I few weeks ago I wrote about ‘postcolonialism‘, whose adherents seem to believe that ‘the colonized’ can do no wrong. I said:
Once it is established that one party is a ‘colonizer’ and the other ‘colonized’, the game is over. For the postcolonialist, nothing that the colonizer does to defend himself is permissible, and anything that the colonized does in the name of resistance is justified.
Today I have a wonderful example of this kind of thinking. Here’s a quote from the Palestinian Ma’an News agency:
Islamic Hamas movement on Thursday slammed the Palestinian UN observer, citing that he did not deny accusations of war crimes against Palestinians in an international report.
The Gaza war report, submitted by a UN fact-finding mission headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone, accused Israel of committing war crimes during a 22-day military offensive that ended on Jan. 18. The UN report, which was debated Wednesday by the UN General Assembly, also criticized Hamas for committed war crimes by firing rockets at Israeli civilians.
The Hamas government, holding sway in Gaza, said Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA)’s UN observer, “admitted the possibility that some Palestinian sides have carried out violations against Israel in the wartime.”
“This is the first time that a representative of a people under occupation agreed that his people had committed the so-called violations against the occupying power,” Taher al-Nounou, spokesman for the Hamas administration, said in a statement. Al-Nounou called on the PNA, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, to prosecute Mansour for his comments.
You see, it is impossible by definition for “people under occupation” to commit war crimes!
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Here’s some more fun with ridiculous statements from the radical bloc: the arms ship seized by Israel on Tuesday containing hundreds of tons of rockets, guns, mortar shells, etc. was bound for Syria or even Lebanon. Analysts agree that the weapons on it were almost certainly intended for Hezbollah. But both Syria and Lebanon claim that the arms have nothing to do with them:
[Hizbullah] issued a statement saying that it “categorically denies” any connection to the weapons “that the Zionist enemy claims to have confiscated from the ship.” Hizbullah also condemned “Israeli pirates operating in international waters.”
Hizbullah’s statement echoed a statement made by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, who denied late Wednesday that the cargo ship was carrying weapons from Iran, and implicitly called the Israeli naval forces “pirates.”
“Unfortunately there are official pirates disrupting the movement of goods between Iran and Syria,” he told reporters on a visit to Teheran. “I stress, the ship was not carrying Iranian arms bound for Syria, nor was it carrying material for manufacturing weapons in Syria. It was carrying [commercial] goods from Syria to Iran [sic].”
If they don’t know anything about the arms, why are they upset? Incidentally, here’s a Sa’ar-5 class corvette like the one that was reportedly used to intercept the ship:
Sa'ar-5 class corvette: 1227-ton, 33 knot Israeli 'pirate ship'
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The radical bloc will say anything and expect people to believe them — and they’re right, especially if it makes Israel, the US or even conservative Arab states look bad. This next item illustrates one way of responding:
Egyptian and Saudi satellite broadcasters stopped broadcasting Iran’s Arabic-language television channel, Al-Alam – “The World” – this week.
A report on Al-Alam’s Web site accused the broadcasters of ceasing the transmission for “political reasons,” while MENA, Egypt’s state news agency, attributed the move to an unspecified contractual breach…
[Former Israeli ambassador to Egypt Zvi] Mazel, however, says that Al-Alam broadcasts “Iranian propaganda – that Egypt is betraying Arabs in general, that they work with Israel, all that kind of stuff.”
Dr. Moti Keidar, an Arabic-language specialist at Bar-Ilan University, said that the move marks an escalation in the conflict between Sunni and Shi’ite Islam, and was a necessary step for Egypt and Saudi Arabia to take.
“Al-Alam broadcasts incitement against the Arab regimes, the Sunni ones,” he told the Post Thursday. “They are promoting Hizbullah and Hamas, and promoting jihad against Arab regimes.” Keidar said that by cutting off Al-Alam, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are fighting against “media jihad…”
“This is what Israel has not yet realized – that some Arab channels like Al Jazeera, which broadcast from within Israel, are no more than a device of jihad against Israel. Egypt and Saudi Arabia realized [the threat from Al-Alam], and they stopped jihad from within. Only Israel lets this continue,” said Keidar.
Israel needs to learn from its neighbors, not only to defend against media jihad but to wage it.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Hamas, war crimes, arms ship, Iran, Hezbollah, media jihad