Read and discuss:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinio..._brumer20.html

Re "rather than being condemned for the occasional, unintentional mishap, Israel should instead be praised for the prodigious efforts it makes to avoid civilian casualties" -- my initial reaction is, give me a fucking break. If there's a slight chance a Hezbollah person is in a particular house or neighborhood, it gets bombed, no matter who else lives there. Isn't that how it works?

"occasional, unintentional mishap" is even more shameless than "collatoral damage."

I love Israel, but I hate what they're doing. The ethical issue is the old one of descending to the level of one's adversaries. Hezbollah & Hamas are indeed terrorist organizations, deliberately trying to provoke Israel into a conscienceless conflict. And Israel is taking the bait way too eagerly.

Mark,

Utter and complete reactionary claptrap, I'm afraid. Israel was never serious about a real Palestinian state--and the only surprise at the present pass I feel is that anyone's surprised--including the fact that some genuinely sinister fuckers are taking advantage of the manifest injustices visited on the Palestinians in order to pursue their own vicious agendas.

Quincy

Israel's reason for going to war, the kidnapping and shelling of her citizenry, would more than suffice for any other nation. Israel's behavior once in battle is not perfect, but not as bad as, say, that of the U.S. or Britain.

In other words, measured against a dimensionless ethical ideal, as we insist on measuring Israel, her behavior is abhorrent. Measured against the standards of the "measurers," her behavior is good. Measured against the standards of her adversaries -- those brave bombers of bus stops and bar mitzvot -- her behaviour is excellent.

I know, I know. Israel -- unlike every nation on earth -- must be measured against the ideal, not against her adversaries. The ideal is peace, and therefore, Israel is monstrous.

When the U.S. or Britain leaflets an area of Iraq announcing the next air strike, drop me a line here.

I think a great deal of the hand-wringing has nothing to do with the conduct of the war. It has to do with proportionality. That is to say, Israel should play a coy game of trading petty strikes across borders (or better yet, just absorb such strikes), and pony up a few hundred convicted felons in exchange for soldiers or the bodies of soldiers abducted by irregulars on the other side.

My relatives in Haifa have front row tickets to Hezbollahpalooza. Were it your relatives in Cornwall or Albany taking the rocket barrages, I think you'd think twice about considering katyusha strikes "business as usual."

A government's first responsibility is protection of its citizens. Not protection of your ideals, not protection of your misconceptions, protection of its citizens. When they are under indiscriminate attack for years at a time, it is within that government's rights to protect its citizenry.

Now regarding the timing -- yep, it looks like Israel might have chosen to respond to the latest provocations, right when Iran is up for security council action.

Uh huh. But why was there such a handy provocation?

Because when you're dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah, there is always a provocation.

They seem intent on making a strike on their positions politically palateable, and seem to have no regard for the populations they hide among.

Why so much energy to exonnerate the terrorist?

Dan -- is having relatives in Beirut and Sidon a legitimate reason to be concerned with how this "Israelpalooza" (in your lingo) is conducted?

Hi, editing in to say that I made my response in haste -- not that I disagree with it, but it was not very complete. My wife has family in Lebanon who I am very concerned about. I do utterly condemn Hezbollah's actions and goals -- I think they harm not only Israel (which is bad) but also Lebanon. That said, I think if Israel really wanted to strengthen other Lebanese actors in relation to Hezbollah, then it is going about it in the wrong way. Oh and taking out roads and bridges and then ordering people to evacuate seems a little fishy to me. Finally, Dan, I hope your family is all okay and that this mess is resolved for the best (of everyone) soon.

[This message has been edited by Daniel Haar (edited July 21, 2006).]

Amen, Dan!

Proportional response is playing to a draw while one side reloads and tries to sucker punch the other side. WW 1 was a proportional war. Anyone who doesn't think Iran won't use the WMD when it gets it is a fool. I'm with Israel and I'm tired of the constant whining about the Palistinian "Victims". Hezbullah needs those "victims" to justify killing Jews. Does the Iranian and North Korean Armies goose-stepping in their parades remind anyone of anything?

Dick

Hi Dan,

I certainly don't see Israel as some kind of pie-in-the-sky ideal. I find the idea of choosing sides, judging either Lebanese or Israelis en mass (especially from such a safe distance), utterly repulsive. But, after your last post, I wonder whether you have any Lebanese relatives or friends, or know any Israelis who are critical of their government and its response to the current crisis. I'd be curious as to what their thoughts might be.

Look, no one here has said a word in defense of indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. But Dan's post recylcles some of the classic Zionist* arguments. Israel's being held to a higher standard than everyone else, and its critics are being unreasonable for more or less hypocritical or cynical reasons.

Not so. Just as I oppose American military intevention in foreign countries, so too do I oppose Israeli settlements and troop presence in the Occupied Territories. And were it not for Israel's continuing dispossession of the Palestinians (if anyone thinks the current "road map"--probably defunct at this point--is going to lead to a real Palestinian nation-state is simply deluded), the demagogic turdlingers in Hamas et al. would have fuck-all for a cause.

I don't really see a short-term solution here, but my sympathies are with the civilians being bombed (both Israeli and Lebanese) and those still, for all intents and purposes, suffering under an occupying power (the Palestinians).

Quincy

*"Zionist" is, by the way, a political characterization and not a synonym for "Jew."

I found this article to be, for the most part, a sane and fair examination of the issues at hand. There's some inflammatory rhetoric, to be sure, but the underlying reasoning seems sound to me.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060731&s=walzer073106

(registration required, but free)

--CS

Everytime Israel has given up land for peace they've been fucked. There never was a county called Palestein before 1947!
What's this Occupied Territories sympathies routine. What would you do, Quincy if rockets were raining down on your neighborhood? Send your kids out to play?

d/

In the last fifty years, is there any topic more divisive than Israel? Does anyone ever change their views on either side of this one? Or is there some upside to splitting Erato in two that I'm missing?

