When It Comes to Israel, The Standards of Warfare are Different

A nation’s conduct in war is seldom determined solely by its own moral values; it is also determined by the moral values of its enemies. In World War II, the Germans introduced strategic bombing against Britain‘s civilian population and industrial base, a tactic that then was as unprecedented as it was shocking.

Britain, for years, did not retaliate. But in early 1942, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill finally agreed to Britain’s use of strategic bombing against the industrial capacity of German cities and to the purposeful targeting of their civilian populations.

Churchill referred to the policy as “de housing” German workers and crippling its industrial capacity.

By 1945, it was clear that Germany’s defeat was inevitable. The allies, however, wanted Germany’s unconditional surrender, and Russia wanted a quick end to the heavy fighting on the Eastern front.

To destroy German morale, the allies sent some 5200 sorties of heavy bombers against the city of Dresden. Although justified as an attack on an industrial base and communications center, Dresden was in actuality a cultural center, with much of its industry outside the city and was largely untouched by the massive bombing that killed anywhere between 25,000 and 100,000 civilians. The flames from the bombing of Dresden were visible 200 miles away.

One might find justification for the strategic bombing of Germany in terms of the brutality that awaited Britain if the Germans won the war. But then would that same justification, repeatedly used by Britain, not apply to the Israelis who can look at the wanton brutality perpetrated by the Islamists across the Middle East?

Britain’s brutality in dealing with enemies, however, did not end with WWII. After all, how does one explain Cyprus? When the Cypriots rebelled against British imperialism in 1955, the British responded with a policy of collective guilt and torture. They rounded up 3000 ordinary Cypriots and placed them in what is best described as torture camps in retaliation for rebel bombings.

The same technique was later used in Kenya, where 1.5 million people were rounded up, placed in concentration camps, used as slave labor, and tortured.

During the 1920 uprising in Iraq against British imperialism, the British purposely bombed civilians from the air and even used poisonous gas. They even conducted vengeance operations by destroying whole villages at random.

Unlike Hamas’ existential threat against Israel, the Cypriots, Kenyans, and the Iraqis posed no existential threat to Britain. They simply wanted to exercise their right of self-determination.

Most viewers of the most recent war between Hamas and Israel do not know that even while the war raged and Hamas vowed repeatedly to fulfill its Jihadist goal of Israel’s destruction, Israel continued to supply the people of Gaza with food, medicine, and basic necessities and thereby supplied Hamas’ fighters.

Israel also supplied Gaza with electricity, or did so, at least, until an Hamas rocket knocked out the generating station in Israel, which Israel is working to repair.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission, which has condemned Israel more than all the other nations of the world combined, is now seriously entertaining a Palestinian request for condemning Israel for war crimes in the most recent fighting in Gaza. In a world turned upside down, there has been no formal call for condemning Hamas, which fired rockets and missiles from civilian populations to civilian targets in Israel.

Even as she was ending her term, UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay expressed concern regarding the "rise of incitement for violence against Palestinians by Israelis" on social media. It is obvious that Pillay does not possess a FaceBook account, where attacks on Jews generally, not just Israelis, proliferate and which FB censors refuse to remove. And, of course, there is Hamas, whose very charter calls for the destruction of the world’s Jewish population. Iran has repeatedly called for the total annihilation of Israel. None of this was or will be on the agenda of the UNHRC as incitement.

As the ceasefire that Israel was pressured to accept went into effect on August 1, 2014, Hamas militants rushed an Israeli position and killed three Israeli soldiers and crushed the ceasefire before it could bring the humanitarian relief the people of Gaza needed. This too will not make it to the UNHRC agenda.

Hamas knows it cannot defeat Israel on the battlefield, but with its strong sympathizers in the UN and the international media, for whom hypocrisy is not an obstacle, it appears to have defeated Israel in the propaganda war.

For now, a 72-hour truce is in place. Whether it will hold is another question, as every other truce has collapsed and even if the truce holds, there are no viable long-term prospects on the table.

In the likelihood that the war will reignite, the lesson for Israel is that no matter what it does, it will lose the propaganda war. If Israel must return to the battlefield, it will have to fight according to its own standards and not those of international hypocrites cheering for its destruction and willing to create the diplomatic pressure to make that happen.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014...l_the_standards_of_warfare_are_different.html

Well... how easily we forget our own history, don't we? It is ironic that you Britons who are the most vocal (you know who you are) in praising Palestinian terrorists and condemning Israelis, forget what you've done over the years to the innocent, defenseless people. Shame on you

 

It's like the Emperors new clothes. All these people, groups of people, organisations and countries criticizing Israel, when they're really the innocent victims.

