Mark Steyn's Latest on on Gaza

Please read Mark Steyn's latest.

Read it slowly. Read it carefully. But read it all. And then join with me and worry. For the excessive tolerance of our "progressive" politicians is so clearly leading to a time when no tolerance will be permitted whatsoever.

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With apologies to Martin Niemöller, let me provide a modern version of his famous poem:

First they came for the Jews.
I remained silent, for I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Christians.
I remained silent, for I was not a Christian.

When they came for the conservatives,
I remained silent, for I was not a conservative.

When they came for the atheists,
I remained silent, for I was no longer an atheist.

Then when they came for me,
I expected someone to speak out,
But there was no one left to defend me.

Gaza Debate in Canada

Letter Published

The National Post published the letter I recently wrote.

The Hypocrisy of the UN and Europe

Alan Dershowitz, a prominent American liberal, has a very different take on Israel than many of his compatriots. Thank goodness! He has published a compelling editorial about Israel's Right to Defend itself. Here's a snippet:

The firing of rockets at civilians from densely populated civilian areas is the newest tactic in the war between terrorists who love death and democracies that love life. The terrorists have learned how to exploit the morality of democracies against those who do not want to kill civilians, even enemy civilians. In one recent incident, Israeli intelligence learned that a particular house was being used to manufacture and store rockets. It was a clear military target since their rockets were being fired at Israeli civilians. But the house was also being lived in by a family. So the Israeli military phoned the house, informed the owner that it was a military target, and gave him thirty minutes to leave with his family before the house was attacked. The owner called Hamas, which immediately sent dozens of mothers carrying babies to stand on the roof of the house. Hamas knew that Israel would never fire at a home with civilians in it. They also knew that if, by some fluke, the Israeli authorities did not learn that there were civilians in the house, and fired on it, Hamas would win a public relations victory by displaying the dead civilians to the media. In this case, Israel did learn of the civilians and withheld its fire. The rockets that were spared destruction by the human shields were then used against Israeli civilians.

There have been three types of international response to the Israeli military actions against the Hamas rockets. Not surprisingly, Iran, Hamas, and other knee-jerk Israeli-bashers have argued that the Hamas rocket attacks against Israeli civilians are entirely legitimate, and that the Israeli counterattacks are war crimes. Equally unsurprising is the response of the United Nations, the European Union, Russia, and others who, at least when it comes to Israel, see a moral and legal equivalence between terrorists who target civilians and a democracy that responds by targeting the terrorists.

The most dangerous of the three responses is not the Iranian-Hamas absurdity, which is largely ignored by thinking and moral people, but the United Nations and European Union response, which equate the willful murder of civilians with legitimate self-defense pursuant to Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This false moral equivalence only encourages terrorists to persist in their unlawful actions against civilians. The United States has it exactly right by placing the blame on Hamas, while urging Israel to do everything possible to minimize civilian casualties.

Israel vs. The Media & Hamas

Dennis Prager had a fascinating show today, including a detailed example of how the media manipulates the facts.

Personal Reflections

Because of my family history, with my father born in Germany in 1931, I cannot help but make comparisons between 1944-45 Europe and 2008 Gaza. Different times, different wars, different people but striking resemblances indeed there are.

Every time I hear a condemnation of Israel, I think about whether it would have also been applied to the Allied Forces. Every time I hear a moral equivalency argument made about Israel and the Palestinians, I think about whether it would have been made about the Allied Forces and Nazi Germany. Every time I hear about innocent civilians being hurt or killed - I am naturally saddened and feel grief for the Palestinian families - but then I also wonder if calls were made to stop the advance of the Allied Armies toward Berlin.

To think that some people making such ludicrous arguments back then didn't exist would be naive. To think that so many today have learned NOTHING from history both saddens and appalls me. Just like the people of my father's homeland made a terrible mistake, which had to be stopped in its tracks, so must Hamas & Iran as well. For the leaders of these two tyrannies I will shed no tears.

Operation Cast Lead: Background Briefing

A Letter from Israel

Today, Charles Adler read a letter from a woman who lived in Israel. You can listen to it here at 7:00. Do listen.

Brilliant Comment from Small Dead Animals

I read a comment on Small Dead Animals this morning that deserves reposting:

Every leftie should have to join a 12-step program because they are deep in the throes of co-dependency. "Victims" (read Palestinian Gazans) are never responsible for the mess they're in; it's always someone else's fault. 'No need to call the Palestinians to account for their behaviour because they're so obviously (sic) victims.

In the Hamas-Israeli conflict, the leftist brain computes that because Hamas has more casualties it's OBVIOUSLY the Israelis who are at fault--and the Palestinians that need the West's support. The leftist brain seems unable to factor in the the Israelis' competency in protecting their citizens, whereas the Palestinians seem quite happy to ensure collateral damage in their citizenry by storing their weapons arsenals amongst their wives and children. Hey, good way to gain the sympathy of the useful leftist idiots.

It's a curious blindness to see only the "victims'" plight and not their participation in their own misfortune. It's misplaced compassion to think that you can help victims by swathing them in cotton batten when, in fact, you're actually ghettoizing them twice: first, by giving them a pass in their original dysfunction and second, by consigning them to their squalid lives by requiring no responsibility or accountability--in other words, others must fix the situation, not the victims.

