Elder of Ziyon challenges the recent Amnesty report on Israel’s conduct in the recent conflict, revealing an apparent lack of balance in its analysis. It is easier to take issue with facts and figures than it is to determine the precise meaning of key terms such as ‘disproportionate’. For an analysis which seems to me more even-handed than Amnesty’s, although still somewhat critical of Israel, here is Matthew Scott’s post from earlier this year.
My attention was first drawn to this Amnesty report when I saw Kristyan Benedict retweeted this morning. His comment seemed tendentious, implying deliberate killing, rather than simply alleging a disregard for civilian casualties.
Gaza: Israel deliberately destroyed homes full of civilians. Our report details the war crimes
This problem emerges more strongly here:
In the warped value system of Israel’s regime, condemning their war crimes is more outrageous than their deliberate killing of 100s of kids
And note his sneering use of the #JSIL hashtag here:
Israeli regimes response to our Gaza report: Amnesty is “a propaganda tool for Hamas & other terror groups” (#JSIL?) http://www.
This of course stands for ‘Jewish State in the Levant’, by grotesque analogy with ISIL. Israel, like any other country, is a legitimate target for criticism or scrutiny; however, although there may be disagreement about what response by Israel to terrorist attacks is ‘proportionate’, it is emphatically disproportionate to compare the country, or its government, with the barbaric ISIL/ISIS. It’s this last #JSIL tweet which has prompted most ire – see for example Richard Millett’s post here which reminds us of Benedict’s past form – but that reference to ‘their deliberate killing of 100s of kids’ is equally outrageous.
