Terrorism in Palestine

In order to understand what is happening in Israel and Palestine today, think about the following hypothetical scenario: A group of American extremists kidnap an Iranian diplomat, and the next day a power plant and two bridges are destroyed in America with explosives, leaving hundreds of thousands without power and others without water. Imagine, then, that the Iranian regime explained to Americans that they were not punishing Americans collectively for the kidnapping, but rather "applying pressure" to convince the extremist group to release their hostage.

Obviously the act of kidnapping is wrong, however no one would claim that such a crime justifies collective punishment of hundreds of thousands of completely innocent civilians. Americans would rightly decry these attacks as acts of terrorism. Furthermore, it would be easy to see the absurdity of any claim that collectively harming hundreds of thousands of people ("pressuring them") was in any way not a horrific crime.

This series of events is almost exactly what has occurred in Israel and Palestine in the past week. Members of the Palestinian extremist group Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier, and Israel responded with air strikes against a power plant (the main source of power for Gaza) and two bridges. Furthermore, the Israelis have moved tanks into the Palestinian territories, and have been continuously shelling the towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia in northern Gaza.

Yet despite the clearly immoral nature of such collective terrorizing and punishment of innocents, few Americans -- and virtually no one in the U.S. government -- will admit that Israel's actions amount to state terrorism. I have not been one to criticize Israel in the past, and I believe that many of their past responses to Palestinian terrorism have been understandable. The recent actions of the Israeli government, however, seem to be completely indefensible, and would be instantly labeled as terrorism had they been carried out by any other group.