If you've ever been the little guy, you know that the moment someone fucks with you, you have two choices: you can either play the lovable clown and take the abuse all the while convincing everyone it doesn't bother you, or you can go completely psycho kicking some serious ass and laying down a precedent that if anyone fucks with you again, you will fight them to the death.
I'm a 4'11" punk who grew up on the wrong side of town, and I know this predicament quite well. I have never had the "off the cuff" sense of humor that would allow me to take advantage of option one, so that pretty much left me with kicking ass behind Door Number Two.
Right now, the world is in fervor, because Israel is pursuing Door Number Two. I guess they are completely fed up with the clowning at Door Number One. Do I like the fact that Israel is engaged in an all-out war right now? Nope. Do I rest easy with the idea that a place like Lebanon and the Lebanese people are being devastated? Not really. Do I agree with the world's call for restraint? Absolutely not!
The glaring fact, that the world, particularly the United Nations and the European Union, seems to be conveniently overlooking right now, is that Hezbollah started it. They crossed an internationally recognized border, not like one of the borders we have in the U.S. where it's just a wooden sign that says "Welcome to Nebraska", a border with armed military and fences. They kidnapped two soldiers; an act that was clearly meant to provoke a conflict. Given the end result of most Muslim extremist group kidnappings, it’s only a matter of time before we see those boys decapitated brutally on some webstream, and this is on everyone’s mind, particularly Israeli officials.
When Israel bombs a place, they go in first with leaflets, that's right, little notes that basically tell citizens when the planes will be flying by to bomb and that it would be wise for residents to haul out of there. In all of the history classes that you sat through in school, have you ever heard of another country doing this before unleashing an assload of bombage?
I genuinely feel bad for the Lebanese people, because they have been through hell for nearly 40 years. Syria has basically tied their hands in a far more brutal and nasty occupation, that oddly enough, doesn’t get as much press or attention as the other supposed occupation. I guess when Arabs brutalize, kill and conquer other Arabs it’s perfectly okay, but when Jews try to live next to Arabs, it’s bad, bad, bad. I would like to see Lebanon restored to its former glory as the “Paris of the Middle East” where art and culture are allowed to lead society, but that won’t happen until all of the extremists are gone.
There have been civilian casualties, but I blame Hezbollah for the lion's share. They put their offices and operations in apartment buildings where families with children live to use them as human shields. What a group of cowardly pieces of shit they are! Now they want to do a prisoner trade like they are some sort of recognized government. They are a terrorist group, no different than Al Qaeda, and like Al Qaeda, Hezbollah is very well funded. Iran gives Hezbollah a budget of $100 million per year to operate. Given the living conditions of the average Arab in that part of the world, wouldn't that $100 million be better spent on schools, infrastructure, and looking after the well-being of the citizenry instead of trying to take out a country that is not going to be defeated? A portion of that money is allocated for just enough humanitarian aid to keep the people loyal, but the bulk of it is spent on trying to take Israel out.
This conflict has been a long time coming and given the fact that Iran is about two years away from having nukes, and Iran funds and arms Hezbollah, then Israel has no choice but to take Hezbollah out for good this time.
Israel has the right to exist, and they want to do it without all of this conflict, but extremists like Hezbollah won't let things be. If you knock a small punk in the back of the head in the school hallway on a regular basis, eventually he will turn around and kick your ass, and if you fuck with Israel, cross the border, kill its citizens, force over one million Israelis to live in bomb shelters, kidnap its soldiers, and lob thousands of missiles at its most populated cities, then you will unleash the dragon, and it will be your own damned fault.
