Following the horrific attacks on October 7, the war between Israel and Hamas has sparked a heated debate about whether the Israeli government’s response has been appropriate and what role, if any, the West should play in supporting the Israeli cause. In a series of conversations with people holding diverse views on this topic, Matt Kibbe sits down with Craig Biddle, founder and director of the Objective Standard Institute. Biddle argues that Israel is a society that respects the rights of its citizens in a way that the surrounding Islamic theocracies simply do not and that Western liberals have an obligation to support societies that stand up for human freedom. He rejects the non-interventionist claim that this is a regional conflict and none of America’s business but say rather that it is a battle between civilization and savagery in which we all have a stake.
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have listened to this podcast three times, and I am angry about this conversation but I’m not going to unsubscribe. Mr Richmond said “The Israeli-Palestinian history did not start on October 7” , And throughout the podcast, neither of you , Matt or Sheldon, mentioned even once the word “hostages”. The Israel-Palestine conflict did not begin on October 7. but the current war Israel is fighting with Hamas DID start then.
There are two highly relevant facts about Hamas that must be included in any fair assessment of both sides of the current war ::
1. On October 7, Hamas invaded Israel and proceeded to violate virtually every single Geneva Convention principle of wartime treatment of civilians. They attacked unarmed civilians, they employed rape, torture, child abuse, forcing hostages to view the torment and rape and murder of their loved ones, mutilation of the dead, murder, and hostage taking. These are unequivocally war crimes.
The purpose of the Geneva Convention is to “reduce the barbarity of war.” It is hard to imagine anything more barbarous than Hamas’s actions that day. And Hamas is certainly not allowing the Red Cross to come in and observe the treatment of those hostages, so we have no idea whether Hamas continues to violate international law.
2. Hamas has received billions of dollars from other arab nations since its inception in the 1990’s, and rather than use that money to improve the lives of the palestinians, they used it to create miles of tunnels underneath Palestine’s schools, hospitals, muslim temples, apartment buildings and highways, so as to deliberately use the palestinian people as human shields. Hamas’s deliberate purpose is to force the innocent non-military palestinians to bear the cost of any retaliation from Israel.
Though Israel does more than any other country to try and reduce civilian casualties, Hamas’s plan is working – the unarmed innocent are suffering the most and Israel is getting the blame. Hamas, and only Hamas, is to blame for every innocent death in this current wholly justified retaliation against the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
Palestinian deaths are literally part of Hamas’s plan.
The way to stop this war immediately is for Hamas to release the hostages and lay down their arms. Yet neither the UN nor anyone else is making this demand. Instead they are demonizing Israel as if the Israelis started this conflict. Demanding that Israel stop looking for their hostages and cease the fighting is unrealistic, unworkable and unreasonable, but it seems the whole world, including Mr Richardson, put the blame and responsibility for the horrific destruction of Gaza on Israel.
My comment below is in response, NOT to the podcast with Craig Biddle, but with the next podcast in the series about Israel vs Hamas. I apologize for this, as the newer podcast with Sheldon Richman is not posted yet .
THIS comment of mine is for the podcast with Sheldon Richman, not Mr Biddle.