After reading the two Wespeak responses to my Wespeak entitled the “Public Relations War,” I would like to set the record straight. It is difficult to rebut Mr. Thompson’s “poem,” as it lacks factual points and represents a type of fairytale simplistic utopianism that is disappointing to see from a Wesleyan student (“A Poetic Response to the ‘PR War,’ Feb. 3, 2009, Volume CXLV, Number 2). I appreciate Mr. Gunawardena’s article, which raises specific issues, although it contains many factual errors and fallacies (“Response to Nestler on the Gaza Public Relations War,” Feb. 3, 2009, Volume CXLV, Number 2).
Mr. Gunawardena, you claim that the world’s condemnation of Israel is just, based on reports of international human rights organizations and its violations of “countless UN resolutions.” The United Nations Human Rights Council is notorious for its anti-Israel hate, condemning Israel at every possible impasse, indeed holding special conferences in which statements continuously blur the line between being anti-Israel and overtly anti-Semitic, while ignoring actual human rights violations degrees worse by any human measure. For one example, while hundreds of thousands of innocent black Sudanese in Darfur were being butchered by the Arab government of Omar al-Bashir, this council was castigating Israel for constructing a defensive wall to protect its civilian population from suicide bombers. If you cannot see that the United Nations and its organizations are overtly anti-Israel and you continue to cite them in an attempt to legitimize your argument, you are simply ignoring reality. Take a look at some of the members of this organization of “human rights:” Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, China, Pakistan, Cuba and the icing on the cake, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya as the governing chair.
Mr. Gunawardena, your second paragraph is a distraction from an otherwise valid point, which, by the way, was never refuted. The Arab Palestinians were indeed not a different people from other Arabs and after World War II, when countries were being carved out of European imperialist mandates, these Arabs were offered a state just like their neighboring Arabs were. But, and this is the key point, they rejected their own state in 1948, just like they did in 1937 with the Peel Commission, and just like they did again in 2000 at Camp David. To blame Israel for the Palestinians’ lack of self-determination is frankly absurd, with its leaders having rejected their own state multiple times.
The following paragraph mischaracterizes yet another point I made about how whenever Jews defend themselves, the world is up in arms, while when Arabs murder fellow Arabs ten fold, no one seems to care so much. It seems to me, Mr. Gunawardena, that since you had no possible rebuttal, you decided instead to mock my point. You can brand me Emmanuel Goldstein (a la Orwell’s “1984”) if you’d like and we could have our two minutes of hate (is it 11 a.m. yet?), but it is ineffective to employ sarcasm to rebut the incontrovertible facts in my essay.
I also reject your belittling of the current Arab threat and find it alarming. Hamas terrorists are not simply throwing rocks, but launching Iranian-made Grad missiles along with homemade Qassam rockets, capable of hitting 1,000,000 Israelis at any moment. Every day that passes, more dangerous weapons, from Iran and Syria, will arrive in Gaza and one day nuclear weapons may too. Indeed you disprove yourself with this argument because the fact that these Qassams are so inaccurate is precisely why they are so dangerous: they could hit anywhere. Thanks to an impressive emergency system and a touch of luck, southern Israelis have for the most part been able to avoid major casualties. These Grad missiles have struck elementary schools an hour after everyone left. Say, for example, the rocket had landed an hour earlier and had killed 200 Israeli children. Do you follow me? If the Grad missiles aren’t destructive enough to justify Israel’s response, at what point of destructiveness does Israel’s response become justified? What would the U.S. do if Canadians were launching random missiles into the U.S.? To deny the right of response is absurd.
