Gaza, Trash Heap of Moral Authority
History’s running update on moral myopia, Gaza edition, kicks off with Jimmy Carter, who never failed to not stand up to a terrorist he didn’t like. Says none of this needed to happen and it could all be over tomorrow. If Israel would just trust Hamas. Washington Post.
… this fragile truce was partially broken on Nov. 4, when Israel launched an attack in Gaza to destroy a defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza.
Jimmy noted at the outset it was deplorable of Hamas to fire rockets, but his subsequent accusatory chronology neglects to note the truce, “partially broken” by Israeli action on a “defensive” military target, was entirely broken by Hamas rockets on Israeli residential neighborhoods.
The Israeli government informally proposed that 15 percent of normal supplies might be possible if Hamas first stopped all rocket fire for 48 hours. This was unacceptable to Hamas, and hostilities erupted.
What is the matter with those Israelis? These Hamas gentlemen are reasonable men, after al. Just give the terrorist organization what it wants, and it will stop terrorizing your people. What could be more simple?
The hope is that when further hostilities are no longer productive, Israel, Hamas and the United States will accept another cease-fire, at which time the rockets will again stop and an adequate level of humanitarian supplies will be permitted to the surviving Palestinians, with the publicized agreement monitored by the international community. The next possible step: a permanent and comprehensive peace.
It’s an odd statement. Giving Jimmy the benefit of a doubt he doesn’t deserve, I’d be heartened by the apparent suggestion that Israeli hostilities are in fact productive, except that in the next clause, he pretty clearly refers to Hamas rockets. In what manner are Hamas rockets productive? Sounds perverse, but Jimmy might actually be on to something. Credit where were credit is due. Hamas rocketry has cleared the way for the destruction of Hamas, which is a good thing for Israel, the Palestinian people and the greater Middle East. Maybe when this is over the Palestinians, Israelis and Arans in general can all get on with their lives and start making money, sending their kids to school, etc. You know, maybe I’ve misunderestimated our nation’s worst president, the man who inaugurated the age of Islamic terrorism. Oh, that reminds me, don’t forget to hamstring Iran while you’re at it. The peace will be more pacificistic that way.
Moving on. There is a lot of moral myopia out there, and we don’t have all day.
WPost, Grisly find. Red Cross accuses Israel of keeping ambulances from getting to emaciated children. The Israeli military had “failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded.” It’s pretty bad. War is hell. Memo to the Red Cross: The Israelis are a little distracted, due to ongoing combat operations to rid Gaza of terrorists who fire from schools full of women and children, when they aren’t summarily executing political opponents in their hospital beds and throwing them off rooftops.
Vatican, via Reuters, slams Israel over its “big concentration camp,” demonstrating again its historic difficulty in figuring out which side is the righteous one. The Vatican is absolutely right, Gaza is a big concentration camp. The Vatican just hasn’t figured out that Hamas is running the camp. In fairness, it’s not like Cardinal Renato Martino lacks a sense of proportion. After comparing Israeli’s defensive action against a terrorist group to the historic mass murder of six million Jews, Martino adds, “Certainly, the rockets of Hamas are not confetti. I condemn them.”
So much moralism, so little morality. Anyway, there’s some of the world’s leading moral authorities, none of which seem to have noticed that a terrorist group is holding the Palestinian and Israeli people hostage.
Andrew Bacevich in a Boston Globe op-ed seeks to transcend morality, fails, and roots around in history for a while before coming to the conclusion that some earnest handwringing might be just the thing. Fails to note that Hamas can and should be destroyed and that it’s not 1967 anymore. Arab nations, as much as they hate any Israeli self-defense operations, would shed no tears. Bacevich’s effort to think outside the envelope can’t quite get out of the box, as he repeats the dime-a-dozen admonishment that Obama needs to do something different, but fails to offer any suggestions. OK, I guess I’ll have to do it: Take George Bush’s good work in bringing anti-Hamas Arab nations, the PA and Israel together and move it forward. Get Hillary to work lining up Arab peacekeepers and Arab financial support for a non-terrorist government in Gaza. Someone also please tell Bacevich we’ve prevailed in Iraq, the guy who did that is handling Afghanistan, and Obama’s on the bandwagon now.
Here’s someone clearly not getting how modern morality works. Martin Hier at WSJ: The Jews face a Double Standard: Why doesn’t Israel have the same right to self-defense as other nations?
In response to Israel’s attack on Hamas, the Security Council immediately pulled an all-night emergency meeting to consider yet another resolution condemning Israel. Have there been any all-night Security Council sessions held during the seven months when Hamas fired 3,000 rockets at half a million innocent civilians in southern Israel?
…
Many people ask why there are so few Israeli casualties in comparison with the Palestinian death toll. It’s because Israel’s first priority is the safety of its citizens, which is why there are shelters and warning systems in Israeli towns. If Hamas can dig tunnels, it can certainly build shelters. Instead, it prefers to use women and children as human shields while its leaders rush into hiding.
