There’s an interesting juxtaposition this month.

As Israel pursues its military operation against Hamas, preparations are under way around the world for Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27.

The two are not disconnected.

Israel’s policy should be scrutinized like any other state’s, and the loss of any innocent life should be mourned. But some of Israel’s fiercest critics go far beyond the limits of what might be termed rational debate. They have obscenely tried to turn the Holocaust on its head, portraying Israel as committing Nazi-like crimes - the ultimate libel against the Jewish state.

A Catholic cardinal - and leading Vatican official - refers to Gaza as a “concentration camp.”

A Greek newspaper entices readers with the banner headline “Holocaust,” referring to Israel’s alleged actions in Gaza.

A Brazilian newspaper publishes two cartoons - one of Hitler wearing an armband emblazoned with the Star of David and swastika, saluting, “Heil Israel!”; the other of a Star of David casting a shadow in the form of a swastika over the Gaza Strip.

On his website, white supremacist David Duke reacts to the Gaza crisis by lamenting that Hollywood portrays Jews as Holocaust victims rather than perpetrators.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez calls on Venezuela’s Jewish community to denounce the “Holocaust” being committed in Gaza.

Posters equating the Star of David with the Nazi swastika are ubiquitous at anti-Israel rallies around the world.

A demonstrator in Hollan d confidently asserts that “Anne Frank would be turning over in her grave” if she saw what was happening in Gaza.

Shame!

Israel seeks to defend itself in a highly complex environment, where the adversary, Hamas, cravenly uses civilians as shields and mosques as armories. For that right to protect its citizens, which any sovereign nation would exercise under similar circumstances, it is labeled as the successor to the demonic force that wiped out two-thirds of European Jewry, including 1.5 million children.

How many times does it need to be said?

Israel left Gaza in 2005. Israel has repeatedly renounced any territorial ambitions there. Israel gave Gazans the first chance in their history to govern themselves.

Israel has a vested interest in a peaceful, prosperous, and developing Gaza. This point cannot be stressed enough. After all, the two are destined to share a common border.

Israel has only one overarching concern in Gaza: Does it pose a security threat to neighboring Israel? The answer, tragically, is clear. That was the result of a decision taken in Gaza, not Israel. Hamas was chosen to rule, and choices have consequences. After all, Hamas denies Israel’s right to exist.

Why were tunnels built across the Egyptian bo rder? What are the Iranian-made Grad missiles going through those tunnels to Gaza meant for? And why are Hamas fighters going through those tunnels in the
other direction for training in Iran and Lebanon?

More than 10,000 rockets, missiles, and mortars have been fired at southern Israel from Gaza in the past eight years. Towns and villages have lived under constant threat. If some of those projectiles were crude and missed their targets, it was not for lack of trying. Their aim is to kill, maim, and intimidate as many civilians as possible.
Everything is fair game—homes, hospitals, schools, playgrounds. The trauma this has created cannot be adequately described.

And for what? To “liberate” Gaza? Well, Gaza is already under Hamas, not Israeli, rule. No, more likely, to eventually “liberate” Israel from Israeli rule.

But wait.

What about all the clergy, cartoonists, protesters, and politicians so concerned about the human rights of those in Gaza? Have they ever uttered a peep while those 10,000 rockets, missiles, and mortars were raining down on southern Israel? Did they ever take to the streets to support the human rights of Israelis? Did they ever read the Hamas Charter and hear the echoes of /Mein Kampf/ and the /Protocols of the Elders of Zion/, two European books that helped to condemn Jews to their death?

Did they ever put two and two together and ask what would happen if Hamas married its annihilationist goals with ever more advanced weaponry? And did it occur to them that, yes, nearly six million Israeli Jews would be in the crosshairs?

To ask these questions is to answer them, which probably means one of two things.

Either the accusers are totally clueless about the Holocaust and, therefore, incapable of understanding why their words and actions are so outrageous.

Or they are deliberately manipulating history, distorting the truth, and twisting facts for a larger political purpose.

What could that purpose be?

Well, for starters, extreme right, extreme left, and radical Islamic groups have found something to agree on - the Holocaust complicates their goals.

For the extreme right, by seeking to deny or minimize the Holocaust, the crime of their predecessors, they have tried to burnish their credentials as a “responsible” element in more mainstream society.

For the extreme left, the Holocaust is seen as a basis for the subsequent creation of the State of Israel, a nation whose right to exist they single-mindedly deny.

And for radical Islamic groups, the Holocaust is regarded as a perennial source of sympathy for Israel, undermining efforts to chip away at its legitimacy.

These three movements can’t agree on much, but they seem to have a convergent interest in hijacking the Holocaust and using it against Israel.

And there are others, especially in Europe, who don’t fit into any of these three categories but may have their own Holocaust-related agenda.

Perhaps it’s an effort to get out from under the moral weight of the genocide. After all, it was the sins of commission by the perpetrators, abetted by the sins of omission on the part of bystanders, that amounted to the Final Solution. How could Europe - especially the Europe that today sees itself as a source of such enlightenment and reason – have been the stage for such a monstrous crime against humanity just a few short decades ago?

And, of course, the Europe in which the Holocaust unfolded was a continent already haunted by the crowded presence of Jewish ghosts - victims of centuries of expulsions, pogroms, ghettos, pales of settlement, inquisitions, forced conversions, discriminatory laws, professional restrictions, conspiracy theories, blood libels, and the
teaching of contempt.

Pinning a swastika on Israel, and, by extension, its supporters, can be unburdening. It allows for a catharsis of the spirit. Given a measure of power, the argument goes, the Jews behave no differently than the Nazis. According to this inverted, not to mention perverted, logic, the only lesson of the Holocaust is to stand up for targeted
“victims.” And who is that targeted victim today? The Palestinians of Gaza, of course.

The Holocaust taught several lessons. This January 27th would be a good time to remind the world of what they are.

First, sometimes people mean what they say. Hitler spelled out his ambitions well in advance. Too few took him seriously. Until late in the day, there were those leaders in Europe who believed that he could be reasoned with, that his words were simply hyperbolic, that negotiations were possible, and that compromises could be reached. Is
it possible that Hamas and its patron, Iran, actually mean what they say when they speak of a world without Israel?

Second, there is such a thing as a just war. War should be the last option, but there are times when it must remain an option. Had the Allied nations not declared war on the Third Reich, how would the world have looked? Mind you, that war was neither “clean” nor “surgical,” and Allied leaders were hardly preoccupied with debates over “proportionality.”

As diplomacy offered no solution and restraint met with no reciprocity, what was Israel supposed to do in the face of Hamas’s arms buildup and daily barrage of fire? Simply accept the role of sitting duck so that it might aspire to the moral high ground of victimhood?

And third, defenselessness is no strategy. Jews were defenseless against the Nazi onslaught. They had no army, no recourse to weapons, and few who sought to defend them. Jews learned, at high cost, never to permit such vulnerability again.

So, as January 27th approaches, and we recall the six million, spare us the lip service and the crocodile tears from those who would accuse Israel of Nazi-like crimes.

Remembering dead Jews is important, yes, but protecting living Jews is no less significant.

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.

read full text

by dina kraft

Sderot, Israel — Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was touring this rocket-battered town on Sunday when a public-address system warned of a fresh attack. Chairs were knocked over and frantic shouts - “Get inside now! Move!” - could be heard in Hebrew and English as the mayor was whisked by Israeli guards and his own security detail into a protected room.

The rocket, and a second one, missed the town. But they gave the mayor a visceral taste of the conflict the world has been watching from a distance for more than a week: rockets fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza, and Israel’s sweeping air and ground assault in response.

Calm but somber as he emerged from the safe room, Mr. Bloomberg played down the moment of panic. “I feel exactly the same way I do when I’m in New York City,” he said. “You are worried about it, you turn to the professionals, and I think what is obvious is that the Israelis are as well trained as the N.Y.P.D.,” he said.

“Let’s not overstate the risks to me,” he added. “The risks are to the people of Sderot, on the ground in their homes, in their businesses.”

view entire new york times article

Israel’s military actions in Gaza are entirely justified under international law, and Israel should be commended for its act of self-defense against international terrorism. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter reserves to every nation the right to engage in self-defense against armed attacks. The only limitation international law places on a democracy is that its actions must satisfy the principle of proportionality. Israel’s actions certainly satisfy that principles.

When Barack Obama visited the city of Sderot this summer, he saw the same things that I had seen during my visit on March 20 of this year. Over the last four years, Palestinian terrorists - in particular, Hamas and Islamic Jihad - have fired more than two thousand rockets at this civilian area, which is home to mostly poor and working-class people. The rockets are designed exclusively to maximize civilian deaths, and some have barely missed schoolyards, kindergartens, hospitals, and school buses. But others hit their targets, killing more than a dozen civilians since 2001, including in February 2008 a father of four who had been studying at the local university. These anticivilian rockets have also injured and traumatized countless children.

The residents of Sderot have fifteen seconds from the launch of the rocket to run into a shelter. The rule is that everyone must always be within fifteen seconds of a shelter, regardless of what they are doing. Shelters are everywhere, but the aged and the physically challenged often have difficulty making it to safety. On the night I was in Sderot, a rocket landed nearby, but there had been no “red alert.” The warning system is far from foolproof.

In most parts of the world, the first words learned by toddlers are “mommy” and “daddy.” In Sderot, they are “red alert.” The police chief of Sderot showed me hundreds of rocket fragments that had been recovered. Many bore the name of the terrorist group that had fired the deadly missiles. Although firing deliberately to kill civilians is a war crime, the terrorists who fired at the civilians of Sderot were proud enough of their crimes to “sign” their murderous weapons. They know that in the real world in which we live, they will never be prosecuted for their murders and attempted murders.

Barack Obama reacted to what he had seen in Sderot by saying that if his two daughters were exposed to rocket attacks in their own homes, he would do everything in his power to stop such attacks. I hope and believe that President Obama will take the same position he did as candidate Obama.

