BigCityLib links to the Mackenzie slapdown from EDWARD MORTIMER, director of communications, executive office of the Secretary-General, United Nations. He offers a stinging rebuttal to MacKenzie's biased interpretation of a week old e-mail with the facts of what really happened and was really reported the day of the attack.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
Octopuses are smarter than they should be. Every other invertebrate registers as static on an EEG. An Octopus generates the kind of slow l... -
Julian Assange is in jail in UK facing deportation to Sweden on charges of rape. Many people, otherwise sympathetic to Assange and Wikileak... -
Conservative MP Brad Trost believes female politicians should be bullied and terrorized and threatened with jailing for believing in differe... -
'Emboldened.' In every article about white nationalists or the 'Alt right', two terms designed specifically to obscure... -
I think we should start a movement to protect against the insidious threat of 'Ten Commandments law'. Sure the Christians and Jewis...
-
The Christian Labour Association of Canada, not to put too fine a point on it, is a fake union. They're an association with no standing...
-
Spotted at Scott's Dia Tribes : Rachel Marsden , serial stalker, Anne Coulter wannabe, former Fox News personality fired for being too... -
For the comic book fans, hat tip to Andrew Sullivan : Frank Miller is the comic book artist and writer behind The Dark Knight, a bunch of gr... -
The day before a massacre at a Quebec Mosque Kellie Leitch attacked a motion opposing Islamophobia as 'special privileges'. Pres... -
We can't count on liberals and their cherished institutions or standard of decorum and responsible governance they keep hoping against ...
3 comments:
Jeff Berg takes issue with "Lord Kitchener's" defense of Mackenzie
here.
Since Jeff takes issue specifically with me, I should point out, as I have elsewhere, that I've been acting as a defender of Israel a lot lately, since you can't find those arguments anywhere in the left wing blogosphere these days. So I do occassionaly get a little over-zealous perhaps, in my attempt to bring just a little of the other side to people on the left (I did the opposite on right wing blogs defending Lebanese Canadians, their right to be treated as fully Canadian etc...). On the email/MacKenzie thing though, I will admit that I jumped on the bandwagon a little fast there, and while I still think that anyone who believes that Israel deliberately targeted a UN post is insane, I do see that the email is not at all the case for Hezbollah's presence that it first appeared (though, personally, I'm still comvinced Hezbollah was all over that post, as that is the way Hezbollah operates). I will take issue with one part of Jeff's analysis though, and I'll do it here, because I can't comment on his site without registering (not a camplaint btw, just an explanation).
Jeff writes the following:
"Simply put Israel is an occupying force and until it ceases to be an occupying force it has no superior moral standing no matter how superior to its neighbours she may be in certain social justice areas. It is also not immaterial to note that over the last three decades Israel has militarized its economy to such an extent that she now qualifies in a very real sense as a modern day Sparta."
I would like to point out two things that I feel are also not immaterial to note. The first is that Israel ceased being an occupying force in Lebanon 6 years ago, and have been waiting for the Lebanese to disarm Hezbollah (as mandated by UN resolution) ever since. (They also pulled out of Gaza, at considerable expense monetarily and politically, using the IDF to forcebly remove their own citizens from their homes in Gaza, though I think Jeff's points are mainly wrt Lebanon).
Second, I agree with Jeff that Israel has in many ways become like a modern day Sparta. What Jeff seems to forget, however, is that they became that way because they are completely surrounded by nations and organizations dedicated to their destruction, and that not once, but THREE TIMES their neighbours collectively attempted to destroy the nation of Israel, and drive the Israelis into the sea.
Israel's neighbours (and the terrorist organizations they sponsor) have tried repeatedly, both through force of conventional arms, and through terrorist attacks to destroy the state of Israel and kill all of her people. The Israelis had the temerity to win each of those wars, and survive, and they learned from those attempts to destroy them that they would need overwhelming military superiority to survive in a region where they are both outnumbered by, and surrounded by, people dedicated to their destruction.
I fear the Israelis are also learning of late what they get when they end the occupation of their neighbours lands. They get more terrorist attacks, launched from closer to their borders. I wish the people of the West Bank well in attempting to convince the Israelis to end an occupation that is keeping Kartusha rockets outside of the range of Tel Aviv, but I fear the Israelis will be extremely reluctant to pull out of the West Bank, given the rewards they received for ending their occupations of Southern Lebanon and Gaza.
"I would like to point out two things that I feel are also not immaterial to note. The first is that Israel ceased being an occupying force in Lebanon 6 years ago, and have been waiting for the Lebanese to disarm Hezbollah (as mandated by UN resolution) ever since. (They also pulled out of Gaza, at considerable expense monetarily and politically, using the IDF to forcebly remove their own citizens from their homes in Gaza, though I think Jeff's points are mainly wrt Lebanon)."
I fear the Israelis are also learning of late what they get when they end the occupation of their neighbours lands.
Point A: Sheba Farms. As far as many Lebanese are concerned the occupation never ended.
Point B: The setlements in Gaza were taken out. The occupation didn't end. the Israelis retain control over all land and air access. All immigration and emigration. They conduct active military operations in Gaza daily, hundreds of Palestinians have been captured or killed since the 'occupation' supposedly ended. The only difference is the absence of settlers. This is still an occupation.
Point C: The intentionality of the UN Post attack - I incline to the 'rogue elements' explanation put forward by the Australian deputy PM. The relationship between the IDF and the blue helmets has been frosty verging on bloody for years.
Post a Comment