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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 3:24 am Post subject: "The Neighborhood Bully" - Haaretz |
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Operation Peace for the IDF
By Gideon Levy
Haaretz
Every neighborhood has one, a loudmouth bully who shouldn't be provoked into anger. He's insulted? He'll pull out a knife. Spat in the face? He'll draw a gun. Hit? He'll pull out a machine gun. Not that the bully's not right - someone did harm him. But the reaction, what a reaction! It's not that he's not feared, but nobody really appreciates him. The real appreciation is for the strong who don't immediately use their strength. Regrettably, the Israel Defense Forces once again looks like the neighborhood bully. A soldier was abducted in Gaza? All of Gaza will pay. Eight soldiers are killed and two abducted to Lebanon? All of Lebanon will pay. One and only one language is spoken by Israel, the language of force.
The war that the IDF has now declared on Lebanon and before it on Gaza, will never be considered another "war of no choice." Let's save that debate from the historians. This is unequivocally a war of choice. The IDF absorbed two painful blows, which were particularly humiliating, and in their wake went into a war that is all about restoring its lost dignity, which on our side is called "restoring deterrent capabilities." Neither in Lebanon nor certainly in Gaza, can anyone formulate the real goals of the war, so nobody knows for sure what will be considered victory or an achievement. Are we at war in Lebanon? With Hezbollah? Nobody knows for sure. If the goal is to remove Hezbollah from the border, did we try hard enough over the last two years through diplomatic channels? And what's the connection between destroying half of Lebanon and that goal? Everyone agrees that "something must be done." Everyone agrees that a sovereign state cannot remain silent when it is attacked within its own borders, though in Israel's eyes Lebanese sovereignty was always subject to trampling, but why should that non-silence be expressed solely by an immediate and all-out blow?
In Gaza, a soldier is abducted from the army of a state that frequently abducts civilians from their homes and locks them up for years with or without a trial - but only we're allowed to do that. And only we're allowed to bomb civilian population centers.
The painful steps taken in Gaza, which included dropping a one-ton bomb on a residential building, or killing an entire family of seven children under cover of darkness in Lebanon, killing dozens of residents, bombing an airport, cutting off electricity and water to hundreds of thousands of people for months were a response lacking any justification, legitimacy or proportion. What goal did it serve? Was the soldier released? Did the Qassams stop? Was deterrence restored? None of that happened. Only lost honor was supposedly restored, and immediately the next evil wind showed up, this time from the north.
Two more soldiers were abducted and it was clearly proven that the deterrent power was not restored, while IDF failures repeated themselves. How does one erase those searing failures? On the backs of innocent populations. In Lebanon, the situation is more complicated. There is no Israeli occupation and no justification for provoking Israel. If Hezbollah is so worried about its Palestinian brethren, it should have first of all done something for the hundreds of thousands of refugees living in camps in Lebanon in conditions that are just as bad as those under the Israeli occupation, before it grabbed soldiers in their name.
But does the fact that Hezbollah is a cynical organization that exploits the misery of Palestinians for its own purposes justify the disproportionate reaction? The concept that we have totally forgotten is proportionality. While we're in no hurry to get to the negotiating table, we're eager to get to the battlefield and the killing without delay, without taking any time to think. That deepens suspicions that we need a war every few years, with terrifying repetition, even if afterward we end up back in exactly the same position.
The war we declared on Lebanon has already exacted from us, and of course from Lebanon, too, a heavy price. Did anyone give any thought to the question whether it should be paid?
Everyone knows how this war begins, but does anyone know how it ends? Heavy casualties in the Israeli rear? A war with Syria? A general war? Is it all worth it? Look what a new rookie government can do in such a short time.
Behind the operations in Lebanon and Gaza is the same foolish idea about pressure on the population leading to political changes that Israel wants. In the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict, that concept has only led us from one disaster to the next. We "cleansed" southern Lebanon of Palestinians in 1982, and what did we get? Hezbollahstan instead of Fatahland. Hamas won't fall because Gaza is in the dark, and not even because we bombed the Palestinian Foreign Ministry building at the weekend - another nonsensical move; Hezbollah won't be smashed because the international airport in Beirut has been put out of commission.
Israel once again is not distinguishing between a justified war against Hezbollah and an unjust and unwise war against the Lebanese nation. The camouflage concealing the war's real goals was ripped off by this defense minister, who says what he means: "Nasrallah is going to get it so bad that he will never forget the name Amir Peretz," he bragged, like a typical bully. Now at least we know that Israel went to war so that the name Amir Peretz is never forgotten. It's the war for the perpetuation of the name Peretz and the blurring of Dan Halutz's failures. And to hell with the cost.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/738739.html |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 4:16 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for the post. I'm glad Levy and others are stating things clearly as in his middle paragraph,
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| The war we declared on Lebanon has already exacted from us, and of course from Lebanon, too, a heavy price. Did anyone give any thought to the question whether it should be paid? |
That no price is being thought of , just goes to show how desensitized everyone is in the region. Death has won, no one else....the sanctity of human life is about the price of a cartoon of cigarettes. Brief respite.
