The Trouble Is That We Value Life
July 18th, 2008 at 03:41am Mark Noonan
John McCain on the deaths of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser:
I wish to extend my deepest condolences to the families of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. When I met the Regev and Goldwasser families in Israel, I was moved by their profound love for their sons, who were kidnapped by Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. Now we know that Eldad and Ehud made the ultimate sacrifice for the country they served and loved. In spite of this tragic loss, Israel and the United States will remain united in their struggle against terrorism. The continuing attacks on Israel by Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist groups supported by state sponsors of terror like Syria and Iran pose a severe threat to Israel. Our democratic ally is under siege, and these two deaths are just the latest in a long line of brave Israelis who have been killed by vicious terrorists. Though we mourn the loss of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, we are reminded by this that we must never waver in our support for Israel, and we continue to demand the re lease of Gilad Shalit, taken captive by Hamas and held illegally since the summer of 2006.
Israel cares about its sons, and so it paid a high price just to get the bodies of their brave men back…Hamas views its sons as excellent guided bombs and so much cannon fodder. They call this “asymetrical warfare” - where the weaker side will make the stronger pay a higher price than they want to bother with. This is very tough to be, but it is beatable.
We have shown in Iraq that the evil of terrorism can be defeated, even when backed by outside players - the ultimate resolution of the problem of Lebanon will require, I believe, military action. But not another foolhardhy grinding match in the hills of Lebanon…no, when push comes to shove, Israel (with US backing, if need be) must strike at the real heart of Hamas, which is in Damascus…hold Damascus hostage to a complete Syrio-Hamas withdrawal from Lebanon.
Its either act decisively, or Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser will just become two of a long line of Israeli dead.
Entry Filed under: Foreign Affairs, War on Terror
10 Comments Add your own
1. Dennis | July 18th, 2008 at 4:21 am
No, the trouble is that we value certain lives above others - with an arbitrariness that approaches disdain for the actual essence of life itself.
How else to explain the virtual silence concerning the many hundreds of innocent Palestinian civilians massacred at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982, versus the hoopla surrounding the eleven Israeli athletes massacred in the 1972 Munich Olympic terror attack of a decade earlier? see http://www.counterpunch.org/gorman0921.html
The problem is not with violence or innocence violated, but with bigotry and prejudice, with disproportionate justice, which renders the very term “justice” oxymoronic.
Nobody I know thinks Israeli lives are worthless, but plenty think Palestinian lives are. Likewise plenty of people believe Arab lives are as disposable as yesterday’s trash. Only yesterday I sat at lunch with a GOP good old boy in Winston Salem, NC listening to a polemic about how the US should “kill ‘em all (Arabs) and let God sort ‘em out.” Mind you, the good old boy was of the ilk who believe abortion is murder - but somehow all those brown-skinned people just don’t rise to the status of real human beings.
As for Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, condolences are due their families. They should not have died. But since when were a handful of Jewish sodiers equal to the lives of over a thousand Lebanese civilians and a nation ravaged after decades of rebuilding?
Please don’t try to tell me it is the fault of Hezbollah. There has never been “tit for tat” over there. Israel always, ALWAYS kills multiples more innocent Palestinians than it loses to Palestinian terror attacks. They pride themselves on that.
Consequently there is a perverse symmetry in two Israeli carcases being exchanged for times more Palestinian prisoners. Unequal justice makes for unequal exchanges. Sometimes in spite of the diabolical nature of the situation, there seems to be a higher logic at work.
2. Dennis | July 18th, 2008 at 4:36 am
Sorry, meant to say “Hezbollah” prisoners. And it should go without saying that all people of good will should hope Gilad Shalit manages to return home alive.
3. Bigfoot | July 18th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Dennis, maybe some of us would value Palestinian lives more, if the Palestinians would value the lives of their own people more. They should start by refraining from strapping bombs to their children and sending them off on suicide attacks (a practice for which Saddam Hussein offered monetary rewards). Then, they should stop firing rockets into Israel from residential areas, or from next to mosques or schools, which endanger their own civilians, and may well have contributed to the deaths of “innocent” Palestinians in the massacres you refer to. In fact, such a course of action might prevent more people from adopting the attitude of that “GOP good old boy”. If the Arabs would sort themselves out, so that Israel (and we) can fight the combatants with a decreased risk of harming civilians, God sorting them out will become less necessary. Also, by decreasing the risk to civilians, their complaints against Israel would have a greater degree of legitimacy. But as long as Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, the Taliban and others continue to dress without uniforms, use civilians as shields, use civilian buildings including mosques as gun platforms, use civilian vehicles such as ambulances as weapons carriers or as bombs, and make suicide bombers out of children, the responsibility for civilian deaths resulting from these dastardly tactics falls with them, not with Israel or us.
4. Mark Noonan | July 18th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Dennis,
You’re looking at it entirely the wrong way..and its a pity you can’t show a bit of love.
5. \'08ama | July 18th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Deleted - mindless insults.
6. Rich | July 18th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Wow three hundred foreign advisors. Why didn’t he get just one advisor to help him with U.S. geography. Would have helped him learn how man states we have and which ones are next to his home state.
7. Dennis | July 18th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Bigfoot, you make at least part of a valid point. But the Palestinians realize their lives are worthless to the rest of the world anyway. At least to most of those who hold the power. It is tragic, but the effect of that has been a kind of collective self-loathing, and since the only ready weapon they have is their sheer numbers and hatred, suicide is what they use. It is a great evil, but it is the ground reality.
Yet to simply lay the responsibility entirely with the Arabs is naive, if not diabolically dishonest. The actual history is much more complex. As for killing the innocent, terror was introduced as a standard tactic to the region by Irgun, the Stern Gang and others to equalize the numerical disadvantage of the early Zionist utopians who intended to establish a state there. The bombing of the King David Hotel was just one incidence of this. The wholesale ethnic cleansing of Palestine which preceded the official founding of Israel was the legacy that keeps on giving, to the present day.
That in no way excuses Palestinian terror, but in a universe of cause and effect these are factors that must be reckoned with in order to move beyond the present stalemate.
Love has little to do with it, Mark - it all has to do with the absence of any real justice.
8. FmrMarine | July 18th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
dumbdennis;
>>>it all has to do with the absence of any real justice.>>>
The palis were nomads living in jordan.
They were kicked out by their fellow muslems.
They were offered their own country, as was Isreal.
Isreal accepted, the palis rejected theirs and wanted Isreals land instead.
There are 800 000 000 muslems that occupy half a continent, why dont they take in the “innocent” little palis?
NOOOO NOOO they HAVE to have Jerusalem.
This is a sore the arab world wants to remain open as to eventually drive Isreal into the sea.
YOU seem to forget Isreal has been directally attacked six times, and indirect ally attacked daily.
http://frontpagemag.com/media/pdf/BigLies.pdf
9. js | July 18th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
one would think that arabs belong in arabia…not israel…and the jews only want thier homeland back…its not like they sold it to anyone…
if there is a right of return for one…then we have all have to recognize the right of return for all…equal justice to each and all…so send them back home to arabia….no need for a west bank/gaza solution…they lost thier right when they refused to live in peace…
10. Dennis | July 21st, 2008 at 2:51 am
Js - the Jews’ homeland? The Jews who founded Israel were Europeans with no ancestral heritage in the Middle East. They were not remotely religious, but socialists by ideology and Ashkenazi by race. David Ben Gurion was actually Polish - born David Gruen in Plonsk.
The Palestinians, on the other hand, are Semitic people, who from antiquity were indigenous to the lands and homes from which they were driven.
I’m guessing you would refuse to live in peace as second-class citizens in your own ancestral home, under occupation by foreign usurpers.
Leave a Comment
Please report any inappropriate or abusive comments to abuse@blogsforvictory.com. Please include the blog entry title and the comment number.
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed