Irony Is Dead
Here's a pretty old legacy post from the blog archives of Geekery Today; it was written about 22 years ago, in 2002, on the World Wide Web.
Targeting civilians is immoral, no matter what the circumstances.
The cognitive dissonance is killing me!
Welcome to Bethlehem
Arik Sharon bellows something about how more civilian deaths on both sides will lead to greater security.
If we keep our voices down, they might not notice the stench of the bodies.
No, that’s not an anti-war radical crying out against the war on Afghanistan or the possible future attack of Iraq. It’s not some starry-eyed Nobel laureate peace organization. It’s Donald Rumsfeld, speaking with a completely straight face, on national television, asserting the United States’ position in support of the Israeli government’s war on Palestine. Irony is now officially dead.
Meanwhile, the tanks rolled into Bethlehem, with $2,400,000,000 of your and my tax dollars paying for gasoline. Assaults were launched against the Ayda and Dehaishe refugee camps, with massive tank fire, mortar fire, gun clashes, and F-16s flying overhead. The IDF has attacked Red Crescent and UN ambulances, television and communication stations, and journalists.
On the other side of the world, Our Fearless Leader sits back on his ass and opines that he’s doing enough already about this human rights catastrophe, that Israel has a right to defend itself and that Yasser Arafat should, somehow, be doing more to stop suicide bombing from his highly strategic position penned in his own basement and surrounded by tanks and barbed wire. Apparently the idea that Palestine might also have a right to defend itself from a brutal occupation and assault is lost on Bush. Lost on everyone in the mainstream political discourse, for that matter. This does not, of course, include a right to murder civilians in suicide bombings. But it does include a right to fight back against the brutal collective punishment assault being launched in the Occupied Territories as we speak.
Then again, perhaps I’m a bit late already for irony’s memorial service. After all, for a week now, Ariel Sharon has declared that he is out to defend the safety and lives of Israeli citizens… through a scorched-earth assault on Palestine which has driven Palestinians to commit 7 suicide bombings in 7 days. Since Sharon isn’t the one who has to bear the consequences of this blood-soaked war he’s launched, I suppose his safety is doing just fine. Meanwhile, however, a lot of people are dying on both sides precisely because of his actions.
For further reading:
- Jerusalem Independent Media Center for up-to-the-minute participatory media updates
- GT 3/16/2002: Occupation and Intifada: Oppression and Resistence, not "Violence"
- GT 2/14/2002: WAR IS PEACE
- GT 2/03/2002: He Thinks You’re An Idiot
- GT 1/31/2002: Sharon Threatens Arafat’s Life
- GT 3/07/2001: War Criminal Ariel Sharon Becomes Prime Minister
Follow
Independent Media Center has no quality control over the content that it publishes. It’s well known to be a repository of rumors, myths and fabrications. One clue should be that the source of that information is some Palestinian organization. Palestinian media and other information sources have been well known to completely make up egregious stories to foment support, even to incite more Palestinians to commit suicide bombings. I’m highly skeptical of those claims. Even if the Israelis wanted to commit such abuses, do you think they would be stupid enough to do it in light of America’s views of terrorist activity after 9/11?
Think about it.
Martin,
While I agree with you that the IMC must be taken with more than a grain of salt, in times of crisis it’s also an invaluable resource because it acts to compile on the ground, eyewitness accounts. The lack of filtering is precisely what makes it valuable when the mainstream media is basically reporting Bush administration and IDF press releases, interspersed with occasional belligerent outbursts from Sharon (they’d be putting in belligerent outbursts from Arafat, but the IDF keeps cutting off Arafat’s phone calls with the outside world).
Concerning the specific claims made, Palestine Red Crescent (http://www.palestinercs.org/), a member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, confirms numerous incidents of harassment and detention of their crews, including IDF tanks used to block ambulances and arrest the emergency crew. Journalists and international civilian activists have both directly confirmed being attacked by IDF forces.
I have to say that I’m a bit puzzled by your comments about “America’s views of terrorist activity after 9/11.” As far as I can tell, the American media and government have given a more or less complete green light to grevious human rights abuses as long as they are committed, as the IDF is committing them, with the excuse of counter-terrorism. Sharon has been very scrupulous over the past week in his efforts to directly crib from Bush administration “War on Terror” rhetoric, so as to put himself in a position where DC cannot criticize him without looking like major hypocrites. Indeed, I think the Bush administration knows that it is being hoisted by its own rhetorical petard; no wonder the administration’s response has been so directionless and half-hearted.