November 03, 2012

Lindsey German responds to Jonathan Freedland's whataboutery

Thanks to Frank Fisher for posting this to the Just Peace UK list.  It's Lindsey German, in The Guardian's Comment is Free, responding to a shameless hasbara effort by Jonathan Freedland where he made out that Syria was getting a free pass to do what "we" condemn Israel for doing, for example, during Cast Lead in 2008/9:

Operation Cast Lead was the deliberate targeting of the Palestinians in Gaza by a highly sophisticated air force funded and armed by the US and its allies. Freedland talks of a "bias against Jews that regards an Arab or Muslim death as only deserving condemnation when Israel is responsible". This dangerously confuses criticism of Israel's domestic and foreign policy with bias against Jewish people. The international outcry sparked by this daily bombardment represented opposition to Israeli policy and in the UK was a condemnation of our own government's collusion.
The conflict in Syria has become a civil war. Contrary to Freedland's claims that western intervention is nigh on impossible, the west and its supporters – Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – are already directly intervening, providing arms and other military support. Their interests are hardly humanitarian, given Saudi Arabia's terrible human rights record and Turkey's longstanding oppression of the Kurds. They are about strategic power and control in the region, which is why those now intervening in Syria also want regime change in Iran.

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