ANALOGY/ETHICAL ISSUES
When I have time to take a break, I participate in email discussions during the day. Mostly, I just read; I do enough writing on my blog. What the others write will occasionally stir a thought, and I put that on my blog. From time I also include what the others have written. This I thought quite good.
This may be silly but this is the way I have thought through the ethical dilemma Israel is in:
Your neighbor, call him Pal E. Stine, is consistently shooting at you and your immediate family. Fortunately his weapon lacks range and his aim isn’t accurate, so he very rarely hits anyone. He is encouraged to do this by some other neighbors who have never liked you and resent your moving back to the neighborhood.
You are able to block deliveries to Pal’s house from the grocery and pharmacy and to block him from leaving his home to go to work.
You have asked Pal to stop shooting you and on the rare occasion that he does, Pal continues to negotiate with one of his neighbors for deliveries of additional and better guns.
Pal’s home is small, cramped and lacks many amenities. He thinks he has a claim to your home and his stated purpose is to remove you and your family from the premises by any means necessary. Pal’s shows no indication of ever backing down from the position that your family has no right to exist and may very well follow you any where you move to and attempt of obliterate your family.
As Pal is shooting at you, he is surrounded by all the members of his large family. If you return fire with your superior weapons, there is a good chance that you will kill small children, the old and/or the infirm. If you succeed in killing Pal one of his many sons will take his place and continue shooting at you.
You have a friend in another neighborhood (US) that supplies you with weapons and has, in the past, worked to facilitate a peace process between you and Pal.
Local law enforcement, the UN, refuses to interfere unless they are sure that none of their people will be harmed and they are granted complete control of both properties. In the past, when you lived in a boarding house in another neighborhood, everyone in that neighborhood and the entire world stood by while most of your family was killed by the owner of the boarding house, G. Manny. They finally intervened when G Manny began taking their houses and killing their family members. You returned to your house in the old neighborhood because you feel safer with all of your family in one house.
What do you do? Here are some options:
- Do nothing. Wait until Pal’s weaponry or accuracy improve and he kills you and yours off.
- Ask U.S to try to negotiate a peaceful solution.
- Move, possibly to a boarding house or with your family members living in different houses in different neighborhoods.
- Place the safety of your family in the hands of the UN.
- Return fire, aim exclusively at Pal and do your best to avoid killing any family members.
- You return fire and deliberately obliterate the entire family with speed and no mercy.
- Hire someone from another neighborhood to kill the Stine family by nefarious means that cannot be tracked to you.
- ???
#7 is my personal favorite. #6 is clearly the response most consistent with the Old Testament, so, perhaps, Israel’s response is measured.
PRESS COVERAGE IN THE GAZA STRIP
When it does not get its way, we can always depend upon the news media to bellyache.
Israel scrapped arrangements Monday to allow the first foreign reporters into the Gaza Strip since the military launched its offensive against Palestinian militants, adding to mounting media frustration at being locked out of the war zone.
The ban on foreign media, which has been appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court, drew criticism from journalists that Israel is trying to manage the story.
Israel asserts that opening border crossings for journalists would endanger staff at the terminals, which have often been targeted by militants. (from here)
As one reads this story, one wonders if journalists think Israel staged its offense for their benefit. What is apparent is that some journalists do regard themselves as indispensable.
“There is a need for journalists to be on the ground to document the news stories, and frankly to monitor the behavior of all belligerent parties, whether it is Hamas or the Israeli army,” he said. “The presence of the media in any place where war is raging has helped keep violations under check.”
Reporters who cannot enter Gaza devote much of their time reporting on rocket attacks by Palestinian militants and filming the damage caused on the Israeli side of the line, or filming Gaza from distant vantage points inside Israel. (from here)
Israel is conducting military operations, and secrecy is generally helpful under such circumstances. In addition, the news media is notorious for emphasizing the lopsided casualty counts. Apparently, too much of the foreign press is unhappy with the relatively small number of Israeli dead and injured.
What should be obvious is that Israel is surrounded by hostile nations. Yet only Iran, the backer of Hamas, would clearly benefit if Hamas continues its belligerency. So Israel’s task is to quiet Hamas with minimal civilian casualties. In fact, if Israel kills too many civilians, the operation will be a dismal failure. Instead of stopping Hamas’ rockets, Israel will have riled its Muslim neighbors.
Nonetheless, the foreign press must report something, and gore is best. So we get unhelpful, gory speculation.
Israel is believed to be using controversial white phosphorus shells to screen its assault on the heavily populated Gaza Strip yesterday. The weapon, used by British and US forces in Iraq, can cause horrific burns but is not illegal if used as a smokescreen.
