Israel has gone too far and will pay a heavy price
Dear David Miliband,
Due to the considerable media coverage, I didn’t feel a need to write a letter to you regarding the attacks in Gaza – that is, until now. Your tragically weak performance as Foreign Secretary for Britain has already led to the suffering of innocent civilians in Zimbabwe, Burma, Kenya and several other conflict zones. Your child-like pleas for a ceasefire in Gaza are no different. Moments after the agreed ceasefire came to an end, Israel began a vicious campaign against Palestinians. That is not to say that this was without provokation or justification, but my sympathy for the inevitable backlash against Israel is practically zero.
Several pundits in the media and blogosphere have jumped to the defence of Israel on the grounds that they have every right to defend themselves against Palestinian rocket attacks. This argument and the ensuing military objectives make perfect sense and is something that we can empathise with. The media have been kindly presented with footage from Israeli air attacks that show them firing on Palestinian militants about to launch missiles in response to the Gaza bombardment. Again, most people will nod their heads in approval at this behaviour. What I find absolutely astonishing is that Israel presents this facade of ’self defence’ to the world, only to abuse it with utterly disproportionate and brutal military tactics that bear absolutely no relation whatsoever to ’self defence’ and allow Israel to act in a truly despicable manner with the international community watching on. Today’s papers are full of a disturbing incident in which Israeli forces shelled the area outside a mosque in northern Gaza just as afternoon prayers finished. At least 12 people were killed, including six children, and another 30 people were injured. The mosque is situated in a heavily populated area surrounded by houses. The inevitable Israeli justification was that the mosque had allegedly been housing militants – something which the locals deny. Several mosques have already been destroyed under a similar veil of destroying militants’ supplies.
If it were possible to prove that militants live in and store weapons in these mosques, there are few people who would argue with Israel’s actions. However, it seems to me that all Israel has to do is make whatever claims fit their objectives and this magically creates immunity for their armed forces when attacking whoever and whatever they choose – all in the name of ’self defence’. This, in effect, gives them the ability to launch a campaign of terror against innocent Palestinians while simultaneously attacking military targets. Indeed, artillery fire – known to be highly inaccurate – has been alarmingly commonplace in this offensive by Israel and significantly increases the risk of civilian casualties. Schools and hospitals have been hit on several occasions as well as universities and prisons. Chuck in the loss of electricity, food and medical supplies in Gaza and what you have is a civilian population under siege in addition to being forced to live in isolation from the rest of the world for years beforehand. The next generation of Palestinians are being brought up fearing and loathing Israel and these are feelings that will only intensify over time.
Israel can talk all they want to about stopping missile strikes but it has become clear to me that this is not their only objective. They are fully intent on making innocent civilians suffer and for that they will pay a heavy price. Suicide bombing and firing missiles into populated areas can never be condoned, but it can be understood in the sense that you can see why these people fight back. You stop terrorists by talking with their representatives, finding a solution, making it work and sticking with it when things get unbearably tough. The peace in Nothern Ireland was not achieved without considerable pain and hardship but it was nevertheless achieved. The question that I inevitably ask myself is does Israel really want this conflict to end? Do they really want peace? The IRA was destroyed by people sitting down at a table and talking, not blowing each other up. The killings in Northern Ireland didn’t stop the moment that negotiations began but when the IRA saw that they were being left behind by all the groups who wanted peace, they were forced to come to the table. That is how you stop Hamas and that is how you bring this conflict to an end. Sadly, Israel has no interest in coming to the table and that is guaranteed to prolong this conflict for years, possibly decades, to come.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
Sorry A.T. I disagree with this letter and your claims of “brutal campaign against the Palestinians”. From the end of the ceasefire on the 4th of November through to the 26th of December over 300 rockets were fired into Southern Israel by Hamas, followed up with goodness knows how many mortars. It took them over a month before their responce was made, and to be honest it’s a responce against Hezbollah, and Syria and Iran too.
Their response to attacks will continue to be disproportionate. The idea being that those states that are truly aligned against it will not wish to provoke the monster in their midst because they know what will happen.
ALSO! as much as you bleet on about massive casualties etc, of the 400 or so killed, the UN reckons the civilian toll is only 25%.
So not this “Massacre” that so many across the world, who are more often than not ignorant of the facts or history.
Or they have other agendas such as antisemitism [Galloway, for example] or are part of the “old guard” of communists, and extreme socialists [Such as Alexi Sayle, a self-proclaimed Marxist despite making a Multi-million pound fortune in the "evil capitalist west"]
It’s also very hard to negotiate with Hamas, itself a terrorist organization as decreed by the United Nations.
Ontop of this their continued stated aim is the destruction of the Israeli state, and aside from one throw away comment in 2003 about “Stopping violence if Israel went back to the 1967 borders” which itself was met during 2005 with the total withdrawal of Israeli forces. Instead the rocket attacks continued.
