Israel Under Attack: Does Anyone Care?

You wouldn't know a lie if it bit you in your tuckus.

You can't shoot them down. The sum of your rhetorical skills is "is not."

They have "no title," because they have no legal rights in Israel.

Capish?

Israel's right to self-defense against Hamas
The media and international community's failure to distinguish between the Israeli military and Hamas terrorists is not only immoral but encourages terrorism and erodes the basic principles of just warfare.

By Alan M. Dershowitz, Haaretz, November 18, 2012

As Hamas continues to target Israeli civilians in their homes, Israel continues to target terrorist leaders and other legitimate military targets. Hamas has now succeeded in killing a family of three in their home. Targeting civilians, such as that family, is a calculated Hamas policy designed to sow terror among the Israeli population. Hamas supporters celebrate the murder of Jewish civilians. Every rocket fired by Hamas from one of its own civilian areas at a non-military Israeli target is a double war crime that should be universally condemned by all reasonable people. Israel’s response—targeting only terrorists and Hamas military leaders – is completely lawful and legitimate. It constitutes an act of self-defense pursuant to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and universally accepted principles of international law.

There is absolutely no comparison between the murderous war crimes being committed by Hamas and the lawful targeting of terrorists by the Israeli military. Yet the Egyptian government, now controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, has condemned Israel while remaining relatively silent about Hamas. This should not be surprising, since Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Some in the media also insist on describing the recent events in Gaza as "a cycle of violence," without distinguishing between the war crimes committed by Hamas and the lawful actions undertaken by Israel to protect its citizens against such war crimes. It would be as if the media described lawful police efforts to stop illegal drug-related murders as a "cycle of violence." Yet J Street, an organization that persists in calling itself pro-Israel, insists on describing the situation in Gaza as a "spiral of violence."

What would Egypt do if Hamas or Islamic Jihad suddenly began to lob deadly shells in the direction of Cairo suburbs? What would any country do? President Obama was entirely correct in defending Israel’s right to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks and in condemning Hamas for initiating these attacks. He is also correct in calling for Israel to try its best to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties, as Israel has always done and continues to do. The targeted killing of Hamas military commander Ahmed al-Jabari is a case and point. He and a Hamas associate were killed in a pinpoint airstrike that apparently caused no collateral damage.

There are some who argue, quite absurdly, that all targeted assassination is unlawful, since it constitutes "extrajudicial killing." But all military deaths are extrajudicial killings, as are deaths caused in the civilian context by individual acts of self-defense or by the police shooting a dangerous fleeing felon. In fact, only Israel among all the countries of the world has subjected its policy of targeted killing of terrorists to judicial review. The Israeli Supreme Court has set out careful and precise criteria for when targeted killing is appropriate and which people constitute appropriate targets under international law. Ahmed Jabari plainly fits within those criteria.

Israel’s response to the Hamas rockets must of course be proportional, but proportionality does not require that Israel wait until a large number of its civilians are actually killed or seriously injured. Israel’s response must be proportionate to the threat faced by its civilian population. Indeed, the goal of its actions must be to prevent even a single Israeli civilian death.

In addition to the Israel Supreme Court imposing constraints on its military, Israeli civilians and the Israeli media also serve as an important check. When, on occasion, Israeli military actions have caused a disproportionate number of civilian deaths, Israelis have become outraged at their military and demand a greater adherence to the principles of proportionality. This contrasts sharply with the population of Gaza, much of which applauds and celebrates every time an Israeli child is killed by a Hamas rocket. It is immoral in the extreme to compare Israel to Gaza or to compare the Israeli military to Hamas terrorists.

It would be better, of course, if a permanent ceasefire could be arranged under which Hamas would stop firing rockets at civilians and Israel would no longer need to target Hamas terrorists. Egypt could play a more positive role by trying to bring about a ceasefire instead of unilaterally condemning the victims of war crimes, as it has done.

But until Hamas stops terrorizing more than a million Israeli civilians, the Israeli military will have no choice other than to use its technological advantage to prevent and deter Hamas terrorism. It is the obligation of every sovereign state, first and foremost, to protect its civilian population from terrorist attacks. Israel’s decision to use targeted assassination against Hamas combatants is preferable to other military options, such as a massive ground attack that inevitably will cause more collateral damage.

But if Hamas’s rocket attacks persist, Israel may have little choice but to invade the Gaza and take more extensive steps to protect its civilian population. It’s up to Hamas, which is entirely to blame for the current situation, as it was when Israel was forced to invade back in 2008. The international community and the media must begin to differentiate between war crimes committed by terrorists and legitimate acts of self-defense engaged in by a responsible military. Failing to emphasize that distinction encourages terrorism and erodes the moral basis of the important principle of just warfare.