[This message has been edited by Ethan Anderson (edited July 21, 2006).]

Dick,

If you can't see that the Palestinians are a dispossessed people, you're beyond hope... (And by the way, "Palestine.")

But I think Ethan has a point in the context of a poetry board. This is the sort of discussion where all and sundry can get foam-flecked pretty quickly (in part because there is no easy solution), so I'm going to bow out. Disagreements with anything I've posted will be read, but I, for one, don't plan on replying in this context.

Quincy

Well, yes, of course such a topic will polarise the community.

But doesn't just about any topic on this board?

And some of the most heated polarisations I have seen here derive from such apparently "cool" topics as initial caps on lines of poetry.

But this issue of "a dispossessed people" is interesting. Just how long can a people legitimately struggle through violent means to redress a dispossession?

No one doubts, for instance, that the American Indian cultures were dispossessed of their traditional lands by European settlement. But can the descendents of these dispossessed peoples legitimately start hurling bombs on U.S. cities? Surely if the principle is legitimate in the Middle East, it must be admiited everywhere.

My genetic makeup suggests that I have a strong Anglo-saxon strain. Can I legitimately organise a bombing campaign against Norman symbols of oppression for their 1000 year old dispossession of my people?




[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited July 21, 2006).]

Mark, that is staggeringly simplistic. American Indians were tragically betrayed and brutalised by European AND 'American' governments; the history reads like an open wound. But (to my knowledge anyway) these days they are not told where they can or cannot work; nor do they have concrete walls partitioning them from their places of work. Nor do Native American people have to undergo humiliating daily queues and searches at checkpoints. Were they subjected to such treatment (and worse) I don't know what their response might be. I would think it makes a world of difference to see soldiers (who are liable to view you with suspicion) on your own streets. I was brought up in the Republic of Ireland, and am, if anything, anti-nationalist. But I've been to Belfast a few times and even to a blow-in like me the army presence could feel sinister.

The commentary of people living in relative peace and prosperity on those plagued for generations by war is like funeral attendees who don't realize it's time to shut up and go home.

They mean well, and they should leave it at that.

[This message has been edited by Jason Kerr (edited July 22, 2006).]

But if Native Americans were known with some frequency to lobs shells from the reservation, or to go into city buses with explosives in their backpacks, I suspect that some sort of security measures would be taken. What your remarks suggest to me is that the Native Americans have been so defeated and conquered that they have given up any form of resistance, and in so doing, they have eliminated any temptation to subject them to oppressive security measures. Still, Native Americans do suffer from indignities even today, as do many American groups, and are at least the worst-off among them (say, childrten living with rats, abusive parents, and social service agencies that ignore their plight), entitled to blow up buses or bomb wedding receptions?

And who's to judge? Can we say it's wrong for Iraqi insurgents to kill citizens lining up for jobs that will pay them subsistance wages, but it's okay for Palestinians to do the same? And why wasn't 9/11 a permissible venture in view of the fact that, let's face it, the US has acted rather disgracefully from time to time? And how about bombing abortion clinics and killing doctors if you truly believe abortion is murder being carried out on a massive scale? Can we burn down theaters showing "blasphemous" movies and expect sympathy even from those who share our opinion of the movie? Or can we agree and insist that the morality of one's cause does not exempt one from all other forms of morality?

I suppose a somewhat stronger case could be made for terrorism in the name of a good cause if it actually worked to advance the cause, but there's no evidence that it does. On the contrary, terrorist attacks on Israel only caused the Israelis to build a security wall and set up more checkpoints, which has only made matters worse for the Palestinians. So the suicide bombers didn't just kill innocents, but also contributed directly to a substantial worsening of the lives of Palestinians on the West Bank, exacerbating the very conditions that are offered as moral cover for further acts of terrorism. It didn't take terrorism to end Apartheid in South Africa, and Ghandi did pretty well without it. Apart from the immorality of targetting innocents, it is simply a bad tactic for advancing the Palestinian cause.

Quincy-

I apologize for going off on you. My ex-wife was born in Lebanon, my family lived in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. My brother speaks fluent Arabic and has business interests in the UAE. According to the Signet/Hammond World Atlas, as per the 1978 edition, there was no country named Palestine. I have very strong feelings about the relentless distortion of the language about this subject.

Dick

Roger, I just want to take you up on a couple of things.

Firstly, I may be wrong but you seem to equate my sympathetic comments on mistreated Palestinian civilians (and my disparagement of Mark's glib analogy re. American Indians) with some kind of approval of suicide bombers! What can I say? Only that 1 + 1 doesn't equal 7 to the power of 11, not in my universe anyway. But let’s look at one of your own analogies:

While you are careful to distinguish Iraqi “insurgents” from ordinary Iraqi civilians (whom, after all, your friendly troops are trying to bring democracy to), you make no such distinction with Palestinians. Now, doesn’t that tell you something?

Then there's your use of that old bugbear-word, 'terrorism'. In terms of lexical abuse, only fellow members of that distinguished Dead Abstract Noun Club ('freedom' and 'democracy' for instance) come anywhere close. Of COURSE 9/11 was an act of terrorism (in fact terrorism is rather an understatement) and of course any suicide bombing is also an act of terrorism. Can 'legitimate' armies commit acts of terrorism? Was 'shock and awe' an act of terrorism? I think, at the very least, such things are open to debate.

I'm just very tired of people thinking they can use the word terrorist/ism with as much impunity as, say, words like AK47 or toothpaste. I'm sorry, but if you care at all what words actually mean, then you will know it is best to handle the word terrorism (along with 'freedom', 'democracy' etc.) like a phial of nitroglycerine. Robert Fisk is always going on about this, a small sane voice in the wilderness for all the difference he makes. But I love him for trying anyway.

