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I Believe We Have a Duty to Condemn Anti-Semitism and Unprovoked Acts of Aggression Against Israel
Throughout my lifetime, everyone I know has decried anti-semitism and denounced the genocidal horror of the Holocaust, many virtually implying it could never happen today. Surely we are more enlightened now. “Never again.”
We tend to look upon the German population at that time with disdain for standing silent and/or acquiescing in the slaughter of innocent Jews, as if to suggest such passivity or tolerance for unspeakable evil could never happen among civilized peoples.
And that was before today’s information explosion when everyone (in moderately open societies) has immediate access to current events unfolding around the world. Yet today we are seeing a proliferation of open hostility toward Jews throughout the globe. It is absurd to argue that these feelings aren’t widespread or that they are merely a result of Israel’s recent military incursion into Gaza. Not only have these sentiments been percolating for a long time, but Israel is hardly proportionately culpable in Gaza anyway, unless we have become so cynical as to blame the victim of terrorism as a morally equal wrongdoer. On what are these worldwide protests against Israel based if not anti-semitism?
I don’t want to be overly dramatic and declare, “Yes, it can happen again. It is happening again.” On the other hand, is that so far -etched? In all candor and sobriety, Hamas has been deliberately shooting missiles into Israel’s civilian population without provocation. It is committed to the extermination of the Jewish state, and it is not alone. But for Iron Dome and Israel’s military supremacy, we might be witnessing a slaughter right now. If Hamas were militarily capable, can anyone doubt they’d proceed on a genocidal path?
The moral state of the world scares me; not just global Islamo-terrorism, but the apparently growing support for causes that are purely evil. The United Nations routinely blames and condemns Israel. Greater and greater swaths of this planet have fallen into the Twilight Zone. It would be hard enough to combat pure evil if we were united in our opposition to it. But it seems that the numbers of those supporting what is good, moral, and right — including in the United States and the rest of the Western world — are shrinking and the moral certainty and confidence even of those who continue to combat evil is diminishing. The forces of evil are not similarly ambivalent.
I realize that many see far less moral clarity in this current conflict, or assess it differently. But I’ll be da**ed if I’m going to capitulate to the current trend of moral relativism or pretend to be high-minded and sophisticated by seeing nuance and moral parity in what’s going on in Israel. I think we have a duty to speak out against evil — and what Hamas is doing is evil. No nation in the world with the capacity to defend itself would be nearly so tolerant as Israel has been. Israel deserves credit and high praise for its behavior — not condemnation. And it deserves our unqualified support. It’s disgraceful that our leaders can’t bring themselves to recognize and articulate moral clarity in this matter.
Speaking of a lack of moral clarity, has this administration even condemned the actions of ISIS against Christians in Iraq? If so, I missed it. Obama and his team should be loud and clear in denouncing these unspeakable actions.
Published in General
Oh, except for Nazi Germany? After all, WWII is the fault of England, France, and America for being mean after WWI?
I believe that Israel should take back Gaza. The Palestinians have proven themselves to be wholly untrustworthy. If the Israelis leave any of them in Gaza, even as an occupied territory, the area will never be anything but trouble. The world will howl in outrage…for about a month. Then everyone will forget about it because the violence will have ended and Israel will finally be secure from that point to the North. Certainly Hezbollah will attempt to reek havoc from Lebanon and the West Bank Palestinians will want to make great issues. But Israel will have forced the Palestinians to have sacrificed for their malevolence. A well earned sacrifice for sure, and furthermore, there will be less points of potential attack for the Israelis to guard against. Anything less will only exacerbate the continued warfare.
Push them out of Gaza into Sinai, with a 20 mile buffer zone to the border.
“The moral state of the world scares me; not just global Islamo-terrorism, but the apparently growing support for causes that are purely evil.”
David, this is a haunting post. As Christians we should not be surprised by the world and everyone in it “doing only evil continually.” Yet we who’ve been raised spoiled and secure are easily surprised, quick to forget, and inclined to live in denial because we wish to continue pursuing happiness, uninterrupted and unburdened by responsibility for the upkeep of our society or the welfare of our neighbors. As if the gift of freedom is free and requires no tending whatsoever and can withstand endless tearing at the seams. My prayer is that God will open many eyes in the midst of our present danger, which appears to be gathering strength and speed at a shocking pace. If the eyes open, hearts and minds can follow—ours first. At the moment, what do Americans have to transmit in the way of values and ideas? It is unclear, at best.
I generally agree with you on the point of this thread, but this particular argument needs to be retired. Since the late 1940’s, America’s military presence in Germany has been much more about our geo-strategic needs than it has been about preventing the rebirth of German militarism.
Well said. It is an ongoing concern of mine that so many in our society are complacent and so many without the courage to stand up to evil. But the former concerns me more than the latter. Because most of us have been born into freedom we don’t adequately appreciate it or realize how precious and vulnerable it is. As a result we lack vigilance and we’re witnessing the results of that today. I also think too many Americans — way too many — fail to grasp the relationship between our Constitution and the limited government it guarantees — and liberty. And in turn, between liberty, and prosperity. We just assume freedom is the default condition and no matter how much statism and socialism we heap upon it we’ll still remain free and prosperous. As I said, we are learning the hard way and will hopefully employ corrective measures before its irreversible.
Egypt does not want them!
That is the irony of this whole thing. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Arab League – all are at-least tacitly supporting Israel. Turkey and Qatar are backing Hamas. The arab world is as allied behind Israel as they have ever been about anything (except Israel’s destruction). And still the world condemns.
Ask the Jordanians if the Palestinians are a peace loving people. They had to kill thousands of them back in 1970 when the PLO tried to take over their country. To this day Palestinians are treated as second class citizens in Jordan, just as they are in most of the Arab world. Little wonder given what a pain in the a** these people are!
