Israel, 14 days into its war on Gaza, has proved itself to be a terrorist nation with America serving as its co-sponsor.
Look at the Score Board. More than 760 Palestinians have been killed and over 3,000 injured compared to about a dozen Israelis killed. More than half of the Palestinian dead were civilians and about a third of those were children.
What is terrorism if it is not the killing of innocent civilians, including men, women and children?
Our American newspapers, along with our TV and radio news stations and broadcasters should keep the public abreast of these numbers daily the way they do the stock market numbers, but they don’t. The American people should be kept informed of the daily dead on both sides along with a daily total tally of dead in all our ongoing wars and all of the wars we co-sponsor and promote, but they’re not.
To write these disproportionate numbers off as regrettable collateral damage and excuse it as a nation’s right to defend itself is moral insanity of the kind that allowed the German people under Hitler to not see the wrong in herding the Jews into concentration camps and exterminating them under the cover of government authority and national policy. When we get to where we can’t condemn the slaughter of innocent civilians, but accept it and push for more of it, claiming that it is the only way for a nation to defend itself and achieve a meaningful peace, we have lost our minds and all sense of moral reasoning.
If the people of Israel and the people of America have reached the point where they can justify the slaughter and suffering of the innocent as excusable and put the blame on Hamas, the elected government leadership in Gaza, then both Israel and America have proved themselves incapable of the most basic moral judgment in terms of the value of human life – without which no peace can be achieved or sustained, only continuous war and the continuous slaughter and suffering of the innocent.
The increased firing of rockets into Israel from Gaza during the week prior to Israel’s attack was both wrong and provocative, but it did not result in any Israeli deaths and was no justification for the slaughter of nearly 800 Palestinians and more than 3,000 injuries, not to mention the suffering that comes with such violence and destruction on a beaten and dying people. Israel’s attack was morally wrong and unnecessary. Such slaughter cannot be an option and cannot be accepted as justifiable homicide or a matter of self-defense.
Israel had many options available to it. For one thing, it could have released its strangle hold on Gaza by removing its blockade and allowing the people access to the outside world and freedom to bring in food and medicine and other supplies needed to relieve their suffering and give them a chance to improve their living conditions.
Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Vatican’s Council for Justice and Peace and right-hand man to Pope Benedict, said, "Defenseless populations are always the ones who pay. Look at the conditions in Gaza. More and more, it resembles a big concentration camp.
While condemning the rocket attacks by Hamas and conceding the right of Israel to self-defense, Martino went on to say, 'But what can one say when so many children are killed, when United Nations-run schools are bombed - even if one possesses the technology which allows one to identify an ant on the ground.
“We are astounded to hear from a spiritual dignitary words that are so far removed from truth and dignity,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said. Israel claimed that Cardinal Martino’s criticism was based on Hamas propaganda, but he stood by his comments and added that the Israeli authorities can say what they want, but “I say look at the conditions in which people live, conditions that run contrary to human dignity. What is happening in these days causes horror.”
Israel could have lifted the blockade and eased the suffering of the people of Gaza, but did not and will not. Israel has done nothing to help the people of Gaza except to remove its forces from Gaza a few years ago. It has refused to talk with Hamas because it does not negotiate with terrorist organizations. And yet Hamas is the duly elected leadership for the Palestinian people of Gaza.
And again, what is terrorism if it is not the mass murder of innocent civilians? The fact that it is done by an internationally recognized nation through its armed forces does not cleanse it of its terrorist acts against civilians. America, with its attack on Iraq which resulted in the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, committed a giant act of terrorism. As has Israel with its attack on Gaza.
America, through its government, from President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on down to the Senate and the House of Representatives, has a proven track record of supporting Israel in whatever military aggression or attack it makes on any of its neighbors, without question and without demanding just cause.
America did it a couple of years ago when Israel attacked Lebanon. In that war, Secretary of State Rice worked hard against any immediate ceasefire, claiming that the war and killing must continue so that things would not result in the status quo ante that might require another war in the future. Our U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly a resolution in full support of Israel then, as it has done today.
