{"id":2622,"date":"2002-07-24T17:10:31","date_gmt":"2002-07-24T17:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.armedliberal.com\/?p=167"},"modified":"2002-07-24T17:10:31","modified_gmt":"2002-07-24T17:10:31","slug":"moral-equivalence-watch-watches-me-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2622","title":{"rendered":"MORAL EQUIVALENCE WATCH WATCHES ME, TOO"},"content":{"rendered":"

I haven\u0092t blogged about yesterday\u0092s Israeli attack that killed Hamas military leader Salah Shehada (I\u0092ll assume everyone knows the basic facts, if not, click here<\/a>), partly because there\u0092s not much new to say, and partly because I\u0092ve been trying to figure out how I feel about it.
\nShort version: Israeli intel showed a major terrorist leader\u0092s location, and they sent an F-16 to take him out with what is variously described as a bomb or missile. Whatever it was, it got the bad guy and leveled his apartment building, killing 14 others, including women and children.
\nI\u0092ve turned my head when Israel has assassinated Palestinian terrorists; it\u0092s a dirty war as all wars are. And there is a part of me that genuinely roots for the Israelis to simply wipe out the bastards who are sending Palestinian youth to blow themselves and innocents up in Israel.
\nBut I\u0092ve always been uncomfortable with it.
\nI\u0092ve talked in the past with friends who argue for war by assassination\u0085make the political leaders backing the war as vulnerable as the scared kids they send to the front lines, they say. And there\u0092s something to that.
\nAnd in the Israeli\u0092s defense, their enemies don\u0092t exactly live on bases, surrounded by uniformed military, and drive vehicles with distinguishing markings, as contemplated by the Geneva Convention.
\nAnd now\u0085to blow up a building to get the one guy inside it…seems like a dangerous thing for the Israelis to do.
\nLet\u0092s be clear. It would take Israel two, maybe three hours to demolish every structure in the West Bank and Gaza. The limit would be how fast they could rearm and turn around the aircraft. They could do it with conventional munitions and would easily have enough left over to defeat the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan and mount a credible threat to the Iranians.
\nThey haven\u0092t. Why? Because they have to live with themselves, and because they are smart enough to realize that they ultimately have to live with their neighbors. The fact that they would mightily piss off the United States might factor into that as well.
\nSo how do I feel about this? Confused, unhappy. The Israelis have the high moral ground exactly<\/u> because everyone knows they could flatten Palestinian-administered territories and haven\u0092t.
\nThat moral capital is worth something, even in the face of all the anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli sentiment abroad in the world.
\nSo how do I feel?? Confused, concerned. Glad they got him, and sad they didn\u0092t get him in another way. Sad that they have to get him at all.
\nFor some other views, check out Protein Wisdom<\/a> in support and Jeff Cooper<\/a> not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven\u0092t blogged about yesterday\u0092s Israeli attack that killed Hamas military leader Salah Shehada (I\u0092ll assume everyone knows the basic facts, if not, click here), partly because there\u0092s not much new to say, and partly because I\u0092ve been trying to figure out how I feel about it. Short version: Israeli intel showed a major terrorist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}