Israel's double standards
Benjamin Leffell
Issue date: 4/23/09 Section: Op/Ed
The European Union and the United Nations have routinely condemned Israel for her response to Hamas rocket fire over the last several years. The criticism reached a fever pitch after Israel's Gaza incursion in December and January 2008. According to the BBC, of the 8,600 rockets launched by Hamas against Israel since 2001, nearly 6,000 (70%) have been launched since Israel withdrew from Gaza in August 2005. Following Hamas terrorist attacks, Israel is usually advised by the European Union and the United Nations to restrain herself, but if they must, they have the right to retaliate proportionately. They never quite identify what a proportional response would be. Would a proportional Israeli response be to launch 6,000 rockets into the Gaza strip? Hardly.
Thomas Aquinas' Just War discussed the issue of proportionality and explained that the anticipated benefits of waging a war must be proportionate to the expected evils or harms of the enemy's actions. Suicide bombers and rockets aimed at school children and hospitals should rank high on the list of anticipated evil. Unfortunately, one must conclude that it seems the United Nations and the European Union prefer to determine proportionality by counting dead bodies, rather than by assessing the goals that terrorist attacks are designed to accomplish and the means they employ to that end.
The criticism directed toward Israel can only be described as a double standard. The term "double standard" describes an ethically indefensible condition, when a certain behavior is judged acceptable for one group, but as a failing for another. Such double standards are unjust and hypocritical because they violate modern legal jurisprudence where all parties should stand equal before the law, regardless of social class, religious beliefs, wealth, rank, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or other distinctions.
The repeated condemnations directed against the Israeli government for defending its citizens, coupled with the refusal to confront Hamas terrorist attacks, amounts to a tacit approval of terrorism by the EU and the UN. Such a response is shocking, especially in Europe's case. The British and Spanish governments both harshly condemned terrorism after attacks by Islamic fundamentalists within their own borders in July 2005, and March 2004 respectively. This begs the question, why is the double standard applied to Israel? Has the EU developed a pro-radical Islamic agenda? Unlikely. Are seeds of historical anti-Semitism in Europe still pertinent today? Unfortunately, this seems to be the most likely explanation.
Thomas Aquinas' Just War discussed the issue of proportionality and explained that the anticipated benefits of waging a war must be proportionate to the expected evils or harms of the enemy's actions. Suicide bombers and rockets aimed at school children and hospitals should rank high on the list of anticipated evil. Unfortunately, one must conclude that it seems the United Nations and the European Union prefer to determine proportionality by counting dead bodies, rather than by assessing the goals that terrorist attacks are designed to accomplish and the means they employ to that end.
The criticism directed toward Israel can only be described as a double standard. The term "double standard" describes an ethically indefensible condition, when a certain behavior is judged acceptable for one group, but as a failing for another. Such double standards are unjust and hypocritical because they violate modern legal jurisprudence where all parties should stand equal before the law, regardless of social class, religious beliefs, wealth, rank, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or other distinctions.
The repeated condemnations directed against the Israeli government for defending its citizens, coupled with the refusal to confront Hamas terrorist attacks, amounts to a tacit approval of terrorism by the EU and the UN. Such a response is shocking, especially in Europe's case. The British and Spanish governments both harshly condemned terrorism after attacks by Islamic fundamentalists within their own borders in July 2005, and March 2004 respectively. This begs the question, why is the double standard applied to Israel? Has the EU developed a pro-radical Islamic agenda? Unlikely. Are seeds of historical anti-Semitism in Europe still pertinent today? Unfortunately, this seems to be the most likely explanation.