Anyway Roger, we CAN agree on one thing, that “the morality of one's cause does not exempt one from all other forms of morality.” I am right with you there. And good ol immoral 'terrorism' is being put in practice right now in the Middle East, by the hawks on both (nay, ALL) sides.



[This message has been edited by Mark Granier (edited July 22, 2006).]

Definitions are tricky, I admit, but it seems to me that "terrorism" is not the right word to use when a recognized sovereign nation engages in acts of war to obtain a military objective, even if that nation engages in repulsive and destructive measures that one might condemn as heartily as one condemns "terrorism." That is, a nation may do something as bad as terrorism, in theory, but that doesn't make it terrorism as I feel the word is used. What's striking about Hezbollah is that its actions take place desptie the Lebanese government -- Hezbollah has ties to the government, but the government did not (as far as we know) order Hezbollah to attack Israel. It's a para-military organization. Just as Hamas, before it was elected, would act despite the condemnation of the legitimate Palestinian authority. The reason I draw the distinction is that nations and governments are, at least in theory, subject to international accountability and international law, and at least enjoy some sort of imprimatur of an entire nation of people, but terrorist groups can number in the mere hundreds, represent no one but themselves (however much other people may approve or disapprove from the sidelines), and yet they claim for themselves the moral authority of nations and they tembroil nations in conflict and affect the overall state of the world. It should be that anytime a few dozen people get together with some dynamite, they can affect world politics, let alone kill people.

Tricky, eh? Well, that's one way of putting it Roger. I think Robert Fisk himself is one of the best-placed people to respond to that, being in the thick of the action. This is from a week-old report :

Full article on
http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle14000.htm

I think I have a lot to catch up on.

Daniel,
Your reply (as edited of course!) reminds me what we all should be keeping in mind as the goal... peace for the people who bring none of this on. Yes, 100% yes, and I hope the best for your wife's relatives as well. I do have to defend "Hezbollahpalooza" against "Israelpalooza," however, on the grounds of stronger parodic parallelism.

I get your take about "ordering" people to evacuate when the transportation system is crippled. But Israel has been issuing such "orders" since prior to the actions that damaged the roads and bridges. All in all: is it better or less good to make clear to civilian populations -- at a cost to your own military objectives -- exactly which areas will be hit hardest? One side will call it more humane conduct of war, the other will call it terrorism (because a refugee lives in fear -- disregarding the distinction of living at all versus dying.)

A final note: you may well be right that Israel's course of action may not be the best to strengthen actors other than Hezbollah. The question of what these actors have been doing since Israel's withdrawl, when a disarming of all militias and an end to cross-border attacks were part and parcel of the withdrawl agreement, is conveniently ignored in this analysis. It is the responsibility of Lebanon, with or without a Syrian-installed government, to honor the territorial sovereignty of Israel, if indeed they even tacitly accept that sovereignty. Of course, they do not, and in disregarding Israel's right to exist and acting on that disregard, they invite responses such as we see unfolding now.

Do I think they are the best possible responses? No, but I will certainly watch carefully for the results. Do I think Israel has the right to respond as it has? Absolutely.

Dick,
Thanks for the support... as I hope comes through in the above, I cannot think of the civilians killed in any war or conflict as "throwaways." Whether or not sympathy is expected or is forthcoming from "victim" status, when I'm horrified by, or better, when I work to prevent the pain of the "other," I'm a better human for it (I think.) But you cannot do that at the expense of the self, as Hillel famously noted... I think Israel's currently in such a position, in the macrocosm.

Mark,
It seems to have touched a nerve that I've noted the existence of relatives in Haifa. I'll give you a simple answer, assuming the questions to be in earnest. I have one friend of a friend, a Sunni, who does not like Hezbollah, and does not like Israel. I know a couple of Americans who lived as ex-pats in what the female of the couple called [her]"beloved Lebanon" for several years, before bugging out just after 9/11. I know that her attitude is that Israel is a terrible, terrible country, for bullying Lebanon. She seems to have no such sentiments toward any of the score or so of factions which tore the country apart for two decades, nor for Syria. I know no Lebanese in country at present. I do know that other Arab nations (not Lebanon, not Syria,) have condemned both the Hezbollah/Hamas provocations and the Israeli reaction. I have also seen the figures of killed and wounded in Lebanon as a result of the Hezbollah actions and Israeli response, and like you I have seen the pictures of that nation's devastation.

Again, it is a very bad thing. Not as bad as what the U.S. and Britain are doing to the much larger, much more populous country of Iraq. But still, a very bad thing. The questions that are coming up are:

1) Since this is a Very Bad Thing, how can Israel claim the right to engage in it? Answer: Israel is behaving worse than any country on the face of the earth, except all the other countries on the face of the earth. By comparison with what the British or Americans would do posed with parallel circumstances (and need we even mention Russia?), this Very Bad Thing is limited in both scale and tactics. Every other country would have the right to pursue these international criminals across borders, and to impose their will by force, when the host nation of these thugs very plainly says in international forums that it can not be responsible for international agreements regarding part of its territory. So you may take the position that Israel is particularly heinous for its involvement, but only in a vacuum. Measured against the standards we, among other countries uphold, Israel is acting according to her rights as a sovereign state.

2) You may ask whether Israel is doing the wisest thing, or the most right thing. I support this discussion... though I recognize it as a bit of a sideline pursuit. We're refining the "ideal" Israel, while the real Israel acts as she (currently) wants. Given her vulnerability to warlike actions during the "peaces" with adjacent populations, I have started to wonder whether unilateral withdrawl is not the key to the entire mess. And concommitant to unilateral withdrawl, Israel may be attempting to set the cost of engagement so high that a deterrent effect takes hold. Hey, it worked with Egypt and Jordan.

