The myth of Israel’s ‘most moral army’
JVL Introduction
Professor Neve Gordon explores the way in which Israel manipulates, distorts and tries to redefine international law to allow potential war crimes to be defined as legitimate self-defence, to frame Israeli violence as ethical.
For example, it is argued that Palestinians who did not heed Israel’s warnings to evacuate their homes and flee south became legitimate military targets. After all, any civilians would have left, allowing Israel to deny the very existence of “uninvolved civilians” within northern Gaza.
And when Israeli pilots kill children when dropping massive bombs on city centres we are told they did not “intend” to kill them so for the media and Western leaders they become not murdered children but simply “collateral damage” as part of morally sound military action, part of a “proportionate” response.
RK
This article was originally published by Al Jazeera on Mon 16 Oct 2023. Read the original here.
The myth of Israel’s ‘most moral army’
Manipulating international law allows Israel to evade condemnation for its war crimes.
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Really thoughtful and thought provoking
The less defensible Israel’s action become, the greater is its allies defence of it.
Israel is dragging the world into a whole new hell, and both Palestinians and Jews are being pushed into that hell together.
By whom?
By people who claim to be Jews.
But at what point can they be said to no longer deserve the right to be called Jews?
What do you call Jews who so comprehensively betray the Jewish people as the Israelis are being betrayed, and contradict everything that most Jews are taught being Jewish means?
I am lost for words.
It seems to me that not only must Palestine be freed of the tyranny espoused by Israel’s ruling regime, Israel must be as well. As Palestine has been a prison for its people for so many decades, Israel is now becoming a prison for its own people. One is a prison based on military oppression; the other is a prison based on lies, propaganda, moral pressure. It’s a simple proposition: both Palestine and Israel must be freed from the chains bound round them by a sect whose moral compass is no different from that we associate with gangsters and street thugs.
But that’s not going to happen so long as the world’s great powers accept that the making of profit and the protection of vested interests are fine if they can be disguised as honest and integritous dealing with honest and integritous people.
Cynicsm breeds cynicism. This is all going to end very badly, so long as Israel is seen as being beyond ordinary judgment. This is the closest I have come in many years to feeling true hatred, and it hurts that it is certain Jews are making me feel so. evil
Zionists go on justifying Israel when it must be clear by now that no faith, no reason, no humane principle could possibly justify the unutterable evil Israel is visiting on Palestine, on the world, on its own people.
What has to be done to get this through to them?