The Palestinians kill Israelis, and Israelis kill 10x Palestinians.
But Palestinians do not steal Israeli Land. Palestinians do not Block Israeli roads. Palestinians do not take water from Israelis. Palestinians do not Build walls through their lands. Palestinians do not have hundreds of checkpoints throughout Israel where they detain Israelis for hours in the blisteringly hot sun. Palestinians do not strip search Israeli women and men in public. Palestinians do not imprison without trial thousands of Isreali women and children. Palestinians are not free to leave their country - Israelis are. Palestinians are under Israeli occupation, Israelis are not under Palestinian occupation.
The killing on both sides is not equivalent. Israel kills to continue its occuptaion and take ever more land. This is injust and immoral.
[bold added by me]
The parts in this post that we're interested in are the beginning and the end. The rest is just complaining about Israeli crimes against the Palestinians (but not, of course, about Palestinian crimes against Israelis).
Wisdo, as is so common with anti-Israel posters, plays the numbers game. We've talked about how morality by numbers is one of the coldest, most dehumanizing ways to make a moral argument, so I won't rehash old territory. What's interesting for me is the definition of who is a Palestinian.
If you're a Hamas terrorist, you can serve the anti-Israel cause in two ways. In life, you can try to kill Israelis and lie to the Western press to make Israel look bad. This is pretty effective for your cause. However, if you have allies on the Huffington Post, you can serve the anti-Israel cause even better in death! Once you die, your allegiance to Hamas and your cause of death is stripped from you and you join the nameless ranks of "Palestinians".
That way, when arguing about the conflict and how evil Israel is, Wisdo et. al can say "Look! Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians!" implying every single death is a sign that Israel loves killing the poor innocent Palestinians. The deaths are made devoid of context. A Palestinian who blows himself up in a kindergarten is placed on the same level as a little girl hit by shrapnel from a house hit by a missile. This is wrong. We need to compare the deaths of Palestinian civilians vs. Israeli civilians if we want to gain a true understanding of the morality of this conflict. The statement "Israel killed seven hundred combatants and four hundred civilians in Cast Lead" is a very different statement than "Israel killed 1100 Palestinians in Cast Lead" although they are both technically correct. We must be aware of this argument and not let it trip us up. Context matters, not every Palestinian death is unjustified.
But Palestinians do not steal Israeli Land. Palestinians do not Block Israeli roads. Palestinians do not take water from Israelis. Palestinians do not Build walls through their lands. Palestinians do not have hundreds of checkpoints throughout Israel where they detain Israelis for hours in the blisteringly hot sun. Palestinians do not strip search Israeli women and men in public. Palestinians do not imprison without trial thousands of Isreali women and children. Palestinians are not free to leave their country - Israelis are. Palestinians are under Israeli occupation, Israelis are not under Palestinian occupation.
The killing on both sides is not equivalent. Israel kills to continue its occuptaion and take ever more land. This is injust and immoral.
[bold added by me]
The parts in this post that we're interested in are the beginning and the end. The rest is just complaining about Israeli crimes against the Palestinians (but not, of course, about Palestinian crimes against Israelis).
Wisdo, as is so common with anti-Israel posters, plays the numbers game. We've talked about how morality by numbers is one of the coldest, most dehumanizing ways to make a moral argument, so I won't rehash old territory. What's interesting for me is the definition of who is a Palestinian.
If you're a Hamas terrorist, you can serve the anti-Israel cause in two ways. In life, you can try to kill Israelis and lie to the Western press to make Israel look bad. This is pretty effective for your cause. However, if you have allies on the Huffington Post, you can serve the anti-Israel cause even better in death! Once you die, your allegiance to Hamas and your cause of death is stripped from you and you join the nameless ranks of "Palestinians".
That way, when arguing about the conflict and how evil Israel is, Wisdo et. al can say "Look! Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians!" implying every single death is a sign that Israel loves killing the poor innocent Palestinians. The deaths are made devoid of context. A Palestinian who blows himself up in a kindergarten is placed on the same level as a little girl hit by shrapnel from a house hit by a missile. This is wrong. We need to compare the deaths of Palestinian civilians vs. Israeli civilians if we want to gain a true understanding of the morality of this conflict. The statement "Israel killed seven hundred combatants and four hundred civilians in Cast Lead" is a very different statement than "Israel killed 1100 Palestinians in Cast Lead" although they are both technically correct. We must be aware of this argument and not let it trip us up. Context matters, not every Palestinian death is unjustified.