The Imbalance Of Terror

What If Israel Were In Your Neighborhood?

By RUSSELL MOKHIBER
January 27, 2009
Courtesy Of CounterPunch

I left Washington last week when many of friends and family members were coming here to celebrate the inauguration of our first African-American President.

My eleven year-old son asked me – why turn your back on Obama?

I threw back at him Martin Luther King – It's not the color of his skin, it's the content of his character.

What does it say about Obama's character that he sides with the Israeli slaughter machine against those that it slaughters?

What does it say about the character of his "progressive" supporters, who cry for joy at his inauguration, but say not a peep about the slaughter machine and its victims?

(See, for example, former AIPAC staffer and "progressive Democratic" columnist David Sirota, who broke down and cried watching Obama's inauguration, but has not written one word about the slaughter in Gaza.)

Earlier this month, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) took out full page ads in major newspapers around the country.

The ad was titled: What if Hamas Was in Your Neighborhood?

The ad showed missiles reigning down on Phoenix, or Boston, or Washington, D.C.

"Imagine if Hamas terrorists were targeting you and your family," the ad read. "No country would allow such danger on its border, and neither will Israel. That's why Israel is fighting back."

In response, the American Arab Anti-Defamation Committee (ADC) last week put up an ad on its web site titled – What If Israel Were in Your Neighborhood? (Link to ad at: http://www.adc.org/PDF/gazaposter.pdf)

Answer?

Death and Destruction with American built F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters.

Yes, when Hamas launches rockets that kill innocent civilians, it engages in war crimes.

But Hamas has no Army, no Navy, no Air Force.

The slaughter machine has a modern military with hundreds of nuclear weapons and U.S. supplied F-16s and Apache helicopters.

So, there is a balance of terror.

And the Palestinian bodies tip the scales in the slaughter machine's favor.

Since the first rocket was launched into Israel in 2002 up until the December 17, 2008 invasion of Gaza, the Israel body count was maybe two dozen.

The Palestinian body count was 2,700.

That would be about 100 to one.

Since the invasion, the Israeli body count is 14.

The Palestinian body count was more than 1,400.

That would be about 100 to one.

As the ADC ad puts it: "Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by self-defense. An armed attack that is not justified by self-defense is a war of aggression. Under the Nuremberg Principles affirmed by U.N. Resolution 95, aggression is a crime against peace. Prosecute Israel for War Crimes."

So, here's one concrete thing you can do to counter the slaughter machine's propaganda.

If you are interested in placing the "What If Israel Were in Your Neighborhood?" ad in your local newspaper, contact ADC's Nabil Mohammad at organizing@adc.org.

Turn the tide of terror.

Russell Mokhiber edits the Corporate Crime Reporter.