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- Mar 6, 2017
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There’s an important line separating legitimate opinion that enhances the public discourse, from inflammatory rhetoric that interferes with constructive dialogue.
In our view, it’s alarming to see a Sheridan College Professor write a baseless and hateful column against Israel entitled: “The Mafia and Israel’s child killers,” which paints a grotesque and false caricature of Israel’s armed forces.
In his screed, Andrew Mitrovica, a journalism instructor in the Faculty of Animation, Arts & Design, describes the recent death of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, and bizarrely compares the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to the mafia, or as he describes it, a “ruthless crew of gangsters masquerading as ‘soldiers’ who populate the Israeli military.” In his eyes, the IDF is an organized crime syndicate and its soldiers, criminals. As he put it “Israel’s child-killing snipers” are no different than mafia-hitmen.
While Mitrovica attempts to portray the death of the preteen as a premeditated act of a murderous army, he conveniently omits a critical detail: that the boy was killed during violent clashes on the border between Hamas-controlled Gaza and Israel, where rioters threw explosives and attempted to breach the barrier to gain entry into Israel. Because if that detail was mentioned, readers would understand that there is a chasm of difference between a premeditated act of murder, and a casualty of war. Even more so, the fact that a 12-year-old boy was on the front lines of a violent riot on the border with Israel begs the question as to whether the boy was recruited into conflict by Hamas terrorists, as it has done with other child soldiers in the past.
Mitrovica feebly attempts to compare the Israel Defense Forces to the mafia, claiming both groups target children indiscriminately. While such nonsense may be fit to be published on Al Jazeera, it is demonstratbly false. Israel faces nonstop terror threats to the lives and safety of its civilians, who were bombarded by more than 4,000 Hamas rockets this past spring. Israel acts in an extraordinarily restrained and targeted manner when faced with such violent, hateful terrorism, whether coming from Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad or other groups. One cannot envision any other country who would tolerate nonstop terrorism, calls for its destruction, rockets fired indiscriminately at its civilian population centres, all emanating from the never-ending incitement of hate peddled by Hamas, the genocidal, homophobic and medieval Islamist death cult which rules Gaza with an iron fist.
While factual omissions like this are reason enough to dismiss Mitrovica’s column, that is the least of the problems. While reasonable voices can disagree on policies or the actions of the Israeli military, in our opinion, he goes far beyond that line. The bigger issue is that, throughout his oped, Mitrovica repeatedly dehumanizes all Israelis who serve in their country’s armed forces – which, with some exceptions, applies to the vast majority of Israeli Jews who turn 18-years-old.
(full article online)
In our view, it’s alarming to see a Sheridan College Professor write a baseless and hateful column against Israel entitled: “The Mafia and Israel’s child killers,” which paints a grotesque and false caricature of Israel’s armed forces.
In his screed, Andrew Mitrovica, a journalism instructor in the Faculty of Animation, Arts & Design, describes the recent death of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, and bizarrely compares the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to the mafia, or as he describes it, a “ruthless crew of gangsters masquerading as ‘soldiers’ who populate the Israeli military.” In his eyes, the IDF is an organized crime syndicate and its soldiers, criminals. As he put it “Israel’s child-killing snipers” are no different than mafia-hitmen.
While Mitrovica attempts to portray the death of the preteen as a premeditated act of a murderous army, he conveniently omits a critical detail: that the boy was killed during violent clashes on the border between Hamas-controlled Gaza and Israel, where rioters threw explosives and attempted to breach the barrier to gain entry into Israel. Because if that detail was mentioned, readers would understand that there is a chasm of difference between a premeditated act of murder, and a casualty of war. Even more so, the fact that a 12-year-old boy was on the front lines of a violent riot on the border with Israel begs the question as to whether the boy was recruited into conflict by Hamas terrorists, as it has done with other child soldiers in the past.
Mitrovica feebly attempts to compare the Israel Defense Forces to the mafia, claiming both groups target children indiscriminately. While such nonsense may be fit to be published on Al Jazeera, it is demonstratbly false. Israel faces nonstop terror threats to the lives and safety of its civilians, who were bombarded by more than 4,000 Hamas rockets this past spring. Israel acts in an extraordinarily restrained and targeted manner when faced with such violent, hateful terrorism, whether coming from Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad or other groups. One cannot envision any other country who would tolerate nonstop terrorism, calls for its destruction, rockets fired indiscriminately at its civilian population centres, all emanating from the never-ending incitement of hate peddled by Hamas, the genocidal, homophobic and medieval Islamist death cult which rules Gaza with an iron fist.
While factual omissions like this are reason enough to dismiss Mitrovica’s column, that is the least of the problems. While reasonable voices can disagree on policies or the actions of the Israeli military, in our opinion, he goes far beyond that line. The bigger issue is that, throughout his oped, Mitrovica repeatedly dehumanizes all Israelis who serve in their country’s armed forces – which, with some exceptions, applies to the vast majority of Israeli Jews who turn 18-years-old.
(full article online)
Sheridan College Professor Engages in Hate By Dehumanizing Israelis Who Serve(d) in IDF
There’s an important line separating legitimate opinion that enhances the public discourse, from inflammatory rhetoric that interferes with constructive dialogue. In our view, it's alarming to see a Sheridan College Professor write a baseless and hateful column against Israel entitled: “The...
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