You are also historically wrong to claim that Israel expelled 750,000 people from their homes in 1948. For one, the number is closer to 600,000 people, while you neglect to recognize the fact that the majority of these people left either on their own volition or by the recommendation of surrounding Arab governments, who promised them a swift military victory. I am also extremely disappointed that you completely fail to mention the 950,000 Jews who were expelled violently from Arab countries in 1948. The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have refugee status for one reason and one reason alone: all Arab countries have intentionally used and maltreated these Palestinian people as a propaganda tool for six decades starting long before 1967 when Israel first occupied the West Bank and Gaza. In contrast, the Jews who were forced from their homes, having lived on those lands for centuries, chose to value life rather than death and were integrated into Israeli society. A dozen Arab countries never offered the Palestinians such integration and the Palestinians themselves rejected opportunities to create their own state.
Perhaps the clearest example of the kind of intentional deception of the PR War is when Israel’s enemies continue to exclaim that “1,300 Palestinians were killed.” This statement is the ultimate misrepresentation of reality for it appears, at first glance, that these are all just innocent Palestinian people killed for no reason. This could not be farther from the truth. After the cease-fire expired it was Hamas that relentlessly fired rockets into Israel, each one aimed at killing the largest amount of innocent civilians, while Israel was imploring them to stop and consider peace. More frightening than anything else is the lack of critical analysis on the part of people like Mr. Gunawardena, Mr. Thompson, and the rest of the world that throws around this deceiving number. First, Hamas authorities claim 1,300 Palestinians were killed, while the Israeli military I believe has compiled a list of only 900 people, while an Italian journalist for Corriere della Sera claims that only 600 people were killed. What’s the truth? Who knows. But let’s dig in even deeper. The more important statistic is the percentage of these aforementioned dead who were innocent civilians versus those who were legitimate military targets.
In order to arrive at a thoughtful conclusion, we must all consider extremely difficult moral questions. For example, is a family who allows their house to be used as an arms cache to be considered innocent civilians? Or better, when the Israel armed forces drop a pamphlet (could you imagine Britain dropping pamphlets on German houses during World War II to warn them of an imminent bombing in order to minimize civilian casualties?) on a house letting the people inside know of an imminent bombing and they decide to stay, even calling other family members to come over in order to commit mass suicide, are these people to be considered innocent civilians? When schools, mosques, hospitals and universities are being used to store arms, are the people killed who protect these weapons to be deemed innocent civilians? In no way do I wish to belittle human life, for each innocent death is truly a tragedy, but if one were to answer no to these aforementioned questions, the ubiquitous phrase “1,300 Palestinians were killed” would be even more skewed and deceiving.
Mr. Gunawardena, it appears that your main point boils down to your last two sentences. You blame the conflict on the “U.S.-sanctioned massacre,” while neglecting to note that the U.S. has given hundreds of millions, indeed billions, of dollars to the Palestinians over the past decades, the majority of that money either embezzled by corrupt leaders like Arafat or being used to fund terrorism. So in a way, yes, the U.S. has sanctioned massacre by giving money to a corrupt Palestinian leadership. The Palestinians have received per capita more foreign aid than any other nation in the world, yet where has this money gone? Certainly not to building hospitals or schools or to nurture a tolerant society, yet it’s always Israel and the U.S.’s fault, right? Most unfortunate of all, you defend Hamas’s actions, claiming it a just response. Have you ever read the Hamas charter? Are you aware that just yesterday it was reported that Hamas thugs broke into a UN humanitarian food and aid warehouse and, at gunpoint, confiscated all of the goods? Have you ever seen their Mickey Mouse-equivalent cartoon show? I strongly urge you to reconsider your position on Hamas. If you, or anyone else, truly “supports the Palestinians” you too would advocate the total extermination of Hamas. Yet for some reason you are able to defend it. Are you also able to say that 29 is not a prime number?
There is no doubt that the Palestinian people living in the West Bank and Gaza deserve a better life. I want them to have a better life. And I am not saying that Israel has never made a mistake; it has. But the bottom line of this “crisis without a solution” is that the Palestinians have themselves and the Arab governments of the world far more to blame. Recall: in 2000, Israel agreed to the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the Palestinians refused and launched a wave of suicide attacks against Israeli civilians within Israel. The path to a better life is clear: reject Hamas, accept a two-state solution, and begin the process of building a nation.
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