Netanyahu’s ‘Telegenically Dead’ Comment Is Grotesque but Not Original

[Divernan]

(Note, this column refers to Netanyahu's comments on July 20.)
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/21/netanyahus-telegenically-dead-comment-original/

Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday, on CNN, addressing worldwide sympathy for the civilian victims of Israeli violence in Gaza: "They want to pile up as many civilian dead as they can. They use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause. They want the more dead, the better."

Joseph Goebbels, November 16, 1941, essay in Das Reich, addressing Germany sympathy for German Jews forced to wear yellow stars: "The Jews gradually are having to depend more and more on themselves, and have recently found a new trick. They knew the good-natured German Michael in us, always ready to shed sentimental tears for the injustice done to them. One suddenly has the impression that the Berlin Jewish population consists only of little babies whose childish helplessness might move us, or else fragile old ladies. The Jews send out the pitiable. They may confuse some harmless souls for a while, but not us. We know exactly what the situation is.

One can say many things about a military operation that results in more than 75 percent of the dead being civilians, many of them children, aimed at a population trapped in a tiny area with no escape. The claim that there is no intent to kill civilians but rather an intent to protect them is most assuredly not among them. Even stalwart Israel supporter Thomas Friedman has previously acknowledged that Israeli assaults on Lebanon, and possibly in Gaza, are intended ”to inflict substantial property damage and collateral casualties” because “the only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians” (which, to the extent it exists, is the classic definition of “terrorism”). The most generous claim one can make about what Israel is now doing in Gaza is that it is driven by complete recklessness toward the civilian population it is massacring, a form of intent under centuries of well-settled western law.
* * * * *

American journalism is frequently criticized with great justification, but there are a number of American journalists in Gaza, along with non-western ones, in order to tell the world about what is happening there. That reporting is incredibly brave and difficult, and those who are doing it merit the highest respect. Their work, along with the prevalence of social media and internet technology that allows Gazans themselves to document what is happening, has changed the way Israeli aggression is seen and understood this time around.

[hrmjustin]

1. Wow he really said that!

[HooptieWagon]

2. Both far right.

Similar message, similar policies.

[sabrina 1]

3. He and Dick Cheney, heartless, cruel and war criminals, both of them. The world will be a safer plac

for everyone when these two are brought to justice. Which will never happen until an overwhelming majority of the PEOPLE finally have had enough. I would say from the reaction to Netanyahu's latest attacks on innocent people, we are getting there. While our governments do not listen to the people, there is a lot the people can do themselves, such as boycotts eg, which helped end South African Apartheid.

He isn't just harming the Palestinian people, he is harming Israel.