I have written a great deal about self-defense being a modern idea. Here are some of the blogs where I have dealt with this subject: here here and here.
What I want to point out is that the recent Israeli air attack on Gaza was accepted in the United States by our weak president and by most of the pacifist EU as legitimate self defense after Israel had suffered from thousands of rockets aimed at its civilian population.
I have argued that the first role of Israel as a state is teaching the world the fundamentals of ethics. In this role it has to appropriately elevate the importance of self-defense as the first and core human right.
It seems that Israel is accomplishing this goal. More so since the damage it did by use of air power without ground forces helped the lesson sink in, worldwide.
Thank you Israel for helping the world take a major step in its moral understanding. Far more important than Mozart and Bach in German culture that were obliterated by the moral values of the Third Reich.
For those of you who do not catch my reference: many people argued that the Germany that has raised moral status to such high levels as represented by Mozart and Bach could not have been expected to create the Holocaust.
Good music has nothing to do with morals. The name Wagner should be sufficient to settle that issue.
Israel today, as it always has been, is the great moral teacher.
