Michael Ejercito wrote:
> HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly 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
>>>
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>>> 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!

While wonderfully hungry in the Holy Spirit, Who causes (Deuteronomy
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, are rapture ready (Luke
17:37 means no COVID just as eagles circling over their food have no
COVID) and pray (2 Chronicles 7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6)
Father in Heaven continues to give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy
Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) so that we'd have much more of His Help to
always say/write that we're "wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways
including especially caring to "convince it forward" (John 15:12) with
all glory (Psalm112:1) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.

Laus DEO !