| good guys |
[Jan. 3rd, 2009|12:27 pm] |
Dear Israel,
I can understand that you are upset about your neighbors lobbing stuff at you. That's unacceptable behavior on their part. But what you have to understand is that in order to claim the moral high ground, you have to be better than your enemy. Just because they are shooting at your civilians, that doesn't give you the right to shoot at their civilians. Killing civilians is bad, and a lot of the children you've blown up over the past few weeks had nothing at all to do with the attacks on you. I know, you like to just call them 'collateral damage', but they are still people, innocent people. And sure, you like to blame the HAMAS fighters for hiding in civilian areas, but that's kinda like claiming it is your wife's fault for making you hit her. It is not the fault of these children that crazy HAMAS radicals are standing nearby. So, even if you can justify attacking HAMAS, you cannot justify killing innocents that happen to be in the way. Not if you want to claim the moral high ground anyways.
Now maybe you have decided that you don't want to claim the moral high ground, maybe you just want to say, "hey it's war and we're both animals so everybody is a target." But if you do that, then you have to realize that it completely justifies their attacks on you as well as your attacks on them. If you want to be the 'good guys', then you have to act like the good guys. I know it kinda sucks having to turn the other cheek and all, but that's what good guys do. Good guys don't bomb children because somebody nearby shot a rocket at them. You can't be both the good guys in this fight and still kill kids. Sorry. I know it's hard, but if you want peace, you've got to be peaceful, even in the face of continued attacks from crazies. When you blow up their kids in response to them blowing up your kids, all it does it legitimize their attacks on you. They don't seem so crazy when they are attacking someone who just blew up one of their mosques, in fact their actions become completely rational. On the other hand, if you act peacefully, and reach out your hand to them, then the crazy ones will seem even crazier for wanting to attack a peaceful country. Don't you see? Not only are you killing children, but you are actually making the situation more dangerous by doing so. So you are not making yourselves safer and at the same time you are being evil. Nothing good is coming from what you are doing. So please stop.
As a corollary, there is also the issue of proportionality. Sure, the Bible says "an eye for an eye" and all, but note that since December 27 your attacks on Gaza have caused over 400 Palestinian deaths and 2000 injuries. Rocket fire by armed Palestinian groups, including Hamas, has taken the lives of 4 Israelis and caused several dozen injuries. So what you are doing is also wildly inappropriate from that "eye for an eye" perspective. It's like if some neighborhood kid throws an egg at your house so in response you shoot him in the face with your shotgun. Sure, all the other neighborhood kids will 'learn the lesson' and not throw eggs at your house, but it still isn't cool to do that. Makes you kinda look like a dick. Please stop being a dick.
Thank you. |
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