The Hamas-Israel conflict and “disproportionate use of force”

There is no moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel

Dina tweeted this editorial in the radically leftist UK Guardian, of all places.

Excerpt:

Hamas’s charter includes the aspiration that “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews)”. While many concentrate on its death-cult worship, its bloodthirsty killing of adversaries, or its contempt for women, Christians and homosexuals, it is this aspiration for genocide that is at the root of Hamas activities. This is the primary reason why Hamas, the governing regime in Gaza, will never recognise or accept a peace accord with Israel in any form.

Since Israel left Gaza in 2005, thousands of rockets have rained down on Israeli cities and towns in deliberate contravention not just of international law, but all humanity and morality.

[...]Every rocket from Gaza is a double war crime. First, the rockets are aimed at civilians; second, they are fired from built-up civilian areas, often close to schools, mosques and hospitals. And about 10% of Hamas rockets fired from Gaza don’t reach Israel, exploding in Gaza. Mohammed Sadallah – a four-year-old killed on Saturday, his body displayed in a press conference with Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s leader – was, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, most likely killed by an errant Hamas rocket.

Hamas leaders frequently declare that their people actively seek death. Fathi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas, stated in 2008 that “for the Palestinian people, death became an industry, at which women and children excel. Accordingly we created a human shield of women, children and elderly. We seek death as you [Israelis] desire life.”

[...]Israel has successfully targeted in excess of 1,300 weapons caches, rocket launchers and other elements of Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure. Yet despite this, the number of Palestinian casualties remains around one for every 13 strikes, the majority killed being active members of Hamas and combatants.

There is no moral equivalence here – one side is good and the other side is evil. It’s a black and white issue.

When I was in graduate school, I was partnered up with an exchange student from Egypt. She said that Israelis were terrorists because they killed civilians while using force. I told her that terrorism is the intentional targeting of civilians for attacks rather than military targets. Therefore, Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorists, and Israel is not. Israel uses arms in self-defense, and they try to minimize civilian casualties by giving warnings of strikes. Islamic groups intentionally target civilians – schools and hospitals. The Islamic groups are terrorists and the IDF is acting in self-defense against unprovoked rocket attacks.

If Islamic terrorists laid down their arms, then tomorrow there would be peace. But if Israeli Defense Forces laid down their arms, then tomorrow, Israel would be destroyed, and every Jew in it. That is why the IDF has to do what the IDF has to do. And this time, I hope that they don’t use half-measures to stop the flow of rockets into Israel. They must use the appropriate force necessary to stop the rocket attacks.

Filed under: News, Arms, Civilian, Disproportionate, Egypt, Force, Gaza, Gaza Strip, Hamas, Hezbollah, Hizbullah, IDF, Iran, Islamic, Islamic Terrorism, Israel, Jews, Land, Lenanon, Missile, Muslim Brotherhood, Muslims, Negotiation, Peace, Rocket, Rocket Attacks, Self-Defense, Settlements, Strike, Syria, Terrorism, Terrorist, Turkey, Use of Force, Victims, Violence, War

Is the Obama administration behind the leak of Israel’s plan to strike Iran?

From ABC News. (H/T Director Blue)

Excerpt:

Two reports today about Iran’s nuclear program and the possibility of an Israeli military strike have analysts in Israel accusing the Obama administration leaking information to pressure Israel not to bomb Iran and for Iran to reach a compromise in upcoming nuclear talks.

The first report in Foreign Policy quotes anonymous American officials saying that Israel has been given access to airbases by Iran’s northern neighbor Azerbaijan from which Israel could launch air strikes or at least drones and search and rescue aircraft.

The second report from Bloomberg, based on a leaked congressional report, said that Iran’s nuclear facilities are so dispersed that it is “unclear what the ultimate effect of a strike would be…” A strike could delay Iran as little as six months, a former official told the researchers.

“It seems like a big campaign to prevent Israel from attacking,” analyst Yoel Guzansky at the Institute for National Security Studies told ABC News. “I think the [Obama] administration is really worried Jerusalem will attack and attack soon. They’re trying hard to prevent it in so many ways.”

