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Yet the mere existence of Israeli sin should not blind anyone to the greater evils of its enemies.
This is the sort of blunt moral judgment that’s been traditionally uncouth among fashionable western progressives, who, often feel the need to affect great open-minded exasperation at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, bemoaning that “fault exists on both sides.” Such is the default position of those ideologically inclined to regard assertive side-taking as a symptom of an unsophisticated mind, with “blind” support of Israel in particular a worrying proxy for something worse — Millennialist Christianity, perhaps.
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To conclude this isn’t to posit that Israel, and the current Israeli government in particular, is without failing in other contexts, nor to even make a value judgment about the broader merits of Zionism, if you’re still a skeptic. It’s simply to note that what we have right now is a secular, liberal democracy fighting the aggressions of a lunatic death cult actively loathed by the long-suffering captives it purports to rule. With tendentious conduct resulting.
What is funny is that you've generally done the most common form of "feel[ing] the need to affect great open-minded exasperation at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" which is the fact that regardless of the status of the current conflict Israel has taken actions which have more or less insured that a continued state of armed aggression, anger, resentment and international outrage is going to be common place in the area. I know a great many people who frown when Israel is praised but will readily state that the current conflict is the fault of Hamas.
There are no doubt a lot of people playing the line here, but the typical progressive or liberal isn't wholly represented by those who are so activist as to march on the street or declare Hamas a complete victim. I have no shortage of liberal friends who have readily stated that Israel is being forced to fight a war between that is between a moral hard place and a Hamas rock. Nor has it been only liberals who sprinkle their opinion on Hamas with appropriate criticisms of Israel, nor is it especially wrong to have a nuanced opinion.
I think your underlying point is correct, though, and the rest of my post is in support of that from my own viewpoint. Even on this forum the debate has less been about the current conflict but rather about what happened in 1948, 1967, 2003, or whatever time have you. The continued use of conflicts in the past as reasons for future conflict ensures a never ending war, as endless peoples have been slighted at this point, with many originators of this conflict long dead and cold in the ground. People should take greater actions to ignore the morass of cries of past indignity, because getting lost in the past isn't going to improve anything going forward. Especially since I can justify just about anything if the past is reason enough for me to do something now.
I'm not saying the past is irrelevant, but context is lost when conflicts are not separated out. History should inform but not drive endless conflict.
The current conflict was precipitated by the continued firing of rockets at Israel, which Israel duly used as a proper casus belli in response after days of restraining itself from an attack, and after diplomatic efforts were ignored. I must point out, desertdude, that your source is incorrect here; there was an Israeli strike that killed seven Hamas militants, yes, but the rockets were already being launched, and the rate of firing had been increasing ever since the problems with the three Israeli kids. As pointed out in the numerous points in JJ's article there were other acts of aggressive that also provided aggravated reasoning to go to war, such as the tunnels. Jus ad bellum, or right to war, comes from the right of a state to defend itself and it's citizens. Israel was attacked and defended itself. The best that Hamas has is the immolation of the teenager, and while a horrible act, blood feuds don't stand as a reason for armed conflict as much as wonton, unaimed violence at a populace does.
Where comes the problem is that Israel has been backed into a corner with jus in bello, or justice in war. Distinction between militants and normal citizens is difficult, if not impossible at times. Proportionality is the other key point, in that civilian casualties are only acceptable insofar as the military value of the target aimed for it worth it. Or, more frankly, your military has to be worth the associated civilian harms.
Israel has to deal with an enemy who is fighting from a predominantly urban environment, who uses and has been widely reported to have been using schools, hospitals, mosques and heavily populated districts as points of attack, and who have to deal with people recalcitrant in movement from combat areas. Regardless of the degree of Hamas complicity in these actions, reality is that they are firing from heavily populated urban areas, in the image of civilians, with the knowledge that any reprisal will come with civilian harm due to those factors. Hamas is far from blameless and does perform actions, hence, that at the very least put civilians in the line of fire while firing indiscriminately into Israel. Either Israelis have to engage in acts which are not strictly proportional, or continue to be attacked without recourse. Israel has chosen the action that is better, in my view.
Proportionality, first of all, has nothing to do with body counts. The point of proportionality, as mentioned, is in relation to the removal of military targets to achieve aims. Yes, over a thousand Palestinians have died, but the point of war in response to attack is not to kill one for each citizen you lose, it's to ensure the safety of your citizens. Israel is not responding by carpet bombing indiscriminately but attacking specifically sites where rockets have been launched from. They are attempted to do the best they can to limit casualties, and save for Libya has been more successful than most other bombing campaigns out there (and Libya was mostly fought in more sparse regions). Frankly, I don't think Israel could carry out this war much better without attacking at all, and that only leaves the following results.
One is just accepting continued and endless rocket fire from Gaza. No, they don't do a lot of damage, but they are aimed to do harm and can be easily expanded into something far more dangerous. Hamas has a poor record in actually doing much more than attacking Israel with the resources it has and there is no reason for the Israelis to expect for these attacks to end. No state should have to deal with continued rocket fire, and unfortunately this is the only way to defend Israeli citizens in a direct manner.
The second is appeasement. Now, I think there are enough historical examples to show that appeasement doesn't help much. Giving into demands allows belligerents to know there is a line that can be crossed and if they run there fast enough they can get what they want. It stands as a form of incentive to get what you want. Israel cannot provide such incentives; if suddenly there was something which could put Israel down, it would be used consistently to achieve aims of an aggressive group, and Israel doesn't want that. The resolution this thread is about came directly as an attempt to pressure Israel into giving in to Hamas' demands. Israel has no reason to do so; there won't be significant western pressure on Israel, I bet, other than pointing out how unfortunate it is that people had to die, and the USA/Canada will stand behind them anyways. Appeasement is not an option.
Hence Israel's rock and hard place. They are inherently forced to fight a conflict, with no method of fighting it morally. Which leads to a dilemma. If a terrorist outfit, or another group, is capable of using citizenry as their shields, should we allow that to be a method of warfare? What is this was North Korea using it's civilians as shields against Western troops? Or something similar? What is being fought here is essentially a war for future morality. Hamas is attempting to bind the hands of the moral into inaction. If this conflict is not fought than terrorists or other belligerents can twist morality as a defense, and the moral are essentially powerless in the face of aggression or attack. I don't want to watch an ISIS-like entity using that power against us, or other countries. Terrorists cannot use morality to achieve victory over those who fight morally.
This does mean that Israel has to fire back on rocket launch sites. It does mean that, yes, some people will die, and yes, some hospitals, homes, schools, and places of worship will be destroyed. Because if that doesn't happen, all the rockets will be behind those little moral shields where they can reap death and aggression. Morality cannot be used to stop just war, and cannot be used as a reason to disarm. At the end of the day, Israel is placing safety and life of their citizens ahead of the moral entanglement Hamas is trying to draw them into. Frankly, from the way the Western media is reporting on the conflict, I think Hamas is losing this one. Even in Canada, all the major parties are more anti-Hamas than they used to be. The loss of life is worth it so this tactic does not become common place.
Still, people don't have a lot of faith in Israel anymore, and not without reason. In war, Israel has left itself little in the way of an exit strategy, and even different members of government are unclear exactly what a successful termination of this conflict will be. In peace, Israel expands via settlements, has discrimination, balkanization and issues of unilateral and sometimes arbitrary attacks. Few international stakeholders have significant faith in the Israeli's leading a peace settlement. Unfortunately, this is something that can only be dealt with in peace, and the Gaza conflict will only provide the capacity for Israel to continue to ignore international demands for an accord. Incentivizing Israel to act in good faith in peace time is what is important here. Attacking Israel will not improve the situation in Gaza, nor will it get belligerent nations more at the negotiating table.
The pleas to the international community, nor the peace demanded of Israel, should not have come on the tails of rockets, nor did they have to.
My opinion anyways.
The events began with 3 teens kidnapped. The mass arrests followed. Then we have more deaths. This was meant to provoke a response from Hamas.
And it did.
Hamas is in a hard place, supporters like Iran gone.
But in every instance where Israel has rid themselves of one terror org, what replaces them is always worse.
Israel will eventuality have to negotiate a peace treaty and the present Govt has sabotaged this from the beginning.
Like Hamas, hate them, they represent a substantial number of Palestinians.
And why that is, PLO corrupt as hell, and getting nowhere fast including lands that were set aside in previous talks as Palestinian.
Israel is far from being right.
Both sides play Goebbels game very well.
Sequence of events from the kidnapping forwards.
But now, officials admit the kidnappings were not Hamas’s handiwork after all.
BuzzFeed reporter Sheera Frenkel was among the first to suggest that it was unlikely that Hamas was behind the deaths of Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrach. Citing Palestinian sources and experts in the field, Frenkel reported that kidnapping three Israeli teens would be a foolish move for Hamas. International experts told her it was likely the work of a local group, acting without concern for the repercussions: