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Different Standards For Different Rocket Attacks

Terror supporting, genocidal regime launches rockets at the territory of a liberal democracy. Sound familiar? In this case, however, South Korea “returns fire” when attacked by its neighbor according to the above headline in The…

Simon Plosker
March 31, 2014
12:00 am

Reading time: 2 minutes

Terror supporting, genocidal regime launches rockets at the territory of a liberal democracy. Sound familiar?

In this case, however, South Korea “returns fire” when attacked by its neighbor according to the above headline in The Guardian. It is clear that South Korea is responding to an act of aggression.

But what happens when Israel returns fire in response to Palestinian rockets from Gaza?

This is a more likely headline when Israel fires back:

Why is it that even when Israel is fired upon, the headlines still manage to portray Israel as the aggressor? Or at a minimum the moral equivalent of the terrorists who fired the rockets in a so-called “cycle of violence”:

But then Israel couldn’t possibly be judged by different standards to other democracies under fire. Could it?

All part of the phenomenon we call “it all started when Israel fired back.”

Image: CC BY-NC-SA flickr/marsmet543

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Simon Plosker

With over two decades of experience in various non-governmental organizations in the UK and Israel, Simon Plosker returned to HonestReporting in October 2022 as Editorial Director having previously been part of the organization’s management team from 2005 to 2020. Prior to his first spell at HonestReporting, Simon worked in Israel for NGO Monitor, BICOM, and served for a short period in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. He was Managing Editor of the Geneva-based NGO United Nations Watch for two years before moving back to the frontline defending Israel from media bias. Simon has a BSoc.Sc in International Studies and Political Science from the University of Birmingham and an MSc in History of International Relations from the London School of Economics. He immigrated to Israel in 2001 from London.

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