ISRAEL HAYOM
by Richard Baehr
July 16, 2014

The death cult known as Hamas is celebrating its first great success of the current ‎campaign to murder Jews indiscriminately across the length and width of Israel. ‎Today it struck gold as Israel suffered its first death from rocket or mortar fire ‎from Gaza. This required The New York Times, America’s paper of record for those ‎who would vote for President Barack Obama for a third term if they only could, to point out that this ‎one Israeli casualty has to be placed in context with the approximately 200 dead ‎Palestinians in Gaza from Israeli bombing attacks. This disproportionality ‎of Israeli versus Arab deaths has been a constant concern for Israel’s enemies on ‎the Left in every engagement the nation has had with terror groups starting with ‎the war with Hezbollah in 2006.

For pretty much every other nation in the history of the world, the goal in any war ‎has been to win quickly and decisively, with the lowest casualty cost to your own ‎side, and if morality is a part of your culture (which of course eliminates many war ‎participants, including all of those who have fought Israel in its modern history), ‎with no needless suffering caused to the other side’s civilian population. William ‎Saletan, hardly a down-the-line supporter of Israel (he is a fierce critic of home ‎demolitions of the families of terrorists) has applauded Israel for its enormous ‎efforts to accomplish its military goals in the current air campaign, while avoiding ‎civilian casualties.

As in the previous mini-wars with Hezbollah and in Gaza, the ratio of male to ‎female deaths among adult casualties has been 3 to 1 or 4 to 1. If Israel were ‎indiscriminately targeting civilians, or committing grave human rights violations, ‎the ratio would be much closer to 1 to 1. But for the major newspapers and ‎television stations in America, it is as if Israel had done something wrong for ‎having experienced so few deaths of its own (so far). The war would be “fairer” if ‎there were only more dead Jews. Since many on the Left and in the media have ‎trouble choosing between Hamas and Israel on the merits (or even prefer Hamas), ‎the pox on both your parties belief system leads to a longing for comparable death ‎tolls.‎

Israel’s critics won’t be moved by Saletan’s argument or any statistical analysis that ‎suggests Israel is behaving honorably. They want Israel to disappear, and they are ‎not at all uncomfortable with dead Jews. For years, the major nations of Europe ‎have argued that they are critics of Israel, but won’t tolerate anti-Semitism. It would ‎be hard to tell the difference these days, with police chiefs in Frankfurt turning ‎their bullhorns over to a violent mob attempting to attack Jewish institutions in the ‎city, and France descending into a full fledged state of nature if you happen to be ‎Jewish — with congregants locked into synagogues in Paris for their safety as masses ‎of Arabs call for a new Holocaust and attempt to storm the doors, while others ‎firebomb synagogues in communities outside Paris……

……When asked which side they support in the current conflict, just ‎‎39 percent of self-identified American liberals support Israel….. Seventy-seven percent of self-identified conservatives back Israel, ‎with 4 percent backing the Palestinians (Entity A). The gap between ‎Left and Right, and between Republicans and Democrats in terms of ‎support for Israel has never been wider in American history…..

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