From the linked article:
Israeli jets have launched a second day of airstrikes against the Gaza Strip on Sunday. Despite international condemnation over what is being called a disproportional response, Israel is not excluding a ground offensive. According to Palestinian officials, 271 Palestinians have been killed so far for only one victim in Israel.
Israel is reponding to rocket attacks perpetrated by Hamas which killed one Israeli. I will repeat that, because it bears repeating. Israel's government and military is killing almost three hundred Palestinians including children in response to the death of one Israeli.
Let me put this out there right now: any violent death is a tragedy regardless of how many are killed. HOWEVER, 300 to 1 is disproportionate force. Especially considering that it is widely known that Hamas, a paramilitary organization, is responsible for the single Israeli death.
And of course, while most of the world is decrying the extraneous violence of this situation, the US is blaming Hamas.
"The message from the United States is that Hamas is a terrorist organization that is firing rockets into Israel and they fired them onto their own people as well," Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said.
"The United States strongly condemns the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and holds Hamas responsible for breaking the cease-fire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement.
Even the Dutch government, who tends towards virulent anti-Arab and Islamophobic policies and positions is calling Israel's actions almost a war-crime. I am so very sick of the "arab=agressor" stance of our government. Just because Israel is our friend, this does NOT put them above reproach. It doesn't change the facts. And this ignoring of the facts mainly serves to make the US look like anti-arab assholes once again. The next time someone tells me that the arab world needs to fix its anti-American sentiment before we can work with them, I might just bite their damn heads off.
Julie from Modern Mitzvoh has this to say:
If you can’t figure out why this is unacceptable - if you insist on an eye-for-an-eye mentality, in which one Israeli eye is worth an infinite number of Palestinian eyes - then quite frankly, you’re a privileged fuck with no concept of how violence is perpetuated or what the phrase “human rights” actually means.
I could not have said it better.
ETA: Anonymous comments will be rejected. If you want to engage in discussion, at least have the intestinal fortitude to post with a username.
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