I made it perfectly clear in the letter that Israel has sufficient justification for stopping rocket attacks from Palestine and I know that most casualties have been militants. I didn’t call it a massacre. I called it a disproportionate and wildly inaccurate use of force by Israel, and such deliberate attacks on civilian targets will continue to damage the prospect of peace in the Middle East.
Saying that it is “very hard to negotiate with Hamas” is ridiculous. Do you think negotiating with the IRA was easy? Do you think all those groups wanted to be staring at each other round the negotiating table? Of course they didn’t. As I recall, the IRA has some outlandish ambitions when the negotiations started – and guess what, those ambitions were seriously curbed by the time that peace was finally decreed. You stop terrorism by talking to people, not blowing them up.
“Saying that it is “very hard to negotiate with Hamas” is ridiculous. Do you think negotiating with the IRA was easy?”
Do you think it:
a) suceeded in its aims, and
b) was worth it…?
Its hard to see what a proportionate response would be. Israel’s first aim, and the aim of every Government, is to protect its own citizens and that includes the military. Sending in troops to fight in Gaza would be extremely dangerous (look up FIBUA) and risks huge losses to their own troops, hence the need to “soften up” the targets. This appears to be as much out of respect for Hamas’s ability to fight an urban guerrilla war as it is a desire to fight a stand off war that risks killing innocent people and destroy Mosques. Don’t forget Israel got a real bloody nose in Lebanon and will have learnt a serious lesson in that conflict.
It is also difficult to see how negotiations could start, let alone lead anywhere with so much enmity on both sides. This, coupled to the weak political position of the Israeli Government and the fractured leadership of the Palestinians, probably means that overt talks just won’t start no matter how skillful the negotiating team. They certainly couldn’t start once Hamas started to fire rockets on Israeln in a sustained campaign; this couldn’t be dismissed as a “one off” by renegades as we saw in Ireland when the IRA cease fire was broken.
Let us not forget that Bill Clinton failed miserably when he had strong leadership, international support and political will from both sides. No matter what you think of Clinton the person there is no doubt he is the one US president in recent times with the charisma and political will to negotiate a settlement. Even the Norwegians failed in similar circumstances despite years of patient, secret, diplomacy.
You also have to wonder about Hamas’s tactics and question whether they really do want a negotiated settlement. We have had 8 years of George Bush who has made it clear that he didn’t want to get involved, but that is coming to an end and he is being replaced by someone who appears to have the leadership and international backing to make headway in the region.
Obama hardly comes across as a friend of Israel so what were Hamas up to breaking the cease fire and attacking Israel in such a sustained campaign? There has been wide speculation in the media that Israel would have one last chance to attack during the US Presidential handover period, so why provoke them? Even the Egyptian Foreign Minister has criticised Hamas. And by provoking Israel Hamas has at least given Israel a fig leaf of justification and made it harder for the world to condemn them. The Hamas leadership isn’t stupid so what were they up to?
You raised some good points but as the old saying about Northern Ireland goes – if you think you know the solution you don’t understand the question.
I think it was Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book which set out the strategy being used by Hamas. This involves working amongst a civilian population so that collateral deaths are inevitable, listing only civilian deaths – particularly children and women, non-stop guerrilla tactics, feeding those sectors of the press that show some sympathy, financially supporting pressure groups in other countries.
The solution to the problem is simple. Let Hamas and Hezbollah cease these attacks. Certainly Israel will no attack any targets at all if that happens. Then, and only then, meaningful talks can take place.
The only other solution is the elimination of Hamas completely and that is hardly possible – it is not an army in the field.
[...] A. Tory has written a letter to the Foreign Secratary castigating him for his weak response to the Israel Palestinian conflict: Due to the considerable media coverage, I didn’t feel a need to write you a letter on the attacks in Gaza – that is, until now. Your tragically weak performance as Foreign Secretary has already led to the suffering of innocent civilians in Zimbabwe, Burma, Kenya and several other conflict zones. Your child-like pleas for a ceasefire in Gaza are no different. [...]
Victor, I daresay neither Hamas or Israel can click their figures and cease all aggression from both sides, but I detect no willing whatsoever from Israel which – as a nation and a government – I find deeply disturbing. Hamas and Fatah present a far more complicated equation whereas Israel has no excuse. I agree that a ceasefire is pretty much a prerequisite for peace talks and I do not in any way condone any ‘civilian shields’ as they are grotesque in the extreme.
TGS, I seriously question the assertion that Obama is not a fan of Israel, given his overtly pro-Israel cabinet appointments such as his Chief of Staff and Defence Secretary.
Julia, in terms of casualties, political stability and social optimism, negotiating with the IRA was a spectacular success in my opinion. It was a long, dangerous and difficult journey but it was worth it a million times over for what we have now.
Not to worry; this is why Tony Blair was named peace envoy to the Middle East: he’ll soon sort it all out.
“Saying that it is “very hard to negotiate with Hamas” is ridiculous. Do you think negotiating with the IRA was easy?”
