Back On The Israel Bandwagon

It's time to discuss Israel again.(The death penalty discussion is getting annoying.) The siege at the Church of the Nativity is over, but apparently Palestinian gunmen left some surprises in the Church for the Israeli troops: bombs. Want to guess who would've been blamed if the Church had been damaged? (If you think I'm reflexively pro-Israel or a hypersensitive "they're out to get us" Jew, then you simply haven't watched the news for two thousand years.) Apparently, Israeli soldiers had to delay their pullback because of some imported rich white neo-hipster kids peace activists who refused to leave the Church.

What I'm more interested in is the news coming out of Russia. A terrorist bombing during a V-E parade in Kaspiisk, Dagestan has, killed at least 41 people. This is a horrible action, and it is both the right and the responsibility of Vladimir Putin's government to defend itself against the Islamic Chechen militants believed to be behind the bombing. They're fighting for independence against a colonial power, but that still does not justify the murder of innocent children. Putin has promiesd that they will be punished like the Nazis were punished during World War Two.

Wait...that sounds familiar. Why is it, then, that the Russian Federation seems to enjoy criticizing Israel for self-defense? Does anyone doubt that the Russians will pulverize Chechnya to the point that Jenin will look like an amusement park? The Russian Federation likes to vote for "armed struggle to liberate Palestine" whenever it gets a chance. It seems as if this is bona fide duplicity. Yet nobody cares. I'll be astounded if there are European Parliament calls for sanctions on Russia, UN special conventions, Amnesty International special investigators, or Anglo-American press conferences urging a Russian withdrawal and compromise with the terrorists. (Not characterizing all Chechens or Palestinians as terrorist, obviously. The Chechen rebels have condemned the action in the strongest terms, and since this happens relatively infrequently, we can assume they're serious. But Moscow has no interest in negotiating with the Grozny rebel government. Hmmm.)