From the Christian Science Monitor:Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 was a direct result of Israel's silent but unrelenting aggression against Lebanon, which in turn is part of a six-decades long Arab-Israeli conflict.From Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon:
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, according to UN reports. Hizbullah's military doctrine, articulated in the early 1990s, states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah's leadership; this indeed has been the pattern.
In the process of its violations, Israel has terrorized the general population, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians...
"All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah,"Those "terrorists" include the children of Qana:
One small arm stretched out from under the sheets; thin, the arm of a little girl, a piece of cloth like a bracelet wrapped around the wrist. As bodies were loaded on the stretcher, I saw another dead girl; she was dressed in a black shirt with a coloured scarf wrapped loosely around her head. Her face was swollen.Were there rockets in Qana, as Israel claims?
Red Cross workers and residents of Qana, where Israeli bombing killed at least 60 civilians, have told IPS that no Hezbollah rockets were launched from the city before the Israeli air strike...How long will they be able to spin away the truth?
"There were no Hezbollah rockets fired from here," 32-year-old Ali Abdel told IPS. "Anyone in this village will tell you this, because it is the truth"...
Qana had been a shelter because no rockets were being fired from there, survivors said. "When Hezbollah fires their rockets, everyone runs away because they know an Israeli bombardment will come soon," Abdel said. "That is why everyone stayed in the shelter and nearby homes, because we all thought we'd be all right since there were no Hezbollah fighters in Qana."
The real trick, in terms of keeping American and British public opinion on side, is to blur the sequence of events that led to the war and present it as a desperate Israeli struggle against an unprovoked onslaught by thousands of terrorist rockets.As for my previously-articulated theory that the war is, in large measure, about access to increasingly-scarce water resouces, note that the ground invasion is being chracterized as a "push to the Litani River." And we have this from Uri Avnery:
Now the generals are convinced that there is no alternative to occupying the whole area up to the Litani River, about 24 km from the border, in order to prevent the rockets from being launched from there. Then they will find out that they have to reach the Awali River, 40 km inside - the famous 40 km which Menachem Begin talked about in 1982.Finally, I encourage everyone to read this important commentary by Turkish writer Sadik Yalsizucanlar (Turkey being the one Islamic state admired by Bush and Israel). A few excerpts:
This victim psychology is substitute for religious/ethnic nationalism. Explaining something by killing someone is, at most, as Schuon said, “the work of a spoiled, decayed, and putrid state.”More:
In this attack the region’s main highways, electric and water distribution networks, communication channels, hospitals and emergency institutions, total infra structure, have been destroyed. Civilian settlements have been indiscriminately bombarded and hundreds of children, women and civilians have been massacred.More:
It’s as if Israel is consciously attempting to strengthen anti-Semitism, which is increasingly deepening and spreading in the world.That's as good an explanation as any for the despicable Israeli practice of firing on fleeing refugees.
Why would Israel's leaders want to increase hatred of Jews? Because anti-Semitism is Israel's greatest weapon, greatest ally and greatest excuse.
Although this column has always striven to condemn both the Israeli state and anti-Semitism (just as, in 1939, I would have condemned the Third Reich without hating the German people on ethnic or religious grounds), this war of aggression will inevitably make expressions of anti-Semitism more common. Each such expression, anywhere in the world, hardens the hearts of the Israeli population. And people with a hard heart will blind themselves the war-planners' real goal -- the hidden goal, the unstated goal, the obvious goal -- of taking Lebanon and stealing its resources.
9 comments:
"It’s as if Israel is consciously attempting to strengthen anti-Semitism, which is increasingly deepening and spreading in the world."
One is led to this kind of absurd thinking by assuming that Israeli actions are somehow connected to its state religion.
I can't explain why Israel is firing on fleeing civilians (if that's indeed the case), but such behavior is commonplace in wars of aggression, in the same way our soldiers torture cab drivers to death and fire missiles on fleeing civilian vehicle.
It's true that Israel invites an indentical of its acts with its state religion, through its now preposterous claims of victimhood, constant invocation of the Holocaust, and the common assertion that criticism of Israel is tantamount to anti-Semitism.
But, in my view, there *is* an element of anti-Semitism when third parties make this identification. Israel is acting, on a much smaller scale, in the same way the U.S. does. And for the same reasons -- control of resources, "shock and awe", regional influence, punitive destruction as an example to others, etc.
Do you think "we" routinely bomb large regions of the world into the stone age because we're a "Christian nation"? Or by extension beacuse (according to us) we believe in "democratic values"?
Do me favor, Joseph: stay on top of the atrocities, but leave the religion alone. Israeli foreign policy is entirely secular. An element of its population may be inflamed by religious orthodoxy, but that's a mere convenience for the Israeli state, just as it is for the American one.
Again, it's got nothing to do with being Jewish. States all over the world have acted in this manner, with or without the excuse of religion.
JOSEPH - YOU'RE WRONG ABOUT GANNON/GOSCH. AND THE INDIVIDUAL REFERENCED IN THE MEL GIBSON POST EXISTS
Judaism has very little to do with why Israel might want to increase anti-Semitism throughout the world.
Rather, it's a matter of Israel's very right to exist.
Israel's presence as an alien state on Middle East soil, created through the displacement of the existing inhabitants, demanded a strong justification. For the Biblically-minded, "God gave this land to Abraham" may have been justification enough, but for most people, the principle argument was that in a hostile world, Jews could be safe only by becoming a nation-state, no different from any other nation-state.
To put it charitably, that hasn't worked. Jews are less safe in the world than 50 years ago, and less safe in Israel than in most of the rest of the world.
As a child, I was told an old joke that begins with an escaped lion in the streets and ends with the line, "Is this good for the Jews or bad for the Jews?" By that scale of values, Israel has been very, very bad for the Jews.
But Israel, which like all political organisms seeks to preserve its own existence, isn't about to acknowledge its fundamental failure. Instead, it seeks to make things so much worse for Jews in the rest of the world, that Israel will appear as their only safe haven.
In this, it has been greatly helped by the Christian Zionists, who manage to combine personal anti-Semitism towards their Jewish neighbors with fervent support of Israel.
Not only is this a devil's bargain, but it completely trashes the original premise that Israel's greatest strength would lie in being indistinguishable from any other nation-state.
I was also taught as a child that the only permanent safety for Jews would be in a world where there was no hatred, no discrimination, no persecution of anyone on the grounds of being different. That, as a result, it was the moral duty of all Jews to stand on the side of the persecuted -- no matter who they might be -- and against the persecutor -- no matter who.
It hasn't been easy to maintain that faith in the post-1967 world, but I've done my best. And now, as the absolute failure of the Israeli experiment looms before us, I'd hope other would consider it as a moral imperative as well.
Franklin's kid: Do you know the difference between a statement and a piece of evidence?
It's EASY to explain why Israel is attacking civilians if you understand the NeoCons. They are deliberately fomenting hatred and unrest. Does anyone think Ohmert gives a damn about Israel or Hizbollah? Of course not, just like Bush doesn't give a rat's ass about the US.
The whole things is simply designed to set up inter-faction hatred to facilitate the NeoCon policy of perpetual war for perpetual profit. It's that simple. THAT'S why the NeoCons blew it in Iraq--on purpose, to FOMENT insurrection. That's why we have Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib--to whip up hatred against the US.
The Dems STILL DON'T GET IT.
One thing's for sure, they better wake up soon or the planet is toast. Unfortunately I heard Sen. Reid on Ed Schulz last week, and, he still doesn't get it. He's behind Israel all the way... and is too thick to realize the NeoCons are just using the long history of conflict between Israel and Palestine as cover to launch the NeoCon Permanent War.
Idiot. Like Charlie Brown and the football, getting fooled over and over again...
Hey folks, I know things are bleak right now, but here's something we can all do--support Clint Curtis for Congress down in Florida. Curtis was the programmer hired by Bush crony Tom Feeney to write vote-flipping software. Now Curtis has set his sights on Feeney's congressional seat. This will be a beautiful battle if Curtis can win the primary, which will finally force election fraud onto the front pages. Curtis is a fearless fighter for democracy and knows first-hand what sick bastards these NeoCons are.
Please give anything you can, even if it's only 5 bucks, to support the only congressional candidate with the balls and the experience and the desire to fight the NeoCon election-stealing machine--Clint Curtis.
Check out his web site at www.clintcurtis.com and stop by and contribute your thoughts at Curtis' rather entertaining and frank blog.
Joseph writes:
"Instead, it seeks to make things so much worse for Jews in the rest of the world, that Israel will appear as their only safe haven."
Good lord, Joseph: this line of argument is needlessly tortured and strained. There are far more compelling and obvious explanations for Israeli policy.
Israel is doing what political entities are doing all over the world: asserting power and claiming resources.
You might as well argue that American foreign policy is designed to convince Americans that everyone hates us, and that the best course for all Americans is to stay home, listen to Rush and support Bush.
Anon 1:38, I did not write those words.
To the first commenter-- you wrote:
"Do me favor, Joseph: stay on top of the atrocities, but leave the religion alone. Israeli foreign policy is entirely secular. An element of its population may be inflamed by religious orthodoxy, but that's a mere convenience for the Israeli state, just as it is for the American one.
"Again, it's got nothing to do with being Jewish. States all over the world have acted in this manner, with or without the excuse of religion."
Actually, I like to think that I have been making precisely this point. Speaking as someone of more-than-half Italian heritage, I would not want anyone to judge the Italians as an ethnic group by the examples of Mussolini and Al Capone. Neither would I want the religion traditionally associated with Italy to be judged by the behavior of Benito and Scarface.
That said --
In a conflict like this, there is a difference between what OUGHT to be the case and what large masses of people will decide to believe.
For example: After 911, even W emphasized that we OUGHT not blame all Muslims. Nevertheless, a wave of Islamophobia swept the nation -- and now the fundamentalist Christians who hate Mulims on religious grounds remain W's only hard-core supporters.
Similarly, I hope that people in horrified by our misadveture in Iraq will not hate all Americans or all Christians. But I would not be surprised if many people in the Middle East fall into exactly that pattern. People OUGHT not think that way, but human nature is what it is.
So I think we are being realistic if we say that when Israel behaves in ghastly fashion, the voices of anti-Semitism will speak more boldly, everywhere in the world.
Imagine if a Hindu group were to blow up (say) the Washigton monument. A wave of anti-Hinduism would probably sweep through the land, right?
It shouldn't work that way. But that's the way a lot of people think.
For what it is worth: I have a personal theory that over the course of history EVERY ethnic group will have the chance to play the victim and to play the victimizer.
In a hundred thousand years, we'll know if that theory is right.
If you look at Israeli patterns of political/military activity you can see some very strong similarities to Nazi/Third Reich political and military activity.
Look into operation Himmler, etc etc.
Post a Comment