Israel - The Right to Defend Itself?

     -in response to Ayesha Vahidy's article, at bottom

 

In her recent editorial for the Foreign Policy Association, diversity consultant Ayesha Vahidy compares Israel’s defensive retaliation towards Gaza to American soldiers slaughtering Vietnamese women and children during the My Lai Massacre. The author asserts that while Israel has the right to fight back against attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah, “those rights…do not imply an unchecked moral license.” 

Invoking recent remarks by Israeli officials like Deputy PM Eli Yishai and MK Michael Ben Ari, Vahidy argues that saddling every Arab with demeaning labels like “terrorist”, “anti-semite”, and “animal”, even in private conversation, is the root of the same type of extremism that causes select Gazans to fire rockets into Israel. Having served on the board of Amnesty International, Ms. Vahidy should know better than to conflate isolated verbal disagreements with genocidal actions.

Ms. Vahidy initially panders in a seemingly civilized manner to the reader’s presumed sense of fair-play by acknowledging Israel’s obvious right of defense, a right that has always been both morally and legally substantiated.  

She then launches into a presumption of “murder” by Israel’s air force, operating with “unchecked moral license” from the skies of Gaza.  It is most apt at this time to review the evidence of Colonel Richard Kemp, commander with the British forces, NATO, and the UN.  He confirms therein that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) do more to safeguard civilians than any army in the history of warfare. 

Ms. Vahidy then dives into an emotionally based assumption with no facts to support her: that the Vietnam My Lai debacle, where innocents were specifically targeted by Marines, was comparable to the deaths of “so called” innocents in Gaza; only Israel’s obvious crime is much larger.  So called because the ultimate responsibility for Gaza civilian deaths must fall squarely on the shoulders of Hamas, who routinely use their citizenry as human shields.  So not only is it a war crime for Hamas to target civilian areas in Israel with rockets (12,000 since January 2006 and 1,500 during the last 8 day war), but it is a second war crime to intentionally place their munitions dumps, rocket placements and military installations in apartment buildings, on public roofs, next to or below schools, hospitals and mosques. 

Ms Validy quotes selectively and out of context statements by various parties who did not directly design or prosecute Israel’s defensive 8 day incursion into Gaza, but whose rhetoric she claims are “fevered dreams of genocide”.  She makes no distinction between individual and arbitrary opinions emanating from a broad democracy, opinions that she has seemingly conjured up from the “Googlesphere”, and the official policy of IDF which is never to target civilians as well as going to extraordinary lengths to reduce collateral damage. 

If Hamas conducted even barely civilized warfare, they would be easily defeatable in the fields of Gaza.  As it is, they survive only in the overpopulated warren that is Gaza city, hiding behind children and women – their martyrs.  The intention of Hamas never to fight a real war, only a propaganda war with a willing and sympathetic media.  Israel distributes pamphlets from the skies, computer generated text messages and phone calls to Gaza’s citizenry in a valiant attempt to advise them to disconnect physically from any nearby Hamas military target.  Unfortunately many do not believe the veracity of these warnings.  Others are persuaded otherwise by Hamas, whose media and propaganda arms ghoulishly feed on tragic deaths that befall the children and others caught up in this never ending cauldron of war. 

Nowhere does Ms. Vahidy clarify that but for the thousands of rockets and terror attacks, Israel would not have responded - no war would have eventuated.  It is the senders of these indiscriminate rockets that are ultimately responsible for these civilian deaths, not the defenders in Israel.

Ms. Vahidy continues her emotional tirade, presuming that the only fully fledged democracy in the Middle East, Israel, is run by a few genocidal terrorists (albeit in words only), yet at the same time she somehow excuses the decades of terrorism and war coming from Gaza because of the innocents imbedded within that society.  So in her upside-down perspective, those with distasteful words in Israel are more responsible for this mayhem than those in Gaza who actually run and control  the society and who send rockets towards Israeli schools and hospitals, hospitals  that ironically treat Gazans who are unable to get needed medical attention in their own State.  Furthermore whilst rockets were flying Israel continued on a daily basis to supply Gaza with gas, medical supplies, electricity and water – strange behavior for this supposedly rapacious and genocidal regime. 

So the issue of disproportionality is suggested, that Israel is somehow the warmonger.  I do beg to differ:

Gaza, during the recent 8 day war, fired approximately 1,500 rockets towards civilian areas in Israel with the express intention of maximizing civilian casualties – no confusion there.  It is not reported that up to 100 of the Hamas rockets misfired and fell back into civilian areas in Gaza.  Furthermore, for Hamas to focus on confronting the Israeli military directly would be far too risky for these brave militants intent on safeguarding their supremacist vision of a victorious Islamic Caliphate. 

In contrast, the IDF conducted a similar amount of targeted responses to roughly 1,500 terror sites including 980 underground rocket launchers, 140 smuggling tunnels, 30 senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, 61 Hamas operation and command centers.  It is indeed remarkable that considering the air forces’ significant power and sophistication, and the huge number of sorties, that the death toll in Gaza was not higher.

Unlike Israel, Gaza intentionally has no bomb shelters or air raid sirens for its population.  Much money and concrete from international donors have rather been almost exclusively used for Hamas bunkers, rocket launchers, command centers and tunnels.  That is why far fewer Israeli civilians died.  However, if Israel copied Hamas exactly and proportionally and sent 1,500 rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas, then 5,000 or 10,000 casualties would easily have eventuated, not 100 including avowed terrorists.  Remember by comparison that there were roughly 25,000 casualties from a single night of the Allies bombing Dresden during World War II.

