Israel often seeks to justify its murder of civilians by claiming Hamas was using them as ‘human shields’. But apparently, Israel also uses human shields. And even so, Iran has managed not to kill any civilians in its retaliation against the colonial power’s escalation of hostilities in Lebanon.
The hypocrisy of Western reactions to Israel’s massive genocidal crimes and meek Iranian attacks, however, is off the scale. Their racist double standards are on full display more than ever.
Israel’s human shields
Civilians matter to Western leaders. But apparently, that’s only if they’re Israeli.
The apartheid state has committed genocide in Gaza. As Oxfam reported this week:
More women and children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the past year than the equivalent period of any other conflict over the past two decades.
In fact, Israeli occupation forces reportedly killed 4,104 children in Gaza in just the first month of its genocidal assault. A year on, the colonial government has consistently rejected or undermined peace efforts (as it has historically), and has only escalated the conflict further afield. It has assassinated people in the Iranian consulate in Syria, in Iran, and in Lebanon.
Iran has shown a lot of restraint, according to experts. But it has finally responded to Israel’s attempts to escalate hostilities in the region. Targeting military and intelligence facilities, it has reportedly killed no civilians. And this is in spite of Israel placing some of those facilities in densely-populated civilian areas:
I keep seeing people laughing that Iran “failed to kill any Israeli civilians.”
These are people are so enamoured by war crime they seem to think the entire purpose of retaliatory action is to kill civilians rather than target military infrastructure.
— Philip Proudfoot 🇱🇧🇵🇸 (@PhilipProudfoot) October 1, 2024
As CNN reported:
Among the targets were Israeli airfields but also, and this is crucial, the headquarters of Mossad – the international intelligence service of Israel, which is inside Tel Aviv. It’s in the northern part of Tel Aviv. But it’s in the city. It’s in a densely-populated area. And of course, the concern is… it is in a densely-populated city with civilians around it.
Breaking: CNN’s @jimsciutto confirms Israel is using human shields, strategically positioning its command and control center in densely populated civilian areas pic.twitter.com/ApaA1KArau
— Adam Johnson (@adamjohnsonCHI) October 1, 2024
Iran’s foreign minister clarified that its attack had finished, and that the ball is now in the court of Israel and its “enablers”:
we exercised self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, targeting solely military & security sites in charge of genocide in Gaza and Lebanon. We did so after exercising tremendous restraint for almost two months, to give room for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Our action is concluded unless the Israeli regime decides to invite further retaliation. In that scenario, our response will be stronger and more powerful. Israel’s enablers now have a heightened responsibility to rein in the warmongers in Tel Aviv instead of partaking in their folly.
The war machine of the West is responsible
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon was likely the final straw pushing Iran to act. And from recent months’ statistics, it’s as clear as it is in Gaza who the main aggressor is:
Incredible Bloomberg data visualization that clearly shows what’s actually going on between Israel and Lebanon.
First, despite all the talk of the threat of Hezbollah rockets hitting Israel, it’s actually Israel that’s consistently firing far more rockets over the border. pic.twitter.com/uSvPvMC61i
— Paris Marx (@parismarx) September 30, 2024
The "measure of justice" (Biden) in Israel’s war on Hezbollah in Lebanon as visualized by Bloomberg. Chartbook Top Links. https://t.co/xgvQvAimjK pic.twitter.com/2Hv4CLZvqG
— Adam Tooze (@adam_tooze) September 30, 2024
For most people not in the pockets of arms dealers and genocidal despots, it was obvious that Iran would have to act if Israel kept provoking it, and it was obvious that Western leaders were responsible for bringing us to the brink of a regional or global conflict. As Jeremy Corbyn insisted:
Governments have fuelled the machinery of war. Their indifference to human life has destroyed prospects for peace and endangered us all.
In fact, even the BBC had to platform someone who emphasised Iran’s restraint in the context of Israeli provocation and the West’s responsibility for the path Israel is taking:
Finally balance from the BBC:
•Israel 🇮🇱 have constantly crossed ‘red lines’
•Hezbollah & Iran 🇮🇷 have tried to ‘play it fairly rationally’
•The US 🇺🇸 has a ‘responsibility’ to control how Israel 🇮🇱 respondBiden & Starmer should listen to this.pic.twitter.com/o2HVRa4U5p
— Howard Beckett (@BeckettUnite) October 2, 2024
This is despite the BBC‘s overall bias towards Israel.
Both wings of the corporate party in the US and the UK, meanwhile, almost seem to be salivating at the prospect of their ally advancing its power in the region. Britain, for example, was flying to Tel Aviv just as Israel invaded Lebanon – continuing its complicity in Israeli terror. The US, on the other hand, was allegedly egging Israel on to invade.
Nonetheless, it was Iran that Britain and the US treated as the ‘dangerous, destabilising force’ in the Middle East. And the Western corporate media seemed to care more about damage to inanimate objects in Israel than the civilians killed in Lebanon in recent days.
Ordinary people are increasingly seeing through the propaganda, though. So if Biden or Starmer try to pull us directly into Israel’s endless maniacal conflict, they may well get more resistance than they bargained for.
Featured image via X – screengrab
