Israel never publicly announced the willing and need to destroy another country, and it doesn't not support terror organization with monetary and military aid, it has never carried out terror attacks specially targeted at civilians.
So yes double standards indeed.
And the US had slaves, Europe murdered millions of people in Africa and the Americas.
48 is ancient history.
The actions of a single military unit going out of control (which can be argued) is not indicative mind set of the country and government.
There is a difference between directly attacking civilians and "punitive expeditions" and you have to put the whole incident in the context of the times in the 60's
I wouldn't say a nuclear scientist working on an atomic bomb is an innocent civilian, these are rumors, nothing more and even if are true so what? Iran say they are terrorist because they are anti state organization.
"Ariel Sharon, who led the attack, later wrote in his diary that he had received orders to inflict heavy damage on the Arab Legion forces in Qibya: 'The orders were utterly clear: Qibya was to be an example for everyone'. Original documents of the time showed that Sharon personally ordered his troops to achieve "maximal killing and damage to property", and post-operational reports speak of breaking into houses and clearing them with grenades and shooting."
I'm not sure I would call an attack by IDF troops, ordered by the government, and executed by a man who would become the future prime minister not indicative of the government's mindset. Sure that was a long time ago, but you did claim "it has never carried out terror attacks specially targeted at civilians".
A civilian is someone who is not a member of any armed forces. The Iranian scientists assassinated were not part of the armed forces, they were civilian scientists working on a military project. Much like the thousands of American civilian scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project. Furthermore, several family members of the Iranian scientists were wounded in the attacks, so whichever way you slice it they were attacks on innocent civilians. And by the way, MEK was considered a terrorist group by the US State Department at the time of the assassinations, it wasn't just Iran saying it.
So what if all of that is true? Maybe that means there is in fact a double standard, in that Israel is allowed to violate the NPT while engaging in the same behaviour as its neighbours.
if you are going to quote from the wiki page and from what Sharon said you can maybe add some other quotes from the same wiki such as:
"I couldn't believe my ears. As I went back over each step of the operation, I began to understand what must have happened. For years Israeli reprisal raids had never succeeded in doing more than blowing up a few outlying buildings, if that. Expecting the same, some Arab families must have stayed in their houses rather than running away. In those big stone houses [...] some could easily have hidden in the cellars and back rooms, keeping quiet when the paratroopers went in to check and yell out a warning. The result was this tragedy that had happened."
And even in your own quote it said that "Sharon personally ordered his troops to achieve" so if you want to have a blame game that the persona responsible.
Again from the same "Orders to inflict heavy damage on the Arab Legion" not to directly kill civilian indiscriminately.
"Civilian scientists working on a military project" - and that's make them a valid target, remember that weren't doing space exploration they were building nuclear weapons!
Innocent civilian die all the time, it's unfortunate and sad but true. But there is a difference between killing for the sole purpose of of killing them and when they are collateral damage - and when it happens Israel regrets that, and remember that Israel tries to minimize it as much as possible, no one is happy when that happens unlike their fellow neighbors.
The MEK has denied any involvement in the assassinations and the existence of any alliance with Israel, and as you said they are no longer on the terror list, it was even lifted in 2009 by the Council of the European Union and on 2012 by the US, MEK is different than what it was in the 70s.
I can't say the same for Hamas or Hezbollah, both funded by Iran, with the sole purpose of destroying Israel.
Israel isn't violating the NPT because it didn't sign it. I would think that once there is no threat to the existence of Israel the need to be a nuclear power will be gone. Israel was pushed to that by the continued aggression of the Arabs in the region.
Ha, maybe you'd like to include the very next line from the wiki article:
"UN observers noted that they observed bodies near doorways, and bullet marks on the doors of demolished houses, and later concluded that residents may have been forced to stay in their homes due to heavy fire.[10]"
I get that Israel has their own narrative of events when it comes to Qibya, but if you would read the article, you'd see that it wasn't an isolated instance but the end result of several months of punitive raids by the IDF and civilians with the specific goal of targeting civillians. And yes those orders came from the top of the government: "Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon gave the order, in coordination with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion." The international consensus on what happened in Qibya is pretty clear.
"Over the year leading up to the raid, Israeli forces and civilians had conducted many punitive expeditions, causing destruction of infrastructure and crops and many civilian casualties against Palestinian villages, with Latrun, Falameh, Rantis, Qalqiliya, Khirbet al-Deir, Khirbet Rasm Nofal, Khirbet Beit Emin, Qatanna, Wadi Fukin, Idhna, and Surif being the most notable examples"
MEK and Israel can deny involvement all they want, and you're correct there's no way to prove what actually happened, but the US intelligence services seem pretty damn convinced: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/02/isr... And by they way, one of the scientists was gunned down while driving home with his wife and kid after picking them up from school. That doesn't seem like trying to minimize civilian casualties to me.
