s***@gmail.com
2009-01-04 17:52:32 UTC
source: http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3204131/the-moral-battleground.thtml
And so now begins the second and most difficult stage. Inside Israel,
there is both determination and dread as tens of thousands of Israel’s
conscript army are called to the front. Untold numbers of these
soldiers will lose their lives as the result not merely of the
genocidal aims of Hamas (and its Iranian puppet-master) but also the
indifference and pusillanimity towards Palestinian terror displayed by
world governments over the past six decades of Israel’s fight for
survival, along with the active encouragement of genocidal Islamists
by leftists, Jew-haters, Muslims and useful idiots who were on such
thuggish display yesterday in the co-ordinated demonstrations in
British and other western cities.
Such people have made no protest at the bombardment of Israeli towns
by more than 6000 rockets in the past six years, deliberately
targeting innocent civilians. They have made no protest at the way
Hamas has used Gazan civilians as human shields, situating its
murderous arsenals beneath apartment blocks, in schools and hospitals
and mosques in order to maximise the numbers of civilians killed (in
order to manipulate all-too pliable western opinion). No, their
protest only starts when Israel finally takes the military action
aimed at stopping this genocidal barrage.
The worst thing is the moral inversion, in which the murderous
victimisation of innocent Israelis is ignored while their murderers
are described as ‘civilians’ when they are finally killed by the
Israelis -- who are demonstrably taking care to avoid civilian
casualties wherever possible. Tragically, civilians always die in
wars; and unfortunately there will undoubtedly be more civilian
casualties in Gaza – along with deaths among Israeli troops -- as the
war goes on. But the frenzied misrepresentations, double standards and
moral inversion fuelling a hysteria in the west which in turn can only
incite more genocidal violence are simply depraved.
Particularly striking in its malice is the way in which the treatment
of wounded Palestinians in Israeli hospitals is ignored – while news
of the barbaric behaviour of Hamas in Gaza’s hospitals is airbrushed
out of the picture. At WSJ’s Opinion Journal, James Taranto noted that
a report of this scene in a Gaza hospital briefly appeared in the New
York Times a couple of days ago:
Armed Hamas militants in civilian clothes roamed the halls. Asked
their function, they said it was to provide security. But there was
internal bloodletting under way. In the fourth-floor orthopaedic
section, a woman in her late 20s asked a militant to let her see Saleh
Hajoj, her 32-year-old husband. She was turned away and left the
hospital. Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Hajoj was carried out by young
men pretending to transfer him to another ward. As he lay on the
stretcher, he was shot in the left side of the head. Mr. Hajoj, like
five others killed at the hospital this way in 24 hours, [my emphasis]
was accused of collaboration with Israel. He had been in the central
prison awaiting trial by Hamas judges; when Israel destroyed the
prison on Sunday he and the others were transferred to the hospital.
But their trials were short-circuited...
You won’t find that passage now on the New York Times website because,
soon after it appeared, it unaccountably vanished into the ether*. Nor
will many in Britain or the west be aware of this:
Dozens of Gaza Arabs are being treated in Ashkelon’s Barzilai Hospital
at the same time terrorists are bombarding the city. The medical
facility, the largest on the southern coast, is in the line of rocket
fire, and medical staff often have to stop caring for patients and run
for cover during air raid warnings. The 500-bed Barzilai Hospital has
close ties with Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, Barzilai deputy director
Dr. Ron Lobel told the Associated Press. ‘It might seem completely
absurd, but we have the privilege to be doctors. Our medical ethics do
not distinguish between patients. We treat whoever needs to be
treated,’ he said
One Gaza Arab woman refused to identify herself to AP [Associated
Press] because of fear of retribution by terrorists if it were known
that her two-month-old granddaughter is being treated in an Israeli
hospital. ‘I am very sad and hurt. We want peace, not war,’ she said
as Israel began retaliating after hundreds of Arab rocket and mortar
attacks, some of them lethal.
The moral inversion in the west is so egregious, so monstrous, that
the better Israel is shown to behave the worse the vilification that
rains down upon it. What other country in the world would show such
restraint in the face of more than 6000 rocket attacks upon its
citizens – 6000! – that it took seven years before going to war to put
a stop to it? What other country would treat individuals – including
proven terrorists – from that enemy territory in its own hospitals?
What other country would continue to provide essential foodstuffs and
other supplies to those enemies who continued to fire rockets at it?
What other country, when finally forced to go to war to stop the
attacks, would show such concern to avoid the loss of civilian life
that it contacts the population in enemy territory -- even households
containing identified terrorists – to warn them to flee from the
imminent bombardment? And what other country would, for showing such
unparalleled moral scrupulousness, be vilified and libelled as Israel
is?
