Yet another high-profile rock star has decided to make Israel's security fence his cause celebre.
Roger Waters, the Pink Floyd frontman and bassist, spoke out this week against Israel and said he'd only play a concert again in the Holy Land if the Israelis "tear down the wall", as it were.
You can read the full story here on NME's website
Hey Roger, you had some lyrics awhile back, I believe your last studio album, Amused To Death - released a full 15 years ago, mind you - contained the following lyrics for the song Perfect Sense Part 1.
"And the Germans killed the Jews
And the Jews killed the Arabs
And Arabs killed the hostages
And that is the news.
And is it any wonder
That the monkey's confused?"
Waters, I love your music, but you are the monkey in this instance. There's a reason the wall is up. And no, it's not the same as the Berlin wall, which stood to separate the communist eastern block from the West on a matter of political ideology. The Israeli fence was erected to keep real-life, suicide bombers and terrorists out of the Middle East's only democracy, where they had been killing people indiscriminately for years.
If people were attempting to come into your home through your front door to kill you on a regular basis, it's likely you'd augment your security systems, right? This is simply on a grander scale.
Read Hamas' charter. Listen to the P.A.'s daily radio and TV broadcasts and audit the Palestinian primary school system. It will enlighten you.
And yes, there are two sides to every story. But make sure you understand BOTH sides before passing judgment. There's a reason rock stars aren't in politics, I think.
7 comments:
Anonymous #2,
I agree, security CAN only come from mutual respect. But how can that be attained if one party is dedicated to the destruction of the other at any cost?
I urge you to read Hamas' charter. Or the P.A.'s daily news bulletins which call for violence against Israel. Where is Palestinian civil society? Where are its lay leaders who do not support armed conflict but rather a just peace with Israel with the recognition that Israel has a right to exist?
And I should ask, because this seems to be the crux of many left-wing, out-of-context arguments lately: do you believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state?
As to your other points, look it's all what one chooses to believe, I suppose. But documented evidence and admissions by the UN and Red Cross themselves state that Hamas "militants" were using the designated places of refuge as staging grounds for attacks and taking children as human shields for their missions.
Standing up for justice is a noble position. But it's easy to throw around words like "justice" and "war crimes". Let's look at the reverse narrative: would you categorize Hamas' daily firing of Katyushas and Kassam rockets into southern Israel for months on end as a war crime? Or perhaps you view that as justified resistance?
Loss of life is to be abhorred. But if you believe that Israel exists simply to "occupy" the Palestinian people and cause them misery, there's not much I can say that will sway your opinion.
And while we're talking at each other with selective absorption of information, remember that Israel has a right and a duty to protect its people from attack. As does every other country.
Mother did it need to be so high?
I love israel but
But the kind of response matters. Killing Palestinians and wounding others ) is disproportionate. Hamas can harass, but it cannot pose any threat to the existence of Israel. And just as Hamas's indiscriminate bombing of population centres is a crime against humanity, so is Israel's killing of civilians
from
Anonymous #2 (a gay loving straight Jew)
Anonymous,
Killing is always horrible. But "disproportionate" is another one of those subjective terms.
How would you propose to have stopped rocket attacks into Israel from Gaza?
I find it hard to believe that Israelis WANT to kill Palestinians in "disproportionate" measure. But how do you control that if you're engaged in warfare?
It's gonna sound childish, but to put it in the most basic terms: if Hamas doesn't want its people being killed (oh, and by the way, it does a lot of that on its own via the murder of anyone speaking out against it or who is a Christian Palestinian) they shouldn't try to kill others.
Dear Blintzkrieg,
Israel, as the militarily superior power, can and ought to take the first steps: implementing a massive Marshall Plan in Gaza and in the West Bank to end poverty and unemployment, rebuild infrastructure and encourage investment; dismantle the settlements or make settlers become citizens of a Palestinian state; accept 30,000 Palestinian refugees annually back into Israel for the next 30 years, apologise for its role in the 1948 expulsions and offer to co-ordinate a worldwide compensation effort for all that Palestinians lost during the Occupation; and recognise a Palestinian state within borders already defined by the Geneva Accord of 2003.
This is the only way Israel will ever achieve security. It is the only way to permanently defeat Hamas and all extremists who wish to see endless war against Israel.
from
Anonymous #2 (a gay loving straight Jew)
Anonymous,
you are thinking like a westerner (and Obama). The Arabs in Israel, adjacent to Israel and even beyond, don't give a flick about 'Palestinians'. Giving them a state and self-determination is like wanting to see a stillborn child. They have already rejected various proposed states. They want Israel. They do not want some semi-arid mountains in the West Bank or so garbage dump called Gaza. They want the coastline, they want Israel to cease and desist.
You simply can't force someone to take something they do not want. The issue was and always will be Israel itself, not some villages or settlements on hilltops.
I can't stand the separation fence either. It's ugly and not environmentally friendly. But it works A) physically by adding obstacles to terrorists and B) more importantly, strategically and psychologically by driving into the Arab psyche that they can forget about the Palestine from the Med. to the Euphrates. They have been in a mini-depression since they realize that they really might get stuck only with the resource-less and unsustainable West Bank. No lame Marshall Plan will work on a parcel of land that does not produce anything except olives & oil, grapes & wine (not too Muslim though) and cheap Jerusalem stone.
Seems to me that the people with the loudest opinions always seem to be "anonymous".
I'm not Jewish. Perhaps my opinion doesn't count. I love Israel. I support Israel. I believe that Israel, like ANY nation, has a right to exist and most definitely to defend itself against invasion, war, and hostility. I am humbled and amazed at the Jewish love and tolerance toward their enemies while under attack. What other country in history drops flyers to give people a heads up that they're going to fight back (I should check that out - I failed history). What other country calls ahead and gives them an actual date?? God bless and protect Israel always and forever.
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