A response to Rockland County Legislator Wolfe's call to support Israel

New City, NY (January 12, 2009) – Legislator Alden H. Wolfe has introduced a resolution recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Hamas, a Palestinian Sunni Islamic organization and political party that has claimed control of the Gaza Strip and is notorious for its attacks on Israel. Hamas has been designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and has refused to acknowledge Israel's right to exist.

Since 2001, Hamas has launched thousands of rockets and mortars into Israeli population centers and has attacked Israeli forces. Legislator Wolfe says the blame for breaking agreements and for subsequent civilian casualties in Gaza belongs to Hamas. “During its entire existence, Israel has been forced to defend its right to exist as a sovereign nation. Israel wishes solely to co-exist in peace with its neighbors,” said Legislator Wolfe. “As a terrorist organization that has launched countless suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, Hamas can not now claim the moral high road. A resolution of this conflict begins and ends with Hamas.”

Wolfe also calls upon his colleagues to condemn Hamas for infiltrating private homes, schools, mosques and hospitals with its paramilitary fighters and leaders, and using Palestinian civilians as human shields. “The simple truth is that Hamas bears responsibility for much of the civilian casualties during this conflict. Its conduct in placing its own citizens in harm's way violates not only the laws of warfare, but the moral code of civilized society.”

Wolfe's resolution also expresses its support for a long-term solution that would bring peace to the region. “Hamas' own charter expressly rejects peaceful solutions as contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic resistance movement,” said Wolfe, adding, “I trust that my colleagues will join me and others around the world in rejecting Hamas' brand of violence in favor of a peaceful end to conflict in the Middle East.”

The situation is not as cut and dry as Rockland County legislator Alden Wolfe makes it out to be. And I don't think it's justified for Wolfe to paint other Rockland County legislators into a corner and force an up-or-down vote on this complicated and ongoing dilemma. And I'm not even sure if it is proper or relevant that a legislative body, which has no power to influence the waging or the outcome of this war, even take sides on the issue. It's just not a germane venue.

Wolfe must concede that his fellow legislators who don't support his resolution are not doing it because they don't support Israel and its right to defend its people, they're questioning the appropriateness of Israel's response and/or perhaps the appropriateness of even jumping into the fray.

Yes, every nation has the right to defend its interests and Israel is no exception, and it's got even more reason to be conspicuous in protecting itself, since Hamas and many other Middle Eastern radical groups have vowed to see Zionism defeated and every Jew in Israel slaughtered. However, imprudent use of military firepower can turn a reasonable defense strategy into state-sponsored terrorism. It's just what the United States did in Southeast Asia in the 60s and 70s, with carpet bombing and napalm, and again in the second Iraq War, with our grossly disproportionate "shock and awe" strategy that needlessly destroyed much of Iraq's civilian infrastructure and humanitarian atrocities such as Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and waterboarding.

By killing residents of Gaza in what appears to be an indiscriminate fashion, Israel blurs the line between themselves and the terrorists and they fall into a trap set by Hamas. Israel, in the eyes of the greater Muslim populace, has spilled the blood that begins yet another cycle of retribution.

The magnitude of their response is absolutely not appropriate. Schools have been destroyed by Israeli forces and innocent children have died. Today's death toll stands at 940 Palestinians killed and 280 of them are children. A further 4,350 people have been wounded. How is it that 30 percent of the dead in this war are children?

On the Israeli side, just 10 soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or by rocket attacks since December 27 when Israel began its offensive. That's why many, like myself, question whether the magnitude of Israel's response is proportionate. I personally cannot find it in my heart to justify the deaths of 280 innocent children. I cannot condone 280 lives being snuffed out before they even had a chance to blossom. And my heart bleeds for those parents who carry the corpses of their dead children in their arms, wandering in the streets and wailing in agony at their loss.

Israel is carpet bombing Gaza and using phosphorus gas and other non-surgical military techniques and destroying whole neighborhoods of people at a time. These people that are dying are not necessarily "human shields," but rather people that are being killed in their homes (or running from their homes, in many cases). Whole families are being killed, and entire student bodies of schools are being killed at once. These people are simply in the line of fire just because Hamas is integrated into their communities.

I am a former U.S. Army officer and served as an artillery Fire Direction Officer and Executive Officer in the National Guard. I know that with proper forward observation, intelligence and with modern targeting technology, that Israeli forces can surgically target rocket launch sites and minimize collateral damage. And I know, as a fact, that the type and extent of the firepower that is being used is not in keeping with minimizing civilian deaths.

The use of white phosphorus in densely populated areas such as refugee camps is just an unnecessary risk to the civilians in Gaza, not only in the potential for killing but also because it burns homes and other infrastructure. When an incendiary agent like white phosphorus is dropped into an area, it not only annihilates people by burning them, it travels through the air and slowly kills people downwind who breathe it, burning their digestive and pulmonary systems and other organs before they die. One common symptom of white phosphorus poisoning is called "Smoking Stool Syndrome," where the innards of the victims are heated to the point where their stool becomes like lava in the intestinal tract. Most of these people die slow and agonizing deaths.

Again, this is a brutal and disproportionate response to homemade rocket attacks by Hamas.

Furthermore, now the UN is calling for an independent investigation of the bombing of one school and asking for criminal charges to follow if culpability is discovered. There were no Hamas targets at the UN school.

Last, I cannot see such action as having the end result of lasting peace. As necessary as they may or may not be, wars are a sin of mankind and only further fuel hatred, contempt and subsequent wars. And to quote Gautama Buddha, "Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule."