, who is trying to wipe out who? Hamas talk tough sometimes, but they hardly have the means to kill a dozen people in the few weeks it took Israel to kill thousands.
In a small way, I don't know, I wanted to inform people. Inform them here and elsewhere, with what I and others had found.
But again and again I was met with frustration. I've been outright labelled anti-semitic, even here. As most people are labelled when they dare criticize the actions of the Israeli government and their military. I've been met with old, tired arguments of who started what. I even argued with a guy in real face to face chat who tried to bring up events before the birth of Christ to justify the current actions of the Israelis.
And again and again, the old defamations of the Palestinians - they use human shields. According to who? The IDF. How convenient. But that's the propeganda war. Repeat a lie or a half truth over and over, and it becomes the truth. Or at least, people assume its the truth. And that is where the danger lies.
I've long told myself that evil doesn't exist. The idea of evil is something with heavy basis in religion, a phony idea of maelevolent forces guiding people, or people that are just outright malicious to the core. Complete bullshit. In a way the term 'evil' undermines the crimes humans commit against each other.
But if evil exists, it has its basis in ignorance, stupidity, and self-denial. And then it grows out from there.
The natural reaction for some people immediately following 9/11 was to nuke Afghanistan. There is no logic or reason behind such a thing but that's how some felt. Evil, in my view, is the attempt to justify completely inhumane acts.
The Israeli people have had to deal with suicide bombers and rocket attacks. It is natural that a current of hate and anger builds up among the people and seeps into the military and government. So, they lied to themselves that they were going to end Hamas once and for all, and instead ending up killing as many people and destroying as much of Gaza as they could get away with in a few short weeks.
And their self-denial is so powerful, and the ignorance in the west so prevailant, that everyone tricks themselves into thinking the Israelis are doing this purely out of self-defense and even altruistic purposes (getting rid of the evil terrorists).
When the reality is that the IDF used human sheilds, phosphorus bombs, targeted UN buildings, knocked Gaza back to the stone age and killed over 1, 400 people.
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