Palestinian Human Shields

[zantonavitch]

Palestinian Human Shields

by Andre Zantonavitch

There's something new in the world. It comes courtesy of the Muslims. In their earnest and admirable struggle toward world domination, jihadi fighters now seem to openly embrace using their own people as "human shields."

But maybe this development on the world scene isn't entirely "new." Does anyone remember all those passionately supportive "innocent civilians" in southern Lebanon in the recent Israeli war against Hezbollah and company?

On November 8th, at a mosque in Beit Hanoun, Gaza, the Palestinians used about fifty heavily-shrouded women as "human shields" to provide cover for a few dozen or so jihadis trapped by the Israeli military. The Jewish army declined to fire very much at the fleeing terrorists, lest they kill "non-combatants." And all the jihadi fighters escaped -- most or all of them dressed as women.

On November 19th, in Jabalya, Gaza, the Palestinians used several hundred women and children(!) as "human shields" to protect the house of newly-targeted Mohammedweil Baroud, leader of the jihadist Popular Resistance Committees. Baroud has recently been very active in firing Qassam rockets into Israel, successfully maiming and killing.

The BBC News of November 20th took note of these two events, and this new Palestinian tactic, calling it "unprecedented." And they also observed it seems to work.

After Israel phoned Baroud to give him thirty minutes to evacuate his doomed house(!), the Popular Resistance Committees used mosques and Gaza television to ask civilians to protect him, especially women. A spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees issued a public statement: "We call upon all the fighters to reject evacuating their houses and we urge our people to rush into the threatened houses and make human shields." The Gazans did this by the hundreds. An Israeli military spokesman conceded the planned raid was aborted for this reason.

This new phenomenon seems to have been invented by Jamila Shanti, a former philosophy professor and current Palestinian legislator who also founded the women's branch of Hamas. Shanti also led the successful human shield campaign in Beit Hanoun on November 8th. According to her shield theory: "We consider it a new kind of reistance, highly successful, one that will serve us well against the Israeli enemy."

In the most recent event, the human shields at Baroud's house fired guns into the air and energetically chanted "Death to Israel!" and "Death to America!" One special shield at Baroud's house was Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. "We are so proud of this national stand. It's the first step toward protecting our homes, the homes of our children," he said while ascending to the roof.

Israel seems alarmed by all this. Also confused. According to military spokeswoman Noa Meir: "What happened over the weekend is very worrisome to us. Not only are they using their civilians as human shields, they continue to endanger the lives of our own civilians with their rocket attacks. It presents us with a very difficult dilemma, because we want to do everything possible to keep civilians out of harm's way."

Such is Israel's moral ignorance, weakness, and virtual bankruptcy. Humanity seems to have hit a new low with this. The Palestinians are using the Israelis' well-known dedication to high principles and moral ideals against them. As one military spokesman foolishly put it: "We differentiate between innocent people and terrorists."

The problem is those innocent people are acting completely in concert with the jihadis and support them utterly. They're hardly innocent.

Utlimately, the flawed moral beliefs of the Israelis need to be discarded and replaced with something far different. Then all those Palestinian civilian "human shields" need to be obliterated. And this new Muslim variation on hiding behind women and children should be universally excoriated. And the practitioners and supporters of this new tactic should be loathed by all.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Andre,

This is indeed a loathsome practice.

There is only one point where I seriously disagree with you. You state:

Then all those Palestinian civilian "human shields" need to be obliterated.

They only need to be obliterated if, when and to the extent they are in the way on purpose as accomplices. That would stop this despicable practice in short order.

Michael

[zantonavitch]

Michael notes: "They only need to be obliterated if, when and to the extent they are in the way on purpose as accomplices. That would stop this despicable practice in short order."

But the sad and hateful reality is they are there on purpose, and as accomplices.

I consider this phenomenon and tactic brand new. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. A normal, rational use of human shields is when some bad guys capture some good guys -- especially helpless innocent children -- and then hide behind them in some kind of attack or defense. Basically these human shields are hostages. This is 'acceptable.' Saddam did this in 1990 with random visiting Westerners in Kuwait in order to forstall Operation Desert Storm. But this tactic is a war crime which is forbidden by Article Four of the Geneva Conventions. Still, it makes some sense and occasionally may be practical and/or moral.

