A Bizarre International Fetish

Reader Jack Feder thinks my assessment of Efraim Karsh is harsh:

It does not seem to me that Mr. Karsh is implying that Israel can do no wrong. His whole point, with which I strongly agree is that there is a bizarre international fetish about the alleged immorality of Israel that no other entity on the international stage is subject to. Of course any nation at war makes mistakes. War is indeed hell. But, if forced to make the choice, I would rather be in an Israeli military-created hell where there is far more attention paid to the danger to civilians than in any other conflict I am aware of. Cell phone calls to the enemy to leave houses? Restraint over a 6 year period in which 6000 rockets fell? It is ludicrous that the Israeli far left and the Western Europeans so viciously attack the Israeli effort at self defense and fail to spend any energy on the far worse depredations of other nations. They show a moral shallowness that frankly eliminates their arguments from the realm of serious political or philosophical debate.

That is not to say that questions of strategic or tactical wisdom are similarly the work of the morally deranged. Many in Israel across the spectrum and elsewhere question the strategic or tactical wisdom of the current war or at least the continuation of it. I for one do not. But I understand and share some of the concerns of those that do.