Today is officially day 20 of a conflict in the Middle East that threatens to spiral out of control and involve the economic and geopolitical might of major powers--and it appears Israel has reneged on its promise of a 48 hour reprieve for the Lebanese people from air strikes.
Some of you may wonder why I'm so hard on Israel, and why--in your view--I may be forgetting about the insane and murderous actions of both Hamas and Hizballah which ignited this war.
I haven't forgotten--I do, in fact, lay part of the blame at the feet of those two groups for provoking Israel into escalating the situation to the brink of regional war (as well as for being, in general, quite murderous toward Israeli civilians during the past 6 years) . . . but the responsibility for stopping this war and behaving like a civilized nation-state does not belong to Hamas or Hizballah (neither of which constitute nation-states themselves) but to Israel. Israel has the tanks, Israel has the planes, Israel has the military firepower and the staunch support of the United States--and Israel also has, at present, the initiative.
Ladies and gentlemen, part of agreeing to end a war involves one side (at least one) volunteering to stop fighting! As a state with an army, governmental apparatus, and economy of its own, Israel is the only party to this conflict that can successfully end it by volunteering to lay down its weapons. Hamas and Hizballah are non-governmental entities, little more than stateless militias--they don't have the kind of room to "voluntarily disarm" or "stop fighting" that Israel does in the heat of battle. And in case you're confused about how lopsided this battle is, let me draw up a scorecard for you:
Hizballah: approximately 50 Israelis killed
Hamas: almost no Israelis killed
Israel: hundreds of Lebanese dead, and hundreds of Palestinians dead, plus the seizure of 70 members of the Palestinian Authority government and the destruction of Lebanon--all in the space of 3 or 4 weeks
Does it really seem to you like either one of those first two groups is actually winning here? I've kept track of the casualties via cnn.com over the past 3 weeks, my friends, and it seems that for every member of Hamas or Hizballah that Israel kills, 3 or 4 more Palestinian or Lebanese civilians also die. The United States wouldn't wage a war this way, at least not without rethinking its interest in whatever military objectives it hoped to achieve . . . and to me, this war has appeared to be about nothing more grandiose than revenge.
I don't blame Israel, however, any more than I blame anyone else choosing to unleash bullets and bombs in the Middle East--after all, there are generations of hatred involved there--but I do believe the blame belongs to everyone, and with every passing day of obfuscation, lies, and genocide, I find myself becoming more and more uninterested in the rhetoric aimed at persuading me that one side in this war is any more guilty than others.
Some of you may wonder why I'm so hard on Israel, and why--in your view--I may be forgetting about the insane and murderous actions of both Hamas and Hizballah which ignited this war.
I haven't forgotten--I do, in fact, lay part of the blame at the feet of those two groups for provoking Israel into escalating the situation to the brink of regional war (as well as for being, in general, quite murderous toward Israeli civilians during the past 6 years) . . . but the responsibility for stopping this war and behaving like a civilized nation-state does not belong to Hamas or Hizballah (neither of which constitute nation-states themselves) but to Israel. Israel has the tanks, Israel has the planes, Israel has the military firepower and the staunch support of the United States--and Israel also has, at present, the initiative.
Ladies and gentlemen, part of agreeing to end a war involves one side (at least one) volunteering to stop fighting! As a state with an army, governmental apparatus, and economy of its own, Israel is the only party to this conflict that can successfully end it by volunteering to lay down its weapons. Hamas and Hizballah are non-governmental entities, little more than stateless militias--they don't have the kind of room to "voluntarily disarm" or "stop fighting" that Israel does in the heat of battle. And in case you're confused about how lopsided this battle is, let me draw up a scorecard for you:
Hizballah: approximately 50 Israelis killed
Hamas: almost no Israelis killed
Israel: hundreds of Lebanese dead, and hundreds of Palestinians dead, plus the seizure of 70 members of the Palestinian Authority government and the destruction of Lebanon--all in the space of 3 or 4 weeks
Does it really seem to you like either one of those first two groups is actually winning here? I've kept track of the casualties via cnn.com over the past 3 weeks, my friends, and it seems that for every member of Hamas or Hizballah that Israel kills, 3 or 4 more Palestinian or Lebanese civilians also die. The United States wouldn't wage a war this way, at least not without rethinking its interest in whatever military objectives it hoped to achieve . . . and to me, this war has appeared to be about nothing more grandiose than revenge.
I don't blame Israel, however, any more than I blame anyone else choosing to unleash bullets and bombs in the Middle East--after all, there are generations of hatred involved there--but I do believe the blame belongs to everyone, and with every passing day of obfuscation, lies, and genocide, I find myself becoming more and more uninterested in the rhetoric aimed at persuading me that one side in this war is any more guilty than others.
posted by Brian Bly at 1:50 PM
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