.
7/15/14, "Media death count encourages Hamas to use human shields," Alan Dershowitz, Jerusalem Post opinion
"
what has come to be known as “the dead baby strategy”.
Hamas’ strategy since Israel left Gaza in 2005 has been exactly the
same. The media response has been exactly the same. And Hamas will
continue to employ a strategy that causes many Palestinian civilians to
die as long as the media keeps up its thoughtless body count.
Here’s the way it works: Hamas deliberately fires its rockets from
densely populated civilian areas, using hospitals, disability centers,
mosques and schools as launching sites. This puts Israel to the tragic
choice of either allowing the rockets to endanger its civilians or to
destroy the rocket launchers, thereby risking civilian casualties among
Hamas’ human shields. Often Israel chooses to forgo attacking military
targets, so as not to put Palestinian civilians at risk. Sometimes it
has no choice, because the rocket fire against its civilians is
persistent. Palestinian civilians are killed despite Israel’s best
efforts precisely because Hamas wants civilians to be killed, especially
if these civilians are children, women or the elderly. Hamas stands
ready to parade these human shields in front of the media which is eager
to show the dead and count the bodies.
Hamas could easily reduce the death and injury toll among its civilians,
by simply allowing them to go underground into tunnels and shelters
which abound throughout Gaza. But Hamas has a deliberate policy of
refusing to allow civilians to enter the tunnels or shelters. They
reserve these places of refuge for their fighters and commanders, which
explains why so few Hamas fighters have been killed. If Hamas were to
reverse its policy and allow civilians into the shelters while requiring
its fighters to stay above ground, the ratio of civilians to fighters
killed would dramatically change. That is why in each of the wars
between Hamas and Israel there have been more Palestinian than Israeli
civilian deaths and injuries. It is part of Hamas’ dead baby strategy
and it works, because the media facilitates it.
and combatants against
legitimate attacks. Proportionality is not judged by the number of
civilians actually killed by Hamas rockets, but rather by the risks
posed to Israelis. These risks have been diminished, but not eliminated
by the Iron Dome system. They have also been considerably diminished
by Israel’s counterattacks on the missile launchers and those who employ
them. Without these counterattacks, it is highly likely that more
Hamas missiles would have made it through the Iron Dome system which has
been approximately 85% effective. Israel has every right under the
rules of proportionality to attack these military targets, so long as
they take reasonable efforts to reduce civilian casualties. They have
done so by leafleting, by calling, and by other methods of warning
civilians to leave target areas. Hamas leaders, on the other hand, have
urged, and sometimes compelled, their civilians to remain in harm’s way
as human shields.
The media, by emphasizing the comparative body counts without providing
the reasons for the disparity, play into the hands of Hamas and encourage that terrorist organization, to continue to pursue its dead
baby strategy. So the next time those in the media promote a body count
without explanation, they should point a finger at themselves for
contributing to this deadly count.".
.
Even Gaza Truce Is Hard to Win, Kerry Is Finding," NY Times, Michael R. Gordon
and the United
States, Turkey, Qatar, the European Union, the Arab League and the
United Nations pledged to “address the needs of the people of Gaza.”"...
=========================
July 2014 Pew Poll finds support for Israel has continued to grow among all Americans especially Republicans, 1978-2014:
7/15/14, "As Mideast Violence Continues, a Wide Partisan Gap in Israel-Palestinian Sympathies," people-press.org. (Pew Research)
"As violence between Israel and Hamas shows no signs of abating, the
sympathies of the American public continue to lie with Israel rather
than the Palestinians."...
New national survey by Pew Research Center was conducted July
8-14 among 1,805 adults.
.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment