In Defense of...Cecil Rhodes?!

"A Defense of Israel"

And

"Why Are Most Liberals Always Against Israel?"

In this post, I want to defend Israel's recent actions and express my thoughts on why most liberals are always against Israel, no matter what the circumstances.  First, let me say a few things:

1) I realize that there is not one "liberal" viewpoint and that not all liberals are the way I describe them.  My name for the type of liberals I'm talking about is "Chomskyan Liberals" (from "Noam Chomsky", whose opinion is gospel to these people).  However, I will refer to these liberals as "liberals" or "many liberals".

2) I do not consider myself a liberal, just like Bernie Sanders (an Independent senator from Vermont) doesn't consider himself a Democrat.  (For the record, I don't consider myself a Democrat, either.)  Bernie Sanders caucuses with the Democrats, however.  He realizes that of the established groups, he has more in common with them than the Republicans.  And similarly, I have much more in common with liberals and Democrats than I have with conservatives and Republicans.

So anyway, have you realized that many liberals are firmly on the side of Palestinian "freedom fighters" (AKA "terrorists") regardless of what side is the true aggressor?  Hundreds of rockets can rain down on Israel, and not one peep can be heard, but when Israel finally gets fed up and answers back with some surgical strikes on military targets (which are purposefully put in residential areas), they go nuts with their vitriolic rants against Zionists and Israel?

Before we go on, there is one Wikipedia page that you must at least glance at.  It tells more of the story than I can ever relate to you in one post.  It shows just how many Gazan rocket attacks have been directed at Israeli civilians.  Over 800 rockets have hit Israel just this year, and these rockets have been coming out of Gaza every single month this year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2012

Here are some other numbers:

The area of Israel is 20,770 km^2.

The area of the U.S. state of New Jersey is 22,610 km^2.

So keep in mind that the single state of New Jersey is larger than the entire country of Israel.  Yet Israel is the only Jewish-majority country in the world.  Imagine if New Jersey were the only English-speaking country in the world, or the only Christian-majority country in the world...or the only Muslim-majority country in the world.  Further imagine that many of its citizens are the descendants of those who escaped a Holocaust in which half of the entire population of their community around the world was wiped out by genocide in a matter of a few years.  Do you doubt that such a country would care about self-preservation?

Now, let's compare Israel with the "Arab World".  Every country in the Arab world is majority Muslim (some approaching 100% Muslim).  Yet I'm not even counting some of the most populous Islamic countries such as Indonesia, Iran, and Pakistan (which are not Arab).  I'm only comparing the Muslim Arab World with Israel.  How do these compare?

Again, the area of Israel is 20,770 km^2.

The area of the Arab World is 13,333,296 km^2.

This means that the Arab World is 642 times as large area-wise as Israel.

Israel's population is roughly 8,000,000 (of which 75% are Jewish).

The Arab World's population is roughly 400,000,000 (of which the vast majority are Muslim).

This means that the Arab World's population is 50 times as large as Israel's (including Israel's Muslims).

Seeing as how Muslims make up approximately 1.6 billion of the total world population and Jews around the world number approximately 13 million, there are approximately 123 Muslims for each Jew in the world.

Now, I ask you, if:

...you were descended from people who were exterminated in a death camp and

...your small country were the only self-governing bastion of your culture in the world and

...over 800 missiles had rained down on your New Jersey size country just this year, and in every month of the year, and last year, and the year before, and the year before that

...from a territory that you won during an attack on your nation by outside invaders

...which you unilaterally and peacefully gave up so that Palestinians could rule it themselves via democracy

...which led to Hamas being elected and turned your former territory into a rocket launch pad continually targeting your civilians

...which liberals around the globe pay no attention to, but

...when you make a surgical strike on missile installations and a child is killed, they go crazy with hatred for your country

...and all the while, the Palestinians who want you wiped off the map (and have been carrying out terrorist attacks to that end) and comically call your surgical strikes "genocide" of their "ethnic group" (which didn't exist as a separate group 100 years ago) speak the same language and have the same religion as 400 million people around them, and have been reproducing at a much faster rate than your ethnic group's population

...and many (though not all) of the surrounding countries who talk about persecution of Palestinians made an effort to keep Palestinians out of their countries, and in fact carried out pogroms and exterminated Jews from nearly all of their countries in a ruthless manner which is unheard of in Israel

...then you might wonder why so many people call you the aggressor for defending yourself.

But that's what happens everyday, ladies and gentlemen.  Israel is the bad guy.  It's the one thing that Neo-Nazis and liberals can agree on.

We know why Neo-Nazis hate Israel, but how about (Chomskyan) liberals?  What are their reasons?  It appears that:

1) People living in poor and undeveloped countries are the victim, no matter what.

2) Persons of high albedo and/or those in developed countries are the aggressors, no matter what.

3) Body count matters more than intent.  If 100 rockets without any guidance system are aimed at towns and designed to kill civilians, but most land in farms and 10 civilians are killed, this is better than defending your country by striking back at missile labs and launch sites located in urban areas - targeting terrorists' weapon caches and accidentally leading to the death of 20 civilians.  20 accidental civilian deaths is always a larger crime than 10 purposeful civilian deaths, no matter what.

In the same vein, we know what Hamas would do if their military capabilities and Israel's military capabilities were reversed.  If Hamas had the power, there would be no selective targeting to avoid civilian casualties as much as possible.  Instead, there would be a true genocide.  Hamas would remorselessly kill every last Jew in Israel and take all of the land for themselves.  This is patently obvious to anyone who has followed the conflict at all.  Yet liberals somehow seem to think that if Hamas were in charge, it would be less prone to military action than the Israeli government currently is.

Deep down, we all know what would bring a lasting peace.  For Israel, a lasting peace could be had if Palestinians stopped carrying out terrorist attacks.  For Hamas, a lasting peace could be had if every last Jew was exterminated.

4) People who use human shields can't be blamed for civilian deaths.  Those who bomb terrorist cells which use human shields can be fully blamed for civilian deaths.  (See Point 3.)

Basically, liberals are for the "powerless".  That's good most of the time.  They try to protect the powerless from the powerful.  But they go too far with this.  Their mistake is thinking that "powerless" equals "good".  Sometimes, the powerful are the ones who are right (or are at least less wrong than the powerless).

The Palestinians and other Muslim Arabs, for their part, have done an excellent job with their propaganda campaign.  They have convinced the world that the Palestinians are a weak ethnic group instead of a much more powerful ethnic group known as Arabs.  As I said, the idea of "Palestinians" didn't exist 100 years ago, just like the idea of "Gazans" didn't exist until even more recently.  People who lived in Gaza until recently were merely known as "Palestinians who live in the area of Gaza", just like "Palestinians" were merely known as "Arabs who live in the area of Palestine/Israel".

For my part, as an atheist, all I have to do is put myself in Israel or Palestine to see which one I'd support.  If I lived in Israel, I could have a decent life without too much of a fuss.  If I lived openly as an atheist in the Palestinian Territories, I would most likely be killed or jailed.  And so would most other "liberals".  And that's worth remembering.

I will never support Israel just because it's Israel.  I'll only support the side that I think is right, and then only when I think it is right.  An airstrike on Iran, for example, would be a horrible move, and I would be the first to speak against the Israeli government if it took that step.  In other words, I don't choose sides and then stick with one team.  Instead, I evaluate each side's actions and call it like I see it.