But again, I do not have the requisite Lebanese relatives to make this analysis. I have been active in pro-peace Jewish groups, but American, not Israeli. Mr. Haar's relatives might be your best bet for a Lebanese perspective on the benefits of Hezbollah operating on your nation's home soil.

Quincy,
It is likely that the classical Zionist argument - that Israel has a right to exist and defend her sovereignty - will be recycled quite frequently in the course of this discussion. It's an easy classical trap to fall into, when a country's neighbors are employing classical genocidal rhetoric, and periodically attempt to bring such rhetoric to real-world fruition -- without the means to succeed. This last bit (lack of means to succeed,) means they must settle for terrorism. Zionists, I hear, are a stubborn and stiff-necked people, and do not think of Terrorism as an acceptable "compromise."

If it is tiring to hear people talk about self-defense, don't discuss with them -- or their advocates -- how they feel about having rockets lobbed at them and their citizens kidnapped.

Regarding the dispossession of the Palestinians, I am not sure exactly how this is supposed to be remedied, when they cannot stop the urge to lose a military engagement even when the other side has unilaterally disengaged. Do you question Palestinian motivation as well?

This is meant more as a friendly broadside than a cranky diatribe -- I agree with you in the broad outlines. A Palestinian state living in peace with Israel would utterly defuse the hawks on all sides. The difficulty is, there seems to be no presence of any consequence in Palestine with the desire or the authority to begin building such a state, and no desire within Israel to just "trust" the Palestinians with the development of such leadership.

So, the "final status" is another can of worms... one which will look far diffferent in a month or two than it's looked in the last five years.


Dick (again),
Okay, one side note here... the "Palestein" typo tickled me, because I once wrote a comedy sketch in which Israelis and PA officials are meeting in Washington. At the end, the Israeli consents that the Palesitinians should have a state, under one condition: "You have to pronounce it Pale-STEEN." Well, the actors tried and tried, but the audience never laughed... I still wondered if they just thought it was objectionable, or they just plain didn't get it.

In any event... I do have sympathy for civilians caught in any conflict, just like Quincy. But if we take that baseline sympathy into account, and note that we are all good people who do not delight in the destruction of innocents or their property, we are left with what?

The same questions: What can Israel do, what should Israel do, and what does Israel have the right to do, under the circumstances?

Israel can do much worse things to her adversaries, if she wishes. Israel should not do those things, and possibly, in a vacuum, should not pursue the course she's on now. Israel has the right to do the things she is currently doing, by any sane international standard.

I'll wrap it up with 3 more thoughts (and still be behind on this thread.)

The first: Regarding the "cancerous" use of the word "Terrorist:" I agree. We need definitions. When the civilian populace is intentionally targeted, we are certainly dealing with terrorism. This corresponds to the ongoing rocket attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas. When soldiers are kidnapped and held hostage with the ultimate implied "bargaining position" being that they will be killed in cold blood, though that is another species of barbarism dealt with in international instruments, it is hard to say whether it is "Terrorism" per se. When a sovereign state, in the internationally recognized "hot pursuit" of individuals who committed crimes against its citizens, takes military action in a place where the national government (Lebanon's) abdicates responsibility and therefore sovereignty, it is quite emphatically not terrorism.

2) "But what would happen if the powerless Lebanese government had actually unleashed air attacks across Israel the last time Israel's troops crossed into Lebanon?" I only know what happened when the Egyptian air force bombed Israeli cities prior to the existence of an Israeli air force: Egypt lost that war, and Israel built an air force. I do know that Egypt has stopped trying to bomb Israel's cities.

Does Lebanon view the current state of affairs as an "act of war?" They should. Should Lebanon have signed a treaty of peace with Israel in 1948, or subsequent to 1948? Oh yes. Because then Israel actually has a responsibility to avoid war with Lebanon. Lebanon behaves as if the state of war exists, and it's on. No paperwork. Does anybody here think that Syria could not have strengthened the Lebanese government's hand against Hezbollah, since they are the local warlord, either directly (to 2005,) or via proxy? Syria wanted Hezbollah carrying on the war. Israel responds, and bears the blame.

3) For those who know the history, the elephant in the middle of the room...and maybe cryptic as hell to many others:

Are we just looking at the still-rotting corpse of the "Sick Old Man of Europe"? Britain and France needed to carve up the Ottomans as soon as it became apparent that a few dinosaur burial grounds were going to be the key to the twentieth century. Is the insistence that Israel's existence is the continuation and heart of European meddling in the Mideast, in fact a communal delusion in the Arab world? I humbly submit, for lack of a better formulation, that if Israel did not exist, the so-called "Arab Street" would have to invent it.

For a few here, (3) is supposed to be food for thought. It doesn't much enter into the day by day, week by week, conflict by conflict breakdown of the middle east, but may be of some interest as a hystorical hypothetical.

Thanks very much to those hardy souls who persevered through this lengthy diatribe... this is what happens when one is only an occasional visitor to the 'sphere.

Shalom, Salaam, and peace to all, including the principals in this ugly conflict (in the middle east, not on this board)... true peace to all parties, not just the absence of full-scale hostilities, "when every man beneath his vine and his fig tree shall live in peace and unafraid."

Dan

"I find the idea of choosing sides ... utterly repulsive."

Mark, you can't get off the hook so easily. Refusal to choose is also a choice, and it empowers evil.

Alan

A general comment:

Israel today has the same problem it has had ever since the Jews asked the prophet Samuel to give them a king. When a people becomes "a nation like the nations", it must expect to be treated as a political entity and not as a sacred entity whose acts are beyond moral criticism.

A poet friend once told me that she left the synagogue when the issue of Israel began to override everything else. Her comment was, "God doesn't do real estate."

