Vox Day has a short but useful article to read on why Israel cares about international opinion when it comes to Hamas and their reaction to the sneak attack of last month, but it basically comes down to it being too small of a country to go it alone: they need international trade and the protection offered by the U.S. military. Of course, winning public opinion has long been important, which is why propaganda and censorship have historically been used by governments to shape public opinion; and "narratives" are key to succeeding in 4th Generation warfare.
Israel has adopted a couple tactics on this front, one of which is to advertise how brutal and vicious were the Hamas fighters. Thus, we see and read accounts like this one from earlier today:
- "Hamas killers 'roasted babies in an oven' during October 7 terror attack, Israeli first responder claims"--Daily Mail.
But descriptions of the atrocities alone have not been very successful in winning public opinion, so Israel has resorted to this:
The Daily Mail doesn't actually link to the website, but the Jerusalem Post has, and you can access the website here if you wish. It's sad and I recommend that you have tissues at hand if you decide to view the photographs and videos.
Nevertheless, the purpose of showing these photographs and video isn't to make you feel sad for the loss of life, but to encourage you to reach the conclusion, as expressed recently by Israel's defense minister, that Israel is fighting animals, not people, and therefore whatever Israel does in response is justifiable. It may also be to distract from reports that a number of the burned and mangled bodies were not the result of Hamas' treatment of the civilians, but due to the Israeli military indiscriminately firing shells and missiles on both Hamas killers and their hostages, perhaps as part of a deliberate policy to kill Israeli hostages in order to prevent them from being later used as bargaining chips (the "Hannibal Directive" it is termed in the article).
I've studied enough about history and warfare, as well as the Muslim religion, that I have no doubts that Hamas committed grave atrocities including brutally and cruelly raping, torturing and killing Israeli civilians. That is how war has traditionally been carried out. Rules and laws against such acts is a modern invention of the Christian nations (even when ignored, such as some of the mob attacks on early Mormon settlers in Missouri or certain massacres during the Civil War) and wholly alien to Muslims and the Middle-East. Historically, such wanton killings have been limited only when the aggressors desired slaves or women capable of bearing them children--and even in those cases, those too old, too young, or too sickly would still be slaughtered--or to preserve a population to extract tribute. Often the men would be slaughtered as a matter of course. Just read up on the wars between Native American tribes or between such tribes and settlers, the wars waged by the Mongol Hordes, or accounts from World War II on how the Soviets and Germans treated each other's populaces. Or wars in almost any other time and place.
The reality is that as Western civilization retreats, future wars will become more barbaric and savage with the primary factor mitigating against such acts being the necessity of military discipline. And should civilization collapse in the West and we see periods without the rule of law, we will see similar massacres and atrocities carried out even within our own borders.
Remember that the purpose of war is to destroy the enemy's will to fight or resist, and massacring and abusing civilian populations is one of the time honored methods of achieving that end. Keep that in mind whenever you hear someone argue that civilians shouldn't be allowed to possess this or that type of weapon or claim that violence is never the answer. Such people are the tools of evil.
Again, I believe (and trust) neither side.
ReplyDeleteAwaken with JP has a video on the topic that I will probably post a link to later today.
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