When one writes such an article as Ms. Vahidy has done, with clear animus towards the Israelis, based on an ever present, negative agenda, then one ends up with a rant that has no reasonable basis in reality.  If Israel wanted to carpet bomb Gaza, Gaza would cease to exist.  If civilian casualties were on their radar, then Gaza would be a wasteland with 1.5 million refugees on their way to Cairo.  Truth be told, the genocidal maniacs are really all in Gaza, plotting with Hezbollah and Ahmadinejad on how to destroy Israel; whilst the Israelis with all the military might in the world, conducts the most selective and restrained targeted responses the world has ever known, hoping to live in peace whilst praying for quiet; wishing to be left alone for another few months, so their children can have a full night’s sleep, without nightmares, without bomb shelters.

 (Click photo below for a report on media fraud)

Israel and the Right to Defend Itself

By Ayesha Vahidy

November 22nd, 2012

Do Israelis have the right to be frightened by the experience of the Nazi Holocaust and do all they can to prevent a repetition of that nightmare? Absolutely. Do Israelis and their American friends have the right to be on high alert and take it seriously when groups like Hamas and demagogues like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threaten to wipe Israel off the face of the map? Of course.

Do the people of Israel have the right to be angry and protect themselves when rockets are launched against civilians in Jerusalem and elsewhere? No doubt they do. Do they have the right to fight back hard against groups that embrace murderous attacks on unarmed victims like Hamas, Hezbollah and, before that, the Palestinian Liberation Organization? Certainly. Those rights, however, do not imply an unchecked moral license, utilizing a massive technological advantage to rain murder and mayhem from the skies of Gaza.
This past week, civilian deaths from Israeli air raids in that overcrowded strip of poverty and misery have neared 100, with more than 800 wounded, including more than 200 children. Israelis can claim they are just going after the terrorists with their wide-scale bombings. But Americans made similar claims when they exterminated a village called My Lai in South Vietnam in 1968. In the weeks leading up to that slaughter, American soldiers in the region near My Lai had been killed in sneak attacks by a persistent enemy. Enraged and terrorized, those troops felt they had earned complete moral authority as they gunned down the unarmed and the helpless in that little area of hamlets. Gaza is My Lai on a much larger scale. What is going on in Gaza has morphed far beyond an assertion of self-defense. Consider for a moment these quotes:
Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai: ”We must blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all the infrastructure including roads and water.”
Gilad Sharon, son of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon: ”We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too. There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire.”
Michael Ben Ari, a member of the Israeli Knesset: “There are no innocents in Gaza, don’t let any diplomats who want to look good in the world endanger your lives; at any tiniest concern for your lives – Mow them!”
Mr. Yishai, Mr. Sharon, and Mr. Ari ignore that neighborhoods are worlds in microcosm, containing toddlers learning to walk, young couples dreaming of their lives together, parents beaming with joy as their children master the alphabet, the elderly struggling with pain, the disabled bravely grappling with ordinary movement, the mentally ill, the weak, and the sick, as well as the grab bag of terrorists and murderers Israelis say are their sole targets.
Yet, Sharon and Yishai know well that there’s not a “smart” weapon on earth that can distinguish between saints and sinners when Israeli bombs “destroy all the infrastructure “and “flatten entire neighborhoods.” Mr. Ari doesn’t even acknowledge the distinction.
I’ve heard quotes like this from other supporters of Israel, some who are Jewish and others who are gentile. This rhetoric is no longer tethered to the horrible deaths of three Israelis and the injuries of 60 others due to Hamas missile strikes. Such extremism echoes from deeper wells of hatred. The words above are fevered dreams of genocide.
I have heard too often in recent years a blood libel aimed at Arabs – that all are terrorists and anti-Semites. In conversations, I have heard Arabs called “animals” and that it is impossible to negotiate with them. Those speaking these hateful words become the funhouse mirror reflections of the Arab extremists they despise: the evil buffoons who deny Israel’s right to exist, who madly assert that the Holocaust never happened, who republish incendiary nonsense like the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” charging Jews with darkly plotting to conquer the world, and other outrageous claims against anything Jewish.
Such anti-Semitism spawned the disease represented by groups like Hamas. Bloody words precede bloody deeds. Decades of dehumanizing rhetoric aimed at African Americans wove the lyncher’s rope. Israelis need to remember this and outsiders who bear good will towards Israel and to the larger Jewish diaspora need to call witness to this fact. The words cited above do not represent the beliefs of most Israelis. And, contrary to a now widely accepted myth in the West, most Arabs are not Hamas assassins in waiting
But the extremists have gained an audience in Israel, and even a footing in the current Israeli government, just as they earlier gained a following in the Occupied Territories. When one asserts a need to obliterate entire neighborhoods, that person has claimed a right, even an obligation, to exterminate the people living there regardless of their status, their deeds, or their culpability. This is a license to kill a people, not just the terrorists living among them. At this point, a person has crossed from defending the homeland, to protecting life and property, to becoming a terrorist. And remember, terrorists always think they have good excuses.
LESLIE'S BLOG: STRENGTH AND TOLERANCE