In this war on Gaza, Rice has made the repeated claim that she is working around the clock for a ceasefire, but she has been working against any immediate ceasefire that would result in the status quo ante. Rice and Bush and the American government are in complete agreement with Israel that the fighting and killing, which includes the killing of the innocent and they know it, must continue until Hamas has been killed out to the extent of not being able to fire any more rockets, have no more weapons to use against Israel and have no means of getting any weapons, and are still blockaded and imprisoned with no chance to bring in necessary supplies.
It should not really take much intelligence or human understanding to realize that this is nothing but a policy of genocide under cover of national policy and the claim of self-defense. The idea that it is necessary in order to attain peace and protect Israel is preposterous. These weapons that Israel has been using in this massacre are paid for by the American citizens. Even though they are not supposed to use them except in self-defense, it is obvious that Israel can cover any military action it takes under the cloak of self-defense and it will be accepted by the United States.
Israel claims that the smuggling of weapons into Gaza through tunnels must be stopped and there must be some method of international supervision to make sure that it stays stopped before there can be a ceasefire. Israel points the finger at Iran as a supporter of the Palestinian people and the chief supplier of their weapons. What about America supplying Israel with weapons? Does not Israel have all the weapons that it needs, including nuclear weapons? If America and Israel can gang up on Gaza for the purpose of making unjust war, is it unreasonable for Gaza to desire weapons to defend itself or for Iran to supply them with weapons?
America and Israel can claim that they are peaceful nations in pursuit of peace until doomsday, but their actions have been the almost constant and continuous use of war as their method of attaining peace, which is insane, both morally and in the normal use of the term. There can be no peace through war and killing. Those days are gone. The days of diplomacy based on the carrot and the stick are gone too. We are in the days where the only option left to us is the diplomacy of mutual respect and humanity – one nation to another and one people to another. The idea that we can simply label our enemies as terrorists and therefore refuse to talk to them are gone too.
War and aggression can only lead to more war and aggression, and can never lead to peace. We are in serious danger of bringing about the nuclear cloud that Secretary of State Rice warned us about when she was making the argument for our attack on Iraq, except that the danger is actually real and more likely to happen because of our insane idea of achieving peace through war.
That is absolutely clear when we hear from our American thinkers and Israel and our other allies that the one thing we cannot allow is for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. The logical next step in that train of thought is that we will have to attack Iran in time to prevent it, which means more war and more killing of the innocent, which will beget more and more war until the mushroom cloud finally makes its appearance.
In these next few years we will have to grow up and deal with our international problems as mature adults and start listening with open ears and open minds to the grievances of the people and their nations around the world, and make legitimate efforts to help alleviate their problems and assist them in their difficulties rather than demanding of them that it’s either our way or the highway.
For those historians that may be looking back at all this, should the world survive, it is my personal opinion that America will not be able to do this. While we hoped that Barach Obama might be the one to understand the need for change and would put us on a new course in terms of our foreign policy and our hope for peace in the world, it will not happen.
The reason that it will not happen is that Obama is a person that comes to us from the people – that people, as in of, for and by the people, that represents what America is about. Bush and Rice and Cheney and that whole crew came up from the people. The Senate and the US House of Representatives are made up from that same people. And therein lies the great problem, the American people.
The American people, like the Israeli people and all our allies, have allowed their hearts and minds to harden to the extent that they cannot hear the cries of the innocent people that suffer under our heels and die needlessly from our mighty weapons that we unleash on them with the claim that we are doing it for their own good in order to save them from the terrorists that rule over them and to bring about peace in the world.
In short, a nation of people is no better than the people that make up the nation. The people are the real power of the nation. That’s why the people rise up from time to time and why governments come and go.
The American people, if they were of a mind to, could insist that Israel give up all the land that it acquired as a result of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and remove its 300,000 settlers from the West Bank and allow the Palestinian people to live in freedom in their own land. If not, the American people could insist that all funds to Israel from the American tax payer be stopped immediately.
Such a move would do more in bringing peace to the Middle East than anything that we have ever done, or could do by allowing Israel to keep making war. If we were to cut off the money flowing into its war chest, Israel would be forced to find a way to live in peace with its neighbors and stop the needless killing and suffering of the innocent, which we allow them to through our sponsorship as co-conspirators to terrorism.
There is absolutely no chance that continuous war will lead someday to continuous peace, with the biggest tough guy sitting on top of the heap. This is bone-headed thinking where the empty skulls sit on a pile of dried bones gazing out on the lone and level sands that stretch far away, as the poet said.
