The phenomenon of street protests, particularly in the UK, at deaths caused by Israeli military action is not new but it is possibly unique, in that it is strikingly absent as an accompaniment to conflict elsewhere.
UPDATED:
Howard Epstein – THE RATIO OF PROTEST
The UK Gaza Protests
The phenomenon of street protests, particularly in the UK, at deaths caused by Israeli military action is not new but it is possibly unique, in that it is strikingly absent as an accompaniment to conflict elsewhere. The fact that, when Israel launched military operations, called cryptically “Protective Edge”, against Gaza in July and August 2014, it was responding to 181 rockets fired into Israel without provocation from that benighted[1] place in the first six months of 2014, cut no ice with the protestors. Since justification for responding to the Hamas bombardment of Israel appears to them to be irrelevant, let us see against what it was that the demonstrators protested and whether there is some consistency in their conduct and policy.
The number of deaths in Gaza in the 2014 conflict appears to be agreed by all parties at around 2,300[2]. The Gaza Health Ministry, the UN and some human rights groups reported that 69–75% of the Palestinian casualties were civilian ie “collateral damage”[3]. Israeli estimates are that some 50% were civilians: 1,150, but it will make no difference to our consideration of the wider picture if we work on the higher (but not necessarily-accepted) mesne average figure of 1,500.
On 9 August 2014[4], the UK, left-wing newspaper, The Guardian” reported:-
“Gaza protests: rallies in UK and around the world call for end of conflict
Tens of thousands take part in London demonstration, while estimated 50,000 people rally in South Africa”
According to the BBC, “Tens of thousands of protesters march in London for Gaza”[5], whilst according to The Independent[6], the organisers claimed 150,000 demonstrators. That leads to an assumed 100 protesters for each death.
In other major cities of the British Isles, including Manchester, Edinburgh and Dublin, several hundred people demonstrated for at least five Saturdays in a row. Whole families marched and, for good measure, the demonstrators included Jewish representation. All demanded an end for the slaughter of innocent civilians.
UK cities, Jews were sufficiently spooked for some to tell me on Yom Kippur 2014, in Manchester, that they could not see, during the August conflict, how they would be able to walk to shul and back come the chagim in September. (Thankfully the surge of opprobrium abated sufficiently for them to do so, by the time Rosh Hashanah came around.)
Unsurprisingly, it was widely reported that the Stop the War Coalition (not known as a lover of any democracy and predictably involved in anti-Israel actions) was present at the protests and its then Chairman, Jeremy Corbyn, was vociferous in his objection to Israel’s actions[7]. The British Minister of State for Faith and Communities, Baroness Sayeeda Hussain Warsi, resigned her post over the Gaza civilian death toll. Plainly, a broad spectrum of British society had strong views over the deaths of innocents and were prepared to take to the streets to express them – most laudable in a way, if (in ignoring the Hamas provocation) somewhat one-sided. Would this laudable conduct be repeated should another occasion arise. Absent another war, so far, involving Israel, have other opportunities presented themselves? If so, what would be the appropriate level of protest?
The Ratio of Protest
Given the claimed 150,000 UK protesters (to some extent in anticipation) of the deaths of about a 1,500 in Gaza, one hundred to one appears to be the UK protester to victim ratio – let us call it “the Ratio of Protest”. That being so, should one assume that it is only the physical restrictions of the quaint, narrow streets of Olde England that has prevented similar outpourings of grief and protest in support of the victims of other conflicts? If the same Ratio of Protest were to be applied in regard to the victims of the civil war that has raged in Syria for over four years now – some 200,000[8] (and counting – others put it at 300,0000) – space would have had to be found for at least twenty million protesters. Perhaps permission was sought and refused. Maybe the same happened in regard to planned for demonstrations about the “collateral damage” caused by Assad, Al Queda, Da’esh, and the innumerable groups of militants operating in Syria and Iraq. Then again, perhaps, the writer should remember that sarcasm is base wit, if witty at all. Wit is wholly inappropriate when considering the loss of even one life let alone hundreds of thousands, so the situation – a conspicuous absence of any protest for deaths caused to human beings so very similar to those killed in Gaza – could stimulate only the most hollow of laughs.
Not-So-Collateral Damage
Thus far we have restricted ourselves to a consideration of collateral damage. We have, accordingly, ignored the not-so-collateral damage to heads and necks intentionally parted from one another by Da’esh, their genocide of the Yazidis, Christian and other groups in Syria/Iraq, not to mention the deaths caused by fire (Da’esh again, in the case of the ill-starred Jordanian pilot) and explosion (as in the case of the barrel bombs launched against Syrian citizens by their President, and countless bomb outrages against civilians deliberately-targeted by various groups in Syria and Iraq, often in bread queues or other similar supposedly-provocative situations.
The sad, cynicism-inducing reality is that none of the bestiality that we have seen in Syria/Iraq has reportedly provoked a single weekend march of protest by a single person – and not even by those Jews who so even-handedly demonstrated against the collateral damage arising in Israel’s war of self-defence – thereby flouting the Ratio of Protest and debasing its currency.
Nation States Inflicting Collateral Damage
Next, reverting to mere collateral damage, we must consider that caused by the military actions of nation states other than Israel. It beggars belief that no collateral damage has (nor will not soon have) arisen from the actions in Syria and Iraq from the activities of Turkey, the USA, Russia, France and now the British. According to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA: The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have taken a tremendous human toll on those countries. As of March 2015, approximately 210,000 civilians have died violent deaths as a result of the wars. Civilian deaths have also resulted from the US military operations in Yemen that began in 2002[9]. Again, the Ratio of Protest would have demanded space for millions of protesters. There have been none. The value of the currency of protest has been reduced to zero.
