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[Make sure to read Robert Spencer’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
“War is hell,” said Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, and he knew what he was talking about, as he had done all he could to make life hell for the Southerners who were unlucky enough to be in the path of his 1864 march through Georgia. Debates still rage to this day about the morality of the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the firebombing of Dresden, during World War II. Such debates take on a new urgency now in light of Israel’s impending incursion into Gaza, and what are certain to be claims of “disproportionate” civilian casualties and calls for restraint. The armchair moralizers will ignore, as always, that in war, hard choices must be made.
Contrary to its reputation, the Israeli military is careful to avoid civilian casualties. The British Colonel Richard Kemp investigated its conduct and concluded that during Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli defensive action against Hamas and other jihad groups in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009, “the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.” Kemp wrote in May 2023 that “the IDF which is known by all Western military commanders to be more effective than any other force in the world in preventing the deaths of civilians in enemy territory.”
Yet there are civilian casualties. On Thursday, a blast struck Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza, and at least sixteen people were killed. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem reacted swiftly, issuing a statement declaring: “The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem expresses its strongest condemnation of the Israeli airstrike that have struck its church compound in the city of Gaza.” According to the Washington Post, however, “the Israel Defense Forces said in an emailed statement that a strike targeting a Hamas control center ‘damaged the wall of a church in the area’ and that it was ‘aware of reports on casualties’ and was reviewing the incident. They declined to provide further information and reiterated, ‘It is important to clarify that the Church was not the target of the strike.’”
Is it implausible that the IDF might have hit the church in targeting a “Hamas control center”? Not in the slightest degree. Even the United Nations, which is no friend of Israel, has condemned the practice of terrorist organizations using civilians as human shields. In August 2014, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, told the UN’s Secretary-General: “Hamas deliberately embeds its military operations in residential areas with the clear intention of using its own people, including women and children, as protection. One does not have to look any further than Hamas’ own combat manual on urban warfare to see how the terror organization has institutionalized its disregard for human life. Its combat strategy guidelines explicitly instruct terrorists to use civilians as human shields. This is not a new tactic — it has been the modus operandi of Hamas each and every time it has waged hostilities against Israel.”
The end result of such practices are incidents such as the blast at Saint Porphyrius Church. The responsibility for the deaths of the people there lies entirely with Hamas, which chose to set up a command center next to a twelfth-century church, not with the IDF. Some people, however, insist that the IDF strike is unacceptable under any circumstances, insisting that even if Hamas does launch attacks from civilian areas in order to draw retaliatory fire that it can exploit for propaganda purposes, there is no excuse to hit areas where civilians are present under any circumstances.
Yet this is facile. War presents people with hard alternatives. If the IDF declines to hit the Hamas control center because it will not risk any civilian casualties in Gaza, by making that decision it will be allowing for more civilian casualties in Israel, including attacks launched from that same Hamas control center. No civilian casualties are ultimately acceptable, and it would be nice if they could be entirely avoided, but given the weaponry that is used in modern warfare and the demonic evil of groups such as Hamas in seeking civilian deaths in order to advance their own cause in the international media, that is simply impossible.
War, as Sherman said, is hell. It requires numerous difficult choices. In light of that fact, we can be grateful that, as Colonel Kemp noted, the Israeli miltary is so scrupulous in doing all it can to keep civilians out of harm’s way. Other forces, including those arrayed against Israel now, do not have the same ethical code.
Praying that Bibi presses on, delivers huge losses to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria..
F this pro-Palestinisn BS while Israel saves herself with ZERO (net negative?) help from our feckless “POTUS”..
Aside from your voice and a very few others, there are calls for genocide of all Jews in our American streets and capital. What happened to Americans’ humanity?
Why haven’t these demonstrators (and those allowing it -the school administrators, mayors and police) been chastised ?
Because Islam and the Western Left are allies in the destruction of Western Civilization and the Left controls most of the institutions in the West. So these institutions will not chastise Hamas for its depravities.. See, e.g., Herbert Marcuse’s essay on “Repressive Tolerance.”