Naman Crowe
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What Mr. Crowe fails to understand is that Israel has a God-given right to all of the land that God promised them. So, they are fighting for what is rightfully theirs.
If you want peace in the Middle East, give Israel all that belongs to them, restore their worship practices, and leave them alone. This won't happen, of course, until the Lord Jesus Christ returns to earth to establish His Kingdom.
Then, and only then, will there be peace. No one else will ever accomplish this.
J. Ross Greer
Ringgold
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I am appalled at Naman Crowe's reasoning abilities after reading this
opinion of his.
Apparently Naman Crowe feels that a sovereign nation should have to sit back and accept deadly attacks from others, particularly Hamas, and then do nothing or load up and move completely. Well, let me clue you in Naman Crowe, it isn't going to happen. Israel is fully justified in applying the most severe action in lancing this sore in the residence next door. Not trying to be melodramatic, but what is going on is akin to Jason or Freddie in the Friday 13th horror movie etc. There is no difference to the Israelis, they are having to live it. Just recently in Gaza, Hamas won the majority vote to continue operations as usual. Hamas has the proxy of the Palestinian people in Gaza. Since 2001 through May of 2008, and because of this proxy handed over to Hamas, the Israelis have had to suffer 3,000 Qassam rocket and 2,500 mortar attacks launched on their heads.
Additionally, from 2000 to 2004, Hamas was responsible for killing nearly 400 Israelis and wounding more than 2,000 in 425 different attacks. These attacks were sprung on anyone and everyone from people shopping for groceries, to those riding buses, to those sitting in restaurants. The proper term for that is cold blooded murder, one may say mass murder in the pursuit of genocide. Hamas goes and hides among those whom have given their proxy and continues relentless attacks on the Jewish nation. And then we read the rubbish such as that in your opinion, or that which the liberal news organizations are feeding to those who will listen, of heavy handed or brutal Israel. The Israelis showed considerable forbearance for a long time before going back into Gaza, far more than many other men and many other countries would have shown. It is clear that they should have never pulled out of Gaza in the first place. They would have never suffered the thousands dead and injured if they had not.
Let no one think the Palestinian people have clean hands in any of this, they do not. They in no stretch of the imagination are poor innocent sufferers. By their very support of Hamas they have issued the order to kill the Israelis, in its very essence they have issued a death warrant on the Jewish State, and they are reaping the consequences of that decision. It is coming back on their own heads as properly it should. The Palestinian people are consumed with a blood-lust and apparently have no common sense, and that is a bad combination. Perhaps when the price becomes too great some meager amount of common sense will emerge and the Palestinian's will decide this is not working, that perhaps they are not as good in this business of homicide as they thought they were, and that quite possibly it may mean the end of them. Perhaps they will then decide Hamas has got to go. Then again perhaps they have no common sense at all and will then continue to perish.
Hamas's Charter calls for the utter and complete destruction of the Jewish State and yet there are those who demand that Israel concede to most any and all demands placed upon them by Hamas and others. Israel refuses to entertain any of that non-sense and rejects it entirely. Good for them, no other country in the world would accept demands to place ones-self in jeopardy. Most all humans are averse to suicide and the Israeli's are chief among those who refuse to be placed on the altar for sacrifice. One cannot negotiate with another who has sworn to see to their death. What's left to negotiate? The time and place of one's execution?
Israel is not going anywhere. They are going to continue to inhabit the land which has been given to them. Perhaps you could advise the Palestinians to leave themselves or to conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the title of civility. That would cure the problem, either one.
Gus S. Currier III
Chattanooga
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I have a new idol and his name is Naman Crowe. He speaks the truth and America would do well to listen.
Like Mr. Crowe, I have been following the mainstream media's news reporting on the crisis in Gaza. I find it appalling that our media never, ever says anything - even the slightest bit negative - about Israel's insane murderous aggression against the Palestinians. (And, yes, it is not just against Hamas; it's against all the Palestinians including innocent women, children and babies.) Israel can do no wrong according to our news media and our politicians. Why is this? Is there anything Israel can do wrong? Anything at all?
