[Sydney Morning Herald-Australia] Robert Goot - No way has yet been found to conduct even the most justified war without causing harm to innocent civilians. During World War II, Royal Air Force bombers flattened entire German cities in response to Nazi bombing and rocket attacks against civilian targets in London and elsewhere. Most of the German dead, numbering in their tens of thousands, were civilians. Australian troops fighting in Vietnam, East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan have also sometimes caused more casualties among civilians than among the enemy. Yet nobody would have the right to call Australian troops murderers. To apply different, and much harsher, standards to Israeli forces engaged in putting an end to more than 8,000 Hamas rocket attacks deliberately aimed at killing and maiming Israeli civilians, and which constitute a war crime, is therefore the height of hypocrisy. The writer is president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
2009-01-23 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive