“Just consider how absurd it would be to reverse the logic of human shields in this case: Imagine the Israelis using their own women and children as human shields against Hamas. Recognize how unthinkable this would be, not just for the Israelis to treat their own civilians in this way, but for them to expect that their enemies could be deterred by such a tactic, given who their enemies actually are.
Again, it is easy to lose sight of the moral distance here—which is strange. It’s like losing sight of the Grand Canyon when you are standing right on the edge of it. Take a moment to actually do the cognitive work: Imagine the Jews of Israel using their own women and children as human shields. And then imagine how Hamas, or Hezbollah, or al-Qaeda, or ISIS, or any other jihadist group would respond. The image you should now have in your mind is a masterpiece of moral surrealism. It is preposterous. It is a Monty Python sketch where all the Jews die.
Do you see what this asymmetry means? Can you see how deep it runs? Do you see what it tells you about the ethical difference between these two cultures?” —Sam Harris \(audio is here)
Discussion question: What does the U.S. want with Israel?
It’s one of those weeks when I don’t really have a lot to say based on what’s happening, nor any juicy articles to analyze or criticize. Instead, I’d like to start a discussion.
Here’s the question, which could be phrased in several ways: “Does America want Israel to lose the war with Hamas?” Or, “Does the U.S. care much if Israel loses the war?” or, perhaps the least debatable question: “Is the U.S. doing things that will help Hamas win the war?” (I think the answer to the last question is “of course,” though the U.S. may not be doing it with that intention.)
One thing is for sure: if Israel is to win, Hamas must be eliminated and there can be no cease-fire long enough to enable them to resume power. You don’t win a war with terrorists without destroying their organization,
Yet here’s what we see (or rather, what I see)::
- Chuck Schumer is calling for elections to depose Netanyahu, right in the middle of a war. This is us interfering with a democracy, and is inappropriate. I believe Netanyahu, now that the war has begun, is doing a pretty good job. I’m pretty sure he’ll be deposed when the war is over, and I’m not a big fan of his. But to call for his replacement now?
- Israel is allowing as much humanitarian aid into Gaza as arrives; it’s certainly not stopping humanitarian aid. But of course the world thinks otherwise. I’ve never seen a country act this way; certainly during Vietnam the public didn’t demand that we provide humanitarian aid to the North Vietnamese or South Vietnamese civilians fighting us. And in that case the U.S. did very little to avoid killing civilians; indeed, they wiped out whole villages of civilians indiscriminately.
- Biden and many others are demanding that the IDF do not take Rafah (remember, Israel does have a plan to evacuate civilians there). But if Israel doesn’t take Rafah, then Hamas will stay in power for sure.
- During last night in Gaza, the IDF attacked Al-Shifa hospital. Hamas had returned there to resume its occupancy, and fired on Israelis approaching the hospital. During the ensuing fight, many terrorists were killed as well as one IDF soldier, but no civilians were killed. The IDF even brought doctors in case patients needed extra care. Yet the world is baying at what Israel did. How dare they go back into a hospital. Apparently the IDF should have let Hamas take over the hospital, but of course Hamas, in doing so, was committing a war crime. Nobody worries about Hamas’s war crimes, though; once again Israel is held accountable.
- Blinken has proclaimed that it should be Israel’s highest priority to ensure the safety of Palestinian civilians. That’s not what you say to an ally prosecuting a war and already trying to kill as few civilians as possible.
- The death tolls provided all come from Hamas, which doesn’t distinguish between terrorists and real civilians. And “children”, to Hamas, are anybody under 18, which can and does include many members of Hamas. Yet these figures are all taken to represent “civilians.” I suspect, but don’t know, that they include many more terrorists than the media implies.
- The U.S. has blown hot and cold on a ceasefire. If there is a permanent ceasefire now, Israel has lost, for Hamas will regroup, recoup, and take up power in Gaza again, as well as continuing to steal aid sent for humanitarian reasons
- The U.S. has floated the idea that postwar Gaza should be governed by the Palestinian Authority, one of the craziest ideas I’ve ever heard. The P.A. is a corrupt, Jew-hating, and terrorist-promoting organization, still handing out money to terrorists who kill Jews—the “pay for slay” program.
- Americans are touting the two-state idea as a “solution.” It is not a solution—at least not right now. It is a recipe for more enmity and killing. Palestine never wanted it (it wants one state run by Arabs), and now Israel doesn’t want it, either. Only the addle-brained thinks that this will bring peace.
And, of course, we hear little from anybody about the war crimes or perfidies of Hamas. Americans seem willing to exchange 1,000 Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jails for what must be now only about 100 hostages. Does anybody think about whether that’s a fair deal? Further, all the news about casualties we read in the news comes from Hamas, but is presented as “the facts.”
These matters make me wonder what the deuce the U.S. intends by behaving this way. What does it want? You may respond that Israel, on its side, has no plan for how to deal with postwar Gaza, and perhaps that’s true, though I’m pretty sure this is an object of serious discussion in the war cabinet. But Job One is for Israel to win the war, and it can do that only by taking Rafah and, as it does so, kill as few civilians as possible. (Of course we see little in the media about the Hamas’s strategy of trying to get Palestinians killed to sway world opinion.)
In the end, does the U.S. want Israel not to win this war, either decisively or only partly (whatever that means)? Sure, Biden, conscious of the votes he needs from young pro-Palestinian Americans as well as Muslim-Americans, is constantly hedging his bets, but all the points above have not only baffled me, but, as someone on Israel’s side, produce the real emotional and political roller-coaster ride.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/03/18/discussion-question-what-does-the-u-s-want-with-israel/
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