The residents of Sderot were demanding that their nation take action to protect them. Most seem to agree with the Israeli decision to end its occupation of the Gaza Strip, to withdraw its soldiers and settlers despite the reality that during the occupation, rocket attacks increased against the residents of Sderot. But Israel’s post-occupation military options were limited, since Hamas deliberately fires its deadly rockets from densely populated urban areas, and the Israeli Army has a strict policy of trying to avoid civilian casualties.

The firing of rockets at civilians from densely populated civilian areas is the newest tactic in the war between terrorists who love death and democracies that love life. The terrorists have learned how to exploit the morality of democracies against those who do not want to kill civilians, even enemy civilians. In one recent incident, Israeli intelligence learned that a particular house was being used to manufacture and store rockets. It was a clear military target since their rockets were being fired at Israeli civilians. But the house was also being lived in by a family. So the Israeli military phoned the house, informed the owner that it was a military target, and gave him thirty minutes to leave with his family before the house was attacked. The owner called Hamas, which immediately sent dozens of mothers carrying babies to stand on the roof of the house. Hamas knew that Israel would never fire at a home with civilians in it. They also knew that if, by some fluke, the Israeli authorities did not learn that there were civilians in the house, and fired on it, Hamas would win a public relations victory by displaying the dead civilians to the media. In this case, Israel did learn of the civilians and withheld its fire. The rockets that were spared destruction by the human shields were then used against Israeli civilians.

This, in a nutshell, is the dilemma faced by democracies with a high level of morality. The Hamas tactic would not have worked against the Russians in Chechnya. When the Russians were fired upon, they fired against civilians without hesitation. Nor would it work in Darfur, where janjaweed militias have killed thousands of civilians and displaced 2.5 million in order to get the rebels who were hiding among them.  Certain tactics work only against moral enemies who care deeply about minimizing civilian casualties.

Over the past months, a shaky cease-fire, organized by Egypt was in effect. Hamas agreed to stop the rockets and Israel agreed to stop taking military action against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. The cease-fire itself was morally dubious and legally asymmetrical.

Israel, in effect, was saying to Hamas: if you stop engaging in the war crime of targeting our innocent civilians, we will stop engaging in the entirely lawful military acts of targeting your terrorists. Under the cease-fire, Israel reserved the right to engage in self-defense actions such as attacking terrorists who were in the course of firing rockets at its civilians.

Just before the hostilities began, Israel offered Hamas both a carrot and a stick. Israel reopened checkpoints to allow humanitarian aid to reenter Gaza. It had closed these point of entry after they had been targeted by Gaza rockets. Israel’s prime minister also issued a stern, final warning to Hamas that unless it stopped the rockets, there would be a full scale military response. This is the way Reuters reported it:

Israel reopened border crossings with the Gaza Strip on Friday, a day after Prime Minister warned militants there to stop firing rockets or they would pay a heavy price. Despite the movement of relief supplies, militants fired about a dozen rockets and mortar shafts from Gaza at Israel on Friday. One accidentally struck a house in Gaza, killing two Palestinian sisters, ages 5 and 13…the deliveries could ease the tensions that might have led to a military action to end the rocket attacks. Palestinian workers at the crossings said fuel had arrived for Gaza’s main power plant and about a hundred trucks loaded with grain, humanitarian aid and other goods were expected during the day.”

The Hamas rockets continued and Israel kept its word, implementing a carefully prepared targeted air attack against Hamas targets.

On Sunday, I spoke to the Air Force General, now retired, who worked on the planning of the attack. He told me of the intelligence and planning that had gone into preparing for the contingency that the military option might become necessary. The Israeli Air Force had pinpointed with precision the exact locations of Hamas structures, in an effort to minimize civilian casualties. Even Hamas sources acknowledged that the vast majority of those killed have been Hamas terrorists though some civilian casualties are inevitable when–as BBC’s Rushdi Abou Alouf, who is certainly not pro Israel–reported that “the Hamas security compounds are in the middle of the city.” Indeed his home balcony from which he observed the bombing of a compound was 20 meters from that military target.

There have been three types of international response to the Israeli military actions against the Hamas rockets. Not surprisingly, Iran, Hamas, and other knee-jerk Israeli-bashers have argued that the Hamas rocket attacks against Israeli civilians are entirely legitimate, and that the Israeli counterattacks are war crimes. Equally unsurprising is the response of the United Nations, the European Union, Russia, and others who, at least when it comes to Israel, see a moral and legal equivalence between terrorists who target civilians and a democracy that responds by targeting the terrorists.

The most dangerous of the three responses is not the Iranian-Hamas absurdity, which is largely ignored by thinking and moral people, but the United Nations and European Union response, which equate the willful murder of civilians with legitimate self-defense pursuant to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This false moral equivalence only encourages terrorists to persist in their unlawful actions against civilians. The United States has it exactly right by placing the blame on Hamas, while urging Israel to do everything possible to minimize civilian casualties.

