Ray Bradbury said, ""

Israel's Dilemma

Israel is trying its hardest to do the right thing and avoid targeting civilians. Fair enough, but sometimes I wonder if the problem is, that Israel is not targeting civilians enough [My emphasis- ed]. Sherman, was not nearly so kind as he marched through Atlanta, and quite frankly I have no problem with Israel, going into Lebanon, and basically eliminating the resistance. Have a problem with that? Hezbollah can surrender or not, that should be Olmert's terms. It's all it can be, Israel wants to fight this war without getting its hands dirty. Israel should give up on trying to appease the nations. It's never going to.

The world hates Israel, and for what it's worth, the world should "hate" Israel. Israel condemns the world, as it stand chosen of God, a nation that sought him after all other continued in their rebellion (see e.g. the story of Balaam). Israel of all the other nations of antiquity exists today, not because of the work of human hands, but of the work of God. If Israel wants to succeed in whatever it does, it must recognize this fact. The world has hated Israel, just as it hated Noah, because they stand righteous where the rest of the world stand condemned.

It seems more likely though that Israel will not turn the the Lord, and seek him, instead they will trust in Olmert to deliver them, and like every other secular government that has tried to "deliver" Israel, they will fail. Salvation comes from the Lord, not from Olmert and his government, Israel needs to return to the Lord and establish itself as the lamp upon Zion. Trust in the Lord, to establish your boundaries, not secular men, they promise peace, and deliver nothing. Only until Israel recognizes and sees the inability of the secular government to "deliver" Israel, will there be a true change in the hearts of the people of Israel.

David, you keep referring to Hezbolloh as "party of God," Israel itself means "One who strives with God" perhaps it is high time, that Israel get back to striving with the Lord, instead of ignoring Him. Then, Israel will have the courage and faith to mock those who oppose them, as David did standing before Goliath "You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. "This day the Lord wil deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel."

Have the courage O Israel, to proudly proclaim "That all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel."

I responded:

[...] Israel has never, and will never, act as Joel wishes it to. In Judaism it is a core belief that no excuse whatsoever serves to justify the murder of an innocent- the end can never justify the means.

The day the Israelis begin fighting like Hizballah is the day the Israelis lose the very thing they are fighting for.

[Snip to another comment wherein I restate this post of mine]

Joel responded:

Tom,

I actually don't think we're that far apart. It's interesting about Amalek, and that you bring that tribe up because, we seen in Deuteronomy 25:17-19, that part of the wickedness of Amalek was that they attacked the weak in the rear ("civilians?"), and for this they were to totally wipe Amalek out. Interesting, I think.

But I don't think we're that far apart in terms of the need for the IDF to act "rightly." It's just hard to know what would actually deter Hezbollah and its partisans. It's harsh for Israel to take the step of "leave the southern 20 miles of Lebanon or risk harm." But that may be necessary.

I responded:

Joel B.

I believe that the ends can never justify the means. I believe that Israel can afford to be neither too lax nor too bloodthirsty with dealing with the barbarians, for the former will lead to Israel being destroyed by its neighbors and the latter will lead to Israel being destroyed by itself.

Remember that Negative Mitzvah 293 commands the Jew "not to pity the pursuer, but to kill him before he can kill or rape the pursued." Thousands of years later, Adam Smith would rephrase this as "mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."

It is as much an error not to adequately retaliate against violence as it is to over-retaliate. Failure to protect the innocent against evil will get them killed immediately, and failure to uphold their innocence will get them killed in the long run.

Israel therefore has to navigate the razor-thin line between adequate and morally obligated violence against those who will stop at nothing short of a sucking chest wound in their effort to eliminate Israel women and children first, and losing sight of the very reason why it is fighting for survival by fighting in a way designed to ensure its survival at all costs.

Israel has an obligation toward its survival to ruthlessly retaliate against the barbarians, and an obligation toward its worthiness of survival to just as ruthlessly adhere to morality and civility where its enemy sees none. As I said, it's a razor-thin line few other nations have even noticed existed.

From what I understand, you do not see the need for Israel to restrain itself to the mere ruthless and brutal retaliation against the men aiming at Israeli women and children; you seem to wish for Israel to itself purposely aim for the innocent.

To the extent we both believe that Israel must fight as hard as possible against those terrorists willing to see it destroyed, we are of one mind. But to the extent you allow Israel even a fraction of the savagery of its enemies toward innocents, I am bitterly opposed.

I'll keep you posted on the ongoing argument.

~~~

Update 8:39 pm: I got my ass handed to me by Tom Holsinger, a member of the Church of the Brethren, who accused me of being a chickenhawk, pacifist, and believer in the necessity of omniscience in the fog of war.

I got my ass kicked- that is, if I believed that a man can defend himself with deadly force only if he is certain the knife has already plunged into his chest.

As for me, I'm no Pyrrhonist. I'll rely on inference and Bayesian theory to inform me within reasonable certainty that I had better fight than die.

Posted by: Tom "The Pooklekufr" Treloar at July 31, 2006 00:07 EST | Permalink | comments (1) |
religion, philosophy, israel, blog nocturne

Comments open but moderated. I reserve permission to kill spammers on sight.

#1  08 August 2006 - 10:30

 

On the update, I had a guy e-mail me and say he was going to kick my ass. Shocking, right?

My response was "Do you think that I will simply sit there and take it? Pack a lunch, baby."

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