Casualties focus and human shields

The hyper-focus on Palestinian casualties displayed by the U.S. administration and the mainstream media is absurd, appeases the Hamas use of civilians as human shields, and is anti-Semitic.

Generally, before showing the pictures of dead Palestinians or criticizing Israel for the civilian deaths, a media commentator or administration official will admit that “Israel has the right to defend themselves,” “Hamas started the conflict by sending rockets and building tunnels into Israel,” “Hamas uses its citizens as human shields,” and Israel “Goes out of its way to avoid civilian casualties.” Usually those words are followed with a “but” statement such as, “Israel’s response is disproportionate,” “it’s slaughter” — as Juan Williams called it on The Five— or appears “to be indiscriminate, is asinine,” which were Joe Scarborough’s words on Thursday’s Morning Joe.

Yet if Israel has the right to defend itself, Hamas is using Gaza civilians as human shields and Israel goes out of its way to avoid civilian casualties and they still occur, the logical conclusion is that Israel shouldn’t be bashed for the civilian deaths — Hamas should.

If your neighbor across the street sits on the balcony, puts his little boy on his lap, and starts shooting machine-gun fire into your nursery, whose fault is it when you shoot into the balcony to protect your children?

The disproportionate argument is just as asinine; it says that self-defense is only allowed if the defender and aggressor are equal in strength. It suggests that if the defender is stronger than the aggressor, they are to stop using their weapons and allow the aggressor to kill more citizens.

Those who say that Israel should concentrate on negotiations fail to explain how Israel can negotiate with an entity that believes it and all its Jewish citizens should be destroyed. What would a compromise look like? Kill every other Jew?

Finally, inadvertent or not, the hyper-focus on civilian casualties is an indication of anti-Semitism.

Two weeks ago Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said to UN critics of Israel:

“If in the past year you didn’t cry out when thousands of protesters were killed and injured by Turkey, Egypt and Libya, when more victims than ever were hanged by Iran, women and children in Afghanistan were bombed, whole communities were massacred in South Sudan, 1,800 Palestinians were starved and murdered by Assad in Syria, hundreds in Pakistan were killed by jihadist terror attacks, 10,000 Iraqis were killed by terrorists, villagers were slaughtered in Nigeria, but you only cry out for Gaza, then you are not pro-human rights, you are only anti-Israel.”

As part of my regular reporting, from 5 am to 8 pm six days a week, I’m watching cable news and statements from the administration. One thing I have observed since this war started on July 8 is that in one hour, more attention is given to the Gaza civilian casualties by Israel’s critics in the administration and the mainstream media than those same critics give in an entire year to the civilian casualties in the battle zones mentioned by Hillel Neuer — and those casualty numbers are much larger than the Palestinian casualties in Operation Protective Edge.

So why do they select Israel for censure?

Well, Israel is different from the nations mentioned above in two distinct ways. First, it is the only true democracy in the area and second, it’s the homeland for the Jewish people.

So I ask again, why do they select Israel for its censure?

I doubt that Israel’s critics in the mainstream media and the Obama administration hate democracy, thus there is only one other option.

Columnist@TheJewishStar.com