The conservative columnist Ramish Ponnuro suggests Palestinian civilians are not “bad guys.” He erects a straw man by selectively quoting some speakers at pro-Israel rallies revving up the crowd, and then sort of accuses historian Benny Morris of being a barbarian for suggesting that Israel, somehow, sometime, will have to crush Hamas for the Jewish state to survive. Ponnuro doesn’t have the courage or honesty to take on Morris directly. Ponnuro also elides Palestinian children–some brainwashed as young as three years old into the cult of suicide bombing–with their parents who knowingly support Hamas’ genocidal agenda against Israel. Both are “civilian” innocents for whom Israeli soldiers are to risk their lives so as not to harm a hair on their heads. Tell this to General Sherman. Tell it to Patton. Tell it to MacArthur. Tell it to Curtis LeMay. Did the Civil War and World Wars I and II and Vietnam and the Russian and Chinese civil wars occur or did I only dream them last night? Why single out supporters of Israel for rhetorical excesses which, in Morris’ case, are nonexistent? Ponnuro wants Israel to stand up for “civilizational” values that every nation in history, without exception, has violated in a life-and-death struggle. So another six million Jews are to be sacrificed on the altar of civilization. Perhaps, like the Nazis planned if they had won WWII, Ponnuro can build a museum to Jews and Judaism after Muslim extremists render them extinct. See http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-08-01/palestinian-civilians-aren-t-the-bad-guys