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Saturday, November 24, 2012

Houston, We Have a Problem

I shudder to think of the search terms that will lead to this post.

That a journalist could think this is an insightful statement is astounding:

If Iron Dome is so successful, what's the purpose of killing so many in retaliation, especially "human shield" casualties?

A commenter responding to Anthony De Rosa's (Reuters) Tweet put it well:

If you had an AMAZING jock strap, reducing pain by 90%, can I still keep kicking you in the balls without you retaliating?

I'm sure De Rosa thinks that is a terrible comparison, since unlike Israel, De Rosa doesn't deserve a life of constantly being kicked in the balls.

I'm guessing that if De Rosa did face that life, and if the ball kicker (with a 10% effectiveness rate) was holding babies and kittens in front of him while he repeatedly kicked De Rosa in the balls, that De Rosa would at least be tempted to strike back.

And no, saying Israel could just as easily leave the area of the ball kicker like De Rosa could is no logical extension of the analogy. Well, maybe it is to De Rosa since taht is exactly what Hamas wants: they don't really care where Jews go as long as it isn't near them.

The basic problem is that De Rosa believes Israel deserves to be kicked in the balls, all the time. Many in the West share that belief.

Notice how even the Hamas use of human shields (no kittens, as far as I can tell, however) is not something that Hamas should be condemned for using?

The real basic problem is that too many in the West believe that the West itself deserves to be kicked in the balls every day for our sins of being successful while our Islamist foes are not, in the belief that our success is the cause of their failures.

So I'll ask again, why do we hate us?