As the Israeli army stormed to the edges of Gaza City and the Palestinian death toll topped 500, the tell-tale shells could be seen spreading tentacles of thick white smoke to cover the troops’ advance. “These explosions are fantastic looking, and produce a great deal of smoke that blinds the enemy so that our forces can move in,” said one Israeli security expert. Burning blobs of phosphorus would cause severe injuries to anyone caught beneath them and force would-be snipers or operators of remote-controlled booby traps to take cover. Israel admitted using white phosphorus during its 2006 war with Lebanon. (from here)
Other Views
The Armchair Generalist explains the limits of airpower here.
Mosquito blog has string of stories. This here was my ahh… favorite.
The Richmond Democrat offers the news media a full blown frontal assault of his own. See here.
Avenging Archangel provides a link to pro-Israeli news coverage here.
XCurmudgeon takes the Israeli side here.
Shaun Kenny provides some pertinent information about the rocket attacks here. Make certain you check out UPDATE x3 at the bottom is his post.
RELIGION AND DEMONSTRATIONS
SWAC Girl has an interesting post that surveys various blogs with respect to the current conflict between Israel and Hamas (see here). In an update, she draws our attention to a demonstration in San Francisco covered by American Power (see here). During the demonstration, pro-Palestinian demonstrators threaten a smaller number of Pro-Israel demonstrators.
All you have to do is read the Koran (other versions here) to figure out that Islam can be a violent religion. Their great prophet took the worst of the Old Testament, really his misunderstanding of it, and created a warrior’s cult. Muhammad served both as Islam’s first warrior leader and prophet.
Due to Muhammad’s leadership and example, he set Islam off on a unique trajectory. Amongst the world’s great religions, only Islam spread primarily via conquest. Muslims in the Far East also spread their faith by teaching along via trade routes, but that most certainly was not the rule around the Mediterranean Sea.
The Jews spread their faith by teaching their children. Their conquest of the Holy Land was violent, but the people who lived there sacrificed their children to idols. These idol worshipers were definitely not the sort you would want to invite into your home.
Christians spread their faith primarily by teaching and example. During its first three hundred years, Christianity spread in spite of violent persecution. Until Islam began to spread in the Middle East, most of the people in the Middle East were Christians. That changed because the hostility and persecution by Muslims was unrelenting. By comparison, the Roman Empire had been tolerant.
Had Constantinople not stood as long as it did….
For centuries America has been Christian. Our religious wars were in our past. We have forgotten how much what people value depends upon their religious beliefs. This era’s resurgence of Islam reminds us that we forget this truth at our peril. When we look to the Middle East, we have to wonder. Will the Muslims of the Middle East accept the concept and practice of freedom of religion? And what will happen in Europe if the population of Muslims continues to increase? The simple fact is that we do not know. There is room for both hope and doubt.
ARE THE VERMIN CALLING THE RAT TERRIERS RATS?
When I woke up this morning, I decided to see how the fighting in the Gaza Strip was going. The Israelis seem to be proceeding methodically.
Israeli ground troops and tanks cut swaths through the Gaza Strip early Sunday, bisecting the coastal territory and surrounding its biggest city as the new phase of a devastating offensive against Hamas gained momentum.
Thousands of soldiers in three brigade-size formations pushed into Gaza after nightfall Saturday, beginning a long-awaited ground offensive after a week of intense aerial bombardment. Black smoke billowed over Gaza City at first light and bursts of machine gun fire rang out. (from here)
Part of this effort also involves the political cover the United States is providing Israel in the United Nations.
The United States late Saturday blocked approval of a U.N. Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, diplomats said. (from here)
As usual, there is also information warfare. For example, the Israelis made calm pronouncements regretting the necessity of the invasion.
Israel’s ground assault followed a weeklong flurry of airstrikes. Israel has said the attacks are in response to recent rocket attacks from Hamas militants in Gaza.
“We haven’t articulated regime change as the goal of this operation. Our goal is to protect our people,” Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said.
Regev said Gaza’s civilian population was not Israel’s enemy.
“In many ways, they are victims like us. Both the civilian population of southern Israel and the civilian population of the Gaza Strip have been victims of this terrible, extremist Hamas regime,” Regev said. (from here)
Hamas, on the other hand, talked about death and destruction.
Hamas threatened to turn Gaza into a “graveyard” for Israeli forces.
“You entered like rats,” Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan told Israeli soldiers in a statement on Hamas’ Al Aqsa TV. “Gaza will be a graveyard for you, God willing.” (from here)
Because the same article mentions the bomb-sniffing dogs the Israeling troops are using to avoid booby traps, Hamas’ rat analogy left me with a different perspective than their propagandists intended.
Rat Terrier
The breed name comes from the occupation of its earliest ancestors; brought to the US by working class British migrants, these quick, tough little dogs gained their fame in rat pit gambling. However they were, for the most part, bred for speed. Their speed is used for controlling vermin and hunting squirrels, hare, and other small game. (from here)
Hamas and its gunman hide in an urban environment amongst a civilian population and they dare to call the Israeli Defense Forces rats? What stupid hypocrites!
