Crocodile Tears and Bogus Morality

I fully understand. The Israelis are slaughtering Palestinian women and children by the thousands, so there has to be a narrative to justify that action. It is interesting to see that Ricochet is almost fully on board with participation in that narrative. – Ricochet comment

I am fully "on board" with "the narrative" that Hamas needs to be destroyed. I would hope that Palestinians (a) heed calls to evacuate when told and (b) act to isolate and abandon the self-aggrandizing (now-wealthy) terrorists they elected to hasten the end of the campaign. In any event, civilian deaths are ultimately the fault of those who started the war.

Civilian casualties in the prosecution of a war of necessity are unavoidable. The US killed far more Japanese civilians than American civilians killed by Japan. Britain killed more unarmed Germans than Britons killed in the Blitz. There was no war referee to say that the war had to stop when the casualties became proportionate. Nor has anybody come up with a means for conducting a war in which there is not an inherent risk to noncombatants.

However, inflicting civilian casualties by intentionally rounding up and executing civilians is unambiguously wrong and qualitatively different. As a matter of law and morality, collateral human damage done in combat operations by the Wehrmacht is different from the SS lining up civilians for mass execution or transport to death camps. Heavy bombing of St. Lo or Caen before the Normandy landings was probably far more indiscriminate than what Israel is doing and will continue to do in Gaza because (a) the Allies could not warn French civilians to flee the imminent invasion because the location was secret; (b) those civilians were our allies, and (c) the technology was not as precise. So how is Israel more culpable than the Allied forces of WWII with respect to the prospect of civilian casualties?

The open joy with which Gaza terrorists abused and killed their victims reflects both the true nature of Hamas and the depravity of Palestinian culture such that another round of bogus negotiations was never going to be an answer. This is the war Hamas sought and must be fought to completion. Israel is clearly far more intent on avoiding civilian deaths than Hamas and its fan club which openly welcomes “martyrs” for their potential PR value.

Why do so many sentient adults adopt the weirdly racist notion that Palestinians really don't know any better and cannot be held accountable because of their victim status whereas Israelis must have Vulcan-like emotional control despite unacceptable inhumane provocations? This is tiresome tiny-brained wokethink yet depressingly commonplace.

Lastly, to be blunt, why am I required to care about Palestinians at all? Over just the last few years, Muslims have killed two million other Muslims from the Maghreb to the Pakistani tribal lands. Nobody marches. No grand conferences of Muslim leaders to end the slaughter. No introspection, no self-critical examination in the Islamic world. Nor any condemnation of what the likes of Boko Haram and others have done to innocent Christians. And no recognition of the uniquely evil nature of the actions of Gazans on Oct 7. Out of that large menu of victims, only the Gazans deserve my interest and pity? How do they rate an appearance anywhere near the top of the list?

Other Arabs don’t seem to much like them. Palestinians are barred from Egypt, which (a) refused to accept the return of Gaza from Israel and (b) has built a serious border wall against Gazans that would make Trump envious. All 300,000 Palestinians were kicked out of Kuwait after the first Gulf War for openly cheering Saddam's invasion. Palestinian political actions threatened the stability of Jordan, which has renounced claims on the West Bank mostly to keep from having to add more of them. In Lebanon, Palestinians naturally supported the more destructive elements to make that place a permanent warzone and, (perhaps most importantly from my narrow personal perspective), they cheered and gave candy to their kids when thousands of Americans died on 9/11.

All of this is why I find expressions of deep sympathy for Palestinian war casualties inherently suspect and transparently pretextual. There are a lot more people out there deserving of sympathy, starting with the Israeli families and communities attacked.