Do you think it:
a) suceeded in its aims, and
b) was worth it…?
Hang on a sec, Julia. Are you saying that a state of war with the IRA, with bombs in London, with UDA guys running drugs into the UK and money and arms from Glasgow to Belfast and all the mayhem entailed therein is a better situation that the peace-facsimile in place now?
As for the letter…
only to abuse it with utterly disproportionate and brutal military tactics
This goes to a deeper problem of proportionality, asymmetrical warfare and propaganda by deed. Asymmetrical warfare is where the ostensibly weak leverage that weakness to assail the strong. When the strong retaliate against the weak it adds to the media support of the asymmetrical fighters as the response looks heavy handed and will inevitably entail civillian casualties. That’s the point.
Its also why Israeli tactics in this regard are counter-productive as it is actually, quite apparently, Hamas’ game plan. That the IDF requires very little encouragement to do ham-fisted airstrikes is neither here nor there.
What is going to be more interesting is whether the Hezbollah tactics used to so successful blunt Israel’s thrust into Lebanon (where elite professional commandos and heavy tanks became mired a couple of clicks in) have been transmitted to Hamas for use in Gaza and whether the IDF have been able to strategically adapt to them. The jury’s out on that one for now but time will tell.
If it were possible to prove that militants live in and store weapons in these mosques, there are few people who would argue with Israel’s actions. However, it seems to me that all Israel has to do is make whatever claims fit their objectives
The rockets come from somewhere – they exist. Israel was under rocket attack. Name me a nation which wouldn’t respond to defend itself and which would fight a “limited war” to achieve that?
“Are you saying that a state of war with the IRA, with bombs in London, with UDA guys running drugs into the UK and money and arms from Glasgow to Belfast and all the mayhem entailed therein is a better situation that the peace-facsimile in place now?”
It was a more honest one.
“Israel was under rocket attack. Name me a nation which wouldn’t respond to defend itself and which would fight a “limited war” to achieve that?”
There are none. I hope…
“…I detect no willing whatsoever from Israel which – as a nation and a government – I find deeply disturbing. Hamas and Fatah present a far more complicated equation…”
But LFaT, Hamas is a ‘nation and government’ too. Duly elected, we are told.
Why, then, should Israel be held to a higher standard while they escape even the mildest censure from the Western media?
Not that Egypt (of all places) was so quick to blame the usual suspects:
http://www.seraphicpress.com/archives/2008/12/egypt_hamas_is.php
It seems they aren’t so fond of Hamas either.
Another thought on the IRA comparison. There had been back channels and negotiations throughout the troubles despite what we are told, but it was 9/11 that made the IRA realise they had to negotiate seriously. They realised very quickly that there was no way that the USA would continue to tolerate there fund raising and provide them tacit support. Whilst they negotiated hard they did have another incentive.
It strikes me that for all the faults of both sides, only one seems to be prepared to negotiate in good faith and that side doesn’t include Hamas. For all it’s trendy to blame Israel for everything that happens in the middle east they find themselves between a rock and a hard place when the western media atack them for over reacting to a breakdown in a ceasefire prior to which hundreds of indiscriminate lethal weapons had been fired over their border.
Whether or not you ascribe to the theory that israel shouln’t be there at all, no reasonable government is going to be allowed to stand by whilst a foreign state attacks them. The Israeli answer is one any western government would come up with and to hell with proportionate, that’s only for nations that negotiate in good faith in previous ceasefires.
It strikes me that for all the faults of both sides, only one seems to be prepared to negotiate in good faith and that side doesn’t include Hamas.
The first thing to realise is that if you want peace, you don’t make peace with your friends. You make peace with your enemies, by definition.
The IRA, for whatever you may think of them and their various incarnations throughout the 20th Century, were never a narrow, religious organisation pushing for a Catholic Theocracy. Well, except for De Valera and the Irish still pay a price for his piousness in their constitution and relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. The IRA we now talk of was a largely neo-marxist organisation which was generally rationalist and realist. With the except of Bobby Sands et al there was no motivation to die and claim martydom.
To my mind this means that Israel has two problems: firstly the people who they need to make peace with, they won’t speak to. Secondly the people they need to make peace with will neither surrender, abstain from violence or be particularly concerned about death. Israel’s approach of ‘regime change’ and selecting who they will and will not treat with is doomed to fail almost as comprehensively as Hamas desire to ‘destroy’ Israel is doomed to fail. By basically refusing to negotiate with people who disagree with them and are enemies, while trying to kill them but also catching large numbers of ‘civilians’, Israel strengthens the hand of the very people they are going to have to negotiate with. They do this by making their enemies appear as ‘victims’ and by basically forcing the people of Gaza into their arms.
Bollocks, you say? Well ask yourself this question: if members of your family were killed, would you not seek revenge via anyone who offered you the chance of it? If you needed healthcare or education for your children and civil society could not provide them while Hamas could, would you not go to Hamas?