…
Following a cease-fire brought on by international pressure, there will be a call for a massive infusion of funds to help Palestinians recover from the devastation of the Israeli attack. The world will respond eagerly, handing over hundreds of millions of dollars. To whom does this money go? To Hamas, the same terrorist group that brought disaster to the Palestinians in the first place.
The world seems to have forgotten that at the end of World War II, President Harry Truman initiated the Marshall Plan, investing vast sums to rebuild Germany. But he did so only with the clear understanding that the money would build a new kind of Germany — not a Fourth Reich that would continue the policies of Adolf Hitler. Yet that is precisely what the world will be doing if we once again entrust funds to Hamas terrorists and their Iranian puppet masters.
Protein Wisdom cocks an eye at Jimmy’s interpretation of current events and has your double standards re Jews and Jihad in al-Britainiyah.
Stop the ACLU wins the Jimmy Carter Global Harmony Art Competition with this third world liberation-themed montage of committed peace activists:
Related, Vodkapundit points to moral outrage in Ft. Lauderdale: “You need a big oven, that’s what you need.”
Jawa on Hamas wedding crashers.
From the mouths of moms: Malkin with some logic from another part of the greater Islamosphere … an Iraqi mom on female genital mutilation … that applies just as well for Gaza’s own self-mutilation: “We don’t know why we do it, but we will never stop because Islam and our elders require it.”
Here’s something to get morally outraged about. Lebanese terrorists acting in solidarity with their Gazan brothers fired rockets into Israel, one of which hit a nursing home. via Gateway, who also has some intriguing news about homegrown opposition to the Iranian proxy known as Hezbollah. Though in that part of the world, the “enemy of my enemy” calculus doesn’t always work and someone else forming a private army isn’t necessarily good news, especially with the word “Islamic” in the title.
Hot Air: Second front, nice try …
Muqata’s Day 13 liveblogging.
Israel Matzav’s roundup kicks off with diplomacy derangement syndrome.
Topics: Israel, Palestinians
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:37 am on Thursday, January 8, 2009
15 Responses to “Gaza, Trash Heap of Moral Authority”
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January 8th, 2009 at 10:23 am
[...] Jules Crittenden has plenty more (and thanks for the link). Posted by Dan Collins @ 8:15 am | Trackback SHARETHIS.addEntry({ [...]
January 8th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Jimmy Carter is a living example of magical thinking, and not all of it can be attributed to senility.
January 8th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Exactly so, Rebecca.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
[...] Green Footballs, Pirate’s Cove, Macsmind, Gateway Pundit, Riehl World View, Yourish.com,Jules Crittenden, neo-neocon and Jihad [...]
January 8th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Following one of your links and came across this last night. Hamas TV porn. Who’d a thunk?
It is definately NSFW.
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1975.htm
January 8th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Jules,
Hamas can be trusted. Hamas can be trusted to lie, obfuscate, betray, murder, steal, oppress. Hamas is a very trustworthy organization, so long as you trust them to do bad things.
January 8th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Israel did trust Gaza to the terrorists. All concessions historically had to come from Israeli side. Shame on Arabs turning Gaza into a concentration camp. This is Hamas, PLO, and the rest of the terrorists who now reside in Gaza and are hiding behind their women and children, while firing missiles.
Maybe Jimmy Carter has secretly converted to Islam and has few Palestinian concubines.
January 8th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
MaryStella is correct again. Gaza is a Hamas Butchers’ sewage Pit. And, Iran–YES, Shiite Iran–is in it up to their eyes. Let’s see…Raise your young to worship death and to strap nail laced explosives to their chests and pull the pin in Israeli discos. Uh-huh, why wouldn’t we be anxious as hell to give them statehood status?
Take a trip over to Glenn Greenwood or Juan Cole at Salon.com and you’ll see just how invested the American Left is in Islamist barbarism. Pathetic and beyond unforgivable.
January 9th, 2009 at 6:50 am
I can’t get my head around that in the middle of a war, Israel is expected to drop everything and give medical aid and comfort to the wounded enemy.
I thought that’s what the hospitals in Gaza are for.
January 9th, 2009 at 10:21 am
[...] Jules Crittendom notes all the moral authority of Hamas. Or rather the moral myopia. [...]
January 9th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 01/09/2009 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
January 10th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Jules:
It never ceases to amaze me that Carter has reached his dotage while still a vacuous, narcissistic and mendacious adolescent.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I think it’s about time former POTUS Carter be checked in to a nursing home - perhaps the one Hezbollah lobed a rocket at in northern Israel.
January 11th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
I wonder if the reluctance of the Israelis to let more ambulances in doesn’t have something to do with the documented Islamist practice (and war crime; see also perfidy) of using commandeered ambulances as ammunition haulers?
January 14th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
[...] shared Gaza, Trash Heap of Moral Authority, including comments about Jimmy Carter. Don Surber has remarks about Carter’s comments at [...]