morality

Submitted by David Bloom (United States), Jul 11, 2014 at 22:38

I have to disagree with one of the central tenets of this analysis. If morality were what Hamas was seeking to achieve, they wouldn't be brazenly declaring their intent to murder Israeli civilians. Surely they benefit from the hypocrisy, ignorance, and willful blindness of many if not most of the Western powers, and I think Pipes is absolutely correct in suggesting that this has become a serious threat. But I do not see Hamas making any pretense about morality, or engaging in any moral dialogues. Rather they are learning, as several other of Israel's enemies have learned, to take advantage of the European world's intolerance for discord, and especially of its intolerance for the Jews.

On further thought I also disagree with the premise that this is a particularly new development in Israeli Arab conflict. True, Arab enemy forces engaged in more serious land battles in the past. Perhaps they once entertained a more realistic prospect of victory. One certainly hopes that they do not have any realistic prospect anymore. But they always cried "foul" in defeat. They always took advantage of the world's propensity to restrain the "loathesome" Jews-- they always capitalized upon the Jews' inherently precarious strategic standing as a small, separate people. Even in 1948, and certainly in 1973, the push for ceasefires was impelled by Israel's battlefield victories. The 1949 armistice lines are where they are in part because of this very phenomenon.

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