By GI Korea on January 2nd, 2009 at 10:30 am

Disproportionate Retaliation?

• USinKorea
  6:02 am on January 2nd, 2009 1

  I'd like to see the cartoonist react to – say – Japan sending a lightly-armed bass boat to Tokdo…

• David
  12:23 pm on January 2nd, 2009 2

  Whatever it is Israel has done in the past obviously doesn't work.

• tokyojesusfist
  12:46 pm on January 2nd, 2009 3

  Well, I guess this answers my earlier question about what Koreans think about the situation. In retrospect the answer is pretty obvious since a) almost nobody likes Jews, and b) Israel is a staunch ally of the US.

  Nobody complaining about disproportionate use of force has seriously considered what it would really mean if Israel responded "proportionately" to Hamas attacks: for every Hamas rocket aimed at Israeli civilians, the IDF would aim one at Palestinian civilians. Naturally, everyone would then complain that the IDF is targeting civilians (wait a second, what's Hamas doing again?). There's also the fact that Israel is probably the only country in the world that's supposed to adhere to some vaguely defined principle of "proportionality." Not even the US was accused of a disproportionate response when they invaded Afghanistan (or when they invaded Japan).

  If people have to defend some idea or position using intellectually dishonest and irrational arguments, it's safe to assume that what they are defending is bullshit.

• gerry
  1:22 pm on January 2nd, 2009 4

  Why is it that South Korea seems to have developed, over the years, an anti Israel view? There is no reason for Korea to be anti-semitic , yet this is the third or fourth article I have read of South Korea and its anti-semitic views towards Israel. It makes no sense to me.

• Mark
  2:43 pm on January 2nd, 2009 5

  For right or wrong, the Holocaust has given the Jews a carte blanche to deal with enemies on the harshest of terms without threat of external intervention.

• In Seoul
  6:46 pm on January 2nd, 2009 6

  I’m not a big fan of either group in this conflict. However, I notice the cartoonist uses a slingshot to depict Palestinian weaponry. I wonder if the families of the Jewish casualties view the rockets as insignificant weapons. By the way, wasn’t Hamas that began firing first ‘again’?

• Brian
  8:21 pm on January 2nd, 2009 7

  Yeah, well I don't think the Holocaust should give Israel a carte blanche.

  As I'm sure you're aware, GI, the Korea Times has objectionable cartoons pretty regularly. But to be fair, the cartoonist doesn't draw them exclusively for that paper. He's syndicated, although of course the KT really needs to stop having someone so thoughtless in their paper, as it reflects poorly on them.

• JoeC
  10:23 pm on January 2nd, 2009 8

  #4

  Reading some articles or seeing some cartoons leads you to believe that 'South Korea' has an 'anti-Israel' view? By 'South Korea', do you mean the South Korean government or South Korean people?

  You must know that the media in South Korea ranges across the same spectrum of ideology as you will find in the U.S. So how can they define any one 'South Korea' view.

  Then, somehow, anti-Israel is translated to anti-Semitic. Hopefully you are also aware that anti-Semitic does not mean, as is commonly misunderstood, anti-Jewish. Semitic is a linguistic designation for Middle Eastern peoples that included among others, Hebrew (Jewish) people AND Arabs. The Palestinians are and Arabic people so I am not clear on why South Korean would have an anti-Semitic view against Israel. Their anti-Semitic view is not also against the Palestinians?

  Anyway, my point is, for too long our ability to act as honest brokers in the mess that is the Israel Palestinian conflict have been hampered by our hang up with religious and ethnic taboos. The subject of Israel has been a third rail of American politics. If you believe the state of Israel was deeded in a divine covenant (Zionism), then end of discussion. Nothing to negotiate. If you believe, as Gov. Palin said, that we can never second guess Israel, maybe out some guilt over the Holocaust, then they have omnipotent immunity and impunity. They shoot up another USS Liberty, 'Oh well, sh*t happens.' We will forever be locked into abstaining from any international condemnation of anything they do.

  Here is where we are now. Hamas launches indiscriminate rockets into Israel that so far as we know have not resulted in any casualties. Israel responds by targeting Hamas's leaders with heavy collateral damage.

  Hamas was just a radical extremist group until democratically elected in a democratic process we pushed for. Those Palestinians chose radical leadership because they were tired of being victims and seeing little results from negotiations. Settlers were still encroaching on their lands and their accesses to commerce were being fenced off. People turn to extremism when they feel desperation and hopelessness. There return to moderation when they see hope and progress.

