micadelic asks:

The world is outraged over the killing of innocents by Israeli air strikes and condemnation is coming from all corners. Where is the condemnation of Hezbollah and it’s Syrian and Iranian backers? These people deliberately put civilians in harms way.

It is a good question (and part of a good series of questions if you read the whole comment). I have a couple of reactions.

First of all, if I kidnap a baby and hold it hostage when I rob a bank, the police are going to make damn sure nothing happens to that baby. If they blow up me and the baby, there will be outrage. It was me, in this example, who was acting outright criminally and immorally, but the police would take every necessary step to protect that baby.

That is one piece of logic here: Israel cannot knowingly bomb civilians and expect any sympathy from anybody. Yes, the human shield concept is criminal and immoral, but you don’t just bomb ’em anyway.

To your broader point, I think the tactics of Hamas and Hezbollah have been widely and consistently condemned. For example, when Hamas was elected in the Palestinian elections they were cutoff from a lot of aid from a lot of countries. They are considered outright terrorists by many countries, as far as I understand it, and many support the outright destruction of both Hamas and Hezbollah. So, like we fought the Taliban and not the Afghanis, we need to fight Hamas and Hezbollah and not Arabs or Muslims.

The problem is, of course, that the ranks of Hamas and Hezbollah swell when Israel brings its military to bear on the problem, whether justified or not. So if we do it all wrong, we could be fighting a war with all Arabs and then, yes, it is old school, kill ’em all and round up the rest and it is a horrible alternative. Yes, we can kill ’em all (maybe). It is a horrible alternative that all sane people should reject. I also reject the notion that most Arabs (or Muslims) are anti-American. The main aggravator is the unfinished business of Israel and Palestine. First we didn’t solve that and now we are all making it worse. We need cooler heads to prevail and get back on track with a two-state solution. This is a symptom of that unfinished business.