Sympathy and cynicism

There was a time when Jews generated a lot of sympathy amongst the liberal western elite, because of course they were defenceless and were being murdered at an alarming rate.  But, it didn't help, because the sympathy for those killed usually came too late, after they were dead.  Now the sympathy is being expressed for the enemies of the Jews, the poor Palestinians, because they are relatively defenceless, even though they seem to have an unlimited supply of missiles and plenty of guns. But, the Jews had enough of the sympathy of well-meaning people, and decided to take their destiny into their own hands.  That is why we are now able to fight our enemies.  Let them have the sympathy, we'd rather have the Iron Dome and the IDF.

There is no doubt that the lingering effects of having been the eternal victims of whoever was out there with a weapon and an excuse for hatred, is still with us.  That's why we try to limit civilian casualties among our enemies.  Of course, if we were to kill people like our former enemies did, the Germans, the Ukrainians, the Poles, the Lithuanians, and so on (the list is too long to give here) then we could make a death toll among the Palestinians that they would be proud of.  But we are not like that, and even they, having enjoyed their bloodlust killing Jews, are even quite humanistic now.  Even the British and the Americans, who are always preaching to us, have been able to raise up quite a toll of dead civilians when they have a mind to (remember Vietnam, remember Kenya).  In the last round in Europe, when NATO attacked Serbia to prevent a larger massacre in Kossovo, they managed to murder 2,000 Serbian civilians, as well as bomb the Chinese Embassy, by accident.  Were US actions in Iraq ever "proportionate", what about "shock and awe."  But, of course, only Israel is not allowed to make "collateral damage."

Our forces are now in Gaza routing out Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.  But, these terrorist organizations cause great suffering and death to their own people, by not making shelters for them, by not agreeing to a ceasefire (that Israel accepted) and by using them as human shields.  Nevertheless, the world automatically assumes that all deaths in Gaza are civilians, whereas in fact at least half and probably more like 80% are combatants.  Yes, I know they show the bleeding children on the News, but there will always be a bleeding child in any conflict and the Palestinians will always have them ready for the cameras (just come to the emergency room of the Shiba Hospital).  But, we'd rather let them have the world's sympathy than be the ones taking the casualties and being the losers in this deadly war.

Regarding the cynicism of Hamas, in previous conflicts they were caught taking bodies from the morgue (killed in road accidents or simply dead) and transporting them to the hospital in an ambulance to add to the body count.  They also show photos of injured and dead children on their Facebook page, at least one of which was taken from the Syrian conflict.  There is a report that Hamas has issued instructions to its social media supporters that all dead must be labelled "civilians" and not just that but "innocent civilians."  It has also been found that Hamas military operatives are moving around in ambulances to avoid being killed by IDF targeting.  Perhaps the most cynical aspect of this conflict is that while Hamas spent years and huge amounts of money constructing tunnels and bunkers under Gaza for their leaders to hide in and from which to infiltrate and attack Israel, they constructed NO shelters for their civilian population.  They have issued instructions that when Israel drops leaflets telling the civilians to move out before that area is targeted, that the civilians should ignore this warning and remain there.  They also fire rockets from houses and schools and store rockets in schools (including UNRWA schools) and mosques.  Hamas is deliberately causing most of the civilian casualties.

It has been argued that one reason that Hamas did not accept the Egyptian ceasefire proposal that Israel accepted is that they have nothing to show so far from their campaign to attack Israel with missiles and inflitration.  It is said that they at least need a high civilian casualty count in order to gain the sympathy of western liberals and the media.  But Israel is taking every action to keep the civilian casualty count down, such as not only dropping leaflets, but actually calling them on their cell phones and sending SMS messages.  Also all offensive IDF actions are subject to approval that no civilians are obviously there.  Comparing this Gaza conflict to that in Syria there is no comparison, in three years of fighting there have been ca. 160,000 deaths in Syria, that is over 1,000 a week, while in 14 days of fighting in Gaza there are only ca. 500 casualties, including mostly combatants.  Obviously Israel is trying to keep the casualty count down, and Israel should be commended for this, not constantly criticized.