December 31, 2008 | 6:15 pm

Christian Broadcasting comes to Israel’s defense

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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I’ve mentioned before that if Jews control the media, they sure do a poor job utilizing it as a vehicle for world domination. Maybe the PR solution, then, would be to turn over media outlets to the folks at the Christian Broadcasting Network. They seem to treat Israel a lot more positively than, for instance, the Los Angeles Times.

Case in point: Watch this report from CBN NewsWatch, which can be viewed here, and references a video from Palestinian Media Watch, which is after the jump and shows a Hamas official saying they will use human shields against the Zionist enemy.

I’ve never watched CBN, though they do have a notably well-respected senior reporter in David Brody—born Jewish and now born-again. JT just called to tell me he had seen Dore Gold, the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, speaking on the “700 Club” (cringe) about why Israel was bombing Gaza.

I can’t find the interview, but Gold, now president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has been making the rounds since Israel’s airstrikes began Saturday. Here he is writing in the Jerusalem Post:

The charge that Israel uses disproportionate force keeps resurfacing whenever it has to defend its citizens from non-state terrorist organizations and the rocket attacks they perpetuate. From a purely legal perspective, Israel’s current military actions in Gaza are on solid ground.

Under international law, Israel is not required to calibrate its use of force precisely according to the size and range of the weaponry used against it. Israel is not expected to make Kassam rockets and lob them back into Gaza.

When international legal experts use the term “disproportionate use of force,” they have a very precise meaning in mind. As the president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Rosalyn Higgins, has noted, proportionality “cannot be in relation to any specific prior injury - it has to be in relation to the overall legitimate objective of ending the aggression.”

In other words, if a state, like Israel, is facing aggression, then proportionality addresses whether force was specifically used by Israel to bring an end to the armed attack against it. By implication, force becomes excessive if it is employed for another purpose, like causing unnecessary harm to civilians.

The pivotal factor determining whether force is excessive is the intent of the military commander. In particular, one has to assess what was the commander’s intent regarding collateral civilian damage.

Gold goes on to discuss civilian casualties; JT told me that on the “700 Club” Gold talked about Hamas’ use of human shields. We all know this to be the case. As the above video shows, Hamas admits this to being the case. Even mosques are being used as staging grounds for Kassam rocket strikes.

I just wish it made the tragedies any less traumatic. Haaretz, the liberal Israeli daily, has had a particularly visceral and emotional reaction to the Gaza assault.