It is very valid to deem you a Jew-hater due to your unrelenting false and baseless criticisms of Israel. The same applies to the other big critic of everything Israel.

What BS! You say that Israel drove off hundreds of thousands of Pals in 1947. As you well know, the Arab countries planning to invade told those people to depart to ease the invasion and destruction of Israel, as well as the slaughter of the Jews. Thus, those who left were traitors to their country, Israel, and deserve no recompense.

Your language is really disgusting. It would be better were I to ignore you.

Wow, you think Israelis are "yahoos." What in the hell is a yahoo? I'll settle for calling you a big liar.

Here, http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081228113716AAg652S

and here, http://www.giwersworld.org/opinion/9-words.phtml

Who's the liar here?

Israel has already tried making peace. The Palestinians refuse. The rockets are a consequence of the Palestinians' desire to murder people.

Israel is not forcing Palestinians to relocate (interesting idea though). The continued building of settlements is entirely legitimate in the absence of Palestinian negotiations (especially when the settlements are being built west of the separation fence, on land that Israel will one day annex).

Don't forget the 2000 negotiations, where the Palestinians reacted to the prospect of peace by murdering Israeli civilians until the Israeli voters kicked the pro-negotiation government out of power.

Wrong. The first tiny step would be for everyone to stop lying about Israel and acknowledge the fact that Israel has in fact made genuine efforts to make peace, and that it has always been the Palestinians who refused/sabotaged the peace process.

The next tiny step would be for the Palestinians to actually show (for the first time ever) an interest in making peace.

If people stopped lying about Israel, and the Palestinians showed a real interest in making peace, the Israeli voters would return a pro-negotiation government to power once they realized that it was not a ruse.

From that point on, the path to peace would be pretty straightforward.



Just halting settlement construction without negotiations, and without any corresponding concessions from the Palestinians, would only lead to the Palestinians demanding some other concession from the Israelis before negotiations began. And if that was also given to the Palestinians, would lead to another, and another. Eventually the Palestinians would have everything they wanted, and Israel would have nothing left to negotiate with.

Israel is not foolish enough to head down that path no matter how much hate you direct at them for their wisdom.


And stopping the settlements without negotiations, without any corresponding concessions from the Palestinians, would also destabilize the Roadmap For Peace. When it came time for the Palestinians to offer a concession in exchange for Israel halting settlement expansion, there would be nothing for Israel to offer if they had already given up that concession for free before negotiations even began.

Israel is hardly to blame for the fact that Palestinians refuse to negotiate or make peace.

And I doubt there will be much consequence for Israel. Whenever the Palestinians get sick of being bombed, they pipe down and stop causing trouble for awhile.

They needed to do so in order to defend themselves from the invading Arab armies.





They were helping France and the UK try to defend their interests against Islamic aggression.

Perhaps it wasn't Israel's business. But good guys should always help other good guys defend themselves from Islamic aggression.





"Stole"? The land was captured as part of a just war of self defense against aggression from those nations. And Israel has been willing to return the land in return for actual peace.





I am unaware of any such provocation. Everything I've ever heard says that the Egyptians deliberately planned the attack for years, and even when attack was imminent, when an Israeli preemptive strike would count as legitimate self defense, Israel still waited for Egypt to make the first move.





The invasion was self defense against Lebanese aggression. The massacres were instigated by Lebanese Xtians.





Israel actually seems pretty restrained from my perspective. Personally, I'd be a lot more aggressive if I were them.





I don't see how this is bad. No government should ever receive unquestioning support.

There are no negotiations. The Palestinians refuse to negotiate.

There is no theft of Palestinian land, because the Palestinians will not own that land until negotiations grant them that ownership.

Try consulting a history book then.





Israel only attacks the Palestinians in self defense against Palestinian aggression.

There is no theft of land. The Palestinians will not own that land until they negotiate the creation of their state.

Nationalizing the Suez may not have threatened France and the UK's national security, but it was still a blatant act of aggression against them. War was certainly justified.

In my opinion, people should go to war more often when third-world nations try to nationalize other people's property.





I am not sure what specific events you are referring to, so my ability to agree or disagree is limited.

I suspect though, that if I did know what events you were referring to, I would be able to point out that Israel was in the right.





I think it is more that they didn't comprehend that the Maronites were conducting a systematic massacre.

Most of the statements in both are outrageous lies.

The opposite of a Houyhnhnm?

You're as full of ****, and peddling as much ignorant polemic on this topic as you are when it comes to the United States constitution. I've known that for a long time, though.