Never mind.
In GOD’s economy, whatever people sow is what they will reap, with interest.
Watch that space.
Good Bye, Israel & Palestine…sometimes everything that has been said does not matter….we trust in Jehovah.
Ah, you mean the One who vowed that Israel will remain a nation before Him — for as long as the sun, moon and stars remain in their places?
(Jeremiah 31:35-37)
Before you say ‘goodbye’ to Israel, better check your sky.
I don’t feel much sympathy for the Paleosimians. They voted for Hamas to lead them and still support it even though it screws the commoners over.
And boys grow up to be terrorists and girls grow up to be those weirdos who make that Ayrab trilling sound when terrorists go off.
Oh, and at the time Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked off the planet, Imperial Japan was murdering an estimated 300,000 people a day, mostly civilians. People in places like Indonesia, who don’t matter to leftists.
They matter to me.
And the IJA assholes refused to surrender after Hiroshima. They thought the American boast of having countless nukes was a lie, which it was. After Nagasaki, Emperor Hirohito overruled them and ordered a surrender, which was practical.
The nuking of Japan is vilified by leftists but it was eminently necessary.
The “fire bombing” of Dresden was necessary too. That city was a munitions factory.
If you don’t kill an enemy, that enemy will kill you.
Well said Jeff.
Israel is going to have to Nuke Iran
Hopefully they have enough people inside the Iranian nuclear program to destroy Iran with their own weapons, destruction of the facilities at the same time.
Jeff, I like what you have to say.
Dr Peter Arnold OAM, Sydney. parnold@ozemail.com.au
Thanks! How’s the weather Down Under? I know your seasons are basically reversed from ours in America.
…agreed! Too bad Israel wouldn’t just carpet bomb Gaza with MOABS, and then push the rubble out to sea. Create more sea frontage!
The so called ”Peace Process” forced on Israel by sanctimonious, decadent westerners has failed and the Gaza attack was the final straw ; Israel is simply being overwhelmed by the terrible arithmetic of demographics with their Arab population doubling since 2000; moreover, if the Arabs had been Christians then they may have been able to negotiate a pragmatic long term solution, but with them all being part of the demonic death cult of Islam that produces nothing but medieval-like ”time traveling psychopaths ”then their only hope is decisive military action to clear the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of HAMAS while they still can ; naturally, this will mean war with Hezballah in Lebanon and their sponsors in Iran . Iran is going to need to be confronted and their evil regime destroyed before they acquire their own nukes . This is the only way that Israel can survive with a preventive war something akin to the Six Day War in 1967
Quite frankly, I cannot see this ending without Israel having to resort to nuclear weapons and Iran ending up something like Japan in 1945. They are moving very slow on Gaza with the hope of trying to negotiate the release of those hostages but soon enough they’ll have to write them off and move decisively with holy vengence !
What exactly will World War 3 look like? It surely doesn’t have to take on some Tom Clancy parallel, nor start off with nukes….
No scenarios I’ve heard or read of involve legions of foreign fighters, with pre-staged stockpiles of weapons, rushing the US borders by the tens of thousands, for multiple years ahead the kick off… nor do such war games incorporate guesstimates on who BLM, ANTIFA et. al., would throw down with.
And at what point would it be advised for the POTUS to start publicly explaining to the high schoolers and 20=somethings that a draft is never off the table?
Wondering if those free sex change operations within the military are still the “E” ticket to never having to deploy.
Pacifists love to portray themselves as morally superior to the rest of us. They believe that it never moral to kill civilians. Therefore they condemn Hamas and Israel for killing civilians. It is all about them. Gandhi was a pacifist and thought Britain should not oppose a nazi invasion of Britain. Most people don’t subscribe to that ideology.
” Gandhi was a pacifist and thought Britain should not oppose a nazi invasion of Britain. ”
However, that might have had more to do with an idea that if Britain was occupied by Nazi Germany then Indian independence from British colonial rule would be the result and Gandhi’s main goal achieved.
