Israel/Hamas War Thoughts - War and Free Speech

The Israel/Hamas war is a flare-up in the centuries old clash of civilizations, one side, the West, with its Judeo-Christian roots, and the other side, Islam. As a believer in the efficacy of Western Civilization as the best system to advance individual self-actualization and human progress, I abhor the depraved terrorist attacks by Hamas on innocent citizens of Israel. Israel, a middle eastern outpost of Western Civilization, has not only the right, but the obligation, with US backing, to eliminate the Hamas terrorist threat.

I support the presence of US forces in the region as a deterrence to a wider conflict beyond the borders of Israel, though I am against, US funding for Israel's war. Israel currently spends 5% of its GDP on defense and can afford to pay more. NOTE: I am saddened that weak US leadership over the last two years has resulted in a loss of US deterrence around the world thereby giving rise to increased global conflict and mischief. Still, today, we must deal with the hand we are holding.

I am disappointed in US diplomatic initiatives to restrain the Israeli war efforts with the intent of avoiding noncombatant deaths. Such "pauses" only benefit Hamas. Israel should aggressively pursue, without pause, its efforts to win its war against Hamas while following the rules of war as outlined by the Geneva Convention protocols. The prospect of collateral damage did not deter the US in carpet bombing Dresden during WWII, dropping atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, or more recently (2016) when US backed efforts to recapture Mosul from ISIS resulted in some ten thousand civilian deaths. America should not hold Israel to a higher standard than that practiced in its own past war efforts. War is to be avoided, but in war, victory should be the goal.

I am a strong supporter of free speech as an essential feature of a healthy democracy. Just as I protest against ongoing US government nudged social media censorship of conservative thought, so I am also against efforts to shut down speech regarded as anti-Semitic, as reprehensible as it is. More, one cannot rail against absurd, restrictive university speech codes that purport protect so-called student snowflakes from "threatening" ideologies while simultaneously green lighting efforts to shut down anti-Israeli/Jewish speech on campus that may offend Jewish students. Free speech stands above this or that ideological predilection as a core value of Western Civilization. A maxim taught to me by my mother, "sticks and stones will hurt my bones, but names will never hurt me," remains an appropriate guideline in an environment where free speech is valued. In a free speech society, there are (or should be) laws that forcefully kick-in to deal with "sticks and stones."

NOTE: I cannot ignore the plight of the Palestinian refugees, most of whom are people who prefer living in peace. My personal experience of having lived in the middle east and knowing many good Palestinians impels me to reflect on their plight which I intend to do in a subsequent blog.