A Voice from Israel

[arisbe]

This war is not a just war. Israel is using excessive force without distinguishing between civilian population and enemy, whose sole purpose is extortion. That is not to say that morality and justice are on Hezbollah's side. Most certainly not. But the fact that Hezbollah "started it" when it kidnapped soldiers from across an international border does not even begin to tilt the scales of justice toward our side. -- Ze'ev Maoz in Haaretz

Even in the midst of war the Israelis are freer than we are, or so it seems from the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Comments

[amade.livejournal.com]

That's actually a great quote. It really sums up what I've been feeling about this whole thing. Sort of like, two wrongs don't make a right, you know?

[arisbe.livejournal.com]

Yes. You can't fight evil with evil means and win.

[arianadii.livejournal.com]

There is also another important point to consider. Did the Hezbollah start this? This is an assumption everyone is making but this is not the whole story. I am not defending Hizbollah. I have my issues with them too but from UN reports:

Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis.

Hizbullah's attempts to back them off is to threaten the launch of Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership and yet Israel contnues to provoke them by firing on Lebanese citizens on their own side of the border.

Israeli soldiers have terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians. This past February, 15-year-old shepherd Yusuf Rahil was killed by Israeli cross-border fire as he tended his flock in southern Lebanon. Israel continues to occupy Lebanon's Shebaa Farms area, while refusing to hand over the maps of mine fields that continue to kill and cripple civilians in southern Lebanon more than six years after the war supposedly ended. For this reason, many lebanese children are killed and this land is useless to us.

What peace did Hizbullah shatter? It goes even deeper than this but we would have to drag Palestine in and then we know how that goes. So Israel is not only unjustified in how it handles this situation, it is not honest about even the excuse for doing this in the first place. So Hizbollah who just happen to be the only people who give any defense to Palestinians and southern Lebanese peasants are labeled a dangerous terrorist group that must be disarmed at all cost? How convenient is that?

[phool4xc.livejournal.com]

Perhaps because Israelis are able to criticize the actions of their government without fear of being accused of anti-Semitism. Not many news agencies in North America are likely to take the risk...

[arisbe.livejournal.com]

That's just it.

[rawmr.livejournal.com]

Well I don't understand what you mean by "Israelis are freer." Haaretz of course markets to far-left sentiments in Israel, and this is a typical article for the paper. But what exactly constitutes a "Just Act" to a declaration of war by enemies sworn to the destruction of the entity declared war on?

Quote from hesbola, "The truth is — let me say this clearly — we didn't even expect (this) response ... that (Israel) would exploit this operation for this big war against us," Obviously there is a deterent factor in operation here.

Guerilla warfare is asymetrical, it is the great equalizer. The agressions committed by hamas and hesbola cannot be considerdered in a different light from the Israeli response. To think otherwise is just sheer and dangerous stupidity. Quite frankly, I am amazed that the death tolls are so low, considering the destruction of hesbola infastructure, which was intentionally placed right in the midst of civilian Sheite populations.

I would hope the efforts now will be focused entirely on creating a "meaningfull ceasefire arrangement," as it has been said by most nations. Isn't that what every sane individual wants?

[arisbe.livejournal.com]

I think the author would say that a just act would be anything aimed directly at the destruction of the guerillas, including operations across the border -- but not acts aimed rather at the civilian population of Lebanon, especially outside the area controlled by Hamas.

It might seem presumptuous for an outsider to hold Israel to a higher standard of conduct than the terrorists, but I can't help being encouraged that some Israelis themselves do.

I refer to the author's point of view rather than my own, because mine is shaped by a Quaker education in a way many would find unhelpful.

[rawmr.livejournal.com]

"but not acts aimed rather at the civilian population of Lebanon"

Again, there is no way of attacking the terrorist groups without putting civillians in harms way. That is where they headquarter and fight from. Their fighters are even known for typically taking young boys with them into confrontations as human shields. We've seen the pictures of this often enough.

"It might seem presumptuous for an outsider to hold Israel to a higher standard of conduct than the terrorists, but I can't help being encouraged that some Israelis themselves do"

I don't see that the "standards" you intimate enter the equation here. Again, guerilla warfare is by its very nature not only asymetrical but idefensible against, if we apply asymetrical standards. By its very definition, the victims of geurilla warfare cannot afford to be more concerned than the agressor over the aggressor's civillian population.

