thomas81 wrote:
Thats all hearsay. Between the initial start of the video where he is just talking to the cameraman and his first confrontation by the police, i am not seeing any reasonable motive on the part of the police that would justify his being apprehended.
Nor do i see any incontiguous footage or clear evidence that its been edited between those 2 points. Usually if footage has been doctored it would be obvious (fade to black and fade from black cuts for example).
Which readily explains your naïveté and how easily you are led by the nose. Anyone can edit footage, put it in front of you, and if it serves to confirm your biases, you will accept their story uncritically.
You see the piece of the video that you have seen as an entire and complete history of the event. Which it cannot be.
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Thats really a side issue. Hamas are theocratic dictators that have no pretences of claiming to be an advocate of either democracy or freedom of speech( not that that gives Israel a right to bomb one of the most densely populated centres on Earth). At least no one can accuse them of being hypocrites, if nothing else.
Israel does carry such afforementioned pretences. I was trying to make a point about the double standards.
I see no double standard. The elected government of a democratic, pluralist society (in which Arabs are represented at all levels of government and industry) has taken military action to combat violence directed against her. I see no double standard at all.
Where I do see hypocrisy, however, is Israel's policy with respect to the West Bank. That is where I believe that international concern should be directed.
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At this point its really an excerise in hair splitting and straw clutching to labour the case of why he should have been arrested. However you look at it, its a case of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Ultimately, If the Israeli security services have time, money and armed personel to languish on asinine tasks such as apprehending isolated, and inconsequential street corner activists perhaps the imminent threat posed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad isn't as prolific as they want the world to believe. Its certainly not how a nation at war would prioritise its affairs. No sympathy.
The scrutiny of the state's use of force against an individual is never an exercise in hair splitting. Israel is a parliamentary democracy in which the rule of law is adhered to. The Courts of Israel can bind the government, and have a well established track record of holding the government to account when it has exceeded its jurisdiction. If this individual has failed to make his case before the courts of Israel, then there is no story here, except for the frabrications and exaggerations of those who would choose to invent a story for their own political purposes.
There is plenty that Israel can and should be held to account for. This does not merit such attention.
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--James
04 Dec 2012, 1:38 pm
