The League

War Crimes in Gaza

by Erik Kain · March 26, 2009

Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

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Roque Nuevo says:

March 27, 2009 at 6:01 pm

Good post! Are you afraid this gets you “blacklisted?” Or is that your goal, since you say “blacklisting” gains on a “bigger pedestal?”

The fabrications by Palestinians, with the complicity of Western media like the Guardian, like the Jenin “massacre” and the Mohammed al-Durah affair are so well-known by now that I’m surprised you give them any credence whatsoever. Do you suspend disbelief when it’s time to write about “the plight of the Palestinians?”

Of course, use of human shields is the preferred tactic of Hamas, not the IDF. As part of such tactics, Hamas uses hospitals as fire bases and weapons caches. Etc. Etc.Report
E.D. Kain says:

March 27, 2009 at 6:11 pm

Here’s my take, Roque: Hamas is a bad bunch of guys with seriously misguided policies, using brutal and inhumane tactics against both Israelis and Palestinians alike. The IDF should never stoop even close to their level, but it turns out sometimes they do. Similarly, American should never have stooped to the level we did with torture. But we did. And we should be pissed off about both things – what Israel and the US have done in order to promote their security – because they take us to the level of our enemy, and that’s tragic. Justifying it doesn’t make sense. Of course the Palestinians use propaganda to inflate this stuff, but that doesn’t mean that underlying it all is a real truth about the excessive force necessary to keep the status quo in place.Report
Roque Nuevo says:

March 27, 2009 at 6:12 pm

Why don’t you read this and tell me if the shoe fits?Report
E.D. Kain says:

March 27, 2009 at 6:16 pm

Who’s giving Arab leaders a “free pass?” That’s such a red herring. Give me a break, the fact is most Arab leaders are just assumed to be despots and human rights violaters etc. What’s the point of constantly complaining about a bunch of totalitarians when we see a fellow democracy making all of these mistakes???Report
Roque Nuevo says:

March 27, 2009 at 6:54 pm

“Who’s giving Arab leaders a free pass?” Well… the journalist quoted in the above article, for one. And others like him, which is just about everyone. Here’s the point: instead of constantly demanding “painful concessions” from Israel like unilateral dismantling of the settlements, people could demand that Arab and Muslim leaders recognize Israel and quit producing the most vile anti Semitic propaganda imaginable. People could recognize that Arab and Muslim rejectionism is the cause of the conflict, not Israel. Then maybe the peace process could move forward.

It isn’t about “inflating stuff” by using propaganda. It’s about fabricating stuff. I’m surprised you adhere to the “underlying truth” doctrine of media veracity. I don’t. I want the stuff on the surface, not just representing some “underlying truth.” Let the analysts uncover the “underlying truth.” If it’s so “true” that the IDF is so brutal, then why do they have to fabricate stuff constantly? The Mohammed al-Durah affair really disgusted me since this lie/fabrication was the cause of so much death and destruction in itself. I’m surprised you’d make yourself a party to disseminating it here.Report
Roque Nuevo says:

March 28, 2009 at 12:12 am

I may as well put the following in here. It’s a report from the NYT that refutes much of the atrocity stories like the ones you link to here. If you read this, at least you must admit that there are two sides to the story of “what really went on.” The problem with your post is that you only tell the Palestinian side. Note that the “killing of a woman and her two children” that comes in the following quote is the same story that Hitchens referred to in the piece you quoted a few days ago.

JERUSALEM — Israel is pushing back against accusations of civilian abuse in its Gaza war, asserting that an overwhelming majority of its soldiers acted honorably and that the account of a killing of a woman and her two children appears to be an urban myth spread by troops who did not witness it.NYT

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