(Daily Telegraph-UK) Ephraim Mirvis - The difference between the tragic loss of civilian life in a just war and the crime of genocide lies in the purposeful annihilation of a people as an objective in and of itself. It is a crime in which no distinction is made between the combatant and the non-combatant. It is a crime characterized by the absence of any objective beyond the erasure of the victims. It should be obvious that if Israel's objectives were genocidal, it could have used its military strength to level Gaza in a matter of days. Instead, it is placing the lives of its own soldiers at risk in its ground operations, securing humanitarian corridors and providing civilians with advance notice of its operations, even to the detriment of its military objectives. To make the case that genocide is taking place, one would have to ignore the scores of military lawyers, engineers and humanitarian aid coordinators working within the Israel Defense Forces, who spend hours every day planning how they might strike targets in a way that minimizes collateral harm, facilitating the entry of aid into Gaza, collecting intelligence about civilian presence around targets and aborting attacks accordingly. These are not the actions of a state motivated by murderous intent. If there is indeed a genocidal force in this conflict, it must surely be Hamas, whose rape, sexual mutilation and cold-blooded murder of innocent civilians, which it proudly broadcast to the world, is clear evidence of its dehumanization of Jews. The writer is the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth.
2024-01-22 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive