Not quite right…

Shorter Freddie: I have never supported a military action in my lifetime or any other military action in the history of mankind because innocent civilians were unintentionally killed in those operations.

I’m not trying to be glib; the death of innocents is a serious subject. But there is something fundamentally unserious about this paragraph:

I know this with a certainty that I feel in my heart and my bones: if you support this assault, and justify its collateral damage, but will not come out and state the actual logical conclusion of what you are saying– that you justify the killing of innocent Palestinian children– then you are an intellectual coward, in the most damning and complete sense. If you justify the attack and its collateral damage you justify the consequences. So all of you, have the courage to stand for what you mean. Have the basic integrity to stand behind what you are saying. Look me in my face, so to speak, and tell me about the justice of another dead Palestinian child.

Previously in the post, Freddie argues that the deaths of an Israeli child and a Palestinian are equal tragedies and should be condemned equally. I suppose that’s true in the cosmic, “Hey man, we’re all people and God loves us all the same” sort of way. But the differences are greater than the similarities. It’s like someone arguing that first degree murder and involuntary manslaughter are equal crimes because both end with a snuffed out life.

I think you’ll have a hard time finding many supporters of Israel who thinks that killing innocent Palestinians is a good thing. There’s no “justice” in an innocent dying for reasons they can’t possibly comprehend. If, however, you can’t understand the fundamental difference between Hamas intentionally killing an Israeli child and Israelis accidentally killing a Palestinian child because the cowards that comprise Hamas’s security force intentionally hide themselves and their weapons amongst their own people in order to stir up international outrage when Israel inevitably responds to unwarranted acts of aggression, either your moral compass is broken or you’re being obtuse.

Israel deserves security and freedom from peril. Israel deserves to have its borders respected. Israel deserves the right to exist. And if, in the pursuit of those goals, a Palestinian child is accidentally killed, then so be it. It’s a tragedy, but one that child’s own people brought into existence by electing a terrorist organization and sitting idly by while said organization rained death upon the Israeli people.