Barry Shaw. You would think that, with all the wholesale slaughter and mayhem going on in the Middle East there would be lots of targets for European politicians to vent their anger and frustration. Instead, these moral cowards aim their political bile at one country only – Israel, the one shining light of liberal democracy in the whole region.
Barry Shaw
Ed Miliband and his British Labour Party have made strenuous efforts to take sides against Israel. With his public statements and his party’s initiative for a backbench vote to recognize a Palestinian state he is leading a party devoid of any realization of the type of regime they are promoting. Neither do they care about sharing any of Israel’s genuine security concerns.
Then came a new Swedish government headed by a left wing party, still wet behind the ears in governmental and diplomatic experience, pouncing on the Palestinian issue by declaring their commitment to a Palestinian state. Again, no mention of what Israel had experienced with a recent past of Palestinian rejectionism, terrorism, rockets, and street violence.
They were followed by George Vella, the foreign minister of the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta who, on a visit to Israel, began to spout such total nonsense that it incensed both public and private Israelis. His words echo the empty-headed beliefs of many left wing European politicians and activists.
Calling Israel’s reaction to thousands of rockets and tens of terror attack tunnels reaching into Israeli schools, homes, and kindergartens, as “disproportionate” he said that Israel’s “disproportionate reaction with thousands of people killed or injured, was something nobody could explain.”
Well, Mr Vella, I can explain, as can every single Israeli and everyone who truly witnessed what happened last summer. It was Palestinian rejectionism of Israel, Palestinian incitement verging into anti-Semitism, Palestinian violence and terror, cynical Palestinian exploitation of the people in Gaza, that led to and caused the human rights abuses, death and injuries on both sides of the fifty day conflict.
For the Maltese minister to say, as do a number of muddle-headed European politicians like Miliband, that both sides were responsible for the death and destruction is tantamount to saying that both the Germans and Britain were to be blamed for World War Two.
Displaying the lack of sympathy, understanding, and the tools to make an informed judgment or contextual observation of what transpired in the Gaza conflict, Vella employed the double standard typical of vacuous left wing politicians by claiming that he expected more from Israel because “it is more democratic…and because there is more stability.” Then he had the chutzpah to say he was not being judgmental. He, like his European counterparts, come down on Israel like a ton of bricks and gives Palestinian terrorism a pardon. In fact, rewards them with official statements and resolutions pushing their cause without taking Israel’s significant concerns into consideration. When one losing sight of which side holds the moral high ground, and which is the malevolent perpetrator of terrorism and rejectionism and determination to exterminate the other, one punishes virtue and rewards criminality.
Back to Miliband. For a political leader who was so forthcoming in condemning Israeli air strikes in Gaza which were in response to thousands of Palestinian rockets fired into Israel, making much political capital on casualty figures, it is surprising to learn that he was a vocal supporter for British air strikes in Iraq. Why haven’t we heard a word about the Iraqi casualties? Strange this is not discussed at all in British, Swedish, Maltese media and political circles, don’t you think? Or maybe there’s one rule for Israel, and another for the rest of the world?
My question echoes what was asked by Israelis so often during the terrorism we experienced recently. What would these countries leaders have done had they experienced what we Israelis endured last summer? Would Opposition leader Miliband have criticized the British government for sending its air force to bomb terror targets or for sending its ground troops to flush out the terrorists hiding among a densely populated area? Would the new Swedish government refrain from using its military had Stockholm and the whole of Sweden come under a daily bombardment of a hundred plus rocket attack? I doubt it. Hence, their hypocrisy.
The main thrust of their separate, but shared, campaign is to force Israel to surrender yet more land, as they did in the Gaza Strip, to this malevolent Palestinian entity in the fool’s errand mission that such a gesture will ensure peace. Halleluyah!
And they say Israel is wrong for not acceding to their demand. My wife says that these politicians don’t have their feet firmly planted on the ground, and their heads are in the clouds.
She’s right!
Barry Shaw is the author of ‘Israel Reclaiming the Narrative.’ www.israelnarrative.com
Barry Shaw
