Opinion
Wrong to Remain Ignorant
February 9, 2009 - 12:00amIn President Skorton’s most recent Sun column, he rightfully encouraged members of the Cornell community to engage in reasoned discussions on the current events in Gaza. If we are to have a constructive dialogue, though, we must acknowledge the facts and discard the lies and double standards. Unfortunately, several recent Sun articles are plagued with numerous such fallacies. I am compelled to write this piece to address a few of those faults.
One recent article questioned whether Israel is even justified in responding to the 8,250 rockets that have landed in Israel since 2001. Apparently, Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which reserves to every nation the right of self-defense against armed attacks, doesn’t apply to Israel. The author went on to decry Israel’s response as “disproportionate” without describing why or defining proportionality as a legal term. Should Israel launch 8,250 rockets at Palestinian civilians to preclude claims of disproportionality? Hamas’ ideology is purely genocidal — its charter demands the destruction of Israel and its leaders call for the annihilation of Jews from the world. In the name of proportionality, perhaps this author would be happy if Israel adopted a similar genocidal policy. (Those who absurdly claim that Israel is somehow already engaged in genocide ignore that the Palestinian population in Israel has soared over 30 percent in the past 10 years and that Palestinians enjoy a higher rate of growth in Israel, and even more so in the West Bank and Gaza, than the rate of growth in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt or Jordan.)
More interesting is this author’s neglect to describe what a proportionate response would be. I pose this question: If terrorists controlled Long Island and launched over 8,000 rockets at Manhattan, Westchester, Brooklyn, etc. what would you do? Israel unilaterally withdrew from all of Gaza in 2005 in hopes of achieving peace, but only got more rockets. Years of Israeli restraint have been interpreted by Hamas as weakness and have only increased the attacks on Israel.
One article mentioned a “wall” that covers “every inch of border,” while another questioned if the “wall” really makes Israel safer. First, the security barrier around Gaza is a wire fence, not a wall. Similarly, less than 5 percent of the West Bank security barrier is a wall — designed to prevent sniper fire in problematic areas — and the rest is a chain-linked fence. Second, this security fence, built in response to the intifada, has irrefutably made Israel safer. Between 2001 and 2004, Israel endured 128 suicide attacks — an average of roughly one suicide attack every 11 days over the course of four years. Which nation would tolerate that? Since 2006, there have been six suicide attacks. This startling drop is not coincidental, nor is it for lack of trying on the part of Palestinian extremists. As Ramadan Abdallah Shalah of Islamic Jihad admitted in March, the security fence does indeed frustrate terrorists’ efforts to carry out suicide attacks.
The aforementioned articles are misleading and are notable for what they excluded. They mentioned Palestinian civilian casualties in the recent fighting, but failed to acknowledge the indisputable proof that Hamas used civilians as human shields — operating in and around mosques, schools, hospitals and apartment rooftops — while rigging civilian homes and even a zoo as booby traps. The authors also disregarded that on the first day of the conflict, Hamas officials ordered its fighters to remove their uniforms to avoid detection by the IDF. This is because Hamas knows that Israel goes to great lengths to prevent harming civilians.
Some months ago, the IDF called Abu Bilal al-Ja’abeer, a senior member of Hamas, and told him that they would be targeting his house so he could evacuate his family. Although Israel knows that this advance warning will spare the life of the very criminals that terrorize Israelis, it does so to prevent civilian casualties. Al-Ja’abeer proceeded to call women and children via loudspeaker to go to his house to cause the IDF to abort the airstrike. A similar story is true of Abu al-Hatal and Othman al-Ruziana, both of whom rushed civilians to their homes to serve as human shields. If Israel purposefully targets civilians, as Hamas claims, why does Hamas employ this tactic and why does it work in cancelling airstrikes? Moreover, why do Palestinian women and children run to these houses? Either they are suicidal or they realize the truth, which is that Israel does not target civilians and that they are safe. Fathi Hammad, a Hamas MP, spoke the truth when he stated in a February 2008 speech, “[the Palestinian people] have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist[s].”