Very well-put, Gail. And an obvious logical concommitant is, Israel must be expected to be considered by her actions, as are other nations, and Israel must be expected to consider, first and foremost, the wellbeing of Israelis, just as America considers first the wellbeing of Americans, and Britain considers first the wellbeing of Britons.

However, Israel attempts to consider the wellbeing of populations "represented" by her adversaries in every conflict.

Now then, for the detractors here:

Please explain to me where an American or a Briton has the right to criticize the Israeli response to real and sustained provocations within Israel, for which credit was claimed specifically by the individuals against which Israel is currently retaliating. Someone explain that, and in the process tell me how it was better for Britain and America to launch a 3-year excursion in Iraq for no reason that did not break down under examination. Someone explain how the 300 Lebanese who have died are more important than the tens of thousands of Iraqis, or had less right to live.

Is the answer that you, personally, are against the Iraq war as well?

Then please, please enlighten me as to why every other country on the face of the Earth has the rights I enumerated in previous posts, for example, the right to pursue a group in "hot pursuit" if they are using territory outside the sovereign control of a nation, from which to wage terrorist attacks. Why is that principal okay within the "rules of war" and "just war theory" -- until we reach the Israeli case?

I know I can get persistent on this subject, but the double standard has always struck me as ludicrous, and born of political faddism if not (oh no! The "a" word!) Antisemitism.

Why must Israel be judged other than how other nations must be judged?

Dan

Never mind.

[This message has been edited by Ethan Anderson (edited July 23, 2006).]

For Ethan (of course, you're right):

http://youtube.com/results?search=jon+stewart+on+the+brink&search_typ e=search_videos&search=Search


Hope this lightens things up for you. The funniest part is at the end.

You know, sometimes, when it's quiet, you can hear the pump screaming. http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

Best,
Greg

Originally posted by Quincy Lehr:

"I don't really see a short-term solution here, but my sympathies are with the civilians being bombed (both Israeli and Lebanese) and those still, for all intents and purposes, suffering under an occupying power (the Palestinians)."

I'll not only second that, Quincy, I would add to it the civilians in Iraq. We DO bomb there. They may be killing each other, but the May, June civilian death total of Iraqi civilians (6,000) is not all because of "sectarian strife," but also from our now "necessary" bombing.

There's a terrible flood of innocent blood on our hands in the Middle East. Not what I'd call "Christian."

Shameless O'Clawson

"Refusal to choose is also a choice, and it empowers evil."

And we don't want to empower evil, because we all know how evil is evil.

I'm so tired of the use of "evil." Why don't we just call an asshole and asshole?

Utterly Shameless O'Clawson

Dan, you keep harping on about how terrible the rest of the world is. I don't see anyone disputing this, so it seems a rather pointless comparison. OF COURSE Israel isn't the worst aggressor. The US invasion of Iraq is far more aggressive (AND promulgated on glaringly obvious lies). Or there are China's horrific repressions in Tibet. Again, and for the record, I don't think Israelis need to live up to anyone's silly ideal of some saintly promised land, and I do understand that they are under threat much of the time. This I can sympathise with. Were Israelis getting as relentlessly pummeled as the Lebanese I would be AS appalled on their behalf also, no more, no less. But as Fisk has said, if such a thing were happening we would probably be witnessing World War Three, or something very close to in anyway.

BTW Dan, I salute you for your work in pro-peace Jewish groups. That's likely far more than I've ever done.

Dan,

Thanks for the well-wishes for my wife's family. I think it is important to remember that there are many humans, unfortunate and innocent, who are hurt on both sides of any war. Yes, let's hope for a speedy and lasting peace!

- Daniel

Mark,

Then we agree, so I do apologize if I get strident on the subject.

I question the rationale and wisdom of the last couple of weeks' events too, and of course, like any human being, I look at that devastation and it does hurt to see it. A lot of the people who lived in that rubble did not "ask for this." A lot of the dead did not "ask for it." Since Lebanese aren't the "enemies" of American soldiers, we in the States do see a good deal of their misery. (Rather than Iraq coverage: "embed" style "reports from the front" in which we learn that "Johnny played tuba and wanted to go to dental school before....")

The only hope this points to for me, is that Israel's strategy is to pull out of occupied territory, per the Kadima party line, but to have in place a policy of zero tolerance for terror... in the hope that Lebanon and Gaza could then, theoretically, be left alone. I don't know how the people of Gaza and Lebanon feel about that prospect. I know they'll never love Israel, but Kadima seems to be preferring to be feared, a la Machiavelli's advice.

I'll leave a note in my will, for my grandchildren to bury a letter next to my coffin, telling me how it all came out, I suppose. I'll leave explicit instructions to tell me how silly we all looked, calling this intractable.... when all along, the answer was ___________.

Daniel,
My thanks too on behalf of my relatives in Haifa. I pray too for a speedy, lasting, and real peace, for all parties (though you may be able to discern from the above I'm none too optimistic recently.) For now I'll ask for the little peace covering your relatives and mine. When it comes fown to it, that's what each of us can really imagine.

Dan

[This message has been edited by Dan Halberstein (edited July 23, 2006).]

This is an important issue, "What justifies any nation to go to war against any other nation?". In the reality of how intensely evil war is, or at least has become over the last century, I would say this and this alone would justify going to war: the invasion of one nation's territory by the army of another nation. Things like kidnaping seems more appropriate as a police issue. So now we must look at our own nation's history with this definition in mind.

The Revolution:

We were a part of the British Empire and, as such, owed allegiance to the king; it was not a case of English soldiers invading another sovereign territory. So what if we didn't like taxes, it was our duty to pay them. The saying "Taxation without representation is tyranny" was not used as an argument for the colonies getting some seats in Parliament but only as a reason for whiny little money lovers to not pay their taxes. The ideals of the Declaration of Independence were never fully realized, and in fact in the last quarter century have been largely ignored.

