Palestinians Have a Right to Defend Themselves!

[Igel]

91. Sure, when attacked or under threat of attack.

In a way, even if you throw the first punch it's not unreasonable to say you're allowed to defend yourself against the punches that are thrown in return.

There's no guarantee of victory. And moral responsibility tends to reside with the person who throws the first punch.

What people shouldn't do is back up to find the first suitable punch to call the "first" or shift the basis for self-defense from "attack" to "inconvenience". Both are oft-played games. "Well, yes, Hamas fired a number of missiles over the course of the previous couple of months, but we're going to only go back to this date, when Israel fired these missiles." Or "Israel has no right to be threatened by tunnels, instead Hamas is defending itself from the economic attack of having limited imports."

It's also not reasonable to shift between motivation and intent and consequence as necessary to justify or condemn an attack. "Israel hit a school near a target" looks at consequence and often tries to infer intent from consequence; "Hamas missiles mostly hit open land and don't cause damage" plays the same game, when Hamas would have no purpose in aiming at desert. But the "motivation" is "self-defense", so maybe it doesn't matter?

In war, accidents happen. Equipment malfunctions. Intelligence goes astray. Attention falters. "Mistakes are made." Passives are to be avoided and mediopassives mislead.

You seldom hear--that's not true, it's just in some forums you seldom hear--that the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves. They certainly do. But often it's said in an attempt to justify violence by pointing out when they're attacked.

Israel tends to make its attacks short and intense. Perhaps a few weeks of very intense fighting. Perhaps a few seconds, as 3-4 missiles find their target with little warning. Typically there are fewed "failed attacks". "Israeli jets attempted to fire on a Hamas target today, but failed." "Israel attempted to attack Gaza with tanks and infantry today, but the attack went astray and landed in the Mediterranean sea without injury." Not just something you're likely to hear.

The Palestinians tend to make lots of efforts, often against civilians. Often intentionally against civilians. Their attempts often fail and are to be ignored and forgotten. It's like an attempt against Obama that fails--"A RW militia planted a bomb near where Obama was to speak, but it was defused. No hurt, no foul, and although we know who planted the bomb we're going say only good things about the militia." When they do succeed, it's usually an individual who's responsible, even if the killer's face is plastered on official pronouncements of praise, streets are named after him, and he's a national hero.

In many cases it's hard to tell who threw the first punch. We usually assume the first person we notice did. That's often wrong. We usually make excuses for those we agree with and find reasons to fault those we don't like.