Short excerpt, read it all:
Arab hostility toward Israel seems to oscillate between pathological aggression and victimized resentment, underscored the entire time by utterly shameless denial. So Hamas can violate the ceasefire for months by shooting at Israeli civilians and at Israeli soldiers. They can brag openly about those violations. They can declare over and over in the plainest terms that they have no interest in renewing a ceasefire. They can hold barbaric rallies and go so far as to mock Israel for keeping whatever ceasefire there is while they themselves are violating it. But after three days of Israeli self-defense UN officials are standing on stage telling international media outlets that Hamas was observing a super-secret ceasefire and Israel is responsible for its breakdown. It's jaw-droppingly brazen.
It's hard to blame the Palestinians for trying though. This has been a successful anti-Israel trick for more than half a century. Months and years of genocidal incitement, boasts about glorious Arab victory, derision of Israeli cowardice - and then, when Israel responds, a frantic run into the international community's skirts to moan piteously about Israeli aggression. It's not just that the West let this become a habit. Through international conferences where anti-Semitism is excused as "anti-Zionism," routine bait-and-switch anti-Israel diplomacy, and pervasive anti-Israel double standards - the international community has spent decades creating and nursing this pathological petulance. It's been this way since before Arab and Muslim countries realized they could excuse their genocidal rantings by reference to "The Occupation" (although in subsequent years they became so enamored with that bit of rhetoric that they invoke it even when it makes no sense - it's a reflexive verbal tic, a placeholder for "now I get to say something anti-Semitic about Zionist cabals").
How deeply entrenched is this tactic? It goes back at least as far as the Six Day War and probably to the 1950s. It's always the exact same pattern - vicious aggression, spectacular failure, historical revisionism (Lebanon II is the exception - since Hezbollah could claim victory they get to boast about how they deliberately maneuvered Israel into the war). The next few paragraphs are an overview of the broad sweep of anti-Israel diplomacy, mostly to show how tediously predictable this stunt is. If you don't have the patience for that you can just drop down to the link dump at the bottom. It's a small demonstration of the sheer mendacity it must be taking to rewrite the few weeks before Operation Cast Lead. But if you skip the middle you'll miss out on all the insanely frustrating historical parallels.
I added Omri Ceren's blog to the blogroll and his RSS feed. Worth browsing every now and then.
Previous great post by Omri Ceren: Anti-Israel Photojournalists Struggling To Cope With Extensive Israeli Humanitarian Measures, Low Palestinian Collateral Damage
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