Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Israel and the Zionist

I went to London yesterday.




(It's funny to see a "Australia" sign when you are in the middle of London. If I didn't know better, I thought that Boeing 747 flew the wrong direction!)

As I was walking down the road along Leicester square, I noticed there was a long line of people going in the opposite direction.



Now, just in case you couldn't see it properly...


It's the flag of Israel! And it's apparent that there's a street rally in support for Israel's act in Gaza. One of them even held a poster reading, ''End Hamas and Stop the terror!".

That explains the helicopter which has been hovering above me all the time!! What are the chances of me visiting London only to meet a huge crowd of Zionist!?

What a stark contrast this is with Malaysia. In Malaysia, we have major street rallies in support of ending the war and invasion. And for once, a govt. supported rally in Malaysia has made the right stand.

I still do not understand how the West perceive the world, especially when it comes to the middle east and when it involves the UK or the US. Why are the Brits and the Americans so hell-bent on supporting Israel and the Jews? I don't see them throwing support when Malaysia and Indonesia had the 'confrontation'.

Sure, if you support the Jews, it's ok. But if anyone in the West even comes close to criticising the Jews, they are branded anti-semitism. It's like the Jews are the untouchables. It's like when you support BN in Malaysia it is 'patriotic' and when you support PKR you are 'pengkhianat'. They view the world as black and white when in reality there are shades of gray!

Are they ignorant? or are they doing it for money? Or are the politicians seeking to leverage from the chaos in the middle east?

The history and the legitimacy of the Israel state has been debated for over 50 years, most of the time ending in blood and war. And so I do not wish to discuss that.

But I am going to question this:

1. A state has the right to defend itself. But does that mean it can do WHATEVER it pleases to defend itself?

There is no doubt that Hamas is a terrorist group that needs to be dealt with. No one is questioning that. But what we question is the use of EXCESSIVE FORCE.

Everytime someone sends a rocket into Israel killing as much as ONE (uno, satu, 一, ichi) person, Israel will mobilise tanks and its entire weaponry to kill hundres of people. Among them, no doubt at least tens of them are innocent. So is it alright to kill many innocent people and caused many casualties of war just because 1 Israelis is dead?

Granted that terrorism is wrong and that Hamas should not have shot the rocket. Damn, I am even going to give Israel the benefit of doubt and assume that Hamas 'started' it first. But does that justify a 1:100 kill ratio? 1 to Israel and 100 to innocent people?

So let's say a British terrorist bombed a place in Malaysia, does that mean Malaysia can send a inter-continental balistic missile that accurately bombs this person's house in the UK? Sure the missle will be accurate, but upon impact, I'm sure the neighbours will be hurt at least. Just casualties of war? Collateral of war? Acceptable?

In fact, the recent terrorist attacks in India has links to British. So India probably can send a few missiles to the UK. Could you imagine what would happen? The whole world would wage war against India (or Malaysia for the previous example).

But in Israel? "Nah, it's ok. Those people are CASUALTIES OF WAR." If it's just one or two, I may have been understanding. But thousands are usually left dead. Thousands of innocent people. Every time. Yes, not just this time, but many times in the past Israel have left thousands of innocent people lying dead on the ground when <10 Israelis were killed by a Hamas rocket.

Israel is definitely going to claim that these innocent lives are dead because of Hamas. Because "they started it first". But like above, even if I do give the benefit of doubt in favor of Israel, they still don't have the right to kill indiscriminately. And I do not care "who started it", I'm more concerned about the "result". The result is that more that 100 innocent people (Israelis or Palestinians) are killed for every dead Israelis due to Hamas rocket. And that's a conservative figure. This is an inappropriate use of force and it should be condemn.

Surely, you are tempted to ask, "How could we end terrorism when we cannot launch an attack?" I admit this is not going to be easy. It's not a problem that we can solve by pressing a button. Neither can we solve it by waging wars. Waging wars could be brutally fast, efficient and the most direct way to the problem. But it isn't the solution, which leads to my 2nd question.


2. Will killing people and securing key rocket-launching sites in Gaza (or whatever the Israelis is doing there) halt terrorism?

No.

Yes, the rockets are launched because someone handled it. So theoretically, if you kill the person handling the rockets, you stop the rockets.

But no (to the question), the rockets will still be coming.

A wise man once said, "People can be replaced, but not ideals." Today you may have killed Mr. X, but Mr. Y will be gladly taking over the place. The ideal fueling this hatred is still there! And by invading like this and using excessive force Israel is giving the terrorist more reason to continue with their hatred. More people, that were previously not terrorist, will be more willing to give in and join the movement because of their sufferings caused in such an invasion.

No matter how hard Israel may want to explain itself. No matter how powerful Israel's propaganda is. It just cannot stop the hatred from spreading.

Can you imagine a heart-broken mother, carrying the limbs of her daughter in her arms, and crying. Then the Israelis soldier drop by and say, "Hey, it's ok. Cuz we're just here to kill the bad guys. But sometimes good guys die too. You know it's too bad. But it happens. By the way, don't become a terrorist because of this ok?"

Sometimes, I really wonder if the Israelis wanted this all along. They created terrorist by killing innocents. The terrorist kills Israelis. Then Israel kill more innocent people and thus creating more terrorist. The damn cycle repeats itself.

******************************************************************************

There are always quick-fixes to a problem:

The easiest way that we can ensure someone who has committed a serious crime not to repeat it, is to hang. Why do we try to avoid that and instead choose imprisonment and rehabilitation?

Sending a nuke to wipe-out the entire area is always safer and more efficient for the invader. Why do we not do that and instead choose to use ground forces and air-strikes?

Quick-fixes exist, but they rarely work.

I haven't met a Jew in my life. But after going through the Holocaust themselves and yet approving such atrocity in Gaza, my opinion of them, even before I meet any of them is very low.

(I pray that my PhD supervisor isn't a Jew - I haven't meet him in person)

1 comment:

cy77 said...

I thought about what you said as well. There's no easy solution to the rocket firing.

If my neighbour keep on throwing stones in my house, kidnap my children - for months, for years - and refuse to stop, I'll head over there to give him a smacking of his life.

On the same time, the Hamas are happy provoking the war - behind women and children. WTF?!!!

What's really puzzling to me is that the Hamas also say Israel mistreat them. But hey, the Israelites are the ones trading with them. They given the Hamas credit for goods. Their other neighbour Eygpt, shut the door and can't be bothered with them. Who's the good brother?

So on one hand you have Hamas messing with the hornet's nest. On the other, there's so much aggresion to stop the 'stone throwing'.

Ironically, the Hamas are 'started' by the USA/Israel. Voted in by a 'democratic' process in Gaza.

So who's to say the Hamas aren't being used by some higher power to start a war? (Who's selling the rockets?)