Soccer Dad

Israel's OTHER 40th Anniversary

Clifford May writes in Unhappy Anniversary:

The 40th anniversary of the Six Day War, June 5 - 10, was the occasion for a flurry of media retrospectives. Less attention will be given to a related anniversary: June 19, 1967, when the Israelis first offered to give back most of the land that had come under their control during that conflict.

It is historically rare — if not unprecedented — for a nation to relinquish territory paid for with blood in a defensive war. So there was hope that this bold land-for-peace proposal might lead to Arab-Israeli detente. But at a summit held in Khartoum the following September, Israel’s Arab neighbors declared the “three nos”: no to recognition of Israel, no to negotiations with Israel, no to peace with Israel.

Israel however remains damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. James Taranto quotes from a Boston Globe editorial:

The Hamas campaign to eradicate Fatah from Gaza is certainly not the sole cause of Gazans' misery. They long suffered from Israel's suffocating occupation, and then from Ariel Sharon's foolishly unilateral withdrawal in 2005, a move that allowed Hamas to bid for power with the misleading claim that its rockets and suicide bombings had driven Israeli soldiers and settlers out of Gaza.

According to the Globe, Israel is to blame both for its "occupation" and for having ended it--the latter of which "allowed Hamas to bid for power." But "the people of Gaza" are innocent victims. It somehow escapes the Globe's notice that Hamas came to power because Palestinians voted for it. The Globe denies that Palestinians are responsible for their own actions, and thereby dehumanizes them under a pretense of compassion.

And so it goes...

by Daled Amos

Technorati Tag: Israel