Collective Punishment and Projection

Now THIS is an awesome article! In short, Michael I. Krauss, a law professor at George Mason University, completely demolishes the collective punishment claim the Arabs have made with respect to the blockade of Gaza. It only leads to the rather sad question of why such an article is published in the AMERICAN Thinker rather than in a press release from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Krauss makes some of the same points I did in my note titled "Israel's Media Problems" -- namely that the blockade, rather than being illegal collective punishment, is a perfectly legal instrument of war under international law. His analogy was slightly different than mine though. Krauss pointed to the U.S. blockade of Cuba in 1962, which had far less of an adverse effect on the citizens of that country than the Union's blockade of the Confederacy, which I referenced. The point, though, is that all of these blockades were perfectly appropriate under international law. If anything, Israel's blockade is MORE legal than what occurred during the Cuban missile crisis. While missiles were installed in Cuba and aimed at the United States, Cuba, to my knowledge, never took any actual military action against the United States. In contrast, Hamas fires missiles at Israeli civilians every day.

The last paragraph is especially refreshing since it refers to an instance of psychological projection, a recurring trend in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Arabs falsely accuse Israel of "collective punishment" against their civilian population. However, as Krauss points out, it is HAMAS who commits acts of collective punishment by launching missiles exclusively at civilians to collectively punish the Israeli population for the actions of its government and military.

Most Arab grievances against Israel simply involve the Arabs psychologically projecting their own acts and crimes onto the Israelis. My favorite example is the rather amusing charge that "Zionism is racism." Of course, this is plainly absurd to any rational person since there are Israelis of just about every race on the planet. Contrast this with the PLO Covenant, which explicitly states that to be a "Palestinian", you have to be an Arab (or at least have an Arab ancestor):

"Article 5:The Palestinians are those ARAB nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or have stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father - whether inside Palestine or outside it - is also a Palestinian." (emphasis added)

Other articles of the Covenant also equate being a Palestinian with being an Arab, such as:

"Article 1:Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation."

Also, while I'm on the topic of the glorious PLO Covenant, I would be remiss not to point out Article 9, which kind of puts all of the fool's errand Peace Plans we've suffered through into perspective:

"Article 9: Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This it is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it . They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it."