A license to kill
Former Defense Minister Moshe Arens argues that the Goldstone Commission Report has effectively granted Hamas and other terrorist organizations a license to kill. From the report it is clear to them that establishing military units and rocket launchers in civilian population centers will from now on be an effective military tactic that they can hope to apply with impunity, enjoying at least partial immunity from an Israeli response. That response is likely to be withheld out of concern that it will lead to Israel being charged with committing a war crime.Indeed.
The report is in effect a license to kill - for Hamas, for Hezbollah, and for terrorists all over the world. No less.
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During Operation Defensive Shield the IDF showed that the commonly held wisdom that terrorism could not be defeated by military means was dead wrong.
Whereas Palestinian terrorism could not be deterred, it could be physically eliminated by military means. The terrorists could be pursued into their lairs and destroyed, or brought to justice. Since then, terrorism from Judea and Samaria against Israeli civilians has essentially ceased. Now, after the Goldstone report, that kind of operation is going to be difficult to repeat.
The report is a blow to the war on terror everywhere and for all nations engaged in fighting terrorism. Hopefully, the nations of the world will have the strength and political will to reject the report, and make it clear to all that terror operations carried out from civilian areas are the war crime, and not the attempt to eliminate these attacks. That using civilians as a shield is a war crime.
Read the whole thing.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:22 PM
2 Comments:
It's actually a blow to a military like the IDF that takes the moral high ground and bends over backward to protect even enemy civilians.
Other armies, who do not give a fig for civilians who get in the way, and who, in fact, cause enormous civilian losses, as with Sri Lankan troops against the Tamil Tigers, Pakistani forces against the Taliban, or Russian troops in Chechnya, will not be raked over the coals.
I would say Israel should stop the un-Jewish "super-moral" conduct. There is nothing in the Torah that mandates showing compassion for the enemy. Just the opposite. Indeed, King Saul lost his crown for being gentle to Agag the Amalekite king. The truth is in war people die. Its purpose is to annihilate the enemy. Want to know the irony of Goldstone? Had Israel annihilated Hamas, Israel would have been respected by its friends and feared by its enemies. That's what they would do if they had the upper hand in a conflict.
No, dear grasshoppers - the Jewish way of war is to annihilate the enemy and establish G-d's reign upon the earth. The purpose of the IDF is not to be considerate towards Israel's enemies. It's mission is to protect the existence of the state.
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