The only time the Arab world gives a fig about Palestinians is when they can use them as a propaganda tool against Israel.
Too bad for the Egyptians then.
Those aren’t mutually exclusive things.
No doubt, it was a bit of both in the early postwar years, but do you really think we have troops in Germany today in order to keep Germany in line?
To have moral clarity one must first be willing to submit to morality. Submission is an acknowledgement that there is an authority higher than oneself which is anathema to 21st century Western culture.
We have taken the dividends of prolonged peace and abused them as license to satisfy our physical comfort. We no longer care what happens to our neighbor because that’s the federal government’s responsibility now. We no longer care who is right or wrong in international conflict so long as we’re left alone to enjoy our entertainment.
I am more convinced than ever that it will take a prolonged catastrophe, not a single event like a 9/11, to rouse this nation from its torpor, and I’m not certain even that will. We tell ourselves we’re doing okay because our daily lives are relatively quiet, but the spiritual rottenness at the core of our society spreads unchecked.
Shall we bring all our overseas troops home and find out?
So yes?
For what it’s worth, I’m a proponent of reducing our presence in Germany (for cost reasons). We don’t have much in the way of ground forces there anyway. Certainly not enough to prevent the Germans from doing whatever they’d like. The Bundeswehr would easily overpower our military installations in Germany were it so inclined. We basically have airbases, medical and logistical facilities there.
Sometimes I wonder why Israel has been so patient with the Palestinians in Gaza and with the attacks by Hamas. Maybe Israel does not want to accomplish the dirty work of the “reigning Arabs” and destroy the Palestinians those Arabs have clearly rejected?
Hamas of course considers Israel’s existence to be sufficient provocation, and disputes your use of the phrase “civilian population” in reference to Israel. This is not merely semantics, but is in accordance with the legal system they adhere to – and consider themselves legally obligated to extend to every corner of the earth.
Well-meaning people call for an “end to the violence in Gaza,” by which they mean Israel’s use of force in self-defense. Of course, Hamas, Iran, Hizbollah etc. consider their actions against Israel to be self-defense against the intolerable aggression of Israel’s existence, just as ISIS, Boko Haram, etc. consider themselves to be acting in defense of the beleaguered Ummah.
If the Germans attacked our bases in Germany, even if they initially overpowered our small forces there, there would be consequences to pay. Well, not with Obama as president. He’d just issue a statement.
I am no fan of Hamas for many reasons, partly because I do no think that they have the well being of Palestinians at heart. However the posts refer to the Hamas rockets as “Unprovoked” . This is far from the truth. This latest go round started with the ” unprovoked” sniping deaths of two West Bank teenagers caught on video. Then the three teenagers from a Hebron colony, one of whom was military age and reportedly a soldier. Israel declared Hamas guilty without even claiming to have evidence. There followed Israeli mass arrests, assassinations, house destructions, and bombings besides the Palestinian teen burned to death. After two weeks of not responding to these moves, Hamas began to fire rockets. A no fan of Hamas, but to say that this was unprovoked on the part of Israel is pure propaganda, or worse, irresponsible ignorance
But that is not a function of the utility of our military presence on German territory. It is a function of our overall military superiority.
Painfully obvious. Thanks for posting. What gets me is the grandstanding with big phrases like ‘moral relativism’ and discussions of moral decay by people sitting in air conditioned offices 5,000 miles away. Please stop the killing, and then impress us with your thesis on the human condition. I am all about it after cease-fire.
Claiming to be insane? What a surprise! Who would have thought that?
Israeli media reported on Monday that an associate of the three men had said they were intending to plead insanity. A source told Haaretz that the two 17-year-olds “live at the fringe of society and aren’t functioning individuals”.
The potential insanity plea has long been expected by Abu Khdeir’s family in Shuafat. His father, Hussein, told the Guardian on Friday that he did not believe he would ever receive justice for the death of his son.
“From the very first day of the investigation I said that they will either say that the killers are crazy, or they will set them free,” he said outside the family home in Shuafat.
Photo above: accused ringleader on his way to court. Hospitalized a few months ago for trying to strangle his infant daughter. Calling him crazy works for me.
Abu Khdeir’s murderers are widely condemned by all sectors of Israeli society. While there are those who justify it, they are marginalized and scorned.
The murderers of Frenkel, Shaer, and Yifrach? Still on the lam, just fish swimming in the sea of the Palestinian people…. and widely viewed as heroic.
Grandstanding? Hardly. You criticize my use of the term “moral relativism” and then proceed with such pronouncements as “stop the killing.” Tell us, please, precisely what that means. Are you referring to Hamas or Israel? “After the cease-fire?” Tell us who is impeding cease-fires? You can make light of my lamenting of moral relativism and an abandonment of moral clarity, but you seem to demonstrate precisely what I’m talking about when you dilute the subject with meaningless rhetoric. Is it virtuous to demand that the killing be stopped, if in context it could be argued that you are criticizing Israel for killing (and showing great restraint, and giving forewarning in the process) in self-defense?
And it’s not just tunnels from Gaza:
And it’s not just Gaza and Hebron, either:
Discoveries made while searching for Eyal Yifrach, Naftal Frenkel and Gilad Shaer during operation “Brother’s Keeper” frustrated some of the evil plots being hatched by Hamas, PIJ, and the “military wing” of Fatah (and let’s not forget Hizbollah, or Iran, or Iran’s North Korean tunneling gurus.)
This is a fascinating find. Thank you, OnTheLeftCoast
Poppycock. Has there been a day in the past decade or more that Hamas has not fired any rockets at Israel?