  The same thing has been happening in Israel. They cycle through choosing compromising leaders when they believe in the promise of real peace and they turn more hawkish, Zionist leaders when they are fed up and believe their is no hope for peace.

  If we, the U.S., want to mediate and reset the perceptions over there, we have to come in without preconceived biases and be able to tell both sides equally when they are wrong.

• In Seoul
  10:47 pm on January 2nd, 2009 9

  "Here is where we are now. Hamas launches indiscriminate rockets into Israel that so far as we know have not resulted in any casualties."

  From what I have read, JoeC, there have been a number of Israeli casualties. A construction worker was killed by a rocket in Ashdod, and I believe there have been at least five other deaths; however, I am not sure on an exact figure because I have not been following it that closely.

• USinKorea
  11:02 pm on January 2nd, 2009 10

  I've met a handful of Korean graduate students over the years who had what I considered at the time some odd attachment to the Israel/Jewish issue. I was surprised that they cared much about it at all given the lack of contact between Korea and Palestine. What I came away with from listening to them is that — they were jealous of the amount of attention the Jews got due to the Holocaust while the world was ignorant of "the holocaust" that happened in Korea under the Japanese (and Korea's thousands of years history of being invaded). That was the root of their somewhat angry thoughts on Israel – coupled with the fact of the US strong relationship with it and the negative attitude of the rest of the nations in that region to the United States.

  That last part seemed to be connected with this same group of Korean intellectuals' pining for the good old days of the Cold War where at least another nation (Russia) could "stand up to" the United States. The nations like Iran, Pakistan, Libya, and the peoples of the Middle East got favorable kudos simply for their level of dislike/hatred for the US.

  It was pretty much that simple in these conversations. I can't remember hearing lines of argument like — South Korea needs oil and can do a lot of business with these oil rich nations. Or other national interest issues. It was pretty much, "Somebody has to stand up to America" type talk.

• USinKorea
  11:06 pm on January 2nd, 2009 11

  #8

  If the US government wants to be honest brokers in the area, it should recognize and openly rebuke the cradle-to-grave demonization of the Jews with a central tenant being wiping the state of Israel off the map. It should be publicizing and ridiculing things like a jihadist Mickey Mouse program aimed at teaching toddlers that Jews are monkeys and subhumans or having parades with children dressed in suicide bombing outfits.

  It isn't lack of jobs or a security fence or check-points that are just holding the supporters of Hamas back from being peaceniks….

• tokyojesusfist
  11:34 pm on January 2nd, 2009 12

  #8, anti-Israel is often translated to anti-semitic because arguments against Israel often boil down to "those goddamn Jews, Hitler should have finished what he started" once you filter out the nonsense, disinformation, intellectual dishonesty and blatant double standards.

  As for the meaning of the word anti-semitism, everyone uses it to refer to anti-Jewishness. That may not (yet) be the dictionary definiton, but that's how it's used in practise.

• Sonagi
  12:40 am on January 3rd, 2009 13

  anti-Israel is often translated to anti-semitic because arguments against Israel often boil down to “those goddamn Jews, Hitler should have finished what he started” once you filter out the nonsense, disinformation, intellectual dishonesty and blatant double standards.

  Most Arabs and a few hardcore Western anti-Semites do wish to see Israel and the Jews disappear. Most Western critics of Israel hold those views not because of any deepseated hatred of the Jews but because of perceptions that Israel is not blameless in the conflict. An example of this is the infamous wall. Israel has the right to put up a wall to protect itself, but the wall intrudes into Palestinian territory in parts. Israel does not have the right to appropriate more Palestinian land on top of its 1948 claims legimitized by UN recognition. The cartoon misleads by depicting the dead Palestinian with a slingshot instead of a rocket. At most, it is anti-Israeli; it is not anti-Semitic.

• gerry
  1:38 am on January 3rd, 2009 14

  JOEC,

  While the etymology of the word (anti-semite) would seem to include all persons of semetic background, its use has historically been applied to only the Jews.

• GI Korea
  1:55 am on January 3rd, 2009 15

  There have been Israeli casualties by the rocket attacks which are mitigated by the fact residents have to live in bomb shelters. These rockets attacks have been going on for years now and were restarted again a week before Israel's current offensive:

  This working-class border town has been pounded with several thousand missiles fired out of Gaza since 2001. Now anxiety is mixed with satisfaction that Israel's military is finally getting even with its tormentors.

  "It's about time," said Victor Turjeman, a 33-year-old electrician. "We've been waiting for this for eight years."

  In that time, rockets have killed eight people here, injured hundreds more and made daily life unbearable.

  Turjeman said his four children have been traumatized by the near daily attacks, his home has been damaged and his brother had a heart attack after a rocket exploded nearby. He fears escalation, but said he was pleased that the militant group Hamas was finally being punished.

  "We should keep pounding them until they beg for mercy," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, all of Gaza can be erased."

  Israeli warplanes have struck furiously at Hamas positions in Gaza since Saturday, killing about 380 people, according to Palestinian health officials.

  Elsewhere in southern Israel, however, people were increasingly fearful, and many followed army instructions to begin preparing bomb shelters. Four Israelis were killed by rockets since the Israeli offensive began, some in attacks that struck farther into Israel than ever before.

  This offensive is a culmination of frustration by Israelis with the rocket attacks. Plus Hamas is receiving even longer range rockets from Iran that target cities further into Israeli territory then ever before. Even Beersheba is now under rocket attack:

  Outside the central bus station, Mazal Ivgi, 62, said she couldn't believe their city, 28 miles from Gaza, would be hit.

  "When the first 'boom' comes, we'll have to get used to a new situation," she said.

  That first attack on Beersheba came Tuesday. One long-range rocket hit it an open area outside the city, and the mayor told Israel television that a second missile struck an empty kindergarten.

  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/wir…

  Israel in responses to these attacks is going in there to target Hamas' leadership as well as their capability to fire longer range rockets.

  Also when Hamas' builds facilities underneath hospitals and apartments no one seems to care:

  Shin Bet chief briefs cabinet on day five of Gaza offensive, says terror operatives hide in hospitals, mosques. IDF: Hamas increases use of densely populated areas for launching pads.

  http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3648020…

  So while Hamas fires rockets from densely populated areas and hides in hospitals that are striking deeper and deeper into Israel, Israelis are supposed to sit back and hide in their bunkers all day and suffer property damage and ocassional death and casualties because to do anything about it would be disproportionate?

  Plus there is more to this on what is going on. Here is a good read on why Arab governments have not strongly condemned Israel for the Gaza incursion, because many of them agree with the incursion:

  http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-gaza-war-is-it-r…

• Maruyama Masao
  8:38 am on January 3rd, 2009 16

  "If the US government wants to be honest brokers in the area, it should recognize and openly rebuke the cradle-to-grave demonization of the Jews with a central tenant being wiping the state of Israel off the map. It should be publicizing and ridiculing things like a jihadist Mickey Mouse program aimed at teaching toddlers that Jews are monkeys and subhumans or having parades with children dressed in suicide bombing outfits."

  That's fair. But in the spirit of fairness, I think it would be incumbent on officials from the US government to openly rebuke and castigate those elements of the Israeli settler movement that believe God has given them a divine imprimature to willy-nilly illegally barge into territories that it has no business in.

  How many times has it been that zealots from these settler movements openly defy stipulations in diplomatic agreements and official policy proclamations that explicitly prohibit such activities? Can anybody think of an instance were the US government, let alone the Israeli government has utilized its considerable power, influence, and leverage to curb such settlement activity?

  Frankly, it's rather odd for USinKorea to be harping on the educational pedagogy of Palestinian youth as detriment to the US being an honest broker in relation to this imbroglio. What USinKorea sees as a problem compares rather poorly when considered next to what the settler movement does. Both sides have a very warped philosophical disposition, but only one has the ability to create oppressive social facts on the ground that severely harm the viability of another group.

  Yes, Palestinian education paves the way for groups such as Hamas to launch rockets and create havoc for Israeli society. But such activities have never stolen land or displaced individuals from their homes. Neocons, Likudniks, and their fellow travelers like to talk about an existential threat that Israel faces vis-a-vis Hamas' activities, what's ironic is that they hardly ever broach the real activity that poses a true existential threat: the illegal expropriation of land. Simply put, if you are group that has any hope of becoming a sovereign entity ownership of land is crucial. Just ask the early Zionists, they could explain to you better than I ever could.

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