It's the Jews stupid!

Here's a superb article at the Wall Street Journal by Brett Stephens, asking some uncomfortable questions of the anti-Israel crowd: Our Selective Moral Outrage - Why does Israel face more moral opprobrium than Russa?

I would love Dr Ncayiyana from the SA Medical Journal to read this article and then explain why his journal has such a "disproportionate" focus on Israel in contrast to other far worse political hot-spots. 

Few places on earth have been as systematically brutalized over the past decade as Chechnya. So you might have thought that the Russian government's decision last week to declare an end to its "counterterrorism" operations in the territory would have been an occasion for somber reflection in the Western media. Forget it. It's a 600-word news item at best. Here's a contrast to ponder. Since the beginning of the second intifada in the autumn of 2000, roughly 6,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire. That figure includes combatants, as well as those killed in January's fighting in Gaza. As for Chechnya, there are no solid figures for the number of civilians killed since the second war began in late 1999; estimates range anywhere between 25,000 and 200,000. Chechnya's population, at a little over one million, is about one-third or one-fourth that of the Palestinians. That works out to between 25 to 200 Chechen deaths per 1,000, as against 1.5 to 2 Palestinian deaths per 1,000.

Read it all for it is good.

Perhaps some of the herd of anti-Israel activists and commentators truly are not aware of their bias. Perhaps there is some subliminal mechanism at work which blinds them to something which becomes so obvious when you consider some basic facts, such as those mentioned by Stephens in the above article.

Comments

[Jewish]

Russia is much more powerful than Israel...that is why Jews have to respond to so many moral accusations..

[ADP]

errr? So we can kill 6000 people unnecessarily and it is a just act because other nations kill more? There shouldn't be outrage because others kill more? Quite an accomplishment as it stands anyway, that Israel is a more progressive nation than RUSSIA! LOL.

[Steve]

Israel can't simply select an option to have no more Israeli or Palestinian deaths. Suggesting "we can" continue killing because the Russians kill more is not the point of this entry. The point is that people single out Israel and judge them by different standards than the other kids, both in the class and in the school.

By the way, included in the 6000 number are many terrorists. I don't think killing terrorists is unnecessary. You probably think you are unique in your compassion for civilians that are killed on both sides. You are not.