Equivalence
At U.N. headquarters, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the Israeli bombardment of U.N. facilities in Gaza “totally unacceptable.” Israel’s shells have fallen around three schools, including the girls school hit Tuesday, and a health center for Palestinian refugees.
Ban added that it was “equally unacceptable” for militants to take actions that endanger Palestinian civilians, referring to the practice of militants making attacks from residential areas.
So if two members of Hamas run into a school full of children after firing on their enemy, it’s OK to lob 120-mm mortar shells into the school. No matter how many children die, it’s OK, because after all Hamas is using civilians as shields. So go ahead, kill as many as you want! It’s equally unacceptable!
The diplomatic term “unacceptable” has no practical effect. Ban Ki-Moon has no means to alter what he doesn’t “accept”. The only consequential thing he could do to prevent future occurrences would be to go to Gaza himself.
Update: Jimmy Carter calls the current war “unnecessary”, on the grounds that an extension of the ceasefire that had begun on 19 June could have been negotiated (“An unnecessary war”, Washington Post 8 Jan 2009). Neve Gordon, chair of the Department of Politics and Government, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, agrees:
[W]e just had a rocket about an hour ago not far from our house. My two children have been sleeping in a bomb shelter for the past week. And yet, I think what Israel is doing is outrageous, as opposed to what Meagan said before. We have here a situation where actually Israel did leave the Gaza Strip three years ago, but it maintains sovereignty in any political science sense of the term. We’ve controlled all the borders. We’ve basically had an economic boycott on the Gaza Strip. And the people there have been living in what one should probably call as a prison. And they’ve been reacting with rockets, because probably that’s the only way that they can react.
Source: “Israeli professor under Hamas rocket fire, Neve Gordon, condemns Israeli invasion of Gaza”, Democracy Now 5 Jan 2009.
Claims that Hamas soldiers were firing from the school grounds are now admitted to be false: “UN: Israel admits claims about attacked school baseless”, antiwar.news 7 Jan 2009
Update: Ban Ki-Moon isn’t going to Gaza, but he is going to the Middle East, and will visit, among other places, the West Bank: “UN Chief Ban, en route to Mideast: Hamas, Israel must stop fighting now”, AP (via Ha’aretz) 13 Jan 2009.
Further update: Ban Ki-Moon has visited Gaza; the Guardian has video.