Less than 24 hours after posting this, on Friday afternoon in Downtown Seattle, an armed gunman, identifying himself as a Muslim angry at Israel, got past security at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, and shot six women working at the Federation. One is dead, three are in critical condition, and the other three were wounded (one of the wounded is 7 mos. pregnant). They haven't released the name of the woman who was killed, but there is a good chance I've met her, since I am active in the community. Some readers may fault my hardline stance when it comes to Israel, but this situation is the reality we live with on a day to day basis. Sure, there aren't always gunmen, but one of the biggest line item expenses at any Jewish elementary school in the United States is security for bulletproof glass on the windows, security camera systems, alarms, a fireproof saferoom, and armed security to patrol the schools. On a day-to-day basis, I don't think about the fact that I'm Jewish and I go about living my life, then there are days like this, when something really bad happens and it drives home the fact that there are people out there who hate me for what I am. Fortunately, I am proud, strong, and Jewish, and those who don't like it can just go fuck themselves. I'm sure my sisters at the Federation feel the same way, the sad thing is that there is one less of us who will be able to pass that amazing outlook on to her children, because she died today, hours before the start of the Sabbath.
11 comments:
Israel has shown remarkable restraint in its dealings with Hezbollah. Based on the US response to 9/11, they could very well have pre-emptively invaded and bombed all their neighbors into parking lots.
Is the press the same over there? All we get are pictures of crying Lebanese children. Fair enough. They've been bombed, 'course they're crying. I would. Up to now the British media et al is avoiding pointing out that a) Israel - as you said - give advanced warning and b) Could wipe Lebanon off the map if they didn't care for the civilians.
It's a war. Civilians die in war. Nobody, including Israel want that. If Israel could bomb the (justifiable) crap out of Hezbollah with zero civilian casualties they would.
Dunno about over there but we're bein' brainwashed here to believe Israeli's don't give a shit.
For what it's worth very few here listen to that shite.
I have an Israeli friend. He did his military service. I found him crying over a story of a dead Lebanese family.
That is Israel. ('n no, I'm not Jewish)
Fuck the politicians. We know.
Israel are the front line. We know it.
Here Here! I have been arguing with people a lot pointing out that muslim terror groups kill innocents and use the 'human shield' tactic, refusing to allow refugees leave. Israel has a right to get these fuckers. If the arab world is so fucking great then why dont their seemingly endless supply of sypmathisers go and live there. Beheading 16 year old girls is so much more civilised.
Ccabrera - The Israel/Hezbollah situation is not anything like the U.S./Iraq debacle. The U.S. had absolutely no right to start a war with Iraq. The war in Iraq is illegal, unnecessary and inhumane.
Israel, however, was defending itself. Since Israel pulled out of Lebanon years ago, Hezbollah has been storing a cache of weapons and training guerilla fighters whose purpose is to bring about the destruction of Israel. Any country that is attacked has the right to defend itself.
As for the targets in Lebanon, they are not random. The bombs that Hezbollah are dropping are random. The ones launced by the IDF are aimed specifically at buildings that have been used by Hezbollah to store weapons and serve as launching pads for their Iranian bombs. If some of the targets have seemed random, it is because Israel has to take out bridges, roads, and airstrips that have been used to import weapons from Iran into Lebanon.
As I said in my essay, Hezbollah is armed and funded by Iran. Iran is two years away from having nuclear weapons, unlike Iraq, this military operation will serve its purpose in irradicating Hezbollah, which means that two years from now, I won't have to hear about nukes hitting Tel Aviv. We've already been through one holocaust, and I have no desire to lose 6 million more Jews to a nuclear holocaust.
This is a great site for some historical perspective on the current Israel/Hezbollah situation.
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hezbollah.htm
Dear Melanie,
I hope you forgive the forceful tone of my response to your post, but it truly angered me. In a way, to be sure, it is not only a response to you, but to a
whole discourse that springs up among some parts of the Jewish community from time to time--especially around times like these.
Early in your post you make a slip that illustrates very well how ideology functions, demonstrating the situation in which, as philospher Slavoj Zizek
would say, 'they know what they're doing but they do it anyway.' This slip reveals precisely a kind fascist reason, or rather, unreason.
You write 'Do I rest easy with the idea that a place like Lebanon and the Lebanese people are being devastated? Not really. Do I agree with the world's call for restraint? Absolutely not!'
