Juan Cole: Stop Saying ‘If X fired Rockets at U.S.’

[alsame]

Stop Saying ‘If X fired Rockets at U.S.’: It’s Racist, & assumes we’re Colonial
By Juan Cole

Is anyone else disgusted by the propaganda trick of trying to get Americans to sympathize with Israel’s massive attack on the civilian habitations of Gaza by saying “if the US was subjected to rocket fire by X [usually Mexicans], what would it do?”

This hope that Americans are racists and that their racism can be incited against the Palestinians is about the lowest rhetorical trick you could imagine.

I’m old enough to remember the race riots in American cities of the late 1960s and early 1970s. I can remember a prominent pro-Israel columnist for the Washington Post, way back then, explicitly comparing Palestinians protesting their occupation by Israel to African-Americans protesting their economic marginalization. The writer’s hope was that white Americans would identify with Israelis and come to see Palestinians as “Black.” Or, let’s face it, as the N-word.

Someone recently sent to my blog such a screed, saying, what if rockets from Quebec were slamming into Maine?

Continue reading:
http://www.juancole.com/2014/07/rockets-assumes-colonial.html

[EX500rider]

1. I don't see the racist or colonial angle at all.

It's a valid comparison to speculate what the US reaction would be to rocket fire across the border.

Why is it "racist" to wonder what our response would be to rockets flying in from Quebec? Are they a "race"? Or our "colony"?

A more valid comparison might be to Puerto Rico firing rockets into Florida since we have some control over PR like Israel has over Gaza...but that still wouldn't be a racist thing to ponder our response to such actions.

[awoke_in_2003]

30. Unlike Israel...

we are not herding Quebecans into modern day ghettos.

[sabrina 1]

38. Exactly. Imagine what Canadians would do if we were?

[EX500rider]

43. Some ghetto...

Gaza:
141 sq. miles
pop. 1.8 million (annual population growth rate of 2.91%)
GDP: $1.35 billion

Warsaw Ghetto:
1.3 sq. miles
Average food rations in 1941 were limited to 184 calories
pop. 400,000
-250,000 sent to Treblinka death camp, rest died of starvation or in the resistance.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Hypotheticals have been substituted for logic in the US...

There are literally thousands of examples of the old "If a than b" bullshit arguments. I try to avoid them myself. Generally, they try to delve to the deepest, most emotional aspect of problems, like the one in the OP.

[gratuitous]

3. Yeah, it's nonsense, but it works

Let's say a bunch of folks got together and attacked symbolic properties in the United States? And let's say that the vast majority of those folks were from, say, our good friend Saudi Arabia. What would the U.S. do? Attack and invade Afghanistan, of course. And if that didn't satisfy our hard-on for war, we'd attack and invade Iraq.

Compared to the crimes against humanity currently being perpetrated by our good friend Israel, we definitely put them in the shade collective-reprisal-wise.

[Kurska]

4. It is okay to fire rockets at Israeli civilians, because I dunno racism?

I'm not going to stop saying it, because it is a valid question. No sane nation on earth would passively accept rockets being fired at it.

[alsame]

6. He's not

saying that at all. His last paragraph:

"Mind you, I am an advocate of peaceful social action, and I condemn Hamas’s and Islamic Jihad’s deployment of rockets. They lack guidance systems and so they are inevitably indiscriminate as weapons, endangering non-combatants, which is a war crime. But I also condemn reckless Israeli air raids on Gaza camps and cities, which a prudent person could foresee will cause non-combatant deaths. They are also war crimes."

What he's talking about is the effort to manipulate the American public with rhetoric intended to get them to identify with Israelis and turns the Palestinians into "Others".

[Kurska]

8. "rhetoric intended to get them to identify with Israelis"

And how is that wrong? How is that racist?

I don't agree that it turns the Palestinians into an amorphous "other", either.

[alsame]

11. Again, he's not saying that

it's wrong to identify with the Israelis. He's talking about a specific type of rhetoric used for a specific purpose and gave several examples in the article.

[Kurska]

12. And I still don't understand how that is racist rhetoric having read the OP.

Israel is facing rocket fire from across a border. Asking how Americans how they think America would react if the same situation was happening to them is a fair question.

[Orrex]

23. Here's a way to think about it

Rather than "asking how Americans how they think America would react if" they were subjected to indiscriminate rocket attacks from across the border, the question should be "how would Americans react if a foreign power engaged in an aggressive campaign of settlement-building on US soil while executing massive precision airstrikes against American civilians?"

I'm not sure that implications of racism are on target here, but I find it curious that Israel is portrayed as the sympathetic victim despite its much lower casualties, greatly superior military, and encroaching settlement policy, while Palestine is invariably shown as the wrong-headed aggressor.

