CPTnet
28 December 2006

HEBRON REFLECTION: The Double Standard, part II

by Jerry Levin

[Note: The following is the second part of a two-part edited excerpt from a
longer report that CPTer Jerry Levin sent to his supporters. People
wishing to see the original may contact Levin at
guest.993507 [at] MennoLink [dot] org.]

People on the outside do not experience the semantic double standard because
it takes place beneath the radar of western mass circulation journalism.
And they do not experience it because the old journalistic aphorism, "if it
bleeds it leads" usually-although not always- applies only to Israelis.

For instance, when Palestinian militants captured a single Israeli soldier
earlier this year, the western media reported it as another act of
illegitimate Palestinian terror, rather than a legitimate guerilla
operation. The press rationalizes the massive Israeli response that has
killed scores of Palestinian civilians in retaliation for the capture as
acts of legitimate self- defense by Israel's army. Of course, the army does
apologize for its "mistake" if the number of noncombatant Palestinians still
dying in Israeli's pursuit of the soldier's release reaches such a level
that the military establishment cannot soft-pedal the carnage.

The manner in which the Israeli military is continuing its campaign of
terrorizing warfare, brutal occupation and rule of Palestinian land is
clearly most comparable to what the civilized world agrees are the kinds of
crimes committed by rogue states. Yet, the press is disgracefully not
reporting those similarities or at least not doing so effectively.

So there are no official demands (with teeth anyway) coming out of the West
for an end to this terrible double standard. No demands that Israel cease
its roguish violence of terror and dispossession or submit to international
controls of its nuclear weapons program. You rarely hear western leaders of
consequence criticize the Israeli military or government when they
rationalize their constant use of terror (the killing of noncombatant
children, women, and men) in the West Bank or Gaza as Israel defending
itself. But those same leaders are all over Palestinians when they assert
their right to defend themselves.

So after almost forty years of colonizing brutality in the West Bank and
Gaza, the occupation double standard-underwritten by U. S. military and
economic aid-is, as it has most always been, the elephant in the room that
few mass circulation news outlets talk about.

Therefore, Hebron, where CPT works, continues to be mostly out of sight and
out of mind in the west. It is in Hebron that the occupation elephant in
the room has been fiendishly characterized by graffiti painted on the door
of a Palestinian home in the Old City of Hebron that says, "Gas the Arabs."
It is signed, "JDL," the initials of the "Jewish Defense League." Where and
when did you last read about that?