Friday, January 09, 2009

Gaza & World Opinion


The Hamas War Crime Strategy -Alan M. Dershowitz

As protests against Israel increase around the world, the success of the Hamas war crime strategy becomes evident. The strategy is to exaggerate the number of civilians killed by including as "children" Hamas fighters who are 16 or 17 years old and as "women," female terrorists.

The strategy is working because decent people all over the world are naturally sickened by the images and tend to react emotionally, rather than asking why these children are dying and who is to blame for putting them in harm's way.

The strategy seems to work better against Israel than it would against other nations. The protestors were nowhere to be seen when hundreds of Jewish children were murdered by Palestinian terrorists over the years.
(Hudson Institute)


Israel Acts Because the World Won't Defend It -Daniel Finkelstein

[W]hen Israel is urged to respect world opinion and put its faith in the international community, [this] is a rejection of the very idea of Israel. Israel only exists because Jews do not feel safe as the wards of world opinion. Zionism is founded on a determination that the Jews will defend themselves and their fellow Jews from destruction.

The Palestinians need only say that they will allow Israel to exist in peace and there is pretty much nothing they cannot have. Yet they will not say it. Again and again the Palestinians have been offered a nation state in a divided Palestine. And again and again they have turned the offer down...

Israel will not rely on airy guarantees and international gestures to defend it.
(Times-UK)



Proportion Rubbish -Editorial

"Proportionality" against an enemy out to exterminate your country is folly and possibly suicidal. Effective deterrence means certainty both that a response will be made and that it will be very painful, so painful that the aggressor will be unwilling to repeat his offense.
(Boston Herald)


Why the Israeli People Have Finally Had Enough -Ian O'Doherty

The civilian deaths in Gaza are to be mourned, and anyone who says otherwise is reprehensible. But in a sick and twisted irony, they are mourned more by Israelis than by Hamas, who know that every dead Palestinian kid is another piece of propaganda.

Israel is the front line of the war between democracy and Islamic fascism. We need to start standing shoulder to shoulder with this tiny oasis of democracy in a vast desert of savagery. To do otherwise is moral cowardice of the most repugnant kind.
(Independent-Ireland)


In Defense of Israel's "Disproportionate" Response -Allan Richarz

In war, there are winners and losers, and the only palatable means of victory come from a disproportionate use of force. It does not make sense to demand one technologically or militarily superior belligerent to refrain from fighting to their full potential, simply because they are able to enact "disproportionate" damage on a weaker foe.

Simply put, a militarily superior force should not limit itself due to the international community's desire to root for the underdog. Furthermore, Hamas should garner no international sympathy simply because it made the poor decision of engaging an enemy of far-superior military might.
(Christian Science Monitor)

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