Erecting double standards, these articles found no fault with Hamas. It’s fine that Hamas killed scores of Palestinians to oust Fatah and take control of Gaza. It’s fine that Hamas killed numerous Palestinians in a crackdown on Fatah loyalists in early August. So brutal is Hamas that during the fighting in August, nearly 180 Palestinians ran to Israel for refuge — a telling sign of how Israel treats civilians and of how Hamas treats political dissidents. It’s fine that over the past weeks, Hamas has tortured and killed dozens of Fatah activists for “collaborating with Israel,” without evidence or trial.
There is no moral equivalence between Hamas and the IDF. Hamas terrorists deliberately target Israeli civilians with thousands of indiscriminate rocket attacks. The IDF, meanwhile, acts defensively and in doing so, sometimes accidentally harms civilians while pursuing terrorists — terrorists who operate from civilian infrastructures with civilian clothing — despite the IDF’s best efforts to avoid civilian casualties. Hamas has no regard for any civilians, whether Israeli or Palestinian. Last week, the UNRWA condemned Hamas for hijacking by gunpoint over 200 tons of humanitarian aid designated for Gaza civilians — an accusation that Israel and the PA have long leveled against Hamas —causing the UNRWA to suspend its aid operations. Does anyone think that if Israelis created a human shield, it would deter a Hamas attack? The very notion is ridiculous.
Wrong to Remain Ignorant
Thank you for bringing clarity, logic and facts to one of the places where it is most needed- college campuses. Perhaps you could work on the idiocy and hypocrisy of the United Nations next.
Another viewpoint
Initially, it would be entirely disingenuous to deny that Israel intended this massive military action to be disproportionate to the Hamas rockets. The very premise of the IDF onslaught was to teach the Palestinians a grave lesson so that they would be wary of launching any future rockets. They were to be taught that there is a very high and necessarily disproportionate price to be paid.
While the "proportionality" of a military response is often difficult to gauge, independent observers are able to recognize disproportionate military action even without a solid academic grasp of the Geneva Conventions. The disproportionate sacrifice of women and children is what sways human hearts throughout the world. Such was the case in Gaza.
In addition to the Israeli mindset believing that massive destruction must be wrought on Gaza, the highly disproportionate military capabilities guaranteed that Israel had full discretion to determine the level of destruction it chose to impose. Analogies to rockets from Long Island to Manhattan, Mexico to the U.S. or any other countries outside of the Gaza-Israel geography are completely misplaced. These incredible hypotheticals ignore the unique historical/geographic relationship that is unique to Israel and the Palestinians. It does not apply elsewhere.
It is true, Hamas recklessly fired crude home-made rockets into Israel. But they were incapable of targeting specific buildings or individuals. Other than knowing a rocket would land in Israel, Hamas had no idea where the rockets would land. Over many years, most of the thousands of rockets fell without striking anyone or anything. Unfortunately, two Israelis were killed by the rocket fire.
Hamas does not have jet fighters, helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery. It has small arms. Israel, using the most sophisticated weapons in the world guided with GPS, infra-red beams and heat seeking technologies intentionally chose which targets to bomb. At times, like the shelling of the UN school with phosphorus bombs, the IDF knew that its targets included innocent men, women and children. Over 23 days, 1,300 people, mostly women and children were slaughtered and 5,400 people were wounded.
The calamity was brought about largely by Hamas' victory in the democratic elections of 2006. Negotiating with Hamas was out of the question and Gaza was transformed into an open prison. Tunnels to Egypt brought food, fuel, clothing, building materials and predictably, weapons. Despite the ominous language in the Hamas Charter about the destruction of Israel, negotiating with Hamas to forsake this unrealistic concept has at least as much success as convincing Palestinians in the West Bank that peace is possible. Earlier versions of the PLO and Fatah also unrealistically called for the destruction of Israel.
The human shields defense for the IDF in all cases is specious. About 1.5 million people in Gaza are crowded onto a piece of land the size of a postage stamp. The IDF admits that it is virtually impossible to verify if a father, son, uncle, cousin or nephew in an extended family is a Hamas fighter. In essence, all Palestinians in Gaza are human shields. Even if no human shields are used by Hamas, it is virtually impossible to drop a bomb on Gaza without also killing an innocent civilian.
