Israel violates ceasefire; no one notices. posted by Richard Seymour

Maybe Schopenhauer was right - perhaps life isn't worth all the fuss and, for most people, it would be better to be dead. The pleasure of drawing a breath, I think he said, is purchased most dearly. And maybe Sophocles was right to suppose that it was probably better not to be born. In case you're wondering, that is my case for abortion and euthanasia. President George W. Bush is, of course, simultaneously against both and the biggest advertisement for both. If only his mother had known. Come to that, if only old Barbara had been a lesbian and George senior had gone in for locker room fun. Still, if we must have a world-class meshuggeneh alive and running the world - that is, if someone won't assassinate the little fucker - we better keep track of the shit he and his allies get up to.

Bionic Octopus has listed some recent Israeli ceasefire violations :

But can someone please explain to me how the fuck an Israeli gunship opening fire on a car full of Palestinian 'militants' is part of a 'ceasefire'? What does it take?

Acknowledged revenge killings? Nuh-uh.

Settlers and grenades in the Haram al-Sharif? Apparently not.

Continued expansion of Maale Adumim? Nope again.

There is apparently nothing Israel can do that will constitute a ceasefire violation in the eyes of the world. [Check post for links]

In the interests of being a smart-arse, I'll just mention a couple of other instances. In May, Israel attacked what they alleged was a "Hamas mortar team" . On May 30th, Israel bombed Gaza . Well, if the past is anything to go by, there will eventually be a suicide attack in a cafe or a bus, and the press will instantly announce that the ceasefire has been broken by perfidious Palestinians.

Same story back in 2003. On 31st July 2003 , Israel struck Nablus during a ceasefire, killing eight people. Then on August 8th 2003 , IDF soldiers invaded a refugee camp and killed four people. When on 20th August 2003 a suicide bomber struck, it was described on television as causing the "ceasefire" to "collapse" .

Then, we had to put up with endless sanctimony from Gideon Meir, Dore Gold and other disgusting hypocrites from the Israeli hard right, claiming that the Palestinian Authority had not clamped down on the terrorists enough and that Israel would never make peace with Palestine until it did. Israel had occupied vital towns and cities in Palestine for 18 months and couldn't stop terrorists from attacking, so quite how the enfeebled and prostate Palestinian Authority was supposed to manage it is going to remain one of life's little mysteries. The media was alive with portentous reporting about the end of a fragile peace, how Israel might no longer be able to live with the Road Map, a deal they were never too hot on in the first place. Apart from the fact that the Road Map leads to almost complete negation of everything the Palestinians have ever stood for, where were these Cassandras when Israel was killing people not long before? Where was the Greek Chorus then? And where now?

Israel's government is not instructed to root out the terrorists responsible because they are the terrorists reponsible. They are not asked to condemn the attacks because they carried them out. We do not see Mahmoud Abbas on the BBC demanding that the perpetrators be brought to justice, because they are not in a position to demand anything. America and the UK did not react with outrage, because Israel carries out such attacks with American money and British weapons. This, then, renders absolutely eloquent the sublime hypocrisy of our unloved rulers and its servile media class.