Posted on 03/05/2008 5:55:05 AM PST by SJackson
As the latest IDF operation in Gaza ended, Defense Minister Ehud Barak began consulting Israel's topmost legal authorities about how to respond to rocket assaults launched on Israeli civilians from areas with large numbers of civilians in Gaza.
Not every state under attack would evince such extraordinary care regarding the lives of populations in enemy entities, especially when the enemy has made noncombatants its primary target. This, more than all else, underscores the injustice inherent in the widespread condemnation overseas of Israel's self-defense. Israeli policy-makers are extremely sensitive to the moral bind in which Gazan terrorists unconscionably place Israel.
Hamas tacticians cynically exploit Israel's humanitarian predisposition, trusting it to be too decent to discard its concern for the lives of Gazans - a concern that is the direct reverse of the willful intent of Gazan terrorists to cause as much death and destruction to as many Israeli civilians as they can.
This underlying moral disparity between the sides - all too often completely ignored by Israel's critics abroad - takes on particularly sinister attributes when terrorist rockets are purposely launched from crowded civilian sites to deter Israel from striking back at the rocket cells.
This makes it a lose-lose situation for Israel. If it responds vigorously, it will be censured for the likely loss of life. If it doesn't respond, it abandons increasingly larger numbers of its own civilians to "the Palestinian roulette." On Monday, for instance, a Grad missile exploded outside a day care center in Ashkelon. Only by a miracle did scores of babies and toddlers escape grievous harm.
Simultaneously, Israel's predicament constitutes a win-win situation for Gaza's Hamas overlords. If they cause casualties to their own civilians, Israel will be pilloried by world opinion. If Israel is daunted from defending its own population, Hamas can continue its rocket barrages with impunity.
Hamas's brazen use of human shields is directly facilitated by the international community's reluctance to address the issue and denounce the premeditated endangerment of ordinary people. According to all rules of warfare, including the Geneva Convention, this is nothing short of a war crime. When the crimes of Gaza's terrorists against their own people are consistently overlooked around the world, it can only encourage the Islamists' immorality.
By staying silent on this fundamental moral issue, the international community becomes an accomplice to bloodshed both among the directly targeted Israelis and the unintentionally harmed Gazans.
This is hardly a new phenomenon. Arab terrorists have a long and dishonorable history of hiding behind women and children and of using even schools and houses of worship to protect themselves.
Back in November 2006, Gazan women were used as human shields to allow besieged Hamas gunmen to flee from Israeli forces in Beit Hanun. Armed terrorists barricaded themselves in a mosque that was surrounded by IDF troops and tanks. Women gathered outside in response to an appeal on the local radio station for females to protect Hamas fighters. The terrorists managed to escape in women's garb by blending in among those they knew Israeli soldiers wouldn't attack.
That same month, the IAF warned Muhammad Weil Baroud, responsible for firing Kassam rockets at Israel, to evacuate his home in Beit Lahiya in advance of an air strike. Instead, hundreds of locals, mostly women and children, were recruited to Baroud's house. Israel suspended the air strike, lest these human shields be harmed. In response to the incident, Hamas crowed: "We won. From now on we will form human chains around every house threatened with demolition."
The above episode illustrates the potential problems with Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna'i's proposal to bulldoze houses from which rockets are fired. The same goes for suggestions such as warning systems giving Gazan civilians time to get out. Even smoke bombs directed at precise coordinates to further warn civilians to depart - in advance of live fire and the destruction of launch sites - could be thwarted by human shields.
Principled despite its vilified reputation, Israel wrestles with a wrenching quandary callously imposed upon it. But Israel shouldn't be the only one to grapple with the ruthlessness of terrorists toward their human shields. Democracies the world over need to internalize what is taking place here, to pin blame where it is due, and to condemn Hamas for its heartlessness toward its own people.
Yet they believe they are on GOD’s side?
Their god is satan.
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Considering the situation where it seems all the adult males in Gaza are complicit, perhaps just randomly blowing them away would get a message across with minimum propaganda blowback. All the males would have to walk around disguised as women all day
"Fundamental moral issue" - straw man. Arab muslims do not share our concept of fundamentals - you're wasting your time, unless you're talking conquest and conversion.
"International community" - no such thing, at least not the way you are using the term. There is no political or moral community which is not that of a particular nation. Israel is a community. America is another. It's possible that "Europe" is one, too.
Dar al-Islam is a community of a sort.
But there is no such community as "international", except in leftist fantasies.
"Gazans". What's a Gazan? And haven't the residents of the Gaza strip brought their misery on themselves?
"Accomplice to bloodshed among targeted Israelis" - well, your "international community" unfortunately does not give two sh*ts about that. And, based on the inaction and confusion of the freely elected government of Israel, neither do a majority of Israelis. When Israel begins to care for itself and its own survival, perhaps others will care more, also.
Democracies need to inflict massive casualties on “human shields” to prevent their use in the future.
I don’t care if they are women and children, voluntary or hostage.
It is a cult of death. The Koran and Hadith the playbook.
Sura (2:191-193) - "And slay them wherever ye find them , and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution of Muslims is worse than slaughter of non-believers...and fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah."
Sura (5:33) - "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement"
Sura (8:12) - "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them "
Bukhari (52:177) - Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him. "
Tabari 7:97 The morning after the murder of Ashraf, the Prophet declared, "Kill any Jew who falls under your power. "
Ibn Ishaq: 327 - “Allah said, ‘A prophet must slaughter before collecting captives. A slaughtered enemy is driven from the land. Muhammad, you craved the desires of this world, its goods and the ransom captives would bring. But Allah desires killing them to manifest the religion. ’”
That is your problem right there.
Perhaps not. While Israel will be condemned for all quarters, including the US, when they aggressively enter Gaza, Israel also has a highly developed legal system. Plans for Gaza are public, but it's been leaked that Barak's question for the Supreme Court centered around the legality under Israeli law of destroying private property, mostly homes, in a defined zone in northern Gaza. If that's true, I assume Israel is considering establishing a DMZ type strip in northern Gaza, 3 to 5 miles was leaked, and leveling everything within it. If that's true, clarifying the legality domesticly up front makes sense. If Israel levels miles of Gaza, for the purpose of denying the terrorists shelter, the outcry will be deafening.
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