Friday, January 16, 2009

Good Ol' Shimon Peres

Illuminating article from the Jerusalem Post about Shimon Peres speaking to an AIPAC mission in Jerusalem this past Wednesday. Money quotes from Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize winner in the fine tradition of Henry Kissinger:

Peres had no quarrel with those television networks broadcasting difficult images from Gaza. "I don't blame the TV," he said, noting that it was natural for television camera crews to focus on such scenes. He even understood that coverage could not be balanced, "because TV cannot show what it means for one million Israelis to be constantly nervous. We cannot show the daily tensions on TV."

It's true that Israeli's being constantly nervous can't compare with Palestinians being constantly starved or constantly dead.

And finally:

Israel's aim, he said, was to provide a strong blow to the people of Gaza so that they would lose their appetite for shooting at Israel.

Which, interestingly enough, squares pretty well with the definition of terrorism according to the a 2001 State Department report titled Patterns of Terrorism:

No one definition of terrorism has gained universal acceptance. For the purposes of this report, however, we have chosen the definition of terrorism contained in Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f(d). That statute contains the following definitions:

The term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant (1) targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience. . . .

(1) For purposes of this definition, the term "noncombatant" is interpreted to include, in addition to civilians, military personnel who at the time of the incident are unarmed and/or not on duty.

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