While you were criticizing Israel...

During the ongoing problems in Gaza, the most pathetic and frankly diabolical counter-argument I heard to people trying to expose the situation was just like the OP's argument: "why don't you concentrate on another crisis instead".

While some people here indulged in "Israel - bashing", this happened:

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/02/16/un-send-more-troops-dr-congo-1

But hey - I guess as long as no Muslims get hurt...

Note that in a similar period to that of the operation in Gaza around 800 civilians got killed - No F16 involved.

And some people claim Israel wasn't careful enough in Gaza...

Europeans hold Israel to a higher standard and love to criticize it. It's the same thing with the United States. Look at how a prison full of terrorists on an island became such an international PR nightmare for the US. It doesn't matter that there are bigger issues around the world than gitmo.

My advice to Israel is to just forget about the Europe. Europe is always going to criticize and find fault with everything America or Israel does. The worst thing Israel could do is elect a limp-wristed that is only interested in pleasing Europe instead of the electorate.

Europeans hold Israel to a higher standard and love to criticize it. It's the same thing with the United States. Look at how a prison full of terrorists on an island became such an international PR nightmare for the US. It doesn't matter that there are bigger issues around the world than gitmo.

My advice to Israel is to just forget about the Europe. Europe is always going to criticize and find fault with everything America or Israel does. The worst thing Israel could do is elect a limp-wristed that is only interested in pleasing Europe instead of the electorate.

"Forget about the Europe?" What? Seriously, I really wish the British government wasn't so blindly supportive of the US (particularly in the past)...

However, there are crises all over the world, and we should focus on them all, yes. If this proves to be impossible, however, then it shouldn't be the reason for shunning coverage of all crises.

But it should make one ubious when consistently, only 1 conflict is EVER mentioned and only one country is ever really criticised by the public. Focusing on even ONE other would probably be sufficient, tbh.

I created a thread about the situation in DRC, only 22 replies (half of which were from ME), yet israel seems to provoke an anger that is not present for any other situation or country....

People probably feel a greater connection to Israel- due to us drawing up the plans for it and being in charge of the land there for some time- and the USA- due the increasing Americanisation occurring here and the ties between the countries- than DR Congo. Therefore, conflicts involving these countries are going to generate more interest. There are also always two sides to debate on these conflicts, giving the media an incentive to concentrate on them. It's certainly not "right", but I'm not convinced it's due to anti-semitism or anti-Israeli sentiment.

This is not the question. Rather, the question is:

"Why do concentrate only on this crisis?"

do you really need to ask?
It's because Israel is a developed country, it is a democracy, it has good internal human rights etc. etc.

the congo rebels aren't human, who do we protest against? all we can do is hope the un does something about it.

Israel on the other hand, we can protest against.

I beg to differ. Whenever Israel does something wrong the Muslim population of TSR is up in arms. All the anti-Israel rallies around the country are populated by Muslims and hard left wingers. It is certainly an anti-Israeli sentiment, and screams of "Hamas! Hamas! Jews back to the gas!" is probably telling that this anti-Israeli sentiment is at least partially motivated by anti-semitism.

I wasn't really discussing TSR's focus, though, more the media's in general. I cannot speak for the demo's around the country, but all the one's up here have been keen to emphasise that their problem is with the state of Israel, not its inhabitants (although many of the demonstrators, truth be told, are also easily-led fuds and it wouldn't be surprising if they didn't in fact know what they were protesting about). I certainly haven't heard the sentiments about Jews, but I've went from being a protester to avoiding anything remotely like a demo.

As for the Muslims, I can't say I'm surprised or that much can be read into it. The Hibs marches up here are majority Catholic of Irish descent (at some point or t'other) due to the ties of religion, national identity and, a lot of the time, family. I imagine the same would be said for the pro-Palestinian muslims?

I'm not going to argue against the point that anti-semitism is a feature of some people or groups, even, at these events, but I can't say that it has been an overt driving force in the anti-Israeli protests.

Whether anti-Israeli sentiments are manifestations of anti-semitic sentiments has always been a question I've asked myself. At first I thought it was ridiculous: It's a new age, people are done hating the Jews, but over the years I have began to change my mind. You always hear people saying "the Jews control America", "the Jews control the media" etc. and try to justify them as if they were fact. These kinds of anti-semitic libels are endemic in the Western world, most notably and most outrageously in both academic institutions and Jewish institutions(Finkelstein I'm looking at you). I truly now believe that there is an anti-semitic motivation to anti-Israeli demonstrations and sentiments, because most despise simply the idea of a Jewish state existing anywhere... which is clearly anti-semitic.

I beg to differ. Whenever Israel does something wrong the Muslim population of TSR is up in arms. All the anti-Israel rallies around the country are populated by Muslims and hard left wingers. It is certainly an anti-Israeli sentiment, and screams of "Hamas! Hamas! Jews back to the gas!" is probably telling that this anti-Israeli sentiment is at least partially motivated by anti-semitism.