Thursday, November 02, 2023
Elder of Ziyon
One classic example is to pretend that the history of Israel starts with modern Zionism. If you exclude any talk about the history of the Jews in the Land of Israel before the 19th century, they look just like the foreign colonialists that the haters claim we are.
With Operation Iron Swords, the framing has been elaborate and very effective.
The false framework goes like this:
* Telling civilians to move, whether within or without their territory, is a war crime.
* Neighboring countries have no obligation to accept refugees.
* Killing lots of civilians is a war crime by definition.
* Limiting humanitarian aid to a war zone is a war crime.
All discussions of the war on TV is bound by this framework. These four "rules" are not always explicit, which makes it harder to go against them. Who wants to see dead civilians?
The framing statements are incorrect. But the framework is carefully created to ensure that Israel cannot achieve its military objective of destroying Hamas.
* In fact, in a war zone, the attacker is obligated to tell civilians to move out of the war zone - which Israel has done and Hamas has tried to stop.
* While I don't think that Egypt is legally obligated to open its border, it never had a problem with taking in hundreds of thousands of other refugees from elsewhere. It certainly has a moral obligation to do so.
* Targeting civilians is a war crime. Knowing that civilians will die during an attack on a legitimate military target is acceptable as long as the casualties are not excessive, and international law has a much more liberal view of what is excessive than what Israel does.
* Israel has every right to inspect and limit aid to ensure that Hamas does not get it.
But the first four rules are accepted as the framework on CNN and Al Jazeera. Most news shows don't bother explaining the truth about international law because nuance is not TV-friendly.
Spokespeople on TV must break the framework by saying that they do not accept these parameters and creating their own, accurate framework:
* Hamas started this war with an unprecedented, horrific attack on Israel.
* Hamss has made it clear that they will never change or reform. This is who they are.
* The only moral choice is to utterly destroy them.
* Hamas has turned the entire Gaza Strip into a huge human shield for its army and vast subterranean military complex.
* Israel scrupulously follows international law even under these difficult constraints.
* Therefore, while Israel tries to minimize casualties, every civilian death is purely Hamas' fault.
How many TV shows or newspaper articles have you read that accepts these accurate statements as their framework?
It's going to be a long war, and Israel needs to reframe the discussion.
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