There's A Difference
And, once again, it comes down to the Golda Meir quote, "Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us." Alan Dershowitz writes on FrontPage about the value of children for the Palestinians:
The firing of rockets at civilians from densely populated civilian areas is the newest tactic in the war between terrorists who love death and democracies that love life. The terrorists have learned how to exploit the morality of democracies against those who do not want to kill civilians, even enemy civilians. In one recent incident, Israeli intelligence learned that a particular house was being used to manufacture and store rockets. It was a clear military target since their rockets were being fired at Israeli civilians. But the house was also being lived in by a family. So the Israeli military phoned the house, informed the owner that it was a military target, and gave him thirty minutes to leave with his family before the house was attacked. The owner called Hamas, which immediately sent dozens of mothers carrying babies to stand on the roof of the house. Hamas knew that Israel would never fire at a home with civilians in it. They also knew that if, by some fluke, the Israeli authorities did not learn that there were civilians in the house, and fired on it, Hamas would win a public relations victory by displaying the dead civilians to the media. In this case, Israel did learn of the civilians and withheld its fire. The rockets that were spared destruction by the human shields were then used against Israeli civilians.This, in a nutshell, is the dilemma faced by democracies with a high level of morality. The Hamas tactic would not have worked against the Russians in Chechnya. When the Russians were fired upon, they fired against civilians without hesitation. Nor would it work in Darfur, where janjaweed militias have killed thousands of civilians and displaced 2.5 million in order to get the rebels who were hiding among them. Certain tactics work only against moral enemies who care deeply about minimizing civilian casualties.
Over the past months, a shaky cease-fire, organized by Egypt was in effect. Hamas agreed to stop the rockets and Israel agreed to stop taking military action against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. The cease-fire itself was morally dubious and legally asymmetrical.
Israel, in effect, was saying to Hamas: if you stop engaging in the war crime of targeting our innocent civilians, we will stop engaging in the entirely lawful military acts of targeting your terrorists. Under the cease-fire, Israel reserved the right to engage in self-defense actions such as attacking terrorists who were in the course of firing rockets at its civilians.
...There are some who claim that Israel has violated the principle of proportionality by killing so many more Hamas terrorists than the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas rockets. That is an absurd misapplication of the concept of proportionality for at least two reasons. First, there is no legal equivalence between the deliberate killing of innocent civilians and the deliberate killings of Hamas combatants. Under the laws of war, any number of combatants can be killed to prevent the killing of even one innocent civilian. Second, proportionality is not measured by the number of civilians actually killed, but rather by the risk of civilian death and the intentions of those targeting civilians. Hamas seeks to kill as many civilians as it can. It aims its rockets in the general direction of schools, hospitals, playgrounds and other entirely civilian targets. The fact that it has not killed as many civilians as it would have liked to is a tribute to Israel's enormous devotion of resources to the building of shelters and to the construction of early warning systems. Hamas, on the other hand, refuses to build shelters, precisely because it wants to maximize the number of Palestinian civilians inadvertently killed by Israel's military actions. It knows, from experience, that when it forces Israel to take military actions that result in the deaths of even a small number of innocent Palestinian civilians, many in the international community will condemn Israel. Israel understands this sad reality as well, and goes to enormous lengths to reduce the number of civilian casualties, even to the point of foregoing legitimate targets that are too close to civilian areas. Accordingly, Israel's actions satisfy the principle of proportionality as well as the principle of self-defense against armed attack.
Until and unless the United Nations and the rest of the international community recognize that Hamas is committing three war crimes--targetting Israeli civilians, using their own civilians as human shields and seeking the destruction of a member state of the United Nations--and that Israel is acting in self-defense and out of military necessity, the conflict will continue and perhaps escalate. If Israel succeeds in destroying the terrorist organization Hamas, it may well lay the foundation for a real peace between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. But if Hamas persists in its capacity to target increasing numbers of Israeli citizens, Israel will have no choice but to persist in its self-defense efforts. No democracy would do otherwise.
I say if they are so willing to give up there lives then let them
lujlp at January 8, 2009 4:27 AM
And quite frankly if a 'civillian' takes it upon themselves to be a human sheild for terroist activites then they're not really a civillian
lujlp at January 8, 2009 4:28 AM
A brief flicker of sanity from Dershowitz.
Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg at January 8, 2009 5:01 AM
Unfortunately there is not enough sanity regarding this issue.
Charles at January 8, 2009 5:11 AM
Why the whole question had a simple answer in World War Two?
Toubrouk at January 8, 2009 6:18 AM
Would that Dershowitz evinced as much concern for the potential American victims of terror, as well as American victims of crime - as well as for the efforts of our own government to preempt and punish acts of violence - as he does for Israelis and the Israeli Government.
I'd really like to like Dershowitz, but he does make it difficult.
Dennis at January 8, 2009 7:19 AM
2 links...
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-do-they-hate-the-west-so-much-we-will-ask-1230046.html
Hasan at January 8, 2009 1:30 PM
Fisk?
Really? The man who got the shit beat out of him in Afghanistan and said HE DESERVED IT?
Hasan, you've beclowned yourself.
If our support of Israel and bad regimes explains why they hate us, then why was Libya attacking American ships in the late 1700s, long before we'd discovered petroleum or before Israel existed?
If you can explain that, and come up with something that isn't bullshit, then MAYBE I'll take you seriously.
Until then, I'm going with "they hate us because we're better than they are."
brian at January 8, 2009 3:13 PM
To clarify - Robert Fisk got the shit kicked out of himself, and in a column he excused the people who beat him up by saying that on account of the fact that he was a white European he deserved to be beaten up.
The man is clearly an ass.
brian at January 8, 2009 3:14 PM
brian, I agree with you. i also wish to add that they hate us because we don't think the same as them.
WLIL at January 8, 2009 6:52 PM
lujlp:
I say if they are so willing to give up there lives then let them
- - - - - - - -
Most are not so willing - the untold story here is the loathing many Gazans have for Hamas, and the strong-arm tactics Hamas has used to impose itself upon them.
Even now - despite decimated ranks - Hamas operatives are blocking escape routes to keep civilian "cover" in Gaza city.
Nothing different from the rest of the Arab middle east, but it's the reality.
And if anything, the Palis - through their up-close exposure to Israel's political/economic alternative - are the Arabs Most Likely to Want Better.
It's now a dim, bitter memory, but those of us who live here recall that there was once a grass-roots pro-Western leadership in the West Bank - before the international and Israeli Left rehabilitated Arafat and brought him out of exile to star in their Oslo peace pantomime.
Arafat came back from Tunisia with the mafia he'd built, and established another Arab thugocracy.
Of course his first priority was snuffing out the moderate local leadership.
I remember helping local Arabs write letters in English as they tried to get visas and transfer money to relatives in Detroit.
Their crime? Taking day-jobs with Jewish settlers like me.
Ben-David at January 8, 2009 11:06 PM
i also don't understand why those islamic people are forever talking about the suffering of gaza and palestinian, and pretty much ignore suffering of other people around the world. their propaganda and their blind support for their own islamic brethren is just so onesided that it makes me want to puke.
WLIL at January 9, 2009 7:55 AM
I have had the most absurd discussion on this on a mothering group I am on. Theya re all, of course, horrified that palestinian kids are being killed. It's so WRONG. Israel is AWFUL. There MUST be another WAY. I posted the # of rockets israel has taken, and the number it's killed, and asked if we'd just take that from mexico. Crickets chirped. Until a muslim chimed in and said how offended she was, that we would comment without knowing all the history, blah blah blah. That israel had been an occupying force in gaza since the 7 day war. Yeah, that little episode didn't turn out like the muslims has planned, did it? Of course, that's Israel's fault too. I emailed her back saying I personally was offended that her religion thought I had to either convert or die. I may be off that group now....
momof3 at January 9, 2009 11:06 AM
So let me get this straight... I can't quote Reuters but Alan Dershowitz can, and linking to an op/ed by seven time British Press Awards' International Journalist of the Year, a man who has covered the Mid-East for over 30 years and lived in Beirut since 1976, who covered the conflicts in Northern Ireland in the early 70's, the Portuguese Revolution, the Lebanese Civil War, the '79 Iranian revolution, the Iran–Iraq War, the 1991 Gulf War, the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the conflicts in Kosovo and Algeria "beclowns" me? What an upside down world.
Libyans in the 1700's were pirates who exterminated lions from their country and vessels from their seas. If you were there, you were attacked regardless of your nationality.
Fisk was attacked (and rescued) by Afghan refugees and said that he understood why their frustrations would make them attack a Westerner, not that he deserved it.
You don't understand how Israel's current actions and US "support" of it has undermined every accomplishment gained with the moderate, non-fundamentalist Muslim countries like Egypt and Turkey, Muslims who have allied and done business with Israel for over 30 years, who have proved a two state solution is workable? How this Goliath on David wrestling match pushes moderates towards radicalism and undermines your National
Hasan at January 9, 2009 11:22 AM
(oops...) Security? That the cowardice of the Gazans is an act of utter desperation for survival, that they don't know they are targeted for extermination? The palestinians are currently holding 1 political prisoner, the Israeli's have 10,756 Palestinians, 0 Israeli homes, 18,147 Palestinian homes have been destroyed, Israeli unemployment is 7% while Gazan is at 49%?
Your "Until then..." statement is a joke, right?
Hasan at January 9, 2009 11:34 AM
Hasan -
Robert Fisk is an idiot. Everything he has said is suspect.
Reuters and CNN have both been caught running false stories (palestinian propaganda plants) in this present situation, and many, many times before.
Libya (Barbary Pirates) said explicitly that Islam allowed them to capture "infidel" ships or be paid tribute. Jefferson blasted them to hell for it.
Finally, Explain to me how Israel is the aggressor here. In 1948, the United Nations created Israel out of whole cloth. The area in which it was put was under occupation by Allied powers following the fall of Germany in World War II.
Within 48 hours of the incorporation of the state of Israel, she was attacked by Islamist forces. Israel has been on defense ever since.
You aren't going to win this one Hasan. Reality is not on the side of the Islamists here. Arafat had a chance at peace in 2000. Instead, he declared a new intifada. If he had accepted the deal on offer at that time, and Hamas, Hezbollah and the PLO had stopped with the suicide bombs and rocket attacks, no more people in Gaza or West Bank would have died at the hands of the IDF.
That you and they cannot understand that simple fact proves that you are either unwilling or unable to deal with reality.
The muslims of the middle east are going to have to get used to the fact that we are not going to let them eradicate the Jews. Live with it, or die. You lost the war. You don't get to dictate terms.
brian at January 9, 2009 11:43 AM
You're right about Arafat blowing it. You're leaving out that the partition plan gave over half the land to 37% of the people. The British plan was a raw deal from the start. You leave out that everyone knew from the outset of the War of Liberation that the Palestinians were too weak to win, that the military effort was doomed from the start, that Israel lost about 1% of their population in the war. Israel is in absolutely no danger of eradication, any military action will be met with a greater one, any nuclear plan will be defeated by escalation. You're also confusing me with my argument- I am not Muslim nor Anti-Jew, my name is Turkish but I'm born and bred in the USA, don't speak Turkish and know very little of Turkish culture. I don't need or want to dictate terms. The whole area can go to hell in a bucket as far as I'm concerned, devotion to absurd archaic superstitious religions is the greatest folly of mankind in modern times. I'm distressed because I see Israel in this instance as crying while it shoots, of lamenting about oppression while being oppressive, and as undermining US National Security.
Hasan at January 9, 2009 1:52 PM
Hasan -
Apologies for making assumptions. The way you wrote, it seemed to imply that you were at least muslim, and possibly in the area.
However, I still find some faults with your distress.
Israel is not crying, it is simply shooting, and lamenting that its hand has been forced thus.
One can hardly call a program of giving up land for peace in the face of continuous attacks on civilian populations "oppressive" behavior.
You may say that Israel is in no danger of eradication, but the duly elected government of Gaza has in its organizing charter a declaration that their eternal purpose is the eradication of the Jews from the earth.
And finally, Israel does not undermine U.S. national security. As I tried to point out to you, we've been under attack from muslim interests for almost 300 years.
And to think, if Neville Chamberlain had put a bullet in Hitler's head instead of braying about "peace in our time", there'd be no Israel today, and the middle-eastern Arabs would STILL be killing everything in sight.
brian at January 9, 2009 3:14 PM
I just hope that Israel will prevent the infiltration of islamic people and avoid the foul islamic politics from their neigbouring countries and remained a truly secular independent country.
WLIL at January 9, 2009 4:51 PM
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