A clandestine undertaking on behalf of Israel, the Jets and the Jews.

 
Bad Terror and Not Such Bad Terror

In today's Washington Post (and other newspapers that carry his syndicated column, including the New York Daily News), Richard Cohen writes that following Tuesday's terrorist attacks in Jerusalem and Baghdad "it seemed, as George Bush has always said, that terrorism is terrorism, whether in Baghdad or Jerusalem. That, though, is not the case."

Cohen argues that "the difference between Israel and Iraq is palpable," because Israel "unmistakably squats on land that was once Palestinian" and "some of the suicide bombers are not religious militants but merely people who in their own way are saying they can't take it any longer. The trick for Israel is, as always, to pull out of the territories, build its defensive fence -- and wait for a new generation to accept the status quo."

Cohen basically says that killing civilians is not so bad if there is a political reason behind the terror and/or if the terrorists are not religious militants but frustrated secular humanists, like himself. I think that's morally heinous, but that's up to the reader. Cohen, however, also grossly distorts the facts:

Israel does not "unmistakably squat on land that was once Palestinian." Judea, Samaria and Gaza were never controlled by Palestinians. Cohen would presumably respond that many Palestinians have lived in those areas since before Israel's formation and that if Israel unilaterally withdrew, eventually peace would come since Palestinians would be satisfied with their own state . Yet, many Arabs also lived in places such as Tel Aviv, (western) Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa, and Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and much of Fatah view all of those areas (and all the land "from the river to the sea") as part of Palestine, insisting that Israel be dismantled. Even those who ostensibly claim a moderate position on terrirtory demand the return of refugees to pre-1967 Israel.

Cohen knows this, but intentionally overlooks it, instead blaming Israel's "occupation" for the murder of babies by "people who in their own way are saying they can't take it any longer."
posted on 8/21/2003