A blight unto nations

[Darth Garth]

I've felt many emotions about the Israelis before. I've admired them for their accomplishments -- building a flourishing state out of almost nothing. I've hated them for their systematic dispossession of the Palestinians -- even as they smugly congratulated themselves for being the Middle East's only "democracy." I've pitied them for the cruel fate history inflicted on the Jewish diaspora, respected them for their boldness and daring, honored them for their cultural and intellectual achievements. But the one thing I've never felt, at least up until now, is contempt.

But that is what I'm feeling now. The military and political leaders of the Jewish state are doing and saying things that go way beyond the blustering arrogance of a powerful nation at war. Not to put too fine a point on it, but they are behaving like a gang of miltaristic thugs -- whose reply to any criticism or reproach is an expletive deleted and the smash of an iron fist.

The most brutal public example would probably be the suggestion by the Israeli Justice Minister (!) that the IDF now has the world's blessing to simply line up the artillery and turn every village in southern Lebanon into a rubble pile -- lest too much Jewish blood be spilled in the vicious door-to-door fighting required to "make something happen" on the ground.

But I think the most eloquent expression of Zionism without a human face was the reaction of Israel's UN ambassador (who's apparently been taking ******* lessons from John Bolton) to Kofi Annan's complaint about the deaths of four UN observers in Lebanon -- an incident which appears to have been the result of either negligance on a world-class scale or cold-blooded murder.

Dan Gillerman, Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, was more outspoken, demanding an apology. He said he was "shocked" by Annan's "premature and erroneous" accusations.
So the IDF wipes out a clearly marked, long-established UN observation post after an eight-hour artillery barrage, and Gillerman wants Annan to apologize. He sounds like some monacled Prussian general who's just been told the Belgians are complaining about the behavior of the Kaiser's troops. One can almost see the cold-eyed sneer on his face.

I've been watching events in the Middle East off and on for the past 25 years, and I've seen the Israelis get ugly before. But I can't remember a time when I've seen them this ugly -- Ariel Sharon's scowling mug excepted, of course.

It's almost as if bits of Sharon's DNA have been duplicated and injected into the entire Israeli cabinet and the general staff: Massively disproportionate use of force (as defined in the Geneva Conventions, not the fevered war porn fantasies of Right Blogistan) reprisal terror bombings, an if-it-moves-shoot-it mentality on the ground:

"Over here, everybody is the army," one soldier said. "Everybody is Hezbollah. There's no kids, women, nothing."
Another soldier put it plainly: "We're going to shoot anything we see."

And now a proposal to turn all of southern Lebanon into a free fire zone.

This all might be considered normal military behavior for, oh say, a Bosnian Serb militia captain, circa 1991, but when the political and military leaders of an allegedly civilized state start talking this way, something big is going on, and going wrong. The dehumanization of the enemy (much of the Israeli press routinely uses the word "terrorist" to refer to any Hizbullah fighter or Palestinian militant), combined with the rage and humiliation at not being able to stop the rain of rockets falling on northern Israel, are knocking the props out from under whatever remains of Israel's claim to be different from, and morally superior to, its enemies.

The Israeli national persona has always had a macho swagger to it (it's part of the rationale for the state -- that Jews should be able to act like "normal" masculine hyperpatriots everywhere) but what we're seeing now is something different. It has a nasty edge of hysteria to it, a compulsive need to prove to the Arabs, and the world, that Israel still can and will stomp on anyone who gets in its way. The fact that Hizbullah is now demonstrating the limits of Israeli power -- or rather, the limits on how much Jewish blood the Israeli government is willing to spend to exercise that power -- is only making matters worse. The Israeli leadership elite is starting to sound like the semen-crusted violence addicts at Little Green Footballs. Given how much real violence the generals and politicians can inflict, that's a sobering thought, to say the least.

Combine this with an enormous sense of historic grievance ("Serbs will never be beaten again!" "The Versailles Treaty has shamed the Fatherland!") and a gnawing fear of encirclement, and you've got all the ingredients for a catastrophe, of the kind that could leave the Israelis, and their American patrons, up to their necks in blood -- of the innocent and the guilty alike.

One of my Israeli heros, Meron Benvenisti, wrote a piece for Ha'aretz the other day making the prediction, or at least expressing the hope, that the rage and hysteria will eventually pass, forcing today's real and would-be war criminals to face the consequences of their actions:

The manipulators and the self-declared heroes should not delude themselves, nor should the naive, or those who are drunk with patriotism or those who consider themselves experts: the moment will arrive more quickly than they imagine and within a short while everyone will be hiding behind the pose of "we told you so" when they know which way the wind is blowing.
The problem, as Benvenisti himself admits, is that it can take a generation -- or longer -- for the turn to come, and by then it's usually easy to slough off responsibility for the past and "move on" to the next cycle of patriotic hysteria, atrocity and disillusionment. Just look at America's behavior after Vietnam. However, given Israel's situation and strategic dilemma, the Israeli people may not have a generation to come down off their war frenzy, and they may not be able to move on to another cycle. This could be for keeps, in other words.

If there's one thing that should be obvious from this God awful tragedy in the making, it's that history has a savage sense of irony -- cruel and pitiless almost beyond belief. That Israel, haven to Holocaust survivors, should find itself in this situation, and respond to it in this way, is enough to make the very walls of Jerusalem weep. As I weep now.

http://billmon.org/archives/002581.html

I fully agree with him.

 

[Vio]

Well it seems theres been a "slight" shift in the way terrorist/freedom fighters are being delt with. No longer can they hide among the civilian(inocent) population and expect to sit safe.

Israel has made a concius descision to bomb the crap outa hezbola and not give a damn who or what is around them, simple as that. While this is a cruel/crude stance it could ultimately become a effective one.

 

[GavinMannion]

I was in agreement with Israel until they 'hit' the UN outpost, their reaction since then has been apalling... They have given a half-@ssed apology and then just continued.

Maybe China should use some of it's military might to show the Israeli state that they are not untouchable.

I doubt the US would step in then, even being the protector of the State of Israel. Some people even the US won't want to go head to head with....

It's shameful....

 

[ajak]

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=108477
Hizbullah Used Civilians, Mosques in Attack on IDF
10:19 Jul 27, '06 / 2 Av 5766
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

Hizbullah refused to allow civilians to leave their village and used mosques in their ambush on IDF soldiers at Bint Jbeil Wednesday. Names of the nine fallen soldiers were released. Morale is high.


Hizbullah stored ammunition and weapons in mosques, knowing that the IDF does not attack religious sites. Civilians were not allowed to leave so that Hizbullah could use them as cover. IDF officers said they ordered pilots not to strafe Bint Jbeil in order to spare civilian casualties.

A United Nations peace keeping officer from Canada told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that Hizbullah used the same tactic to draw fire on the UNIFIL post which resulted in the death of four U.N. observers. "This is their favorite trick," he said. "They use the U.N. as shields."
So are there more Jew haters that want to justify these actions of their heroes

 

[BCO]

Somebody on this forum's already suggested the best option IMO. Turn the whole region into a radioactive wasteland that nobody wants to live on anyway. That's the only way the fighting will EVER stop. Both sides suck.

 

[neio]

How apt to quote the Bible, Israel trully has become a stone on the necks of the nations. Depending on your viewpoint this could be the turning point for the final battle to be had.
Good times to be alive.
We are seeing the end of the world as we know it, to the victor all the spoils.
Sela!

 

[doobiwan]

All those empty vessels. All that noise.

for people who have never lived in the region, who have never had to scrape bits and pieces of you loved ones off the walls of your home, who sit here with the world blowing hot air up this country's bum.

You have never stood across a border staring into the eye's of someone who just yesterday tried to murder your family. Why don't you go over and fight yourselves or shut the **** up.

