Yes, indeed, just one percent of the good Prof's brain would improve mine enormously. I have had reason to quote him before but for the life of me I can't quite remember why. However, I just know it would have been with approval because the man has the ability to cut through the crap and point his mental scalpel at the heart of any affair.
Take Gaza for example. Do you, like me, have the notion that the Gaza strip is one great built-up area? If so, Big Fail! Just because Hamas conducts its military operations against Israel from inside cities which causes enormous civilian losses when Israel is forced to retaliate don't think there aren't plenty of open spaces which they could use, as these maps indicate:
Anyway, Prof. Dershowitz poses three questions, as follows:
“Why don’t the media show the relatively open areas of the Gaza Strip?”
“Why doesn’t Hamas use sparsely populated areas from which to launch its rockets and build its tunnels?”
“Why does the United Nations try to shelter Palestinian civilians right in the middle of the areas from which Hamas is firing?”
The answers, of course, are so simple that even a nitwit like me can provide them. First, because the media are lazy and corrupt in the sense of not wishing under any circumstances to lose their slots inside Gaza in order to show us all 24-hour Shlock-Horror footage. Second, because that would mean that the casualty rates for Hamas fighters would rise and that of civilians fall, the exact opposite of what their fighting manual specifies! And third, because the UN is sympathetic to Hamas and hostile to Israel, and if a few kiddie-winkies get blown to shreds, well, the Jews will get the blame not them!
His conclusion is spot on: International law must be enforced against Hamas for using civilian targets as cover for their own attacks against Israeli civilian targets. If that were done, Israel would have no need to defend itself as the attacks would stop.
The chances of any of that happening are roughly equal to finding a pork chop in a synagogue!
