(Written about a month ago when the Great March of Return protests were occuring)
In 2011 in #Syria, cracking down against protesters was supposed to be a big deal. In the face of #Assad suppressing people protesting for their rights, the #US claimed it was not only justified in invading the country with special forces, organizing, training, arming, and funding a national insurgency, but as well in overthrowing the government and installing its own client regime. Assad must have committed a real grave offense. After all, the US intervention instigated, exacerbated, and prolonged a bloody conflict that has led to the deaths of over 400,000 people while also giving rise to #AlQaeda and #ISIS, both of which grew out of the US-sponsored opposition. Suppressing protesters, it would seem, was a really major offense, something which even justifies the committing of the supreme international crime of aggression against the perpetrator.
Yet right now in #Gaza, #Israel is brutally shooting and murdering peaceful protesters demonstrating for their rights. They aren't even trying to hide it. They've set up snipers over hundreds of yards away and are shooting unnarmed, peaceful Palestinians (all of which can easily be verified by watching the countless videos), and when confronted about it, they don't deny it, but try to justify it. After all, in Syria we now know that there were armed militants firing upon security forces right at the beginning. Unlike in Syria however, there has been no evidence that any of the #Palestinians have ever taken up arms or posed a threat to the attacking Israeli's.
Also unlike Syria, there is no moral indignation. There is no self-righteous outrage from the editorial boards of the major newspapers. There is no call that "something must be done." There are no empassioned speaches by talking heads on prime-time network television. There are no emotional op-eds written about the victims. There is no organizing of an international coalition to bomb Israel and sponsor a proxy insurgency to overthrow the perpetrators.
"We do believe Israel has the right to defend itself" Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, said of the events in Gaza recently. Square that with the "Assad must go" mantra that was used to justify the destruction of an ancient nation & civilization.
Wow, we must really care about those protesters.