Worse, whenever Israel takes out one bogeyman, he gets replaced by something worse. Consider this: They wanted the PLO out of Lebanon in the 80s and succeeded. Hezbollah, implaccable and religiously motivated, replaced them. They wanted the PLO neutered and bottled it up in the West Bank. That worked but Hamas got unleashed in Gaza. They blew up Saddam’s Osirak reactor but now face the other half of Persia with probable nuclear weapons in the shape of Iran. You can choose your friends but not your enemies.
The trick, I’d argue would be for Israel to detatch the common people of Gaza from Hamas (depriving them of the water in which Mao would have them swim). This won’t be accomplished by force: Hitler didn’t get Brits to stop supporting Churchill by flattening London. The only chance is to offer alternatives to those people who have come to rely on Hamas et al and for pretty obvious reasons this isn’t going to be easy for the average Israeli to do and would be walking the fine line between rewarding force and playing straight-out politics.
“The IRA were destroyed by people sitting down at a table and talking, not blowing each other up. “
The IRA only demonstrated any willingness to negotiate after they started taking heavy casualties in operations like Loughall and Gibraltar. The British government had been willing to talk since the early 1970s but that alone was insufficient.
Ross, you are deluding yourself – Gibraltar represents only a single ASU, for example, and netted them more recruits than they lost in that operation. The back channel communications opened by MI5/6 coupled with the steady shift in tactics (from mass casualties and assassination to property damage) allowed the unlikely peace-faction in that organisation to come to power. The British in no sense defeated the IRA even though it seems they did have infiltrators well placed within it and as observed above, it was 9/11 that finally cast the die for the group in putting the guns down. As I said, realists, not fanatics.
Shaun,
If I read you correctly you are suggesting that Israel starts a “hearts and minds” operation? Hasn’t this been tried before and isn’t the point of Hamas’s tactics to make that approach just about impossible by hiding in Mosques and amongst the population? If Hamas’s aim is the annihilation of the State of Isreal them they aren’t likely to allow the general population to develop a liking for, or dependency on, Israel.
On that line of thinking I have always been surprised that aid agencies rely so much on access to Gaza through Israel and are therefore prone to disruption whenever Israel closes the border. Wouldn’t it be better to set up their logistics operations in Egypt, a fellow Muslim country and surely one more sympathetic to the suffering of the general population than Israel?
Developing that further couldn’t the international community help to build a functioning economy using Egypt as the conduit for trade? A wealthier Palestinian state with something to lose is more likely to want a negotiated settlement than one that is suffering such abject poverty.
Well, Great Simpleton, I wouldn’t necessarily call it a hearts and minds operation but in essence, I suppose that’s what it is. Give them jobs, money, self-respect, healthcare and education and you should expect to ease the problem over a decade or two (I’d emphasise education, personally – if kids there could learn to read and write and do sums without having to learn that they’d be better off as a suicide bomber/martyr then my hunch is you’d see the number of recruits drop and economic productivity rise). The problem is cracking heads and blowing the cr*p out of people is better TV and more appropriate to electoral cycles than educating your foes for a couple of decades until they lose the insane urge to fight…
However, your points about aid and economy are very much in keeping with the only potential solution (lets not get over-excited and ever call it ‘viable’!) that I can see. Interestingly, remember that it benefits Egypt, Jordan and Syria to have the Palestinians suffer horribly as it justifies their opposition to Israel which in turn provides an excuse for the repression they practice at home. This is why aid can’t go from there (plus Israel doesn’t trust them, or the aid agencies, not unreasonably when they’ve fought wars with those countries and idiots like Bliar’s sister-in-law make aid very political!).
Genuine congratulations.
I am prepared to refute all my generalisations about tories in your case. We may never agree on anything ever again, but it is a sign of the commonality of human decency when two people as politically different as us can agree in the face of such a human disaster.
The future of Israel is terrifying. Whatever they ‘achieve’ in Gaza, they have escalated the wider conflict to alarming new levels and there is no telling where it may end. The fundamentalists in Tehran are at least as crazy as those in Jerusalem. And nobody wants a Battle of the Fundamentalists.
TGS, I read somewhere else on the web today that as part of the peace settlement between Israel and Egypt, Israel monitors the boarder and nothing can pass without their agreement. Might be wrong, but might not…
I fear you are right in that there will be repercussions for Israel. However, I understand it was HAMAS, not Israel, who initially broke the cease fire by firing rockets into Israel.
There are existing peace treaties with Egypt, Syra and the West Bank. Gaza was reasonably peaceful until HAMAS took over.
Where was the condemnation when HAMAS fired rockets into Israel killing innocent civilians?
Israel surely has much more justification for its actions than we did when we invaded Iraq.
What would be your reaction if the French started firing rockets at us from Calais?
I agree with you. And I think that people that are defending Israel are forgetting an important fact: Hamas people are terrorists and they don´t mind hurting inocent people because that the propuse of their attacks. They´re fine with it. Let´s say that they are evil. Just that. They are fanatics and extremists and this is obviously wrong and no one is questioning this.