The leftist brain needs help.

Posted by: batb at January 6, 2009 7:44 AM

Have Left-Leaning Canadian Jews Converted?

To the Church of Liberalism that is. Laura Rosen Cohen offers great insight on the absolute silence of 3 major Canadian Jewish organizations.

I've long observed that, like a mind altering virus, Liberalism prevents Jews from deeply supporting Israel and Christians from deeply supporting Christianity. Self-preservation of one's own family and friends is simply incompatible with the tenets of the Left.

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Ms. Rosen Cohen's editorial seems to have had a little effect on these organizations:

• B'nai Brith
• Canadian Jewish Congress
• Canada-Israel Committee

Emphasis on the word "little".

Dennis Prager on the Situation in Gaza

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

And here is a follow-up discussion between Prager and Israeli citizen Yossi Klein-Halevi.

Gaza Watch

Here's a sampling of editorials from around the world concerning what's going on in Gaza right now:

Melanie Phillips reports on the despicable "moral inversion" of the MSM here and here. Here's a sampling:

Untold numbers of [Israeli] soldiers will lose their lives as the result not merely of the genocidal aims of Hamas (and its Iranian puppet-master) but also the indifference and pusillanimity towards Palestinian terror displayed by world governments over the past six decades of Israel’s fight for survival, along with the active encouragement of genocidal Islamists by leftists, Jew-haters, Muslims and useful idiots who were on such thuggish display yesterday in the co-ordinated demonstrations in British and other western cities.

David Berner, a Vancouver based commenter and someone who would normally describe himself on the left-side of the political spectrum, shares a similar view to Phillips here. Here's a little bit of his take on things:

Where have these two young know-it-alls been the past year while Hamas rockets have maintained a steady rain on Israeli towns?

When did these "journalists" ask Hamas leaders when they plan to stop hiding under women's skirts?

When will they ask Hamas and other Arab leaders when they plan to accept the right of 7 million people to live in a sovereign state called Israel? Or when will they stop teaching their children that Jews are rats and vermin, that must be exterminated from the earth?

Israel is under siege. It has been for a long time. It will continue to be as long as the hundred million people who surround it hate everything about it and everyone in it.

The Gaza attacks from Israel show, if anything, amazing restraint.

I have not spoken for a few days with my Jewish friends in Chicago - Democrats all - but do wonder if they now finally understand the extreme bias that conservatives and Christians have felt against them from the media for years.

Speaking of Democrats, Barack Obama's silence on this issue is absolutely deafening. Sorry to say "I told you so", but this is of zero surprise to me. His whole raison d'etre during the campaign was to say as little meaningful as possible and to try to take every side on every issue whenever possible.

In a strange turn of events for the Huffington Post, they've published an hilarious but telling satire by Martin Lewis. He juxtaposes Israel with Britain and Palestine with Germany and then provides a World War 2 like account of what reporting would be like back then. Hmmm, look who laid out exactly the same scenario back on December 30th! Here's a brilliant part of Lewis' piece:

Of course England has a right to exist. Of course England has a right to defend itself. But it should ensure that its responses are PROPORTIONATE.Since many more Germans are dying than English - the English should either tone down the success and accuracy of their bombing - or allow the Germans to catch up on the death count.

To be honest - if more English women and children were dying - we wouldn't feel quite so bad about the number of Germans dying. But it's just so UNFAIR that more Germans are dying...

Perhaps some English people could arrange to kill themselves to match the number of Germans dying as a result of the English retaliation bombing? It would be so considerate - and it might help England's critics feel less miserable about the number of Nazis dying. Something that is causing them so much concern.

Finally, Mark Steyn illustrates the insanity of the hypocrisy of those criticizing Israel. Here's a portion:

In Gaza, they don't vote for Hamas because they want access to university education. Or, if they do, it's to get Junior into the Saudi-funded, Hamas-run Islamic University of Gaza, where majoring in rocket science involves making one and firing it at the Zionist Entity. In 2007, as part of their attempt to recover Gaza from Hamas, Fatah seized 1,000 Qassam rockets at the university, as well as seven Iranian military trainers.

At a certain unspoken level, we understand that the Huntington thesis is right, and the Rice view is wishful thinking. After all, when French President Sarkozy and other European critics bemoan Israel's "disproportionate" response, what really are they saying? That they expect better from the despised Jews than from Hamas. That they regard Israel as a Western society bound by civilized norms, whereas any old barbarism issuing forth from Gaza is to be excused on grounds of "desperation."

Hence, this slightly surreal headline from The New York Times: "Israel Rejects Cease-Fire, But Offers Gaza Aid." For whatever that's worth. Wafa Samir Ibrahim al-Biss, a young Palestinian woman who received considerate and exemplary treatment at an Israeli hospital in Beersheba, returned to that same hospital packed with explosives in order to blow herself up and kill the doctors and nurses who restored her to health. Well, what do you expect? It's "desperation" born of "poverty" and "occupation."