7) That Palestinians are collectively locked into a culture of martyrdom and death, and have no desire to live themselves, an argument that was made by CNN presenter Jake Tapper last week. The corollary of this argument is that Israelis care about their people, but the Palestinians don’t. And if Palestinians themselves don’t want to live, runs the clear implication, then why should it be incumbent on Israel to protect them? 8) That civilian deaths are ‘inevitable in any war’, but that Israel always takes more care than any other army to prevent them and ‘desperately’ tries to avoid civilian casualties. This argument ignores the population density and topography of the Gaza Strip, which means that civilians will always die in even the most ‘surgical’ military assault. It ignores the blurring of the distinctions between ‘terrorists’ and civilians when the homes of Hamas members are targeted. Last but not least, this argument ignores the broader forms of anti-civilian violence that are always an implicit component of Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip, in terms of the destruction of property, the disruption of the local economy, water and food supplies, psychological intimidation, etc, and the extent to which the killing of civilians and the destruction of civilian property is intended to serve Israeli military and political objectives, by turning the Palestinian population against Hamas - a policy that Israeli has practiced on numerous other occasions.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 10:56:14 +0000
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