August 2, 2006
A recent article from Ynet News reads:
Yesha Rabbinical Council: During time of war, enemy has no innocents
The Yesha Rabbinical Council announced in response to an IDF attack in Kfar Qanna that "according to Jewish law, during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as 'innocents' of the enemy."
All of the discussions on Christian morality are weakening the spirit of the army and the nation and are costing us in the blood of our soldiers and civilians," the statement said. (Efrat Weiss)
(07.30.06, 17:37)
Well, that's news to me. I must have missed the switch from the hundreds of years of defining and refining human rights, civil rights, and international law to this regressive, Neanderthal interpretation of the Torah. Do we discard international law and human rights to soothe the world's oldest persecution complex?
Let's examine this doctrine more closely. To be fair, such a legal declaration must apply equally to everyone, Arabs and Muslims included. After all, to say only Jews are entitled to such privileges would be inherently racist; practically a working definition of Jewish Supremacist. The U.S. population overwhelmingly rejects white supremacists and Hitler's "master race" ideology; certainly the good Rabbis were speaking for the rights of all humans. Who would ever accuse a rabbi of being a hypocrite?
So, applying this Jewish Law fairly to all parties in battle and war, there are no "innocents" in Israel, and holding Arabs and Muslims to standards of "Christian morality" is weakening their right to defend themselves. Indeed, as there are no innocents in battle and war, should Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, Russia, or even China nuke Israel off the map, according to the Rabbis' own interpretation it would be completely justified under Jewish Law. But that's just the tip of the iceberg: there were no "innocents" killed by suicide bombers in Tel Aviv and Israel: these were all enemy agents that were killed in battle. In fact, according to this interpretation of Jewish Law, Hitler was completely justified in the systematic killing millions of his enemy, as it happened during war time.
Is killing civilians en masse in conventional war is any less heinous than sending them to the gas chambers? Was Never Again! a battle cry for human rights, or just the rights of some humans? As far as I can tell, Never Again! is a fucking joke.
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