Sunday, August 3, 2014

Moral clarity in Gaza by Charles Krauthammer

Washington Post  Israel accepts an Egyptian-proposed Gaza cease-fire; Hamas keeps firing. Hamas deliberately aims rockets at civilians; Israel painstakingly tries to avoid them, actually telephoning civilians in the area and dropping warning charges, so-called roof knocking.

“Here’s the difference between us,” explains the Israeli prime minister. “We’re using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they’re using their civilians to protect their missiles.”

Rarely does international politics present a moment of such moral clarity. Yet we routinely hear this Israel-Gaza fighting described as a morally equivalent “cycle of violence.” This is absurd. What possible interest can Israel have in cross-border fighting? Everyone knows Hamas set off this mini-war. And everyone knows the proudly self-declared raison d’etre of Hamas: the eradication of Israel and its Jews.

Apologists for Hamas attribute the blood lust to the Israeli occupation and blockade. Occupation? Does no one remember anything? It was less than 10 years ago that worldwide television showed the Israeli army pulling die-hard settlers off synagogue roofs in Gaza as Israel uprooted its settlements, expelled its citizens, withdrew its military and turned every inch of Gaza over to the Palestinians. There was not a soldier, not a settler, not a single Israeli left in Gaza. 

And there was no blockade. On the contrary. Israel wanted this new Palestinian state to succeed. To help the Gaza economy, Israel gave the Palestinians its 3,000 greenhouses that had produced fruit and flowers for export. It opened border crossings and encouraged commerce.

The whole idea was to establish the model for two states living peacefully and productively side by side. No one seems to remember that, simultaneous with the Gaza withdrawal, Israel dismantled four smaller settlements in the northern West Bank as a clear signal of Israel’s desire to leave the West Bank as well and thus achieve an amicable two-state solution.
This is not ancient history. This was nine years ago. [...]

5 comments :

  1. They narrative they are dispensing with isn't truthful.


    The latest round started with failure of talks.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict#Background


    This is dogma,to help you lull your brain to sleep:

    "Hamas deliberately aims rockets at civilians; Israel painstakingly tries to avoid them,"


    First, there are 1700 + palestinians casualties and 9000 injured.
    if Israel is painstakingly avoiding them, they are a horrible aim. Considering they are using laser guides, how much of this intended?



    Qassam rockets have no way to aim them. they are shot from a tube.

    "We’re using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they’re using their civilians to protect their missiles.”



    Palestinian forces don't have missile DEFENSE, which shoots down incoming rockets.



    Palestinians forces don't have M.
    They have Qassam Rockets. In order to make them go further, they have to remove inner payload which turns them into empty tube projectiles.


    There are many Gaza residents that said on twitter that they are not used as human shields.


    in order for a Human Shields to be an effective deterrent

    ReplyDelete
  2. Please stop this nonsense about giving the Arabs an independent piece of land. The Arabs have never accepted a Jewish state in the Middle East and their peace agreements are only part of their attempt to recover the whole area Adolf Hitler pre-World War 2 style. Why should they settle for the Gazan desert when they have always wanted the whole cake? As for their mode of warfare, this is the best they can do at present. The concept of war morals is very new and has not yet permeated into Arab society. The wars of the Tanach were no less brutal.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Let's start off with some basic facts. The land belongs to Israel from time immemorial despite having being conquered by various countries throughout history. In recent history, they took over land in defensive wars which makes it theirs by international law.


    There is no such thing as Palestinians. Gaza was Egypt and the West Bank was Jordan before the 6 day war. All the displaced Palestinians became displaced when they followed their leaders advice to leave when the various Arab countries attacked Israel in the 1948 war. The Israelis won and took over the abandoned properties. The Palestinians freely abandoned them and have no rights to them anymore.


    When Israel is attacked and civilians are in the way it is the Palestinians fault that the civilians got killed. This is the ruling of the Geneva conventions. If someone was shooting at you from a house full of children are you supposed to just absorb the fire and die?



    More to come.

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  4. there is no "palestinian" people. there is no palestinian history, culture, music, art, literature etc. the arab population that lived here saw themselves as part of the arab countries in the region not as a separate nation. their population was very small and only grew when jews started to return to the land and created economic opportunities.

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  5. Rabbi Michael TzadokAugust 4, 2014 at 6:49 PM

    You quote a website the, I believe(or at least hope) satirically idolizes Hitler.
    They link to a yahoo group posting by one of the authors.
    Said Yahoo group links to a non-existent jpost article...

    Upon that you want to build a case... Interesting...

    ReplyDelete

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