It is equally ludicrous to complain that Hamas did not line up in uniform and in tight marching formation like British Redcoats to assault IDF forces head on. Understandably, an IDF soldier feels threatened by virtually every Palestinian he encounters and would shoot first and ask questions later if he thought his life depended on it. Will this same soldier admit that he could have killed an innocent civilian? Nor can we prove a negative. If an IDF artillery commander says he responded with shell to Hamas small arms fire, how does one disprove it? These IDF warriers have been placed in an unenviable position by their government. To blame all civilian death on the alleged use of human shields is folly.
The human shield defense only goes so far. The U.N. had given the IDF the GPS coordinates of its schools so that they would not be targeted. Even if there is indisputable proof that Hamas gunman are in or near a UN school full of civilian refugees, the world's civilized community would expect the IDF to hold its fire.
What is most upsetting is that military assault appears to be the only option currently acceptable to Israel. For tomorrow's elections, polls show that Prime Minister Netanyahu in league with Mr. Lieberman and the small far-right parties will prevail to run the country. If Israelis were shocked by the flood of global criticism after Gaza, they could be totally aghast at the world's reaction to the more stringent security measures against Gaza brought in by the new government.
John O'neil - Didn't you read the title?
John, your blowing off of the facts and blatant support of the terrorist organization Hamas is evident here. You remain highly critical of Israel yet the criticism is lacking toward Hamas and the rest of Israel's enemies. Your double standard is evident. Just admit that you believe Israel has no right to exist and that you feel it should be destroyed. You seem sad that Hamas does not have advanced weaponry and you seem to blame the election for Hamas, yet fail to recognize that Fatah is just as bad as Hamas. Despite Your extended commentary trying to overshadow the weight of the original piece, you apparently missed the entire point, that it is WRONG to remain ignorant.
Anonymous, if that is your
Anonymous, if that is your real name, you're blowing off the facts and blatant support of Israel, a country which is in violation of hundreds of UN Resolutions, is evident here. You remain highly critical of Hamas yet the criticism is lacking towards Israel and the rest of the countries which are working to keep Palestinians stateless. Your double standard is evident. Just admit that you believe that Palestinians should be ethnically cleansed from Mandate Palestine and you feel they should be destroyed. You seem sad that Israel doesn't take action against Fatah in the West Bank as well as Hamas in Gaza, and you seem to imply that democratic elections should be ignored whenever you personally disapprove of the winners of those elections. Despite your brief commentary trying to overshadow the points brought up by John, you apparently remain either stupefyingly ignorant or simply anti-semitic (Arabs are Semites too, therefore hating them is also anti-semitism).
"Analogies to rockets from
"Analogies to rockets from Long Island to Manhattan, Mexico to the U.S. or any other countries outside of the Gaza-Israel geography are completely misplaced."
Yes they are misplaced. Any other country would not have tolerated years of rocket attacks before responding and certainly wouldn't have gotten even half the condemnation that Israel received.
"It is true, Hamas recklessly fired crude home-made rockets into Israel. But they were incapable of targeting specific buildings or individuals. Other than knowing a rocket would land in Israel, Hamas had no idea where the rockets would land. Over many years, most of the thousands of rockets fell without striking anyone or anything. Unfortunately, two Israelis were killed by the rocket fire. "
You completely miss the point. That the rockets missed their targets is irrelevant; the intention of Hamas was to kill Israeli civilians. That is why they purposefully launch rockets when children are walking to school. In fact, they have hit several schools in the past; fortunately the classrooms were empty. Also, there have been at least 20 deaths due to rocket attacks, not two (which is how many I believe occurred during the Gaza operation). You also neglect to mention the extreme deterioration of the lives of the citizens of Israeli towns targetted by rockets. You try going about your day normally when at any time, you might only have 15 seconds to run to a bomb shelter.
"About 1.5 million people in Gaza are crowded onto a piece of land the size of a postage stamp. The IDF admits that it is virtually impossible to verify if a father, son, uncle, cousin or nephew in an extended family is a Hamas fighter."
Gaza has an area of 360 square km; 1.6 million people live in Manhattan, which has an area of 59 square km. Try again. Also to the extent that it is impossible for the IDF to verify who is a Hamas fighter, that is because Hamas specifically told its fighters to get rid of their uniforms so as to blend in with the population. This is a violation of the most basic laws of war. There is a reason you are allowed to kill spies that you capture behind enemy lines.