The British position was hardly better: if people want out, you should let them go. Certainly the colonists were not invading Britain.

Judgement: neither side had a reason to go to war, therefore both are condemned. Bang! Next case...

The War of 1812:

Similar to the current Israeli conflict, it started over some Americans being kidnaped by the British navy.

Judgement: neither side had a reason to go to war, therefore both are condemned. Bang! Next case...

The Mexican War:

The Americans wanted more land generally, and the south was especially paranoid because Santa Anna ended slavery in Mexico. We invaded them, not they us.

Judgement: the USA had no reason to go to war, therefore is condemned. Mexico was invaded and therefore had the right to self defense. Bang! Next case...

The Civil War:

The south did not even give Lincoln a chance but instead formed the CSA and then fired on Fort Sumter, all for the love of slavery.

The north did not allow the south to secede from a union which was entered into voluntarily but, in the manner of Britain, forced them back.

Judgement: neither side had a reason to go to war, therefore both are condemned. Bang! Next case...

The 'Indian' Wars:

The Native Americans repetedly gave in to the Federal government which forced 'treaties' on them saying, in effect, that "your land is really my land, but because we're so generous we will allow you to live on the trashiest part of your, that is to say, our land." Then if the trashy land turns out to be good, the government takes that land and gives them another trashy place. Occasionly they fought back and then our army crushed them.

[side bar] The similarity of the Washita and My Lai incidents should not overshadow some important differences. Lt Calley was a young officer who 'freaked out' after having seen casualties, while Gen Custer knew what he was doing and did it cold-bloodedly to gain political power for a future presidential campaign.

Judgement: the USA had no right to go to war, therefore is condemned. The Native Americans were invaded and therefore had the right to self defense. Bang! Next case...

The Spanish-American War:

There was no seeking of evidence into why the USS Maine exploded, we just rushed to war. Previously we were not invading Spain or Spanish colonies and certainly Spain was not invading the USA.

Judgement: neither side had a reason to go to war, therefore both are condemned. Bang! Next case...

World War I:

The American citizens aboard the Lusitania knew that they were sailing into a war zone, therefore their deaths are not a valid reason to go to war. In fact very few nations in that conflict were initially responding to an invasion: Serbia, Belgium, and France; most were dragged into it by pre-war treaties.

Judgement: we, and almost all other nations, had no reason to go to war, therefore all (execpt Serbia, Beligium, & France) are condemned. Bang! Next case...

World War II:

Finally the USA was initially attacked, as were most of the Allies, by the Axis. The USSR did, in cooperation with Germany, helped the Germans invade Poland; therefore is not innocent.

Judgement: the Allies were invaded by the Axis and have a right to self defense, therefore are innocent; while the Axis had no reason to go to war and is condemned. Bang! Next case...

Robert Meyer


[This message has been edited by Robert Meyer (edited July 25, 2006).]

Robert--

The Civil War was about slavery. The state's rights issue was a cover for slavery, as was generally acknowledged at the time--and it's a self-serving horseshit argument in any case. The North was right, the South wrong.

You're pretty much right about the rest of them.

Dr. Quincy Lehr

(Two matters; I said I'd bow out of this thread, but this is a matter of U.S. history here. And noting my Ph.D. is a transparent pulling of academic rank in this instance.)

According to an article in last weekend's Irish Times, the Middle East conflict has the Evangelical websites buzzing with anticipation. 'Rapture Ready' has useful tips on how to prepare yourself or what to do if you're in the bathroom when Jesus drops by: "If you are reading this after the Rapture you need to realise you have been left behind." On one of its discussion threads (since taken down) a poster exclaimed: "I will just have time to get my hair and nails done." Meanwhile the 'House Of Yahweh' site has officially declared that "Nuclear War Will Start On September 12th. 2006." Reminds me of that bumper sticker someone on this site told me about: IF THE RAPTURE COMES CAN I HAVE YOUR CAR?

Some political figures (in any society) don't really WANT peace. In peacetime, people expect their leaders to deal with boring stuff like unemployment and infrastructure and education and health care and balancing the budget. Any proposed solutions will be very painful, even if they work as intended (as is unlikely). What's a re-election-minded politician to do?

The two easiest ways to evade responsibility for solving tricky domestic problems are:

1. Blame domestic problems on a subgroup of society: Those undesirables are dragging our otherwise great society down! THEY are the reason we don't have the kind of society WE want and deserve!
This technique is popular with both conservatives and liberals: scapegoats might be Jews, homosexuals, religious fundamentalists of any stripe, immigrants, lawyers, rich people, unions, powerful corporations, or the wonderfully all-purpose "special interests". Yes, we're in a mess, but it's all the fault of (fill in the blank); and before we even try to solve the problem we need to defend our society from THEM!

2. Take the country to war and keep it there, so that domestic problems never quite become a top priority.
Since war pushes those bothersome domestic issues off the front page, voters are less likely to notice when political figures don't exert themselves with any actual attempts at problem-solving. Anyone who raises domestic issues can be dismissed as a person whose priorities and patriotism are questionable; after all, the country is under imminent threat, and what could possibly be more important?

Julie Stoner
(Who doesn't have any solutions, either, but she's off the hook because it's all the fault of the politicians, anyway. See, technique #1 works for me, too!)

Mark,

:) I guess if you're in the bathroom long enough, you won't know the Rapture has come except that...what? The Truly Rapturous will be missing and assumed gone to heaven? Hmm. How will we be able to differentiate that from an attack by kidnappers? There's no demand for ransom money? No demand that Israel itself be transported to California?

Yargh. I go to a convention for a week, don't bother to check the news while I'm there, and when I emerge, I find the Israel-Lebanon mess exactly where I expected it to be, down to the apologists and the posturing.