Israel should know better. If they only killed the Hamas terrorists in their attacks no one would care. That´s a bit like Guantanamo. No one really minds because they are indeed terrorists (some of them anyway).
The problem is that they also kill a lot of inocent people and they use their great military power to do so. Do you understand know: the big question is that all the military power of Israel is use to kill inocent people. And that is unfair.
About your solution I don´t know if that´s possible. Too much pride and hate between them.
What would be your reaction if the French started firing rockets at us from Calais?
This is a false analogy because, like it or not, the French have a state with trappings that can be attacked reciprocally. Roads, power and water plants, government offices, army bases. The correct analogy would be with the Welsh independence fellas; if they fired rockets at Birmingham rather than burning down the odd estate agent in their frustration at ‘English’ rule…
There is so much wrong in this letter that I wonder if A. Tory gave it the kind of thought it deserves. Many here have made the points that are obvious regarding asymmetrical warfare, Palestinian culture and the racism inherent in demanding one moral standard from Israel and another, lower standard from the Palestinians. The fact remains that Israel has been enduring thousands of rockets lofted aimlessly into their country from territory they traded for promises for peace. How long can any country be expected to accept that before its citizens rise in outrage? Between the parties in this macabre dance, only one has been willing to give up anything for peace and that’s Israel.
The apologists for Palestinians make some atrocious arguments – from the thoughtless insistence on proportionality to the naive (and typically leftist) idea that we can bribe the hatred from the hearts of Palestinians. Anyone who has spent even moments studying the education and culture of Hamas and Fatah controlled territories know that murderous rage is inculcated at a very early age. They’re unemployed and homeless because that is what their priorities result in. If they were more intent on building an economy, wouldn’t you think life would be different?
There is a reason why some streets around the world are filled with terrorist sympathizers agitating for a hudna, while governments are for the most part remaining silent but for weak platitudes supporting peace – Activists hate Israel and leaders see how patient Israel has been. And notice that for all the faux outrage about the plight of the Palestinian refugees, no one is willing to protect them, not even Egypt or Iran. The Palestinians are proxy warriors meant to inure Middle Eastern governments from the rightful complaints of they’re starving populations, and so they’ll arm Hamas rather than feed Palestinians so they can continue to fight vicariously through them.
Anyone who cares anything for peace and civility in the Middle East can’t afford to go soft now. Hamas needs to be defeated, and the Palestinians need to learn that there’s no future in voting in terrorists or supporting terrorism.
I respect your opinion, A. Tory, but have respectfully to disagree with you. Israel has been attacked by Hamas, after the latter violated the ceasefire agreement. Israel has every right to defend itself — and by any means necessary. Proportionality doesn’t come into play.
If someone broke into my house, I’d make sure he doesn’t leave alive if I had the chance. This may not be seen “proportional” by some, but I don’t care. If you do wrong, you’ll have to face the consequences, even if it means you lose your life.
Proportionality doesn’t come into play.
I disagree: proportionality *always* comes in to play, not least in the court of media-public opinion. People instinctively root for the David over the Goliath, even if, as in this case, its the Goliath that’s Jewish. From colloquialisms like ‘you don’t use a sledgehammer to crack a nut’ onwards, our society, and most societies, are *riven* with proportional judgements. And lets not forget that its *disproportionality* that is the key to asymmetrical warfare…
Shaun – to fall for the “proportionality” ruse is to willfully equivocate. We are thinking beings – why do you insist on pretending otherwise? Take your logic a step further – if it is not fair to fight with the advantages you bring to the battle, would it be right for the UN to arm the Palestinians until they are on a par with the Israelis? If both sides were equally lethal, yet one side consistently outsmarted the other and repeated victory and after victory, would you be complaining of a disproportionate use of intelligence by one side?
In moral terms, one can easily argue that Palestinians employ a disproportionate use of depravity – from child abuse to abuse of a religion to feed hatred of Israelis into their population, and no compunction to allow any do-gooder Westerner like yourself to impose a change in that disproportionate use of propaganda.
Hamas’ charter makes no secret of its intentions, and the institutional preference for blood over knowledge means that universities are used to make bombs and mosques are used to store them. And you’re worried about a disproportionate use of force? It makes one wonder if you truly recognize Hamas for what it is.
No shane, I’m talking about *perception* and that fact that people, particularly in the West, have an instinctive desire to back the ‘underdog’. I acknowledge that Hamas play on this, admittedly fairly admirable trait, masterfully and the Asymmetric quandry is fundamentally one that can only apply to empathetic, well-formed human beings. These are qualities I consider pretty indivisible from my humanity, I can’t speak for anyone else.
That said it therefore remains for us to turn our back on these qualities and thereby come closer to resembling the indisputable evil we all oppose or see our civillisations fall to it. Philosophically, I don’t know how many of these fundamental qualities of humanity we can sacrifice to remain alive and still remain better than our foe, or even morally human. All I know is that arguing for their preservation makes me a much better human being than a mindless religious zealot bent on genocide and global domination.
Shaun – you can argue for those qualities of being “empathetic, well-formed human beings” motivate the throngs that demand Israel endure missiles and bombings as some kind of karmic retribution, but I don’t buy it. But that’s not the argument – does accepting the ‘perception’ make one an “empathetic, well-formed’ human being? Does, by finding such moral equivocation horrendous make one narcissistic and ill-formed human being”? If evil kills, yet good men never rise to face the threat (after diplomacy or not), how many will suffer before the evil are stunned into empathy by a conscience they heretofor never acknowledged?
This is the sort of idealism that kills innocents – like pacifism it guts the courage of the moral and rewards the designs of the immoral. Do you see where I’m coming from?
Those that use the proportion argument are asking us not to think morally, but in the infantile form of ‘fairness.’ Fairness can not be a standard, it is too subjective – Hitler thought it was only fair that Germany take Poland – was that fair to the Polish?
You can argue for the preservation of empathy and the “well-formed human being” without arguing that to fight evil is to become evil oneself. What would the world look like if depravity was never met on the battlefield?
I’m not arguing that Israel should endure a constant, or indeed intermittent, barrage of rocket fire. The self-evident truth of this conflict is that its not about Israel ‘massacring’ anyone or trying to do a ‘genocide’ or any of the other dishonest hyperbolic claims. The weaponry at Israel’s disposal makes such actions eminently possibly and therefore the fact that Palestinian casualties are < 600 atm some 9 days into the campaign tells me clearly that they must be trying fairly hard not to be indiscriminate and not do mass casualties. Conversely, Hamas have fired c. 8000 rockets into Israel with the intention of causing mass casualties while lacking the technical capacity to do so. Their rockets are crap. That doesn’t get them a free pass.
I do understand what you are arguing but you seem to not be grasping that I am arguing that the david/goliath/underdog/disproportionality-asymmetric thing is a *perceptual* battle fought for the benefit of Western public opinion. It is predicated on our cultural assumptions, proclivities and weaknesses. The insidious nature of it is that it baits us and forces us to do fairly unconscionable things in order to defeat it. The IDF can’t feel good about killing kids or women (unlike Hamas) but it is an inevitable consequence of engaging Hamas in Gaza. It dimishes their humanity and drags them, morally, closer to Hamas as both kill children and the distinction becomes one of intention which in turn blurs morality. As I see it, the danger of fighting Islamism per se is that it is so corrosive that fighting it *damages* us and makes us come to resemble them. That is also why Hamas feels it will win – it views morality as weakness unless Mohammed said it and presumes that its Western opponents lack the stomach to fall to their level. They are wrong, of course – the origianl 1920s IRA knew dirty war was about a race to the bottom and after WW2, so did everybody else.
The question is how to do what is necessary while preserving our essential humanity enough to have made it morally worth fighting at all.
All this is a very great shame. Israel has turned the Gaza into a ghetto. Of all people, the Jews should know about ghettos. It seems to me that suffering is the same wherever it occurs.
Why should we remember atrocities against the Jewish people when atrocities are being carried out now against innocent Palestian civilians?
I agree totally with your comments..”you stop terrorists by talking with their representatives, finding a solution, making it work and sticking with it when things get unbearably tough” because this is always so. 60 odd years ago the state of Israel came about after terrorist activity. Only half a solution materialised and the Palestinians still haven’t got their other half.
“The IDF can’t feel good about killing kids or women (unlike Hamas) but it is an inevitable consequence of engaging Hamas in Gaza. It dimishes their humanity and drags them, morally, closer to Hamas as both kill children and the distinction becomes one of intention which in turn blurs morality. As I see it, the danger of fighting Islamism per se is that it is so corrosive that fighting it *damages* us and makes us come to resemble them.”
If you believe that fighting evil makes us “come to resemble” the evil we’re fighting, then there is nothing to be done. The depraved will always find ways to fashion moral conundrums that will paralyze opponents who hew to a moral standard. Considering that we are now handing over defense of our citizens to the whims of the street mob and clever warmongers, one can predict that no response will ever be justified against a people anointed by world opinion as ‘victims.’
You are asking us to forsake moral standards in the name of political pragmatism, regardless of context.
Shaun – you seem a decent fellow. In your heart you want to be considered a decent fellow. What price are you willing to pay to be considered that? Who’s judgement are you seeking, and are you sure their judgment has integrity? Accepting moral relativism in the name of peace guarantees horror. Even Ghandi, considered an iconic pacifist, in 1947 argued for war against the Pakistanis for invading Kashmir. Why? Because sometimes there is no other choice than to pick up arms and confront your enemies. Silence or appeasement connotes weakness, or worse, acceptance.