"The U.N. had given the IDF the GPS coordinates of its schools so that they would not be targeted. Even if there is indisputable proof that Hamas gunman are in or near a UN school full of civilian refugees, the world's civilized community would expect the IDF to hold its fire."
Wrong again. The use of civilian areas for military operations does not render them shield them from targeting. Even the Geneva Conventions recognize this. You wouldn't let a gunman kill you because you choose to hold your fire to protect the hostage he's taken.
"It is equally ludicrous to complain that Hamas did not line up in uniform and in tight marching formation like British Redcoats to assault IDF forces head on. "
Yes, instead they should hide in hospitals dressed as nurses and doctors.
The one glaring omission:
The one glaring omission: "Israel" originally belonged to the Palestinians. What would you do if you were forced out of your homeland? And I don't care if Israel can claim Palestine as its "ancient" homeland--fact is most people in the world today don't live where their ancestors lived. In response to the Long Island/Manhattan Analogy I ask this somewhat ridiculous question: if the residents of Manhattan were driven out of their homes and onto Long Island, what would their response be?
Cute idea
That's a really cute and ineffective argument. The Palestinians never really had control of the land, they just resided there. There was never a government there, not even a nation. In fact the Palestinian sense of nationalism only began to develop along with Arab Nationalism around 1900. It had nothing to do with the Jews migrating in.
Your analogy with Manhattan is also incorrect. It's more like being kicked out of Manhattan while it was forest, waiting for them to build skyscrapers, then firing missiles on it. And the only reason your stuck on Long Island is because not a single other US state would allow you to enter their land.
Just as a side note going back about 1000 years who ruled that land at any given time:
868 - under the Caliphs of Egypt.
1040- under the Turks or Tartars.
1099 - under the European Christians.
1187 - under Saladin, Caliph of Egypt.
1244 - under Casiunus, i.e. under Turks or Tartars.
1291 - under Sultan Asa of Egypt, under Mameluks.
1401 - under Timurlan [Tamerlane], for a short time, i.e. under Mongols, than again under the Mameluks.
1518 - under Selim of Constantinople, under Ottomans.
1831 - under Mahmud Ali, Pacha of Egypt.
1840 - under Abd al Medjid, Ottoman.
After the fall of the Ottoman empire it went under British rule.
Is it just me or is there nothing there that specifies Palestinian rule, or the Palestinians at all?
Like I said their nationalist movement began around the same time as that of the Jews.
One glaring omission's omission
Fact Check#1: Israel did not originally belong to the Palestinians. There never was a Palestine. The Gaza Strip and West Bank were originally occupied by Egypt and Jordan respectively. Both ceded claims to the lands after 1967. Before them, the land was occupied by the British and, before them, the Ottoman Turks. Historically, the Jews have a far stronger claim to the land - they lived there during Biblical times before Islam or any kind of Arab identity even existed, a fact verified not only by the Bible but by extensive archaeological records. As to your point that "I don't care if Israel can claim Palestine as its "ancient" homeland--fact is most people in the world today don't live where their ancestors lived," the same can be said about the Palestinian's historical claims. The fact that you've decided to selectively apply it to Israel and the Jews is racist.
Fact Check#2: Arabs were not driven out. On the contrary, most of them voluntarily left their homes so that the Arab armies, in 1948, would have an easier time driving the Jews out.
But, for the sake of argument, as to the question of "what my response would be if someone drove me out of my home," I know for certain that my response would NOT be to blow their children up in Pizza stores. Indeed, you don't see Native Americans, who were in fact driven out of their homes across the US (including Manhattan) committing acts of genocidal murder. Only the Palestinians have sunk to that level of depravity.
Israel never belonged to the
Israel never belonged to the "Palestinians" in the first place. It was controlled by the Ottoman Empire until the end of World War I, when the British took over until 1948, when the Arabs rejected the UN partition plan and declared war on Israel.
Nicely done.
Thank you for taking the time to write a fact based, well reasoned, and well written essay on this often emotional topic.