but it's quite another to argue that critics of the settlement policy are, in some sense, advocating killing settlers
That's not what the editorial said at all -- they said that Professor Sternhell had advocated killing settlers. This paragraph seems unambiguous in its advice:
Hebrew University Prof. Ze'ev Sternhell wrote in Ha'aretz that "many in Israel, perhaps even the majority of the voters, do not doubt the legitimacy of the armed resistance in the territories themselves. The Palestinians would be wise to concentrate their struggle against the settlements, avoid harming women and children, and strictly refrain from firing on Gilo, Nahal Oz, or Sderot."
Then the editorial commented that if this was the advice of the Israeli left, it was no surprise that the Americans and Europeans were following it:
If a respected Israeli academic, writing in a prominent Israeli newspaper, can advise the Palestinians to concentrate their "armed resistance" against settlers, it is not surprising that this has become the European and American position too, with different degrees of candor.
The Europeans have openly thrown their weight behind "cease-fire" talks between the PLO and Hamas in Cairo, even though no one expects the latter to agree to ending attacks on settlements.
FYI, the terms of the "cease-fire" being discussed in Cairo do not include the territories, only Israel inside the Green Line. The settlers are still fair game -- and the Europeans have no problem with this program.
One has only to listen to BBC or Reuters, which always reports on the attacks of "gunmen" against "settlers" (even when the targeted "settlers" are children) to know that lots of people agree that it's open season on settlers:
Six Dead in Palestinian Attack in Jewish Settlement
Fri December 27, 2002 07:12 PM ET
By Nir Elias
OTNIEL, West Bank (Reuters) - Two Palestinian gunman opened fire in a cafeteria for religious students at a Jewish settlement on Friday, killing four settlers before Israeli soldiers shot and killed the gunmen, Israeli sources said.
Military sources said the second assailant fled the settlement of Otniel near the West Bank city of Hebron and was shot dead by soldiers who gave chase.
reuters.com
This kind of argumentation, in which critics are labeled as advocating murder, as traitors, as whatevers, should be condemned by right and left and middle as incompatible with a vigorous democracy. Whether Israeli, European, or US.
The critics are advocating and sympathising with the murder of settlers, John. They show their sympathies by calling dead Palestinian children "11-year old boys" while they call dead settler children "settlers".
How about considering that advocacy of murder should be condemned by right and left, instead of shooting the messenger? |
