Yes, and until you read the article I wrote on Hamas, you will continue to get what I wrote in my article on Israel wrong. It is essential to read them together.
For 65 years I thought that Israel did no wrong. It is only in the past five years that I have changed my mind about that. That is a common story with Jews who are now disagreeing with Israel’s policies towards Palestine.
Until fairly recently, all the bias was against Palestine, so, please, you can’t have it both ways.
You said “People who will not give a second look to much more horrific atrocities in other places suddenly become the epitome of rightousness when it's about Israel.”
What other people do has nothing to do with me. And until you have evidence that I am like that, you have no business in assuming that I am like that. Any study of my work will show you that I worked actively against apartheid in South Africa, as did both my parents.
Hamas IS retaliating for Israel taking Palestinian land. That’s the way Arabs think, and as I’ve just explained this entire thing to someone else, I really, really am not going to go into this again.
No, I didn’t lie anywhere, and if there were omissions on the Israeli side, there were also omissions on the Palestinian side. You can’t have it both ways. That said, there were videos, links to historical sites and newspaper cuttings. You have to take the entire thing as a whole. If you haven’t read it all, you can’t accuse me of omitting things. I didn’t. I provided all the important points.
As I am not American, and as I don’t live in America, and as I have never watched CNN or MSNBC in my life (despite having lived in the States for 11 years), and as I haven’t watched the BBC for decades, and as I haven’t owned a TV for some 15 years, I have absolutely no idea what they say. I get my news from the Guardian, the Independent, France 24, Der Spiegel, Google News, Reuters, South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), Associated Press, and Al Jazeera. I also read the Daily Mail – which sickens me. I have a subscription to the Washington Post as well. I read for about 5 hours every day, and I think I read broadly enough to get sufficient perspectives.
Yes, I know about the Sheikh Jarrah case. I also know about the group of fundamentalist Jews who were video’d going into East Jerusalem and attacking people. At least I knew about it when I wrote the article. I’ve already forgotten.
Yes, the Israelis did say that the media building housed Hamas’s offices and military equipment. It was in every single newspaper and TV site in the world. It is also in the links I provided telling the entire story.
That said, we only have Israel’s word for that, and at this time, I take this with a pinch of salt. Israel had no moral right to destroy a building that also housed families and Associated Press. They are sophisticated enough to be able to use other methods. Has it ever occurred to you that they got rid of the building because they wanted to get rid of Associated Press so that the rest of the world could not see what Israel was doing?
Do you really think it’s okay to go out and destroy the property of perfectly innocent people because you want to get a small percentage of criminals? Last time I heard, that wasn’t allowed in civilized countries.
