Yet another example of the double standard directed against the Middle East's only democracy--Israel.
Every time Israel kills a terrorist who has murdered Israeli civilians the international community and America's hard left goes crazy, condemning, boycotting, and divesting from the Jewish state. But it totally ignores the indistinguishable actions of other nations. Yesterday, Russia targeted and killed Shamil Basayev, a Chechnyan terrorist who was also "Vice-President" of Chechnya's separatist movement. The international community applauded the killing of this terrorist, who Russia's President Putin said "deserved retribution". The international community also applauded the targeted killing by American and Allied forces of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi earlier last month.
I join the applause for the targeted killings of these two mass-murdering terrorist leaders. But I also applaud the targeted killing of anti-Israel terrorists who are engaged in ongoing attacks against Israeli women and children. I regret when innocent people are killed in the process of targeting terrorists, but the fault for that lies entirely with the terrorists who hide behind innocent women and children in order to induce Israel to kill civilians. Yes, Palestinian terrorists want Israel to kill Palestinian women and children. That is part of their strategy. "As one diplomat told the New York Times, "Palestinians have mastered the harsh arithmetic of pain...Palestinian casualties play in their favor and Israel casualties play in their favor. Non-violence doesn't pay." (See my June 25, 2006 Jerusalem Post article "Palestinian terrorists want Israel to kill Palestinian civilians".)
On the same day as the news of Basayev's untimely death--untimely because it would have been far better if had happened much earlier--was reported, there was another news report which reflected the double standard.
Japan announced that it was considering a preemptive strike on North Korea's missile bases. This is what appeared in today's The Japan Times article "First Strike Permitted if Attack Imminent: Abe Hitting Missile Bases Seen as Self-Defense". Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary and the frontrunner for Japan's next Prime Minister, said overseas strikes would fall within the legal parameters of self-defense 'if there is no other way to prevent a missile attack on Japan.'"
Whenever Israel has considered a preemptive strike against the Iranian nuclear capacity, the international community again goes bonkers, claiming that such a strike would violate international law, the UN charter, and basic decency. There is of course a difference between the threat posed by North Korea against Japan and the threat posed by Iran against Israel.
North Korea has never threatened to use its nuclear weapons against Japan whereas the leaders of Iran have repeated and specifically said that if they develop the capacity to destroy Israel they would do so. Listen to the words of Iran's former leader, who was thought to be more liberal than its current leader.
"Hashemi Rafsanjani threatened Israel with nuclear destruction, boasted that an Iranian attack would kill as many as fifteen million people--a small "sacrifice" for the billion Muslims in the world."
[Preemption, p. 175]
This contrasts sharply with former Israeli Prime Minister Begin, who in discussing Iraq's nuclear ambitions in 1981, stated that "No Israeli government could contemplate bombing [when] such an attack would have brought about massive radioactive fallout over... Baghdad [in which] tens of thousands of innocent residents would have been hurt." Page 96, Preemption
Again I know that any post relating to Israel will provoke some of the worst anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bigots to crawl out from under their rocks. It will also provoke other bigots to accuse me of supporting torture--something I adamantly oppose and am seeking to prevent as seen here. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5512634
But I will not remain silent in the face of this anticipated bigotry.