Can a war be fair and human friendly?

Can a war be fair and human friendly?

By David Verveer

I am rather mystified by the Goldstone UN report dealing with the latest Gaza war, not so much because the report is tainted and one sided and most certainly not impartial, as data processed in the report came from Hamas terrorists and Palestinian people who are currently under the rule by the same Hamas gang, and would endanger their lives if they would supply objective statements about Israeli actions in the Gaza territory, and also because the Israeli refused to supply their version of the happenings during the war, by claiming that the conclusions of the report were pre meditated even before Mr. Goldstone started to investigate.

My mystification deals with something totally different, namely the conclusion that Israel did not fight a fair war, and my question is, what in heavens name is a fair war, when war and warring through the ages is based on the principle of hurting, killing and destroying the enemy, in such an extend, that he will surrender and the ruling power goes to the winners.

There exist no fair war, not in Gaza, not in Afghanistan, not in Somali and Iraq or any other place on this globe, the weapons used are designed to make as many as possible victims on the enemies side, preferable killing soldiers from the other side, with impersonal weapons, who can not differentiate who is in the target area, enemies forces, innocent civilians or mistaken identification of their own forces.

Terrorist fighting, hit and run tactics specialize in fighting behind the backs of the civilian population causes victims and damage the innocents, but that is not only in Gaza, but in any battle, anywhere in the world which is based on a struggle between terrorists and regular army.

Nobody will claim that the Israeli forces never made any mistakes in judgment, were un-necessarily cruel, involved non involved civilians, as it is very hard to be objective in the middle of life endangering actions, not all boys aged 18 to 23 have sufficient will power to fight the primitive instincts for saving your self before anything else.
We all want to live, and soldiers are not anything different.

I agree with Goldstone that all wars are inhuman, especially the modern wars with mass killing computer directed weapons are crimes to humanity, but selecting the Israeli response to 8 years of bombardment of their civilian population is unfair and certainly not balanced judgment. And people who will claim the fact that Goldstone is a Jew himself, should remember that this does not make him right or wrong, his religion and tribal origin are totally irrelevant.

The people who should be judged by the Hague tribunal are the Islam powers such as Iran, Syria, Sudan and Venezuela who finance the Palestinian cause and try to create havoc in Israel but also Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Golf states. Those war mongers believe in power by causing panic and chaos, currently in the Middle East but soon all over Europe.