When Hamas and Israel are judged by different standards

The Hamas strike against a (supposed) al-Qaeda gang in Gaza is given a thorough examination by journalist and blogger Orly Halpern:

I was shocked today to read how my colleague and friend, Haaretz’s Palestinian Affairs correspondent Avi Issacharoff, portrayed Hamas’ crushing of an Al-Qaeda inspired Islamic extremist group over the weekend in southern Gaza. The word “massacre” jumped at me from my computer screen; so did the word ”˜brutal’.

In light of the analysis, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised that some Jewish Twitterers also portrayed the battle as immoral, emphasizing that a place of worship was attacked and that innocent people were killed.…  “Hamas fires on mosque, kills little girl,” wrote @soccerdhg on Twitter (then blogged that reporters should not quote Hamas spokesmen because it gives Hamas ”˜a platform to plead for Western support.’) “Where is Human Rights Watch???” asked @NGOMonitor, a pro-Israel lobby that focuses on media. “Where’s the outrage?”wondered William Daroff, VP for Public Policy and Director of the Washington office of United Jewish Communities, linking to the problematic Haaretz analysis.

But I can’t help but shake my head and ask, do these people have amnesia? In December Israel used the same reasoning -…  ”˜to destroy Islamic extremists’ -…  in order to wage a relentless 22-day military operation on Hamas. Israel killed over 1400 people, including some 400 children, destroyed much of the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip and left thousands of people homeless after dropping bombs on their houses. But these people did not express outrage then.…  So my question is: where is the perspective and where is the bias?

Interestingly, Israel’s YNet reports that Hamas has revealed documents showing that Warriors of G-d are funded by none other than Mohammed Dahlan, the former FATAH Gaza strongman. Dahlan, who was in charge of the mainly Fatah-loyal security forces in Gaza is considered a thug by many Palestinians. (He just won a seat in the revolutionary council, which made some believe the vote was fixed.) Dahlan fled from Gaza in June 2007 with many of his forces after his coup attempt boomeranged.…  Didn’t know about the coup attempt. Remember all those clashes that ensued between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza in late 2006 and early 2007? Well, as it turns out they were instigated by Dahlan with US-backing.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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