Former Professor Highlights a Little-Reported Fact About Gaza and 3 Moral Questions It Raises
By Michael Hausam 16 hours ago
In an article yesterday, former Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz made a point about the ongoing Hamas attacks on Israel that is rarely covered in the media.
Despite the often-heard statement that the Gaza Strip is “densely populated” – a point repeatedly used to explain why Hamas fires rockets from busy civilian areas – the reality is that there are indeed parts of Gaza that are thinly populated. Take a look at this map:
The three moral questions that Dershowitz poses based upon this fact:
“Why don’t the media show the relatively open areas of the Gaza Strip?” He then poses a couple of answers. Firstly, it would reveal that Hamas could befiring rockets and building tunnels in these areas but has chosen not to. Or that Hamas won’t let the media access those areas. In either case, it would be something worth reporting.
“Why doesn’t Hamas use sparsely populated areas from which to launch its rockets and build its tunnels?” The answer here is crystal clear: Palestinian civilian casualties would decrease dramatically but the death of terrorist would do the opposite. Hamas uses civilians as shields – which their own battle manual mandates, completely the opposite of Israel. Simply put, this is a war crime and Hamas is therefore responsible for its own civilian deaths.
“Why does the United Nations try to shelter Palestinian civilians right in the middle of the areas from which Hamas is firing?” Why not use the sparsely populated areas for refuge? The result of this would be to deny Hamas the ability to use civilians as shields and lead to a dramatic reduction in the deaths of civilians. By not doing so, the UN supports precisely what Hamas intends: to force Israel to attack areas where UN-protected civilians are.
https://www.ijreview.com/2014/08/165097-alan-dershowitz-highlights-little-reported-fact-gaza-moral-questions-raises/