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Tuesday, April 09, 2024

Turnabout Isn't Always Fair Play

A former speechwriter for Obama called Biden weak for failing to turn on Israel after the unintentional killing of 7 humanitarian aid workers in Gaza. The media is reporting less and less support for Israel in and out of America. More and more want to see Israel annihilated. Well, now, no, that's not what they're saying. That's just the only possible conclusion. Because Israel is trying to defend itself from Hamas and Palestinians are dying. "War crimes," they call it. "Genocide" is bandied about, too.

I wonder if anyone has looked at the UN definition of "war crimes." According to their document, first on the list of what constitutes "war crimes" is "Wilful killing." (That was their spelling; don't complain to me about it.) Okay, hold on ... is it possible to even engage in war without willfully killing? The only legal war includes no deaths? Last on the list of "grave breaches" is "taking hostages." Oh, yeah, that wasn't Israel, was it? No, it was the "innocent Palestinian" forces. "No, no," people tell me, "it's not that they're defending themselves. It's that they're killing too many innocent citizens." Now, we in the civilized 21st century believe that war should never harm "innocent citizens," and that seems reasonable. Any "colateral damage" is unacceptable, so we make smart weapons and avoid shooting at any possible innocent target. Except the definition of "innocent citizens" gets really hazy in Gaza. In 2008 Hamas openly declared that they would use civilians as shields for their forces, locating rockets in schools or hospitals. In the 2014 Gaza war, Hamas called for civilians to show up for that purpose and they did. A recent poll showed that over 90% of "innocent civilians" currently support Hamas, with its killing and kidnapping of "innocent civilians" in Israel, in its drive to attack and eliminate Israel.

I'm not arguing that all of Israel's actions today are right or good, but Israel is currently being held hostage by Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Arab nations bent on their destruction because the world doesn't want them to defend themselves, and their enemies intend to kill as many of their own as it takes to make Israel stop. The world in its 21st century, civilized haze, cannot seem to fathom that this is not like former wars where soldiers wore uniforms and were clearly distinct from civilians. So we buy the outrage and cry against "genocide" when it is not Israel who wants Palestinians destroyed, but it is Palestinians who demand the annihilation of Israel. Given the decline of reason and the bias of media that refuses to tell the whole story and the hate of the Muslim world for the Jews, it is unlikely that we'll see a change of opinion anytime soon. That, unfortunately, is another indication of the loss of truth in the world today.

4 comments:

Craig said...

Israel is also being held hostage by the American political left. Most of whom seem to be white, relatively well off, and at least somewhat antisemitic.

Stan said...

Agreed. I think that's what I said in that last paragraph.

Craig said...

You did.

David said...

I just heard of a rally in the US calling for "Death to Israel" and "Death to America". They clearly and unequivocally stated their goal for Israel, the total destruction of the Israeli state and of the United States. And yet, they're seen as the oppressed. Do any of the DEI crowd actually know the goal of fundamental Islam? A global Islamic caliphate. You want to talk about oppressive...