From the New York Times to many well-meaning friends on the twitters, the cry is for Israel to “show restraint” and obey the rules of law. And who could disagree with such thoughtful and humanitarian advice? But what does it mean?
Reasonable people can also oppose other measures that Israelis have taken in response to the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. It seems neither right nor smart for Israel to cut off water and electricity to Gaza until Hamas’s hostages are returned — not because Israel shouldn’t do whatever it takes to obtain their release but because the people who suffer most from the action are the ones who have the least say over the fate of the hostages. Hamas’s leaders, I’m sure, have amply supplied themselves and their forces with fuel, generators, potable water and other essentials.
But what reasonable people cannot debate is the cynicism with which Hamas is conducting its side of the war. It’s a cynicism the wider world should not reward with our credulity, lest we once again turn ourselves into Hamas’s useful idiots.
It’s hardly sophisticated strategy or hard to understand, even though so few care to put in the minimum effort to do so. Hamas wins whether Israelis die or Palestinians die. Death is its weapon, and who dies means nothing.
Hamas also achieves practical and propagandistic goals by putting Palestinians in harm’s way. More civilians in combat zones mean more human shields for its forces. More dead and wounded Palestinians mean more sympathy for its side and more condemnation of Israel.
Use a hospital as their headquarters? Store bombs in schools, guns in mosques? Fire rockets from densely populated Gaza City and hold hostages in tunnels beneath apartment buildings? Palestinians will die. That’s the plan and they know it. No matter how barbaric they were in raping and murdering Israelis, the world will demand that Israel conduct itself better, somehow find a way to save its hostages, root out Hamas and eradicate it without doing “unnecessary harm.” But how, exactly, does that happen?
Directing civilians to move out of targeted areas is a valuable way to minimize casualties, but it works only if those who are ordered to evacuate have somewhere to go, a safe route and means to get there and sufficient time to make the journey. The Israeli military widened that 24-hour window and clarified that Gazans would have time on Saturday to move south “without any harm.” Mr. Blinken said Friday that the United States is working with the International Committee of the Red Cross to create safe zones, which could help to limit civilian casualties.
Israel amassed soldiers along the Gaza border for a week following the Hamas invasion. Did Gazans use that week to get out of harm’s way, or did they wait for Israel to specifically inform them to leave because Gaza was about to become a battlefield? And Hamas told Palestinians to stay, calling it “psychological warfare.” Hamas didn’t do this because it cares about Palestinian lives.
Hamas has a long history of exploiting the rules of war for its own purposes, and it is likely to take advantage of any arrangements such as these intended to protect civilians. But that does not absolve Israel of the responsibility to try.
Try how? Of course they will “try,” but is there some magic way to end Hamas’ terrorism without harming Palestinians? We’d all love to hear the plan.
The United States has offered firm support for Israel in its hour of agony. But friendship also requires speaking hard truths. Mr. Blinken and President Biden have spoken in general terms about the importance of minimizing civilian casualties; they should make clear to Israel that the relationship between the two nations is rooted in a commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
Mouthing empty words about respecting human rights and the rule of law when fighting an enemy who has absolutely no concern for human life, very much including their own people, makes the words ring hollow. Are there magic bombs that will only destroy caches of Humas bombs but leave the building within which they’re stored standing? Are there magic bullets that can distinguish between a Hamas soldier and a Palestinian shopkeeper, both of whom look the same as they’re fighting terrorists, not uniformed soldiers who abide by the rules of law.
No one is arguing that Israel should destroy everything, kill everyone. Israel wouldn’t do that anyway, and hardly needs the brain trust at the New York Times to virtue signal that Israel should “show restraint.” Israel is painfully aware there is nothing they can do going forward that won’t be scrutinized and criticized, flipping the script on rapists and baby murderers to Israel defending itself from terrorists.
There is nothing Israel can do to appease the world wide woke, who have long since decided that Israel is the oppressor and Palestinians the oppressed, who can therefore do no wrong, even when it’s rape and baby murder. Who would have thought that someday rape would be divided into good rape and bad rape, but here we are. If there’s nothing Israel can do to survive, if not win, the public relations game, then Hamas’ strategy will prevail and there is little Israel can do about it.
