There is no moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas
Amid the recent troubles between Israel and the Palestinians, many Americans and media commentators are drawing disturbing lines of parallelism between the two societies, asserting a false moral equivalency to the actions of each.In essence, the claim goes like this: “Both sides are fighting each other with similar degrees of violence; both treat each other equally badly; each side is equally to blame for the violence, and they just can’t come together.”
That notion that there is a moral equivalency between the defensive and targeted actions that the rule-of-law-based Israel is compelled to take, and the proactive and indiscriminate actions that hate-based organizations like Hamas takes, is completely unfair, unfounded and infuriating to supporters of Israel — with good reason.
In fact, there is no moral equivalence between the actions and reactions of Israel and Hamas and the Palestinian community to the violence that has occurred.
Two glaring examples stand out. The first revolves around the difference between Israel’s and the Palestinian community’s reactions to the horrible kidnappings and coldblooded murders of four boys, three Israeli and one Palestinian.
No doubt the loss of these children is one beyond words. Both incidents were abhorrent.
But the reaction on both sides was not the same. How did Hamas and too many diverse parts of the mainstream Palestinian community respond to the kidnap and murder of three young Israelis? They cheered.
The official Hamas spokesman called the kidnappers “heroes.” The mother of one of the suspected kidnappers, Abu Aysha, said, “If he [my son] truly did it — I’ll be proud of him till my final day.”
And is it no wonder, given the vitriolic hatred of Israel that has been preached in textbooks and schools to two generations of Palestinian children. Such propaganda has been propagated by not only Hamas, but by the Palestinian Authority, and has created a perverse mythology throughout Palestinian society that calls suicide bombers “martyrs” and extols kidnappers and murderers as heroes.
Those who killed the Israeli boys have not been found, and the cooperation of Palestinian authorities in the hunt for them has been lukewarm at best.
Compare that to the reaction of the Israeli people to the murder of the Palestinian teenager. Israelis were aghast. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately called the murderers “terrorists” who committed deeds equal to the terrorism on the other side and said that Israel must find “who is behind this despicable murder.” The Israeli government has made every effort to bring those responsible to justice, and there are now six arrests.
While each side has its fanatics, it’s how the societies deal with those fanatics that counts.
A second example is the difference between how Israel and Hamas have conducted themselves in the last weeks as violence has soared.
Most headlines and news reports suggest that there is fighting on both sides, air raids on both sides and say or imply that each side is equally at fault. They ignore the stark difference between the two sides.
Hamas, which has won elections with the support of the population of Gaza, is a terrorist group that remains bent on the destruction of Israel and its citizens. Without provocation, the Hamas governing authority flings rockets over the border, all over Israel, without regard to civilian lives or public safety. In fact, the terrorists frequently target civilians. Their intent is to terrorize and inflict as much pain as possible.
When Israel reacts, it does so defensively, to prevent rockets from hurting its people. It targets military capabilities or terrorist leaders. What other society gives advanced warnings to those shelling it, by dropping leaflets and making cellphone calls to warn the inhabitants of impending defensive strikes, to minimize the loss of innocent lives?
These proportional steps clearly make it harder to eliminate the terrorists and rockets, and Israel is almost unique in taking them.
Again, to say that both sides are equally to blame in this recent round of violence simply lets Hamas and its leaders off the hook and naturally encourages them to continue the violence, because the condemnation of the world falls equally on Israel’s and Hamas’ shoulders — a condition they seek as effectively giving permission for future violence.
Netanyahu has asked: What would the United States do if this kind of violence was happening in Houston, or Chicago, or New York? What would Germany do if it were happening to Frankfurt — or France, if Paris was under attack?
Would those countries just shrug their shoulders? Would they listen to admonitions of the world to let the rockets continue, and just try to talk? No, they’d defend their citizens as Israel is defending its citizens.
We can’t have a double standard which fails to grant Israel the same understanding as any other country that finds itself under attack.
Now, because I like economics, another opinion:
What’s behind the ongoing violence in Gaza
July 15, 2014The differences between Hamas and Israel are so profound, it’s almost as though the two aren’t living in the same century.
