14 / Netanyahu's Answer - smart Man?
I was sent this email entitled, ‘Netanyahu's Answer - smart Man!’
Even those who aren't particularly sympathetic to Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, could get a good measure of satisfaction from this interview with British Television this week. I guess it can be attributed to Minister Netanyahu's days studying history at Harvard.
The interviewer asked him: "How come so many more Palestinians have been killed in this conflict than Israelis?" (A nasty question if there ever was one!)
Netanyahu: "Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?"
Interviewer: (Falling into the trap) Why not?
Netanyahu: "Because in World War II more Germans were killed than British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the war was caused by Germany's aggression. And in response to the German Blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of people killed in Hiroshima. Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the R.A.F. tried to bomb the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, some of the bombs missed their target and fell on a Danish children's hospital, killing 83 little children. Perhaps you have another question.”
This story (a nasty one if there ever was one!) raises a couple of questions, not least the obvious one: How can two such dreadful wrongs make a right?
It is true, the Nazis started the aggression that resulted in WWII. But how does this scenario fit with the Palestinians? They were thrown out of their country; two or three generations of them have grown up in refugee camps - helpless, hopeless and desperate.
Mr Netanyahu seems to make the point that if there is a precedent of an atrocity, then this serves well to excuse further atrocities. Not such a smart argument (to reflect the tone of this smart alec news item). The very same argument is used ad-nauseam to diminish the Holocaust: ‘Why do Jews think their Holocaust is so special? There have been many holocausts - history is full of them, some more severe than the Jewish one (some races were actually eliminated). Just get on with it.’ (A nasty line of argument if there ever was one.)
And yes, Mr. Netanyahu, I have another question. During the conflict referred to above, I heard you ask in an interview, “What would you do if rockets rained down on your civilian population?” (… the implication being that, yes, we too would defend ourselves - and, yes, with dis-proportionate force!) My response, rather, would be another question, “Why do you think they are firing those rockets?”