And yet, Hamas still holds more than 100 Israeli hostages (assuming they’re still alive) and the world doesn’t really seem to care very much. Maybe if one of the hostages was a certain WNBA player, we could muster some concern. But sadly, they’re just women, children and elderly Israelis, and to Hamas and the world, their lives are cheap.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. In our creature comforts and distance from fields and slaughter houses most of us are delightfully ignorant of the realities of life. But the fact is, for all our technological progress we’re not much removed from agrarian realities.
This is a fundamental of the human condition, and it’s why agrarian peasants held us at bay for 20 years. Our refined sensibilities are easily repulsed by those who butcher women and kids.
And if you can find a way to blame the women and kids, so much the better.
These are the same comforts of distance that make Woke possible – the idea that machinations of DEI bureaucracy can overcome survival of the fittest – that the smartest, fasest and strongest only prevail because of discrimination. Its a fraud the dies a quick and painful death on the unfurnished battlefields of reality.
But our Israeli friends have 10,000 years of reality to provide clarity. They will do what survival requires, because they know a nuclear Iran will nuke the scales from the eyes of the rest of the world.
The question is, will we allow treasonous enemy sympathizers to continue marching in our streets until that climax? Or will we all them to establish a beach head here, first
If you’re in a fight for your life and you don’t use anything and everything available, you’re not serious about staying alive.
There are no rules when someone is trying to kill you.
Will innocent Israelis die? Yes, because they’re targets. Will innocent Palestinians die? Yes, because they are collateral damage.
If you’re too stupid to understand the difference then you’re a useful idiot for hamas and you support Nazis and genocide.
Minimizing civilian casualties, including children, is nigh-on impossible when you’re up against a death cult that is perfectly happy sacrificing said civilians, including children, in the front lines of conflict. One might even draw the logical conclusion that these death cults prefer sacrificing children, because it will inevitably bring out the pusillanimous death cult supporters in the press, in Europe, and on our college campuses.
As long as Hamas and other death cults hate Israel more than they love their children, dead children and other noncombatants will be the price of Israel ridding itself (and hopefully the world) of the Hamas baby-killers. The good Gray Lady can wring her hands while surreptitiously mixing a batch of Flavor Aid for Israel, but as John Stuart Mill said, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” The blood is on Hamas’ hands.
Thanks for the quote, I’d often heard/ on occasion used, the similar quote attributed to Burke. It’s apparently apocryphal. I’ll use this in the future.
Someone’s action may be both a crime but understandable and a moral judgement on it may be humbug.
Wars do not end when the side that claims victory says that the war ends they just move from the open combat phase to the insurgency/terrorism phase.
The terrorist actions of a defeated conquered people may be terrorism and defined as crimes according to a system of laws but they may still be understandable to certain people and other people may find them justified and understandable. The French resistance in German Occupied France were TERRORISTS according to the Germans.
But the French resistance didn’t target children and behead them.
Does the real Carlyle Moulton know you’re shitposting here under his/her name, likening Israel to Nazi Germany?
I have been posting on blogs since 1998, I always use my real name.
Oh great many tentacled eater of souls, where did I say that Israel is like Nazi Germany?
However I certainly agree that the Palestinians see Israel’s treatment of them since 1948 as similar to what the Nazis did to those they considered subhuman.
Members of species homo sapiens are capable of believing crazy ideas. Palestinians entertain the crazy idea that because they are descended from the people who lived in Palestine in Roman times they are still entitled to live there and own property. Israelis have the crazy idea that they own all of Palestine because God Almighty gave that place to their ancestor Abraham.
As an atheist I consider all religious and spiritual beliefs to be nonsense but I think the Palestinians beliefs are less crazy than those of the Israelis.
In most societies most citizens are in fact brainwashed into beliefs that accord with the conventional wisdom of their nation. These include belief that some other members of species homo sapiens are Unpeople i.e. people who are not human in the sense of being entitled to rights including those very weak rights called “Human Rights”. This is true for Israel and all nations that accept that Israel is a legitimate sovereign state.
