Sunday, August 10, 2014

Avoiding World Condemnation

There are simple things Israel can do to avoid condemnation--or much notice at all of the war--of their methods of fighting Hamas.

Imagine this type of wire service article:

JERUSALEM (TDR) - Israeli forces continue to battle Hamas in Gaza. Casualties mount at a rate of nearly 1,000 per week.

Israeli planes and helicopters have again dropped barrel bombs on Palestinian urban areas even as Israeli tanks and artillery bombard whole Palestinian neighborhoods.

As the Israeli military sweeps in to the neighborhoods, Israeli Jewish militias--including foreign-recruited Jewish Defense League militias--round up military age males who are rumored to be executed or tortured and imprisoned in secrecy.

Urban areas in northern Gaza continue to be isolated from outside aid, and already civilians are going hungry and have run out of medicine.

Many Gaza residents have fled to the Sinai peninsula across the western Egyptian border, which many observers believe is a deliberate Israeli strategy to erase the local support for the Hamas terrorists.

Israel is rumored to have fired chemical weapons at one Palestinian neighborhood, killing a thousand civilians--many children. Israel denies this and insists that Hamas must have carried out the attack despite UN investigators who say the attack scene is consistent with firing from Israeli territory.

Israeli propaganda has accelerated, apparently to stoke hatred of Palestinians as rockets rain down on Israeli targets. While there is no explanation for the refusal to use their Iron Dome defenses, Israeli officials keep up a steady stream of photographs and videos of civilian damage, dead, and injured due to Hamas rockets fired at Israeli military units.

When asked why some Israeli military units have hugged civilian targets, Israeli officials insist that Israel is a small country and there is often no alternative but to base close to civilians.

Israel also denies Hamas charges that it refuses to allow Israeli civilians to vacate their homes near Israeli units on the border inside Israel.

Israel regretted the deaths of any Palestinians, but insisted that the militant wing of the IDF was responsible and the government cannot be held responsible for such actions.

As Palestinians flock to radical Islamist groups to battle the Israelis, Western leaders have begun to talk off the record about Israel as a potential partner to defeat Hamas jihadis who could also threaten the West if the jihadis continue to gain strength in Gaza.

If Israel fought the war that way, nobody would much care even if the fight dragged on for several years and if the cost exceeded 170,000 dead.

But who could imagine anyone fighting that way?