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February 28, 2010
The assassination of Mahmoud al- Mabhouh (a senior Hamas official in Dubai) apparently by electrocution and smothering with a pillow by an alleged Mossad hit squad at the Al-Bustan Rotana hotel in Dubai is now at the centre of a white-hot diplomatic row between Israel, Britain and Australia. Israel has come under mounting international pressure after Dubai police published details of 26 suspects and said that 12 British, six Irish, four French, one German and three Australian passports were used to help carry out the assassination.
Israel has refused to confirm or deny its involvement but has described Mabhouh as playing a key role supplying Iranian rockets and money to Hamas. Israeli officials say they believe protests from Britain and other countries are for public consumption only, and that the current crisis will soon pass in the the "civilized" world that is engaged still in a "war on terror."
An example of Israel advocacy in the form of apologism is the op-ed in The Sydney Morning Herald by Sarah Honig, a columnist and senior editorial writer for The Jerusalem Post. This piece from the Israeli Right advocates politically motivated torture/assassination by a nation state whilst condemning terrorist acts such as suicide bombings, and Israel using extreme force as the preferred form of self-defence.
The "reasoning " is bizarre. Honig says:
The only reason for Israel's fellow democracies to harp on the purported insult to their hallowed papers is to curry favour with the terror-sponsors and bask in the warm ambience of the Israel-bashing fraternity. This presumably accords them some temporary anti-aggression insurance.The illusion may be sweet, but weren't Australians targeted in the Bali atrocity without an Israeli link? If anything, we are in the same boat rather than on opposing sides. It behoves Western democracies not to lose sight of the fact there are instances in which ends do justify means.
It is true that Israel and the Palestinians are in a state of perpetual war and it is only the intensity of the conflict that varies; that Israel sees Hamas – which controls the Gaza Strip – as a dangerous enemy that is committed to the destruction of the Jewish state; and that an end to the Jewish state is often demanded in the name of Palestinian nationalism.
But what evidence does Honig have for her claim that Australia curries favour with terror sponsors? Secondly, what has Bali got to do with Hamas and Israel? Honig adds:
Overlooking the crime and focusing on technical, legalistic niceties attests to a skewed moral compass, indeed, to outright moral impoverishment. It signals to Israelis that their blood is cheaper than passport-paper. It signals acceptance by the West of lopsided Arab logic whereby Arabs have the right to inflict incalculable harm on Jews, and to do so in the most sadistically inventive ways, while the Jews' attempts to deflect such blows are evil and deserving of punishment.
Honig's assumption appears to be that criticism from any quarter of Israeli actions includes an implicit questioning of the legitimacy of the Jewish state. This rightwing Israeli-nationalist political rhetoric functions to ensure that dissent is marginalised and any criticism from abroad robustly shouted down.
Israel has fought two major wars – in Lebanon and Gaza – with American support which killed more than 2,500 Lebanese and Palestinians and about 170 Israelis. Most Israelis thought the wars were justified acts of self-defence. However, particularly after Gaza, the international community began to disagree. The current right-wing coalition government's response is to play on a sense long shared by many Israelis that they are embattled, misunderstood and find themselves in an increasingly unsympathetic world.
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Why are such executions only justified when undertaken by "western democracies" It seems odd that only those nations are above the law.
Oh and I'm sooo fekkin tired of Israel using the victim card to justify it's actions.