The Palestinian militant group Hamas fires dozens of rockets daily into Israel, in a form of asymmetric warfare. In recent weeks these have begun to include longer-range Iranian-made rockets targeted deeper into Israel, hitting Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 people. These facts are reported dispassionately by the world press.
Israel, in response, has been trying to hit back at the Hamas militants, and in the process sometimes hits civilians as well, since of course the militants are quite deliberately firing from the midst of civilian settlements. These civilian deaths are reported in the world press in all their gory detail, with as much emotional overlay and moral indignation as possible.
Is this asymmetric reporting a form of subtle anti-Semitism? There really is no moral comparison between the two actions. Israel is trying to defend its people from these rocket attacks by hitting the militants when it can. Hamas, in contrast, is firing deliberately and indiscriminately at civilian population centers (when it isn’t sending suicide bombers into Israeli shopping centers and schools), hoping for the maximum carnage among civilians. Israel sometimes hits civilians by mistake. Hamas targets civilians deliberately.
Yet this distinction seems to be largely lost, not only in the world press but among some of the American liberal columnists, who apparently have bought into the Palestinian’s propaganda and somehow seem to equate the bloodthirsty, hate-driven Hamas militants with a form of glorified “freedom fighter”.
This one-sided press coverage has repeatedly led world leaders to condemn Israel’s retaliations, while saying nothing about the Hamas provocations. It has led them to ask that Israel restrict itself to “proportional” responses. Of course, a truly “proportional” Israeli response would be to fire dozens of rockets daily indiscriminately into the civilian population of Gaza. Is that what these world leaders really think they want?
I can’t help but wonder if these journalists and op-ed writers would feel the same if American border cities were being bombarded daily by rockets from Canada or Mexico. I doubt it. The last time militants killed American civilians in America we took down the entire government of Afghanistan, and then for good measure the government of Iraq as well.
There seems to be lots of moral outrage at Israeli attempts to halt these rocket attacks. Why is there not worldwide moral outrage at the Hamas militants who are firing them in the first place?
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