City of…

I’ve written before that the Israeli press is much more wide-ranging in its discussion of the Israeli occupation then the U.S. press–not to mention allowing a heckuva lot more in the way of biting sarcasm.

There’s yet another example of this in the Israeli press this week, this time in the usually conservative Jerusalem Post. Here’s JPost columnist Larry Derfner on Israel’s “exclusive right to self-defense”:

“This is the Israeli notion of a fair deal: We’re entitled to do whatever the hell we want to the Palestinians because, by definition, whatever we do to them is self-defense. They, however, are not entitled to lift a finger against us because, by definition, whatever they do to us is terrorism.”

Derfner slams the reaction of his countryfolk to the Goldstone Report on war crimes in the Israeli assaults on Gaza. And he is harsh in his judgment of this belief in the exclusive right to “self-defense”:

“Here is our idea of the “laws of war”: When Israeli bulldozers rolled across the border into Gazan villages and flattened house after house so Hamas wouldn’t have them for cover after the IDF pulled out, that was self-defense. But if a Palestinian boy who’d lived in one of those houses threw a stone at one of the bulldozers, that was terrorism.”

Of course, as every snark aficionado knows, your last line is the one that matters.

So how does Derfner conclude?

“The Goldstones of the world call this hypocrisy, a double standard. How dare they! Around here, we call it moral clarity.”

Thank you, Mr. Derfner. Couldn’t have said it better than that. For that, you win the City of… Snark of the Week Award. Congratulations!

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