Listening to American news, you would think the Palestinians should be happy and satisfied to live with no food, no water, no job (there's 49% unemployment), no freedom and no hope - all under the constant watch and checkpoints with soldiers and tanks always ready to attack. Wow. Those Palestineans just have no reason at all not to love their neighbor Israel.
I am not defending Hamas, but desperate situations call for desperate measures. What can they do? No one cares or even talks about the Palestineans' plight until the Palestineans start trying to fight back.
You never hear about Israel's assassinations of suspected militants which break the cease fires. (Assassinations which kill even more innocents.) You never hear about how Israel is breaking international law in their total disregard for human rights in their treatment of Palestineans. You never hear about how Israel is controlling the water supply though it's on Palestinean land. Not to mention the illegal settlements.
You never hear both sides - ever. It is unreal. Like Naman Crowe says, it is moral insanity.
Remember the Bob Dylan song Blowing In The Wind:
"How many deaths does it take 'til we know That too many people have died?"
What is it going to take for America to wake up? The rest of the world sees it. Why can't we?
Katherine Frazier
Chattanooga
beebaybug@yahoo.com
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To all of the soft touch Israel boosters:
There’s more to this war than meets the eye. Sderot, where a few homemade missiles from Gaza have landed, was in earlier times an Arab village called Najd, whose 600 Arab inhabitants were pushed out by Israelis in 1948.
Having been racially removed, the Arabs moved to the Gaza Strip, along with another 750,000 Palestinians who had been racially removed from their lands — or murdered, like the villagers of Deir Yassin — before the first Arab-Israeli war had even begun. Jewish settlers eventually built over the old town of Najd in 1951.
Also, since many believe Israel has a right to vigorously defend herself against attack and/or invasion - who also say the U.S. would act the same way if it were attacked and/or invaded - then pray tell why it is that Mexicans continue to swarm across the border in record numbers and are set to be the demographic majority by 2042? And please don’t correlate the Native American versus European settlers canard. Go live in the woods if you feel they were done dirty.
Frank Roman
Dixie Junction, Tn.
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If Israel is a terrorist nation for defending herself than I could be labeled a terrorist as well. Should Mr. Crowe and his cronies decide to build some homemade rockets and keep lobbing them over the fence toward my home and family I am not going to remain patient very long.
He knows I have enough guns to blow him to kingdom come and yet he still keeps the rockets coming and I'm supposed to sit on my front porch and yell a friendly "howdy neighbor" when one sails over my head? Just because he shoots like Elmer Fudd and keeps doing little damage to me I should live in the constant fear that one day he won't miss?
For my two cents, the Palestinian people should be up in arms at their friends, the Hamas, for the continual harassment coming from their side of the fence. When they make them lay down their little destructive weapons then the well-armed neighbor will go home.
Karen Fink
Chattanooga
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Everyone has an opinion on the Middle East activities, I will give you mine.
Israel has every right to defend itself against the terrorist next door. Anyone who thinks they are the aggressor they should move to the southern cities of Israel and play dodge ball with the constant incoming missiles from Hammas; enough is enough.
How long would America put up with terrorist shooting missiles at us from Mexico constantly hitting Texas? Then the only thing the world would say about it was the U.S. should give Texas back to Mexico and maybe throw in the southern half of California as a deal for peace. This is a fool’s wisdom. The hypocrisy of any American that thinks like this should apologize to Mexico and maybe send reparations to the Mexican government for our capture of Texas.
Israel will always be the nation where it is and God willing one day will have all the land Jehovah gave Abraham. There is no nation or nations authorized to delegate the boundary lines of Israel.
It is sad that sometimes innocent people get killed in warfare, however the so called government of Gaza Hammas str cowards who use their own people as human shields. They shoot their homemade style rockets beside hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, and mosques thinking they will not become targets. Some of these missiles fall on their own people. The people of Gaza elected these clowns and they are now reaping that harvest.
My suggestion to the people that are the real victims in Gaza is to seek refuge in Jordan or Egypt or one of the other countries where some of the brave Hammas leaders ran after the first Israel airstrike happened.
God bless Israel always and if America has any common sense it had better always stand with Israel so the blessing of God may remain on this country. America has problems, but God has blessed this nation higher than any other in the world. Pray for our new leaders that they will follow the Lord Jesus and not follow the fallen nations of the past.
Scott Davis
Chattanooga