Friday, May 18, 2007

Just a Comment on the present situation in Israel...

I haven't written in quite a while...

I was talking to an Israeli friend of mine recently who remarked that the present situation in Israel (that is, Israelis bombing the shit out of Gaza...again) and the coverage of that situation in western press (specifically the BBC and CNN) seems to be biased towards the Palestinians.

I was dumbfounded.

Because Hamas had been lobbing rockets into Israel for weeks without any western reporting of that situation, my friend asked me whether or not it was fair to interpret that as bias to the Palestinians since, now that Israel has decided to demonstrate the strength of its pimp-hand, the whole world has somehow refocused its attention.

This was my response:

What Israel does is more important than what Palestinians do. Americans have given Israel F-14s and shared nuclear technology. A few disgruntled Palestinians take it upon themselves to lob some rockets into Israel, it isn't news. Palestinians are always doing stuff like that, and what is more, they only rarely get caught on tape doing it due to the guerilla nature of their conflict.

Israel, on the other hand, has an actual army, a generally kick-@$$ army at that (last year in Lebanon was the first time the Israelis ever had to retreat without their objectives being met). When the Israeli army starts to move, it is BIG news because, generally, it means somebody is about to get F'edUBAR: some few thousand people are going to end up homeless, some few dozen 12 year olds will be shot by Israeli snipers for doing some $h!t that they shouldn't be doing etc etc...

For any side involved in that conflict to claim foul, favoritism or even (or especially) righteousness, is just absurd. There is so much blame to go around that getting into arguments over "who did what to who first" is simply same-old, same-old and thus not news at all. Israeli tanks revving those engines, burning diesel and lobbing American missles (that will have to be replaced by American workers in American facilities, thus translating into Israeli shekles turning into American dollars)---THAT'S NEWS, BABY!

Cha-ching! Cha-ching!

What is the US' interest in bringing that conflict to an end as long as those with the power (read: wealth) to influence policy there are making money off of ignorant Palestinians and paranoid-psychotic Israelis killing each other?

I know enough about the situation to have an opinion and my opinion is that it is just too bad that people can't just chill the fuck out and hang loose. It seems a much better way to spend time than killing people and attending funerals...

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