Melanie Phillips writes:
And so now begins the second and most difficult stage. Inside Israel, there is both determination and dread as tens of thousands of Israel’s conscript army are called to the front. Untold numbers of these soldiers will lose their lives as the result not merely of the genocidal aims of Hamas (and its Iranian puppet-master) but also the indifference and pusillanimity towards Palestinian terror displayed by world governments over the past six decades of Israel’s fight for survival, along with the active encouragement of genocidal Islamists by leftists, Jew-haters, Muslims and useful idiots who were on such thuggish display yesterday in the co-ordinated demonstrations in British and other western cities.
Such people have made no protest at the bombardment of Israeli towns by more than 6000 rockets in the past six years, deliberately targeting innocent civilians. They have made no protest at the way Hamas has used Gazan civilians as human shields, situating itsmurderous arsenals beneath apartment blocks, in schools and hospitals and mosques in order to maximise the numbers of civilians killed (in order to manipulate all-too pliable western opinion). No, their protest only starts when Israel finally takes the military action aimed at stopping this murderous barrage.
And when, as Noah points out, the infantile Left in America ponders the terms of “just war” ideology, they conveniently and consistently leave out the disagreeable parts of the story. As Phillips notes:
The moral inversion in the west is so egregious, so monstrous, that the better Israel is shown to behave the worse the vilification that rains down upon it. What other country in the world would show such restraint in the face of more than 6000 rocket attacks upon its citizens – 6000! – that it took seven years before going to war to put a stop to it? What other country would treat individuals – including proven terrorists – from that enemy territory in its own hospitals? What other country would continue to provide essential foodstuffs and other supplies to those enemies who continued to fire rockets at it? What other country, when finally forced to go to war to stop the attacks, would show such concern to avoid the loss of civilian life that it contacts the population in enemy territory — even households containing identified terrorists – to warn them to flee from the imminent bombardment? And what other country would, for showing such unparalleled moral scrupulousness, be vilified and libelled as Israel is?
But none of that figures in the thinking of those whose sole concern seems to be to force Israel into passivity and toleration of its own citizens’ murder and its own sovereignty’s violation. For those who fret endlessly about self-determination and civilian harm, the vitriol only flows one way. One might attribute their pleas for restraint and a return to the non-existent peace process as naiveté. But at some point the facts become too difficult to ignore. The aim of the selective critics becomes clear: Israel simply can’t, in their scheme of things, be allowed to defend itself.