There are some who claim that Israel has violated the principle of proportionality by killing so many more Hamas terrorists than the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas rockets. That is an absurd misapplication of the concept of proportionality for at least two reasons.

First, there is no legal equivalence between the deliberate killing of innocent civilians and the deliberate killings of Hamas combatants. Under the laws of war, any number of combatants can be killed to prevent the killing of even one innocent civilian.

Second, proportionality is not measured by the number of civilians actually killed, but rather by the risk of civilian death and the intentions of those targeting civilians. Hamas seeks to kill as many civilians as it can. It aims its rockets in the general direction of schools, hospitals, playgrounds and other entirely civilian targets. The fact that it has not killed as many civilians as it would have liked to is a tribute to Israel’s enormous devotion of resources to the building of shelters and to the construction of early warning systems.

Hamas, on the other hand, refuses to build shelters, precisely because it wants to maximize the number of Palestinian civilians inadvertently killed by Israel’s military actions. It knows, from experience, that when it forces Israel to take military actions that result in the deaths of even a small number of innocent Palestinian civilians, many in the international community will condemn Israel. Israel understands this sad reality as well, and goes to enormous lengths to reduce the number of civilian casualties, even to the point of foregoing legitimate targets that are too close to civilian areas. Accordingly, Israel’s actions satisfy the principle of proportionality as well as the principle of self-defense against armed attack.

Until and unless the United Nations and the rest of the international community recognize that Hamas is committing three war crimes–targetting Israeli civilians, using their own civilians as human shields and seeking the destruction of a member state of the United Nations–and that Israel is acting in self-defense and out of military necessity, the conflict will continue and perhaps escalate. If Israel succeeds in destroying the terrorist organization Hamas, it may well lay the foundation for a real peace between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. But if Hamas persists in its capacity to target increasing numbers of Israeli citizens, Israel will have no choice but to persist in its self-defense efforts.

No democracy would do otherwise.

golda meir said:

“peace between israel and the arabs will be possible when they start loving their children more than they hate us.”

(she also said:

“when peace comes we may be able to forgive the arabs for killing our children, but we will not be able to forgive them for forcing us to kill their children” ….)

Israel’s military operation against Hamas targets in Gaza should have come as no surprise. The handwriting was on the wall. No more than any other country, Israel could not tolerate a terrorist regime on its border that was launching repeated rocket and mortar attacks - 200 in the last week alone - against Israeli towns and villages.

Some context is needed. Israel, which entered Gaza in 1967 after a successful war of self-defense, left the region unilaterally in 2005. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced down strong domestic opposition, indeed active resistance, to remove Israeli troops and civilians. He announced that Israel had no claims on Gaza and wished to see it become part of a peaceful Palestinian state living side by side with Israel.

This was the first chance in Gaza’s history for its residents to govern their own affairs - something too many of Israel’s detractors conveniently forget. Immediately prior to Israel’s presence, Gaza had been under Egyptian military rule for two decades, during which there was never, not for a moment, discussion of independence.

But things rapidly spiraled downward after Israel left. Local elections in 2006 led to a coalition of Palestinian Authority and Hamas leaders, followed by a bloody Hamas coup d’état the following year. The PA was ignominiously expelled from Gaza, seeking refuge in the West Bank.

The choice of Hamas to govern led to international isolation. Hamas is defined as a terrorist group by both the United States and European Union. The international community set forth three basic conditions to engage Hamas - recognition of Israel’s right to exist, an end to violence, and willingness to abide by previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements

To date, predictably, Hamas has not fulfilled any of the conditions. After all, its charter calls repeatedly for the elimination of Israel and, citing the infamous Protocols of the Elders of the Zion, spews hatred of Jews wherever they might live.

Thus, since gaining control of Gaza, Hamas has focused not on building Palestinian society, but rather on seeking to destroy Israeli society. With substantial help from Iran and a labyrinthine smuggling network across the Gaza-Egypt border, Hamas has turned Gaza into a veritable armed camp and munitions factory.

The result has been that Israeli towns near the border have been targeted, in recent years, by literally thousands of rocket and mortar attacks. As the range of the rockets has grown, so, too, has the arc of vulnerable Israeli population centers.

In truth, Israel’s policy options have been limited. Negotiating with Hamas is impossible, unless Israel is prepared to discuss the terms of its own capitulation. Seeking a ceasefire or lull, as occurred earlier this year, buys quiet, yes, but isn’t cost-free. Hamas used the break to enhance its weapons capabilities, train its fighters, and reinforce its command-and-control infrastructure, modeled on Hizbullah’s example in Lebanon.

Hamas has counted on its ability to attack Israel at will, while relying on Israeli restraint. The terrorist group calculated that Israel no longer had the will to fight and risk military casualties in teeming Gaza. It also doubtless assumed that Israel would be held back by fear of negative publicity, since Hamas has, as standard operating procedure, skillfully exploited the media to focus on Palestinian civilian casualties, real or contrived, that inevitably lead to diplomatic and editorial condemnation.

This time, Hamas erred. It misread Israel. It opted to believe its own propaganda about an Israel fearful of striking, trembling at the prospect of a sustained barrage of Hamas missiles aimed at southern Israel, or worried about an exit strategy once it entered Gaza.

Until Saturday, Israel showed remarkable restraint, which Hamas read as weakness. But Israel has an obligation to defend its borders and its citizens. Clearly, as has been on display, it has the military and intelligence capability to do so. And, no less, despite upcoming elections, it has the collective political will. All these elements have been impressively demonstrated in the current military operation.

As soon as Israel struck, some in the international community predictably returned to formulaic stances.

Most Arab leaders, not to mention the “Arab street,” condemned Israel, but what else is new?

Egyptian and Palestinian Authority leaders, the exceptions, noted that Hamas brought this upon itself. In truth, there are others as well who couldn’t be more pleased that Israel is dealing a blow to Hamas and its Iranian paymaster.

The European Union referred to Israel’s “disproportionate” use of force, but what exactly is “proportionate” in a situation where Hamas-led Gaza, part of the jihadist network, seeks a permanent state of conflict with democratic Israel?

The UN leadership called for an immediate end to the violence, as if that will in and of itself magically persuade Hamas to rethink its reason for being.

And that rather bizarre coalition of extreme left-wingers and radical Islamists - who, at the end of the day, have about as much in common as North Korea and North Dakota - resurfaced on the streets of London and other cities to burn American and Israeli flags.

Let’s be clear. It is in Israel’s vital interests to have a peaceful and prosperous Gaza on its border. This point needs to be hammered home again and again. Instead, it is faced with Hamastan, a terrorist enclave. What Israel is doing now is exactly what any other nation would do under similar circumstances. In fact, Israel has probably held back longer than many other nations, including the United States, would have done, and, judging from modern history, is exercising more care to avoid civilian casualties than many other armies, though that’s particularly tough when the enemy callously uses civilians as human shields.

Some argue that there is no military solution to Gaza. Quite true. In the long term, Gaza’s residents need to decide if they want a potentially bright future without Hamas or an assuredly bleak future with it. But in the short term, Israel must convey the clear and unmistakable message that it will defend itself. And that, to its credit, is exactly what it is doing right now.

Jerusalem Issue Brief, Institute for Contemporary Affairs, founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation
Vol. 8, No. 16, 28 December 2008

Israeli population centers in southern Israel have been the target of over 4,000 rockets, as well as thousands of mortar shells, fired by Hamas and other organizations since 2001. Rocket attacks increased by 500 percent after Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. During an informal six-month lull, some 215 rockets were launched at Israel.

The charge that Israel uses disproportionate force keeps resurfacing whenever it has to defend its citizens from non-state terrorist organizations and the rocket attacks they perpetuate. From a purely legal perspective, Israel’s current military actions in Gaza are on solid ground. According to international law, Israel is not required to calibrate its use of force precisely according to the size and range of the weaponry used against it.

Ibrahim Barzak and Amy Teibel wrote for the Associated Press on December 28 that most of the 230 Palestinians who were reportedly killed were “security forces,” and Palestinian officials said “at least 15 civilians were among the dead.” The numbers reported indicate that there was no clear intent to inflict disproportionate collateral civilian casualties. What is critical from the standpoint of international law is that if the attempt has been made “to minimize civilian damage, then even a strike that causes large amounts of damage - but is directed at a target with very large military value - would be lawful.”
Luis Moreno-Orampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, explained that international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court “permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks against military objectives, even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur.” The attack becomes a war crime when it is directed against civilians (which is precisely what Hamas does).

After 9/11, when the Western alliance united to collectively topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, no one compared Afghan casualties in 2001 to the actual numbers that died from al-Qaeda’s attack. There clearly is no international expectation that military losses in war should be on a one-to-one basis. To expect Israel to hold back in its use of decisive force against legitimate military targets in Gaza is to condemn it to a long war of attrition with Hamas.

Israel is currently benefiting from a limited degree of understanding in international diplomatic and media circles for launching a major military operation against Hamas on December 27. Yet there are significant international voices that are prepared to argue that Israel is using disproportionate force in its struggle against Hamas.

Israeli Population Centers Under Rocket Attack
There are good reasons why initial criticism of Israel has been muted. After all, Israeli population centers in southern Israel have been the target of over 4,000 rockets, as well as thousands of mortar shells, fired by Hamas and other organizations since 2001 (1). The majority of those attacks were launched after Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. Indeed, rocket attacks increased by 500 percent (from 179 to 946) from 2005 to 2006.

Moreover, lately Hamas has been extending the range of its striking capability even further with new rockets supplied by Iran. Hamas used a 20.4-kilometer-range Grad/Katyusha for the first time on March 28, 2006, bringing the Israeli city of Ashkelon into range of its rockets for the first time. That change increased the number of Israelis under threat from 200,000 to half a million (2).

