This is something I'm unable to understand for a long time. How is it that there is so much talk about Israel and the infamous "war crimes" when Israel is one of the smallest countries in the world, while nobody mentions much greater problems, such as North Korean gulags, the humanitarian rights in Iran, Darfur or what Russia did in Chechnya and Georgia, which really are humanitarian disasters? Just for example, not to single it out or anything - The North Korean regime is the same as the soviet regime. Given that just in the soviet labor camps, 15-30 million people found their deaths (Wikipedia, some estimates are much much higher), while many millions were killed by other means (starvation, purges) and given the amount of time the current North Korean regime holds power, I would not be surprised if the loss of life due to the regime is way beyond 1 million, and still going. The highest estimate of the death toll of the Arab-Israeli conflict from 1950 till today, on both sides, military and civilian, including all the wars is less than about 93000 (Wikipedia). Still, it seems like people are more concerned about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than the condition of the human rights in North Korea. Why?
I am American and see this question from the perspective of being a US citizen. The US does not fund, support and lie for North Korea and Iran. I find the insistence that we Americans should all lie to ourselves and each other about how innocent and pure Israel is offensive.
The isreilis think (as do thier supporters) that because of the genocide they can do anything they want. The fact that the US lets them says more about the US than it does Isreil. No-one is supposed to know about North Korea..Shhh, its a secret.
Well I certainly know a lot of Koreans, Chinese and Japanese who don't really think much about Israel but do think about North Korea. It's more a question of historical relevance. The USA helped to create Israel and we normally define our history from a European POV, which includes Greece and Rome and Christians etc.... thus Israel is historically relevant to us whereas NK is not (yes we have very short memories and most Americans don't even know we fought the Korean War).
Ok, given the things you know about Israel, I understand your concern. But Turkey and Sudan also receive funding from the US, although much less than Israel. Still, Turkey abuses the Kurds and the condition of the human rights in Sudan is a lot worse than the condition of the human rights in the Palestinian territories. As a side note, the Palestinians of the West Bank live very good lives as opposed to the people in the Gaza Strip due to the totalitarian regime of Hamas and still, there is no, say, slavery in the Gaza Strip as opposed to Sudan and the amount of civilian lives lost in military operations in the Gaza Strip is a lot less than the amount of civilian lives lost in the massacres in Sudan, of which their government is well aware and despite all that, if there is a massacre in Sudan, with 100000 people dead, there is a small article in the New York Times that mentions it and fades out of view without anybody noticing, but when the IDF commando boards a boat full of terrorists and 9 of them get killed because they attacked the raiding force, or when the Mossad assassinates a terrorist murderer in Dubai, the whole world goes crazy with demonstrations and condemnations. Because the United States is also "innocent and pure", as was recently shown on Wikileaks. On a personal note, I believe there is no war without "war crimes". In a war people get killed, so I hold nothing against the US in the light of any of the recent revelations. I disagree. Israel has to consider all possible outcomes of anything it does in terms of the international reactions that will follow. Every military operation, every terrorist it takes out, is a potential diplomatic disaster for Israel.