You should read “The Last Article by Harry Turtledove. It’s an alternate history story wherein the Nazis won WWII and Gandhi tried his pacifist bullshit on them. It’s a short story and available free here:
https://ia801501.us.archive.org/19/items/last-article-harry-turtledove/Last%20Article%20Harry%20Turtledove.pdf
Yep, it would be short, wouldn’t it .. Gandhi gets shot or sent to Aushwitz
Oh, I haven’t heard Hamas or anyone else complain of the killing of Jewish civilians from the thousands of unguided rockets they have launched into populated areas. in Israel for years. Israel cares enough about it’s people to have both air raid shelters and Iron Dome (and soon Iron Beam) to protect its citizens. Hamas doesn’t in the belief that dead Gazans make for good PR. They’re monsters.
Look for the old problem-reaction-solution trick from the illegitimate Biden regime. Before we know it Catholic Charities will be importing tens of thousands of jihadis to add to the wonderful American palette of grievance mongering welfare recipients.
“No civilian casualties are ultimately acceptable, and it would be nice if they could be entirely avoided,”
This simply is not true. The Palestinians voted for Hamas just as the Germans voted for Hitler and the Nazis. Just as the Venezuelans voted for Hugo Chavez. The moral responsibility for their own fate lies with the people who vote for and support a murderous dictatorship.
It is immoral NOT to kill civilians who vote for and support a murderous dictatorship.
Does anyone in their right mind really think that if magical weapons existed that would magically detect, target, and kill ONLY the Hamas leadership and terrorists, Muslim Jihad against Israel would end? Of course not, the Palestinian civilians, safe in their knowledge that they will never be killed or harmed, would again vote for a new Hamas!
If you are actually an innocent living in a dictatorship then it is your moral responsibility to overthrow that dictatorship or find a way out of that country. In either case the innocents living in a free country whose very survival is being threatened by the dictatorship have a moral responsibility first to their own survival no matter how many innocents living in the dictatorship (usually extremely few, otherwise the dictatorship could not exist) are killed.
“Ayn Rand on the Death of Innocents in War”
Ah, you had me up until you went to the Ayn Rand video.
He always gives us homework assignments.
The children didn’t vote for the dictator.
The moral blame for the death of Palestinian children lies with the Palestinian parents who voted for Hamas and indoctrinate their children in Muslim Jihad. There is no way for Israeli bombs to target only Palestinian adults. Such magic bombs don’t exist.
The alternative is the Jihad murder and torture of Israeli children, or the death of Palestinian children already being indoctrinated to kill and torture all infidels, pick one or the other.
“A proper war in self-defense is one fought without self-crippling restrictions placed on our commanders in the field. It must be fought with the most effective weapons we possess (a few weeks ago, Rumsfeld refused, correctly, to rule out nuclear weapons). And it must be fought in a manner that secures victory as quickly as possible and with the fewest U.S. casualties, regardless of the countless innocents caught in the line of fire. These innocents suffer and die because of the action of their own government in sponsoring the initiation of force against America. Their fate, therefore, is their government’s moral responsibility. There is no way for our bullets to be aimed only at evil men.” – Leonard Peikoff
Fer Chrissakes, how the hell would you know war is hell.
*I don’t recognize any such absurdity as service to my country. I recognize a moral responsibility to my freedom and liberty and the freedom and liberty of those I love.* –THX
And no, I will not be doing my homework and will not watch that hideous looking woman.
THX 1138
America in a way is a dictatorship. Sure you go and vote every two years, but you have only a choice between a Republican or Democratic dictatorship control by the special interest groups. As for the video, she needs to read more history books to gain a better understanding of how governments really govern. She has a right to express her opinion in the video, even if it is incorrect. In reality, people in a country are the victims of their own government’s actions.
The people have no real say so. Did the American people have a voice in the Korean War. the so called Civil War in 1861, World War I or World War II, and all the invasions America has conducted in the past. Remember, America has has been involved in 200 conflicts since 1787. One more thing, did Obama get authorization from the American people to overthrow the government in the Ukraine in 2014. I don’t remember him asking me for permission. Now we have a war over there.
