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domingo, 4 de enero de 2009

Fecha de caducidad

Esta es la viñeta del ya conocido Miguel Ferreres, para El Periódico de Catalunya



Pero como si le leyera. Carlos Carnicero, intelectual de la cadena SER, escribe un artículo ad hoc en el Plural ¿ Tiene fecha de caducidad el Holocausto?


Lean con calma y espíritu reposado. El pobre está muy dolido "Nunca recibí tantas descalificaciones como cuando hace ya unos cuantos años pregunté si el Holocausto tenía fecha de caducidad en relación con la patente de corso de los sucesivos gestores del Estado de Israel para vulnerar la legalidad internacional y masacrar al pueblo palestino. ¿La barbarie y la brutalidad sufrida por el pueblo hebreo da derecho al Estado de Israel a hacer a una revancha histórica de sus padecimientos trasfiriéndolos a los de sus enemigos"


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Hamas are the real war criminals in this conflict.

By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ

Israel's actions in Gaza are justified under international law, and Israel should be commended for its self-defense against terrorism. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter reserves to every nation the right to engage in self-defense against armed attacks. The only limitation international law places on a democracy is that its actions must satisfy the principle of proportionality.

Since Israel ended its occupation of Gaza, Hamas has fired thousands of rockets designed to kill civilians into southern Israel. The residents of Sderot -- which have borne the brunt of the attacks -- have approximately 15 seconds from launch time to run into a shelter. Although deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime, terrorists firing at Sderot are so proud of their actions that they sign their weapons.

When Barack Obama visited Sderot this summer and saw the remnants of these rockets, he reacted by saying that if his two daughters were exposed to rocket attacks in their home, he would do everything in his power to stop such attacks. He understands how the terrorists exploit the morality of democracies.

In a recent incident related to me by the former head of the Israeli air force, Israeli intelligence learned that a family's house in Gaza was being used to manufacture rockets. The Israeli military gave the residents 30 minutes to leave. Instead, the owner called Hamas, which sent mothers carrying babies to the house.Hamas knew that Israel would never fire at a home with civilians in it.

They also knew that if Israeli authorities did not learn there were civilians in the house and fired on it, Hamas would win a public relations victory by displaying the dead. Israel held its fire. The Hamas rockets that were protected by the human shields were then used against Israeli civilians.

These despicable tactics ,targeting Israeli civilians while hiding behind Palestinian civilians -- can only work against moral democracies that care deeply about minimizing civilian casualties. They never work against amoral nations such as Russia, whose military has few inhibitions against killing civilians among whom enemy combatants are hiding.The claim that Israel has violated the principle of proportionality

by killing more Hamas terrorists than the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas rockets is absurd. First, there is no legal equivalence between the deliberate killing of innocent civilians and the deliberate killings of Hamas combatants. Under the laws of war, any number of combatants can be killed to prevent the killing of even one innocent civilian.

Second, proportionality is not measured by the number of civilians actually killed, but rather by the risk posed. This is illustrated by what happened on Tuesday, when a Hamas rocket hit a kindergarten in Beer Sheva, though no students were there at the time. Under international law, Israel is not required to allow Hamas to play Russian roulette with its children's lives.While Israel installs warning systems and builds shelters, Hamas refuses to do so, precisely because it wants to maximize the number of Palestinian civilians inadvertently killed by Israel's military actions.

Hamas knows from experience that even a small number of innocent Palestinian civilians killed inadvertently will result in bitter condemnation of Israel by many in the international community.Israel understands this as well. It goes to enormous lengths to reduce the number of civilian casualties even to the point of foregoing legitimate targets that are too close to civilians.

Until the world recognizes that Hamas is committing three war crimes targeting Israeli civilians, using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and seeking the destruction of a member state of the United Nations and that Israel is acting in self-defense and out of military necessity, the conflict will continue.

Mr. Dershowitz is a law professor at Harvard. His latest book is "The Case Against Israel's Enemies" (Wiley, 2008).Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

En el Wall Street Journal




1 comentario:

Anónimo dijo...

Ferreres. Para reflexionar desde la equidistancia porque otra percepción es posible al margen de lo hasta ahora políticamente correcto. Que vayan cayendo los tópicos. Solo así se puede atisbar una leve esperanza de acercarnos a la verdad de lo que ha sido y es "el conflicto" palestino-israelí. Irgun y la banda Stern, mismamente, que para las fuerzas británicas de ocupación de Palestina eran en las primeras décadas del siglo pasado "grupos terroristas". ¿Le suena a usted? Como ve, no hay nada nuevo bajo el sol. ¿Qué hubiese ocurrido si entonces, años treinta y cuarenta del siglo XX, los británicos hubiesen entrado a sangre y fuego en los asentamientos judíos en Palestina para acabar con las bases militares "del terrorismo sionista" tal y como ellos, los ingleses, catalogaban a las vanguardias armadas del naciente Estado de Israel? Apoyemos a Israel, pero no hasta el extremo de negar la realidad, pues un día u otro acabará por volverse contra nosotros. Equidistancia y objetividad. Y viceversa. Es imposible que toda la razón sea nuestra, siempre y para siempre. Algo hacemos mal cuando el guión de este "conflicto" se repite una y otra vez: el Tsáhal entrando a sangre y fuego en Gaza. Sí, en Gaza, donde a las espaldas de los refugiados palestinos solo queda el mar, curiosamente ese mar al que los musulmanes radicales quieren arrojar a los israelíes: curiosa paradoja, ¿no cree? Israel lucha por su supervivencia, cierto. ¿Y los palestinos? ¿Acaso no hacen lo mismo? Holocausto no es la palabra, disiento de Ferreres, tampoco genocidio, pero sí se puede hablar de una guerra desigual. Recientemente Albiac, en un artículo, elogiaba "la eficacia quirúrgica" del Tsáhal en la última acometida aérea israelí sobre Gaza. ¿Dónde está el mérito cuando una fuerza aérea ultramoderna entra en el espacio aéreo expedito, limpio de polvo y paja, sin cazas defensivos ni baterías antiaéreas que impidan un bombardeo plácido, casi un mero entrenamiento militar? Y ahora la invasión por tierra. Tanques ultramodernos contra subfusiles y otro armamento ligero. ¿Holocausto? No. ¿Genocidio? No. Cinismo en el discurso justificatorio y abuso de la fuerza sí. Y en clave de política interior unas elecciones a la vista. ¿Las protestas internacionales? Por la entrepierna, como tantas y tantas otras resoluciones de la ONU que en los últimos años han sido y, esto ya lo dudo pues la ONU ya no pinta nada, podrían ser el futuro.

Un saludo muy cordial.