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Israel's Foes Use Aid-Worker Deaths to Try to Save Hamas

(JNS) Jonathan S. Tobin - A mistaken strike that caused the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers is being treated as not merely a tragic accident all too common in wars, but as a transcendent act that proves that Israel's tactics are too brutal to be allowed to continue. While the deaths of the aid workers were the result of a terrible blunder, the firestorm of criticism aimed at Israel since the incident isn't really about their tragic fate. The claim that Israel has engaged in an "indiscriminate" bombing campaign or is "over the top," as President Biden has claimed, simply isn't true. Mistakes in war always happen as U.S. wars proved. On his first day in office in January 2009, President Barack Obama ordered drone strikes in Waziristan, Pakistan, which led to the deaths of as many as 20 civilians. 540 strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq killed more than 300 civilians during his two terms in office, a number that might be underestimated since the strikes were conducted in areas where reporting casualties was not as organized as it is in Gaza. Obama would later joke that he had discovered in the White House that "it turns out that I'm really good at killing people," though no one in the press assumed that he was deliberately slaughtering civilians.
2024-04-09 00:00:00
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