Re: Hizbollah's recent raid

tmon@xxxxxxxxx (tmon) writes:
From: lrooff@xxxxxxxxx (Eliyahu)

<It's not an issue of whether the deaths of non-combatants are
"justified." The fact is, unless armies fight in isolated fields or
deserts entirely away from civilians, there are going to be
non-combatant losses.>

That's true, but then it all comes down to how far you want to push the
operations when you know there is a terrorist holed up in a building
with 50 innocent people. These people will take over a building with
innocent people and then dare the IDF to come after them. What do you
do then? Kill one terrorist and fifty innocent people because he took
the building over? Does that sound like a moral option to you?

<In this case, the losses are due to the enemy's choice of
battlegrounds. One of the basic tenets of the Laws of Land Warfare is
that a combatant who operates from otherwise-protected areas, whether it
be churches, hospitals or crowds of civilians, bears the responsibility
for deaths, injuries and damage to protected property that result from
his choices.>

Right, but the policy of the USA is that some targets are rejected if
the result will be too many civilan casualties. If the Israeli policy
is "no matter how many innocent people die, if we kill one terrorist it
is worth it", that is insanity.

<Israel didn't choose for Hezbollah to fire missiles from within
residential neighborhoods, to hide within civilian population centers,
or to use people's homes as storage bunkers for weapons and rockets.
They can only respond within the theatre of operations in which they
find the enemy.>

Right, but there's also a concept called "restraint". Kill the
terrorists, but don't kill twenty innocent people and kill one half
assed terrorist in the process. Pick your targets carefully.

Would you expect them to wait patiently until the enemy decides to
wander out of Lebanon and Gaza in hopes that they (the enemy) will stray
into a legitimate field of fire before doing anything about it? Part of
the reason that Hezbollah operates this way is because they know that
folks who are ignorant of the reality of the situation will react just
as you do, crying about the losses and blaming "the Jews" for what is
really the responsibility and fault of the Arabs. Perhaps we should all
send a nicely-worded letter to Hezbollah, asking them to please move
their operations out of civilian areas so as to reduce the casualties
among the Arab population? Do you think they'd even respond to it?
They'd be far too busy rolling on the floor laughing at it.>

Civilized countries show restraint in these situations. If Israel wants
to come off half cocked, firing at everyone in the area of where the
enemy may or may not be, then good for her. But it certainly doesn't
make her better than any other country, nor does it engender much
empathy from the rest of the world.

You know what tmon? You can take your "empathy" and ...!

Moshe Schorr
It is a tremendous Mitzvah to always be happy! - Reb Nachman of Breslov
The home and family are the center of Judaism, *not* the synagogue.
Disclaimer: Nothing here necessarily reflects the opinion of Hebrew University
.

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