But the Palestinians are using their own guilty, murderous, jihadi-loving people! Where is the logic here? How can the Israelis be so over-intellectualized and messed up in their thinking as to fall for this? Did Germany or Japan use their own women in WWII to try to halt American and British bombing raids? It would have been absurd. Israel needs to obliterate these ridiculous human shields posthaste, and put a quick and rude end to this irrational pretension and bizarre pantomime.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Andre,

I have an issue about blaming children for war...

Also, obliterating any people is a very serious decision. It should not be made lightly and never across-the-board, like what has happened with racism and other forms of bigotry. Such killing should only happen in battle, with reasonable evidence of complicity of the human shields.

I have not examined closely the cases you mentioned in your article, but if they are as you described, I have no problem with shooting or bombing the human shields to get at the armed enemy. I do have issues with cases outside of engagements with an armed enemy and with hostages.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

The question is whether the human shields are protecting legitimate Israeli military targets. If they are the targets should be attacked one by one. In short order the human shield tactic will be abandoned. There is no gainsaying the fact that Israel is at war.

--Brant

Edited November 22, 2006 by Brant Gaede

[Rich Engle]

Yeah I'm not sure the Israelis are going to be inclined to back these days. War is Hell, indeed...

The human shield tactic is one of the lowest points in humanity. But there are so many...

Edited November 22, 2006 by Rich Engle

[Judith]

I just wish the Israelis would do what they have to do without worrying so much about world opinion. The Europeans and the Arabs are going to denounce them no matter what they do, so they might as well get down to it and ensure their own survival. Their ethics of engagement are already impeccable. They shouldn't have pulled out of Lebanon the way they did; it's the first defeat of the Israeli army in its history, and all because of fear of world (and especially US) opinion.

Judith

[Brant Gaede]

Human shields are either voluntary or involuntary. If the former, they are themselves combatants. If the latter, they are combatants' tools.

--Brant

Edited November 23, 2006 by Brant Gaede

[Barbara Branden]

Andre, I agree with you that the presence of human shields should not stop Israel from bombing terrorists and protecting itself, and that it should bomb what it needs to bomb for its own defense. The use of human shields is blackmail, and for Israel to give in to it is as blatant a form of the sanction of the victim as one can imagine.

However, much as I think Israel is making a tragic mistake, I think your criticisms are too harsh. What is involved is more than simply a view of morality. Israel is a tiny country, hated by most of the world, victimized by a world-wide orgy of anti-Semitism that grows more virulent by the month. If it were not for the sanction of America, there probably by now would be no Israel -- and that sanction is threatened by the growing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in this country. Remember how Israel's bombing of civilian-inhabited military targets in Lebanon aroused fury, even here, in America. There can be no doubt that as relevant as its moral philosophy -- and I suspect more relevant -- it is the danger to its very existence which would result if America removed its support that has caused Israel to yield to American pressure and to refuse to fire on the human shields.

In the final analysis, however, it seems that Israel has little or nothing to lose and can only gain by aggressively pursuing its own self-interest -- especially now that the American Congress is controlled by the left. The pressure on it to commit suicide by sparing Palestinian and other enemy--controlled civilians at the expense of its own citizens and soldiers will only grow stronger, until, at last, it is indeed forced back into the sea.

I can only hope that the Israeli government will see this. So far, many Israeli citizens -- and Netanyahu -- do see it.

Barbara

[kgregglv]

Using human shields is hardly new, and it is an effective stop-gap against an army of occupation, and that is what the Israeli military is doing to the Palestinians--they are murduring people there. Putting human shields is a method that a local community commonly uses to proceed against an opposing force far more powerful than themselves.

I recommend that you read up on the native Indian battle at Amristar known as the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. There are other examples that I can give you, but this should give an indication of the risk to the Israelis.

In 1919, British Indian Army soldiers under the command of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer opened fire on an unarmed gathering of men, women and children. Civil Surgeon Dr Smith indicated that the Indian casualties were over 1800. The troops were commanded by Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer who, immediately upon entering the Bagh and without the slightest warning to the crowd to disperse, ordered his troops to open fire, concentrating especially on the areas where the crowd was thickest. The firing started at 17:15 and lasted for about ten to fifteen minutes. The bagh, or garden, was bounded on all sides by brick walls and buildings and had only five narrow entrances, most of which were kept permanently locked. Since there was only one exit except for the one already manned by the troops, people desperately tried to climb the walls of the park. Most of the people jumped into a well inside the compound to escape from the bullets. A plaque in the monument says that 120 bodies were plucked out of the well alone.

Dyer said he would have used his machine guns if he could have got them into the enclosure, but these were mounted on armoured cars. He said he did not stop firing when the crowd began to disperse because he thought it was his duty to keep firing until the crowd dispersed, and that a little firing would do no good.

The response was a storm of outrage throughout the world. Even The House of Commons censured him; in the debate Winston Churchill claimed: "The incident in Jallian Wala Bagh was an extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation".

In India the massacre evoked feelings of deep anguish and anger. It catalysed the freedom movement in the Punjab against British rule and paved the way for Mohandas Gandhi's Non-Cooperation Movement against the British in 1920. It was also motivation for a number of other revolutionaries, including Bhagat Singh. The Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore returned his knighthood to the King-Emperor in protest. The massacre ultimately became an important catalyst of the Indian independence movement.

The Israelis would be foolish to engage in the same. They would be wiped out of the region, and nothing the U.S. could do would prevent it.

[Barbara Branden]

Ken, if I understand your post, you seem to assume I'm suggesting that Israel should seek out civilians to bomb. If you read my article, "The Lepers of Objectivism," you'll see that that is the very opposite of what I recommend -- and the opposite of what Israel does. Note that in its retaliation against Lebanon, the Israelis warned Lebanese civilians to leave the vicinity of military targets before they were bombed -- which the Palestinians who aim rockets at Israel do not do. I am suggesting, however, that when human shields deliberately place themselves in harms way, as a means of protecting military targets and blackmailing Israel, they should not be given the sanction of the victim.

If Hitler, say, were in range of your gun, and a civilian member of the Nazi Party deliberately placed himself in front of Hitler, would you let that stop you from firing? I hope not.

Barbara

[kgregglv]

Barbara said

"you seem to assume I'm suggesting that Israel should seek out civilians to bomb.

No, only to the general tenor of the initial article and some of the responses. I do go further in pointing out an example (out of many possible) where attacking civilians is fraught with grave danger.

Barbara said

"If Hitler, say, were in range of your gun, and a civilian member of the Nazi Party deliberately placed himself in front of Hitler, would you let that stop you from firing? I hope not."

I would hope not either. Hitlers (and Stalins, for that matter) are few and far between, regardless whether the media presents almost any anti-american tyrant or terrorist as the new Hitler. If one considers that such a person appears perhaps once every century, it is unlikely that I would have such an opportunity to make a moral case for his murder. It's pretty much beyond the ken of my experience.

In reality, I will never see, up front and personal, a Hitler. I just don't go around with a gun strapped to my waist in expectation of such an event, and I bet you don't either, Barbara.

Edited November 26, 2006 by Kenneth R Gregg

[Brant Gaede]

Ken, what did that horrible massacre in India 1919 have to do with human shields?

--Brant

[zantonavitch]

The key point -- which everyone seems to ignor or misunderstand -- is the evil, mass-murdering, jihadi Gazans used their own people as human shields(!). This is new. Using the enemy as your human shield or hostage is indeed a very old tactic -- and potentially a rational and moral one. An example of this might be the Americans in WWII protecting an ammunition depo in liberated France by placing a German POW camp right next to it to ward off German bombing. What makes no sense is the US protecting the ammo depo by using wounded American GIs or allied factory workers as "human shields." This wouldn't have deterred the Germans at all. Just the opposite, as is logical.

But the current Palestinians are using their own genocide-loving women as shields. And both sides -- Jews and Arabs -- now call these folks "innocent civilians." But in what possible sense is this true?