In the political arena, Israel endured missiles for years without retaliation because they knew that many in the world would see them as the aggressors regardless of the truth. I think they tried your approach and the violence escalated. You can’t ask a people to continue for a few more years, subsidizing it’s enemies, in the hopes that a world that is unwilling to recognize the moral difference between the parties will suddenly understand and allow Israel to defend herself.
It’s time we stood up and defended the moral standard. It’s time to demand more from the Palestinians. It’s time to we decided it’s worth fighting for a civilized world.
“I agree totally with your comments..”you stop terrorists by talking with their representatives, finding a solution, making it work and sticking with it when things get unbearably tough” because this is always so. 60 odd years ago the state of Israel came about after terrorist activity. Only half a solution materialised and the Palestinians still haven’t got their other half.”
Arden – please read up on the history of Israel before posting your thoughts. You might also read up on the history of terrorism while you’re at it.
If you believe that fighting evil makes us “come to resemble” the evil we’re fighting, then there is nothing to be done.
I don’t believe that it *has* to but I do believe that it can. Quite easily. Ironically that’s the philosophical underpinning of the Geneva convention – if you torture my captured soldiers, I’ll torture yours so lets just skip that between civillised nations. Terrorism, or warfare by non-state actors (as it were) is not confined by the geneva convention while the target states usually are. The moral trap is that the terrorists drag you down to their level. They kill your women and kids so you kill theirs. For different reasons – theirs hatred and incitement, yours to get to them – but dead kids are dead kids.
Accepting moral relativism in the name of peace guarantees horror.
In some circumstances that is undoubtedly true. Our deal with Stalin to defeat Hitler resulted in a far greater death toll than Hitler alone managed. The problem is that relativism is also necessary for peace as its the recognition of similarities, no matter how slight, no matter how forced, that allow for people to see one another as approximate equals which is necessary for *any* kind of meaningful contract.
Shane, I don’t need to read up on terrorism. It would take me the rest of my life! The fact’s are that the state of Israel was born out of terrorism. If Israel had not come into existence, the bloodshed would have continued. The Zionist group, Irgun, blew up the King David Hotel with many dead and injured. 60 years later the Israeli PM celebrated this atrocity. The British Ambassador said, “We do not think that it is right for an act of terrorism, which led to the loss of many lives, to be commemorated.”
One man’s terrorist, etc, etc. I still say that unless the Israelis and the Palestinians talk, this will continue right through this millenium.
Arden – that is atrocious. Using your logic, it is the United Nations that is the cause of terrorism. Concerning the acts if Israeli terror – what was the reaction of the Israelis? Outrage. Protests. And for every act of Israeli terrorism, there are a hundred – maybe a thousand by her enemies. Your willingness to ignore that tells me you will not differentiate between Hamas and the Israeli.
What kind of terrorist drops leaflets warning residents to flee areas that are to be bombed? What kind of terrorist calls Palestinians on their cell phones to warn them of impending attack? How can you equivocate between Hamas and Israel?
You think we can talk terrorists into dropping their lust for Jewish blood? Then you were undoubtedly a supporter of the Oslo accords. What happened there? Palestinians chose intifada over peace. There is only one side willing to sacrifice for peace. That is Israel.
Oh,well, another 1,000 years beckons!
Shaun – do you take into account intention when you judge actions by Hamas and Israel? You talk as if killing, regardless of who and why one does it, is wrong. Hamas aim for innocents, and has repeatedly said that Israeli civilians are fair game. Israel drops leaflets, warns Palestinian civilians of attacks. Hamas put civilians in and around its military targets so as to set up the tragedy.
Do not the intentions of the actors color the morality of their actions?
Of course, Shane (I specifically said that if Israel *was* genocidal, they have the tools to do it whereas Hamas who *are* genocidal don’t). Of course intentions matter but the road to hell, as they say, are paved with good intentions. Hitler believed he was doing the right thing by striving for a racially pure German people. Stalin believed he was doing the right thing when he purged tens of thousands and left millions to starve. Pol Pot believed Year Zero was the right thing. So while intentions matter, a good intention can lead to a pretty indisputable evil. Hamas insidious trick is in getting Israel to *collaborate* with it in its scheme to make Israel look bad by killing civillians, which they do by permeating all civillian areas of Gazan life.
They know that when this morally complex situation is boiled down to 20 second newsclips in the West, Israel will look bullying. They know that when Israel do cause collateral damage, the news in the Arab world will dwell on it. In this regard, Israel is falling into its trap – I agree its not avoidable with current warfighting techniques and technologies but that’s the point: to make Israel LOOK like the bad guy.
Reports coming through of scores of dead in a UN-run school in a refugee camp in Gaza. Zionist aoplogists will no doubt claim that they were terrorists, as they were killed. This is the Catch 22 logic which has now infested Zionism and, more worryingly, the rest of Israeli political ideology.
This was inevitable, especially since the IDF proved yesterday that it cannot even identify its own troops, let alone invisible terrorists. If it is unable to avoid targeting its own ground troops, how can it avoid targeting civilians in one of the most densely populated countries on earth. The entire Israeli propaganda front lies in ruins except to its apologists and dogmatists.
