I saw this yesterday, linked by a friend online:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/07/world/meast/stopping-isis/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
And the real pull quote for me was the following:
"I don't see any attention from the rest of the world," a member of the Yazidi minority in Iraq told the New Yorker. "In one day, they killed more than two thousand Yazidi in Sinjar, and the whole world says, 'Save Gaza, save Gaza.'"
So why is that? What is it about Gaza that draws the world’s attention and ire, that seems to be lacking in the case of the Yazidi in Sinjar?
Well, the first and most obvious answer is that the Yazidi aren’t being killed by Jews. Anti-Semitism is alive and well across the world. Since the outbreak of the latest fighting (I will NOT use the term “Gaza War”, because Hamas is not engaged in war, this is just a continuation of their ongoing terror campaign), we’ve seen anti-Semitic riots across Europe, with Jews fleeing France. I bolded that, because can you imagine violence directed at you being threatening enough to force you to flee the land you were born in, all because a nation that shares its ethnicity with you is engaged with terrorists? The only thing I can compare it to is the Japanese Internment camps of WWII. Germany has seen an uptick in anti-Semitic violence as well. Mostly from Turkish and Arab immigrants, but the local skin heads are in on it as well. Much to the embarrassment of Establishment Germany. They’re not really stopping it, mind you, but they’re very embarrassed all the same.
But not everyone is opposed to what’s happening in Gaza due to anti-Semitism. I actually know people who are not racists but still take the side against Israel. They all happen to be Leftists, and I think their objections are racist, but not in the same vein. They see Israel as a modern European democracy. As in, “white”. And for these people, “white” and “European” are just synonyms for “oppressor” and “racist”. “Brown skin good, white skin bad” type stuff. So therefore, by opposing Israel, they’re showing what good, caring people they are. It’s still racist, but not because they’re Jews, but because they’re pale skinned and European in outlook.
But I think the reason most overlook is that it’s easy to deal with the conflict in Gaza. Israel, regardless of what is said about it in the UN and international press, is not a pariah nation. Nor is it willing to be one. It actually cares (within reason) about international opinion. If it didn’t, then the IDF would roll into Gaza, slaughter every living thing there, tear down the buildings, salt the earth, and dare the world to come do something about it. That’s what a pariah nation does when faced with an existential threat and the means to deal with it. But they will not ever do that. Sure, they’re not so suicidal as to let Hamas keep flinging rockets at their civilians. Hell, if Canada or Mexico started doing that to us, it’d be an act of war, and we’d roll over their military, occupy their capitals and put a stop to it permanently. And we’d be right to. But Israel recognizes that doing what they would be justified to do will come with far too high a price politically. So they act (and have acted) with inhuman restraint.
So why not Sinjar? Why does no one care about the Yazidi? Because it’s not easy. Because while Israel will eventually stop fighting due to international pressure, no amount of talking is going to stop ISIL. They simply do not care about international opinion. At all. Put them in Israel’s position, with a comparable army to the IDF, and they absolutely would sow the fields with the blood of their enemies. Words cost nothing. But they can influence Israel. To stop the slaughter of the Yazidi, it’s going to take combat. Troops, on the ground, fighting ISIL in cities. It will take wealth. Driving out the ISIL troops will not be cheap. And it will not be quick. The problem with organizations like ISIL and al-Qaida, is that routing them in the field simply shatters their operational command. The individuals will keep fighting on, until you root them out and destroy them. There’s no one to “sign a cease fire” with. If you were to capture al-Baghdadi, and tried to force him to sign a surrender, no one in ISIL would abide by it. They’re not an army. So destroying them root and branch will take years.
So it comes down to laziness. It’s easy, cheap, and quick to talk-talk at the Israelis, and it will eventually lead to a cease fire (long enough for Hamas to refill its supply of Katyusha rockets). Stopping ISIL, not so much.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/07/world/meast/stopping-isis/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
And the real pull quote for me was the following:
"I don't see any attention from the rest of the world," a member of the Yazidi minority in Iraq told the New Yorker. "In one day, they killed more than two thousand Yazidi in Sinjar, and the whole world says, 'Save Gaza, save Gaza.'"
So why is that? What is it about Gaza that draws the world’s attention and ire, that seems to be lacking in the case of the Yazidi in Sinjar?
Well, the first and most obvious answer is that the Yazidi aren’t being killed by Jews. Anti-Semitism is alive and well across the world. Since the outbreak of the latest fighting (I will NOT use the term “Gaza War”, because Hamas is not engaged in war, this is just a continuation of their ongoing terror campaign), we’ve seen anti-Semitic riots across Europe, with Jews fleeing France. I bolded that, because can you imagine violence directed at you being threatening enough to force you to flee the land you were born in, all because a nation that shares its ethnicity with you is engaged with terrorists? The only thing I can compare it to is the Japanese Internment camps of WWII. Germany has seen an uptick in anti-Semitic violence as well. Mostly from Turkish and Arab immigrants, but the local skin heads are in on it as well. Much to the embarrassment of Establishment Germany. They’re not really stopping it, mind you, but they’re very embarrassed all the same.
But not everyone is opposed to what’s happening in Gaza due to anti-Semitism. I actually know people who are not racists but still take the side against Israel. They all happen to be Leftists, and I think their objections are racist, but not in the same vein. They see Israel as a modern European democracy. As in, “white”. And for these people, “white” and “European” are just synonyms for “oppressor” and “racist”. “Brown skin good, white skin bad” type stuff. So therefore, by opposing Israel, they’re showing what good, caring people they are. It’s still racist, but not because they’re Jews, but because they’re pale skinned and European in outlook.