What’s to debate? The Japanese started a war, perpetrated atrocities wherever they went, respected no rules of war, mistreated US and allied prisoners, and fought to the last man. Fire bombing Tokyo and dropping the atomic bombs saved countless American lives by not having our troops fighting Japanese house to house and cave to cave. Dresden bombing and others like it? Which side started bombing of civilian populations in major British cities? The pusillanimous crybabies whining about civilians getting so.much as a hangnail are the weaklings that sacrifice US patriots in 20 year long efforts we eventually just quit. If we start a war let it be Total War where we beat the enemy until it admits defeat and surrenders. Wars would be shorter duration and enemies less likely to think fn with the US is a good idea. Then let them rebuild on their own!
I couldn’t agree more. America should just kill its enemies and be done with it.
Your knowledge of World War II is pathetic I am not going to take the time to point out all your mistakes. I will mention just one. The British were the first to deliberately bomb residential areas of German cities in May 1940 after Churchill became the Prime Minister. The German air force confine their bombing to military and industrial areas. Hitler warn Britain that if they continue to bomb civilian areas, they would do the same, which they did several months later. A number of history books provide this information.
Years ago I gave a king lecture on the subject
Of the WHY THE JEWS
I am not an expert at all
However I did learn that the first gift Hamas those that want to kill Jews
And furthermore use to get isrAel blamed
Is a soccer ball to the children outside their compounds
Soooo the children will run around playing ball
And israel won’t shot there
If they do the children die
And israel gets blamed
Because Islam and the Western Left are allies in the destruction of Western Civilization and the Left controls most of the institutions in the West. So these institutions will not chastise Hamas for its depravities.. See, e.g., Herbert Marcuse’s essay on “Repressive Tolerance.”
I don’t believe there’s such a thing as innocent civilians once a war has started, regardless of the reasons or circumstances. Ugly but true. And I have a hard time believing that we didn’t learn this lesson after 9-11. We’re all potential enemy targets whether we wear a uniform or not. It’s not a pleasant thought, especially if you have your doubts about your country having the ability to successfully turn back an attacking force..
How can you tell if someone is Hamas if they dress as a civilian and don’t have a gun? Those who say they are going to eliminate Hamas are dreaming.
the children of gazan adults will pay the price of their parents choice of hamas , the latter will buy a one way ticket to hell , the former will enter heaven which is what the bible teaches . seeing as the children are educated to murder jews whence they are adults the hard decision to obliterate one and all [ hamas ,citizens , children ] is only a thin veneer . because as soon as the children are old enough they will continue the death march . israel needs to ignore the west and the MSM as they only give lip service to the jews as do all western govts. the constant referral to israel as ” occupied ” tells you all you need to know as to the west distortion of the historical truth of israels ownership of the land they occupy . giving away pieces of israel hasn’t stopped the arabs from wanting them obliterated . time to play hardball , time to level the cesspit . the west will rebuild it [ stupidly ] for the arabs when they should just leave it as a smouldering heap where not even hamas will abide . the rest can live in tents somewhere else but not israel .
The US Supreme Court needs to be given a case wherein they can decide that islam is NOT a religion, but a violent political movement intent on enslaving humanity. Then we can tear down the 3,000 mosques in America.
“Other forces, including those arrayed against Israel now, do not have the same ethical code.”
Exactly — and it’s not clear why the world keeps yelling about international law when the whole concept depends on reciprocity.
Terrorists don’t do “reciprocity”. If you read in the Geneva Conventions about what is prohibited during armed conflict (Common Article 3), you get the impression that Hamas used it as a “to do” list.
That’s why terrorists are classed as “unlawful combatants”.
So are “civilians taking a direct part in hostilities, as well as members of militias and of other volunteer corps — including those of organized resistance movements” (ICRC – 2003).
Unlawful combatants are not entitled to the protection given by the GC. The only way they can become entitled is to officially and publicly quit their “part in the hostilities” — i.e. SURRENDER.
I wish Israel would start quoting this stuff to the bleeding-heart UNGC hypocrites.