Israel’s behaviour is moral, legal and proportionate. This conflict is
revealing just who is on the side of morality, decency and sanity and
who is not. The President of the Czech Republic, who is also the
incoming president of the EU, has emerged in the former camp,
declaring stoutly that Israel’s behaviour is both just and necessary.
France’s president Sarkozy, however, has called upon both sides to
stop hostilities – a moral equivalence which effectively gives Hamas
victory by requiring Israel to abandon the defence of its citizens.
Similarly in Britain, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has repeated
his call for an immediate cease-fire – while Prime Minister Gordon
Brown, according to this Telegraph piece, has apparently complained to
Israel’s Prime Minister Olmert that too many people have died.
Would that be, perhaps, too many Hamas terrorists who have died? Would
Brown have preferred that more of them continued to live so that they
could carry on murdering more Israelis?
In startling contrast Farid Ghadry, President of the Reform Party of
Syria, has written:
We Arabs must be the ones to stop Hamas and Hizbullah, rather than
support their demonic and twisted logic of resisting development,
enlightenment, and progress of the region. Even when development and
enlightenment stare them in the face, their instinct is to destroy
them pretending to safeguard their honor, the mechanics of which
supersede all else including a happy life of fulfillment and
accomplishments.
So while we abhor violence of all kind, Israel's campaign against
Hamas must continue to the bitter end not only for the sake of peace
but also to help Arabs realize they have a choice: Destroy like Gaza
or develop like Dubai. Will this happen soon? Maybe not, but if a wake-
up call and a nudge, once in a while, to pierce through the fog of
deceit perpetrated by Syria and Iran is what it takes to see the
light, then we stand by the West and Israel in the only hope that an
Arab Renaissance in the Levant may actually have a chance of
resurrection.
Alas, many in the west don’t stand with Farid Ghadry. They stand
instead with Hamas. Whatever platitudes they mouthe, it is clear that
they really don’t want Israel to survive at all.
The moral dividing line in this battle is very clear. Those who stand
with Israel are on the side of morality, justice, and civilisation.
Those in the media and public life who denounce Israel for having the
temerity to defend its people are the fellow-travellers of barbarism.
Having done so much to embolden and strengthen Hamas and Iran, who are
playing them for suckers, they are continuing to stoke the fires of
irrational hatred and genocidal hysteria. As Israeli soldiers die,
along with the Palestinian victims of Hamas whether as ‘collaborators’
or human shields, their blood will be on these hypocritical western
hands.
And so now begins the second and most difficult stage. Inside Israel,
there is both determination and dread as tens of thousands of Israel’s
conscript army are called to the front. Untold numbers of these
soldiers will lose their lives as the result not merely of the
genocidal aims of Hamas (and its Iranian puppet-master) but also the
indifference and pusillanimity towards Palestinian terror displayed by
world governments over the past six decades of Israel’s fight for
survival, along with the active encouragement of genocidal Islamists
by leftists, Jew-haters, Muslims and useful idiots who were on such
thuggish display yesterday in the co-ordinated demonstrations in
British and other western cities.
Such people have made no protest at the bombardment of Israeli towns
by more than 6000 rockets in the past six years, deliberately
targeting innocent civilians. They have made no protest at the way
Hamas has used Gazan civilians as human shields, situating its
murderous arsenals beneath apartment blocks, in schools and hospitals
and mosques in order to maximise the numbers of civilians killed (in
order to manipulate all-too pliable western opinion). No, their
protest only starts when Israel finally takes the military action
aimed at stopping this genocidal barrage.
The worst thing is the moral inversion, in which the murderous
victimisation of innocent Israelis is ignored while their murderers
are described as ‘civilians’ when they are finally killed by the
Israelis -- who are demonstrably taking care to avoid civilian
casualties wherever possible. Tragically, civilians always die in
wars; and unfortunately there will undoubtedly be more civilian
casualties in Gaza – along with deaths among Israeli troops -- as the
war goes on. But the frenzied misrepresentations, double standards and
moral inversion fuelling a hysteria in the west which in turn can only
incite more genocidal violence are simply depraved.
Particularly striking in its malice is the way in which the treatment
of wounded Palestinians in Israeli hospitals is ignored – while news
of the barbaric behaviour of Hamas in Gaza’s hospitals is airbrushed
out of the picture. At WSJ’s Opinion Journal, James Taranto noted that
a report of this scene in a Gaza hospital briefly appeared in the New
York Times a couple of days ago:
Armed Hamas militants in civilian clothes roamed the halls. Asked
their function, they said it was to provide security. But there was
internal bloodletting under way. In the fourth-floor orthopaedic
section, a woman in her late 20s asked a militant to let her see Saleh
Hajoj, her 32-year-old husband. She was turned away and left the
hospital. Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Hajoj was carried out by young
men pretending to transfer him to another ward. As he lay on the
stretcher, he was shot in the left side of the head. Mr. Hajoj, like
five others killed at the hospital this way in 24 hours, [my emphasis]
was accused of collaboration with Israel. He had been in the central
prison awaiting trial by Hamas judges; when Israel destroyed the
prison on Sunday he and the others were transferred to the hospital.