 

Sure Britain's done some stuff. The US has done much much more and continues to. Perhaps though, when China is the dominant power, backing some African nation commit war crimes because it suits their strategic interests, America will be most vocal about it. Maybe that's just how it goes.

 

I will never understand why we use Germany and WWII to explain what's happening with Israel. A better example would be Rome and her colonies. That being said, article got a few things wrong.

"a tactic that then was as unprecedented as it was shocking."

We can go back even further to WWI, when the Germans used Zeppelins to bomb Britain. The article mentions Cyprus. The Spanish Civil War. This wasn't unprecedented. This had happened before. The scope, maybe but the idea that civilians are legitmate targets in war, could arguably go back to the American Civil War with Sherman's March to the Sea.

"Britain, for years, did not retaliate"
That is simply not true. After an accidental attack on London, Churchill called for a bombing raid on Berlin. This was 1940. Now the major shift happened in 1942, but Britain did respond well before a year had past since the Blitz.

"Unlike Hamas’ existential threat against Israel, the Cypriots, Kenyans, and the Iraqis posed no existential threat to Britain. They simply wanted to exercise their right of self-determination."

By dismantling the British empire. That's an existential threat to Britain because the colonies also serve as markets, military bases, and a source of resources.

"In a world turned upside down, there has been no formal call for condemning Hamas, which fired rockets and missiles from civilian populations to civilian targets in Israel."

"In Geneva, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Thursday accused both Israel and Hamas militants of violating the rules of war.

She said Hamas is violating international humanitarian law by "locating rockets within schools and hospitals, or even launching these rockets from densely populated areas." But she added that this does not absolve Israel from disregarding the same law."
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/pillay-israel-hamas-committing-war-crimes-24785678

"As the ceasefire that Israel was pressured to accept went into effect on August 1, 2014, Hamas militants rushed an Israeli position and killed three Israeli soldiers and crushed the ceasefire before it could bring the humanitarian relief the people of Gaza needed. This too will not make it to the UNHRC agenda."

A tough point here. Israel was doing something that they knew would end the ceasefire, destroying Hamas's tunnels. Israel claims that they weren't violating the ceasefire. So the article isn't not wrong, but it's not entirely right here.

 

What kind of fire power and munitions do you use when destroying tunnel, besides dynamite? And who in the (*)(*)(*)(*)ing right mind would complain about Israelis destroying (*)(*)(*)(*)ing terror tunnels leading right into the (*)(*)(*)(*)ing sovereign Israel while cease fire is on?

Probably the same people who complain and insist on Israel to share iron dome with palestinians...

 

OK, so Britain's done some stuff, and Israel is doing some stuff. How's that for hypocrisy, Britons?

 

Probably the same people who complain and insist on Israel to share iron dome with palestinians...[/QUOTE]

A good analogy to why what Israel did makes no sense. Say you're painting a wall with someone. You want one color, the other person wants a different one. So you both decide to not paint the wall until you agree on a color. You turn your back, and when you look around you seem him painting the wall. Hamas said the tunnels are off limits. Israel said no they're not, so that's why the ceasefire broke down. I don't care what the tunnels were being used for. You would say that Hamas broke the ceasefire if they destroyed Israeli rockets because they're destroying Israel property. The tunnels are the same thing.

 

Sorry to disappoint you sir, but your analogy will survive no scrutiny, so I won't debate it. How can it be argued that Hamas terror tunnels which incidentally located in Israel should be off limits to Israelis is (*)(*)(*)(*)ing beyond me.

 

Israel has practiced targeted warfare for too long with no good long term consequences.
It is time for them to use a different technique than targeted firing
And intermittent cease fires between terror attacks.

Just as America did to Japan,
Israel should advise the Gazans to "Declare Peace" and demilitarize,
or face cities becoming parking lots.
Two choices, A or B. RSVP, no reply accepted as No Peace.

I do believe in the Jewish Soul and that they find it more repugnant to kill non combatants,
than their enemy ever does.
What other nation ever gave warning notification of an impending hit.
Remember, these sites were selected and could well have housed rockets or a tunnel entrance.