DD |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:41 am Post subject: |
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United Nations
Attacks Qualify as War Crimes, Officials Say
By WARREN HOGE
Published: July 20, 2006
UNITED NATIONS, July 19 � The United Nations� top human rights official said Wednesday that
the killing and maiming of civilians under attack in Lebanon, Israel and Gaza and the West Bank
"could" constitute war crimes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/20/world/middleeast/20nations.html
War "IS" a crime  |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 6:03 am Post subject: |
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| then Irans government and Hizzbollah are criminals |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 8:17 am Post subject: |
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| Warren Hodge wrote: |
| It also noted that Hezbollah was firing rockets into northern Israel. �Hezbollah fighters too are bound by the rules of international humanitarian law, and they must not target civilian areas,� it said. |
Right. Go arrest those Hezbollah fighters!!!
If you can find them... |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:12 am Post subject: |
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MOS: the antiIsraeli Arab Middle East did not merely "insult" Israel or "spit in its face"; they have conspired and taken steps to annihilate Israel, time and again.
In 1990-1991, for example, Saddam lobbed quite a few SCUD missiles at Israel, hoping that he would unite the Arab Middle East, under his leadership, of course, to destroy the Jews.
Tehran, to cite but the most recent example, has been calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" for about a year. And Hamas and Hezbollah have sworn to do just that.
And, lest we forget, many Jews came to Israel on the heels of Hitler's earnest attempt to completely exterminate all of them, once and for all, only to discover that, from the beginning, most of their hateful Arab neighbors were all too willing to conclude the Final Solution -- one way or another.
Levy's analogy understates and indeed misrepresents the actual problem that underlies the Arab-Isreali Conflict.
Last edited by Gopher on Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:37 am; edited 2 times in total |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:34 am Post subject: |
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| it should be noted that this opinion piece highlights another huge difference between Israel and the Arab states: there is a wide variety of viewpoints amongst Israelis, all of which are freely expressed in Israel's public arena. Good luck finding any arab publically saying, "Smart move Israel!" (at any time, not just this latest offensive). |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 2:40 pm Post subject: |
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This article points out 2 emphatic facts.
Israeli action is grossly disproportionate and thus terribly cruel.
Israeli leadership is filled with those who want only revenge and are only seeing red. Not the appropriate way to "lead" a nation.
I think the discussion should revolve around this, the thesis of the article.
DD |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jul 20, 2006 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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Nothing occurs in a vaccum.
I agree with your suggestion to keep things focused on the issues at hand. But, unfortunately, in anything that treats the Arab-Israeli Conflict, we are in a complex labrynth where issues exist within other issues -- and it goes on like that back to at least 1948. Surely, you recognize this.
That is why the Hezbollan, Hamasian (sp?), Syrian, and Iranian position that we should be focusing especially on post1967 Israeli human rights abuses carries no persuasive power (unless you are already one of the converted). |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 9:28 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
Nothing occurs in a vaccum.
I agree with your suggestion to keep things focused on the issues at hand. But, unfortunately, in anything that treats the Arab-Israeli Conflict, we are in a complex labrynth where issues exist within other issues -- and it goes on like that back to at least 1948. Surely, you recognize this. |
"Complexities" aside, what is at this moment plainly clear is the inexcusable carnage
& hyper-reaction of Israel's criminal assault.
NEIGHBOURHOOD BULLY
http://www.truepeace.org/Audio/bobdillan.WMA |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 9:50 am Post subject: |
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British Anger At Terror Celebration
By Ned Parker and Stephen Farrell
The commemoration of Israeli bombings that killing 92 people has caused offence
AS ISRAEL wages war against Hezbollah �terrorists� in Lebanon, Britain has protested about the celebration by right-wing Israelis of a Jewish �act of terrorism� against British rule 60 years ago this week.
The rightwingers, including Binyamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister, are commemorating the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the headquarters of British rule, that killed 92 people and helped to drive the British from Palestine 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,173-2277717,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_Bombing |
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Guri Guy
Joined: 07 Sep 2003
Location: Bamboo Island
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| Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2006 11:37 am Post subject: |
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Anything Israel has done, the Arabs have done the same or even twicefold. That is not to excuse any Israeli actions but a little common sense needs to be applied here. Like Gopher said, the issue is extremely complex and simplistic interpretations are unhelpful here.
Even if Israel started this war (or were provoked) the Arab nations have started 3 others against Israel. The Arab nations also don't give a damn about Palestinians. It is their political football just like Dokdo is for Korea. It is their way of keeping the people from looking at their corrupt, inefficient governments.
At best, both sides have blood on their hands. |
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