Not Only (Syria) But Also…
Since the annexation of Ukraine by Russia in March 2014, some 9,000 people have perished[10]. Of course, applying the Ratio of Protest, there are few places in Great Britain that that could contain a demonstration equal to what the 1,000 deaths in Gaza stimulated (actually, 900,000 out of sympathy with slaughtered Ukrainians) – but none? Not ten nor one thousand, not a hundred, not a single person feels sufficiently outraged to protest the loss of nearly ten thousand Ukrainian lives in some 20 months? Is the life of each Gaza resident so infinitely more precious that it catalyses over one hundred protesters, and the lives of 200,000 Syrians and 9,000 Ukrainians catalyse not a single demonstrator? Clearly that cannot be so. Some other dynamic must be at work.
Even a Paranoid….
Jews are often criticized for paranoia, for self-pity, for leveraging the Holocaust to obtain advantage. Well, even paranoids have enemies and the experience of the Holocaust suggests that there were a fair few Europeans who operated the industry of death that the Germans, once the most civilized, cultured and sophisticated people in the west, organized and perpetrated, in a Nero-esque fiddling with defenseless Jews whilst the Third Reich burnt, in the closing stages of WWII, who might properly be classified as enemies sufficient to remove permanently the paranoia allegation.
We need not, however, hark back to an age that to those recently born categorize as “History” rather than “Current Affairs”. We can point out the essential difference driving the distortion in the Ratio of Protest as between Gaza deaths and those inflicted anywhere else in the world. We may restrict ourselves for this purpose to Muslim, “collateral damage”, innocents, for they are being killed in large numbers all over the world – Western China, Myanmar and the Philippines to name just three areas. Now we see the essential difference, as we see it in Syria and Iraq too: Israelis are not pulling the trigger! To put it another way: Jews are not pulling the trigger.
Now, the Chinese will justify their actions against militant Muslim inhabitants of Chinese lands (just as will the authorities in the other areas mentioned) by asserting that they are responding to militant provocation; yet it seems that Jews cannot justifiably claim to be, or to have been, provoked. When Israel seeks, by attacking Gaza, to stop rocket bombardment that no other nation would tolerate, it cannot expect anyone in the world community to agree: yes, you were provoked. Not so for the French who took the Paris massacres as a casus belli – no-one is counting the collaterally-rendered dead as a result of the Mirage sorties over Syria. Not so for the French, nor the British, nor the US, nor the Russians, nor any-one other than Israel.
In this one-sided environment, which taken in isolation might cause the most level-headed (non-Jewish) person to start to feel just a little queasy with paranoia, we should not be surprised to read the news from Sweden. First, that paragon of virtue, which maintained its neutrality in the great struggle against Nazi Germany – one should ask why, and whom that neutrality suited, and who benefited – was heard at its even-handed best from the lips of its female foreign minister. (Why “female”? Because she trumpets her “feminist” foreign policy.) In mid-November 2015, she blamed the Paris massacres on “the frustration of Muslims in the Middle East, including that of Palestinians”. This sordid calumny was exceeded only by another from her prime minister who last week said that the “stabbing attacks in Israel [do not] constitute terrorism”.
Let’s Get Real
If the international community wishes to convince Israel of anything, it must first get real. That would extend to treating all human life in the same way – to count each human life as having equal value. If the Prime Minister of Great Britain (who is not ill-disposed to Israel) cannot find it within him to say, or stimulate some appropriate minister of the Crown to say, at some relevant juncture that it is surprising that only collateral damage caused by Israel appears to provoke protest, and only Israelis can be wantonly attacked without the attacker fitting the description of terrorist, then he cannot expect to be heard to advise Israel “as a friend”. This applies to those from elsewhere – shall we say John Kerry, that even-handed American would-be mediator and self-proclaimed friend of Israel. He, too, must be aware of the unique nature of the street protests against and the unique condemnation of Israel and all her actions. He should say that unless no more is expected of Israel than of other actors on the field of violence and death, no-one will be able to convince Israel of anything other than unilateral action, whatever the scale of collateral damage. Even if the Ratio of Protest were to be ramped up to ten thousand to one, Israel would be entitled to disregard it unless it applies and is applied evenly and everywhere. Anyone who claims to be a friend of Israel should subscribe to that. Failure to do so, should negate the asserted right to advise as a friend.
Howard Epstein – THE RATIO OF PROTEST
[1] Thanks to the poor quality of its leadership.
[2] Death toll from Gaza offensive topped 2,310 – Jan. 3, 2015 – Palestinian Ministry of Health
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=751290
[3] Collateral damage: Unintentional deaths, injuries, or other damage inflicted incidentally on an unintended target.
[4] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/09/gaza-protest-march-london-raise-funds-victims-conflict-israel-palestine
[5] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-28715052
[6] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/israel-gaza-conflict-thousands-protest-in-london-for-end-to-massacre-and-arms-trade-9659180.html
[7] Upon becoming leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition in September 2015, he resigned the chair.
[8] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syrian-government-forces-responsible-for-more-civilian-deaths-than-isis-human-rights-group-claims-a6673956.html reporting the figures given by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
[9] http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians
[10] http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=52771#.Vmqnu0p95hE
Howard Epstein – THE RATIO OF PROTEST
Howard Epstein, LLB, is an English commercial lawyer of some 45 years’ standing. He still practices international commercial litigation on several continents. As such, he is articulate and voluble.
Howard is also a staunch Zionist, having achieved aliyah in September 2005, after a lifetime as “an armchair Zionist”. His parents met at a Habonim function and he was raised with Zionism on a daily basis. He is well-read, knowledgeable and opinionated about Jewish and Israeli history and current affairs.
Howard Epstein – THE RATIO OF PROTEST
