As the U.N. gathered for its annual General Assembly meeting in
New York last month, U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed Israeli
Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian National
Authority head Mahmoud Abbas. Obama has been pushing the two
sides to restart peace talks and reach a two-state solution
within the next two years.
With that backdrop, the international community has also
been abuzz about Richard Goldstone’s recently issued report on
Israel’s Operation Cast Lead into Gaza. The Goldstone Mission was
highly critical of Israel, accusing its officials and soldiers of
committing war crimes and crimes against humanity and even
deliberately killing civilians. It also failed to report on
Hamas’ use of human shields and civilian and humanitarian objects
for military purposes.
The Mission, which was established by the UN Human Rights
Committee, was a sham from the start, and its conclusions have
been cheered by states, organizations, and individuals who love
demonizing Israel.
After the report’s release, Daniel Levy — who refers to
himself as “a friend and supporter of Israel” (aren’t they all?)
— penned an op-ed in the U.K. Guardian
titled, “Israel must now heal itself.” Levy wrote that
“[t]he relationship of power is crucial…” and “[t]here is no
military solution.” His view represents a common one, and one,
unfortunately, that is shared by many Jews. However, he is
profoundly wrong, and his statements reflect a misguided
internationalist view about what occurred in Gaza last December
and January.
Operation Cast Lead was not about the “Middle East
Conflict.” It was about the War on Terror. In the War on Terror
(and it is a war, not an Overseas Contingency Operation, as
President Obama refers to it), power dynamics are
not important in the moral sense. There is
freedom and there is totalitarianism, and totalitarianism must be
destroyed…completely.
Of course, that battle is not a costless one. And Operation
Cast Lead, like any battle against terrorism, is not cost free.
There were civilian casualties, and there will be more in the
future. But to suggest — as the Goldstone Mission does — that
Israel should remain shackled by restraint as Hamas orchestrates
terror attacks and lobs rockets into its cities is
preposterous.
Israel, as it often does, took even greater precautions
than required by international law. It refrained from attacking
military targets, like Hamas’ base in Shifa Hospital, due to the
risk of civilian harm, and its military used extraordinary
efforts to warn Gaza residents and avoid unnecessary deaths. Yet,
Goldstone’s report, and others similar to it, consistently refers
to Israel’s response as “disproportional.”
But morality and international law do not require a
tit-for-tat response. Quite the contrary, when one is attacked —
especially by organized terrorist groups — they are permitted to
respond in such a way as to eliminate the attacking threat. In
fact, U.N. resolutions 1368 and 1373 require
states to “[e]nsure that any person who participates in the
financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist
acts or in supporting terrorist acts is brought to justice.” And
there is no justice like a dead terrorist.
However, critics of Israel, and those who believe that
terrorism is in the eyes of the beholder, often reference “power
dynamics” to obfuscate these moralities and apply different
standards of conduct. The Arab League’s “Independent Fact Finding
Committee,” headed by Israel enemy, John Dugard, issued a report
on Cast Lead that used the same approach, saying about Hamas,
“there are a number of factors that reduce their
moral blameworthiness,” such as the fact that
“Palestinians have been denied their right to
self-determination by Israel and have long been subjected to a
cruel siege by Israel.” That is the same logic that
post-colonial and multi-cultural liberals use to assign blame to
the U.S. for September 11.
There is a place for political discussions about the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are appropriate times and
venues for discussing a possible two-state solution and for
applying fairness as one of the criteria. But not in the context
of the War on Terror. In that fight, there are forces of freedom
and democracy and ruthless agents of terror who
seek to take innocent life. That enemy must
be destroyed. Successfully resolving the Middle East conflict
will depend on defeating terrorism, and we do the world no favors
by confusing the two.
