REACTION SHRAPNEL
(In response to Danny O’Connor’s Oct. 18 column “Reviewing Finkelstein.”)
In order to compel his reader, [Danny O’Connor] puts forward the hypothetical situation: “What if a cartel in Mexico was throwing rockets at the USA?”
I would observe that the counter example offered is hardly intricate and removes 60 years of military occupation from the context, but for the sake of argument let’s run with it.
Gaza, much like Nogales, is home to many people from different walks of life: families, children, teachers, students and workers. With 1.5 million people living in a 25-mile long and 5-mile wide strip of land, it’s one of the most densely populated places on Earth.
O’Connor’s proposed solution of [blowing] “Nogales to pieces” is exactly what Israel did to Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009. The horrific outcome was the death of 1,500 people, a third of them women and children. Three Israeli civilians were killed in the same period. O’Connor insists that Hamas are terrorists, but he fails to note that it’s not Hamas’ resistance to a foreign military occupation, a right all nations have, that makes them terrorists. It is the manner in which they conduct their resistance that is criminal.
Their grave crime is that they do not discriminate between military and civilian targets. This is the very same crime that Israel is found guilty of by human rights organizations.
Finkelstein’s lecture was about the context and consequences of the Israel-Palestine conflict and was backed up by citations from major human rights organizations. The bottom line is that this is all about considering human rights in one’s code of conduct.
[Blowing] nations to pieces, while might seem to O’Connor like an intuitive and proper reaction, would earn him the title of war criminal — right next to Hamas and Israel.
Alicia Fremling
University Innovation Fellow
