Let us have no misunderstanding about one thing: That 14 innocent civilians, including nine children, were killed in an Israeli attack Tuesday aimed at a terrorist is deplorable, a horror and a cause for mourning. If Hamas commander Salah Shehada could have been captured or destroyed in a way that would have averted this catastrophe, that should have been done.
But was there such a way? At this writing we do not know. Neither do we know exactly how urgent was Israel’s need to get Shehada now.
Israeli officials have said that Shehada, through his planning and launching of suicide bomb attacks, was directly responsible for the murder of at least 70 Israeli civilians — including children, teens and elderly people — a number based on population that is equivalent to roughly 3,150 Americans. (He was also responsible for injuring hundreds more.) The officials added that they believed Shehada was soon to launch another major terror attack.
Israeli officials have also said that they asked Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority to arrest Shehada dozens of times over the last two years, but he remained free to attack Israelis. Add to this the well-known Palestinian terrorists’ habit of deliberately shielding themselves behind Palestinian civilians and Israel’s canceling of several operations to get Shehada because of that.
But this lack of knowledge has not prevented much of the world from its increasingly typical rush to condemn Israel. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, for example, blasted the attack with a vehemence it seldom shows for Palestinian terrorism or for the mistakes committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Its editorial Wednesday, headlined “Israel’s indefensible mistake,” was an indefensible insult to any considerations of justice and the truth of the situation in which Israel finds itself.
From the comfort and safety of Milwaukee, Journal Sentinel editorial writers say Israel’s attack on Shehada “evinces a callous disregard for human life.” What about the human lives of the Israelis Shehada may have been planning to murder?
“[Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon and other Israeli leaders know … that harsh reprisals only fuel the frustration and rage that terrorism feeds on.” Apart from the implicit justification for terrorism in that sentence, will allowing Israeli civilians to be murdered with impunity make Palestinian terrorists less frustrated and angry? Has the Journal Sentinel made the same argument regarding the U.S. quest to destroy Al-Qaida?
“[I]f Shehada had been arrested and put on trial….” When Israel Defense Force troops entered the Jenin refugee camp to hunt for terrorists earlier this year, dozens of people, including 13 Israeli soldiers, were killed and injured in the fighting, and Israel was falsely accused of perpetrating a massacre of Palestinian civilians. How many Israelis and Palestinians would have been killed, and how much would Israel have been condemned, if the IDF had entered Gaza City, the hotbed of Hamas activity, to seek Shehada?
Earlier this month, a U.S. AC-130 gunship in Afghanistan allegedly opened fire on a wedding party, killing some 25 innocent civilians. Has anybody called this fallout of the U.S. war on terrorism an “indefensible mistake” before an investigation has taken place?
To repeat: We deplore the deaths of the 14 Palestinians and the suffering of all innocent civilians caught in the horrors of war. Like Jews everywhere, our minds wish for an investigation while our souls weep at the loss of life.
But we also deplore and condemn the double standards and prejudice that so often seem to portray Israel’s mistakes in defending itself as morally worse not only than those of other democracies, but more important, worse than the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians by its hate-possessed enemies.
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