(no subject)
Collective punishment is not, and never will be, a legitimate tool for civilized nations
If Israel wants to punish the people who are launching these attacks, it should either arrest them or else engage in limited strikes rather than launching these large-scale attacks that serve no purpose but to increase the suffering of innocent people and further radicalize the youth. Gaza is already a place of torment for the people who live there, a place where their next meals and their continued employment are dictated by a foreign government that doesn't really care about their well being. Israel doesn't like a speech by a Hamas official, they cut people off from their jobs and other resources. Somebody acts up out of anger at the situation, they bomb a village. This is no different from the policy of tearing down people's houses because their relatives were suicide bombers, the criminal isn't punished because he's already dead and a lot of good people end up homeless or worse. To turn around what Ehud Barak said, this action isn't like the United States killing a few terrorists in Tijuana in response to an attack on San Diego. It's more like the United States sending helicopter gunships across the border to level entire neighborhoods in Mexico City.
It's telling that Barak mentions the US in relation to this heinous act, after all every country that wants to justify its human rights violations refers back to our actions in Iraq. From Russia with Georgia and Chechnya to the Chinese with the Uyghurs and the Turks with their Kurdish population, everybody sees that we have no moral high ground from which to criticize their actions. The American government would probably do exactly what Israel is doing, but that doesn't make it right. In fact, the government has received nothing but international and domestic scorn for it's actions against the Iraqi people. The Israeli government would get much better results if it addressed the poor conditions of its Muslim population instead of just hurling bombs the second that anybody gets upset about it. There will always be terrorists, people who kill just for the sake of killing and have no reason for their actions other than hatred, but most of the people in Gaza aren't like this. Most of the people who turn to groups like this do so because they feel hopeless about their future and angry at the government that has cause that hopelessness, and that makes them vulnerable to the violent groups in their societies. Obviously Hamas isn't justified in bombing Israeli civilians, but Israel isn't justified in its actions either. When Israel learns that the proper response to terrorist actions doesn't lie in attacking the very people who might end up supporting peace, maybe that peace will be easier to find.
If Israel wants to punish the people who are launching these attacks, it should either arrest them or else engage in limited strikes rather than launching these large-scale attacks that serve no purpose but to increase the suffering of innocent people and further radicalize the youth. Gaza is already a place of torment for the people who live there, a place where their next meals and their continued employment are dictated by a foreign government that doesn't really care about their well being. Israel doesn't like a speech by a Hamas official, they cut people off from their jobs and other resources. Somebody acts up out of anger at the situation, they bomb a village. This is no different from the policy of tearing down people's houses because their relatives were suicide bombers, the criminal isn't punished because he's already dead and a lot of good people end up homeless or worse. To turn around what Ehud Barak said, this action isn't like the United States killing a few terrorists in Tijuana in response to an attack on San Diego. It's more like the United States sending helicopter gunships across the border to level entire neighborhoods in Mexico City.
It's telling that Barak mentions the US in relation to this heinous act, after all every country that wants to justify its human rights violations refers back to our actions in Iraq. From Russia with Georgia and Chechnya to the Chinese with the Uyghurs and the Turks with their Kurdish population, everybody sees that we have no moral high ground from which to criticize their actions. The American government would probably do exactly what Israel is doing, but that doesn't make it right. In fact, the government has received nothing but international and domestic scorn for it's actions against the Iraqi people. The Israeli government would get much better results if it addressed the poor conditions of its Muslim population instead of just hurling bombs the second that anybody gets upset about it. There will always be terrorists, people who kill just for the sake of killing and have no reason for their actions other than hatred, but most of the people in Gaza aren't like this. Most of the people who turn to groups like this do so because they feel hopeless about their future and angry at the government that has cause that hopelessness, and that makes them vulnerable to the violent groups in their societies. Obviously Hamas isn't justified in bombing Israeli civilians, but Israel isn't justified in its actions either. When Israel learns that the proper response to terrorist actions doesn't lie in attacking the very people who might end up supporting peace, maybe that peace will be easier to find.