Two clear-cut bad international actors
The two international crises dominating the news this weekend have something in common: In each there’s a clearcut bad actor who’s responsible for the bloodletting and misery afflicted on innocent people.
No Ukrainian crisis would exist — and no airliner would have been shot down — had not President Vladimir Putin financed, armed, trained and provided boots-onthe-ground leadership to the Russian-speaking separatists in the eastern part of Ukraine, turning the region into a war zone.
Israel would not have directed air strikes or sent its troops into the Gaza Strip had not Hamas, the terrorist organization ruling there, rained rockets on Israeli towns and cities, forcing millions into bomb shelters.
No one disputes the clear right-and-wrong in these outbreaks of violence except for apologists for Putin’s push to expand Russian hegemony in Eastern Europe and Israel-haters who excuse terrorists forcing the people of Gaza to be cannon fodder.
In Putin’s case, Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, laid out a compelling case that it’s virtually certain that Ukrainian separatists are responsible for bringing down Malaysian Flight 17, killing 298 people. She noted that the separatists boasted of having sophisticated surface-to-air missiles, boasted of shooting down Ukrainian aircraft. Russian technicians may have been at their side on the fatal day.
Within moments of the wreckage of the civilian jet hitting the ground, the separatists bragged on social media about bringing down a Ukrainian “cargo plane,” a claim quickly erased once it was clear that a civilian jetliner had been shot out of the air.
The forces of Ukraine haven’t fired a single anti-aircraft missile for the simple reason that the separatists have no air power to shoot at.
Putin ludicrously claimed Ukraine was at fault because there’s a war going on in the region — a war that is the fruit of Putin’s undisguised desire to reassert Moscow’s political influence, if not control, over states like Ukraine that once were part of the Soviet Union.
The latest outbreak of Israeli-Hamas fighting is traced to the kidnapping and murder of three teenagers, virtually certain the work of Hamas agents. In actuality, weeks before Hamas had started another terror campaign of firing rockets at Israeli civilians. After the murders, and the reprisal killing by three Israeli extremists of an Arab youth, an act the Israel government denounced as terrorism, Hamas escalated the rocket and mortar attacks.
As is characteristic of its debased nature, Hamas launched these missiles from mosques, homes, gardens, even a U.N.-administered school. Its perverted strategy: Force Gazan civilians to be human shields, drafting them, in effect, into a suicide mission. This is a war crime, pure and simple, but also standard operating procedure for Hamas.
Hamas upped the ante by sending terrorists through tunnels to infiltrate Israel. Israeli defense forces spotted them and prevented an attack. Then Israel moved into Gaza.
The forces of Ukraine haven’t fired a single anti-aircraft missile for the simple reason that the separatists have no air power to shoot at.
The bad actors responsible for these crises have it within their power to end them.
U.N. Ambassador Power put the Ukrainian strife in this context: “This war can be ended. Russia can end this war. Russia must end this war.”
It’s a pity no one is speaking with that kind of clarity about Gaza. The frequent calls for restraint, aimed at Israel, cloud the simple reality that Hamas can end this war.