Johann Hari: Its our fault the Palestinians are killing each other

The latest piece of garbage from Johann Hari is so easy to debunk, and here is a thorough fisking of his piece which blames everyone else for the death cult society that the Palestinians have created.

When I was in the bullet-pocked, rocket-rocked Gaza Strip last month, I could feel the Palestinian political ground fracturing beneath my feet. The rival political parties Hamas and Fatah were tooling up for a civil war, in their weapons dumps and in their minds. The dull cruelty of killing the other side's children had begun. Even the two leading campuses in Gaza - the Islamic University (Hamas) and Al Azhar (Fatah) - were firebombed just after I visited them, their status as inviolate oases of peace suddenly burned away. Locked in their box by the Israeli army, starved of resources by the international blockade, the Palestinians were turning on each other.

So after years of the Palestinians turning on their neighbors, trashing every peace agreement, continuing escalation and armament and a breeding of a culture based on religious incitement to violence and genocide, its all terrible that the Israeli army enforces its own borders ? And its unacceptable that foreign governments stop handing over their money after countless peace deals were violated by the Palestinians and the foreign aid was used to purchase weapons and fuel terrorism ? Is Johann even aware that the Palestinians elected a terrorist group as their government ?

If Palestine turns into a Somalia-replica, it will obviously be a catastrophe for the sallow children of Palestine, who have already been so strangled by the four decade-long Israeli occupation and the current international boycott that more than half of them will go to bed hungry and traumatised tonight.

Ohh spare the children !! How were the living conditions before 1967 ? How were Palestinians treated under the Jordanian and Egyptian occupation ? These aren't very interesting questions for Johann. Actually, how were living standards for the Palestinians in the 1980's and even early 1990's ? They were pretty damn good. Why, even in 2005, the UN published a report stating that Palestinian Arabs live better than most other Arabs (poor Johann is too obsessed with his Palestinians to notice anybody else).

But a September 19 Nexis search showed no news coverage of the study’s ranking of Palestinian Arabs under “Israeli occupation” higher than Algerians (103), Syrians (106), Egyptians (119), Moroccans (124) and Yemeni (151). Based on data for 2003 – a period of frequent Israeli counter-terrorism responses to the “al-Aqsa intifada” – the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza Strip also were not far behind Tunisians (89) and Jordanians (90).

Johann continues with his next gloomy forecast:

But it will also be a catastrophe for Israel. At the moment, Hamas and Fatah could - in the context of a peace deal - ensure between them that there is all quiet on the Qassam Front: an end to missile attacks on civilians in Israeli cities

Hamas and Fatah *could* ensure an end to missile attacks the same way that a serial paedophile could ensure that he stops abusing children. Or a vegetarian could ensure they start eating meat. Or a pig flying...

But if Gaza dissolves into civil war with a hundred different warring centres of authority, this slips off the table. Every side will instead demonstrate its machismo by firing into Israel.

As opposed to the last 5 years, where every side demonstrated their machismo by firing into Israel ?

The world has been demanding a unity government under Mahmoud Abbas ever since - and now we've got one.

No.. its been demanding an end to violence and terrorism, and most people also demand a recognition of Israel's right to exist.

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, says it is not enough that Hamas has pledged to "respect" all the agreements signed by the Palestinian Authority, including implicitly the recognition of Israel's right to exist within the 1967 borders. No: Olmert demands more.

Read that again. Hamas has promised (they are trustworthy, aren't they ?) to respect agreements which implicitly recognise Israel, so long as Israel retreats to 1967 borders and hands over land as the first step. Sounds sensible to me, but not to Johann.

"Israel cannot negotiate with a government that has extremist components which deny Israel's right to exist", says German chancellor Angela Merkel. Why doesn't she mention that the Israeli government has extremist components who deny Palestine's right to exist - not least Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who openly advocates ethnic cleansing and the drowning of Palestinian prisoners? Why doesn't she mention that Israel is physically preventing Palestine's right to exist as we speak, by occupying the West Bank?

Errr.. because it isn't true, thats why. Israel has a bunch of checkpoints and security posts, and that is somehow the same as Hamas and Fatah who send armed militants and suicide bombers to slaughter random Israelis in schools, cafes and buses ? And Lieberman's opinions are taken way out of context, and held up as being typical whilst they are quite rare to find in Israel.

He concludes thus:

Today, a glistening opportunity to avert a Palestinian civil war is being kicked into the trash by 'the international community' with a glib, finger-wagging sneer.

Wow, powerful closing words. So much pomposity and arrogance and whining - the mark of a true British journalist.