What would life be like for Palestinians if they had a state of their very own, free from cruel Israeli oppression? The Associated Press gives us a clue:
Shooting into the air, dozens of masked gunmen cut short a rock concert by a popular Palestinian singer in the West Bank city of Nablus on Tuesday night.Of course, the AP takes pains to make clear the gunplay was not the logical effect of Palestinian society's poisonous cocktail of death-worship and militant Islam. No, when Palestinian gunmen threaten Palestinians, it's the fault of — you guessed it — Israel:
Defying the burning tires and chants against him, the singer, Ammar Hassan, was whisked onto stage 45 minutes late. He opened his show with a song about "Holy Jerusalem" in an apparent effort to appease the gunmen. Less than an hour later, however, guards ushered him off stage.
The concert was the opening of a festival meant to bring normalcy to the largest city in the West Bank, hard hit by Israeli army operations and curfews in more than 4 1/2 years of Palestinian-Israeli violence.So, what were these guys so riled up about, anyway?
"This is the not time to have parties like this in Nablus," said one of the masked gunmen, who would not give his name. "We lost a lot of martyrs and lost a lot of friends, and this is not appropriate for Nablus."The irony, of course, is that if they had staged more rock concerts and fewer terrorist attacks, they wouldn't have so many "martyrs" to get all snippy about.
1 comments:
GB: How do you make the logical leap between AP’s statement that the area has been ``hard hit by Israeli operations,’’ and “blaming Israel’’ for the gunmen? The story says the concert was held to promote a return to normalcy. Mentioning why things aren’t normal isn’t the same as “blaming Israel.”
Note the use of the word “operations” instead of “attacks” or “occupation” or “aggression” or “assassinations.” AP is downplaying violence committed by Israelis. Why?
More important, perhaps, why would the concert riot argue against the right of Palestine to exist? Does the assassination of Yitzak Shamir by a right-wing Israeli gunman argue against Israel’s right to exist?
To be sure, Palestine lacks the civil infrastructure that Israel has and that poses a challenge for the emerging state: Recall that America’s start was plagued as well with internecine violence and a civil war.
How is it that people expect Palestine to disarm and forswear violence when it is occupied by a neighbor that routinely steals land, assassinates suspects, tortures suspects, shoots children in the head, plows under 100-year-old olive groves and annexes Palestinian water wells for use by “settlers” (another fabulous media euphemism).
It should not be a surprise that Palestinians have a divided leadership: Israeli “operations” have resulted in the assassinations of an entire generation of leaders and the devastation of the local economy.
Any claim that Israel and its U.S. client SHARES no responsibility for the destruction of Palestine’s civil infrastructure is no less irrational than suggesting the Palestinians and their allies themselves share no responsibility for it.
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