HeartDoc Andrew wrote:
> Michael Ejercito wrote:
>
>> https://reason.com/2024/10/07/october-7-offered-a-stark-choice-between-good-and-evil/?comments=true#comments
>>
>>
>> October 7 Offered a Stark Choice Between Good and Evil
>> When civilians are the targets, terrorists’ grievances don’t matter;
>> it’s time to hunt the perpetrators.
>> J.D. Tuccille | 10.7.2024 7:00 AM
>>
>> Share on FacebookShare on XShare on RedditShare by emailPrint friendly
>> versionCopy page URL
>> A tank with Israeli soldiers on the country's border with Gaza. | Ilia
>> Yefimovich/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom
>> (Ilia Yefimovich/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom)
>> One year ago, on October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists swarmed across the
>> border from Gaza in a stunning and bloody attack on southern Israel.
>> Roughly 1,200 people were killed, the vast majority civilians. The
>> attack set off a still-escalating conflict that raises questions about
>> how far people can go to defend themselves and what constitutes
>> legitimate targets for military strikes. But it also posed a stark
>> choice between good and evil, innocents and terrorists—and some people
>> around the world are picking the wrong side.
>>
>> That murderous attacks on unsuspecting civilians and the kidnapping of
>> hundreds of them—some still in captivity—constitute unjustifiable acts
>> of terrorism is beyond question. Surprisingly, though, there's no
>> generally accepted definition of terrorism, because governments like to
>> keep the term vague so it doesn't encompass their own actions and
>> perhaps so it can be applied to domestic political opponents.
>>
>> The Rattler is a weekly newsletter from J.D. Tuccille. If you care about
>> government overreach and tangible threats to everyday liberty, this is
>> for you.
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>> Terrorism Means Targeting Civilians
>> Decades ago, in a class taught by a retired U.S diplomat who worked for
>> years in the Middle East, I was told the best way to distinguish
>> terrorism from military action is that terrorism deliberately targets
>> civilians rather than government officials or military personnel. That
>> squares with a 2004 report by the office of the U.N. Secretary General
>> that framed terrorism as "any action 'intended to cause death or serious
>> bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of
>> intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international
>> organization to do or abstain from doing any act.'"
>>
>> This doesn't mean that purely military action is necessarily
>> justified—whether it's right or wrong depends on the rationale. But when
>> civilians are the main target, there's no need to consider the cause;
>> that's terrorism, it's evil, and it's time to hunt down the perpetrators
>> and bring them to justice.
>>
>> October 7, When Mostly Civilians Suffered
>> On October 7, the attack began with a barrage of thousands of rockets
>> launched from Gaza into Israel. Then approximately 1,500 terrorists in
>> the employ of Hamas, an Iran proxy which runs Gaza, and its allies
>> breached the border wall or bypassed it by paraglider and motorboat.
>> About 1,200 people died at the hands of the terrorists by guns, bombs,
>> rape and sexual torture, blades, and fire, especially among residents of
>> nearby kibbutzes and attendees at the Supernova music festival.
>>
>> "Authorities have identified a total of 274 soldiers and 859
>> non-soldiers killed during the brutal assault," the Times of Israel
>> reported last December. Removing police and security guards from the
>> total still "leaves a figure of 764 civilians," the Times added.
>>
>> "The assault dwarfs all other mass murders of Israeli civilians," The
>> Economist noted. "The last time before October 7th that this many Jews
>> were murdered on a single day was during the Holocaust."
>>
>> Not immediately killed were hundreds of hostages seized by Hamas and its
>> partners. Some have since been released in exchange for concessions, and
>> some have been rescued. Others have been murdered in captivity. A few
>> have been held for a year and are hopefully still alive, including four
>> Americans.
>>
>> The correct reaction is to recognize that terrorists who target
>> civilians for murder, rape, and kidnapping deserve contempt. They should
>> be on the receiving end of efforts to make sure they're apprehended,
>> killed, or otherwise rendered incapable of again committing such acts.
>> Terrorism isn't an act that might be justified if you have a
>> sufficiently strong grievance; it's slaughter and brutalization of the
>> innocent to spread fear while bypassing those who might fight back. It
>> deserves an equally brutal response.
