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Richard Shavei-Tzion
Carpe Diem

Disproportionate and Indiscriminate. What?

(Disturbing images below)

I would surely agree with all those Westerners wailing at the obvious imbalance between the Hamas attacks and Israel’s response, if they had not flipped the coin.

  • To date, Hamas has fired 3,000 rockets compared to Israel’s 1,200
  • Hamas has targeted almost only civilians while Israel has targeted only military installations.
  • Israel has prevented huge Israeli civilian casualties by massive investment in shelters, Iron Dome and the like as Hamas has invested billions in underground attack tunnels while totally neglecting their citizens. Israel has prevented major civilian casualties in Gaza by spending heavily in precision weapons and due evacuation warning to Gazans.

If we were to take a leaf out of your doctrines, you  oh-so civilized, liberal, Philo-Semitic, Western nations desperately concerned with civilian life, the population of Gaza would have been decimated a long while ago.

A little introspection would be in order. But it seems that, overwhelmed by your empathy, you are experiencing an attack of amnesia. So allow me to remind you of a few choice examples of your disproportion and in-discrimination, fine-tuned to an art.

  • Remember Dresden? In just 3 days 1,250 British and U.S. heavy bombers  drop more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the defenseless city, destroying more than 6.5 square kilometres of the city center and killing 25,000 civilians.
    Embed from Getty Images
  • How about that little Japanese thing? The United States detonates two nuclear weapons over defenseless Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing between 129,000 and 226,000 people, the overwhelming majority of whom were civilians.
    Embed from Getty Images
  • Ah, you Germans and enthusiastic henchmen from most of Europe’s countries- that little Holocaust thing where you bravely decimate a trifling 6 million Jews and millions of others, defending themselves with their breath and bodies against your measly guns, bombs, gas chambers and the like.
    Embed from Getty Images
  • Let us not forget you Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian and other benign imperialists who conveniently forget that against spears one surely should not use guns. Between that and the diseases you schlep across the ocean, the results are slightly excessive. When the Spanish first arrive in the Americas at the end of the 15th century, there are about 50 million people living in the New World. A few hundred years later, there are less than 2 million indigenous people.
  • As for you especially humane Belgians, using forced labor, murder and mutilation on indigenous Congolese who did not fulfill quotas for rubber collections is just not équitable. Millions of Congolese die during this time.
    Embed from Getty Images
  • Sorry Brits, but it is you again. Not sure if your text books mention those piffling massacres of Australian Aboriginal people  by settlers (dare I use that word?)
  • Srebrenica, Abkhazia, Armenia… on and on we go. As for the Arabs, Africans, Asians, American continents both, well I would bore you to death.
    Embed from Getty Images

Compared to you guys, what is happening in our neighborhood seems like a toe-to-toe fistfight in the local park.

Finally a suggestion to you kindly, civilized folk. It was us Israelis who unilaterally gifted Gaza to the Muslims making it Judenrein, in the knowledge that for every Jew who chose to stay, there would be one lynch. If you were to stop sending these gangs billions of dollars which they use almost exclusively for weapons of genocide against Jews, there would be no casualties in Gaza.

About the Author
Richard Shavei-Tzion is a widely published poet and is the author of "Poetry in the Parasha" and the Prayer for the Preservation of the Environment. His articles on social, environmental and Jewish topics are published around the Jewish world, principally in the Jerusalem Post and his photographic images have been displayed in solo and group exhibitions. For 26 years Richard was the director of the Ramatayim Men's Choir and now directs the Zimrat Efrat Choir. Retired from a career in property and medical management, he produces, "Gift of a Lifetime," videos which preserve the stories and ethos of people for their progeny.
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