Moreover, on December 21, 2008, Yuval Diskin, Head of the Israel Security Agency, informed the Israeli government that Hamas had acquired rockets that could reach Ashdod, Kiryat Gat, and even the outskirts of Beersheba (3).

The first Grad/Katyusha strike on Ashdod, in fact, took place on December 28. There had been no formal cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, but only an informal six-month tahadiya (lull), during which 215 rockets were launched at Israel (4). On December 21, Hamas unilaterally announced that the tahadiya had ended.

Critical Voices
On December 27, 2008, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesmen issued a statement saying that while the Secretary-General recognized “Israel’s security concerns regarding the continued firing of rockets from Gaza,” he reiterated “Israel’s obligation to uphold international humanitarian and human rights law.” The statement specifically noted that he “condemns excessive use of force leading to the killing and injuring of civilians [emphasis added]” (5).

A day later, Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights “strongly condemned Israel’s disproportionate use of force.” French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, also condemned Israel’s “disproportionate use of force,” while demanding an end to rocket attacks on Israel (6). Brazil also joined this chorus, criticizing Israel’s “disproportionate response” (7). Undoubtedly, a powerful impression has been created by large Western newspaper headlines that describe massive Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, without any up-front explanation for their cause.

Proportionality and International Law: The Protection of Innocent Civilians
The charge that Israel uses disproportionate force keeps resurfacing whenever it has to defend its citizens from non-state terrorist organizations and the rocket attacks they perpetuate. From a purely legal perspective, Israel’s current military actions in Gaza are on solid ground. According to international law, Israel is not required to calibrate its use of force precisely according to the size and range of the weaponry used against it (Israel is not expected to make Kassam rockets and lob them back into Gaza).

When international legal experts use the term “disproportionate use of force,” they have a very precise meaning in mind. As the President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Rosalyn Higgins, has noted, proportionality “cannot be in relation to any specific prior injury - it has to be in relation to the overall legitimate objective of ending the aggression” (8). In other words, if a state, like Israel, is facing aggression, then proportionality addresses whether force was specifically used by Israel to bring an end to the armed attack against it. By implication, force becomes excessive if it is employed for another purpose, like causing unnecessary harm to civilians. The pivotal factor determining whether force is excessive is the intent of the military commander. In particular, one has to assess what was the commander’s intent regarding collateral civilian damage (9).

What about reports concerning civilian casualties? Some international news agencies have stressed that the vast majority of those killed in the first phase of the current Gaza operation were Hamas operatives. Ibrahim Barzak and Amy Teibel wrote for the Associated Press on December 28 that most of the 230 Palestinians who were reportedly killed were “security forces,” and Palestinian officials said “at least 15 civilians were among the dead” (10). It is far too early to definitely assess Palestinian casualties, but even if they increase, the numbers reported indicate that there was no clear intent to inflict disproportionate collateral civilian casualties.

During the Second Lebanon War, Professor Michael Newton of Vanderbilt University was in email communication with William Safire of the New York Times about the issue of proportionality and international law. Newton had been quoted by the Council on Foreign Relations as explaining proportionality by proposing a test: “If someone punches you in the nose, you don’t burn down their house.” He was serving as an international criminal law expert in Baghdad and sought to correct the impression given by his quote. According to Newton, no responsible military commander intentionally targets civilians, and he accepted that this was Israeli practice.

What was critical from the standpoint of international law was that if the attempt had been made “to minimize civilian damage, then even a strike that causes large amounts of damage - but is directed at a target with very large military value - would be lawful” (11). Numbers matter less than the purpose of the use of force. Israel has argued that it is specifically targeting facilities serving the Hamas regime and its determined effort to continue its rocket assault on Israel: headquarters, training bases, weapons depots, command and control networks, and weapons-smuggling tunnels. This way Israel is respecting the international legal concept of proportionality.

Alternatively, disproportionality would occur if the military sought to attack even if the value of a target selected was minimal in comparison with the enormous risk of civilian collateral damage. This point was made by Luis Moreno-Orampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, on February 9, 2006, in analyzing the Iraq War. He explained that international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court “permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks [emphasis added] against military objectives, even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur.” The attack becomes a war crime when it is directed against civilians (which is precisely what Hamas does) or when “the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage” (12). In fact, Israeli legal experts right up the chain of command within the IDF make this calculation before all military operations of this sort.

Proportionality as a Strategic Issue
Moving beyond the question of international law, the charge that Israel is using a disproportionate amount of force in the Gaza Strip because of reports of Palestinian casualties has to be looked at critically. Israelis have often said among themselves over the last seven years that when a Hamas rocket makes a direct strike on a crowded school, killing many children, then Israel will finally act.

This scenario raises the question of whether the doctrine of proportionality requires that Israel wait for this horror to occur, or whether Israel could act on the basis of the destructive capability of the arsenal Hamas already possesses, the hostile declarations of intent of its leaders, and its readiness to use its rocket forces already. Alan Dershowitz noted two years ago: “Proportion must be defined by reference to the threat proposed by an enemy and not by the harm it has produced.” Waiting for a Hamas rocket to fall on an Israeli school, he rightly notes, would put Israel in the position of allowing “its enemies to play Russian Roulette with its children” (13).

