Around three weeks ago, the only democratic country in the Middle East was bombarded with rockets by terrorist thugs in Gaza. The radical Palestinian group, Hamas, targeted innocent civilians for extermination in a fierce rocket barrage. Meanwhile Iranian leader Ayatollah Khameini cheered and urged all Muslim nations to support the terrorists, “with military development, with financial developments.” The Israeli Defense Force responded with airstrikes targeting Hamas’ military operations.
In this situation it should not be difficult to determine who is in the right and who is in the wrong. After all, Israel is a multiethnic state whose citizens live under the rule of law. In Israel you can be a minority, a member of the LGBT community, or a Palestinian and have the right to fully participate in society. This is certainly not the case in any other Middle Eastern country.
However, politicians and pundits in the United States have had a very difficult time taking a morally sound position on the conflict. The Washington Post ran an emotional headline titled, “Israel killed 14 of his family members in Gaza. Now he fears he will lose his wife too.” There was no mention of Israeli casualties. Members of our media seem to think that it is more immoral to unintentionally kill civilians in an attack on terrorists than it is for terrorists to place civilian-targeting weapons in civilian areas.
The moral equivalency that is drawn between Israel and supporters of Palestine is ill-informed and ideological. Those who call attention to the supposed evils of Israel fail to mention that the state has one of the most moral militaries in the entire world. The IDF often forces its soldiers to use non lethal rounds or shoot at the enemy’s legs in potentially deadly situations in order to avoid civilian casualties. Additionally, known terrorist outposts are often shot with non-explosive tank rounds in case civilians are also occupying the building. All of this is extraordinarily generous given the danger in which IDF soldiers are in and the fact that the Palestinian population has consistently supported terrorism against Israeli civilians. Over 50 percent of the population of Gaza where the recent strikes occurred support a return to armed struggle.
Additionally, support for violence is not just reserved to terrorist scum. The Palestinian Authority has enacted a Pay-For-Slay program that rewards the families of terrorist “martyrs” with generous financial compensation. The program has currently paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to the families of convicted terrorists. In 2017 a bipartisan bill was passed to financially cut off the PA until payments to this vile program were suspended. However, the Biden-Harris administration has pledged to reopen aid to Palestinians even though terrorism has continued. The administration is also urging moderation on the part of Israel at a time when violence against Israeli citizens has been increasing. It doesn’t take a degree in foreign policy to realize that rewarding terrorism by chastising the vitctim only encourages more terrorism.
The history of Israel and Palestine can be boiled down to Israel extending the olive branch and Palestine slapping it away with rockets and gunfire. At the 2000-2001 Camp David-Taba peace negotiations Israel offered Palestinians virtually everything they had been demanding, including a free state with control over Jerusalem. The democratically elected Yasser Arafat rejected the deal and chose to resume terrorism. Violence has continued ever since illustrating that a Palestinian state would be nothing but a terrorist enclave.
Anyone who claims that Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, or the PLO are engaging in righteous action is either morally bankrupt, ignorant of history, a parrot, or all three. Israel has one of the most disciplined fighting forces in the world and has continually sought to diffuse regional conflict. Faced with individuals who want to murder their family members, IDF soldiers show a remarkable amount of restraint and dignity. A virtually imposed UN ceasefire would merely divert blame away from where it belongs; the terrorists who reject Israeli statehood and want to murder the Jews.