This absurdity is worse than Barbara's "sanction of the victim" description mentioned in Post #9. This is the defense and support of the enemy. What is so baffling in the Middle East this past year is why the Good is now so hugely sympathetic with the Evil. This is unprecedented. The Good is in love with, and in league with, the Evil which is mass-murdering it(!).

Edited November 28, 2006 by Andre Zantonavitch

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Andre,

Where is anything in love in this matter? All I have seen is hate and anger all round.

I did find your point about the Palestinians using their own people as shields being a new tactic insightful, which is why I put the article where I did.

Michael

[zantonavitch]

For me, the most interesting questions are: How far are the Muslims going to push their demented logic and this self-shielding tactic? How foolish, fatuous and philosophically/morally corrupt will the West be in accepting the Muslims' status as non-combatant civilian innocents? How much can enemy human shields actually shield the enemy?

Perhaps a few months down the line the Lebanese jihadis will attack Israeli cities (or perhaps the Iraqi jihadis will attack American military bases) on tanks with unarmed women riding on top. These will be, in effect, invincible attack forces with their human shields evidently rendering them untouchable by Western moral standards. The tanks will be blasting away, perhaps killing Westerners by the hundreds, while the Muslim women shout:"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! We're non-combatants! We're completely harmless unarmed civilians! We're INNOCENT!"

Meanwhile, all the women will probably be de facto jihadis who service the tank when it breaks down, keep spare ammo in their backpacks, and have recently sold their cars, so as to send their pre-teen sons to a Taliban camp in Afghanistan. But these women will continue to shout atop the tank: "Don't shoot! You filthy kikes, don't you dare shoot at us innocents. Think of your moral stature, you filthy Jew-bastards! Hitler didn't finish his job -- but we soon will. Meanwhile, don't shoot! And if you vermin do brazenly stage an unprovoked attack upon us innocent civilians -- why, next time we won't leave our guns at home. We'll slaughter you all, and dance on your graves, while we drink your blood! Meanwhile, right now we're INNOCENT! So don't shoot!"

I find this whole situation absurd, laughable, ugly, and obscene to infinity. But the West currently accepts much of this bizarre Muslim logic and moral posturing. And in the coming months the West is likely to accept even more.

The unofficial philosophy of the West seems to be suicide. In many ways -- you can't really blame the Muslims for their actions.

Edited December 1, 2006 by Andre Zantonavitch

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Andre,

There is a characteristic of Americans that is left out of your equation (although it was quite a ride to imagine the scenario you presented).

Americans have balance built into their moral character. There is toleration up to a point. Once that point is passed, they go and they do what they need to do. I don't think the situation of human shields in combat attacks will be tolerated. I also think the use of them as a defense will get old before too long.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

Andre:"The key point -- which everyone seems to ignore or misunderstand -- is the evil, mass-murdering, jihadi Gazans used their own people as human shields(!)"

This was clear, Andre, and is why I characterized Israel's acceptance of it as an unconscionable capitulation to blackmail. It would be bad enough if Palestinian civiians were forced to protect military installations with their own bodies, but when they do so voluntarily, they should be treated as any other enemy combatants. I don't see how any reasonable argument can be made against that. If you protect the enemy, you are the enemy. I only hope that the more such a tactic as these human shields is used, the more obvious will be its demand for the sanction of the victim, and the less it will work.

But I don't think the good is truly in love with the evil. The problem as I see it is that the good doesn't recognize the bottomless extent of the evil. I've often thought that a great fault of Americans -- and in another sense a great virtue and the source of much of their benevolence -- is that they don't really believe in evil. Europeans and the Muslim world have seen it on their shores and have lived and died with it in their own lives in a way we Americans have not. 9/11 was our first major taste of evil , and its meaning went so against the American sense of what is possible among men that its memory and meaning are fading. Perhaps we will have to see still more evil still closer to home before we fully recognize it and learn how to fight it. I hope that isn't what it will take, but I fear it is.

Barbara

[Judith]

But I don't think the good is truly in love with the evil. The problem as I see it is that the good doesn't recognize the bottomless extent of the evil. I've often thought that a great fault of Americans -- and in another sense a great virtue and the source of much of their benevolence -- is that they don't really believe in evil.

