There is sure to be a lot of talk about the shooting of 13 Iraqi protesters by US troops, as the finger-pointing begins. But in reading the vastly divergent accounts, one thing in particular grabbed my attention:
A U.S. officer at the scene, Lt. Col. Eric Nantz, said the bloodshed occurred after people in the crowd fired into the air, making it hard to tell if his men were under threat.
“There was a lot of celebratory firing … last night,” Nantz said, noting Monday was Saddam’s 66th birthday.
“There were a lot of people who were armed and who were throwing rocks. How is a U.S. soldier to tell the difference between a rock and a grenade?”
But when Israel is faced with real violence, in the form of actual shooting, any effort to defend itself is considered disproportionate use of force, right?
more muslim terror, again and again and again. Militant Islam is the ugliest religion on the planet. Another Homocide Bombing of innocents in Tel Aviv, where innocents are targets. No moral equivalency exists between targeting civilians and accidentally killing innocents in the heat of a battle. And there is no place to fight islamic terror outside of urban areas, because islamic terrorists like human shields, and they like urban combat, because it politicizes the situation when innocents die, and then antisemites come in and try to compare homocide bombings to accidental deaths in tough fighting environments.
I just can’t get my head wrapped around how building settlements in the occupied territories is ‘defending oneself?’
Even if this experience brings the American mindset closer to that of Israel, in the rest of the world it will only demonize the U.S. alongside Israel…
I just can’t get my head wrapped around how building settlements in the occupied territories is ‘defending oneself?’
Various governments are officially at war with Israel. In some of the countries whose governments aren’t officially ar war with Israel, armed paramilitary forces are. In addition, some of the former collaborate with some of the latter.
The Sharonist school believes three things. Politically, that those elements want to strike Israel. Militarily, that the physical proximity of Palestine makes it an effective launching pad from which to do so. Strategically, that absent an Israeli presence in Palestine, Palestinian political leadership will permit its territory to be used as such a launching pad.
The territorial settlements are that presence. That’s why the Sharonist school believes that building settlements is ‘defending oneself’.
Many — me, for example — disagree with that school of thought, and indeed with each of the points. That, politically, it is possible to move towards a situation in which military strikes are really unlikely. That the military threat can thus be largely controlled, removing the proximity matter. That, most importantly, an Israeli military presence in Palestine is a lousy strategic response, even if you grant the other two.
But, yes, I think you’re right to want to understand that with which you’re disagreeing!