Despite your apparent discomfort, the fact that you 'don't really' rest easy with the slaughter of 600 civilians at the time of this writing, not to mention the wholesale destruction of Lebanon (including the recently rebuilt Beruit, 'Paris of the near east'),
and the murder of UN peacekeepers, you say let Israel continue! And yet, more strangely, you imagine that this military superpower is a 'little guy' and not an enclave that merely extends the US' domination of the world that you so frequently criticize.
Let us imagine that Hizbollah were capable of blowing up Tel Aviv and it did so. 'But they sent leaflets', I reassure you.
Let us imagine that the Palestinan army occupied the Sharon plain for 20 years, dividing and subjugating the Israeli Jewish population. 'But Hitler did worse
to them', I reassure you.
Let us imagine these things and yet imagine a world in which the lone superpower, the US, stood against the world's condemnation of these atrocities.
In other words, when Israel is wrong, we must openly say so. It is wrong. The world stands against it! But that isn't all. Why does your sense of justice not cry out against Israel's actions?
Does the unending series of justifications you pose not suggest that Israel is a moral catastrophe for the Jewish people, leading them not only to racist and fascist positions but also to align themselves awith all sorts of shady characters (the religious right, Bush and co.) In ther words, doesn't one ever get tired of defending injustice in the name of tribal affiliations?
If Israel wants peace and security, it MUST provide justice and restitution to the Palestinan people and respect the sovereignty of its neighbors. Period. This is the only solution.
Sam,
What is Israel suppose to do?? Sit passively by and watch while every nation around them continues to pine for their destruction and works on building their weapons?? Are they suppose to wait until THEY are attacked and then fight back?? Hezbollah is a terrorist organization and Israel has the right to defend itself. They also should be defended by those countries around the world that are against terrorism. Israel wants nothing more than to exist in peace and they are continuously threatened. I think in this case what looks like an offense is really a defense. They did not attack unprovoked or unthreatened. These Muslim extremists want everyone to bow to their god (allah) and feel they can only achieve this thru world dominance. I'd get pissed off being their neighbor too. The president of Iran is Hitler with nuclear weapons.
Some things are better left unsaid but most people can see that if these organizations are not stopped it will be the Holocaust all over again. Yes it is unfortunate that innocent people have died in the attacks.
My Husband and I visited Israel last year and it is an amazing country with an amazing History.
No country in the world has to take the security precautions they do because of nut cases like these that continue to threatened them and it is disgusting.
Well it is getting late and I am starting to ramble but thanks for letting me bitch.
Sam - You make some valid points, but seem to fall slightly shy of telling Israel that it does not have the right to exist, because it is infringing on what is rightfully Arab lands; a common argument I've heard by those who oppose the existance of Israel.
First, in the Hezbollah situation, (because the Israel/Hezbollah situation is different than the Israel/Palestinian situation) I don't like the idea of people dying in war, but it is a fact of life. Innocent Israelis have died, but I guess Israel's spin machine doesn't work as well as Hezbollah's.
Israel's need to continue their mission is a matter of survival at this point. Once again, Iran is 2 years away from nuclear weapons, and Iran arms the Hezbollah terrorists. If Hezbollah thinks they can take Israel out now with the arsenal it has, then just think about what they will plan when they have nuclear weapons given to them.
Also, the Lebanese people do bear some of the responsibility in this situation. A portion of the population has supported Hezbollah, and the Lebanese government turned a blind eye to what was going on for quite sometime. They did nothing to enact U.N. Resolution 1559.
As for Israel's underdog status, they are not an extended arm of the U.S., and certainly aren't a superpower. Israel has always been well-aware of the reality behind the U.S./Israel partnership. The U.S. needs a strategic partner in the Middle East.
You point out the support of neocons and the religious right for Israel, but most Jews know that this support is given in terms of the Christian belief behind the role that Israel plays in their theology, and although most Jews appreciate the offer of goodwill, they are in no way duped into thinking that the religious right will champion Israel for Israel's sake.
In regards to the Palestinian situation, I am so sick of hearing about the "poor" Palestinians. The "poor" Palestinians supported a leader that spent years absconding humanitarian funds to open casinos rather than help the needy in his own community. The "poor" Palestinians kept supporting this same leader year after miserable year that he drug them repeatedly through war instead of trying to work towards a reasonable peace settlement. The "poor" Palestinians cheered on men who strapped bombs to their bodies and caused the death and dismemberment of children. Due to the "poor" Palestinians, I had to take part in raising a half a million dollars to purchase military grade, armored school buses for an elementary school to transfer their children. When the "poor" Palestinians did finally get their elections, they voted Hamas into power. Yet another terrorist group who is hell bent on the destruction of Israel. And you think Israel should pay the Palestinians reparations!
You say that Israel needs to respect the sovereignty of its neighbors. Last I heard, Israel was on good terms with Jordan and Egypt, but those neighbors recognize Israel's right to exist. As for the other neighbors, have they gone out of their way to respect, or even recognize, Israel? Not really, in fact most of those nasty neighbors would be happy if Hezbollah and Hamas succeeded in their promise to drive "Israel into the sea."
Debbie-
I'd like to respond to you fairly, but have no idea how to do so. You say Israel has an amazing 'History'--big H!--but seem to know nothing of that history. You justify your cruel support of Israel in the name of the Shoah, and of course, as Abban Eban famously said, there's no business like Shoah business.
Maybe I'm a bit old fashioned, but I believe in little things like international law. Under international law, it might be contestable whether Hizbollah is a terrorist organization and not a resistance movement. That is, Hizbollah was originally founded as a resistance movement to Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon, which means that in principle, it began as a legitmate movement, legal in the eyes of international law. Since that time, who knows? It would probably be most fair to speak of Hizbollah as a movement with a terrorist wing that fights against what is essentially a terrorist state. In other words, you can always say that Hizbollah did not attack unprovoked or unthreatened, that its attacks are part of a strategy against a militaristic state that once occupied its land and that essentially respects no border (that, I might suggest, has no border itself). However, this is not why I think Israel is wrong. It is wrong because it has acted disproportionately! This is not the way for a legitimate state to conduct itself. It should merely exchange prisoners for the release of their soldiers--we all know Israel can take new prisoners anytime they want, without justification. As the recent photos of Haifa and even more shocking, the massacre of women and children in Qana demonstrate, we can only loose in the war between two racist and totalitarian ideologies.
Melanie,
it disappoints me that a smart, cool person like you still believes this horseshit, this 'drive the Jews into the sea' bullshit. Former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami has written a book that essentially shows how this was always a lie, that Israel's many 'defensive' wars, and in particular the wars of 48 and 67, were little more than cover ups for land-grab operations. The 48 war is particularly important here, for it shows, as Ben-Ami makes clear, that the Zionist movement decided early on that 'transfer' was the solution to their demografic and territorial problems (but let's not forget that an important minority of the Zionist movement was always against statehood, including Judah Magnes, founder of the Hebrew University). In other words, many of your ideas about Israel have been totally discredited by serious people in Israel and elsewhere.
But let me state openly the thing you accuse me of. Israel was formed out of robbing the land from indigenous Arab populations. This is a fact. Not a controversial one, even among (particularly among) modern Israeli historians. In the best case scenario, perhaps one can speak of the struggle between two rights, as Amos Oz does. But either way this means Israel has responsibilites to the people it has displaced and dispossessed. These are facts of history and questions of law. We can debate about armoured buses, whether or not we are on the verge of another genocide against the Jews, or any number of red herrings you like. We can also recount at length why and how Israel has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and not Palestine (above all because there is no Palestinian state would be my best guess). But until we resolve some very elementary questions of international law, there isn't a lot to say. It is rather telling that neither of the responses to my post takes up the basic question of a Palestianian state or Lebanese sovereignty.
I want to see peace. But not the peace imposed by one racist state over another racist state (or non-state). And the beginning here, is international law.
Ah yes, the finally under the guise of "wanting peace" comes the true nature of this discourse; Israel should be abolished as it is an illegal and immoral state that is merely using Western culture to corrupt Arab lands. Is that correct, Sam?
This is an argument I have heard way too many times before, and sorry, but it falls on deaf ears. I am a Zionist through and through as are most of the Jews that I hang with. We are all college educated with a good percentage holding advanced degrees, and we are well aware of the history and circumstances surrounding the formation of the state of Israel.
Let me bring you up to speed on a few things. Hezbollah was formed as a militant wing of the PLO back in the early 80s. While the PLO was trying to convince the world that it was a legit organization worthy of recognition, it still wanted to keep up its Jew killing, so voila Hezbollah.
Have you ever had a conversation with a Jew who had to live under the restrictions of the borders prior to the, what you refer to as the '67 "land grab"? It was nothing close to an ideal situation. As for the ease you seem to think Jews had during the formation of the state of Israel, I would encourage you to pick up a copy of Elie Wiesel's "Dawn".
By the way, the comment about driving Jews into the sea is not some frivilous, make believe saying that Jews spout to gain sympathy, it has been said over and over again by speeches given by Arafat during the most recent intifada, as well as Hamas during their political campaign and Hezbollah a few weeks ago.
If your true aim is in regards to peace, then you would recognize that the first step in the peace process is the elimination of extremism. Extremists can't be reasoned with and they don't get logic, especially when they think that they have been given the divine power to kill. Israel's actions may be seen as heavy-handed, but they are quite logical and executed to ensure a peaceful future.
Unfortunately, international law does not define extremism. If we establish the elimination of 'extremism' as prerequisite to a settlement of the conflict, then any number of people must be eliminated. I do not agree with this and international law does not require this.
For example, I think you hold positions that I would define as extremist, e.g. far outside of the norms of discourse in the world community. However, I do not require that you stop believing as you do. I simply ask that you accept the requirements of international law. These requirements hold that Israel retreat to pre 67 borders. World consensus holds that Jerusalem will probably be a shared capital. Non-extremists on both sides have looked at creative and just solutions to both that issue as well as the refugee question. According to me, this is not controversial to anyone but extremists. But of course, that doesn't matter to international law.
I would take issue over whether I have ever said that Israel should be 'abolished,' as you suggest. I have not. I have merely called for you to reexamine a number of historical facts (I would suggest you do so again: PLO and the shia'as were on opposite sides of the civil war in Lebanon, so I don't see how the PLO could have created Hizbollah, unless there's something I'm missing here).
I have not said that 'Israel should be abolished as it is an illegal and immoral state that is merely using Western culture to corrupt Arab lands,' as you suggest. I have myself never heard this argument against Israel. Rather, it seems like a distortion of other legitimate argmuents against Israel. Maybe because you have deafened you ears in advance, you fail to hear what people are really saying: Israel does not corrupt Arab lands. It takes them over and steals their resources. This is illegal. These are indisputable facts. You even seem to concede on this point when you write
'Have you ever had a conversation with a Jew who had to live under the restrictions of the borders prior to the, what you refer to as the '67 "land grab"? It was nothing close to an ideal situation.'
It seems to me that you say Israel was too small, so it got bigger. This is a land grab. I don't know what else to call it. They made up a war to cover it, but it's a land grab (nevermind that international law prohibits a state from keeping land gained by force). But I will return the question you ask me: have you ever talked with a Palestinan who has to live with the daily humiliations--and much worse!--of an illegal occupation? If I were a Palestinan would I not resist every bit as much as they do? If I were a Lebanese man who just sent his child across the Syrian border alone because I could not pay for another visa, do you not believe I would now dedicate my life to fighting Israel? It is beyond reason not to expect Israel's current adventures not to merely create new enemies everywhere.
But again, please find where I have called for the abolition of Israel. I have merely called upon Israel to obey international law in order to resolve this conflict. There can be no military solution, for either side.
Post a Comment