The fundamental fact is that in fighting terrorism, no state is willing to play Russian Roulette. After the U.S. was attacked on 9/11, the Western alliance united to collectively topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan; no one compared Afghan casualties in 2001 to the actual numbers that died from al-Qaeda’s attack. Given that al-Qaeda was seeking non-conventional capabilities, it was essential to wage a campaign to deny it the sanctuary it had enjoyed in Afghanistan, even though that struggle continues right up to the present.

Is There Proportionality Against Military Forces?
And in fighting counterinsurgency wars, most armies seek to achieve military victory by defeating the military capacity of an adversary, as efficiently as possible. There clearly is no international expectation that military losses in war should be on a one-to-one basis; most armies seek to decisively eliminate as many enemy forces as possible while minimizing their own losses of troops. There are NATO members who have been critical of “Israel’s disproportionate use of force,” while NATO armies take pride in their “kill ratios” against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Moreover, decisive military action against an aggressor has another effect: it increases deterrence (14). To expect Israel to hold back in its use of decisive force against legitimate military targets in Gaza is to condemn it to a long war of attrition with Hamas.

The loss of any civilian lives is truly regrettable. Israel has cancelled many military operations because of its concern with civilian casualties. But should civilian losses occur despite the best efforts of Israel to avoid them, it is ultimately not Israel’s responsibility. As political philosopher Michael Walzer noted in 2006: “When Palestinian militants launch rocket attacks from civilian areas, they are themselves responsible - and no one else is - for the civilian deaths caused by Israeli counterfire” (15).

International critics of Israel may be looking to craft balanced statements that spread the blame for the present conflict to both sides. But they would be better served if they did not engage in this artificial exercise, and clearly distinguish the side that is the aggressor in this conflict - Hamas - and the side that is trying to defeat the aggression - Israel.

1. For numbers of rockets, see Dore Gold, “Israel’s War to Halt Palestinian Rocket Attacks,” Jerusalem Issue Brief, Vol. 7, No. 34, March 3, 2008, Institute of Contemporary Affairs/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. See also December 2008 publications on www.intelligence.org.il.

2. Robert Berger, “Israeli Official Warns of Growing Hamas Military Threat,” Voice of America News, , May 17, 2008.
3. “News of Terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center (IICC), December 16-23, 2008.
4. “Intensive Rocket Fire Attacks Again Western Negev Population Center and the Ashqelon Region after Hamas Announces the End of the Lull Agreement,” IICC, December 21, 2008.
5. “Secretary-General Urges Immediate Halt to Renewed Israeli-Palestinian Violence,” UN News Service, December 27, 2008.
6. “World Reacts to Israel Strikes in Gaza,” Deutsche Welle, December 28, 2008.
7. “Brazil Criticizes Israeli Attack on Gaza: Special Report: Palestine-Israel Relations,” China View, December 28, 2008.

8. R. Higgins, cited in “Responding to Hamas Attacks from Gaza - Issues of Proportionality Background Paper,” Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, March 2008.
9. Abraham Bell, “International Law and Gaza: The Assault on Israel’s Right to Self-Defense,” Jerusalem Issue Brief, Vol. 7, No. 29, January 28, 2008, Institute for Contemporary Affairs/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
10. Ibrahim Barzak and Amy Teibel, “Israeli Assault on Hamas Kills More than 200,” Associated Press, December 28, 2008.

11. William Safire, “Proportionality,” New York Times, August 13, 2006.

12. Office of the Prosecutor, International Criminal Court, The Hague, February 9, 2008.
13. Alan Dershowitz, “The Hamas Government Has Declared War Against Israel: How Should Israel Respond?” Huffington Post, March 14, 2008.
14. Richard Cohen, “No, It’s Survival,” Washington Post, July 25, 2006.

15. Michael Walzer, “How Aggressive Should Israel Be? War Fair,” The New Republic Online, July 31, 2006.

Dr. Dore Gold, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in 1997-99, is President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and author of Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism (Regnery, 2003) and The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City (Regnery, 2007).

Not a day passes that I don’t encounter another Israel-directed lecture on the imperative of peace.

Sometimes it comes from diplomats. Or from editorial writers. Or from columnists. Or from scholars. Or from human-rights groups.

Frankly, it makes my blood boil.

First, it assumes that Israel wants peace for itself less than others do.

Second, it displays an arrogance that what may not be immediately apparent to Israel is abundantly obvious to those on the outside sitting in their ministries, offices, ivory towers, or vacation spots.

And third, it reveals a lack of humility insofar as Israel, and Israel alone, will bear the consequences - and they could be calamitous - of any misguided actions.

Strikingly, many of these commentators have never been to Israel, or have visited infrequently, or visit, but only in the company of those who share the same ideological predisposition. For instance, an individual appointed to head up a U.S.-based Arab-Israeli peace group had never set foot in Israel before assuming the position.