[elleng]

29. Thank you.

[Scootaloo]

32. Well Kurska...

Given that you used school suspensions to justify the shooting of Trayvon Martin, your inability to "understand" racism is hardly surprising. Especially when paired with your disgustingly racist belief that "those people" need dictators.

The racism comes from the framing of the question. "What would you do if rockets were coming art you" frames it so that there is only one people worth consideration for their victimization, specifically the Israelis. And while they do deserve such consideration, they're actually not the only people in the picture being victimized. Further, the smaller frame invites the viewer to cheer retaliatory violence. "fuck yeah hit 'em back!" - the blasts from the retaliation are outside the frame, so all we see is Israel receiving fire and returning it.

when we enlarge the frame to fit the whole picture, we see fifty years of violent occupation and ethnocidal efforts conducted against the Palestinian people by Israel. No nation would put up with rockets, well what the fuck nation would put up with an invasion and occupation conducted by a foreign power that seeks the eradication of your nation and the crushing of your people? When we enlarge the frame... we see that Israeli retaliation is VASTLY more lethal, and just as indiscriminate. Well over a two thousand people have died, the majority of them not "bad guys" of any sort.

The smaller denies the existence of the Palestinian people, erases their grievances, and blocks their narrative, all while inviting you the viewer to welcome and cheer violence utilized against them.

It's sort of like if someone were to look at the Stonewall Riots and see only police getting beat up, with no sign of years and years of oppression and brutality conducted against gay people by those same police. or looking at black people throwing rocks and bottles in Detroit, without noting that Martin Luther King had his head blown off earlier that day, or the centuries of violence against blacks.

That does not make the rocket fire from Palestinian factions "okay" by any means - Israelis no more deserve that than Palestinians deserve missiles in their care homes and sports bars. it's not justified - but to pretend that hat's all there is, to narrow the picture down to just the narrative of "shoot the evil Arabs" that this frame Cole is speaking of does, that is undoubtedly racist.

[GoneFishin]

45. You zeroed in on something important. The comparison to Travon Martin and the narrow

cherry picking of only the last 10 seconds when supposedly Travon had the upper hand.

The bastardization of the facts and sequence of events to give cover to the racists, and elicit sympathy for the initiator of the chain of events that lead to the current situation.

"Never mind how we got into this situation. Just pay attention when we tell you to pay attention, and when it is convenient for our narrative."

[Ichingcarpenter]

10. In the shorter term

In the shorter term, the question of “who started it first” depends greatly on when you start the clock. Take any rocket attack from Gaza, and go back in time a few weeks or months. You’ll quickly find an Israeli act of aggression –raids, shootings or abductions. An example: The current rocket fire flared following the mass arrests and nine deaths of Palestinians in the West Bank, committed by Israeli forces in retaliation for the abduction of three Israeli settler youth. In the two weeks before that tragedy, however, Israeli forces abducted 17 teenage Palestinian boys in the occupied West Bank. The youngest was 13. Some were dragged at gunpoint from their homes and family under cover of dark; others were seized from the streets in broad daylight.

It’s a game of tit for tat, except one side is the world’s sixth largest arms exporter (11th in terms of “global firepower”) and the other an imprisoned slum with a poverty rate of 70 percent.



Israel says its massive air strikes and impending ground incursion are meant to eliminate Hamas. But even if you think it is feasible and morally permissible to assassinate an entire party (one which is made up of different factions, including members who are quite moderate and open to discussion), there are 1.7 million people who live in the Gaza Strip. And most are not militant Hamas acolytes. An April 2013 poll by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center found that more than 80 percent of Palestinians (including those in Gaza) supported nonviolent means of resistance against Israeli occupation. Moreover, support for firing rockets from the Gaza Strip at Israel stood at just 38 percent, with the popularity of Hamas at only 20 percent.

Some Israelis themselves have come to recognize that the true source of their insecurity is not Palestinian rockets, but the occupation. And therein lies a ray of hope:

“The deterioration is first and foremost a result of the illusion that…the Palestinians will accept everything that’s done to them and won’t respond, despite the rage and frustration and the worsening economic situation,” writes Yuval Diskin, the chief of Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, from 2005 to 2011, in a Facebook post.

Gideon Levy, a columnist with the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, puts it even more bluntly: “What exactly are 1.5 million people supposed to live on? Is there anyone who can explain why the blockade, even if partial, of Gaza continues? Can anyone explain why its future is never discussed? Did we think that all this would continue and Gaza would accept it submissively? Anyone who thought so was a victim of dangerous delusions, and now we are all paying the price.”

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/palestinian-rockets-conversation.html

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

20. Yours is the best comment in the entire thread.

People who are desperate and hopeless turn to violence and devalue human lives, even their own. For the violence to end, there has to be hope for the Palestinians that they face a future that is more than simply a prison.

[Ichingcarpenter]

50. thank you

its not mine but I agree with the opinion.

I just took out the jest of the article.