But I think the reason most overlook is that it’s easy to deal with the conflict in Gaza. Israel, regardless of what is said about it in the UN and international press, is not a pariah nation. Nor is it willing to be one. It actually cares (within reason) about international opinion. If it didn’t, then the IDF would roll into Gaza, slaughter every living thing there, tear down the buildings, salt the earth, and dare the world to come do something about it. That’s what a pariah nation does when faced with an existential threat and the means to deal with it. But they will not ever do that. Sure, they’re not so suicidal as to let Hamas keep flinging rockets at their civilians. Hell, if Canada or Mexico started doing that to us, it’d be an act of war, and we’d roll over their military, occupy their capitals and put a stop to it permanently. And we’d be right to. But Israel recognizes that doing what they would be justified to do will come with far too high a price politically. So they act (and have acted) with inhuman restraint.
So why not Sinjar? Why does no one care about the Yazidi? Because it’s not easy. Because while Israel will eventually stop fighting due to international pressure, no amount of talking is going to stop ISIL. They simply do not care about international opinion. At all. Put them in Israel’s position, with a comparable army to the IDF, and they absolutely would sow the fields with the blood of their enemies. Words cost nothing. But they can influence Israel. To stop the slaughter of the Yazidi, it’s going to take combat. Troops, on the ground, fighting ISIL in cities. It will take wealth. Driving out the ISIL troops will not be cheap. And it will not be quick. The problem with organizations like ISIL and al-Qaida, is that routing them in the field simply shatters their operational command. The individuals will keep fighting on, until you root them out and destroy them. There’s no one to “sign a cease fire” with. If you were to capture al-Baghdadi, and tried to force him to sign a surrender, no one in ISIL would abide by it. They’re not an army. So destroying them root and branch will take years.
So it comes down to laziness. It’s easy, cheap, and quick to talk-talk at the Israelis, and it will eventually lead to a cease fire (long enough for Hamas to refill its supply of Katyusha rockets). Stopping ISIL, not so much.
6 comments:
The good news is that any action we are compelled to take to save the Yazidi is a step in the direction of supporting the Kurds -- since this is a Kurdish sect. Almost all the practical measures beyond 'getting those guys off the mountain' involve support to the Kurdish free government. And supporting a free Kurdistan is the first step to making things right over there.
I found myself on a sickening comments site a couple of days ago, the Atlantic or some such place. This was not merely a group of people reflexively critical of Israel for an "asymmetrical response," it was people openly suggesting that the reason Jews come in for persecution is that they're an annoying people who need to be killed. Not just the occasional isolated commenter, either, but a whole, unified group of them.
It never really goes away, does it?
On another site some idiot tried to persuade me that Hamas isn't devoted to the destruction of Israel and all Jews it can get its hands on, because the statements to that effect in its 1988 charter were part of an "archaic" document that has been somehow belied by Hamas leadership's public statements and action in the interim. Poor, misunderstood Hamas. All they want is a chance for peace.
The author of the piece demanded to know how we'd feel if our society had been under occupation for generations? I said my society had been: remember that little unpleasantness called the Civil War? And yet Southerners didn't dance in the streets when the World Trade towers came down. We've spent the last 150 years making the South a place people voluntarily move to and flourish in. I asked, when you see a Confederate flag, do you think, "Oh, what an adorable cultural survival. I so understand why those rednecks would be nursing a deadly grudge against Yankee culture." What if post-1945 Germany and Japan had refused to get on with turning their countries into a fit place to live?
Gaza is a cesspool, right up there with Sierra Leone, it's as simple as that. It will stay a cesspool until its inhabitants get their act together, and no amount of international aid will fix the problem--in fact, it seems to exacerbate it.
It's not much different from the disregard of 100+ thousand Syrians butchered.
It's not en vogue to care about the victims of terrorism, nor is it a proper understanding of the situation. Those terrorists are just misunderstood victims, and how dare us whites--but especially white joos--object to their misbehaviors. After all, we only got our own success by climbing over the backs of those poor unfortunates.
The good news is that any action we are compelled to take to save the Yazidi is a step in the direction of supporting the Kurds....
But that's only a happy (from our perspective; from the Left, not so much) side effect of some token flights over the area. In the words of Matthew Rojansky in talking about the desparate need to negotiate with Russia over Ukraine, We...do it for moral reasons to show that we're doing something..... Full stop.
The Left would have us drop some blankets, tease the Kurds with a couple of bomb drops, all solely to calm the wrong-headed Right, and then turn their backs again.
Eric Hines
Once again, I fully acknowledge that anti-Semitism is part of it. I also know that many are just liberals who see this as a contest between "oppressive white Europeans" and the "oppressed brown people of the world". But as with Syria, a big reason there's no outpouring of concern for the oppressed masses in Sinjar is because the cheap, easy, lazy solution of talking to the aggressors won't actually do anything. But it will with the Israelis. Which, when you think about it, speaks volumes about the honor and character of the Israelis.
Exactly. Why bother with outrage against people who won't understand or care about it? But we hold Israelis to a human standard.
Which is why it's so weird that people of that mindset can simultaneously sympathize with the barbarians and look down on the Jews.
Why would the Left take a stand against their allies in the Islamic Jihad? Israel is their enemy or their ally's enemy. Supporting ISIL with funding, as the US has done with training in Syria and Libya and arms deals in Qatar, and supporting Hamas are one and the same strategically.
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