The Hamas war against Israel pits cheap rockets — basically the 21st-century version of an exploding cannonball — against a high-tech military so sophisticated, it can send harmless “door-knocking” bombs to land on the roofs of buildings to warn its targets inside that the next live bomb will level the place.
One side is monstrous but hapless: Hamas is looking to create mass terror through the deliberate targeting of enemy civilians, has fired 500 rockets, and has killed exactly one Israeli.
The other side is effective, at times to its own disadvantage: Israel wants to eliminate weapons caches and does whatever it can to minimize civilian casualties but has killed 200 in Gaza — almost entirely because Hamas wants to use its own people both as human shields and as public-relations weapons.
But take the war away, and what do you see about the differences between Hamas and Israel?
It was nine years ago that Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. It was seven years ago that Hamas took control of Gaza following an election in which the terrorist group routed the Palestinian Authority (which controls the West Bank).
The area has been entirely under Palestinian dominion.
Since 2005, Israel’s overall economy has grown almost 60 percent larger, with an annual GDP growth rate of 4.5 percent.
Israel, once the globe’s poorest democracy, ranks 37th among nations in overall GDP and its per-capita income of $31,000 per year makes it the 25th-richest country on Earth.
And Gaza? Its economy is largely frozen. Its per-capita income hovers around $2,000. Because its people elected a terrorist group dedicated to the destruction of Israel, almost all economic ties between the growing economic giant and the basket case have been severed.
No rational outside investor wants to have anything to do with Gaza, given its management and the simple fact that its government seems to be obsessed with getting itself into a destructive war with its neighbor every couple of years.
And not only that, but Gazans exist in a bizarre condition known nowhere else on Earth. Nearly 1.2 million of the area’s 1.5 million residents are classified as “refugees,” notwithstanding the fact that almost all of them were born there. They live in eight “refugee camps” — towns that are now 65 years old.
As Michael Bernstam of the Hoover Institution has written, “These camps were established in 1949 and have been financed ever since by the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Yet far from seeking to help residents build a new and better life either in Gaza or elsewhere, UNRWA is paying millions of refugees to perpetuate their refugee status, generation after generation, as they await their forcible return to the land inside the State of Israel.”
Meanwhile, Israel has economic and political problems of its own — but its problems have been generated in large measure by the rapidity of its economic growth.
Housing has become insanely expensive, in part because (as in New York City) foreign investors looking to diversify their personal holdings think Israeli real estate is a good value for them.
They’ve driven up the prices in the higher ends of the market in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, which has in turn made it very difficult for younger Israelis to buy their own homes.
This affordability crisis led to large-scale protests in 2011 that led to national elections in which, for the first time in the nation’s history, domestic issues took precedence over foreign and military issues.
The country’s politics and politicians can’t keep up with the exploding private sector, which has drained Israel’s public life of its smartest and most capable younger people and left the management of the country to a class of hackish stumblebums who trip over their own shoes.
There’s basically one person who seems to know how to play the political game in Israel right now, and that’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — which is why he bids fair to become his country’s longest-serving head of state since its George Washington, David Ben-Gurion.
Bibi could use some serious rivals, but he doesn’t have any, because everyone who could be has decided they can do better.
Israel is a First World country with First World problems. Gaza is a 65-year-old refugee camp run by vicious terrorists who can’t shoot straight — and even when they do, they see their rockets destroyed by the most advanced system of air defense the world has ever seen.
It’s not a fair fight, and thank God for that.
Source: http://nypost.com/2014/07/15/whats-behind-the-ongoing-violence-in-gaza/
One must look at the methodologies of the two sides.Hamas sets up rocket launchers, spends major money building tunnels or uses suiside bombers - targeting population centers with no discrimination at all!!!!
Israel, on the other hand, fires only at specific, intelligence-derived military targets, to the best of their ability. Since these targets are deliberately intermixed with the civilian population by Hamas, Israel must take steps to minimize the collateral casualties, and does. But, it is now a proven fact that Hamas intermingles civilians on purpose. Source: http://www.idfblog.com/blog/2014/08/04/captured-hamas-combat-manual-explains-benefits-human-shields/
Do facts still matter? I am gravely concerned that there is a dearth of critical thinking. Can't we even tell the difference between right and wrong and agree on that?
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