If you've been following my blogs, you know that I have written about Israel's enemies on the far-left and about the Marxist influence at College of the Mainland (COM) in Texas City, an institution I derisively refer to as College of the Marxists. David Smith is one of several avowed Marxists at COM who daily teach their impressionable stuents about the evils of capitalism and about American imperialism and warmongering.
Last month, Smith had a guest column in the Galveston Daily News which illustrated the left's hatred of Israel. Smith's article condemning Israel's attack on Gaza contained untruths and half-truth and was designed to make the Jewish state appear guilty of war crimes. I responded with a letter to the editor which the Daily News chose not to publish. Of course, that's the newspaper's perogative. So, I've decided to blog both the article by Smith and my response to it. First, here is his article:
ISRAEL THE AGGRESSOR, NOT THE VICTIM
By David Smith
The Daily News
Published February 25, 2009
Letter writer M.A. Khalili was right to criticize the Bush Administration for supporting Israel’s "slaughter of innocent Palestinians" during the recent invasion of Gaza ("Bush Incompetence Shows in Palestine," The Daily News, Jan. 24).
In contrast, Jayson Levy was wrong in asserting that "Israel didn’t target civilians" and blaming the Hamas government for the Israeli invasion ("Israel Doesn’t Target Civilians," The Daily News, Feb. 9).
About 12 Israelis died during this asymmetrical war. In contrast, Israel’s bombing, shelling, and invasion of Gaza left about 1,300 Palestinians dead and about 5,000 wounded. Estimates from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and other sources vary but make clear that several hundred Palestinian civilians are among the dead. Notwithstanding Levy’s claim, civilians in Gaza did not die because Hamas used them as human shields. Instead, they died because Israel committed what U.N. Special Rapporteur Richard Falk has called "severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions."
Falk, a former professor at Princeton University, is widely regarded as an expert in international law. He has pointed out that Israel was illegally targeting civilians because, "the air strikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world."
Falk has also criticized Israel for inflicting collective punishment, noting that, "the entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants."
And he has blasted Israel for illegally engaging in a wildly disproportionate military response to Hamas’ rocket attacks.
As Griff White reported in The Washington Post on Jan. 15, Israel targeted not only Hamas rocket-launching sites but also the political, educational, religious and social institutions associated with the Hamas government. While Hamas rocket attacks on nearby Israeli towns clearly violated international law, so, too, did Israeli targeting of civilian sites and civilians, which produced far greater casualties, just as intended by Israel.
As Professor George Giacaman of Birzeit University has emphasized, "the issue is whether civilian casualties were foreseeable. They still have an obligation not to harm civilians."
Israel’s murder and maiming of innocent civilians, its collective punishment of the people of Gaza and its disproportionate military response have led many people around the world to condemn the invasion. Pro-Palestinian rallies and protests erupted in cities throughout the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas.
The United Nations Human Rights Council condemned Israel for attacking Gaza and violating the human rights of the Palestinian people. The European Parliament deplored the Israeli blockade of Gaza as "collective punishment in contravention of international humanitarian law."
And just who started this war? As Henry Siegman of the U.S. Middle East Project has explained, "Israel, not Hamas, violated the truce." The June 2008 truce agreement required Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel and required Israel to stop military incursions and assassinations in Gaza. As Professor Siegman has pointed out, Hamas complied with the terms of the truce. But, in November, Israeli troops entered Gaza and killed six Hamas members. Hamas resumed rocket attacks only after this violation of the truce by Israel.
David Michael Smith is a professor of government at College of the Mainland and a member of the Progressive Workers Organizing Committee.
And here is the response I sent to Letters to the Editor:
David Smith's anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian rhetoric is typical of the same malarkey of untruths and half-tuths perpetrated by Marxists and far-left academics in the United States and Europe. Smith has been a long-time supporter of and apologist for the Palestinian cause and has participated in Palestinian demonstrations at the Israeli consulate in Houston.
Smith relies on members of the United Nations and the European Union to bolster his accusations and condemnations. The United Nations General Assembly, dominated by third world and Muslim countries, has been very hostile to the Jewish state since its birth 60 years ago. And the European Union's hostility to Israel is an obvious attempt to placate a large and volatile Muslim immigarant community. Thus one has to question the credibility of any UN and EU allegations regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It is a fact, and Marxist Smith knows this very well, that Hamas fired its rockets from the midst of civilian concentrations and from school yards, while stockpiling its weapons in mosques and school buildings. And Israel did something no other combatant has ever done - it notified the Gaza civilians beforehand of exactly where their attacks would be aimed at.
Is the loss of civilian lives tragic? Sure it is! But Israel is surrounded by millions of diehard enemies who have vowed to destroy the Jewish state, and that includes the "moderate" Palestinians of the Fatah faction.
Actually it is rather refreshing to see Smith's condemnations directed at a country other than the United States.
Editor's Note: My letter was e-mailed to the newspaper on February 25th. It was, with some minor editing, finally published in the March 10th issue of the Galveston Daily News.
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