Under the title
Who Started?, Gideon Levy makes important
expressions in Haaretz concerning the latest crisis between Israelis and Palestinians playing out in the Gaza strip. His comments are picked up by
Helena Cobban, who in turn is highlighted by
Juan Cole.
Gideon Levy describes what would seem in another context like a schoolyard fight, only not as innocuous:
'We left Gaza and they are firing Qassams' - there is no more precise a formulation of the prevailing view about the current round of the conflict. 'They started,' will be the routine response to anyone who tries to argue, for example, that a few hours before the first Qassam fell on the school in Ashkelon, causing no damage, Israel sowed destruction at the Islamic University in Gaza.
Israel is causing electricity blackouts, laying sieges, bombing and shelling, assassinating and imprisoning, killing and wounding civilians, including children and babies, in horrifying numbers, but 'they started.'
I absolutely concur with Juan Cole when he boils down the situation to the following:
Israelis are not above international law. Collective punishment is illegal according to the Geneva Convention. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Furthermore, I think Juan has a point here when he admonishes Americans for ignoring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
I think ignoring it is a big mistake. It is part of what got the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon bombed, and it came into the Fallujah crisis in Iraq in 2004. A lot of Iraqis think of US troops in their country as essentially Israelis and call them al-yahud, 'the Jews.' Like it or not, this conflict helps shape our lives and our image in the world. I know that rightwing Zionists are typically ruthless in trying to squelch any discussion of the topic, and I've had lots of readers write me that they are afraid of being labelled "anti-Semites" for speaking out. (...)
I know-- all too well-- that taking a position on this matter is costly in American society. But after 9/11, we cannot continue to go on allowing ourselves silently to be caught in the cross-fire between the followers of Jabotinsky and the followers of Sayyid Qutb.