Moi


r > g

No
​

 

Yet Hamas fires 2600 rockets, kills more than a thousand, wounds another 6,300, but who cares.

It's only a war crime if Israel does it.

Who cares about the Israelis?

 

Uh huh. And historians in general agree that the bombing of civilians in Germany had little or no effect on morale, nor did it contribute to shortening the war. It was unnecessary and Germany was already, to all intents and purposes, defeated. Some view Arthur Harris as a hero. I do not.

 

But on this forum you are not bashing Arthur Harris, you are not criticizing your own country about Argentina, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, you are not demonstrating in London against your own government, against the wars and dead innocent civilians killed by your troops and on your tax pound....you spend (waste) your life bashing, criticizing, demonizing Israel non-stop and occasionally the US, while your own country has murdered by far more innocent civilians in the last 10 years than Israel has in all 70 years or it's existence.

 

When it comes to Israel the standards of debate are different not warfare.

In my many years on forums like this there are in my experience two issues for which any rational debate with our American friends is quite impossible.

Those issues being firearms and Israel

 

Well, you (Scots) want sovereignty and independence from England with which you share language, culture, religion, centuries of common history and cousine (yuck)...and at the same time you demand that the jews give up their sovereignty and become a minority in the 24th arab state, run by the likes of Hamas...Certainly your American friends find it impossible to have any rational debate with you on this matter.

 

On the contrary I haven't ever once said anything remotely like that

 

The problem with trying to have a rational debate about Israel and firearms is the antisemites will come in to these threads lie and shout down any support of Israel regardless of how rational it is, and the anti firearm grabbers will do the same to demonize firearms, the second amendment, and firearm enthusiasts.

It says more about them than it does about anybody else.

And it speaks to their insecurities.

Because every time you prove one of these people wrong they always resort to slander and insults.

Same thing with birthers too i might add.

 

I can't believe some morons that actually said Israel needs to share Iron Dome with HAMAS. What sense does that make? Yeah, lets give Iron Dome to the palestinians! I can see the berkley crowd right now shouting "BUT WE HAVE TO BE FAIR!!!", my god has humanity gone insane? Even if you were against Israeli bombing these terrorist scumbags, "sharing" Iron Dome would only lead to more deaths on both sides! Israel would then have to do a full scale war on the GROUND. LMAO, what a bunch of morons!

HAMAS supports Bin Ladin! Don't forget that. I remember one socialist once telling me that Bin Ladin was abused as a child, so we should feel sorry for him. LMAO Then he couldn't remember if it was Saddam Hussein or Bin Ladin who was abused!

 

On the contrary in my experience its the antisemite card that gets played every time there is criticism of Israel. The purpose of this inflammatory rhetoric is to shut down reasoned discussion.

And this is commonly what firearms proponents run for cover behind rather than discuss the appalling statistics in any rational manner

People who are insecure evade rational debate on such issues by smearing the moral integrity of those who do not. As a consequence there is no reason I would resort to such tactics

 

Mainly because the anti Israel faction only targets Jews and ignores all the other atrocities caused by radical Muslims like firing thousands of rockets into civilian areas. Some even defend ISIS.

Freedom proponents don't run from cover from the gun grabbing authoritarians. Contrary to that, they fight the good fight.

Those that do not understand freedom and believe only in authoritarian rule have no moral integrity.

 

The plain fact is the German people were always more afraid of what their own leadership might do to them if they spoke out rather than anything the allied bombers could do.

 

I'm an atheist so why would I care about the religion of the Israeli's ? It seems to be the common perception in the US that because I was born a European I'm by default pre programmed as an antisemite because of something the Germans did 70 years ago

I always think US perceptions of freedom are more a label for disguising your fear when it comes to how far out of control firearms now are there. I'm certainly more free from the fear of being shot

I've understood freedom all my life and yet have never once wanted to shoot anyone.

 

I didn't even mention Germans but hey, if you are so sensitive....

Just because you project your fear on others does not mean they fear as you do.

Who wants to shoot someone yet you are projecting your own fear onto others.

 

I have no fear of debating these issues but as you have so amply illustrated rational debate on Israel or firearms is simply impossible with US posters.

 

This is because you are protected by others who secure your freedom.
Had you been less fortunate or less spoiled you would have understood that freedom has to be protected from the likes of the Arab/other dictators and the likes of the blind religous fanatics such as Hamas or ISIS.

 

We have armed forces for that here too. I'm an 8 year RAF and Falklands war veteran myself