Friday, March 11, 2011

Deconstructing A News Report

--R. Congress

Here is the news item:

Army: Palestinian Kills 5 In West Bank Settlement

by The Associated Press

March 11, 2011

The Israeli military says a Palestinian has infiltrated a Jewish West Bank settlement and killed five people.

Israeli media is reporting that the dead are all members of the same family — parents and three children.

The military says it is sweeping the area in search of the perpetrator and has set up checkpoints throughout the West Bank.

The attack early Saturday in the northern West Bank settlement of Itamar is the first of its kind in years. It marks a rare outburst of violence during a relatively calm period.

Itamar is home to some of the West Bank's most fervent settlers. The attack took place in the middle of the night against a religious community on the Jewish Sabbath.

Here is the news story deconstructed:

1) Five members of one family living in a West Bank settlement (armed expansionist colony) are killed. This is bad. People should not be killed. The usual crowd (US Congressional Reps, AIPAC, ADL, Dershowitz, obese Jerry Nadler, et al) will be baying for a retaliation (say, blowing up a village or two) and talking heads will tsk, tsk about blood thirsty Arabs who can't get along with the "Jewish and Democratic state."

2) The legal protection of the "Jewish and Democratic state" exists for the 500,000 Israeli citizens who live in colonies in the West Bank, which is actually outside the internationally recognized borders of said state. However, the 2.5 million Palestinians who are in the West Bank live under Israeli military law.

3) Not mentioned in the AP story is the verifiable fact that about one Palestinian has been killed every other day for the last solid year by armed settlers and the Israeli Army.

4) The AP story calls the killings in Itmar "A rare outburst of violence during a relatively calm period." From this we learn that the definition of "a relatively calm period" is one in which scores of Palestinians are killed, hundreds are tear gassed and shot while engaging in peaceful protests against their land being stolen, and armed settlers systematically destroy orchards being cultivated by Palestinian farmers.

5) Calmness, we must conclude, prevails only when illegal settlers are free to attack Palestinian civilians, with no risk to there own wellbeing and serenity.

9 comments:

  1. This terrorist murdered a baby girl, a 3 year old child, and an 11 year old along with their parents.

    There is no deconstruction. This is pure evil.

    Look in the mirror and recall: “Those who are kind to the wicked, become wicked to the merciful”

    This is not the time to be bashing the Jewish pioneers, this is the time for prayers and condolences.

    May their blood be avenged.

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  2. As an American whose taxes support armies (including the Israeli one) executing families all over the globe, I will not judge the person wielding the knife in this case.

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  3. Even though the Palestinians are the victimized side, even though they have the right to violently resist foreign rule just like every other subjugated people, aren't there any limits? Isn't the stabbing to death of three children - ages 11, 3 and less than one year - beyond justification? Do those who live under foreign domination bear any responsiblity for their actions? Will the Left absolve anybody who lives in the Third World of absolutely anything on Earth?

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  4. There is no way murder of children can be justified, period.
    The timing of this act is strange, just when 'Price tagging" is threatened. Cui bono?

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  5. I agree Maximalist but will you also condemn the slaughter of over 400 children during Cast Lead?

    Larry, Israel bombs, white phosphorous, fleschette shells, nor the home made kassam rockets are also beyond justification.

    The occupation is violence and terrorism.

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  6. i didn't hear any justification. i think it is amusing the report can say " the first of its kind in years." when the idf burst into a palestinian home just recently and killed an innocent man in his bed while his wife was praying nearby.

    and , they never even apologized for the murder.

    can you imagine if israelis were being gunned down weekly, kids and all and some news report called the murder of one palestinian family "the first of it's kind in years".

    there's just no parity here. murders happen daily in gaza where young soldiers use palestinian kids and old people for target practice. there's no justification for any of it but don't call this rare. the only rarity is the murderers weren't jews.

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  7. What Congress fails to understand is the simple historical fact that Israel has, again and again, since the 1930's, been willing to compromise and share the Jewish people's ancestral homeland with the more recent arrivals - the Arab conquerors of Israel and their descendants, but the Arabs keep saying no - with guns and knives. This week's grotesque murder is just one more of many examples of Arab intransigence, revanchism, and racism against the indigenous Jewish population of Israel.

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  8. Congress should learn his history - the Jews are the Indians in Israel, and the Arabs are the cowboys. Jews have lived in Judea and Samaria for at least 3000 years, the Arabs first arrived, as colonizers, only some 1400 years ago. Israel's self-restraint against ongoing Arab imperialism is laudable - if the US was being hit by rockets from Mexico, as we are from Gaza, how many millions of dead Mexicans would there already be? Get your soldiers out of Iraq and Afghanistan before criticising Israel for defending itself, honorably, against these vicious murderers.

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  9. How can Congress call himself a revolutionary, when he is supportive of the misogynist, anti-gay, anti-Jewish Muslim imperialists, whose aim is to deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination? He needs to get his head together and figure out which side a revolutionary should be on: with the Jewish people and their right to their homeland.His denying the Israelis the right to self-defense from the racist attacks is fascist.

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