What Is This World Coming To?

That isn’t really that staggering a headline, but it does eliminate any doubt there is a global double-standard when it comes to defining what is acceptable conduct between the two sides.

UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon slammed Israel’s February incursion into Gaza as “disproportionate” despite Israel’s use of precision-guided munitions to minimize civilian casualties.

In an interview with SkyNews Monday, the Damascus-based head of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, offered Israel a deal to only attack military targets.

No doubt Mashaal thought it was a cagey offer; and it was, despite the implicit admission in the deal.

Mashaal promised to only attack military targets if Israel agreed to stop ‘killing’ civilians. In Gaza, anyone who doesn’t have a weapon in his hand at the moment is a ‘civilian’.

For Israel, the offer is of the “So, do you still beat your wife?” variety. Accepting it is a tacit admission it targets civilians, rejecting it makes Israel sound bloodthirsty.

But Mashaal’s offer was accepted at face value, with little or no attention paid to the implied confirmation that Hamas deliberately targets schools, nurseries, markets and day care centers in the first place.

Although Israel is regularly accused of all sorts of war crimes, ‘disproportional’ retaliatory raids, and even genocide against the Palestinians, if Israel wanted to do any of those things, nobody would need to seek evidence.

Every day care center, nursery, market and day care center in the territories would simultaneously cease to exist.
But instead, Israel absorbs wave after wave of attacks against its most vulnerable, before finally responding by carefully selecting military targets hidden among civilian areas.

The ‘deal’ being offered is nothing less than Hamas seeking Israeli permission to attack its military targets in exchange for an Israeli promise not to retaliate.

It should be interesting to watch how the international media spins it. Probably something like, “Israel Reserves Right to Kill Palestinian Civilians.”