But their trials were short-circuited...
You won’t find that passage now on the New York Times website because,
soon after it appeared, it unaccountably vanished into the ether*. Nor
will many in Britain or the west be aware of this:
Dozens of Gaza Arabs are being treated in Ashkelon’s Barzilai Hospital
at the same time terrorists are bombarding the city. The medical
facility, the largest on the southern coast, is in the line of rocket
fire, and medical staff often have to stop caring for patients and run
for cover during air raid warnings. The 500-bed Barzilai Hospital has
close ties with Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, Barzilai deputy director
Dr. Ron Lobel told the Associated Press. ‘It might seem completely
absurd, but we have the privilege to be doctors. Our medical ethics do
not distinguish between patients. We treat whoever needs to be
treated,’ he said
One Gaza Arab woman refused to identify herself to AP [Associated
Press] because of fear of retribution by terrorists if it were known
that her two-month-old granddaughter is being treated in an Israeli
hospital. ‘I am very sad and hurt. We want peace, not war,’ she said
as Israel began retaliating after hundreds of Arab rocket and mortar
attacks, some of them lethal.
The moral inversion in the west is so egregious, so monstrous, that
the better Israel is shown to behave the worse the vilification that
rains down upon it. What other country in the world would show such
restraint in the face of more than 6000 rocket attacks upon its
citizens – 6000! – that it took seven years before going to war to put
a stop to it? What other country would treat individuals – including
proven terrorists – from that enemy territory in its own hospitals?
What other country would continue to provide essential foodstuffs and
other supplies to those enemies who continued to fire rockets at it?
What other country, when finally forced to go to war to stop the
attacks, would show such concern to avoid the loss of civilian life
that it contacts the population in enemy territory -- even households
containing identified terrorists – to warn them to flee from the
imminent bombardment? And what other country would, for showing such
unparalleled moral scrupulousness, be vilified and libelled as Israel
is?
Israel’s behaviour is moral, legal and proportionate. This conflict is
revealing just who is on the side of morality, decency and sanity and
who is not. The President of the Czech Republic, who is also the
incoming president of the EU, has emerged in the former camp,
declaring stoutly that Israel’s behaviour is both just and necessary.
France’s president Sarkozy, however, has called upon both sides to
stop hostilities – a moral equivalence which effectively gives Hamas
victory by requiring Israel to abandon the defence of its citizens.
Similarly in Britain, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has repeated
his call for an immediate cease-fire – while Prime Minister Gordon
Brown, according to this Telegraph piece, has apparently complained to
Israel’s Prime Minister Olmert that too many people have died.
Would that be, perhaps, too many Hamas terrorists who have died? Would
Brown have preferred that more of them continued to live so that they
could carry on murdering more Israelis?
In startling contrast Farid Ghadry, President of the Reform Party of
Syria, has written:
We Arabs must be the ones to stop Hamas and Hizbullah, rather than
support their demonic and twisted logic of resisting development,
enlightenment, and progress of the region. Even when development and
enlightenment stare them in the face, their instinct is to destroy
them pretending to safeguard their honor, the mechanics of which
supersede all else including a happy life of fulfillment and
accomplishments.
So while we abhor violence of all kind, Israel's campaign against
Hamas must continue to the bitter end not only for the sake of peace
but also to help Arabs realize they have a choice: Destroy like Gaza
or develop like Dubai. Will this happen soon? Maybe not, but if a wake-
up call and a nudge, once in a while, to pierce through the fog of
deceit perpetrated by Syria and Iran is what it takes to see the
light, then we stand by the West and Israel in the only hope that an
Arab Renaissance in the Levant may actually have a chance of
resurrection.
Alas, many in the west don’t stand with Farid Ghadry. They stand
instead with Hamas. Whatever platitudes they mouthe, it is clear that
they really don’t want Israel to survive at all.
The moral dividing line in this battle is very clear. Those who stand
with Israel are on the side of morality, justice, and civilisation.
Those in the media and public life who denounce Israel for having the
temerity to defend its people are the fellow-travellers of barbarism.
Having done so much to embolden and strengthen Hamas and Iran, who are
playing them for suckers, they are continuing to stoke the fires of
irrational hatred and genocidal hysteria. As Israeli soldiers die,
along with the Palestinian victims of Hamas whether as ‘collaborators’
or human shields, their blood will be on these hypocritical western
hands.
