Israel Matzav

Tony Blair's anti-Semitic sister-in-law

Lauren Booth's main qualification to discuss the Middle East is that she is the sister-in-law of quartet envoy and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. But for her famous brother-in-law, it is doubtful that this despicable excuse for a human being would be heard at all.

Booth has written an article on the web site of Jewish anti-Semite Gilad Atzmon calling for the end of the Jewish state. Yaacov Lozowick, whose blood pressure must be under much better control than mine, rips her letter to shreds.

The crux of our very substantial disagreement is when you write about your friends in the Free Gaza Movement:

They are to a man (and to a woman) kind, concerned citizens of the world. People, who simply cannot go about their normal daily lives whilst your state, your army, your settlers torment other human beings. Every minute of every day. Of every month. Of every year.

For sixty two years.

Where to begin?

First, you've got your chronology wrong. The first time Palestinian leaders incited a mob to murder Jews for the crime of Zionism was in 1920, then again in 1921. There have been ups and downs ever since, but the Jewish-Palestinian war has been raging for 90 years, not 62.

Second, since it's war we're discussing, I really think we should focus on the worst aspect, loss of life. The true numbers are fiendishly hard to estimate and frankly impossible to know with much accuracy, but the total number of Palestinians killed in their war with Israel is below 35,000, and that includes soldiers, children, suicide murderers and innocent women. In almost a century. Care to look at some other numbers about the 65 years since the end of WW2? Here are some of the big ones:

...

You're British, Ms. Booth, so you must be aware of the British participation in some of these conflicts. Still, allow me to point out the single worst Post-WW2 chapter, the Mau Mau war in Kenya, in the 1950s. Your soldiers killed more Kenyans, in those eight years, many of them civilians, than Israel has killed Palestinians in a century - and in defense of what, exactly? Need I mention the war against the Islamists, raging as we talk, in which the numbers of dead civilians at the hands of Coalition forces are larger than the numbers of dead Palestinians, probably significantly larger but no-one gives all the numbers?

Don't these numbers rather indicate that Israel is not anywhere near the list of large killers? In spite of its being continually at war for a century? And since it isn't, might this actually indicate that it restrains its use of power and makes an effort not to kill people at random? If you can read these numbers differently, I'm listening, but I warn that I've given the matter much serious thought all my life, and am comfortable saying that we do try to wage our wars morally. Actually, you might be interested in a description I once wrote of how this is done in practice. Ask yourself, while you do those house chores, if you can even imagine the moral challenge we face, and if you'd face it better.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:22 AM