Sri Lanka Conflict vs. Israel and Gaza Conflict
There is a conflict in Sri Lanka? You didn’t know? Well, you aren’t alone. The conflict is between the Sri Lankan government and the rebel group officially known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Haven’t heard of them? They also like to be called the Tamil Tigers, and they happen to be considered a terrorist organization by many countries included Canada and the US. The 25 year long civil war is in its last stages as the Tigers have been cornered by government forces in a 300 square kilometer patch of land in the north of the country. There are hundreds of thousands of civilians located in this war zone, unable to escape the conflict.
This all sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it? Terrorist organization attacking a country, civilians are held hostage in the middle, with proposed ceasefires and civilian casualties occurring every day. Claims of both sides using civilians as human shields have been thrown back and forth along with accusations of both parties directly attacking civilians. This war sounds nearly the same as the Israel and Palestinian conflict, right down to the massive protest rallies held in downtown Toronto.
The protest downtown involved Tamils (the Hindu minority in the Buddhist-dominated country) forming a human chain outside of Union Station. However, unlike the Palestinian protest, this one took a more peaceful tone. There is no sign of flag burning or racist death threats like there are in a typical Hamas rally.
With such a peaceful rally, and not nearly as many news headlines, one must ask why the outrage against Israel was so much greater? What makes the conflict in Israel command headlines and violent protests when a conflict that has had far more people killed (70,000 since the conflict began) barely makes the news? The answer, it seems, is that the Tamil Tigers are not as experienced in propaganda warfare as Hamas is. Or they just have more morals. Either way, the Tigers are not purposely including civilians in the conflict, whereas Hamas wages war from populated areas – the better to get negative media attention towards Israel when innocent bystanders are killed.
Even though the Tigers are therefore “morally superior” to Hamas, they are still deemed a terrorist organization. The rally downtown was calling for peace in the region. Can a government truly make peace with a terrorist organization? With calls for a ceasefire, the government must make a difficult choice. If they choose not to finish the job (like Israel who pulled out of Gaza – leaving Hamas damaged but still intact and able to continue firing rockets), the conflict could drag on for many more years. However, if they choose to take out the rebel group, they face a high civilian casualty count and an even larger humanitarian conflict than already exists. What do you think they should do?
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Tags: ceasefire, Conflict, gaza, israel, Sri Lanka, Tamil Tigers
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January 30th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Israel is a state, and is ethnically cleansing it’s neighbouring state. Israel illegally occupies 3 states and kill and humiliates their civilian populations. Killings tens of thousands and causing millions of refugees.
The only thing you are comparing is a misconstrued understanding of media propaganda.
You even use “Palestinian protest” and “Hamas rally” interchangeably. As though your cover wasn’t already blown, this sort of mistake is just to blatant. I am not even going to explain it. You’re to far gone.
January 31st, 2009 at 2:27 am
EEEK:
It is illegal for Israel to occupy land that it won during a war in which other countries coordinated a surprise attack?
Ethnically cleansing? 1000 people died? There are how many in total? What is this “tens of thousands” garbage you are spewing.
Palestinian Protest – Clearly that was done for alliteration purposes. I mean come on!
February 1st, 2009 at 9:49 am
[...] If they choose not to finish the job (like Israel who pulled out of Gaza – leaving Hamas damaged but still intact and able to continue firing rockets), the conflict could drag on for many more years. However, if they choose to take out …$anchor_text[$anchor_choice] [...]
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:46 am
[...] If they choose not to finish the job (like Israel who pulled out of Gaza – leaving Hamas damaged but still intact and able to continue firing rockets), the conflict could drag on for many more years. However, if they choose to take out …$anchor_text[$anchor_choice] [...]
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:23 pm
????:
It is illegal for Israel to occupy land that it won during a war in which other countries coordinated a surprise attack?
Ethnically cleansing? 1000 people died? There are how many in total? What is this “tens of thousands” garbage you are spewing.
Palestinian Protest – Clearly that was done for alliteration purposes. I mean come on!
<<<<
Yes, it is illegal to occupy land taken during war. It says so in the Geneva Conventions among other international laws. It’s against UN resolutions, and there is even a ruling by the 15 judges of the Internal Court of Justice, the highest of such bodies in the world, which unanimously called the occupation illegal.
Now, we can continue that and blend it into your next point.
Israel not only illegally occupies most of Palestine but Israel illegally annexes portions of the Palestinians state and makes it part of Israel and bans the Palestinians from entering, even with legal documents to ownership. That is a form of theft and displacement, not just the theft of a states land. The larger picture of that which sees millions of Palestinians displaced as refugees and killed regularly makes what I said before true. Israel is ethnically cleansing the the Palestinian state. Large portions of the Palestinians own state is illegal for them to access.
You brought up the number of 1000 dead, not me, and associated it to a context different than I was speaking. For the record, Israel has killed tens of thousands within the context I was speaking. In the ‘82 attack on Lebanon (one of the 3 occupations I was referring to), nearly 20 thousands died alone. That’s one conflict. The thousand you quote from the most recent massacre is inaccurate. The number is at least 1400.
I don’t even know what you were talking about with your last comment.
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Are you basing this entire post of the fact that there was a single peaceful protest that took place nowhere near the conflict? This is a waste of time.
March 17th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Tamil tiger terrorists must be completely destroyed at this point. We have had enough with them. THey have killed 1000’s and 1000’s of our relatives, friends and innocent children by suicide bombs, shooting and other bombings in public areas, buses, temples…. We cannot take it anymore. The government of Sri Lanka should completely finish off the terrorist tamil tigers.
In the past there has been 7 ceasefires. But all those 7 times it ended up by the terrorists regrouping and fighting again in full force. This time when they are now cornered and going to be defeated, they are trying to get the world’s sympathy to get a ceasefire so that they can regroup again. But No! the government of Sri Lanka shouldn’t let them have a ceasefure this time. WE have had enough.
IT is true that there are civilian casualties. But if there is a ceasefire, they will regroup and start again to bomb with suicide bombimgs and shooting to civilians in other parts. So either way there are going to be civilian deaths. So it’s best to completely destroy the LTTE at this point.
THESE BRUTEL and DEADLY ORGANIZATION KILLED MY FAMILY MEMBERS!!! THEY WILL PAY FOR IT!