Griff Witte writes Gaza War Generates Debate on Civilians. Witte boils down his debate thusly (after giving Israeli human rights organizations their say):
The debate underscores the asymmetry of the conflict. On one side, Israel possesses a modern military, the strongest in the Middle East, with overwhelming firepower and the stated aim of sparing innocent Palestinian lives when it can, but above all protecting Israelis by crushing Hamas. On the other side, Hamas is an Islamist movement with a militia that has been badly damaged by the Israeli assault but that continues to fire rockets indiscriminately into Israeli civilian areas, as it has for eight years. It operates from within the civilian population in Gaza’s densely packed cities and refugee camps.
Witte acknowledges the asymmetry in the relative strength of the two sides but presents them as symmetrical in terms of the claims they have of being on the side of right.
Later on Witte writes:
One of the main problems, he said, is that the Israeli military has defined any Hamas-affiliated target as legitimate, not just military targets. In Gaza, where Hamas has been the ruling authority for 19 months and runs an extensive social services network, that definition has come to include government ministries, the parliament, the police academy, a university, mosques and a seaport.
The definition hasn’t expanded by some arbitrary Israeli military decision, it has been expanded by Hamas’s tactics.
Witte should have been more specific about what Hamas does, such as having its fighters dress as civilians or hiding weapons and ordnance in places such as mosques.
These are the very definitions of war crimes and yet Witte only uses that term in relation to Israel. It’s not just a term, it has specific legal ramifications. Ralph Peters writes:
Israel hasn’t killed a single civilian in the Gaza Strip. Over a hundred civilians have died, and Israeli bombs or shells may have ended their lives. But Israel didn’t kill them.
Hamas did.
It’s time to smash the lies. The lies of Hamas. The UN lies. And the save-the-terrorists lies of the global media.
The media that has been more interested in creating a morality play than in reporting has failed to convey a central tenet of international law: that combatants who hide among non-combatants are culpable for any injuries to the non-combatants. They have injected an element of ambiguity (if not a reversal of the truth) where there is none. And by doing so, they have been covering for, if not openly rooting for, the terrorist organization Hamas rather than the sovereign democracy Israel.
You might think that a free press would feel it had a stake in supporting a democracy over anti-democratic terrorists. Unfortunately, the opposite appears to be true.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
