More Ignorance: Arik Ascherman Strikes Again

A friend of mine once taught at City College in NY. It's not in a great neighborhood. Once a colleague of his was mugged and had the crap beaten out of him. Faint from the beating and bloody to boot, he was carried into his office. As they carried him in he muttered over and over: 'It's all our fault!'

Arik Ascherman is that guy. Israelis get murdered and we should bleed, not fight back unless it's by the Marquess of Queensbury rules. In today's Haaretz he does it again. The man is a blatant ignoramous. I'm not just name calling. He's a Jewish illiterate, and he uses his lack of literacy to put our soldiers at risk. Why? Because even when we have to fight back, it's our fault.

But why get carried away? What does he say? Well, Rabbi Yuval Sherlo wrote that if somebody comes to kill you, kill them first. Common sense? One might think so. Not for Arik, however. He comes up with a caveat from the Talmud that if you can avoid te attack by wounding him, that's preferable. As a result, this genius writes: The injunction does not permit an attack on a terrorist when he is not a "pursuer," when he is not endangering life concretely and in practice. Certainly it does not permit becoming involved in a situation in which one is constrained to kill innocent people who are near the pursuer.

In other words, you can only take out a terrorist if he's got his hand on the detonator! So, no more hitting Hamas. No preventative strikes. Wait! You know what according to our friend Ascherman, Israel would have lost the Six Day War. The Egyptians were planning an air attack on us, similar to he one we pulled off first. Oh. I forgot. We're not allowed to strike first. I guess that would have worked out for Arik. No Israel. No problem.

Then there is the question of civilians. No army on earth tries to avoid civilian casualties the way that ours does. Dozens of soldiers were kllled and wounded in Jenin in order to minimize civilian casualties. Looters were arrested. However, when the terrorists are hidden by the population, supported by the population, fed and clothed by civilians then a choice must be made. It's painful. But war is hell. That was first said by William Tecumsuh Sherman, the man who invented modern warfare. Oh, but maybe Arik would have preferred that the Union settle with the Confederacy. That way, there would still be Black Slavery in North America.