The only way to change someone holding a double standard is to call out quickly and decisively, using logic and reason, not preconceived notions or thinking "that's how I was raised."
Let's start this post by establishing some truths. One: kidnapping any non-combatants for any advantage in combat or for terrorist purposes, of any race or religion, should be abhorred, not tolerated in our society, punished, and called out for what is truly is: a terrorist activity. This means that:
- Any Palestinian combatant who kidnaps an Israeli non-combatant is a terrorist, as you are using force and the threat of violence against a non-combatant.
- Any Israeli combatant who kidnaps a Palestinian non-combatant is a terrorist.
Now that we've established this truth, let's move onto the double standard. In a nutshell, this story of the 3 kidnapped Israeli teens is gaining a lot of attention in the media and in America. So much significantly more attention than any of the documented thousands of times Israeli soldiers have kidnapped Palestinian children. One must wonder: why? Why are people so much more concerned with Jewish people getting kidnapped, but when Muslim children get kidnapped, significantly less people are concerned about it? The actions are the same; the only thing that has changed are the actors. And this how we can determine that is because of racism that this imbalance has happened. People are judging that, depending on the race of the perpetrator and/or the victims, that determines how they will react to such an action.
But, some might say, Israel doesn't kidnap or mistreat children. What are you talking about, they would ask, you radical anti-Semite? All you have to do is a simple Google search, which takes approximately 0.2 seconds, and you will get literally hundreds and hundreds of reports and cases about Israel kidnapping and mistreating Palestinian children by Israeli, Palestinian, American, European, and international NGOs and organizations. Here are some examples:
- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-government-tortures-children-by-keeping-them-in-cages-human-rights-group-says-9032826.html
- http://www.redressonline.com/2014/06/remember-israels-abuse-of-palestinian-kids/. "Pointing out that Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children violates international law, the UN report cited terrifying night-time arrests, physical and verbal abuse, painful restraints, denial of access to food, water and toilet facilities, solitary confinement, coerced confessions, lack of access to lawyers and family members, shackling during court appearances and transfer to prisons outside the occupied Palestinian territories."
Don't think that these Israeli "arrests" are kidnapping? What else would you call a bunch of masked men breaking down a door to a family's house in the dead of night, grabbing a child from his/her bed, whisking them off away to an undisclosed location, holding them without charges, and not allowing his/her parents, lawyers, etc, from seeing him/her?
The media has a blatant double standard about reporting Israeli children deaths and Palestinian children deaths. The evidence is just completely overwhelming: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/net-report.html
"In the first year of the current uprising, ABC, CBS, and NBC reported Israeli children’s deaths at 13.8, 6.4, and 12.4 times the rate of Palestinian children’s deaths. In 2004 these large differentials were also present, although they decreased in two cases, with deaths of Israeli children covered at rates 9.0, 12.8, and 9.9 times greater than the deaths of Palestinian children by ABC, CBS, and NBC, respectively. Given that in 2004 22 times more Palestinian children were killed than Israeli children, this category holds particular importance. We could find no basis on which to justify this inequality in coverage."
Not only that, but the major media outlets repeated coverage of the same Israeli children deaths, to make it look like there were more causalities than were actually were, while, at the same time, omitted reports on Palestinian children's deaths, to make it look like there were less casualties than were actually were. How fucking fucked up is this?! People are using children's deaths for political purposes. Fucking sick!!
The same thing is happening in the media right now concerning the three kidnapped Israeli teens. All major news outlets have multiple articles about this one kidnapping incident, it's all over the Internet, pundits can't stop talking about it, how it shows that all Palestinians are terrorists and that Israel is the victim, etc, etc. Yet when hundreds of Palestinian children get kidnapped by Israeli terrorists every year? Nothing, maybe a short little blurb here and there, but basically nothing. Not a word of speaking out. Which means they're perfectly fine with it. As long as it's Arab children getting kidnapped, the sick disgusting media outlets are fine with it.
One vital piece of information that the media outlets conveniently leaves out when talking about the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds the Palestinian government responsible for the kidnapping: the kidnapping took place in a section of the West Bank that Israeli forces have complete control over and Palestinian forces cannot govern at all. It occurred in Area C of the West Bank, in which Israeli law clearly states that Israeli forces are the security forces of this area, and Palestinian forces, under no circumstances, are allowed to do anything in Area C. How fucked up is that? Stealing someone's territory, and then blaming them for not preventing a kidnapping on that stolen territory that you won't allow their policemen to go onto?
In conclusion, this double standard will continue to happen until people like you and me counter it. If you see it in the newspaper, write a letter to the editor calling out this disgusting double standard. If you see it on an online article, write a comment, (if it has a forum), calling it out. If your stupid greedy rich fuck of a senator says something about it in Congress, write a letter to them. If one of your so called friends, (wait, you have friends that support double standards based on religion and race?!), writes about it on any social media forum, counter it, call it out. That is the only way we can bring around change, by showing people, through logic and reason, that they are fundamentally wrong. If you're against kidnapping, then you're against kidnapping no matter the race or religion of the victim and perpetrator. If you make exceptions to your so called morale, then its not a real morale. You can't be against rape, but then think rape is okay against a certain race because you hate them.
