Picture Perfect

I have decided to create a new Politics section. All posts being about Politics, will have the word "politics" inside the title, and placed in this section of my blog. This way, all those who don't particularly care about politics, won't have to read half the post to find out that half the post they've just read is about a subject they couldn't care less about.

And so, my politically aware, children, without further ado, I present to you the subject of today's political rant. The middle east conflict. Yay! Passions tend to flare at discussions like these, and I generally refuse to engage in political discussion on this subject with people, due to this fact. But, this day, I am making an exception.

This particular post will revolve around something I saw recently (well, today, in fact) in the news. It is the fist fight which erupted between Christian clerics in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Greek Orthodox patron, Irineos I, has been struck off by the Church as patron. This, apparantly, has no legal effect whatsoever. A patron may only be removed from his post, if Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority all agree to his removal. "Jordan?" I hear you say, "whatever for? Surely they have no jurisdiction over Jerusalem, much less over Christians within Jerusalem!" But the anomaly is quickly solved when we realise that the cleric shepherds around 100,000 Christians in the city, most of which are Palestinian, and seeing how all Palestinians are from Jordan originally, the PA and Jordan's involvement are quickly understood.

This leads us to several other things. If the Palestinians are from Jordan, why on earth are they getting a seperate state of their own? Indeed, WHERE on earth do they want this state, as if they were from Jordan, then no Palestinian state ever existed in the first place (we must note here that "Palestine" was the name given to Israel under the Roman occupation about 2,000 years ago, in an attempt to make the natives less at home with their land, a useful tactic employed by the Romans to stop cultural differences in a vast empire, for the younger generations. The name was re-used by the British when Turkey was forced to hand Israel over to the British after they lost WW1).

But ok. I can live with a Palestinian state is it will bring peace.
I cannot, however, live IN a Palestinian state, as it will not result in anything like peace.

And this is the aim of the PA, and all their cronies.
No doubt, the vast majority of the world have not read the PA mission statement, which effectively states they wish to create a "Palestinian" state on top of the Israeli one. This effectively means there will never, ever be peace in the middle east between Israel and the Palestinians, unless one (or all) of three things happen:

1) The Israeli state is removed
2) The Palestinian people are absorbed back into Jordan, or intergrated into Israel (the latter of which they rejected back in the '70s - or, more like, told to reject by their alleged leaders. The former was rejected by all Arab states. Apparantly the vast Arab dominions have no room for about a million other Arabs.)
3) The Palestinians are actually educated and governed by a pro-democratic, peace-loving, educated man.

Unfortunately, what with the dissolution of the "occupied areas" we are closer to the first option than the other two.

I do so enjoy the rediculous perspective of people who incredulously reject the idea that the Palestinians would be better of either as Israeli citizens, or re-establishing their Jordanian citizenship, and yet propose that Israelis should find themselves without a homeland, by dissolving the Israeli state. A sad, misguided attempt to bring peace.

Furthermore, I am continually astounded that the people to break the cease-fires are never the Israelis, but invariably the Palestinians. It is always the sound of another suicide bomb which shatters the silence of peace. For years, Israel's representation have been telling the world "terrorism isn't just a phenomina here. It will one day happen world-wide, unless we are successful in stopping it here." Some call it karma. Some call it justice. Some call it "sods law." But guess what? The countries who have continually repremanded Israel for attempting to deal with it's own terrorists have been struck by terrorists themselves. The USA, and now London have had a taste of terrorism recently, and it is now widely agreed that the London bombings were indeed suicide bombings, making it the first of their kind to happen on English soil.

G8. That recent "glorious" meeting between the 8 richest nations in the world, in an attempt to partially solve the problem of poverty in Africa. 3 billion is going to be given to the Palestinians in form of aid. This is simply 3 billion more which is going to be spent on bombs to blow up Israeli civilians. The same holds true for all african nations: the money is being given to corrupt officials, who will use most of the money for their own ends. Whilst it is a noble gesture by the G8, it is also a foolish policy, especially when aid could be given in other forms (such as pens, notebooks, etc. in an attempt to increase education, or bread, well-making tools, and the like, to decrease hunger and water shortages. Actual materials, not money).

But back to the Palestinians. It is my belief that Israel's critics are governed by what is called "the 3D's" which are:

1) Double-standards

 Just why is a suicide bombing called "terrorism" in London and not in Israel? If the world is to learn a lesson, it should be now, and it should be that a) terrorism can happen to you as well, (b) perhaps they should look at places like Israel with a new perspective, rather than what they have been doing up until now.

