Lord Biggar, your article provides a very nice summary of the analysis and history of the Just War concept. But you conclude without providing any rational or practical means of insuring Israel's security or a lasting peace.
Your observation that even if Hamas is destroyed in its current form it will be revived by fresh recruits is accurate. But that is so even if the war were to end today, or even after the first IDF assault. What you, and the majority in the West, ignore is that almost the entirety of Gazan's want the complete destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews. That mindset, that culture, is the underlying source of what you have indentified as the hundred -year- war which I agree will extend into its second century if conditions remain unchanged.
This leads one to what seems to me the obvious conclusion that the Rules of War which evolved in the aftermath of WWII are insufficient to deal with the world in which we now live.
While you give mention to the vast civilian casualties the Allies inflicted upon Germany you failed to reference the massive fire bombing of Dresden or the much more severe fire bombing of every major Japanese city culminating in the nuclear destruction of Nakasake and Hiroshima. These actions were not collateral damage targeting military installations, they were intentional demonstrations of insurmountable military might that brought about capitulation and unconditional surrender.
We Allies, the "good guys" intentionally massacred hundreds of thousands, likely millions, of civilians to defeat two toxic regimes. We did not stop until an unconditional surrender was obtained. I fail to see a distinction between the conduct of WWII and the need to achieve a complete surrender of Hamas and the people of Gaza.
I find it curious that the word "surrender" is notably absent from today's lexicon in speaking of war. This evolution, this sanitation, of vocabulary is a large part of the problem. When one force is the belligerent it must not just be checked, by stopping its unprovoked attack, it must be entirely disabled ....without any means to rebuild on a foundation of its belief and cultural system which generated the means and will to mount an attack upon its neighbors.
The West, indeed the world, must look at this situation from a pre-WWII perspective and support Israel in forcing upon Gaza not just the dismantling of Hamas military but an entirely new mindset and culture regardless of the number of casualties, just as we did to the Japanese and Nazi Germany. That means complete control of the entirety of Gaza, elimination of all radical teaching in schools, complete disarmament and occupation of a multinational military until such time as there is a new society of Gazan's who reject the racist notion that ones neighbors should be exterminated.
I would say there are not very many if any Arabs in Gaza who don’t support Hamas and would like them gone. They don’t seem to have been very kind to the hostages who are missing from the above piece.
Only with complete defeat and western pressure on and isolation of Qatar, Iran and Turkey to desist in supporting these murderous Arabs who call themselves by a mythical name from a mythical land can Israel live in peace.
Israel has tried appeasement in giving back Gaza to the Arabs to govern, forcibly removing Israelis. Whatever was Sharon thinking? These Arabs are generally despised by their own countrymen in Jordan, a country your country created and by Egypt, Syria and the Lebanese and the other Arab countries that could easily take them in. No one except the idiots that run, Britain, France, , Canada and Australia in the west care about them. Hamas don’t care about them neither do Fatah. That is indeed sad but not really Israel’s problem as it can integrate their Arab population very well and get on with other Arab states.
The deep Jew hatred that has driven so many Europeans and Arabs to murder, rape, burn and kidnap Jews is alive and has spread to Australia as well. We have a terrorist loving government too.
The hostages need to be released. No more tit for tat.
Lord Biggar, your article provides a very nice summary of the analysis and history of the Just War concept. But you conclude without providing any rational or practical means of insuring Israel's security or a lasting peace.
Your observation that even if Hamas is destroyed in its current form it will be revived by fresh recruits is accurate. But that is so even if the war were to end today, or even after the first IDF assault. What you, and the majority in the West, ignore is that almost the entirety of Gazan's want the complete destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews. That mindset, that culture, is the underlying source of what you have indentified as the hundred -year- war which I agree will extend into its second century if conditions remain unchanged.
This leads one to what seems to me the obvious conclusion that the Rules of War which evolved in the aftermath of WWII are insufficient to deal with the world in which we now live.
While you give mention to the vast civilian casualties the Allies inflicted upon Germany you failed to reference the massive fire bombing of Dresden or the much more severe fire bombing of every major Japanese city culminating in the nuclear destruction of Nakasake and Hiroshima. These actions were not collateral damage targeting military installations, they were intentional demonstrations of insurmountable military might that brought about capitulation and unconditional surrender.
We Allies, the "good guys" intentionally massacred hundreds of thousands, likely millions, of civilians to defeat two toxic regimes. We did not stop until an unconditional surrender was obtained. I fail to see a distinction between the conduct of WWII and the need to achieve a complete surrender of Hamas and the people of Gaza.
I find it curious that the word "surrender" is notably absent from today's lexicon in speaking of war. This evolution, this sanitation, of vocabulary is a large part of the problem. When one force is the belligerent it must not just be checked, by stopping its unprovoked attack, it must be entirely disabled ....without any means to rebuild on a foundation of its belief and cultural system which generated the means and will to mount an attack upon its neighbors.
The West, indeed the world, must look at this situation from a pre-WWII perspective and support Israel in forcing upon Gaza not just the dismantling of Hamas military but an entirely new mindset and culture regardless of the number of casualties, just as we did to the Japanese and Nazi Germany. That means complete control of the entirety of Gaza, elimination of all radical teaching in schools, complete disarmament and occupation of a multinational military until such time as there is a new society of Gazan's who reject the racist notion that ones neighbors should be exterminated.
I would say there are not very many if any Arabs in Gaza who don’t support Hamas and would like them gone. They don’t seem to have been very kind to the hostages who are missing from the above piece.
Only with complete defeat and western pressure on and isolation of Qatar, Iran and Turkey to desist in supporting these murderous Arabs who call themselves by a mythical name from a mythical land can Israel live in peace.
Israel has tried appeasement in giving back Gaza to the Arabs to govern, forcibly removing Israelis. Whatever was Sharon thinking? These Arabs are generally despised by their own countrymen in Jordan, a country your country created and by Egypt, Syria and the Lebanese and the other Arab countries that could easily take them in. No one except the idiots that run, Britain, France, , Canada and Australia in the west care about them. Hamas don’t care about them neither do Fatah. That is indeed sad but not really Israel’s problem as it can integrate their Arab population very well and get on with other Arab states.
The deep Jew hatred that has driven so many Europeans and Arabs to murder, rape, burn and kidnap Jews is alive and has spread to Australia as well. We have a terrorist loving government too.
The hostages need to be released. No more tit for tat.
After Saturday comes Sunday.