Fact is, tibby, Israel goesn't give a **** what you think. Everytime they've tried to play nice, they've been stabbed in the back. So they play by the rules of the region, something you will probably never understand.

The Israeli's killed a couple of UN soldiers, by accident, by colateral damage, you know what, Israel has every right not to be concerned. If the UN had done it's job in the first place, as they were mandated to in 2000 when Israel withdrew, this whole engagement would never have occurred. Under their 'guidance' Hizbollah has been able to build bunkers, establish weapon stores and set up a battery of around 1500 ballistic missles shipped in from Iran and Syria. So yeah, if Israel is nonchalant about the UN getting in the way, it's easy to understand why.

I also laugh at the whole "laser guided bomb shipment debacle". They're precision bunker busters, what? would the the world prefer Israel use Cluster Bombs? Yeah smart okes, really smart . . .

 

[Skeptik]

Tibby's quote comes from a website with a title banner that says "The Whiskey Bar". I think that sums up that rambling, inaccurate blog.

As for Tibby - a Cape Coloured with Muslim ancestry perhaps. So no surprises there since it's Friday and time to head off to the Mosque?

Can't wait for his next provocative post (Not).

 

[neio]

No Tibby is actually Christian, (AFAIK) he confessed as much a while back.
Look, I also want the war to end but condemning Israel as barbaric seems a bit out of context. What will happen will happen. The future is bright, with a refining fire.

 

[ajak]

*Que sera, sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera, sera
What will be, will be
Que sera, sera

(Doris Day)

 

[SuperAntMD]

I just want to know what the alternative was?

Agreeing to a prisoner swap- two soldiers kidnapped from Israeli soil traded for hundreds of convicted/suspected terrorists who wanted to blow up civilians. Come on.

Then what, three days later another soldier goes missing "can we have a few thousand more terrorists please?" Where would it all end. Israel has made it clear they will not sit back and be as passive as they have been for many years while these UN condemned terrorists destroy their country and way of life.

At the end of the day the whole thing comes down to two sides. One side wants Israel to exist, or at least believes they have the right to exist, and the other side disagrees completely. In the case of the former any reasonable man would be able to understand Israels current strategies and motivations, if they had used the same mentality as Hizbollah from the beginning there would be a crater where two weeks ago was southern Lebanon, but instead they are losing lives by following a course of restraint. It might not look like restraint to some, but such are the realities of war.

 

[Darth Garth]

As for Tibby - a Cape Coloured with Muslim ancestry perhaps.

http://www.ngkerk.org.za actually.

But what on earth has my religion and ethnicity to do with the posting above ???.

But what a sad useless w@nker you are ... don't waste our time on this forum if you can't debate properly.

 

[Darth Garth]

Look, I also want the war to end but condemning Israel as barbaric seems a bit out of context.

425 dead Lebanese civilians ... most of them woman and children.
That to me is barbaric.

 

[neio]

The deaths of innocents are always something to mourn Tibby and my heart trully does go out to their family's. Thats all I can say.

 

[Skeptik]

http://www.ngkerk.org.za actually.

But what on earth has my religion and ethnicity to do with the posting above ???.

Because 99.9% of muslims support each other no matter what they've done. Thus it wouldn't have surprised me if you (or your ancestors) were.

Also in a post you ask a similar question of another forumit here:
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showpost.php?p=610918&postcount=14

But what a sad useless w@nker you are ... don't waste our time on this forum if you can't debate properly.

Oi, no need for the expletives ....
You seem offended by the idea of being a muslim brother. but you support their cause. Chill dude! If you're going to specialise in either initiating or progressing controversial posts (several) you should at least grow a thick skin

 

[Vio]

425 dead Lebanese civilians ... most of them woman and children.
That to me is barbaric.

Doesn't matter 51 south african's are murdered every day, so thows stats are small.

Besides they where warned and still stayed with their terrorist buddies.

 

[lilDeath]

I wonder how many Hezbollah actually had a hand in those number of deaths, with their 'shielding' and 'cover' tactics and all