It would be nice to believe that the "absolutes" taught by Quakers and others can be applied with total success to any "relativistic" situation. But unfortunately experience does not make a firm arguement for such thinking.

[weswilson]

Someone yesterday was complaining about how stifling they find modern society and how they wish they could shuffle off their responsibility to other people and just pursue the life they wanted. Surprisingly, someone replied, "Just remember -- to really be ditching the rules, you have to ditch your privilege as well. Otherwise you're picking and choosing."

Hezbollah needs Israel to react in a civilized manner if they are going to get away with what they get away with. Their inferior armaments and numbers put them at a disadvantage that can only be balanced with invisibility. When a Hamas or Hezbollah terrorist wants to attack a member of the Israeli military, they know where to find them. The opposite is not true. The demand for civility on Israel's behalf is picking and choosing. Hezbollah enjoys the priviledge its invisibility provides, and most rational people recognise that you can't expect a prejudicially hated nation, like Israel, to tolerate random beatings for long.

I am also suprised at how many people forget that Hezbollah's goal isn't peace. Arab nations, almost universally, praise and support ANY group that stands up to Israel... win or lose. Even if Israel totally and completely kicks your ass, you win the support of your friends and neighbors in the middle east if you fling some attack towards the Israelis. Sadat got it. Arifat got it. It's only when you start to actually ACHIEVE peace that you start losing the respect of your militant arab neighbors. Sadat lost it... Arifat lost it...

I do understand how horrible the loss of any life is... but I just can't stand with the people who would undercut Israel's right to defend itself from murderers, kidnappers, and extortionists. Israel does not have the liberty to tolerate that kind of abuse. ONE nuclear weapon detonated in their nation would kill almost everyone there. And they aren't blessed with an ocean between themselves and those who would kill them. As rawmr quoted above, Hezbollah was expecting a sweet little deal from their kidnapping, and they seriously miscalculated the Israeli response. It is important that they remember that... so they never choose to act so irresponsibly again. And I absolutely will not join in the international condemnation of Israel. It me, it's like blaming a rape victim for trying to strike back at her rapist. I won't play that game.

The Lebonese Prime Minister has admitted that Hezbollah has been running a "nation within a nation" in southern Lebanon... he has also admitted that they need international help to demilitarize that unregulated militia... Perhaps he should have asked for that help before those killers opted to attack the giant next door.

Israel's Real Problem...

[publius-aelius.livejournal.com]

...IS that she's too close to Amerika--in other words, that she's too close to a racist country that is finally fulfilling her inevitable destiny of turning fascist.

The way to pursue a "just war" against the Hizbollah fanatics would have been to accept that their destiny is to be a Levantine nation, not a EUROPEAN ONE, to go into Lebanon with the sole purpose of arresting the kidnappers, rather than bombing Lebanese civilians from the air--an act of disproportionate, cowardly genocide which, on top of meeting the classic Christian definition of an "unjust war," is also self-defeating in the classic American mode of refusing to admit we're in an age of "4th generation war."

OF COURSE there would have been far more Israeli casualties, but ANY war that's worth fighting demands the expenditure of MILITARY personnel's lives, for the sake of pursuing "policy by other means." By bravely expending their young soldier's lives to protect their civilian population, but, at the same time, take care to preserve innocent Lebanese live, they would have made their Iranian and Syrian enemies look like callous murderers of ARABS.

If Israel had done THAT, we wouldn't be treated with the daily spectacle of innocent Arab civilians dying under the firepower of a nation that now is looking not like a poor little beleagured country, "Amerikanized" (as many religious members of their peace movement have realized), and, for whom no Arab life is worth that of a Jew. With Amerika's help, they have looked into the 20th century abyss of Nazism, and it has become them.

Re: Israel's Real Problem...

[publius-aelius.livejournal.com]

This should provide some context for what I mean when I say that Israel LOSES, inevitably, by refusing to fight a "4th generation war" against Hizbollah, and, instesd, resorting to classically Amerikan genocidal air bombardment:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff83.html

[arianadii.livejournal.com]

There is also another important point to consider. Did the Hezbollah start this? Are they really evil? This is not balck and white, good against evil here. This is an assumption everyone is making but this is not the whole story. I am not defending Hizbollah. I have my issues with them too but from my own experience as a Lebanese and also from UN reports:

Since its withdrawal of occupation forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel has violated the United Nations monitored "blue line" on an almost daily basis.

Hizbullah's attempts to back them off is to threaten the launch of Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership and yet Israel contnues to provoke them by firing on Lebanese citizens on their own side of the border.

Israeli soldiers have terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians. This past February, 15-year-old shepherd Yusuf Rahil was killed by Israeli cross-border fire as he tended his flock in southern Lebanon. Israel continues to occupy Lebanon's Shebaa Farms area, while refusing to hand over the maps of mine fields that continue to kill and cripple civilians in southern Lebanon more than six years after the war supposedly ended. For this reason, many lebanese children are killed and this land is useless to us.

What peace did Hizbullah shatter? It goes even deeper than this but we would have to drag Palestine in and then we know how that goes. So Israel is not only unjustified in how it handles this situation, it is not honest about even the excuse for doing this in the first place. So Hizbollah who just happen to be the only people who give any defense to Palestinians and southern Lebanese peasants are labeled a dangerous terrorist group that must be disarmed at all cost? How convenient is that?

Please be careful of throwing the terrorist label out just because US pro-Israel media says it is so. These groups do not come out of nowhere. They are not evil. They are responding to apartheid oppression which is always how such groups are created and sustained. People are all falling for this magic word "terrorist" which is becoming too often an excuse to wipe out all dissenters.

[rawmr.livejournal.com]

Hesbola has sworn itself to Israels destruction. And you only have to read the declaration Nassralah made after the start of the offensive to know what a madman he is. Israel occupied Lebanon to route the PLO. So lets not fantasize here about hesbola, who fought sidebyside with the PLO. The PLO, not only Israel's enemy, but a prime mover in blowing up and extending the civil war for 15 years. How many thousands died, and how much destruction did that cause?

I will continue to call hesbola terrorists. They have undertaken many terrorist attacks around the globe, they continue to call for the destruction of Israel, and they say they will fight along side the enemies of Israel. If not for hesbola, Israel would have no interest in Lebanon, no need to maintain the minefields, or the harrassment of hesbola supporters. I'm not going to second guess the Israelis here. The UN security council even agrees that hesbola should be disarmed. Lebanon has a proper army of 70,000. It does not need the 6,000 fanatical geurrillas of hesbola for its security. The Lebanese government doesn't want them either, and would have disarmed them long ago if they easily could.

I'm truly very sorry your country is suffering so right now, and after such a hard won reconstruction. But please don't insult my intelligence by implying that hesbola are a bunch of good old boys and Israel is just being mean to the Lebanese. I believe you know better.

[bela.livejournal.com]

I don't know what you mean by more free.
'Splain, please.

[arisbe.livejournal.com]

As Phool points out above, we are so terrorized by the fear of antisemitism and the fear of accusations of it that we don't think as clearly. For example, there is a tendency for people upset with Israel to cheer on Hamas, which is not a good thing either.

Ahhh....Now I Get It

[bela.livejournal.com]

Although it's impolite to point it out, large portions of the American media are owned by rabidly Zionist Jews. (Pointing out media types who happen to be Jewish is also anti-Semitic, of course.)
The same holds true here in Canada, where the largest media conglomerate, CanWest Global, is owned by Zionist Jews who have a habit of firing people who dare to voice opinions opposed to Israeli foreign/domestic policy.
Fortunately I've never been one to worry about accusations of any kind. P.J. O'Rourke once wrote that he didn't mind being called a fascist, since nobody fantasized about being tied up by someone dressed as a liberal. I concur....although I admit that my own politics probably meets most peoples' rather lazy definition of fascism.

Re: Ahhh....Now I Get It

[arisbe.livejournal.com]

I know a lot of Jews who aren't Zionists, and read about a lot of gentiles (I don't want to call them Christians, though that's what they call themselves) who are.

Not everybody who hopes Israel will survive in some form or other is a Zionist in the bad sense of the term. Not everybody who hopes Lebanon will survive is an antisemite or a terrorist, though some will say so.

Re: Ahhh....Now I Get It

[bela.livejournal.com]

The 'Christian' Zionists especially disturb me, since part of their reasoning is that by supporting Israel they are helping to hasten Armageddon. (That kind of logic is just one glass of kool-aid away from being worthy of Heaven's Gate.)