FROM DRESDEN TO SDEROT: In the July-August issue of Commentary Magazine, Algis Valiunas writes about "Fire from the Sky"--about how during WWII air bombers brought the war to the civilian populations of London, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki. But these were not suicide bombers; they were airplanes.

The difference may not be that great. While the original goal was the pinpoint bombing of military targets, the technology for that goal was lacking. When Valiunas quotes Hugh Trenchard, principal architect of Britain's Royal Air Force, that

It is on the destruction of enemy industries and, above all, on the lowering of morale...caused by bombing that ultimate victory rests

it soon became evident that there were more direct ways than bombing enemy industrial areas for demoralizing the other side. In retaliation for the Nazi bombing of Coventry, the British bombed Mannheim--and Valinuas quotes Marshall De Bruhl--author of Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden--that this was

"perhaps the first instance of pure morale bombing," having no object other than terrorizing the populace.

The tactic proved effective, even if no one came out and openly called it for what it was, as the British developed the tactic of bombing industrial areas while at the same time deploying bombers to 'rough up the city's civilian precincts.'

Thus they preserved in name the intention of specifically attacking industry while in fact they engaged in are bombing to kill civilians and sap morale.

Even if the strategy was not openly described for what it was, and even if Churchill himself had second thoughts, the commander-in-chief of Bomber Command, Arthur "Bomber" Harris made no apologies:

I do not personally regard the wile of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British grenadier.

...Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government center, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things.

Of course, the town of Sderot in Israel has never been any of these things--yet she finds herself the target of rockets on a regular basis. The civilians of Sderot are targeted merely because of their proximity, not their threat. Thus, Hamas claims of justification on the basis of resisting 'occupation' with the blessing of the Geneva Convention run into simple fact that, as Human Rights Watch has made clear:

Hamas has repeatedly failed to respect a fundamental rule of international humanitarian law by attacking civilians and civilian objects.

Unlike in WWII, for Hamas the death of Israelis is the ultimate goal, as described in Article 7 of their Charter:

the Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!

Unlike in WWII, the missiles fired at Sderot are certainly not in retaliation for like attacks from Israel. The description"cycle of violence," while applicable to the battle between England and Germany, certainly fall short here, where Israeli operations, in response to Hamas attacks, have not been launched on a regular basis.

Ironically, the very fact that the Hamas terrorist attacks are one-sided--and are not part of an all-out war--deprives Israel of the defense that the retaliatory bombing of Gaza to bring the attacks to an end will actually ultimately save lives: while Israeli lives would most certainly be saved, the number of Palestinian Arabs who would die would render such a claim rather one-sided. Echoes of last year's outcry for 'proportionality' remain.

In explaining the viciousness of the bombings of German cities, Valiunas writes

a decent people's viciousness increases in direct proportion to that of its most unclean enemy--or else its chances of survival diminish drastically. To fail to do all you can to defeat an enemy truly malignant would be the greatest evil of all.

Today, even in the face of the threat of global jihad, the West has not yet reached this level--if anything, civilized countries deny such a level even exists, leaving Israel with no real options but plenty of criticism. In the end, perhaps Vialiunas' closing comments are the most fitting of all in the situation Israel finds herself this summer:

in judging a man caught in a tragic vise, the question is not so much how he behaves once he is trapped as why he allowed himself to become trapped in the first place.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Sderot and Dresden and Algis Valiunas.