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Monday, April 01, 2024

Latest trendy accusation against Israel: "Ecocide"



The New York Daily News reports:
Three protesters were arrested after they crashed the Easter Vigil Mass at Manhattan’s iconic St. Patrick’s Cathedral, police said Sunday.

Protesters with the group XR NYC Palestine Solidarity held a banner reading “SILENCE = DEATH” before they were shoved away by church officials, video posted on X shows.

The protesters’ chants of ‘Free, free Palestine!’ echoed through the cathedral as they were shoved outside.

The protesters are affiliated Extinction Rebellion (XR), which has for years used flashy civil disobedience to call attention to the fight against climate change.

“War, occupation and industrial pollution are poisoning the soil, air, and water in Gaza and all over the planet, destroying the earth’s capacity to sustain life, said Gregory Schwedock, an XR NYC Palestine Solidarity activist arrested inside the cathedral. “This destruction is called ‘Ecocide.’”
To the progressive Left, Israel is guilty of violating every trendy social justice issue. So why not accuse it os "ecocide" as well?

They aren't the first, of course. The anti-Israel group Forensics Architecture wrote up an entire report on Israel's "ecocide" of Gaza for Land Day last week. 

Also last week, The Guardian wrote, "Researchers and environmental organisations say the destruction will have enormous effects on Gaza’s ecosystems and biodiversity. The scale and potential long-term impact of the damage have led to calls for it to be regarded as “ecocide” and investigated as a possible war crime."

Only one problem: "Ecocide" is not a war crime. There are plenty of people who are trying to get it added to the Rome Statute, but it isn't there. 

Given that Israel is accused of lots of "war crimes" that are not war crimes, why not make up a new one?

As usual, the double standards are blatant. When waging a war, the environment is a secondary consideration, although even under existing laws it has importance - actions that cause people to not have adequate access to water or sanitation would need to be weighed against military necessity, and this would happen even if ecocide is added as a major crime under the Rome Statute.

But we saw a few years ago that Hamas and its allies deliberately and consciously sent incendiary devices over the Gaza border, specifically to set forest fires. Those fires destroyed ecosystems in the area.

And in fact Arabs have been setting fires to Jewish-owned forests and crops since the 1920s. There were waves of such attacks in the 1930s.  

No one called this "ecocide" even though the attacks were wanton, deliberate attempts to destroy the environment.

So why the double standard? Perhaps the reason can be found in a 2010 forest fire reported by YNet:

Six foreign nationals and Palestinians set fires alight near the West Bank settlement of Bat Ayin in the Gush Etzion bloc. Police said the suspects were taken in for questioning on suspicion of arson and illegal congregation.

Settlers said that at about 11 am they saw fires on lands they said belonged to Bat Ayin. Security sources said it was apparently land whose ownership is not regulated. 

Dov Mark, land supervisor for the Gush Etzion Council, said such acts have taken place a number of times. "This is a known Palestinian method to take over state land," he said. "With the support of anarchists, who usually come from abroad, they come to an area of natural woodland which has never been cultivated, burn it on purpose and at the same time plant trees. It's all supposed to alter the reality on the ground."
The same types of people who claim to care about "ecocide" are the ones who purposefully set fires on Jewish lands. 

There is only one consistent position from these so-called "progressives" - they hate proud Jews.




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