[sabrina 1]

40. No sane nation would accept the conditions that have been imposed on Palestinians by Israel

as the world now realizes. All the excuses in the world no longer work to try to justify the treatment of those people. Collective punishment is against International law. Imagine if Palestinians were dropping bombs on Israeli homes killing dozens, sometimes hundreds of innocent men, women and children??

[snooper2]

44. There is an easy fix that MOST people would agree to

you send all fundies to the middle east, of all mythology-

Let them fight, winner takes all, of that dry patch of sand

winner has to stay there-

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

5. We'd probably declare war

and go in and try and capture or kill the people firing the rockets. If we were so incredibly incompetent as to kill more civilians than the actual terrorists firing the rockets, we'd start seeing calls for our military leaders to be fired or stripped of their rank or both. And people would be talking about war crimes.

The Israeli military appear to be completely incompetent at actually addressing the actual problem, and seem to have no more ability to correctly target their enemies than Hamas does. Unless, of course, both sides do see the civilian populations of the other as enemies to be killed.

[former9thward]

7. No, no one would complain about our military.

We happily killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese, French, German, Italian, Belgian, etc., etc., citizens in WW II and no one ever called for the investigation of our military leaders. They were cheered on.

You are way off base about Israel. The Israeli military is about the only military in the world that goes to the extent it does to avoid civilian deaths. They will call the occupants of a building that is about to be bombed to tell them to leave. The fire rockets that have no explosive on buildings to warn occupants to leave. They drop leaflets warning citizens to leave. The U.S. does none of this. The Palestinians refuse to leave. They allow Hamas to place rocket launchers in residential areas or areas by medical facilities. The Hamas surround themselves with women and children and refuse to allow them to leave.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

9. Certainly they would.

Many of us started protesting the invasion of Iraq even before it happened.

If Israel wanted to avoid civilian casualties, they'd be going in with ground troops, not rockets.

[former9thward]

13. The protests against Iraq had nothing to do with civilian causalities.

It was about invading a country that the U.S. had no business in. The actual number of civilians killed in the invasion that overthrew the government was very minimal.

Ground troops do not minimize civilian causalities. Not when facing an opponent that surrounds themselves with women and children. You may get your wish about a ground invasion although I suspect you will find fault with that too.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

16. I like how you qualified that with 'in the invasion that overthrew the government'

With over half a million Iraqis ending up dead as a result of the invasion and its aftermath, I suppose you can say 'very minimal' if you ignore all of the ones that died outside of whatever specific qualifiers you consider to 'count'.

[former9thward]

17. You have switched from Gaza to Iraq.

Nice try at deflection.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

18. After your deflection about WW 2?

My first post was a reply to the OP. You then brought in WW2. I countered your WW 2 with the more recent Iraq. You then continued on with more Iraq, so I replied about Iraq again.

So who is the one 'deflecting'?

Let's see what didn't I address....oh right, the 'Hamas only mixes in with the civilians'. There's a reason for that - asymmetric warfare. Israel controls the borders, and has far superior weaponry. If Hamas found one clean spot in the highly overcrowded strip with no civilians around, and set up shop there, they'd all be dead inside an hour, because they have nothing capable of stopping the IDF other than simply being mobile and hard to find. So what you're complaining about is that they don't make themselves sitting ducks for Israel to simply destroy them easily. Here's a hint. No foe ever tries to make it easy on the people they're fighting to kill them quickly and easily.

I suppose if the US were to provide the Palestinians with equal tanks, jets, missiles, and so on, they might not use guerilla tactics. But I'm pretty sure Israel wouldn't approve of that either.

[former9thward]

19. If Hamas stopped firing rockets this all goes away.

You leave out that inconvenient fact in your military analysis.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

21. Would it really?

If Hamas stopped firing rockets, all of the occupation forces would leave, Palestine would again control its own borders, and the settlers would return to Israeli lands?

[former9thward]

22. Well your definition of those terms is I'm sure much different than yours.

Hamas is in Gaza and "occupation forces" left there several years ago.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

24. I'm going to assume one of those 'yours' is a 'my'.

Who controls Gaza's borders? Who decides who and what is legally allowed to enter or leave Gaza? If you control the borders, do you really need to put the guards inside the prison?

[former9thward]

27. Israel and Egypt control the Gaza borders.

Funny how Egypt always gets left out of this. Gaza used to belong to Egypt. Why doesn't Egypt demand Gaza back? For the same reason Jordan never asks for the West Bank back. The Arab states want nothing to do with the Palestinians.

[Scootaloo]

33. More to do with the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, actually

According to the terms of which, the Egyptian border with Gaza is an Israeli "security interest." That is, israel has final say over whether that border opens or not, particularly in instances of Israeli operations in Gaza - wouldn't want the bad guys slipping over into Egypt, after all.