Exactly! I often fear that one of our greatest virtues -- our innocence -- will lead to our downfall.

Judith

[zantonavitch]

Barbara and Judith -- Americans are like 19th century fictional damsels-in-distress: knowing no evil, we fear none!

[Barbara Branden]

Andre: "Americans are like 19th century fictional damsels-in-distress: knowing no evil, we fear none!"

But the damsels were rescued at the last moment by a prince on a white horse -- and we seem to have a shortage of such. Can you even conceive of any nation attempting to come to our defense? Our strength, our limitless good will, our courage, our dedication in freeing millions of slaves throughout the world, our vast expenditures of blood and treasure in the name of our convictions -- all these are sins for which the world will not forgive us. "This other Eden, this demiparadise. . . this dear, dear land. . . this blessed plot, this earth, this realm" -- this America: if it is destroyed, with it will go for a thousand years the last best hopes of mankind.

Barbara

[Judith]

God, Barbara, you made me cry.

I don't know if there's ever been a time in human history when the lines between good and evil have been more clearly drawn.

""This place may be bombed," bin Laden declared to the visiting reporter, who could hear the sound of antiaircraft fire in the distance. "And we will be killed. We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us." "Gunning For Bin Laden," E. Thomas, NEWSWEEK, 11/26/01

Jews "love life more than other people," a senior Hamas official told Lee Hockstader of The Washington Post, "and they prefer not to die." The love of life he regards as a weakness. "THE FIRST PALESTINIAN ISRAELI WAR: After Peace," L. Wieseltier, THE NEW REPUBLIC, 04/04/02

Judith

[Brant Gaede]

Andre: "Americans are like 19th century fictional damsels-in-distress: knowing no evil, we fear none!"

But the damsels were rescued at the last moment by a prince on a white horse -- and we seem to have a shortage of such. Can you even conceive of any nation attempting to come to our defense? Our strength, our limitless good will, our courage, our dedication in freeing millions of slaves throughout the world, our vast expenditures of blood and treasure in the name of our convictions -- all these are sins for which the world will not forgive us. "This other Eden, this demiparadise. . . this dear, dear land. . . this blessed plot, this earth, this realm" -- this America: if it is destroyed, with it will go for a thousand years the last best hopes of mankind.

Barbara

Absent a general nuclear exchange, the only way America can be destroyed is from within, mostly courtesy of the Democratic Party with generous assists from the Republicans. Before that happens, a fascist will come to power, but that will just be another avenue, maybe a slower one, to its destruction. Philosophy is really the only hope for America, and the world.

--Brant

[zantonavitch]

Let's not get too depressed here for the fate of the world! :poke: History is so cyclical. The strong tendency is for mankind to evolve and ascend -- usually "two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward..." The more the Muslims hit us after 9/11, the more the West will tend to reexamine itself, and probably improve.

This especially includes uplifting ourselves from the rather odious post-communist era of 1991-2001 when a kind of lazy, sloppy, self-indulgent, Western triumphalism dominated, as we all experienced "the end of history." Now that rather ugly smug smirk has been wiped from our faces. Time for energy and ambition to reappear. In many respects, the lowly anachronistic Mulsims and their new holocaust threat represent an opportunity.

We can now rethink our pat familiar ideology of religion, self-sacrifice, and welfare statism which virtually all Westerners imagine doesn't hurt us too much. But the truth is, it does. The rival belief of Islamic jihadism holds up a kind of mirror to Western liberalism. Among other things, it let's us see just how similar we are to our hated, truly wicked enemies.

The current War on Isalm/Jihad could easily prove to be a big direct or indirect motivation to move toward a far more liberal world culture. And please note -- starting in about 1985 or so, by my reckoning -- the West is currently experiencing a Renaissance. And there's a very good chance that the coming Second Enlightenment will be heavily driven by Objectivism or something very similar. So there's still a lot of hope in the world right now!

But Brant is right in saying the key to everything is improving our philosophy. Enough already with this pre-modernist monotheism, post-modernist welfare statism, and relio-socialist ethic!