More Agitprop
Sharon Weinberger of Danger Room writes about the attempt to change reality: Terror Tourism? What Terror Tourism?
A Jerusalem Post opinion piece that attempts to rebut a series of stories on “terror tourism,” has at least one major problem: one of the rotating advertisements next to the piece, is, in fact, for a terrorism tour of Israel. Oops. Calev Ben-David says the series I co-wrote in Slate rests on the “bogus premise” that Israel would encourage such tours (again, I was somewhat distracted by that large, banner advertisement for the “ultimate tour of Israel,” but oh well)…
Israel is not the monolithic entity that is presented by US politicians and the media. There are voices of dissent in Israel about the methods being used by their government, but those voices are never heard in the US, because anyone who mentions them is painted as a “terrorist-loving anti-Semite”.
Israel continues to steal Palestinian land and resources, especially water, but you are not supposed to notice. Hamas is the legally elected representative of the Palestinian people, but no one will recognize that election victory because it didn’t follow the script. Israel still occupies the territory seized in the preemptive 1967 war in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, but everyone is supposed to forget that.
The Israeli-Palestinian problem is at the root of every other conflict between the West and Islamic nations, but the West won’t push for a settlement.
2 comments
America is the problem, perhaps. While Israel has a strong peace movement, they are marginalized by the flow of military aid dollars.
There is no doubt that the unwillingness of politicians since Jimmy Carter to deal with the realities of the situation undercuts the peace movement in Israel. There hasn’t been a majority government in years, so the small, radical parties have held amazing levels of power in Israeli decision making.
If there is no penalty for not pursuing peace, and a political penalty for attempting it, why would an Israeli politician make the attempt?
There is no way the Palestinians are going to get everything they say they want, but there’s no way of telling what they will settle for while they are being bombed.
This issue is the key to everything else. This is the one issue that every whacko terrorist wannabe points to justify his/her murderous behavior.