Egypt has good reason to go along with Israel on this - because so long as it does, Egypt's military is subsidized by the United States taxpayer to the tune of two billion dollars annually. Egypt's current dictator is high-level military brass; that money flows right into his pocket. he's not going to risk that by opening the Gaza border for refugees.

it's sort of like how Egypt can't mobilize its armed forces in Sinai, unless israel clears them to do so - even if hteir targets would be militants targeting Israel from Sinai.

But nice effort anyway.

[former9thward]

34. Right, the Egypt Gaza border is Israel's fault.

Who else? And they must be at fault for Egypt and Jordan and the rest of the Arab states wanting nothing to do with the Palestinians. Israel is to blame for everything!!! How convenient.

[Scootaloo]

36. That bears no resemblance to anything I said whatsoever.

But again, thanks for the effort.

[sabrina 1]

41. Were the dead civilians firing rockets at anyone? Children, babies, I've seen the terrible photos

not just from this latest attack on them. They didn't look like they were capable of feeding themselves yet, let alone fire any rockets at anyone.

Apparently killing all those innocent civilians, time and time again, hasn't stopped the rockets has it, in fact it is fair to say it may be the CAUSE of the rockets. Seems Israel, if stopping those rockets is the goal, has failed. But what could be expected from a far rightwing government other than violence to solve every problem? Israel badly needs a new government, the whole world has turned against them now.

[former9thward]

42. No, the whole world has not turned against them.

You are not the whole world. No one was killed until Hamas fired the first rocket. No sane nation will allow rockets to be fired at it.

[sabrina 1]

46. The whole world has turned against Israel. Polls now show that both the US and Israel

are considered the greatest threats to World Peace. Not the Palestinians, not the Iraqis, not the Afghans, Israel and the US. So yes, the world has turned against Israel, and is it any wonder? It is nonsense to keep trying to push the notion that the Palestinians are responsible for Israel's terrible decisions, few are buying it.

[Kurska]

14. So you'd support a ground invasion of Gaza by Israel? n/t

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

15. As opposed to missiles? Yes.

I try always to support the least indiscriminate form of violence available if people are dead set on using violence. Individual, aimed firearms are less indiscriminate than tanks, missiles, rockets, mortars, hand grenades, etc.

[cali]

49. say what? The U.S. attacked a country in response to an attack it had nothing to do with

bombing the ever loving shit out of it. And we've done that not once, but many times. The U.S. is especially trigger happy and has a long racist history. My problem with Cole's article are the rose colored lenses he's wearing re the U.S.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

54. Oh, I'm not saying the military or leadership of either country

aren't warhawks. Just that many folks in the country here would be outspoken in protest.

[LittleBlue]

25. More correctly, "If we kept a population under occupation, what if they fired

rockets at us?"

We currently don't keep part of Mexico or Canada under occupation, nor do we deprive ethnic populations of citizenship, so it's a pointless talking point.

[alsame]

26. Exactly, the Mexico and

Canada hypotheticals are ridiculous.

[locks]

28. If we were an "exceptional" nation as the conservatives say we are

we would never have paid for most of Israel's military and their "iron shield" while they occupied Palestine, made nuclear bombs, built settlements on Palestine land. We would not have supported either side when they broke the peace agreement and started bombing. We would not have blocked UN intervention including aid to suffering Palestinians. We would help the refugees of any nation who are fleeing for their lives and do not have homes to return to.

Exceptionalism is setting an example for other nations to follow. It is not supporting religions, including Christianity, when they call wars "just" and kill for a vengeful god. It is to ally with every nation and religion on earth and believe they are entitled to the same human rights we want for ourselves.

[sadoldgirl]

31. Would it not be reasonable for once

for the US to stay out of this fight, not support either side, not supply weapons or money to Israel? I realize that we were partially responsible for the founding of that state, without considering the consequences. Still, I think it might be a good time to step back and neither mix nor meddle in that mess.

[Hofbrau]

35. Dumb...

The point stands...

[n2doc]

37. I would hope that the US would be a lot smarter in their response

Blowing up civilians, even if they are willing 'human shields' does nothing to stop the cycle of violence down there. Basically there are a lot of IDF supporters who imply that palestinians 'deserve' to get blown up. Sick.

[kelliekat44]

47. We weren't. And it became are undoing. And so it will be with Israel. nt

[riderinthestorm]

39. But we did really. A small Muslim group attacked the US on 9-11 and we retaliated

BIG time. Against a whole slew of innocent people who had nothing to do with it.

And we've been continuing to do that with every battle ever since 9-11 which now includes drone strikes against those who dare assault "us" overseas....

I like Juan Cole but take off the blinders. I don't think its racist - its imperialism imho.

[JI7]

53. Juan Cole has always criticized the US also

[Unmenacing Dennis]

48. Quebec?

Is that independent now? (Stupid me, I thought it was still part of France.)