By Arnold Pinsley
Posted with the permission of the author.
If it's acceptable for the glorious leader of Turkey to propose that all thing in his state be "Turkish," the House of Saud to insist that all things in their domain follow Wahabi, the Vatican to insist that it is a Catholic state and for the mad mullahs ruling the Islamic Republic to insist that all things in Iran follow their interpretation of Sharia, why can't Israel insist on being "Jewish?"
Next a question posed by a friend's son to his father which I pose to readers: should I kill a person who is coming to kill me or die?
Leftists might claim that since my life is not worth any more than another, I can claim some moral high ground by letting him kill me, thus not sullying my morality by taking my assailant's life. 8 million Jews, 2 million Gypsies, and more than 12 million others were held to that forced morality during World War II; the high ground they occupy was created by a mound of human remains, ranging from ashes, to soap, lampshades, mattress and coat linings of human hair, and partial or full skeletal remains of more than 20 million people slaughtered in killing camps and more than 42,000 forced labor camps throughout Europe.
One might ask, what if a hundred came to slaughter me, or a thousand, or a million - at what point do I allow my need to exist to be subsumed by the weight of numbers or the world opinion opposing me? Should I fight and kill to avoid having my family, neighbors, or nation enslaved? Should I submit when submission means being a slave or being sacrificed on the altar of someone's opposing religious belief?
Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 and the rockets began raining upon the residents of southern Israel - many of them have had to live their lives in bomb shelters since the rocket rain became virtually a daily occurrence in 2007.
Israel expanded bomb shelters built in the 1950s and its warning systems give its citizens only 15 to 30 seconds advance warning of incoming, yet Israel even gave a five minute warning to the residents of the 12-story Zafer Tower in Gaza. Hamas has no early warning system for the residents of Gaza nor are bomb shelters available to any but the Hamas elite.
Question to those who support Hamas - at what point do you give in? Let me guess - it will be when Hamas has released the very last rocket in its arsenal. That will be the downbeat for Hezbollah to start again with much better and longer range rocket attacks directed at Israel from Lebanon.
It should be obvious that Israel is faced with an existential threat and that the choice of whether or not to oppose that threat and how to oppose it has faced every one of its governments since the re-establishment of the country after the United Nations General Assembly passed the partition in 1947 and the Israeli Declaration of Independence issued May 14, 1948.
All governments have resisted the force applied against the country. The Israeli left wing has raised a voice to counsel whatever government was in power as to what the international response would be to the Israeli government's obligation to defend its citizens if it was deemed to be going too far. The last serious result of that thought as an expression of national policy and practice was in opposition to Operation Litani which began in 1978 and ended with the exit of IDF troops from a "security zone" in Southern Lebanon in 2000.
In 2005, rocketing from Lebanon was of intensity and frequency to necessitate the development of an underground bombproof facility at Rambam Hospital which can be fully operational in 10 minutes with a capacity to serve 2000 patients including a state of the art series of operating rooms - the hospital sustained several direct hits in addition to those sustained by several other communities in the north of Israel during this conflict.
The current conflict has sounded the death knell of the Israeli left; even Amos Oz is calling for the IDF to finish Hamas once and for all. Elie Wiesel's full page ad in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and others showing that Hamas military operations guide ordering that Gazans be used as human shields to the maximum extent possible to assure the most PR play in western media is equivalent to pagan human sacrifice prevalent amongst polytheistic religions competing for adherents with Judaism. (The Torah refers to this as the practice of "passing children through fire," i.e. child sacrifice, and all the Prophets abhor the practice.)
Somehow the radical left in the United States, Canada and Europe hasn't gotten the message. Hamas has practiced human sacrifice from the very beginning of its preparation for conflict with Israel; it freely admits that more than 160 children perished digging out tunnels for its "combatants" and have screamed at all Western media "look at the dead baby;" said media isn't permitted to report that quite often the dead baby had been placed in situ by Hamas or might have been killed by a force other than Israeli.
The Associated Press insists on taking casualty figures at face value from Hamas or the United Nations, which has lost all credibility in this affair. Rockets were found under a UN facility and then given back to Hamas; rockets found under another UN facility mysteriously went "missing," and so the UN bleat goes on.
The BBC, not known for its warm and fuzzy feelings towards Israel, has presented a much clearer delineation of Gaza casualty figures; lo and behold more than 50% of the casualties are combatants, often clothed as civilians, a violation of the Geneva Convention. There are several media videos depicting Hamas missiles being fired from instillations near a school, hotel, mosque, hospital or apartment building, all war crimes in blatant violation of the Geneva Convention.
The message that the AP and the radical leftists obviously love is that if you are a member of a terrorist group you don't have to play by any rules; why do they insist that the rules that a civilized individual or nation lives by be applied when dealing with terrorists who engage in the slaughter of innocents to gain propaganda advantage? The argument about moral high ground thus loses all logical support - if someone wants to kill me don't ask me to stay my hand in defending myself; don't castigate me when I fight for my existence which he wants to eradicate.
