You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.
The Israel/Palestine conflict has been one of the most contentious I have witnessed.
Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.
Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.
Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.
The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has resulted in a significant rise in both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in Canada, as indicated by the increase in hate crimes reported to police.
What seems to have been lost is the ability to have an honest conversation about the situation and to discuss the facts on the ground.
Instead, the debate has been rife with fallacies and ad hominem attacks, often from individuals who are offered up as historians or scholars on either side.
In reality, one does not need to be a historian or scholar to understand the key parts of this issue, they just need to have critical thinking skills.
Here is an example, an argument absolutely central to Israel’s position: Israel’s right to defend itself.
Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.
By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.
A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.
The next issue of The Winnipeg Sun's Daily Headline News will soon be in your inbox.
We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again
This claim has been repeated throughout the conflict and carries significant weight, but hasn’t really been broken down into its component parts.
The central idea to this claim is that no state is required to tolerate attacks on it as they are occurring, without responding.
Once an attack has stopped there is a grey area — when does defending from an attack cease to be defensive and become retaliation, fuelled by vengeance?
The pro-Palestinian side argues that more Palestinians have died than Israelis by an order of magnitude, and that this has become vengeful retaliation by Israel.
The counterclaim from the pro-Israel side is that as long as Hamas has civilian hostages from its Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, and continues firing rockets into Israel from Gaza, its attack has never stopped.
Some will say that this is merely an excuse by Israel for extracting vengeance on Palestinian civilians.
Others will say this argument gives Israel the moral high ground and explains why it won’t stop defending itself until it stops being attacked.
This is absolutely central to Israel’s position.
Now consider the following talking points.
Pro-Palestinian: When will enough dead Palestinians be enough?
Pro-Israel: The question is irrelevant. Hamas is responsible for killing Palestinians by continuing to fire rockets at Israel and continuing to hold the civilian hostages it kidnapped on Oct. 7.
Pro-Palestinian: What Israel is doing is collective punishment.
Pro-Israel: No, it is a by-product of Hamas using Palestinian civilians as human shields.
Pro-Palestinian: But Hamas has to use human shields, there is no other way to fight Israel’s far superior military forces from Gaza.
Pro-Israel: Israel is not obligated to simply endure rocket attacks and not retaliate because Hamas is hiding behind civilians. Israel has a right to defend itself.
Pro-Palestinian: Israel created this problem by oppressing the Palestinians, Hamas is engaged in righteous resistance.
Pro-Israel: Hamas’ “righteousness” is irrelevant. It is a violent terrorist organization that intentionally targets Israeli civilians and Israel has a right to defend itself.
Debates around these topics regularly descend into defining and redefining language rather than having a productive conversation about the situation on the ground.
The pro-Palestinian position is that Israel is an apartheid state, is committing genocide and that Gaza is a massive concentration camp.
From there, the debates go on for hours about the definition of apartheid, genocide and concentration camps.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and most people do not realize just how extraordinary and specific these claims are.
Here is a specific example to illustrate the point:
An Israeli bomb kills a family of four and the pro-Palestinian response is, “Israel intentionally bombed those civilians”.
This claim is extraordinary because a bomb is not a rifle.
Do individual soldiers intentionally kill civilians in war zones?
It is reasonable to assume that individual soldiers are guilty of war crimes in almost every conflict.
But dropping a bomb from a military jet requires approval from multiple levels of command.
Individual soldiers do not just decide to drop bombs — the military, carrying out actions approved by the state, drop the bombs.
Making the claim that individual soldiers murder civilians in a war zone and thus have committed war crimes, is world’s apart from claiming that all bombing in response to a terrorist attack and continuing rocket attacks is a war crime.
Any member of a modern military knows that one individual does not simply “drop a bomb” on their own initiative.
— Alex Vezina is the CEO of Prepared Canada Corp, teaches Disaster and Emergency Management at York University and is the author of Continuity 101. He can be reached at info@prepared.ca.
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Donald Low
Mort Laitner
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
Michael Kwet
visit website