Supporters of Israel can comprehend that Palestinians hate Israelis but fail to perceive the same hatred by Israelis directed against Palestinians, Israelis are nice people who don’t hate others so whatever they do to Palestinians is justified. Palestinians are defeated conquered people so they hate their conquerors and see any cruelty to them justified as a way of giving them a taste of their own medicine. Were I a Palestinian I hope that I would be willing to torture Israeli babies to death.
Were Israeli to decide to implement a final solution to the Palestinian question I would support Israel. The only moral duty that one can expect of a conqueror to extend to the conquered is to administer the coup de grace with a very sharp axe or sword.
“Were I a Palestinian I hope that I would be willing to torture Israeli babies to death.”
WTF???
Twice in one week. You must be very proud:
I missed the part in history class where the French resistance drove into Germany and raped women and killed babies.
Our own judgment can differ from what motivated people have labeled things. That’s why it’s judgment.
Hamas’ charter explicitly calls for genocide of the Jewish people, destruction of Israel is incidental. This attack was planned with the expectation that Hamas could inflict casualties, achieve a propaganda victory and hide from consequences behind international pressure on Israel to not retaliate in kind. The Twitter and TikTok posts of Hamas atrocities blew that plan out of the water by creating a wave of revulsion. At this point Israel can say “we are being restrained because we do not rape, kidnap and murder innocents like Hamas”.
I have no sympathy for the people who cheered these heinous acts suffering consequences. The Palestinians have had numerous opportunities for peace from the 1947 partition plan through the 1993 Oslo accords and Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2006. Every time the Palestinians chose war, Hamas could have focused on building a viable state in Gaza but chose to impoverish and isolate Gaza so they could launch more rockets.
Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban, ISIS and others of this ilk deserve condemnation and destruction. However, it’s simplistic to assume their hatred toward the US or Israel is SIMPLY because the hate the West or want the sole destruction of Israel. It’s ancient religion, power, control and the aforementioned hate. However, I do draw a distinction between Hamas, who deserve destruction, and the Palestinians in general. There is no symmetry between the Palestinians and Israel. The Israelis have all the power, control all goods entering and leaving Gaza, control in excess of 70% of power accessible to the region, control the water, restrict free movement of Palestinians in Gaza and Western bank, seize property of Palestinians in Gaza and Western bank, exacerbated unemployment and conditions that allow extremism to exist. Certainly, the Palestinians are complicit because many of the actions the Israelis have taken are justified. Israel does have the right to defend itself and citizens and should. And now the extreme right are empowered because Bibi sold his soul to them to retain power and the Trump Admin gave them the green light to do whatever the Israelis wanted in that region, exacerbating the tensions between the two. Again, Hamas needs to be defanged. But even if they are, what other group will arise due to because of the conditions that exist and have existed for several decades. How will the ball be advanced toward peace or at least tolerance? The current Israeli gov’t isn’t really interested and there is no one in “Palestine” in which negotiations could occur other than the de-facto gov’t Hamas. It’s a FUBAR situation where innocents on both side will needlessly suffer.
False equivalence.
Is it Tuesday already?
There actually wasn’t much French resistance until it became clear that Germany had lost the war.
“Someone’s action may be both a crime but understandable and a moral judgement on it may be humbug.”
The humbug is all yours. There is nothing “understandable” about the actions of Hamas. This was mass murder, nothing more.
Hamas made its plans for the Paleatinians clear by failing to stockpile any food, water, fuel or basic necessities for the people of Gaza prior to launching this carnage. Hamas is beholden to its Iranian puppeteers, and views Palestinians as entirely expendable.
I’m gonna go with an unpopular opinion and state the obvious: there are simply no “good guys” here. There’s just bad and worse. No matter how you slice it, Israel has effectively had an official policy of ethnic cleansing for the better part of 70 years, and they’ve been damned good at implementing it. Hamas, meanwhile, wants the eradication of all Jews in the region. There’s not really anyone here to root for.
The only thing these two sides agree on is that neither one really cares if civilians die in Gaza.
Hanlon’s Corollary: Never attribute to unpopular that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Stupidity rules OK!!!!!!
Please do not confuse the fact that I give you the opportunity to vent with your venting having any merit. Tolerance for disagreement is not the same as tolerance for stupidity.