MEK is funded by Israel with the sole goal of destroying Iran. Maybe if there was no threat to the existence of Iran they wouldn't have needed to pursue a nuclear program.
You're right the NPT not violating it since they didn't sign it, doesn't mean that there's not a double standard in the way we treat Israel's nuclear program. It's pretty inarguable the Israel has specifically targeted innocent civilians and funded terrorist groups, both of which you gave as reasons as why Israel should be allowed to have a nuclear program without that same sort of scrutiny it's neighbours undergo.
I'm sorry but UN reports are meaningless, it's a corrupt spineless organization which takes things at face value. Helped hide terrorist in UN facilitates, rapes little girls, and is overly one sided due to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
Punitive raids due to Palestinian raids, it's the chicken and the egg.
And to continue the next line from your quote "Meanwhile, Palestinian guerilla raids into Israel continued. Over a two-week period in late May and early June, four raids by Palestinian fedayeen killed 3 and wounded 6 people in Israel, at Beit Arif, Beit Nabala, Tirat Yehuda and Kfar Hess which, according to the UN, greatly concerned both the Israeli and Jordanian governments"
US intelligence services is known to leak misinformation, I don't know if Israel has involvement with MEK but it's pure speculation at this point.
I don't remember Israel declaring the need and will to destroy another nation, have you seen the size of Israel and the size of Iran? I'd say the scale tips in their favor, so "threat to the existence of Iran" is BS. It's just fanatics wanting to remain in power by aligning the opposition with an enemy, age-old trick.
Minimizing civilian casualties doesn't mean zero casualties, that's called collateral damage, we don't know the operational decisions in regard to the assignation.
I'd argue that Israel is being held up to a much higher standard than the rest of the world, which arguably isn't fair considering the neighborhood and the people criticizing Israel.
This is a really poor argument for why Israel is allowed to skirt the Non-Proliferation Treaty scot-free. The less nuclear weapons we have to worry about, the better. But instead, the US rewards them with billions of dollars and high-tech weaponry[0]. When other countries do the same, like Iran, they receive sanctions and threats of military action (Iran is even a member of the NPT[1]). Worse yet, Iran has been clear about its intentions[2] and there's been high-profile accounts of intelligence officials agreeing that Iran isn't pursuing nuclear weapons[3][4]. And we wonder what kind of message this double standard sends to the rest of the world...
By skirt I meant avoid. It's a lot easier to violate a treaty by not even recognizing it. By that logic, Iran and North Korea would have been better off not signing it too. North Korea actually announced its withdrawal from the NPT in 2003.
It's a realistic argument nothing is black and white.
1. Documents are signed, UN regulations are passed so what, it's the actions that count.
I agree that the world needs less if any nuclear weapons, but there is a big difference who holds them.
Iran IS NOT clear about it's intentions, why would they say they want it specifically to attack someone? It's better to lie and say it's only for research, every country lies I would take the words of a fanatic murders country with a grain of salt.
Your argument does nothing other than distract away from my point. Your statements about Iran are opinionated at best, and misinformed at worst (Iran has never threatened to attack anyone with nuclear weapons). You are not countering the fact that Israel is the elephant in the room, the only nuclear weapons holder in the middle east (confirmed by their own former Prime Minister[0]) and flagrantly dismisses signing the NPT while condemning and threatening other nations for exercising their right to nuclear energy. The pot is calling the kettle black.
They have the right to nuclear energy, I'm not disputing that and if they weren't an enemy of Israel and a murders fanatic country - Israel, and me personally, wouldn't have a problem with that.
Not signing the NPT means nothing just like signing it means nothing. You look good on paper but that's about it.
Even tho Iran signed the NPT it violated it numerous times and resumed its enrichment program even after the security Council passed a resolution demanding that Iran suspend its enrichment.
Indeed you are correct they didn't say they want to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons but they did say that they want to destroy it, does the means change that fact?
And if they said that and they did/are trying to procure nuclear weapons what should we think of that? Would they just stay in the silos collecting dust? You western logic and it's all going to be alright doesn't not apply here.
And I counteract that Israel is the elephant in the room, just because you say so, it's another argument to delegitimize it for no other reason but to just do that.
The simple truth is that they can't do it openly and quickly as this would have catastrophic consequences, both internally and internationally. Internationally, they would become a pariah state for many decades. Internally, I think that Israelis are lying first and foremost to themselves about their real intentions towards Palestine.
So they're wiping Palestine off the map in slow motion - building a settlement here and there, annexing a portion of territory, building a wall that transforms the remaining territory in a fractioned ghetto where life is impossible.
If Israel had good intentions towards Palestine, they would establish a border once and for all, and promote, instead of opposing with every means, the constitution of a Palestinian state. But the very charter of Likud, the party in power in Israel, openly states (much as Hamas' charter does on the other side) that Likud "flatly rejects the constitution of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan river". You can't be much more clear than that.
0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel