This piece below from the Huffington Post nicely frames the current conflict. NO amount of flexing of muscles by Jews is ever allowed.
This blog was filed on January 3rd 1944. There may have been a slight delay with the post appearing due to server problems…
Dateline: January 3rd 1944
Fury continues to mount worldwide about the senseless loss of civilian life in Germany caused by England’s callous bombing of German cities including Berlin, Hamburg and Dresden.
As of today many innocent German women and children have died in these utterly brutal bombing missions. And now there are ground offensives starting on mainland Europe.
The English have claimed that they are merely retaliating against the V-1 flying bombs being launched indiscriminately by Nazis at their civilian population in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Coventry and other cities.
It takes huge, uhm, chutzpah, to stand up to the the UN and its chorus of Arab and Muslim ambassadors shouting genocide at the new war. And while some might argue that this campaign wins Israel nothing but more sympathy for Hamas – others have reached a different conclusion. As did England in WWII.
Curiousgoy, did your grandfather mention all the bonbons and sunbathing chairs they gave out at Auschwitz?
Moron.
I think that is completely wrong of anyone to say that bombing german civilians is okay because they brought it upon themselves. My grandfather was an American civilian who got caught in the war while on vacation in Europe. He said that when the allies came in and saw the children in Hitler Youth uniforms, they pushed them off of a roof. Not only that, but a large part of the starvation at Auschwitz was an effect of the food blockade that the British administered themselves! Before that blockade, Hilberg and Arad agree that prisoners got the same food as any soldier. Its common knowledge that the Soviets never took prisoners, they’d just beat an eighteen to twenty year old drafted boy to death with bootheels and bayonets. I honestly think you should all stop fishing for sympathy and get on with your lives. If we should learn from history, why don’t we learn from WWII and stop with the alliances and militarism? Why doesn’t Israel learn from the colonization of America and leave the Palestinians alone? Before you call me a racist though, know this, when my mother was struggling through college we were taken in by a Jew family. I have nothing against the people, but I am one hundred percent against the zionist strategy. Don’t use WWII as a referance for your murder in Israel. Ask the Germans, Austrians, or Italians for some land. It’s got a nicer climate, less sand, and it’s prettier to look at. Learn from history.
Native American Genocide. Never Again.
It should be a common denominator. Yet, when it comes to Israel we are always accused of murdering children and babies by the dozens or even hundreds. In every war. It’s nothing more than a updated version of the same old blood libel against Jews.
yeah, killing children sucks!
Well, Abu, in the common ground department, looks like we both oppose indiscriminate killing of children.
Gotta concur with Tom on this one; Muffti actually saw this comparison recently in Jpost by another Rabbi, Shmuely Boteach:
Uh..
I for one don’t care if 1000 Germans died in one raid or 10.000. I am quite glad that Bomber Harris also didn’t give a damn shit about it. They brought upon themselves and every grown up should be able to tell cause and action apart. The later irrational military actions of Wehrmacht and SS in the Ardennes showed that anyway that they would have fought until the last man (what men, in the end 16y old boys were recruited) und that the commanders of those unit would rather have every single one shot than to surrender. Quite similar similar to Hamas, in fact.
It is necessary however to point out that Hamas is not the NSDAP and it’s genocidal war-machinery, even if they desperately try everything to get close to it.
You might expect Hamas to invoke this precedent, not Israel, which fortunately fights by different rules.
I concur with Tom and TM. There is really no comparison between what the English did to German civilians and what is going on in Gaza as we speak. I do not wish to be compared favorably to say the Russians who conducted carpet bombing campaigns against the Chechens and didn’t give a rat’s ass about civilian casualties. That’s hardly a favorable comparison. I remain satisfied that the IDF is trying their best to minimize civilian casualties and for that we do not deserve any special praise. It’s how war ought to be conducted whenever the unfortunate decision to conduct war is taken.
Excellent comment, Tom. You are completely right. There should never be a targeting of civilians or civilian buildings and civilian casualties MUST be avoided at all costs. There is no excuse or justification for targeting civilians. Ever. If you are seeking to hit the terrorist next to the civilian, it is incumbent upon you to do everything in your power to avoid hitting the civilian.
Fortunately, even now, even as Israel has entered Gaza on the ground and even after the bombing of the UN school today, I believe that Israel continues to seek to minimize civilian casualties.
A couple of days ago, however, they killed a Hamas leader in his home, with his family. I think that raises serious questions, but I suspect that attack was to teach the other Hamas leaders they needed to flee and to stay away from their families during this incursion. If that wasn’t the goal, Israel needs to evaluate carefully whether it was justified in attacking his home with everybody in it.
It’s completely inaccurate that “area bombing” of German population centers was begun as retaliation for German rocket attacks (which took place in the final months of the war).
And would that there had been more outrage about the bombing of German cities, a gravely immoral policy that did not result in German surrender or ruin the economy or arms production (as Albert Speer related after the war).
This from a BBC website:
“[I]n February 1942, [UK] Bomber Command was instructed to shift the focus onto the ‘morale of the enemy civil population’. This new policy came to be called ‘area bombing’.
“The aiming points thereafter, for bombing raids, were no longer military or industrial installations, but a church or other significant spot in the centre of industrial towns. And since fire was found to be the most effective means of destroying a town, the bombers now carried mainly incendiary bombs.
“Thus, the exigencies of war had rendered the traditional distinction between combatants and non-combatants meaningless. Nearly everybody living in an ‘industrial town’ was considered to contribute directly or indirectly to the German war effort, and had therefore become a supposedly legitimate target.
“A few weeks before the end of World War Two, Winston Churchill drafted a memorandum to the British Chiefs of Staff:
‘It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed … The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing.’
“More than half a century later, the strategic bombing campaign continues to nag the national conscience. Some historians go as far as to suggest that by bombing cities the British ‘descended to the enemy’s level’ (John Keegan). This is, of course, an exaggeration. The bombing of Dresden cannot be equalled with the horrors of Auschwitz.
“Many felt that the Germans deserved to reap the whirlwind they had sown. Yet Bomber Command’s policy of targeting residential areas clearly contradicted Chamberlain’s pre-war statement in parliament that it was ‘against international law to bomb civilians as such and to make deliberate attacks on the civilian population’. How could a nation so proud of its high moral standards drop bombs on women and children?
“The history of the British bombing campaign in World War Two shows us how easily war can erode moral standards. In the first months of the war, Bomber Command was anxious to avoid the risk of killing civilians, and constrained itself to leaflet dropping and attacks on naval targets. But after Dunkirk, the heavy bombers remained the only means by which Britain could fight the Nazis in continental Europe.”
Israel and its supporters should think twice about justifying the Gaza campaign on this basis.