Arabs to UN: Scold Israel for hitting Gaza back!
posted at 9:15 pm on March 1, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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The Arab League has demanded — and received — an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council following the Israeli counterattack on Gaza. They want the UNSC to issue a condemnation for Israel’s military action, which has killed over 70 Gazans, essentially blaming Israel for responding to the continuing volley of rocket attacks on Sderot and Ashkelon:
The U.N. Security Council is meeting in emergency session at the request of the Palestinians and their Arab supporters who want the U.N.’s most powerful body to condemn the Israeli attack on Gaza and call for a cease-fire.
Council members met behind closed doors Saturday night, though the Arab League’s U.N. observer, Yahya Mahmassani, said its members want an open meeting to protest the Israeli attack.
The UNSC will not likely issue any kind of resolution, mostly because the US and UK are not going to blame Israel for finally responding to the continuing provocations of Hamas. They have launched rockets continuously from Gaza at Sderot since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza three years ago. The Israelis acted with restraint until the launchers targeted Ashkelon this week, a much larger city, as an escalation of their attacks.
Now they want to haul dead civilians in front of journalists to complain about the Israeli counterattack. That might work except for two points. First, Gazans deliberately targeted Israeli civilians in Sderot and Ashkelon, or at the very least didn’t bother to target anything at all and had no worries whether they killed women and children. Second, the Gazans locate their rocket launchers in civilian centers, essentially using women and children as human shields.
The Arabs want to handcuff the Israelis while the Gazans continue shelling them. If the Arabs really wanted to keep Gazan civilians alive, they would get Hamas to quit launching rockets at Israeli cities. If the Gazans, led by Hamas, want to make acts of war, then they should quit crying when their enemy hits them back.
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Please can someone – anyone – explain to me why Israel’s military response isn’t controlled by an automatic system:
When Hamas fires a rocket, a similar rocket is automatically send back.
It’s like hitting a ball against a wall. If it comes back and hits you on the nose, then who is to blame.
The gorgeous, cold, unequivocal logic on an automated response is an easy winner in a war that hamas are fighting soley for media attention.
They fire rockets to provoke an Israeli response. Then they loudly piss and moan about “excessive force” etc.
Fine – and the media and UN are currently lapping it up.
But if the system is automatically triggered, then the blame is clear and the solution is clear: it’s down to Hamas.
Next time Gaza gets an automated response, Israel can state, with impunity “The Palestinians are doing this to themselves. If they don’t want rockets to hit Gaza, then all they need to do is stop automatically triggering them with their rockets on Israel. It’s easy. But it’s up to them”.
uptight on March 2, 2008 at 4:22 PM
Please can someone – anyone – explain to me why Israel’s military response isn’t controlled by an automatic system:
When Hamas fires a rocket, a similar rocket is automatically send back.
It’s like hitting a ball against a wall. If it comes back and hits you on the nose, then who is to blame.
The gorgeous, cold, unequivocal logic on an automated response is an easy winner in a war that hamas are fighting soley for media attention.
They fire rockets to provoke an Israeli response. Then they loudly piss and moan about “excessive force” etc.
Fine – and the media and UN are currently lapping it up.
But if the system is automatically triggered, then the blame is clear and the solution is clear: it’s down to Hamas.
Next time Gaza gets an automated response, Israel can state, with impunity:
“The Palestinians are doing this to themselves. If they don’t want rockets to hit Gaza, then all they need to do is stop automatically triggering them with their rockets on Israel. It’s easy. But it’s up to them”.
uptight on March 2, 2008 at 4:23 PM
IOW – treat them like children
uptight on March 2, 2008 at 4:24 PM
Only trouble is Israel usually uses very precise rockets to get those responsible. With an automated system like that it sounds like there would be more innocents hurt, which would give them more reason (and sometimes perhaps even justified) to piss and moan.
OneGyT on March 2, 2008 at 4:55 PM
The world already blames Israel for over-reacting and hurting civilians.
An automated system puts the trigger in Hamas’s hands.
Their actions directly control whether rockets are fired at Gaza or whether no rockets are fired at Gaza. This is only possible with an automated response.
It HAS to be automated in order to take the decision away from Israel and dump the responsibility in Hamas’s lap.
I’m in favour of a total emulation of Hamas’s “random target” approach. Just as random. The automated response should be a mirror image of Hamas.
It HAS to mirror their attacks to underline what Hamas are doing to Israel.
If the world thinks it is cruel then it’s an unavoidable conclusion that its Hamas’s cruelty being visited upon Gaza.
If the world thinks it is unnecessary, the the blame lies with Hamas for pulling the trigger.
If the world wants it to stop, it has to ask Hamas to make it stop.
uptight on March 2, 2008 at 5:25 PM
First the IDF needs to demolish the Dome of the Rock with a controlled implosion. I seem to remember reading that several high ranking IDF officers advocated that after liberating the Old City.
Israel’s ROE is as crazy as ours. Designed to lose your own people while having ridiculous rules before you can respond to an attack.
Mooseman on March 2, 2008 at 5:27 PM
Mooseman is advocating a Kristallnacht. I think Israel has far better a conscience than that.
unclesmrgol on March 2, 2008 at 7:13 PM
Cap’n, wait and see if they don’t get it…if not now, when BHO or HRC is President.
jimbo2008 on March 2, 2008 at 8:46 PM
canopfor…bad example.
rgranger on Mar 2,2008 at 12:17AM.
rgranger:Sounded good at the time,I just can’t understand
how the media,left think Gaza,Plaestines are not
the aggressors,when Israel is only defending
themselves!
canopfor on March 2, 2008 at 9:55 PM
Looks like the Arab league got what they wanted:
TooTall on March 3, 2008 at 10:42 AM
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