Editorial

Real friendship toward Israel

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Riverdale’s Congressman Eliot Engel deserves praise for his tireless efforts to support Israel, a country where many community members have had close ties for years. But sometimes being a friend means saying hard truths. With the toll of innocent lives on both sides in Israel’s latest conflict reaching outrageous heights, Mr. Engel should stop unquestioningly defending Israel’s air, sea and ground assault. He should call on Israel to take the high road and end its attacks on the Gaza Strip and push to extend the tenuous ceasefire begun on Tuesday.

One of Mr. Engel’s arguments for defending the current conflict — which had claimed the lives of more than 1,800 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and over 60 Israeli soldiers and civilians, as of the start of the week — involves a poignant analogy. If the U.S. were attacked by a neighboring country, wouldn’t we respond with overwhelming force?

That scenario applies to the first stage of Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip, which came after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and the militant group Hamas began launching rockets at Israeli cities.

But the situation quickly got tragically out of control, with Israeli missiles — funded in part by the U.S. — slamming into hospitals and schools sheltering civilians, all in the name of self-defense.

This “collateral damage” is truly an outrage to all of humanity. Stories of Palestinian men, women and children annihilated in their sleep by fearsome munitions no less heartwrenching than the sad fates of the kidnapped and murdered youths Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Sha’ar and Eyal Yifrach.

It is unbearable to think of one more child dying in the violence. Mr. Engel should use his voice as senior Democrat on the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee to plead for Israel not to attack civilian sites. That might mean letting Hamas get off the hook before it is completely disarmed, but the price of wiping out the militant group’s capabilities is just too high.

Israel, Palestinians, Eliot Engel
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