[...]Thursday’s reports come a week after the results of a classified war game was leaked to the New York Times which predicted that an Israeli strike could lead to a wider regional war and result in hundreds of American deaths. In a column this afternoon titled “Obama Betraying Israel?” longtime defense commentator Ron Ben-Yishai at Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper angrily denounced the leaks as a “targeted assassination campaign.”

“In recent weeks the administration shifted from persuasion efforts vis-à-vis decision-makers and Israel’s public opinion to a practical, targeted assassination of potential Israeli operations in Iran,” Ben-Yishai writes. “The campaign’s aims are fully operational: To make it more difficult for Israeli decision-makers to order the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] to carry out a strike, and what’s even graver, to erode the IDF’s capacity to launch such strike with minimal casualties.”

With friends with the United States, Israel doesn’t need enemies.

UPDATE: John Bolton is making the same accusation:

Former U.S. diplomat John Boltonalleged Thursday that the Obama administration leaked a story about covert Israeli activity in order to foil potential plans by the country to attack Iran’s nuclear program.

Bolton, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the George W. Bush administration, was responding to an article in Foreign Policy magazine that quoted government sources claiming Israel had been granted access to airfields in Azerbaijan – along Iran’s northern border.

The article did not state exactly what the Israelis’ intentions were, but it suggested it could point to a possible strike on Iran.

“I think this leak today is part of the administration’s campaign against an Israeli attack,” Bolton claimed on Fox News.

The White House did not respond to Bolton’s claims Thursday.

[...]The Foreign Policy article quoted what were identified as “high-level sources … inside the U.S. government.” It specifically mentioned “four senior diplomats and military intelligence officers.”

One intelligence officer, who was unnamed, told the magazine that the U.S. was “watching” the activity and was “not happy about it.”

[...]“Clearly, this is an administration-orchestrated leak,” Bolton told FoxNews.com. “This is not a rogue CIA guy saying I think I’ll leak this out.”

“It’s just unprecedented to reveal this kind of information about one of your own allies,” Bolton said.

Filed under: News, Democrat Party, Foreign Policy, IDF, Iran, Israel, Leak, Middle East, Strike

IDF arrest two Palestians for murder of the Vogel family

Map of Israel

From the Jerusalem Post.

Excerpt:

Two Palestinian youths from Awarta, have confessed to killing five members of the Fogel family in nearby Itamar on Friday night, March 11.

The suspects, who were arrested in the past few days – along with several accomplices – are Hakim Maazan Niad Awad, 18, a high-school student, and Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad, 19, also a student.

They are from the same clan, but not directly related.

The two men have admitted to planning a terrorist attack against Jews, and confessed to the stabbings. They reenacted the attacks for investigators, security personnel said on Sunday.

The intruders broke into the Fogel home in the Itamar settlement and stabbed to death five members of the family in their sleep: Udi Fogel, 36, Ruth Fogel, 35, and their children Yoav, 11, Elad, four, and Hadas, three months.

The terrorists did not know that the Fogels’ two other children were sleeping in a side room, so their lives were spared.

“I have never heard such heartless testimony,” a Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) source told Channel 2 on Sunday night.

The suspects reenacted the murder and the planning leading up to it with accuracy and without emotion, the source said, adding that they expressed no remorse.

When asked if they regretted killing small children and a baby, Amjad responded that they had killed “five Israelis and Jews,” and didn’t regard their age as a factor.

Although the young men carried out the attack on their own initiative, they are affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and received significant help from family members and friends after the attack, the IDF said.

In other news, a 16-year-old boy has died as a result of injuries sustained during a Hamas attack on a school bus using anti-tank missiles. Anti-tank missiles.

Filed under: News, Attack, Baby, Children, Family, Fogel, Fogel Family, Hamas, Hezbollah, IDF, Islam, Israel, Israeli Defense Force, Israeli Security Agency, Missile, Muslim, Palestine, Palestinian, Religion of Peace, Rocket, School Bus, Shin Bet, Terrorism, Terrorist