Israel says "Deploy a peacekeeping force or we will keep killing Lebanese"

Sudan says "No international peacekeepers in our country - if they arrive without our approval we will attack them"

So, no difference there then.

And, I love that your solution for Sudanese killing Sudanese is for Europeans to go and kill Sudanese. That would sure show them the error of their ways.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A U.N. force is critical to prevent a "planned offensive" on Darfur by the Sudanese government, the U.S. State Department's top diplomat on Africa said Friday while accusing Sudan of committing genocide.

Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer made the remarks before a trip to the central African nation. There she plans to press the government on allowing U.N. troops into the war-ravaged region, a move Khartoum opposes.

"I'm fully confident there will be a transition to a U.N. force," Frazer said. Without it, she said, the international community would have no capability to "stop this government from carrying out what has been the genocide."

...

The United States and Britain have introduced a draft resolution to the Security Council, recommending 17,000 soldiers and 3,000 police be sent to Darfur when the African Union's mandate expires in September.

The hypocrisy charge fits for those hyperventilating about Israel as an exceptionally bad violator of human rights, as the equivalent of Nazis, etc. (or they could just be uninformed idiots)

But I think a lot of it has to do with trendy, fashionable news topics - you get spates of stories on Sudan, on Zimbabwe, on Tibet; celebrities and intellectuals fire off petitions and op-eds - and then interest fades.

Then there's the fact that for geopolitical reasons Israel killing civilians and oppressing people matters a lot more than China, Zimbabwe, or Turkemenistan, etc. People don't want to be honest with themselves or others that to a large degree worldwide concern about what Israel is doing is about oil - it upsets the locals in areas where most of that crucial resource exists. Plus they might blow up your subway. If angry Buddhists or black Africans looked like they might disrupt the world's economy or blow us up if we don't pay attention to what they care about we'd obligingly take their concerns seriously. And in terms of human rights issues what Muslims care about most is others killing them.

Finally there's the degree to which Israel is seen as a Western developed democracy. Consciously or not, on some level westerners identify with Israel in a way they don't with Sudan, Congo, China, or Sri Lanka. So we see it as 'us' doing the killing, not those weird looking folks with strange customs we know nothing about.

However, other factors beyond shallowness and hipocracy are at work here.  No one involved in the Sudan has nuclear weaponry, this war may in fact expose the very lowest in human kind, but doesn't run much of a chance of igniting WWIII and possible armageddon.  So there is a different kind of primacy in the Lebanon situation.  Our collective existance depends on peace in the Middle East, or some half-assed attempt at it.  The only people effected by the genocide in Darfur are the people in Darfur and neighboring communities.  Does that make it right to sit by and watch?  No.  Do they need our help?  Yes.  As much as Lebanon?  Yes.  Are we less likely to want to help them because it is Africa?  Probably.  If it were politically rewarding to do so would we have been in there long ago?  You bet.  

But like I said, I'm not gung ho on real politik, but there are very different factors at play here.  I agree that all lives should have the same value to us.  I'm just not under any illusion that the UN is going into Lebanon to help the poor innocent suffering souls of Lebanon and Israel.  

If you think that's why people send troops to places, I think that's a little naive.  

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -Voltaire

The cynical might remark that one of the principle reasons that Israel is much higher on the agenda is the $2-3 billion a year given to Israel by the USA.  government, not to mention the "charitable" donations given by Jews in the USA to support such organisations as the Jewish Agency. Certainly it was the case that the aid to Israel from the USA was more than the aid given to the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

Others have mentioned the desire to see the African Union become an effective peace-keeping force. I agree that they have a shaky record- both in Sudan and in DR Congo where there have been reports of sexual abuses by the AU forces. It should however be noted that there were also such allegations against US members of the forces in Bosnia, including running prostitutes.

Sudan by the way is not really part of the Horn of Africa as it is west of the rift valley, south of Libya and Egypt. The reference to the Horn is however quite fortuitious as it is a reminder of the Euro-centric racist atitudes of the "Holocaust" Jews. The Jews of Ethiopia had a slightly different set of traditional religious practices from the Sepahardim and were refused recognition under the "Right of Return" until 1975 when Begin persuaded a senior rabbi to do so. Even then it was under the proviso that they undergo a sort of formal conversion to the "pure" form practised by Jews of European heritage. That continues and some Orthodox rabbis refuse to recognise the formal conversion and demand that Ethiopeans undergo the full conversion ceremonies.

It is also worthwhile mentioning that during the Ethiopean civil war, the Israelis organised an airlift to evacuate these African Jews virtually overnight. The El-Al aircraft were stripped out of seats to jam in more but as far as I know, no humanitarian aid was sent out in those planes.

It is also worthwhile that the Lemba who live in Zimbabwe (among others countries) are not the subject of similar measures by Israel, despite the starvation  and persecution being suffered by Mugabe's opponents. The Lemba claim direct descent from King Solomon but of course are even darker than the comparatively light skinned Ethiopeans.

The racisn is, in part, due to the Jews who came from western and northern Europe after WWII to recognise the African branch of Judaism as a completely legitimate branch. Seemingly only the Orthodox and the western Reform movement that arose from it is considered completely "kosher". Zionism was a response to the anti-semetism in the west and this is reflected in their characterisation of those from a different tradition as somehow "lesser" Jews.

I tend to agree with you that discussion of Darfur is considerably coloured by the affects that GIYUS and the other shrill groups for Israel, whether sponsored by the Government or not, is unfortunate. I have already remarked on Kos that it undermines the value of comments about Darfur, especially as with this diary it draws attention away from the Israel/Palestine/Lebanon conflict. When the two are deliberately linked, as with this diary, the gravity of the situation in Darfur is devalued.

In July many of the NGOs came together and asked for more help for the country and specifically for the AU effort so that the mission could extend what protection it gives to those in the refugee camps. From the Care site

So far the only donors to offer serious levels of support for the force are Canada, the EU, the UK, the US and Netherlands.

So we have two member countries in additon to the EU centrally who are making significant donations. (I have not checked but the order suggests it is in size of donation.)

European countries are also supporting the logistical support effort through NATO/OTAN. It also goes without saying that there are other aid agencies working there, in particular Medecins Sans Frontiers who had to anglicise their name to get donations from the US. As far as that country's involvement goes, the presence of oil is always a good reason for the Bush mafia to get involved with the added bonuses that there are both a Muslim element to the conflict and a chance to have a swipe at China.

There are incidentally good reason why I at least have not posted about Darfur on here. I post on Booman and Kos in addition to here so I tend to limit my diaries to specifically European issues. If those critical of ET have posted on any of those about Blair's Commission for Africa and the G8 (something that long term will be a legacy for him to be remembered well for, shame he did not quit then)  the famines in the western Sahel, particularly Niger, the situation in Zimbabwe, the real exemplar that Uganda is in fighting AIDS (and Bush's perversion of their ABC program), the attacks of the Lord's Resistance Army in the north of that country, the subversion of the polio campaign by muslims claiming  contamination of the vaccine by the US in Nigeria and about any part of or issue in southern Africa, my criticism of the "you are not mentioning Darfur" brigade might be more muted.