Friday, December 17, 2004

Israel can't count on Europe - yet.

Quote:


The Europeans are willing to recognize Israel's right to exist, but generally do not take the trouble to learn the details and intricacies of the conflict in the Middle East. They prefer not to dirty their hands in this quagmire - unlike the Americans.


The Americans are not neutral, they are not impartial. They are on Israel´s side, nowadays largely publicly and unashamedly so, giving only the lightest excuses otherwise. Even to American politicians this is a religious mission: To save the Jews from another Holocaust and prepare way for the Second Coming of the Christ! Or at least that is what they say to their voters... And of course, to "protect Israel´s democracy". Yes, Israel´s democracy would be awfully threatened if they would be forced to withdraw behind the Green line, no doubt about - at least so the thinking goes in shallow American minds. At the same time these Americans boast about Israel´s military and claim that if some nasty Muslim country would threaten Israel, then it´s cities would be destroyed by Israeli nukes and then these same folks go on declaring that without the United States´ support for Israel´s illegal occupation of the remaining Palestinian lands and the Golan Heights, the helpless Jews would be slaughtered.

The Europeans nowadays don´t want to be Israel´s cheerleaders, like several major European countries were in the past. And on the other hand, the past being what it is, there´s reluctance to act because cries of "antisemitism" would ensue - not only from Israel and the US, but from back home too - as being engaged but impartial would mean being against Israel´s actions and policies - as the current situation is the result of Israel´s actions, made worse by the American meddling - which to many Israelis is not impartiality, but being unjustly against them, as they are not customed to being treated so: "We are right and everyone who doesn´t support us is against us." This is their view of the world.

And then the lame excuses like that the Europeans "don´t understand" the Middle East situation or that the Europeans "don´t understand Israel, but if they would, they would support us." First of all, the Israelis may have not noticed, but they are not the only ones making the same kind of claims, nor are they first. Everybody makes these claims when faced with criticism. These claims fit every circumstance, whether one is accused of human rights violations, ethnic cleansings, genocides, religious intolerance, discrimination against women, money laundering or hunting endangered species for fun and profit.

Do the Israelis understand totally North Korea, it´s inhabitants and politics in the Korean peninsula? Do they understand the civil war in DR of Congo and all it´s participants? Do they understand those in Sudan? If not, does that mean that they have no right to say a word of these places nor have any policies towards them on the national level?

And what comes to the part about terrorism, there´s only one simple way to answer: Who does most of the killing? Which side has killed 600 children during the last three years and which has killed 100?

But there´s one funny thing in the article. First those claims above, and then this:

They prefer not to dirty their hands in this quagmire - unlike the Americans.

You have to be either joking, utter fanatic or licking the American asses to be able to write this kind of thing. The Americans get their "hands dirty", because the poor arrogant bastards are ignorant troglodytes who don´t understand that their actions will end them in a quagmire and create misery for untold millions! They are on a divine mission, God is on their side, and so they can´t fail, even if their strategy is based on the faith that everything will end well. Their president didn´t know that there are different branches of Islam in Iraq as his government was planning the war! He had to be explained, that there are these Sunnis and Shiias...

Another funny reminiscence of the Americans, this about a person who should have known far more about the Middle East than your average European:

I read once a book about the Kurds that was written by an American journalist who had worked in Lebanon during the war there and had met Kurds there and eventually got interested about them and finally decided to write a book about them. After deciding this, the journalist realised that there was problem: He didn´t know where Kurdistan was and how he could get there.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am not sure why you have so departed from what was the central focus of your article and made a strange tour of the Kurds etc, but you do ignore the rather obvious problem: Europeans (1) have long record of anti-semitism (see France); 2. have huge Muslim populations now they do not want to upset. 3. Left leaning and thus side with the perceived underdog--the Palestinians. You also forget that the land Israel occupies was taken in war (and not from the Palestinians) and no country gives back land till such time as a peace accord is in place...why give back that which your countrymen have died for, esp when you have been attacked 4 times?