Point / Counterpoint: The response 'The Guardian' wouldn't print

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A case to answer

"Evidence that Israel committed war crimes in its 23-day operation in Gaza mounts by the week. Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have both appealed for a United Nations inquiry, after conducting their own investigations."
Editorial
The Guardian (London)
March 24, 2009

Over the past few days, the Guardian has been publishing a torrent of reports, opinion pieces, and video clips condemning Israel for war crimes during the Gaza conflict, and calling for an international inquiry and intervention by the International Criminal Court.
 
These articles have produced hundreds (and probably thousands) of responses on the paper's Web site, "Comment is Free" (CiF), many of which have depicted Israel as a country inhabited by monsters.
 
While heavily criticizing Israel's actions in Gaza, the paper has apparently been selective in its willingness to publish responses from supporters of Israel criticizing what they say is the Guardian's extreme lack of balance and proportion. One of the more detailed responses, from a reader named "TheVoiceOfIsrael," which was removed from the CiF site by the Guardian's moderators, is on my desk.

I am providing it here because I can find no justifiable reason why the editors of any respectable newspaper would remove it, and because the counter-arguments are well presented.

There can be absolutely no apology for any unlawful or degrading acts committed by Israeli soldiers during the Gaza campaign. There has ostensibly been evidence of such acts from Israel's own soldiers reported in the Israeli press, and Israel's Advocate-General, Avichai Mendleblit, has launched a full inquiry into these allegations.

The public outcry in Israel has been heard loudly on Israeli television, in the press and from many Knesset members. Israel's former military spokesman, Brigadier-General Nachman Shai, has spoken out emotionally and categorically in demanding a full and immediate investigation.

But we have been inundated by the Guardian with reports, video clips and opinion pieces describing the shocking, ugly, disgraceful, atrocities (if you believe it) committed by my people - Israel.
Either we in Israel are the most inhumane monsters ever to walk God's earth, or there is something wrong - very wrong - at the Guardian.

What we are reading here in the Guardian is a witch-hunt of the worst kind. Fifteen articles (FIFTEEN!!!) within just a couple of days condemning Israelis as monsters. This diatribe would shame the most virulent Palestinian propaganda site.

As if the UK armed forces in Iraq have not been accused by Amnesty International and others of such atrocities as having shot and killed Iraqi civilians, including an eight-year-old girl and a guest at a wedding celebration.

As if American soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq have not reported to the press on atrocities committed by the British and Americans there.

As if the shameful, immoral and degrading acts by American soldiers at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison never occurred.

Baha Mousa, an Iraqi hotel receptionist, was beaten to death in the custody of British troops in Basra in 2003, and no British soldiers were ever convicted of this killing.

American soldiers have been accused of defecating in Muslim places of worship, and British soldiers accused (by their own attorney-general) of abuses in Iraq that 'apparently involved making the victims engage in sexual activity between themselves.'

And need we go back to the Falkland war, which has been called the cleanest war in British history, in which the British army was accused in the UK press of shooting Argentinean prisoners in cold blood.

War is hell, and it brings out the best in some of us and the worst in others. But reports on the behavior of soldiers in war must be told in context and in proportion. As an Argentinean officer said in an interview during the Falkland war: 'We are honored to face in battle such an enemy as Great Britain.'

For despite the disgraceful behavior of some British, American and Israeli soldiers, most people would by far prefer to face these armies in war then the Palestinians, the Iraqis, the Syrians, the Iranians, or the Russians.

No Israeli soldier will appear before the International Court, not only  because that court has shown time and time again that it is incapable of dealing impartially with the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but more importantly because Israel is perfectly capable of dealing with any illegal acts by its own soldiers - certainly no less than are Britain or the US capable of doing so. Israel has a total lack of confidence and no need for this heavily politicized court and, like the United States and other countries, has never accepted its authority.

This will not please the apologists for Hamas and the supporters of the Palestinians, and we can expect to continue to hear their outcry for months to come. The Israel-Palestinian conflict is being conducted on many fronts of which the media is but one, and they are doing their bit for their side.

But for a more balanced perspective on Israel in Gaza, you may want to read a recent editorial from The Independent (not exactly a pro-Israel newspaper)."