I fully agree that any attempt to rationalize such evil would be a betrayal of the fundamental ethical obligation to honor the dignity of all humanity. Anyone who takes the foundational ethical principle of the equality of human worth and requirement to respect human beings as dignified ends-unto-themselves must condemn any instance in which an innocent person is killed, be it a result of intentional harm or a failure of adequate moral consideration of others.
Such unambiguous evils include the indiscriminate bombing that fails to seriously consider civilians well as international law resulting in the deaths of 3,000 children to date. The repeated bombing of refugee camps, medical facilities, and other civilian infrastructure.
Other unambiguous evils include settlers in the West Bank torturing Palestinians, recording that torture and in some instances executing them. Those of us genuinely committed to the notion that each human life is of sacred and equal value must do our very best to plainly describe the evil of destroying innocent life and all of its forms. And that's why I was disappointed not to see so much as a reference to many examples of unambiguous evil occurring within the current military response to that other obvious unambiguous evil of the Hamas attack.
Even more glaringly absent was the failure to discuss the very well-documented and widely circulated public comments coming from leaders of Israel, which the U.S. is not only allied with but economically invested in, and thus greater responsibility to ensure our views and values are aligned. Multiple major political leaders are now insisting that there should be no distinction between combatants and civilians, in violation of International Law.
One clear example is from Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, who said, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat." His comments are especially relevant to your commentary here since he shares Churchill's belief that civilians are legitimate targets of military violence whenever they are deemed complicit, however indirectly, in some form of oppression or injustice.
Even more directly, Galit Distali Atbaryan, a current member of the Knesset has called for "Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth. That the Gazan monsters will fly to the southern fence and try to enter Egpytian territory or they will die.... A vengeful and cruel IDF is needed here. Anything less is immoral. Just unethical."
When Israel's Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, announced a "complete siege" of Gaza, a decision that the U.N. says violates International Law, he explained, "No electricity, no food, no water, no gas - it's all closed. We're fighting animals and are acting accordingly." On the most charitable interpretation, Gallant was speaking of Hamas militants, but he failed to make that important distinction. A particularly glaring mistake since the punishments he described--denial of denying electricity, food, water, gas to an entire population--were being administered to the entire people of Gaza (collective punishment, a violation of human dignity and International Law).
Another Israeli politician, Moshe Feiglin said much the same thing in an interview: "We do not need a victory or to restore the image of Israel's dignity or to restore our deterrent image which we have lost completely in the jungle that surrounds us. Now we need to retaliate with strong vengeance.... There is one and only one solution, which is to completely destroy Gaza, before invading it. And when I talk about destruction, I mean destruction like it was in Dresden and Hiroshima, without a nuclear weapon."
Republican U.S. representative Brian Mast has also made comments that amount to denying the distinction between civilians and combatants: "I would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of 'innocent Palestinian civilians,' as is frequently said. I don't think we would so lightly throw around the term 'innocent Nazi civilians' during World War II." Elsewhere Mast also said, "...I would challenge anybody in here to point to me, which Palestinian is Hamas, and which one is an innocent civilian?" If Churchill's view is repugnant, which I believe it to be, then so, too, are Herzog's and Mast's views. And now would be a good time for us to state that clearly given so many children have been and are still now being destroyed in Gaza.
I fully agree that any attempt to rationalize such evil would be a betrayal of the fundamental ethical obligation to honor the dignity of all humanity. Anyone who takes the foundational ethical principle of the equality of human worth and requirement to respect human beings as dignified ends-unto-themselves must condemn any instance in which an innocent person is killed, be it a result of intentional harm or a failure of adequate moral consideration of others.
Such unambiguous evils include the indiscriminate bombing that fails to seriously consider civilians well as international law resulting in the deaths of 3,000 children to date. The repeated bombing of refugee camps, medical facilities, and other civilian infrastructure.
Other unambiguous evils include settlers in the West Bank torturing Palestinians, recording that torture and in some instances executing them. Those of us genuinely committed to the notion that each human life is of sacred and equal value must do our very best to plainly describe the evil of destroying innocent life and all of its forms. And that's why I was disappointed not to see so much as a reference to many examples of unambiguous evil occurring within the current military response to that other obvious unambiguous evil of the Hamas attack.
Even more glaringly absent was the failure to discuss the very well-documented and widely circulated public comments coming from leaders of Israel, which the U.S. is not only allied with but economically invested in, and thus greater responsibility to ensure our views and values are aligned. Multiple major political leaders are now insisting that there should be no distinction between combatants and civilians, in violation of International Law.
One clear example is from Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, who said, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat." His comments are especially relevant to your commentary here since he shares Churchill's belief that civilians are legitimate targets of military violence whenever they are deemed complicit, however indirectly, in some form of oppression or injustice.
Even more directly, Galit Distali Atbaryan, a current member of the Knesset has called for "Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth. That the Gazan monsters will fly to the southern fence and try to enter Egpytian territory or they will die.... A vengeful and cruel IDF is needed here. Anything less is immoral. Just unethical."
When Israel's Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, announced a "complete siege" of Gaza, a decision that the U.N. says violates International Law, he explained, "No electricity, no food, no water, no gas - it's all closed. We're fighting animals and are acting accordingly." On the most charitable interpretation, Gallant was speaking of Hamas militants, but he failed to make that important distinction. A particularly glaring mistake since the punishments he described--denial of denying electricity, food, water, gas to an entire population--were being administered to the entire people of Gaza (collective punishment, a violation of human dignity and International Law).
Another Israeli politician, Moshe Feiglin said much the same thing in an interview: "We do not need a victory or to restore the image of Israel's dignity or to restore our deterrent image which we have lost completely in the jungle that surrounds us. Now we need to retaliate with strong vengeance.... There is one and only one solution, which is to completely destroy Gaza, before invading it. And when I talk about destruction, I mean destruction like it was in Dresden and Hiroshima, without a nuclear weapon."
Republican U.S. representative Brian Mast has also made comments that amount to denying the distinction between civilians and combatants: "I would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of 'innocent Palestinian civilians,' as is frequently said. I don't think we would so lightly throw around the term 'innocent Nazi civilians' during World War II." Elsewhere Mast also said, "...I would challenge anybody in here to point to me, which Palestinian is Hamas, and which one is an innocent civilian?" If Churchill's view is repugnant, which I believe it to be, then so, too, are Herzog's and Mast's views. And now would be a good time for us to state that clearly given so many children have been and are still now being destroyed in Gaza.