Palestinians Have a Right to Defend Themselves!

[markpkessinger]

233. I don't think Fred is saying that, nor is anyone else

Of course Israel has a right to intercept those rockets. Any country that had such technology available to it would have a right to use it under similar circumstances. BUT, the fact that Israel is able to intercept most of those rockets means that Israel has already neutralized most of the actual threat those rockets pose to Israel.

The right of a nation to defend itself is not without constraints as to proportionality of its response relative to the actual threat it is facing. And to paraphrase Henry Siegman, former president of the American Jewish Congress, in statements he made in an interview on Democracy Now! last week, while it is true that no country would tolerate rockets being fired onto its territory, it is also true that no people would tolerate being forced to live under the conditions in which the Palestinians have been forced to live.