Showing restraint in the face of terror.

last updated 8 January 2015

Israel

Ira Sharkansky

The world protests each time Israel responds to an attack by targeting those who dispatched the terrorists, said Ira Sharkansky in The Jerusalem Post. In truth, our leaders are showing tremendous restraint. Time and again, Israel employs “just a fraction of its military power” after terrorists strike. We could easily copy the tactics used by Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan and, from 10,000 feet, bomb to smithereens the houses of Hamas leaders and others involved in the violence, accepting the subsequent “collateral damage” (i.e. dead civilians) as an inevitable cost. Instead, our military “has risked its own personnel by actions meant to seize or kill” those responsible for the murderous attacks. Why don’t we respond with more might? “Scorn if you wish, whatever anti-Semitic bastards are reading this,” but the answer is simple: “Jewish morality.” From the generals to the lowliest soldiers, our military has been infused with the conviction that it is simply wrong to kill innocents. What a tragedy our enemies don’t feel the same way.