Support Allies, Not Terrorists
For the moment and against the odds, Kobani stands. Kurdish men and women, abandoned by the United States and watched but not aided by Turkey, hold the line against the sweep of ISIS across Iraq and Syria; one little point of heroism that may be gone by the time you read this. ISIS, on the other hand -- well-financed, armed, vicious, and fighting on toward Baghdad -- will assuredly not be gone.UN and British hypocrisy
So the Cairo meeting of Secretary of State John Kerry with UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon and representatives of the EU, Qatar and Britain this weekend was probably a good thing, right? Just last week, a UN envoy was worried that massacres at Kobani would rival Srebrenica in the Bosnian war. Coordinated with President Obama and NSC, State and DOD meetings in Washington, an international meeting might decide a) how to take immediate steps to protect the tens of thousands of people left in the unfortunate city, b) how to pressure the Turks to provide serious support, and c) how the U.S. "air only" war plan needs to be revised in the absence of "allied" troops on the ground.
Since no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, and this one survived less well than others, there is no shame in moving to Plan B. Except they were not discussing Kobani.
They were trying to raise $4 billion for the Gaza Strip, to remove the evidence of Hamas's rocket war against Israel and its own people. Israel was not represented.
The Cairo meeting, the brainchild of Egyptian President Sisi, appealed to Kerry, who appears still to think Palestinians hold the key to glory if not peace. Qatar pledged $1 billion, the U.S. $213 million, the UK $32 million and the EU 450 million Euros. In the court of international organizational politics, Kobani loses and the Palestinians, including the terrorist group Hamas, win.
When he became U.N. secretary-general in 2007, Ban Ki-moon made clear he intended to restore the trust in the institution that had been lost. Ban has not fulfilled his goal. Hypocrisy and trust have never gone hand in hand. The only narrative that unites most nations represented at the U.N. is hatred of Israel.'Palestinians want to destroy the Jewish state'
The world is in turmoil, thousands of people are dying daily in bloody wars and the U.S. president admits the world is out of control, but Ban's main preoccupation is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nothing is easier or more popular to do than to blame Israel for all of the world's woes.
Ban undoubtedly saw difficult scenes in Gaza when he visited there on Tuesday. War is not a pleasant thing. If not for the Iron Dome, Ban would have seen similar scenes in Israel. With its massive rocket fire, Hamas sought to wreak death and destruction inside Israel. One would expect a decent and honest person to say, loud and clear, who caused the destruction in Gaza. It is not enough to merely say, in a weak voice, that Hamas is partly responsible, as Ban certainly knows that the international media will ignore his comments on Hamas and focus on the blame he placed on Israel.
No one wants to be in Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon's shoes. The man who sits at the top of Israel's defense pyramid, approves all operational plans and has intimate knowledge of all the threats on all the fronts also has to deal with demands for cuts in the defense budget and with painful encounters with families of soldiers who were killed or wounded in battle. Less than two months after the conclusion of Operation Protective Edge, Israel's latest confrontation in Gaza, Ya'alon takes time for his first in-depth post-war media interview.
"I am morally at peace with the decisions we have made," the defense minister says as he explains the moral dilemmas he faced during the fighting. The objective was to target terrorists, but in reality many civilians -- Palestinians who are not fighters -- were hurt. "When I examine whether force needs to be used, I put myself to three tests: the first test is whether I would be able to look at myself in the mirror after the bombing or the operation that I would have approved. Then, I examine the situation from a legal perspective, in terms of our law as well as international law. If everyone were to participate in the discussions surrounding the approval of an operation, they would see for themselves that we deal with very complex dilemmas, like when to shoot, like the principle of 'thou shalt not kill,' or the sanctity of life, versus the notion that 'if someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.' And yes, I am at peace with the decisions we made during the course of Operation Protective Edge.
"We examine the proportionality and the morality and the sanctity of life on all sides, but the enemy does not adhere to international law or honor the morality of the value of human life, even toward their own fighters and civilians, who are sent to the front lines. The dilemmas are very difficult. Then the U.N. comes along and wants to investigate us. There is obvious hypocrisy here; they should investigate Hamas, but it is easier to criticize and attack us. There is a combination of hypocrisy, anti-Semitism and maybe other things."