How will the hardline Zionist apologists defend this?
Sorry Little, ‘Hamas use human shield Shocker!’ isn’t really a headline worthy of your semi-namesake. ‘Evil People Do Evil Things And Make Other People Do Evil To Suit Their Evil Schemes’ isn’t particularly catchy either tho…
(comment deleted for breaking the rules of this blog)
Well, I thought it was clever…
Israel can do what they want in Gaza, they have an airforce, Navy, tanks, Heavy Artillery and well equipped army. The Palestinians have just just a few rifles and home made bombs. But they have gone so far this time that I think after this is all over they will become a state like South Africe and boycotted by the rest of the world. The Jews living around the world will end up paying a price for all this. No amount of PR will be able to rehabilitate them, they will wither on the vine economically.
That’s very thoughtful of you John. Does a rapist who overwhelms a woman who used a gun to defend herself deserve rape? How can you make moral decisions based on fairness – isn’t that a subjective notion that neuters any responsibility of the assailant?
Israel can do what they want in Gaza, they have an airforce, Navy, tanks, Heavy Artillery and well equipped army.
And with all that, they could stage a massacre or genocide any time they wanted. The reality is they are killing around 66 a day (10 days of operations, 660 dead) which would be pathetically incompetant if they were going to do a ‘massacre’. For the sake of comparrison, in Rwanda, during actual genocidal massacres, 1500 people a day were being killed. To me, this suggests that within technical limits, Israel is actually being either really careful or very restrained.
Hamas DO want to stage genocidal massacres but lack the technical capability to do it.
“Israel can do what they want in Gaza, they have an airforce, Navy, tanks, Heavy Artillery and well equipped army. The Palestinians have just just a few rifles and home made bombs. But they have gone so far this time that I think after this is all over they will become a state like South Africe and boycotted by the rest of the world. The Jews living around the world will end up paying a price for all this.
No amount of PR will be able to rehabilitate them, they will wither on the vine economically.”
We will all pay the price, just as we have for the last fifty years. If London and Paris and New York are seen as ignoring this massacre, then they will be targeted for vengeance. That is the way vendettas work, as Israel is demonstrating at present.
“Sorry Little, ‘Hamas use human shield Shocker!’ isn’t really a headline worthy of your semi-namesake. ‘Evil People Do Evil Things And Make Other People Do Evil To Suit Their Evil Schemes’ isn’t particularly catchy either tho…”
A medieval mind using medieval words to express medieval politics.
These are political deaths caused by politicians. And are preventable, unlike the ‘evil’ of your diabolical fantasy world.
A medieval mind using medieval words to express medieval politics.
These are political deaths caused by politicians. And are preventable, unlike the ‘evil’ of your diabolical fantasy world.
Hmm. Hamas are the medieval islamists who want to drive out the Jews, who’s covenant says:
“‘The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: ‘O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’”
Now as an atheist non-racist, I consider that to be pretty ‘evil’. It goes a tad further than most liberation theology and sadly that’s not any fantasy of mine, diabolical or otherwise, its the stated view of these fighters and to do them justice, surely we must take them at their word.
That Islamism is itself political is undeniable; in seeking to replace any secular order with a purely theocratic one, they automatically politicise their religion by using religion to replace politics. In these circumstances, it seems to me quite reasonable to use manichean terms like ‘good’ and ‘evil’.
And if this is a ‘massacre’ as you claim, how come there are so few casualties? 660 in 10 days killed. The Guardian records that at one point 45,000 a month (1500 a day) were killed in the Rwandan genocide. And that was with machetes and pensionable small arms, not the state of the art arsenal possessed by Israel. So I ask you, Richardjohn, do you think Israel is being somewhat selective in who they kill or do you suppose they are inumanly rubbish at using arms to kill civillians? And remember, Even Georgia managed to use random rocket barrages to kill civillians effectively!
660 in 10 days is a massacre. By now the figure is much higher.
What’s your definition?
The Zionist military is pounding Gaza into rubble and killing as many people as it can. And if Israel wants to be seen as a modern state, unlike Islamic exremists, it should abandon its medieval mentality. Especially as it is now also alienating even the most fundamentalist Judaic scholars.
660 in 10 days is a massacre
Bollocks.
They Hutus and Tutsis managed 1500 a day, minimum, with small arms and machetes in Rwanda. Abnour 2.5x what Israel managed in 10x that time so a rate of around 25x more deaths, overall. That was a massacre. That was a genocide, a slaughter. That was mass casualties. Now think about what they could’ve clocked up with first-world weaponry.
The Zionist military is pounding Gaza into rubble and killing as many people as it can.
If that’s true then subject to the statistics I quote above, can you suggest why they are so supremely bad at it?
So it’s just a matter of numbers to you.
My Lai wasn’t a massacre because it wasn’t bloody enough. Or more likely, because it was committed by white men.
Typical accountants.