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   https://reason.com/2024/10/07/october-7-offered-a-stark-choice-b   
   tween-good-and-evil/?comments=true#comments   
      
      
   October 7 Offered a Stark Choice Between Good and Evil   
   When civilians are the targets, terrorists’ grievances don’t matter;   
   it’s time to hunt the perpetrators.   
   J.D. Tuccille | 10.7.2024 7:00 AM   
      
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   A tank with Israeli soldiers on the country's border with Gaza. | Ilia   
   Yefimovich/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom   
   (Ilia Yefimovich/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom)   
   One year ago, on October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists swarmed across the   
   border from Gaza in a stunning and bloody attack on southern Israel.   
   Roughly 1,200 people were killed, the vast majority civilians. The   
   attack set off a still-escalating conflict that raises questions about   
   how far people can go to defend themselves and what constitutes   
   legitimate targets for military strikes. But it also posed a stark   
   choice between good and evil, innocents and terrorists—and some people   
   around the world are picking the wrong side.   
      
   That murderous attacks on unsuspecting civilians and the kidnapping of   
   hundreds of them—some still in captivity—constitute unjustifiable acts   
   of terrorism is beyond question. Surprisingly, though, there's no   
   generally accepted definition of terrorism, because governments like to   
   keep the term vague so it doesn't encompass their own actions and   
   perhaps so it can be applied to domestic political opponents.   
      
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   Terrorism Means Targeting Civilians   
   Decades ago, in a class taught by a retired U.S diplomat who worked for   
   years in the Middle East, I was told the best way to distinguish   
   terrorism from military action is that terrorism deliberately targets   
   civilians rather than government officials or military personnel. That   
   squares with a 2004 report by the office of the U.N. Secretary General   
   that framed terrorism as "any action 'intended to cause death or serious   
   bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of   
   intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international   
   organization to do or abstain from doing any act.'"   
      
   This doesn't mean that purely military action is necessarily   
   justified—whether it's right or wrong depends on the rationale. But when   
   civilians are the main target, there's no need to consider the cause;   
   that's terrorism, it's evil, and it's time to hunt down the perpetrators   
   and bring them to justice.   
      
   October 7, When Mostly Civilians Suffered   
   On October 7, the attack began with a barrage of thousands of rockets   
   launched from Gaza into Israel. Then approximately 1,500 terrorists in   
   the employ of Hamas, an Iran proxy which runs Gaza, and its allies   
   breached the border wall or bypassed it by paraglider and motorboat.   
   About 1,200 people died at the hands of the terrorists by guns, bombs,   
   rape and sexual torture, blades, and fire, especially among residents of   
   nearby kibbutzes and attendees at the Supernova music festival.   
      
   "Authorities have identified a total of 274 soldiers and 859   
   non-soldiers killed during the brutal assault," the Times of Israel   
   reported last December. Removing police and security guards from the   
   total still "leaves a figure of 764 civilians," the Times added.   
      
   "The assault dwarfs all other mass murders of Israeli civilians," The   
   Economist noted. "The last time before October 7th that this many Jews   
   were murdered on a single day was during the Holocaust."   
      
   Not immediately killed were hundreds of hostages seized by Hamas and its   
   partners. Some have since been released in exchange for concessions, and   
   some have been rescued. Others have been murdered in captivity. A few   
   have been held for a year and are hopefully still alive, including four   
   Americans.   
      
   The correct reaction is to recognize that terrorists who target   
   civilians for murder, rape, and kidnapping deserve contempt. They should   
   be on the receiving end of efforts to make sure they're apprehended,   
   killed, or otherwise rendered incapable of again committing such acts.   
   Terrorism isn't an act that might be justified if you have a   
   sufficiently strong grievance; it's slaughter and brutalization of the   
   innocent to spread fear while bypassing those who might fight back. It   
   deserves an equally brutal response.   
      
   The Limits of a Just Response   
   That doesn't mean anything goes in punishing terrorists. There's room   
   for debate about the tactics that can be used to target Hamas and the   
   degree to which civilians can be put at risk as Israeli forces search   
   for those responsible for October 7. It's a dilemma amplified by the   
   fact that Hamas, like many terrorist organizations, embeds itself among   
   civilians in schools, medical centers, and residential neighborhoods to   
   make punishing its members impossible without putting the innocent at   
   some degree of risk.   
      
   "With Hamas locating themselves alongside important places like   
   hospitals, Hamas has actually made Israel fight them in places Israel   
   wouldn't want to target them, because of the potential loss of civilian   
   life," American University School of International Service Professor   
   Benjamin Jensen observed last November. "And in doing so, look at how   
   fast Israel lost momentum in its information war. Israel is taking a   
   huge amount of criticism for its killing of civilians as it goes after   
   Hamas."   
      
   Risks can be mitigated. As the conflict expanded to include Hezbollah,   
   which has rendered much of Israel near the Lebanese border uninhabitable   
   with rocket attacks and violent incursions, Israel planted bombs in   
   pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah personnel to hit the guilty   
   and reduce danger to innocent people. Inevitably, though, a few   
   civilians were killed and wounded. Conventional attacks on Hezbollah's   
   leadership have been very effective, but also killed and wounded   
   civilians located near the targets.   
      
   Is that too many civilian casualties? Nobody has an easy answer   
   regarding any conflict. A public health paper published in 2021   
   estimated that civilians made up 28 percent of all casualties during   
   America's involvement in Afghanistan, about half of casualties during   
   the Balkan War, about a quarter of casualties after Russia's first   
   invasion of Ukraine, and a whopping two-thirds of casualties during the   
   war in Iraq.   
      
   Terrorists Rely on the Deaths of Innocents   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)