I have friends in Gaza about whom I worry a great deal; I've seen many people killed in Gaza; I've served in the Israeli Army in Gaza; I've been kidnapped in Gaza; I've reported for years from Gaza; I hope my former army doesn't kill the wrong people in Gaza; I hope Israeli soldiers all leave Gaza alive; I know they'll be back in Gaza; I think this operation will work; and I have no actual hope that it will work for very long, because nothing works for very long in the Middle East. Gaza is where dreams of reconciliation go to die. Gaza is where the dream of Palestinian statehood goes to die; Gaza is where the Zionist dream might yet die. Or, more to the point, might be murdered. I'm not a J Street moral-equivalence sort of guy. Yes, Israel makes constant mistakes, which I note rather frequently, but this conflict reminds me once again that Israel is up against an implacable force, namely, an interpretation of Islam that disallows the idea of Jewish national equality..
January 6, 2009
"Gaza is where dreams of reconciliation go to die."
Why Jeffrey Goldberg doesn't want to talk about Gaza:
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"... an interpretation of Islam that disallows the idea of Jewish national equality."
And alongside them, a hefty number of Democrats, and Cedarford.
Israel is up against an implacable force, namely, an interpretation of Islam that disallows the idea of Jewish national equality.
Well according to the Hamas charter, it's not equality but existance.
I find it amazing that anyone thinks that Israel needs to negotiate with an entity whose first and foremost goal is your destruction. Rather difficult to get a dialouge going with that in the way.
Indeed. What's the compromise? "Well, what if you just modify your charter to destroy only 50% of us?" "60%?" "61 2/3%"
I note that Andrew Sullivan has progressed from being a conservative who voted for John Kerry and Barack Obama, supports immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and believes in gay marriage to being a conservative who denounces Israel and runs pictures of dead Palestinians to show us the "real Israel." Still, I am confident that useful idiots will continue to quote him as the pinnacle of conservative wisdom.
I hope that dream of reconciliation is killed along with Hamas. There can be no peace without victory. You can't reconcile with someone who wants to destroy you.
In related news, I adore the new Czech EU president, who enjoys the luxury of telling the truth.
Excellent op-ed on Hamas' master— Iran —recounting the regime's failures at home and the disaffection of Iranians....high inflation, high unemployment, strict social represssion, pollution.
"Most Iranians consider the government of President Ahmadinejad a grievous failure. On a trip to Iran last month, I found people more squeezed and despairing than at any other time in recent memory."
Obama had best tighten the screws.
Czechs know a thing or two about being thrown to the wolves by the opinion leaders of Western Europe.
Second thoughts on the morality of Israelis killing the inhabitants of Gaza?
Indiscriminate killing marked the end of the French Revolution. Goldberg wrote "Gaza is where the Zionist dream might yet die." History doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes.
So Goldberg of THE ATLANTIC ends his entry "thinking that maybe there's no way out. Not out of Gaza, out of the whole thing." This is after he "hope(s) my former army doesn't kill the wrong people in Gaza" - (such as aid workers, women, children, civilians?)
Brooks, in the N Y TIMES describes the murder of civilians by the Israeli military in a manner reminiscent of descriptions of latter stages of the French Revolution. He wrote "violence doesn’t necessarily beget violence. It sometimes prevents it." (If that is not a paraphrase of Robespierre, it is something that could have been written by one of his supporters.)
Brooks also said "The difference between successful Israeli actions and unsuccessful ones is not in the amount of destruction they achieve, but in the psychological messages they send." (Just what is that "psychological message" ? Why not call it by an accurate name, state-sponsored terrorism?)
"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." Euripides
Second thoughts on the morality of Hamas' daily shelling the inhabitants of Israel?
Fixed that for you, Luther.
Indiscriminate killing by the Israelis? Give me a break. The accusation is an affront. (Scroll to the "Stinging Hamas" item for links.)
Luther M - Brooks, in the N Y TIMES describes the murder of civilians by the Israeli military in a manner reminiscent of descriptions of latter stages of the French Revolution. He wrote "violence doesn’t necessarily beget violence. It sometimes prevents it." (If that is not a paraphrase of Robespierre, it is something that could have been written by one of his supporters.)
1. Applying criminal justice terms like "innocent civilians" in time of war is stupid. There are no "innocent civilians" or "guilty soldiers" - those men who voluntarily step up to defend their peoples interest with violence, the deterrence of threatened violence, nor the men involuntarily conscripted to such service.
2. The Left likes to use the term "murdered civilian" but ignores that war should never be considered a safe cakewalk for civilians with no repercussions or risk on them. War should never be considered easy and risk-free, a lesson the neocons and their safe privileged children missed.
3. The obvious verdict of history that war did not "only beget more violence" is hardly unknown prior to the French Revolution. Every commentator talked of the sort of victory or defeat that would be needed to end the violence and end a threat for a long, long time. Possibly forever.
Indeed, the Lefty notion of violence only causing violence only really started in discussing near stalemates in the past (the 1st 2 Punic Wars, WWI, etc.) or contemporary wars after the UN where constraints were placed or "urgent peace ceasfires" imposed where true victory or defeat were avoided, and two enemies left with the capacity to renew their violence at a latter time. (the true endless cycle of violence is caused by the UN or "world community" blocking a war from reaching its conclusion.) That is why we may well be served by flipping the 6-s motto"
All I am asking, is give war a chance!
4. As much as the Left hates it, initiating violence across Borders
is an act of war. In this case, Israel has a right to defend itself and stop the indiscriminate rocket artillery and bombers...even if little wee Jihadis and older Jihadis' wives are killed in the process.
5. That Geneva said it was wrong to apply disproportionate force against targets where gravely excess civilian casualties would be caused (one of your soldiers is hit by a sniper, so you carpet-bomb a city of 400,000..) never meant to establish a perfect proportionality.
The Lefty/Jewish&Euro human rights lawyer's Cult of Proportionality is fatuous.
a. That means that if 12 people are killed at Seder, and another 21 maimed, you cannot establish perfect proportionality by going out and getting 33 Muslim civilians...then executing 12 then shooting enough nails, ball bearings, shrapnel into the 22 civilians, complete with the same number of blindings, limbs hacked off, and brain damage that "perfect proportionality is achieved".
b. The Left and the Jewish&Euro human rights lawyers who scream for proportionality also include a caveat - you can't literally try for proportionality in a literal eye for an eye sense because such reciprocity hurts us more because:(I)We are Better Than That! (II)Rule of Law! Unlike your own civilians, all terrorists and their backers deserve due process and lawyers.
5. The Left and the Jewish&Euro human rights lawyers who never served in their nation's military tend to want a fair fight, a level playing field....with proportionality.
Meaning if some deranged Islamoids scream "Allah u Akbar" and takes 13 shots at you from a house full of Paki Jihadis and their families and miss...They claim you are entitled to fire 13 shots back, of equal or lesser caliber, taking care to miss them. Especially the women and children whose lives are higher value than protecting US soldiers... Going past proportionality and just blowing the house up with airpower or tank shells is "monstrous"...Ideally you shouldn't shoot back at all and trigger a "new, insane cycle of violence" but seek to arrest the perps and provide them with lawyers and their families with welfare money until "the courts decide".
6. Israel has it's own version of Lefty, Jewish human rights lawyers that seems suicidally bent on not just endangering Israeli soldiers in favor of "Innocent Civilian enemy", but neutering the ability of Israel to effectively defend itself from attack, period..
Well, they were actually dead with the birth of Ishmael.
I blame Abraham.
Trey
Ehud Barak knows you can't make a greater Israel without breaking Palestinian eggs.
Yes, this is the same Ehud Barak who agreed in 2000-1 to turn over Gaza and much of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority, and who has conducted negotiations with Syria about returning the Golan. I suggest the idea that Barak is trying to "make a greater Israel," i.e., hold onto the "Entire Land of Israel," is comical. ("Entire Land of Israel" is, as I understand it, a better translation of the Hebrew phrase usually given as "Greater Israel.")
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