In the war in Iraq, the
total number of civilian casualties has been conservatively estimated
at 133,000. Conservative estimates for the war in Afghanistan of
civilian fatalities are in the 21,000 range as of May 2014.
Nobody wants to see
innocent civilians killed anywhere. Least of all, the government of
Israel, which warns people to leave their homes by telephoning, dropping
pamphlets, and issuing the warning of a light "knock on the roof" bomb
to make it perfectly clear to "please evacuate a building, immediately."
War is an ugly and a
horrible thing. I am positive that the United States did not set out as
its objective before entering into Iraq and Afghanistan to kill as many
innocent civilians as possible. When rockets were flying into London,
Britain and the Allies carpet bombed Dresden, it was not the objective;
but before the days of embedded journalists who take heart wrenching
pictures of beautiful, wounded children or crying mothers, people
actually fought wars to win them.
However, in the
twisted, distorted morality of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, who
is equally culpable of playing this "numbers game" and shouting "war
crimes" at the United Nations, the Palestinian leadership has been
encouraging people not to evacuate their houses as the Israeli
government has warned them to, but have sent out statements to "Use your
chests as brave weapons against the Israeli bombs" so that these people
might become yet another morbid statistic.
All of this is
cynically calculated, so that Israel can once more be condemned in the
court of international public opinion for doing what any other nation
would do under the same circumstances.
These circumstances
include the incessant firing of bombs into Israeli civilian areas, aimed
specifically at the major cities and population centers of Tel Aviv,
Jerusalem, Beersheba, Ashdod, Ashkelon and at Ben-Gurion International
Airport.
Hamas obviously knew
that aiming missiles at Ben-Gurion would shut off all air traffic from
Israel, and that was precisely what they intended to do. We know that
according to Article 41 of the United Nations Charter, Israel not only
has the right, but the responsibility to defend its civilian population.
That, according to the 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes,
is the very reason why we have nation states, so that we do not have
"bellum omnium contra omnes" ("a war of all against all"). It seems like
most Western leaders of the world, including the entire European Union,
plus Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and even U.S. President
Barack Obama are clear about that fact, and have defended Israel's right
to defend its civilian population against the indiscriminate use of
force.
But once Israel begins
to win, that "proportionality" argument never ceases to emerge. And
folks such as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry seem to want to rush
into the region to broker a cease-fire. United Nations Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon said, "I condemn this atrocious action. Israel must
exercise maximum restraint and do far more to protect civilians."
What, might I ask, is
Israel supposed to do to protect Palestinian civilians? Is it supposed
to downgrade its weapons' trajectories so they do not go to specific
targets, but like Hamas weapons, aimlessly go into residential
neighborhoods? Is Israel supposed to dress its soldiers in nonmilitary
uniforms, launch its rockets from under schools, playgrounds and
hospitals, and hide them in private homes in residential neighborhoods?
Is it supposed to dig tunnels, dress up like Palestinians and emerge to
commit acts of terror?
Of course this is
preposterous. It is however, no more preposterous than the absurd notion
that Israel and the Palestinians are supposed to have parity in their
collateral damage, or that when the body count, unfortunately begins to
mount, we have to immediately "broker a cease-fire." Do we need to make
sure that the Islamists have murdered over 154,000 Americans to even out
the collateral damage that we inflicted in Iraq and Afghanistan?
We know that Hamas does
not have the ability to defeat Israel on the battlefield, and that is
why they are cynically using their own civilian lives to win the public
relations battle.
In this time of
asymmetrical warfare that is being waged by Islamist terrorist groups
against democratic nation states, we have to either resolve to fight to
defeat the enemy and win, or resign ourselves that all of us, not just
in Israel, but throughout the free Western world, will be running into
our shelters and sealed rooms every couple of years.
Sarah N. Stern is the founder
and president of EMET, the Endowment for Middle East Truth, a
pro-Israel and pro-American think tank and policy shop in Washington.
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