What Other Country?
That's interesting, to say the least. The very least. Israel's bad luck just goes on and on. It hardly matters what the State does to try to protect its citizens, it is seen as an aggressor. What other country, what other state would stand by and do nothing while its borders were breached by munitions meant to spread terror among its citizenry? None, of course.Certainly none of those countries surrounding that tiny sliver in the Middle Eastern geography. Certainly none of those countries in Europe and Africa and beyond who would, all of them, assert their military might to bring the malefactors to flight. Right? Israel is held to different, quite impossible standards. Which means what? Stand and take it? Well, Israeli citizens feel otherwise: they demand their government protect them.
In response to which, Israel calls up its defence forces and delegates them the task of protecting their borders, the citizens living within those borders. They fight an elusive enemy, one which is comprised of a hard core of embittered militants, encouraged by the masses of Palestinians discouraged by the inadequacies of their own leaders to find workable solutions toward peace with the State of Israel.
That same elusive enemy that melts into a crowd of civilians, that sees nothing amiss in sheltering themselves and their armaments within civilian enclaves, that sees great utility in firing off missiles from among the very midst of those populations knowing full well that when a responding assault is sent off it will register exactly the same position where the original missile emanated from.
The result is an untimely death for members of the civilian population while the aggressors melt away, unharmed, but later more than capable of screaming foul! to the international community all too eager to condemn not the attackers but the defenders. Nor are those civilians who have been the deliberate victims of those who claim to represent them able to use reason to conclude they have been duped.
Now, what have we? Families of those Palestinian civilians accidently killed in Beit Hanoun plan to sue the State of Israel. They plan to sue for monetary compensation for the deaths, rather than hold the true killers of their relatives to any responsibility. Name me one other country in the region where plaintiffs in such a situation could retain the services of an (in this case, Jewish) attorney for the purpose of a civil lawsuit for unlawful death against the State.
What will this initiative solve? Will it bring back the dead? Will it help fill a depthless chasm in the hearts of the surviving family members? Will it in any way bring light to the matter of tribal hatred? Will it point a finger of responsibility to Palestinian civilians who, by their very complicity in the activity of the militants in targeting Jewish civilians are guilty in part?
Will it be instrumental in any positive way in bringing an end to the current crisis?
Ah, but it will illustrate the trust that even Israel's avowed enemies hold in her democratic system, her sense of justice, her independent judiciary.
Palestinian Authority groups and international human rights organizations are encouraging the families involved to bring their case to the International Court of Justice in the Hague. Will the Court of Justice in the Hague look at the whole picture and make a just determination outlining in their esteemed opinion that there is wrong and responsibility in both sides?
Doubt it.
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, November 19, 2006
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