Bubba2
08-03-2006, 01:03 AM
Israel’s overkill enabled by immoral U.S. policy
By Patrick J. Buchanan/ Syndicated Columnist
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
“Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hezbollah,” roared Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon on July 27.
“Every village from which a Katyusha is fired must be destroyed,” bellowed an Israeli general in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
The paper then summarized what the justice minister and general were saying: “In other words, a village from which rockets are fired at Israel will simply be destroyed by fire.” That was Thursday.
Sunday, in Qana, 57 of Haim Ramon’s “terrorists,” 37 of them children, were massacred with precision-guided bombs. Apparently, Katyushas had been fired from Qana, near the destroyed building.
“One who goes to sleep with rockets shouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t wake up in the morning,” said Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman.
Today, we hear unctuous statements about how Israel takes pains to avoid civilian casualties, drops leaflets to warn civilians to flee target areas and conforms to all the rules of civilized warfare.
But Israel’s words and deeds contradict her propaganda.
Gillerman, at a pro-Israel rally in New York, thundered, “To those countries who claim that we are using disproportionate force, I have only this to say: You’re damn right we are.”
Gillerman spoke the truth. No sooner had Hezbollah taken the two Israeli soldiers hostage than Israel unleashed an air war - on Lebanon. It was the moral equivalent of a municipal police ravaging an African-American community because Black Panthers had killed cops.
If Israel is not in violation of the principle of proportionality, by which Christians are to judge the conduct of a just war, what can that term mean? There are 600 civilian dead in Lebanon, 19 in Israel, a ratio of 30-1.
Yet, whatever one thinks of the morality of what Israel is doing, the stupidity is paralyzing. Now, 87 percent of Lebanese back Hezbollah, and the entire Arab and Islamic world is rallying behind Hassan Nasrallah.
And how does one defend our behavior?
When Gillerman was exulting in the disproportionality of Israel’s attack on Lebanon, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton was smiling smugly beside him. When the U.N. Security Council tabled a resolution condemning Hezbollah’s igniting of the war, but also the excesses of Israel’s reprisals, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton vetoed it. When a few congressmen sought to moderate a pro-Israeli resolution by adding words urging “all sides to protect innocent life and infrastructure,” GOP leader John Boehner ordered the words taken down.
America shares full moral and political responsibility for the massacre at Qana. Our Israeli friends appear to be playing us for fools.
Patrick J. Buchanan is a syndicated columnist.
By Patrick J. Buchanan/ Syndicated Columnist
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
“Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hezbollah,” roared Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon on July 27.
“Every village from which a Katyusha is fired must be destroyed,” bellowed an Israeli general in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
The paper then summarized what the justice minister and general were saying: “In other words, a village from which rockets are fired at Israel will simply be destroyed by fire.” That was Thursday.
Sunday, in Qana, 57 of Haim Ramon’s “terrorists,” 37 of them children, were massacred with precision-guided bombs. Apparently, Katyushas had been fired from Qana, near the destroyed building.
“One who goes to sleep with rockets shouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t wake up in the morning,” said Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman.
Today, we hear unctuous statements about how Israel takes pains to avoid civilian casualties, drops leaflets to warn civilians to flee target areas and conforms to all the rules of civilized warfare.
But Israel’s words and deeds contradict her propaganda.
Gillerman, at a pro-Israel rally in New York, thundered, “To those countries who claim that we are using disproportionate force, I have only this to say: You’re damn right we are.”
Gillerman spoke the truth. No sooner had Hezbollah taken the two Israeli soldiers hostage than Israel unleashed an air war - on Lebanon. It was the moral equivalent of a municipal police ravaging an African-American community because Black Panthers had killed cops.
If Israel is not in violation of the principle of proportionality, by which Christians are to judge the conduct of a just war, what can that term mean? There are 600 civilian dead in Lebanon, 19 in Israel, a ratio of 30-1.
Yet, whatever one thinks of the morality of what Israel is doing, the stupidity is paralyzing. Now, 87 percent of Lebanese back Hezbollah, and the entire Arab and Islamic world is rallying behind Hassan Nasrallah.
And how does one defend our behavior?
When Gillerman was exulting in the disproportionality of Israel’s attack on Lebanon, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton was smiling smugly beside him. When the U.N. Security Council tabled a resolution condemning Hezbollah’s igniting of the war, but also the excesses of Israel’s reprisals, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton vetoed it. When a few congressmen sought to moderate a pro-Israeli resolution by adding words urging “all sides to protect innocent life and infrastructure,” GOP leader John Boehner ordered the words taken down.
America shares full moral and political responsibility for the massacre at Qana. Our Israeli friends appear to be playing us for fools.
Patrick J. Buchanan is a syndicated columnist.