Steve Walt poses a thought experiment:
philosophy professor Joseph Levine at University of Massachusetts: what
if Hamas was hiding out among the civilian population of Tel Aviv, and
attacking Israel from within? Would the IDF be using massive force to
eradicate them? Unless you think that Palestinian and Israeli civilian
lives are not equal, what justifies the current policy?
This isn't just a thought experiment. A few years ago, James North informs me, an Israeli officer who had been asked to carry out a "targeted assassination" in Palestinian territory went to his commander and asked, If this guy was living among Jews, would you order this operation? The commanding officer said, Of course not, and the officer then refused. That's the heart of it. We all know that Israel would not be doing anything like this if there were Jews in the neighborhood. Bloody ethnocentrism. Particularism. Parochialism. Tribalism. Call it what you like, it's wrong, and especially horrifying in view of the power politics involved. This is why Jimmy Carter and David Bromwich speak of state-sponsored terrorism. Bromwich:
Thus the Israeli commander who ordered the attack on the university in Gaza was an agent of state terror.
There's a really good overview of the last 4 decades of Israeli-Palestinian relations at Guardian–nothing we don't already know but unusual in its succinctness and its accuracy. Couldn't help wondering what an article like this in the NYT could accomplish:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine/print
'what if Hamas was hiding out among the civilian population of Tel Aviv, and attacking Israel from within? Would the IDF be using massive force to eradicate them?'
If they were hiding out in an Israeli Arab neighborhood — PROBABLY. Israel's mostly segregated neighborhoods mean that no Jews would be hurt by blowing up Arab apartment buildings.
Much as bombing the MOVE headquarters in a black neighborhood of Philadelphia isn't something that would be acceptable on Martha's Vineyard. Some folks is more equal than others.
About how the Israeli government would not bomb Jewish neighborhoods–one would assume that it would also not target children, though Rawstory reports that it is, according to Dr. Mads Gilbert
link to rawstory.com
/>
[Sorry for the repeat post] See him on the BBC, as well as Skytv.
But Amy Goodman reports on Truthdig.com:
the UN PROVIDED THE COORDINATES of the UN schools to the IDF, so that the schools would NOT be attacked,
'The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, in Gaza opened up schools to provide shelter, since Gazans, trapped in this narrow strip of land, have no place to flee. Christopher Gunness of UNRWA told me that the agency provided the coordinates of the schools to the Israeli military. Nevertheless, at least two schools have been hit by Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours. Three people were killed at the Asma elementary school. More than 30 are reported dead and more than 55 injured at the al-Fakhura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza.'
Sounds as though the IDF had to know the kids it would kill; no one's falling for the "militants were there" whine.
Meanwhile, Goodman also tells us that,
'Benjamin Netanyahu's nephew, Jonathan Ben-Artzi, is an Israeli conscientious objector who was court-martialed and imprisoned for a year and a half. He spoke to me from Providence, R.I., where he is a student at Brown University.
“I’m speaking … not as anyone’s nephew but … as an Israeli, trying to speak out to Americans to tell them you don’t have to support Israel blindly. Not everything that Israel does is holy … sometimes you have to speak firmly to Israel and tell us, tell our government, stop doing this.”'
Jim,
"bombing the MOVE headquarters in a black neighborhood of Philadelphia isn't something that would be acceptable on Martha's Vineyard."
Should have been "isn't something that would be acceptable on the Main Line."
Gotta keep things in the same geographical area, right Phil? You're originally a suburban Philly boy, too, aren't you?
PM
Sadly,
Different logic than is even criticized applies to Hamas and Hezbollah.
Even when they are shelling, or conducting suicide operations, in Israel, they ARE willing to shell Arab neighborhoods (say in multi-cultural Haifa, or multi-cultural Beersheba).
How about bombing NO NEIGHBORHOODS, Israel or Hamas?
Why set your bar so low Phil?
Its a good thing that Israelis are concerned at all, about the killing of civilians. That is DIFFERENT than Hamas' approach.
Call it racism, that's what it is.
What a ridiculous argument. Israel would use and has used every effort to save the lives of anyone in the vicinity of a terrorist or attacking army. Lets get one thing straight. Hamas carries out two types of operations: Firstly they use terrorist tactics such as suicide bombing aimed at killing as many civilians as possible. They also military operations such as firing rockets into a sovereign country. Their targets are random but 8000 rockets can not be called anything but a military operation. The only thing that prevents them from inflicting greater injury is the sophistication of their weaponry. Their intent is to kill Israelis. If a terrorist was operating within Israel, the forces within Israel would move as many civilians to safety before taking out the terrorist. Any country would do this. The difference is that Israel is responding to a military action against it originating in Gaza. It is the obligation of Hamas to protect it's citizens when it launches such an attack on Israel. Instead, they shield themselves from Israeli retaliation by firing rockets in close proximity to their civilians in a deliberate attempt to shed civilian blood and gain popular opinion. You cannot dispute this as they have a track record of strapping bombs to their young and sending them to their deaths. They fire rockets adjacent to walls of a university in Gaza and cry foul when Israel returns fire to the location of the rocket fire. Israel on the other hand has no such history. Israeli children are not used as shields and and not brainwashed to hate as is the case in Gaza and much of the arab world. Finally, I want to pose a question of my own,,,Suppose tomorrow France declared war on Italy and declared that it wanted to drive its people into the sea. It then started firing rockets into France using churches and school yards as it's rocket firing sites. Suppose furthermore that the Italy responded by military action aimed at thwarting those attacks… Would you be asking these same questions or would you be blaming France for the loss of civilian life?