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June 29, 2006
JINSA Report #579
The Double Standard, Part I – About Them
Before Israel captured 60 Hamas members last night, including senior
government officials, in an investigation into their links to terrorism
(like the understatement?), the Bush Administration was criticizing
Israel's military forays into Gaza, including targeted assassination.
According to an Israeli government source, "The messages have taken the
form of ‘We understand your anger but any attack would only make things
worse for you.'" The official said the messages encouraged Israel to
"employ the international community" to help free the Israeli soldier
abducted by Hamas on June 25 and taken to the southern Gaza Strip.
Ridiculous and dangerous. Hamas is at war with Israel. Fighting the war
is messy and ugly, but nothing "makes things worse for you" faster than
not fighting. Killing people who seek your destruction is appropriate
whether they wear uniforms or not, and arresting the people who do the
planning, financing, training, agitating and venerating is as well. No
one counts the number of people who will not die because terrorists were
disrupted before they could do the deed, but somewhere in the great
reckoning, there must be a column for "lives saved by preventive
action." The administration should praise Israel for arresting rather
then killing them - the intelligence value is greater. And the Israeli
offer of trials and legal representation should shame the Bush
administration, which is having some difficulty with the care and
feeding of terrorists in our own zoo.
We offer as evidence against enlisting the "international community"
French Foreign Minister Phillipe Douste-Blazy. He condemned the arrests,
saying, according to The Jerusalem Post, "diplomacy was the only
solution to the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians and
that political figures should not be arrested."
There is no point asking European leaders, terrified of their own
radicalized Muslim minorities, to kowtow to Hamas, begging a favor and
by the very fact of diplomatic intercourse, offering recognition and
legitimacy to a terrorist organization on behalf of a sovereign state,
Israel, that makes no such offer.
Israel IS a sovereign country, charged by its elected leadership with
safeguarding the people and fighting the enemy. Israel is not only
sovereign, it is democratic and has safeguards in its military and legal
system that protect the rights even of terrorist plotters picked off the
streets - although, quite correctly, the right of Israeli citizens to
live comes first. Israel does a lot of things wrong; it does a lot of
things right - we have bones to pick on occasion - but it does those
things based on its proven democratic determination of the circumstances
and the rules of domestic and international law.
Quite clearly, Secretary Rice is on a mission for U.S.-European comity,
seeking European participation in the civilian reconstruction of Iraq
and unity on Iran. But the U.S. and most of Europe will never see
eye-to-eye on Israel any more than we will on American military
involvement in Iraq or on Gitmo. It would be shameful if the
administration decides to stand firm on American independence of action
while selling out Israel's priorities to the French.
To view this JINSA Report online click on the link below.
http://www.jinsa.org/JINSAReports/3443
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