Today in Palestine: hypocrisy watch

NOVANEWS

An IDF press release reads:

Israel Defense Forces soldiers early Thursday killed two armed Palestinian militants suspected to trying to infiltrate through the Gaza Strip border.

The troops opened fire on the two militants as they were in the midst of laying explosives at the fence near Kibbutz Kfar Aza. None of the soldiers was wounded.

There has been a rise in attempts by Palestinian militants to bomb targets along the border recently, as well as to launch rockets at Israel.

Last month, the Israel Air Force carried out a number of strikes on the Gaza Strip after a barrage of mortar shells, a Grad rocket and a phosphorous bomb were fired at the western Negev.

This kibbutz is reportedly over 2km from Gaza’s border. Were the militants “laying explosives” near the fence, or “trying to infiltrate”? Does it matter, or is this verbatim an IDF press release written by someone who knows his confusions and contradictions will never be dissected in the first place? Who “lays explosives” to break through a barbed wire fence that can be cut apart with wire-cutters? And if indeed they were planting explosives, how come “militants” planting explosives on their own land which is repeatedly subject to incursions from Merkava tanks that blow apart homes and kill children can be murdered by the occupying army while the Western commentariat twaddles about Wikileaks, while when militants–no quotation marks–kill paramilitary settlers illegally residing in or near Hebron we’re witness to a paroxysm of self-righteous fury and endless hand-wringing from the liberal-left? You want an Israel Lobby? Look at the intellectually corrupt discourse that pervades the chattering classes, creating the “necessary illusions” to keep the conflict cruising along ruinously while the body-count–at least on one side–piles higher and higher day-by-day.