All wars are asymmetrical
It was embarrassing to read Ben Goren’s letter about Gaza (Letter, Aug. 2, page 8). He frets because many more Gazans have been killed than Israelis. Perhaps Israelis should apologize to Ben for not being killed in greater numbers.
Before I start to dissect his fallacious arguments, I would like to remind him that supporting Israel does not make one a hater of Muslims or a terrorist.
Every Jew is horrified by scenes of dead and wounded Palestinians. For 66 years the Palestinians have refused to live in peace with the Israelis and that is the source of their suffering.
The idea of symmetrical warfare is a ludicrous piece of Muslim propaganda.
Let us examine this concept.
Does it mean that Japan should have been allowed to drop two nukes on the US? Germany caused 40 million deaths. Should we have slaughtered 40 million Germans? Over 2,000 rockets have been fired at Israel. Should the IDF fire 2,000 rockets into Gaza?
No war is symmetrical.
As Muslims outnumber Jews 100 to one, should 7,000 Palestinians be killed for the sake of symmetry?
Goren then accuses Israel of deliberately targeting UN schools, without offering a shred of proof.
It is a well known strategy for Palestinians to fire from the vicinity of schools, hospitals and mosques, hoping to deter return fire or to parade their casualties.
Journalists have seen it but were threatened with death to deter them from reporting it, as one Spanish journalist recently revealed.
Many rockets fired by Palestinians have fallen short, killing scores of victims and causing carnage which Israel is then blamed for.
Israel has the power to destroy Gaza or to drive its inhabitants to Jordan but has refrained for 66 years as a civilized nation.
Does anyone doubt the fate of Israelis if the Palestinians had the same power?
Goren accuses the Israelis of “bloodlust,” a charge so ridiculous that it is grotesque.
There have been hundreds of thousands of murder victims in Syria and Iraq, beheadings and torture throughout the Muslim world, but it is the Jews who are lusting for blood?
What army has warned potential victims of bombings to leave for their own protection? The Israelis. Who has asked people to remain in danger zones, as we saw on television? Hamas.
The UN has confirmed finding rockets three times in UN schools and denounced the Palestinians for doing so, yet Mr Goren calls it a lie because it does not support his views.
He goes back to the exodus of Palestinians in 1948 when the Arab countries told them the Jews would be massacred and then the Palestinians could return victoriously.
Strangely, he does not mention the 800,000 Jews forced out of Muslim countries in the 1950s. Was that not apartheid?
For whatever casualties the Palestinians suffer, they can thank Hamas. They cannot complain or they will be executed along with the hundreds who did and were silenced.
Goren claims that Israel has no right to exist, but cannot explain why. The land was controlled by England after World War II, and Mr Goren ignores the Balfour Declaration as well as the vote of the world’s countries in 1948 to re-establish the Jewish state since there was no country called Palestine.
Israel has every right to exist.
Does China not also claim that Taiwan has no right to exist as a country?
Chaim Melamed
Pingtung
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