First off, a small request: Can we stop talking about soldiers being "kidnapped"? May we please reserve "kidnapped" to describe what happens when someone abducts a child? It seems a fairly easy definition: You capture a soldier, you abduct a civilian, you kidnap a child. I'm not certain what you do with child soldiers, but it doesn't seem germane in any case.

Now, on with the rest... On judging Israel more harshly than other countries, it depends on what you're judging. Zionism? Resurrecting a dead country and turning a scholarly language into a modern spoken tongue? That's fairly wacky. Doing it in a neighborhood where you're distinctly unpopular also seems a recipe for disaster.

However, countries have been founded on shaky premises before. (The Mormon pioneers spring to mind.) And every country has some variety of massacre or other embarrassing incident in its past, which everyone would probably overlook except that the past is still in too many currently-living people's personal memories, so that doesn't help much. Worse, if you start your country with "Never forget" as a slogan, that's kind of a double-edged sword, since it's intellectually dishonest to expect anyone to forget anything else that's happened since, no matter how politically embarrassing.

Another double-edged sword is continually redrawing borders. The current mess with Lebanon looks an awful lot like Israel carving off the bottom third as new territory. Of course I doubt it will be called that--it'll get called something bland and transparent like "security zone" first--but if Israel gets to do that, what's the matter with other countries deciding to change the borders the other way? What's the point of having a chunk of real estate called "Israel" if it's getting so many people killed?

The quasi-theocracy nature of Israel is hardly a good thing either, at least as a democracy. Comparing it to the United States, it doesn't come off well, if simply because the whole 1st Amendment thing keeps us, at least in theory, from favoring one religion over another. Meanwhile Britain, while it does have a state religion, has the Church of England which has become the stuff of Eddie Izzard's "Cake or Death" skit. Whereas in Israel, religion is rather a sticking point. Also, putting a racial/religious symbol smack dab in the middle of your flag doesn't make you very credible if you have pretentions to being an inclusive secular democracy.

As for the US and Britain bombing Iraqis into paste? Yes, we suck. Actually, I prefer to state that as "Bush and Blair and their respective administrations suck," and while I am quite aware that there are large numbers of Israelis who also believe that their current leadership sucks, what people care most about is whether the people getting bombed into paste are anyone they know. Yes, it's supposed to be about morality, but if anyone really cared about morality, we'd be doing something about what's going on in Africa. However, when people with names we can't pronounce are killing each other over crap that's been going on for centuries and everyone else on the planet could care less about? Eh, they can call us when they sort it out. Till then, who cares?

Israel and Lebanon, meanwhile, have been pimping themselves out as tourist destinations, which means they get judged as tourist destinations, not as unpronounceable third world countries that nobody cares about anyway. For example, at the start of this, Israel killed a Canadian family, mostly children, visiting southern Lebanon. Canadians? My best friend's wife is Canadian. And the girls who live two doors down from me, the ones who babysit my dog sometimes, their late father was Lebanese. What sort of evil people kill Canadians and Lebanese? And my government is giving them money? WTF?

Yes, it's more complex than that, but not much.

kidnap: to seize and detain or carry away by unlawful force or fraud and often with a demand for ransom

capture1 : an act or instance of capturing: as a : an act of catching, winning, or gaining control by force, stratagem, or guile b : a move in a board game (as chess or checkers) that gains an opponent's piece c : the absorption by an atom, nucleus, or particle of a subatomic particle that often results in subsequent emission of radiation or in fission d : the act of recording in a permanent file <data capture>
2 : one that has been taken (as a prize ship)

Could be either word fits, couldn't it....

Until, of course, you read this which was said immediately after the seizure of the Israeli soldiers by the terrorist group Hezbollah:

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=16950

Meanwhile, Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, warned that two Israeli soldiers captured by his fighters will only be returned through a prisoner swap. "I thank our fighters, I kiss their forheads and hands," he said, adding: "This is the only available way to release (Lebanese prisoners in Israel).
The Israelis always first say they do not wish to negotiate, but eventually they accept."

First Published 2006-07-12, Last Updated 2006-07-12 16:56:04[


The word "captured" implies prisoners of war caught on a field of battle by an opposing army - which is not what happens when two soldiers are taken from their own country during a terrorist raid which killed eight other soldiers and are then taken, by force and against their will, across their own border by the aforementioned terrorist group with the vocalized intention of being used as negotiating tools.

Only a recognized army has the right to "capture" and hold prisoners-of-war - and only in a recognized war - a terrorist group making a raid in the dead of night by sneaking into another country for the second time in weeks with the express purpose of causing harm and claiming captives as barginning chips does not qualify.

Words - words words words words words........gotta love 'em and their unending twisting possibilities. Perhaps the pen really is mightier than the sword. Doesn't matter - much as I love words and their endless meanings - and as much as I abhor violence - were I forcibly removed from my own county against my will and held prisoner by a terrorist group who had publically sworn to remove anyone of my ilk from the face of the earth, I'd much prefer the men with swords to the men with pens to be the ones coming to my rescue.



[This message has been edited by Lo (edited July 28, 2006).]

Kevin, thanks for stopping by to posture and apologize.

I suppose those "capturing" were regular Lebanese army, wearing uniforms, carrying their weapons in the open -- as opposed to a street gang with a flag? It makes a difference, if you are claiming that the soldiers were not kidnapped. Won't argue this one further, because I think it's splitting hairs. It's also probably your strongest point, one on which you're say, 10% right.

