Why I’m not blogging on the Middle East

I have Jewish and Palestinian friends. None of them have any burning desire to exterminate the others, it’s a shame the opinion doesn’t seem to be spreading. Contrary to received wisdom in some quarters it is possible to criticise the Israeli offensive without being anti-semitic. Borrowing from Savage Minds, criticism of Israel’s actions in the Occupied Territories and Lebanon is only automatically anti-semitic if you think:

• Current Israeli policy is the only possible policy the state of Israel can hold.

• The current state of Israel is the only possible form of Zionism.

• Zionism is the only possible form of Judaism.

If you don’t accept all three steps, for instance if you have the view that Jews can live outside of Israel then it is possible to criticise without automatically being a neo-nazi.

But, as Jeremy Stangroom pointed out the difficulty in criticising Israeli policy is this kind of thing.

(picture of a protestor’s placard with photo of a dead child and a remarkably stupid caption below the fold)

Hizbullah. Photo by -NB.

It’s not the killing of Lebanese civilians I’m against. I’m against the killing of civilians. Hizbullah are no more noble than the IDF. The only reason there are fewer Israeli casualties is that Hizbullah and Hamas are more poorly equipped. If Haifa could be awash with blood then there’d be someone willing to pull the trigger. The reason I’m against current Israeli action is that it makes no differentiation between civilian and terrorist. Just like the placard above.

Hizbullah knew what the consequences were because Israel was giving a demonstration in Gaza. Knowing this they copied Hamas because they need a polarised Middle East to maintain their position. It’s the politics of “You’re with us or against us” where tribalism replaces rational argument. Need to more new recruits? You’re with us or against us. The conflict will continue indefinitely as long as people are willing to accept that indiscriminate killing is acceptable by one side or the other, because the other isn’t really human.

Not open to comment for pretty much the same reasons as Coturnix – though if this offends you then feel free to set up your own blog to criticise me there. Debates on the Middle East usually produce more heat than light and there’s plenty of other blogs which would be happy to debate politics.

I’m putting this up as I’d like to blog about Edward Fox’s book Sacred Geography (also published under other titles) and Meron Benvenisti’s Sacred Landscape which look at politics dominates landscape history and archaeology in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Potentially a troll magnet at the best of times, so this up to refer back to if/when I do it. If you comment on one of those posts and see it disappear then this may explain why. I might update the comment policy on this blog but for now it remains:

This site employs the same comment policy as your least favourite braindead left/right [delete according to preference] wing weblog.

Enjoy.