I know of no people on earth that has prayed for peace longer than the Jewish people. Turning “swords into plowshares” and “spears into pruning hooks,” and visualizing a day when the lion and lamb would lie down - and wake up - together weren’t conceived as slogans on Madison Avenue; they’re the Jewish people’s age-old contribution to civilization.

I know of no nation on earth that yearns for peace more than Israel, no nation, victorious in unsought wars, that has been more generous in yielding to its vanquished foes’ terms in pursuit of peace, and no nation that has taken more demonstrated - and tangible - risks for the sake of peace than Israel.

To think otherwise is to assume that Israel would prefer a state of permanent conflict, and that, quite frankly, would be preposterous.

Of course, there are debates within Israel about the best way to arrive at peace. How could it be otherwise? There is no surefire plan for getting from here to there in the topsy-turvy Middle East. Six decades of Israel’s existence have amply demonstrated the challenges.

But can any well-intentioned person truly believe that the Jewish people, resettled in the land of their ancestors after centuries of violence, persecution, and stigmatization, would seek anything other than a long-denied tranquility and peaceful coexistence with its neighbors?

Or that survivors of the Shoah who were able to reach the shores of Israel, despite innumerable obstacles, would welcome decade after decade of ever-present conflict and danger?

Or that Israel’s residents, whether settled in the country for generations or newcomers fleeing the intolerance of the Arab world or the oppression of Communist regimes, would seek a state of endless war?

Or that Israeli parents would wish to see their children, and then their grandchildren, and then their great-grandchildren go off to war, perhaps never to return?

Or that Israelis would welcome the daily barrage of rocket and mortar attacks raining down on Sderot and creating havoc in the daily lives of those trying to do nothing other than ride the roller coaster of everyday life? Or derive joy from the fact that all the children of this working-class town suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder?

Or that Israelis in the north would eagerly anticipate another barrage of Hezbollah-fired missiles from Lebanon targeted at anyone and everyone?

Or that Israelis would luxuriate in the knowledge that there is risk of a terrorist attack even in the simple act of riding a public bus, dancing in a discotheque, eating in a pizzeria, or attending a university?

Or that Israelis would relish the honor of being among the world’s most highly taxed people because of the sustained burden of defense spending to ensure a qualitative edge over the forces of its adversaries?

Or that Israelis would derive pride from being shunted off to the far corners of international airports, where they’re surrounded by heavily armed guards, for the simple pleasure of boarding planes destined for Tel Aviv?

Or that Israelis would take their cue from Hamas and Hezbollah leaders who propagate a culture of death and mayhem, when, in reality, Israel and the Jewish people have made an art form of celebrating life and seeking its enhancement?

No, the Israel I know desperately seeks peace. Israel’s Declaration of Independence expressed it. The Israeli concessions for the Egyptian and Jordanian peace accords showed it. The withdrawals from Gaza and Southern Lebanon proved it. The efforts by successive Israeli governments to reach a viable two-state settlement with the Palestinians continue to underscore it. The polls consistently demonstrate it.

But those armchair commentators too often fail to grasp Israel’s objective challenges in finding trustworthy partners. Instead, they’ve made a cottage industry out of ignoring, denying, minimizing, rationalizing, contextualizing, or trivializing the obstacles Israel has faced.

It’s almost as if Hezbollah’s blood-curdling cries to destroy Israel and the Jews, Hamas’s aim of replacing all of Israel with an Islamic state, Iran’s objective of a world without Israel, Syria’s hospitality to all the leading terrorist groups in the region, and the teaching of incitement and contempt in Palestinian textbooks don’t count for anything. Instead, they’re simply seen as pesky, off-subject debating points by pro-Israel supporters.

We live in a half-cocked world.

For many, it’s business as usual with Iran, while its leaders unabashedly call for an incitement to genocide.

The Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, controlled by a reflexively anti-Israel numerical majority, routinely rewrites history by labeling Israel as an aggressor state, while blithely ignoring the threats and attacks it endures for no reason other than its very existence.

The media can’t bring itself to call the Hamas and Hezbollah murderers of innocent civilians “terrorists,” but instead more gently refers to them as “militants.”

The conflict between Israel and Hamas is too often referred to antiseptically as a “cycle of violence,” when it’s anything but. After all, isn’t there a clear moral difference between those who aim to murder and those whose objective it is to stop the murderers?

And the BBC took the rare step of apologizing after one of its reporters, reflecting the same mindset, lumped together in one sentence assassinated Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, who sought to rebuild his country, and Imad Mugniyeh, the Hezbollah terrorist mastermind recently killed in Damascus.

Peace has been at the heart of the Jewish journey for more than 3000 years. It has been at the heart of Israel’s journey for six decades. We may need lessons in many things, but the imperative of seeking peace isn’t one of them.

This same magazine which weeps over the rights of Afghan women and Iranian women, finds it too controversial to print this simple statement of fact about the state of women in another Middle Eastern country.

I find this extraordinarily disturbing.

If you agree, please contact:
Senior Editor Michele Kort at Ms. Magazine