Comments on: Tough Love: The Moral Choices in the Gaza War

By: Aherodias inTucson

Aherodias inTucson — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 02:57:07 +0000

Haim:
You have raised some profound questions and the responses have in general been thoughtful and quite reasonable. Debbie R. essentially co-opted my response to your article in a very cogent way. Well done, Debbie!
I would like to address the angle of whether Israel’s recent “operations” – actually slaughter – was provoked by Hamas or anyone else, whether it was done with the intent of protecting Israeli citizens, and whether it will achieve the latter goal.
Rabbi Waskow was kind enough to provide a link to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC), which reports information coming directly from Israeli military intelligence sources.
If you go to the site (http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/hamas_e011.htm) you may be surprised to learn that:
Rocket fire from Gaza from June until November was very limited (1-5 rockets and 1-4 mortars per month at most);
The rocket fire did not emanate from Hamas;
On November 4, without provocation, the IDF crossed into Gaza and killed 7 Palestinians, in addition holding several Palestinians hostage in their own homes.;
Only after this cross-border raid did Hamas begin to fire rockets at southern Israel.
The question of whether the Israeli leadership intended through their military incursions to protect their citizens cannot be definitively answered – it would require the ability to read minds. However, it has been widely reported in the Israeli press that Olmert, Barak, and their military advisers have been planning an attack on Gaza since June of 2008 (for example http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050426.html). The extremely low rate of rocket fire from Gaza prior to Nov. 4 hardly justified the vicious and inhumane counterattack that followed.
One cold make a similar argument regarding Lebanon 2006, of course: the capture of a single Israeli soldier, when compared with the 11,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, provides meager justification for the invasion of Lebanon and killing of thousands of civilians.
In truth, none of Israels wars and massacres have provided safety for Israelis; to the contrary, a reasonable solution, such as leaving the occupied territories for good, would have saved many Israeli lives, both soldiers and civilians.
So, Scott: Jewish kids in Sderot deserve to live in peace and safety. From the evidence, these kids wold have been in much greater danger over the past 8 years from cab drivers in New York, whose kill record is much more effective than rockets randomly fired cross the border.

By: Gregory Pollock

Gregory Pollock — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:00:47 +0000

Actually, Scott, I have been repulsed by the Bush Administration all along. What we all, at the moment, must decide is whether the killing of hundreds of children to eradicate a military and social network is legitimate. Actually, the most likely outcome is that the networks will survive. As long as Gaza’s boarders are closed, there will be rockets into Israel. I don’t advocate that. It is just a fact of human life. Israel has tried to economically starve Gaza; that hasn’t worked. I think Jimmy Carter is right–we should have delt with Hamas directly several years ago.

Now, I am nobody and will ever be so. I am not interested in fighting a war in web fantasy. Of course Hamas is going to indocrinate; so too will Israel. If you want a permanent enemy–congratulations, I think you are well on your way to that end.

Yes, Jewish children are people. It is so inane to speak like this. Yes, the dead Palestinian children were people. Are and were, are and were. If you cannot see how this will generate an unending hatred I can say nothing of import. I exit this thread.

By: Scott Benson

Scott Benson — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:08:37 +0000

No Scott, it would not. By your logic a death rate of 200 children per day would be acceptable. Nothing matters but the abstraction of nation…Im not sure how you derive this from anything that I have said. It is most likely a product of your fevered imagination

I will see people…Then check out this video about hamas indoctrination of Palestinian kids. I have a question. Are Jewish kids in Sderot people, or are they apes, kids, dogs. You have had 8 years to protest their situation (if they are indeed people). Funny, you have become an instant humanitarian in the last 2 weeks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTGbP55HGi8

By: Gregory Pollock

Gregory Pollock — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:05:49 +0000

No Scott, it would not. By your logic a death rate of 200 children per day would be acceptable. Nothing matters but the abstraction of nation. The Nazis used similar abstractions against people. We all know this.
I will see people. My abstraction shall be pain and suffering. No one owns these abstractions. They are not Jewish; they are not Arab; they are not American. They transcend the boundaries we always desperately try to make. I am reminded of a saying attributed to Cicero: Choose your enemies wisely–for you shall become them.

By: Scott Benson

Scott Benson — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:15:35 +0000

300 children dead in less than 20 days, if we can believe the claim of Gaza based doctors…can we believe the claim of Gaza based doctors, or is it another Mohammed aldura scam?

That is a daily death rate of about 15 children per day. The same rate for Israel is 0 per day…Would it make you feel better if 14 Israeli kids were killed daily

By: Gregory Pollock

Gregory Pollock — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:21:41 +0000

From Goldberg’s NYT op-ed: “First we must deal with the Muslims who speak of a peace process and then we will deal with you,” he declared.–”He” is the now dead Rayan. Why is the State of Isreal making this dead man’s case? 300 children dead in less than 20 days, if we can believe the claim of Gaza based doctors. That is a daily death rate of about 15 children per day. The same rate for Israel is 0 per day. The way of war? Have not other States said this? Why does the State of Israel make this dead man’s case?

By: Haim Watzman

Haim Watzman — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:43:11 +0000

Scott, re Goldberg’s op-ed–
I’d be the last to dismiss the importance of ideology and am certainly aware of how awful and benighted fundamentalist Islamic ideology is. However, ideology isn’t everything, either. Interests matter a lot. Certainly history provides us with many examples of ideological enemies reaching modus vivendis and even alliances, from Crusader princedoms that allied with Muslim potentates against their fellow Christians, to Hitler’s and then the U.S. and Britain’s alliances with the Communist regime of the Soviet Union. As the Israeli traffic safety commercial says, it’s not enough to be right, you have to be smart, too.

By: Scott Benson

Scott Benson — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:17:30 +0000

I dont think that Raed Kami’s views are that far out there. Read Jeffrey Goldberg’s interview in the NYT today with the late (unlamented) Hamas leader Nizzar Rayan, whose views are pretty darn similar. Here is the conundrum that I challenge the leaders to
1) It is said that “disproportionate action” is a major recruiting tool for terror because it stimulates hate
2) It is said that not responding to terror is a major recruiting tool for terror because it exposes moral bankruptcy of the opponent (someone really convinced of their position would respond), and shows that the terror movement is “blessed”.
Which of these are true? If both are true, than Israel has a fight to the finish.
It is not so important whether Raed is a right wing troll. What is important is how many Palestinians hold the same views

By: Debbie R.

Debbie R. — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 04:44:07 +0000

I wanted to comment on the original article. While I agree with your point that this ultimately works against Israeli interests, I don’t buy your analysis of the moral component.

To take your analogy with the stranded mountaneer, I would argue that the key point in all three cases is the argument you make that
“the members of the rescue team freely chose a risky profession”.

So the key is that these people volunteered. If for example, they were in your employ and you forced them to go out on a dangerous rescue operation because it was your son out there, that would not be acceptible. It is one thing to be a biased advocate for those close to you. It is another to expect outsiders to react the same.
The prejudice of your wanting everything to be done is acceptable due to your inablity to coerce others to act strictly on your wants.

Let us consider the case of a judge presiding over a murder case. If the victim happens to be related to the judge, then the judge would have to recuse themselves. The judge is required to be impartial in the capacity of judge.

The problem with your analogy is that Israel is in some sense responsible for the lives of the Palestinians. It controls where they can live. It controls how they move. For years, it has tried to control who can represent them. They are not free. They are not stranded on that mountain by choice. Israel, has to bear some responsibility for putting them there. It is not OK for Israelis to allow themselves to indulge in caring for their own, when they have operated in Gaza and the West Bank with such a heavy hand for all these years.

It is also a bit of a stretch to say this is a “life and death” issue for Israel. Would Ehud Barak have supported this operation if he thought that Israel would sustain as many as 100 military casualties? Would the public be supporting it?

Some would, convinced that this was indeed a “life and death” issue. But I believe that many more Israelis do not think that the outcome of this war will represent a decisive victory, and the only reason they support it is due to the relative lack of Israeli casualties so far. So it is not fair to calculate this based on its being a life and death issue either.

By: Debbie R.

Debbie R. — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 04:03:42 +0000

I think people like Raed exist but cannot be reasoned with. My mother-in-law was a seventh generation Yerushalmi, Tziporah, whose attachment to the land was deep. The Arabs chose to block European Jews from entering Palestine in the desperate years before the final solution was implemented. The truth is that many of those Jews would probably have left Palestine after the war. The lives of those thousands, if not millions is on their heads as much as it is on the other countries of the world that refused to allow Jews to come to Palestine.
They are not morally pure.