Little-Acorn
03-11-2008, 01:37 PM
The author makes an excellent point. By pretending the ongoing violence in and around Israel is merely tit-for-tat exchanges, rather than the spectre of one group trying to annihilate the other while the other tries to stop it, the major media basically lends legitimacy to the attackers that they don't merit, and denies any chance of peace to the people they are attacking.
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http://michaelmedved.townhall.com/blog/g/467f750e-13cc-4d6f-8fd6-ba0cbaa67041
No "Cycle of Violence" In the Middle East
Posted by: Michael Medved at 8:18 PM
Friday, March 07, 2008
In covering Palestinian terror attacks against Israel, leading media outlets often employ the hateful, misleading phrase “cycle of violence.” After a Jerusalem gunman entered the library at a religious seminary and murdered eight students, the Wall Street Journal, for instance, noted the incident as part of “the region’s cycle of violence and retaliation.”
This designation, however, implies a moral equivalence between those who attempt to end terrorism against unarmed innocents, and those who seek to keep it going.
The “cycle of violence” also implies that either party could break the vicious pattern, but they’re both too stubborn and vengeful to do so. Actually, the Israelis have tried on countless occasions to end the cycle by giving Palestinians what they said they wanted – support for statehood in the Oslo accords, and even removal of all Jewish soldiers and settlements from Gaza, along with a policy to stay out of this Palestinian territory as long as its residents left Israel alone. The result was actually a sharp increase in terrorist rocket attacks, with nearly 1,000 in 2008 alone. Does anyone honestly believe that if Israel stopped all strikes against Hamas, that the Gaza terrorists would give up their attacks?
The mirror-image question shows the asymmetrical nature of this struggle: if Gaza, through some miracle, suddenly stopped the daily barrage against Israel, would anyone expect Israel to continue its strikes against Gaza? The Israelis repeatedly emphasize their desire to leave Gaza entirely alone, and even to support its peaceful progress, if the terrorists only halted their shelling of schools, homes, hospitals and factories
In other words, in the midst of the current agony two conclusions should seem obvious about the so-called “cycle of violence” ---
1.) The Palestinians could end it instantly by ending their daily attacks.
2.) The Israelis remain powerless to stop it, because the Palestinians promise and demonstrate that they’ll continue their ceaseless assault regardless of what Israelis do.
In other words, only one party to this conflict can put an end to the “cycle” of killing. Kindness and concessions have never stopped terrorists from behaving like terrorists. The only strategy that seems to work involves imposing consequences, and changing the calculus through which bloody outrages too often produce favorable publicity and political gains. Instead, the forces of civilization need to making the results of terror attacks vastly more terrible for the perpetrators than for their victims.
----------------------------------
http://michaelmedved.townhall.com/blog/g/467f750e-13cc-4d6f-8fd6-ba0cbaa67041
No "Cycle of Violence" In the Middle East
Posted by: Michael Medved at 8:18 PM
Friday, March 07, 2008
In covering Palestinian terror attacks against Israel, leading media outlets often employ the hateful, misleading phrase “cycle of violence.” After a Jerusalem gunman entered the library at a religious seminary and murdered eight students, the Wall Street Journal, for instance, noted the incident as part of “the region’s cycle of violence and retaliation.”
This designation, however, implies a moral equivalence between those who attempt to end terrorism against unarmed innocents, and those who seek to keep it going.
The “cycle of violence” also implies that either party could break the vicious pattern, but they’re both too stubborn and vengeful to do so. Actually, the Israelis have tried on countless occasions to end the cycle by giving Palestinians what they said they wanted – support for statehood in the Oslo accords, and even removal of all Jewish soldiers and settlements from Gaza, along with a policy to stay out of this Palestinian territory as long as its residents left Israel alone. The result was actually a sharp increase in terrorist rocket attacks, with nearly 1,000 in 2008 alone. Does anyone honestly believe that if Israel stopped all strikes against Hamas, that the Gaza terrorists would give up their attacks?
The mirror-image question shows the asymmetrical nature of this struggle: if Gaza, through some miracle, suddenly stopped the daily barrage against Israel, would anyone expect Israel to continue its strikes against Gaza? The Israelis repeatedly emphasize their desire to leave Gaza entirely alone, and even to support its peaceful progress, if the terrorists only halted their shelling of schools, homes, hospitals and factories
In other words, in the midst of the current agony two conclusions should seem obvious about the so-called “cycle of violence” ---
1.) The Palestinians could end it instantly by ending their daily attacks.
2.) The Israelis remain powerless to stop it, because the Palestinians promise and demonstrate that they’ll continue their ceaseless assault regardless of what Israelis do.
In other words, only one party to this conflict can put an end to the “cycle” of killing. Kindness and concessions have never stopped terrorists from behaving like terrorists. The only strategy that seems to work involves imposing consequences, and changing the calculus through which bloody outrages too often produce favorable publicity and political gains. Instead, the forces of civilization need to making the results of terror attacks vastly more terrible for the perpetrators than for their victims.