For some reason some of us refuse to recognize the moral component of the discussion. I am amazed and distraugh at the persistence with which some humans on this planet want to assign degrees of innocent just because the external physical environment changes.

If i follow your reasoning, an innocent victim in a combat zone is less deserving of your compassion and consideration than the one in a country at peace? Where is the moral , political or intellectual ground for such a mind set? An innocent victim is innocent period, be it in a war zone or not. The innocent victim of a rape is an innocent victim, no matter if he/she was raped in a war zone or in the streets of Saint Petersburg or Paris!

Again Velda, contrary to you, I stay clear from assigning responsability or passing quick judgement. First because i have the humility to recognize that i am no expert in foreign policy nor do i have all the elements to do so.

It is easy to deny one’s humanity and innocence so you could see in your enemy someone less than a human and close your eyes on his suffering and the injustices committed towards him. You seem bent on disliking palestinians be they innocent or not. You have every right. I am not here on a PR campaign for the Palestinians. But with all due respect Velda, you have no right to rewrite the definition of innocence.

Respectfully,
Bruno.

As far as I can tell, the difference is that Gaza is in a war it brought upon itself by lobbing rockets at innocent people. If you think someone’s out to kill innocent people, I’d say there’s a more obvious suspect than Israel. I do hope that those innocents can get away from the fighting. Perhaps they could even work together to stop those among them who are out to provoke a fight.

I share your concern for the security of people in Israel not only in time of conflict but also a permanent lasting peace. I wish Israel had accepted the intervention of a UN peacekeeping force to enforce peace when the UN was in its heydays and it had clout and power. Now unfortunately, few powers have enough leverage with both parties and willing to use it to force some sort of compromise on them. There are today though plenty of good willing parties in the arab and muslim world to reach some agreement in good faith.(Saudi Arabia for example is one of the most active arab/muslim countries trying to broker peace in the Middle East that is hardly ever acknowledged nor commanded in the media for its efforts. It is so convenient to fall back on old stereotypes of the ugly conservative extremist Kingdom!)

But again i am still not convinced that what Israel is doing is justified nor efficient at rooting out the problem. Yesterday it was the PLO, today it is Hamas, tomorrow it will be an other organization. But the headlines in the news i’m afraid will again be the same. Civilians will be coldly killed and we will read the same gut wrenching articles about their suffering as we did Thursday, January 8, 2009 in the Washington Post: Red Cross Reports Grisly Find in Gaza
.

No Michael you will not convince me that either Hamas’ or Israel’s action justify such suffering.

With all due respect Michael, i find this reasoning, circumventive and confusing. First, to avoid any misunderstanding with the readers, let it be known that i am the “reader” mentioned by Michael in this post’s title.

My question was regarding your post titled: “War in Gaza Causes Outbursts of Anti-Semitism in Europe” . In that post you rightfully condemn hateful and unjust attacks of violence perpetrated against innocent Jews in the streets of Europe, arguing that those are innocent Jewish citizens of Europe. But you approve of the IDF current tactic in Gaza. And my question again is: what makes the innocent Jew going about his life in London or Paris more deserving of restraint and compassion from British or French muslims than the Gazan trying to go about his life with no food no fuel no electricity? To me they are both innocent civilians. And killing an innocent is like killing the whole of mankind, remember?

You still haven’t convinced me of the moral political nor military justification -and the key word here is “just”-of the many civilian deaths in Gaza, what some coldly call :”collateral” damage.

Neither you nor I are experts in Islamic theology. So i will not lose us nor the reader in theological argumentation for which i am not qualified. But again, as you mentioned, i also believe that he who kills one innocent person is like someone who kills the whole of mankind. So how can you share the same belief and at the next sentence be apologetic of Israel’s actions in Gaza? What is the difference between an innocent Jew in Europe and an innocent Palestinian in Gaza?

There is here a moral and spiritual dilemma that cannot be reconciled by just allocating blame on one party or an other. An innocent civilian is an innocent civilian, period. No matter what his creed, no matter what his color, no matter what his ethnicity, no matter what the circumstances. At least that’s what i believe as a Muslim but also as a fellow human being who believes in life’s sanctity the way we were taught by our Prophets.

Furthermore, punishing civilians for the deeds of a few is called collective punishment. A blockade that leads to starvation, no electricity, no medicine is collective punishment. Knowingly targeting civilians is collective punishment (and in this case everyone knows that civilians will be hit en masse because of the population density in Gaza). The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions (not sure in the turmoil we face in Gaza what is the relationship between the people of Gaza and the armed faction of Hamas, and neither does anyone of us here i guess). In times of war and armed conflict, collective punishment has resulted in atrocities, and is a violation of the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions.

You prefer to focus on responsibility or guilt allocation and speak about collateral damage, i’d rather focus on people’s humanity and sense or lack thereof, and view civilians killed in the cross fire as innocent victims of a few mad men. I wish, we the people as a whole remained in touch with our own humanity and tried to find solutions rather than try to find one main culprit which would conveniently help us to exonerate ourselves from the arduous task of recognizing the other party’s own humanity and need of human dignity.

Bruno.

Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni?s main responsibility, then, is to protect the Israeli people against terrorist attacks from Hamas (and other organizations). They cannot do possibly be expected to do so without fighting back when Hamas crosses the line and fires rockets at Israeli villages and towns; defending your people means, sadly, you may have to use force against enemies.
Quite right, and one question I think the rest of the world should ask is whether there is any support for Israel’s need for security in between the periods of conflict. Perhaps Israel would not have to resort to military incursions if the international community gave it other options.