Web Letters: Israel's New War Ethic

What's new is old. "Dozens of children broke from their hootches to run in toward the focus of our landing, the pilot laughing and saying, 'Vietnam, man, bomb 'em and feed 'em, bomb 'em and feed 'em.' "-- Michael Herr, Dispatches

Robert Anasi

Brooklyn, NY

According to data I obtained from Israeli web sites, during all of 2008, 172 Israelis were "randomly" murdered by fellow Israelis while sixty-eight Israelis were "methodically" murdered by terrorists. Why has Israel chosen this time, when terrorist deaths are at their lowest number in years, to so viciously attack Gaza? My guess is that they will do anything (with America's tacit support) to keep Netanyahu out of office. While keeping Netanyahu out of office is a very valid objective, this is clearly a textbook example of why the ends do not justify the means.

For those readers who, out of fear of being branded an anti-Semite, refuse to question the morality of Israel's current actions in Gaza, ponder this: according to definitions established by the International court, Gaza is a ghetto. Google "Warsaw ghetto" and you will witness a horrible historic juxtaposition. Israel is inflicting the same cruel punishment on Gazans as was inflicted on Warsaw's Jews by their Nazi occupiers when the Jews dared to rise up against the same form of oppression as Israel has been imposing on the Gaza ghetto.

Louis Arpino

Knoxville, TN

This article puzzles me, only because Israel's war ethic is no different from what it has been from 1917, 1948, 1967, up to the present. Yet the extreme Islamic forces holding out in the Gaza, or in Iraq as well, taking refuge in hospitals, religious structures, as well as in the middle of family housing units have also grown. Israel's neo-war-ethic, new face of an old practice, knowingly attacks where these extremist murderers are hiding; however, these groups they're attacking choose to be there, knowingly too, just to call attention to the suffering that they are more than complicit in. The added hypocrisy of our United States of America's place in all of this is that the weapons from both sides come from our tax funding, yet our leaders ask these war-buddies to cease their murdering of their own people--yes, with the war aid that our government has and still funds. The infamous phrase "collateral damage" has become the hidden literary political face of intentional disregard for those in the way of the war machines of the nations. War only ever leads to one thing: war perpetuates war.

The blood of the innocents, those in the way of the murderous war machines of both sides, all sides, still cries out, "How long, how long?"

Timothy R Gates

Massillon, OH

"Dayan was closely associated with the policy of reprisal from the very beginning.... As early as June 1950 he defended at a policy meeting of the Mapai Secretariat and members of Knesset the policy of collective punishment against Arab villages suspected of harboring infiltrators and saboteurs. Harassing the village, including women, children, and elderly people, he said, 'is the only method proved effective, not justified or moral, but effective, when Arabs lay mines on our side.' "

This is a quote from Avi Shlaim's book The Iron Wall, Israel and the Arab World," p.102. Attacks on civilians is not a new policy, but one that has been in place from the very beginnings of Israel as a state. Generally these actions were done in secret, but the massive scope of the Gaza operation and the last war in Lebanon, along with live TV coverage, prevented secrecy.

Pervis James Casey

Riverside, CA

What is wrong with Israel??

Don't the Israelis know that they are supposed to sit back and do nothing when 6,000 rockets are launched against their schools, homes, hospitals, supermarkets, cities and towns?

Don't the Israelis know that when Hamas sends suicide bombers onto Israeli buses, into Israeli shopping malls and restaurants and supermarkets that the Israeli men, women, and children that are being blown to pieces should die without protest from the Israeli government and people?

How dare Israel have the nerve to want to protects its citizens from terrorists bent on its destruction?

By the rationale posted by some on this website, if you strike back at terrorists hellbent on your destruction, people who celebrate the death of every Israeli child they murder, then by striking back at the terrorists you are guilty of human rights violations. Let these fools move to Sderot and Ashkelon and endure the daily rocket attacks on their families and see how they respond. These same leftists criticize Israel for protecting its citizens and blame America for 9/11. I guess Hitler and Stalin could be excused as well for the millions they killed. After all, Britain and America destroyed, not bombed, but destroyed entire cities in WWII. The left always blames the victims of terror and never the perpetrators.

Mark Jeffery Koch

Cherry Hill, NJ

I am in my 70s, and I have been hearing about Israel's military actions most of my life.

For years I took Israel's side because of the suffering they had endured in Germany.

Now I am watching and hearing about the suffering of the Palestinians and my heart goes out to them.

If Israel would accept the results of the election wherein Hamas was elected and would lift the barricade and treat these people, who are human beings, with respect, maybe all would live in peace.

I am no longer sympathetic to Israel. I am sad for the Palestinians and I wonder why Israel does not remember what they felt like in Germany.

My, how they forget.

Kathryn Love

San Juan Capistrano, CA