The total death toll in the Arab-Israel conflict since 1948 is somewhere around 50,000 dead, with about one-third being Jewish and about two-thirds being Muslim. In the past 22 months something like 60,000 people have been slaughtered by the Assad regime in Syria, which is double the estimated dead in the Arab war against the Jews in the last 45 years.
But who cares?
To most westerners a Palestinian toe is worth more than an entire Syrian, so long as that toe was in any way harmed by a Jew. The fact of the matter is that the west doesn't give a damn, period. The progressive movement certainly doesn't care. If they do not care about the hundreds of thousands of dead Darfurans or the millions of dead Congolese why in this world would they care if Muslims kill a gazillion other Muslims in Syria? They wouldn't and they don't.
The left only cares if Jews are doing the killing and then they will scream from the hillsides about how the Jewish Israelis are now Nazis and how Israel is a racist, imperialist, colonialist, militarist, apartheid, racist state.
David M. Weinberg writes:
Brahimi said that "if the war stays another year, we will not have 25,000 more, we will have 100,000 more killed.” This is because since last February, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has steadily unleashed ever-greater military firepower against his opponents, including tanks, heavy artillery, attack helicopters, fighter jets and Scud missiles. Chemical weapons could be next.A hundred thousand dead? Attack helicopters against his own people?
Who gives a shit? Muslims could kill other Muslims until not one is left standing and the western progressive-left, that bastion of human rights, would just yawn and turn over in bed.
Of course, the world is much more distraught about Palestinians in conflict than Syrians in conflict — because the Jews are involved in the first equation. The world is outraged when an Israeli soldier takes a swipe at a Palestinian protester with his rifle butt, but is not so incensed when Syrian troops rape, massacre and torture tens of thousands of their own. The world knows that Jewish housing construction is a threat to world peace requiring the Security Council's immediate attention, but feels no such sense of urgency when the slaughter in Syria threatens to spill over into Turkey, Jordan and Israel, or engulf the region in non-conventional warfare.We have to stop pretending that the left are the "good guys" because they care about universal human rights. They don't. You have been lied to for electoral reasons and reasons having to do with domestic political power. Most "progressives" probably believe that their movement does care about the well-being of other people, but that's entirely irrelevant because it quite obviously doesn't. The progressive-left doesn't care about the Chinese occupation of Tibet, nor about any number of ongoing wars and slaughters throughout Africa and the Muslim Middle East. The progressive-left even tends to be friendly to political Islam, a movement in which splashing acid into the faces of young girls seeking an education is not entirely uncommon.
And, yet, they will lecture the Jews of the Middle East, a people under perpetual siege, about morality.
It is quite simply grotesque and we must awaken from the delusion that western "liberals" are in any way allies to the Jewish state of Israel or, therefore, allies to the Jewish people more generally.
They aren't.
Clearly, too many of them mainly seem interested in demonstrating their credentials as regards their own warped version of anti-imperialism above all else. The Daily Kos, etc, types, in particular, aren't so much about opposing hate as they are about demonstrating that they oppose, and often hate, the 'right' people and the 'right' countries. All too often, this of course manifests itself as extreme hostility to the United States and to Israel.
ReplyDeleteSomeone like Assad clearly isn't close enough to, let's say, the US, to qualify for unquestionable enemy status. G-d forbid one should risk being seen as an imperialist stooge amongst one's 'progressive' peers!
A lack of real concern about universal human rights comes out of this, in my opinion. Humans who can be seen as being made to suffer by Americans or Israelis are the truly 'privileged' ones when it comes to condescending 'progressive' pity. You're absolutely correct in that a Syrian killed by Assad is lower on the concern ladder than a hypothetical Syrian even, say, mistakenly detained at an airport in Michigan for fifteen minutes. Not that the latter is right, mind you, but do you honestly believe the Progressive-Left internet wouldn't explode for days over something like that, even while dozens of Syrians were being slaughtered by their own government at the very same time? Something is way out of whack there these days.
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Just picked up Martin Gilbert's In Ishmael's House from a little used bookstore down the block from the art museum a few minutes ago, btw. Looking forward to the read.
That's a terrific book and it's one that I wish more Jewish activist types would read. It's a very measured and scholarly work and one that is, in my opinion, more than fair to its subject.
DeleteFor the life of me, I do not know how it happened that so many Jewish people never gained an interest in the history of Jews in the Middle East under Arab-Muslim imperial rule?
How can we even begin to understand the situation of Israel, or the situation of the Jews in the Middle East, without an historical backdrop as context?
Once you gain that historical context (Hi, Stuart!) you realize that the Jewish people of the Middle East are not the oppressors of Arabs, but are a tiny minority surrounded by a much, much larger hostile majority infused with an irrational theocratic hatred for those Jews.
I gotta tell you, man, it was a year ago that Laurie and I were in Israel and the very first thing that struck me, as we wandered out of Ben Gurion, was the sight of all those young Jewish men and women in uniform and with rifles slung over their shoulders. I did not think to myself, "Oh, what a militaristic country!" No. What I thought was, "How unjust is it that for the Jewish people to survive in the land where Jews come from they must arm their kids to the teeth?"
I resent the hell out of it, actually, but it's not Israel's fault.
It's the fault of her racist persecutors, who are also funded by US tax dollars.
Part of my motivation for purchasing a copy of the book, btw, rather than checking one out from the library, is that I've noticed, while perusing the stacks at JFGP's library on down time during volunteer gigs (and where I'll be working for a few hours tomorrow, in fact), this title sticks out to me as one that's missing from their otherwise very impressive collection. So when I'm done with it, I can donate mine. :)
DeleteAs if on cue.
ReplyDeleteHere's another super-duper Daily Kos genius ("Independance!" That move must be related to the Humpty Dance, I'm sure...), spouting 'progressive' wisdom -
"His harsh critiques of Israel, his routine blasting of AIPAC, and his defense of Chuck Hagel have clarity and, for someone with his mainstream cred, take courage. On these issues, with the exception of Chris Hayes, there's isn't a liberal on TV who takes the true liberal position that Klein consistently espouses."
The courage one must have to "blast" Joooz! It's so totally worthy of our support, in and of itself, too! No further explanation necessary! He "blasts" Teh Joooz, what a truly brave man!
I mean, come on now! The guy has clearly displayed "independance" (and rational thought!) from Teh Joooz! What more could you possibly want?!
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