I was proud, but outraged, to learn that Israel continues to send in ground troops to Palestinian settlements when attempting to oust terrorists. Outraged, because it risks the lives of the men, and proud because it spares the lives of Palestinian civilians, who will have little risk of getting killed, compared to carpet bombing tactics employed by the USA in Afghanistan. It is interesting that people shout "helicopters against guns, guns against stones!" in relation to Israel's conflict with groups like Hamas, but utter a word or two of mild objection to America's indiscriminate killing in Afghanistan. I suppose having the largest economy in the world helps.

Other such examples of double standards exist, they are not hard to see, and the disctinction of double standards was made by a 10 years old Jewish girl, who featured in this blog not long ago, with the verbatim quote, which I have used previously, which I have used here, and which I will continue to use in the future: "Why is it called terrorism in London, and not Israel?" 

 

2) Distortion

"4 Palestinians were brutally murdered following a suicide attack where 5 Israelis were killed, and several more injured."

Zipping over to the Israeli press, I quickly find that 2 of the "4 Palestinians brutally murdered" were suicide bombers themselves. Yes. Did you know suicide bobmers are included in the Palestinian death count? "Brutally murdered" generally means Israeli security forces were patrolling an area, when some Palestinians jumped out behind bushes and began engaging the forces in gun fights.

"5 Israelis killed" - what mild terming, in relation to the former part of the new report. This number never includes those who die in hospital of course, only those who die outright. "several more injured" can mean anything from "he has a slight cut" to "his head fell off, and his brains are currently oozing out in front of him" and can be any amount of people between 2-10.

This is a pretty basic example of distortion. If the media distorts information, then the people who read the newspapers will have no idea what is actually happening.

A few people will recall the female BBC reported who reported how "I was moved to tears to watch the body of Yassir Arafat (the late Palestinian leader, ironically born in Cairo, Egypt) be taken upon a helicopter....." and who was repremanded for not remaining impartial - that is to say, being blatantly biased in an attempt to affect the way in which the readers perceive the story. In her case, she was being pro-Palestinian in her reporting.

Again, other examples exist, they are not  hard to find.

 

3) Demonisation 

Perhaps  the greatest tool in the kit of bias, depicting one side as the bad-guys over the other, is a sure way to engage public wrath upon the "bad-guys." This has been done over and over again, in many contexts. Today, we see it happening with radical muslims: they are the bad guys, it is them we must hate, and whatever bad happens to them, they deserve - because they're bad, right? Perspective is skewed, and eventually lost entirely, before being forever more forgotten. Something i'm sure most readers of this blog will appreciate.

 Summary

 Bias reporting creates a hostile public towards a certain entity. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that entity is Israel. In relation to other middle eastern and Asian countries (such as Iraq, and Nuclear-Korea) that entity are those same said countries, when put up against the Allied forces, they being predominentaly theUSA and UK.

I read today about "Iraq insurgents" who bombed some people the other day. A few weeks ago, I read about other "Iraq insurgents" who bombed another place, and coming to think of it, every protest staged against the UK and USA is by "Iraqi insurgents" - well just who are the insurgents in Iraq? The Iraqi's who do not wish to be occupied by the West, and our form of government imposed on them, or the Allies themselves? I'm hedging my bets at the moment, for I believe it may have been wrong to enter Iraq in the first place, but now we have, we should support our respective governments and leaders and make sure we do a good job of restoring order there, before hastily pulling out military personnel, and all the while supporting the new state in place.

Of crouse, what's happening now is different. The people do not want a democracy, much less a western imposed one. Why? Perhaps for the same reasons as Weimar Germany didn't last. The people have no respect for a wishy-wahy, namby-pamby democracy, and in short, WANT a dictator. Fine. Give them a dictator then. But make darn sure he isn't evil first (where "evil" is defined as killing their own people in any context, except that which is to maintain order).

Now here is an acid test for hypocracy:

All those that agree with me in the above for the most part, remove "Iraqi" and "USA/UK/West" and replace with "Palestinian" and "Israel" respectively. Still agree? Ha. Thought as much. Darned hypocrites ;-)

Conclusion 

I have never seen a conflict where on the eve of a battle, the vanquished (the Palestinians) demand unconditional surrender, and the victors (Israel) sue for peace.

In short, the Israelis have all the disadvantages of being technologically advanced, and the Palestinians have all the advantages of being the underdog.