I realize I’m not saying anything particularly new or profound here, but a Twitter comment about the Gaza War and Israel’s “disproportionate” response prompted me to write a list of questions. Needless to say, the correspondent on Twitter didn’t have a response — and perhaps you will find this list useful in a similar situation.
1. Identify the side that started the war by firing thousands of missiles at civilians (each missile being a separate war crime) and then refused a ceasefire until the death count had risen into the thousands.
2. Name the only military force in the world that drops leaflets to warn civilians to leave an area of likely military action, thus also enabling its adversaries to better prepare.
3. Name the only military force in the world that places telephone calls to warn civilians to leave an area of likely military action, enabling its adversaries to better prepare.
4. Name the only military force in the world that drops dud “knock knock” bombs to warn civilians to leave an area of likely military action, enabling its adversaries to better prepare.
5. Now, name the only military force in the world that publicly calls upon civilians to come serve as human shields.
6. Name the side in this conflict that deliberately embedded and disguised its forces within the civilian population to maximize “collateral damage” – the needless deaths of civilians.
7. Name the side that deliberately stored weapons in hospitals and mosques, fired from schoolyards, and began tunnels within private homes, in order that defense of civilians would require both civilian casualties and damage to mosques, hospitals, schools and homes.
8. Name one of the very few forces known to identify its fighters as “civilian children” after their deaths, stage casualty incidents, and “borrow” photos of casualties from other, unrelated conflicts.
9. Now, name the military force that maintained the lowest civilian to combatant casualty ratio of any recent world conflict. It’s not the US, UK or anyone in Iraq or Afghanistan.
10. Finally, identify the side of this conflict, despite all of the foregoing, to be repeatedly condemned by the UN… and explain how this is unrelated to thousands of years of global anti-Semitism.