Like A Hawk

"Netanyahu Rebuffed Again in Efforts to Form Coalition"
A7, Tuesday 2/24/09,
By Isabel Kershner

Why is Netanyahu pressing “on in his pursuit of national unity”? Kershner doesn’t tell us that the big issue is having a united front to deal with Iran.

“Hawkish” is again misused in Times reporting. “Netanyahu…would prefer a broader less hawkish coalition.”

What qualifies these parties as hawkish? If a polity like the PA, not to mention Hamas, wants to continue a state of war - militarily or politically - it’s not necessarily hawkish to refuse negotiations. These right-wing parties don’t see a Palestinian state as any kind of solution, but do they support war any more than they have to?

If not on outright war, the point often made against the far right is that they support war-like policies by not backing a political peace process – one which many correctly see as corrupt and self-destructive. The argument that right-wing parties support war-like policies shows an unwillingness to assess the morality and sense of Arab actions and reactions.

An impression-making two paragraphs begins with Gilad’s suspension. It was more a Gilad transgression (publicly trashing the mission he was sent on) than simply a “public spat,” the sound of which lends credence to Hamas’ point, in the next paragraph, that Israel is sabotaging both a prisoner exchange and a truce. And shouldn’t the Times be mindful of this much space reserved for quoting Hamas, no matter how media friendly it's become?

Hamas and Israel do have something in common: a distaste for human rights reports. The Israeli Foreign Ministry and Hamas were both quoted on the Amnesty International report, but most readers should be able to see the Hamas rhetoric for what it is. While the Israeli response was fair, Kershner copped out with a he-said/he-said. She could’ve offered perspective through an Israeli commentator speaking on the gravity of the best known human rights group's policy seeking to disarm Israel - which would lead to even more wanton aggression against it. Such a policy might logically be viewed as "war-like".

Amnesty International hawkish?