>>
>> The Limits of a Just Response
>> That doesn't mean anything goes in punishing terrorists. There's room
>> for debate about the tactics that can be used to target Hamas and the
>> degree to which civilians can be put at risk as Israeli forces search
>> for those responsible for October 7. It's a dilemma amplified by the
>> fact that Hamas, like many terrorist organizations, embeds itself among
>> civilians in schools, medical centers, and residential neighborhoods to
>> make punishing its members impossible without putting the innocent at
>> some degree of risk.
>>
>> "With Hamas locating themselves alongside important places like
>> hospitals, Hamas has actually made Israel fight them in places Israel
>> wouldn't want to target them, because of the potential loss of civilian
>> life," American University School of International Service Professor
>> Benjamin Jensen observed last November. "And in doing so, look at how
>> fast Israel lost momentum in its information war. Israel is taking a
>> huge amount of criticism for its killing of civilians as it goes after
>> Hamas."
>>
>> Risks can be mitigated. As the conflict expanded to include Hezbollah,
>> which has rendered much of Israel near the Lebanese border uninhabitable
>> with rocket attacks and violent incursions, Israel planted bombs in
>> pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah personnel to hit the guilty
>> and reduce danger to innocent people. Inevitably, though, a few
>> civilians were killed and wounded. Conventional attacks on Hezbollah's
>> leadership have been very effective, but also killed and wounded
>> civilians located near the targets.
>>
>> Is that too many civilian casualties? Nobody has an easy answer
>> regarding any conflict. A public health paper published in 2021
>> estimated that civilians made up 28 percent of all casualties during
>> America's involvement in Afghanistan, about half of casualties during
>> the Balkan War, about a quarter of casualties after Russia's first
>> invasion of Ukraine, and a whopping two-thirds of casualties during the
>> war in Iraq.
>>
>> Terrorists Rely on the Deaths of Innocents
>> Accepting the moral compromises of armed conflict is a hell of a
>> challenge. But aggressors count on that and are happy to see innocents
>> killed and wounded to insulate their people from consequences.
>>
>> Civilian casualties are "necessary sacrifices", Hamas military leader
>> Yahya Sinwar—who may have since died—told colleagues in correspondence
>> published by The Wall Street Journal. "In dozens of messages—reviewed by
>> The Wall Street Journal—that Sinwar has transmitted to cease-fire
>> negotiators, Hamas compatriots outside Gaza and others, he's shown a
>> cold disregard for human life," the report added.
>>
>> Such calculated evil leaves people in a bind. Some have chosen to
>> embrace terrorists as freedom fighters, as if supposed grievances matter
>> when the chosen weapons are murder, rape, and kidnapping. Protests
>> against the war resulting from October 7 feature symbols and slogans in
>> favor of Hamas and other terrorists. France's President Emmanuel Macron
>> wants an arms embargo against Israel. Antisemitism is globally on the
>> rise as those who favor terrorists expand their hate from Israel to all
>> Jews.
>>
>> Let them speak. Those who embrace evil reveal themselves to us and let
>> us know where the next threat might arise. If they go beyond speech to
>> action, we'll already have them on our radar. Those who have already
>> engaged in terrorism should be hunted and punished to prevent a
>> recurrence of such crimes.
>
> It is written that Israel's (aka Jacob's) Messiah says that only the
> LORD Almighty (Isaiah 9:6) is good (Matthew 19:17):
>
> "'Why do you ask Me about what is good?' (LORD) Jesus replied. 'There
> is only One Who is good. If you want to enter life, keep (all) the
> commandments (by doing what I want as one of My disciples explains at
> http://WDJW.net ).'" (Matthew 19:17 w/ parenthetical clarification)
>
> Source:
> https://biblehub.com/matthew/19-17.htm
>
> Therefore, there is only one godly way to defeat terrorism and bigotry
> and that is by lifting up LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth as our #1
> Example of living http://WonderfullyHungry.org ( https://bit.ly/Lk2442
> ).
>
> Indeed, I am http://WonderfullyHungry.org (
> https://bit.ly/Philippians4_12 ) for food right now (Luke 6:21a) and
> hope you, Michael, and others reading this, also have a healthy
> appetite for food right now too.
>
> So how are you ?
>
I am wonderfully hungry!

Michael