A Lose-Lose Proposition
Alan Dershowitz, writing in the Jerusalem Post points out the obvious. The terrorists not only welcome civilian casualties, but they promote them. They also count on the international community, the media and human rights organizations to condemn Israel for the civilian deaths. And by doing so, the international community, the media and the human rights groups guarantee more and more civilian deaths.
The Hizbullah and Hamas provocations against Israel once again demonstrate how terrorists exploit human rights and the media in their attacks on democracies.
By hiding behind their own civilians the Islamic radicals issue a challenge to democracies: Either violate your own morality by coming after us and inevitably killing some innocent civilians, or maintain your morality and leave us with a free hand to target your innocent civilians.
This challenge presents democracies such as Israel with a lose-lose option, and the terrorists with a win-win option.
There is one variable that could change this dynamic and present democracies with a viable option that could make terrorism less attractive as a tactic: The international community, the anti-Israel segment of the media and the so called "human rights" organizations could stop falling for this terrorist gambit and acknowledge that they are being used to promote the terrorist agenda.
Whenever a democracy is presented with the lose-lose option and chooses to defend its citizens by going after the terrorists who are hiding among civilians, this trio of predictable condemners can be counted on by the terrorists to accuse the democracy of "overreaction," "disproportionality" and "violations of human rights."
In doing so they play right into the hands of the terrorists, causing more terrorism and more civilian casualties on both sides.
If instead this trio could, for once, be counted on to blame the terrorists for the civilian deaths on both sides, this tactic would no longer be a win-win situation for the terrorists.IT SHOULD BE obvious by now that Hizbullah and Hamas actually want the Israeli military to kill as many Lebanese and Palestinian civilians as possible. That is why they store their rockets underneath the beds of civilians; why they launch their missiles from crowded civilian neighborhoods and hide among civilians. They are seeking to induce Israel to defend its civilians by going after them among their civilian "shields." They know that every civilian they induce Israel to kill hurts Israel in the media and the international and human rights communities.
They regard these human shields as shahids - martyrs - even if they did not volunteer for this lethal job. Under the law, criminals who use human shields are responsible for the deaths of the shields, even if the bullet that kills them came from the gun of a policeman.
Israel has every self-interest in minimizing civilian casualties, whereas the terrorists have every self-interest in maximizing them - on both sides. Israel should not be condemned for doing what every democracy would and should do: taking every reasonable military step to stop the terrorists from killing their innocent civilians.
That this is so should be obvious to even the most partisan person. This is information war and the terrorists have learned very well indeed how to manipulate the media. There was a recently completed study that proved that.
That this is so should be obvious to even the most partisan person. This is information war and the terrorists have learned very well indeed how to manipulate the media. There was a recently completed study that proved that.
By Tom, Sunday, 23 July , 2006 @ 4:07 pm
Of course the main stream morons will continue to blame Israel for the carnage, and give the terrorists a free pass on the casualties they inflict.
By wolf, Sunday, 23 July , 2006 @ 8:52 pm
I’m tired of hearing about these 300+ Lebanese deaths. I’ve heard more about these dead than the 800,000+ Rhawandans killed during Clinton’s presidency. OR THE TENS OF THOUSANDS KILLED IN DARFUR BY ARABS!
This is all just a blood libel against the Jewish state. 99% of these Lebanese are were supporters of Hezbollah. The other 1% supported a government that housed a terrorist org.