Thanks for popping in fifty-eight years after the fact to provide guidance on the founding of the state of Israel. Or did you mean to help out Hertzl and company a century late? Two points for your consideration: the "scholarly language" of Hebrew was a liturgical language prior to its modernization by Ahad Ha'am, no argument there. It was, however, known by close to the entirety of the Jewish people. Would you prefer they spoke Yiddish? Many Sephardic Jews would not. As to the "neighborhood where you're distinctly unpopular": There was much less anti-Jewish violence in the middle east than in Europe, at the time. Putting such a country where there was no historical Jewish population was not an option, nor putting such a country where there was thick settlement (there was not such settlement in Palestine.) The "model" refugee haven of the U.S. could not see its way clear to absorbing more than a handful of refugees during the Holocaust, and the same was true of the other liberal democracies. It is not a "fairly wacky" idea or a "shaky premise". It is the logical concommitant of the behavior of the West toward its Jewish population since the time of Rome: A non-Jewish country cannot be trusted to act as "guardian" of Jewish rights in the macrocosm. This has been proven again and again.

Sure Kevin. All historical events are of equal weight. Of course. Call me when the number of lives taken by Israel over fifty-eight years' fighting is equal to a bad day in Europe, and I'll give this some credence.

I have a novel idea: When you want Israel out of an area, make an agreement and abide by it, and see what happens. Seriously, just for Schlitz and giggles, just to see if it can be done. Like, when you sign an agreement -- as Lebanon has -- to disband Hezbollah along with other militias. In any event, the plan -- at least as announced -- is not to occupy as in the 1982-2000 timeframe. They're talking about a mile-wide strip. We shall see. Your root problem, Kevin, is that Israel's borders are not respected. Until they are, Israel has the obligation to cross them in hot pursuit of those who would do her harm.

We've been through this one before, Kevin. While I'm absolutely certain that none in this country insist on religious displays, precepts, or terminology on their money, in their courtrooms, in their definitions of marriage, in the state's attitude toward abortion, or in any other public or secular pursuit, I am less certain of your point regarding the flag. Are you speaking of crosses, which would have to be removed from a couple dozen European flags, or crescents, which would have to be removed from virtually every Middle-Eastern flag (along with some southeast asian ones as well?) or are you only aghast at a Jewish religious symbol being on a flag??? Sorry Kev, but by the "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck" standard, you're getting really close to looking like a duck here. If you are so okay with Islamic and Christian symbols you don't even see them, and laugh at the parallel application Jewish symbols... how is that not Antisemitism?

Time to get to work... it's been interesting. I am kind of tickled by that navy blue expanse of emptiness England uses as her emblem in Kevin Andrew Murphyland... still chuckling.

Dan

Dan,

Dan, Daniel, Danny, Danny-boy, Danny-me-boy... Have I missed any variants or patronizing pet forms? I'm not used to writing in this style, so let me just get it out of the way to begin with. Or perhaps we could debate this without wheedling familiarity?

With the wheedling roundabout talks-like-a-duck anti-semitism insinuations, let me simply put the questions forward: Is Israel meant to be a theocracy or a modern democracy? A Jewish homeland or a cosmopolitan society with preferential seating for none? If the answer to both is the former, then the current flag design couldn't be better. If the later, then probably not the greatest idea and in need of a redesign.

As for crosses in other flags, when you see the flag of Sweden, do you think of the glories of Christendom or do you think there might be an IKEA nearby and you could pick up some meatballs with lingonberry sauce? I know I think of the later, and so I think do most people, due to the fact that even Christians who do wear crosses around their necks, they generally don't wear them sideways. And I've never seen anyone wearing that spiky-assed thing in the middle of the Union Jack. Yes, I'll admit I'm grandfathering a lot of things here, but it's all a matter of how in-your-face it is.

As for the "In God We Trust" on our own coinage, well, thank the damnable Knights of Columbus and their McCarthy-era anti-commie crusade for that. Yes, I do notice it. No, I'm not happy with it. But currently the Knights of Columbus are just ringing bells in front of supermarkets and atheists are free to walk the streets and sneer at them as they like, so I'm not sweating it. In the US, we can change our religion like we change our socks, define our ethnicity however it amuses us at the moment, and there's no space for religion or race on our drivers licenses or other public identity cards. Israel?

As for kidnapping, we're poets here. Look at the etymology: kid=child, nap is nab. Or simply turn to an older dictionary. From the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue:

KID. A little dapper fellow. A child. The blowen has napped the kid. The girl is with child.

To NAB. To seize, or catch unawares. To nab the teaze;
to be privately whipped. To nab the stoop; to stand in
the pillory. To nab the rust; a jockey term for a horse
that becomes restive. To nab the snow: to steal linen
left out to bleach or dry. CANT.

KIDNAPPER. Originally one who stole or decoyed children
or apprentices from their parents or masters, to send
them to the colonies; called also spiriting: but now used for all recruiting crimps for the king's troops, or those of the East India company, and agents for indenting servants for the plantations

Certainly it can be used in other senses than the snatching of children, but that's the core implication.

As for Hezbollah having soldiers, I suppose I apply walks-like-a-duck, because martially trained people with political objectives sound an awful lot like soldiers to my mind, even if they don't have all the uniforms. Taking hostages to exchange for prisoners is an ancient military tactic, in fact, and if Hezbollah had to kill eight soldiers to capture two, it would seem that was the objective. After all, if they simply wanted to <cite>kidnap</cite> someone, there must be any number of Israeli children who would fit the bill and could be grabbed with far less bother. Attacking and capturing soldiers? That's guerilla warfare, but warfare all the same. And by your own terms, Hezbollah is a militia.

Disbanding militias is a tricky business, mostly because if they're secret and you don't know their members, how do you get them to disband and how do you know they've done it?

But this, Dan, is severely creepy:

Wow. I hadn't seen it spelled out before, but from what you're saying, it sounds like Israel has an atrocity debit card and you're bragging that it's barely dipped into its balance. It's like a license-to-kill and a papal indulgence all rolled into one.

Sorry, no. I'm appalled by atrocities. I'm more appalled by atrocities that take place in my lifetime.



[This message has been edited by Kevin Andrew Murphy (edited July 28, 2006).]