War in Israel
Watching war break out again in Israel in the midst of our other troubles, my reaction was probably that of many Americans: "the world is going to hell in a handbasket."
THIS is why it helps to elect a president who has foreign policy expertise. This is why, despite the hardship, inconclusiveness, and noncommittal diplomacy that was the multi-year attempt at peace accords with the Palestinians, America under the last Administration stayed the course and kept engaged in that region. And it was why President Bush's first foreign policy move in office--to disengage from the Israeli-Palestinian negotations --was such a disastrous choice.
War destroys. It destroys Israel, and its beautiful, mixed Arab-Israeli city of Haifa and its holy city of Safed. And it destroys Beirut, which was just returning to its status as "Paris of the Middle East" after years of post-civil war recovery. War is in no one's interests, (save, perhaps, Iran's--attempting to turn attention away from its failure to meet yesterday's deadline on nuclear disclosure.)
At this point, options are few. They must be found, creatively, to preserve Israel, and to restore peace.
Is there anyone who can lean on Syria and Iran to pressure Hamas and Hezbollah to release the 3 soldiers, and to stop firing missiles on Israel? It must be comfy for Hamas's leadership in Syria to get the Palestinians to do their fighting for them.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
July 13, 2006 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Daniel - All of this will come to an end ONLY when ALL the parties sit down and hammer out a peace agreement. The old canard about "no one to negotiate with" is getting old. You negotiate peace agreements with your enemies - not your friends.
I agree that a simple peace agreement with just the Palestinians probably would not cut it. However, if the UN, the US, the EU, Russia, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordon, Saudia Arabia, Syria, and Iraq signed the thing along with Israel, I firmly believe Peace would reign.
Israel can then become the ecomomic hub of the region to it's own and the region's benefit.
July 13, 2006 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
At this point, options are few. They must be found, creatively, to preserve Israel, and to restore peace.
How about America? Do we count to? I don't know about you, but since fall of 2001 I have lived with the sick feeling that the country I grew up in has died and gone to hell.
I also have a boy, now aged 16, whom I love more than any country or cause. I have lived in mortal terror for the past five years that some major Middle East firestorm, such as the one that may be igniting right now, would ultimately lead to a draft that will pull my boy up off the streets of his native country, and blow him over to that fanatical insane asylum of a region that you love so much. Somebody will then mail him back to me in a box - and maybe they will pay some sweet young hypocrite like you to write the letter. With your pro-war pins on your lapels, and a kleenex in one hand, you can man the shoot-and-cry brigade, and drip tears all over my letter as you write about how awful war is. Then you can go out and write another essay about how the US must fight the hideous Muslim hordes all over the world - in Pakistan, India, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Palestine - to save poor little Israel and its endangered settlements on Palestinoan land.
Holy places? Somehow I doubt you'll be back here to weep about all those lovely Iranian holy places after they have been reduced to cinders by US bombers. And if you think Iran is the only country that contains sizeable groups who have an interest in war, and who profit by it, and crave it, then you are even more naive than I thought before.
July 13, 2006 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israel and Israel's apologists are trying their darnedest to shift attention to Iran and Syria when in fact Hamas has said it would release the Israeli OCCUPIER they CAPTURED (not "kidnapped") if Israel release the Palestinian WOMEN AND CHILDREN they've IMPRISONED.
So instead of trying to pin the blame on Iran and Syria, why not get Israel to release the WOMEN AND CHILDREN PRISONERS it is holding as Hamas has requested in order to get the Israeli occupation-enforcing soldier back? Gee, sounds simple enough.
RELEASE THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN THAT ISRAEL IS HOLDING AS PRISONERS. CHILDREN. PRISONERS. Does that get through?
July 13, 2006 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Israeli soldier taken by Hamas was not in occupied territory when he was captured -- he was in Israel proper and was snatched by Palestinians who had dug a tunnel underneath the border separating Gaza (which Israel unilateral withdrew from last yeat) and Israel. So unless you accept Hamas's contention that Israel itself constitutes occupied territory, the notion that Hamas was taking hostage an Israeli occupier is sheer nonesense.
As for the notion that Hamas is demanding only the release of Palestinian women and children in exchange for the Israeli soldier they took hostage, that too is false. What Hamas offered was to provide information about the soldier it abducted; it would release him only if ALL Palestinian prisoners were released.
It's important to get your facts straight.
Ivo Daalder
July 13, 2006 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Daalder,
if I could rate your comment a "100" I would do so & I thank you for taking the time to make it. I just don't know how much it will help, as after a quick perusal of "the blogosphere," I am despairing of its ability to do more good than bad with a story of this magnitude. It's very depressing; I am amazed that you are reading comments.
As the independent reporter Chris Allbritton once said on his blog (yes, a blog) about some supposed blog scoop out of Italy in 2004:
In a way, I almost feel complicit as any extremist Israeli or Palestinian by even giving clicks to comments full of disinfo, outright propaganda, or even worse, war-like vitriol and hatred. Give every one a nuke instead of a keyboard and we'd all be dead tomorrow. It's almost as if you can get better info. & a much better "can we all get along" message from a combo of debka & electronic intifada (at least it's not Americans in their jammmies pretending to know what exactly what the Israelis or Palestinians should do.)
I still look forward to reading analysis by you and other contributors, but I think I'll be skipping the "discussion" part for a while....passionate warlike rants are the last thing I want to read right now, and I just can't bear seeing all the disinfo. being passed.
Back to BBC World & the newspapers for me...
July 13, 2006 9:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
War breaks out in Israel?
That's funny, I thought it was the Lebanese who are being killed and it's their economy, military, infrastructure, etc that is being destroyed by the Israelis.
(Oops! 4 Brazilians from the same family were also collateraled by an Isreali airstrike)
How's this for a foreign policy solution? If any Americans are killed, hurt, or inconvenienced by Israeli attacks on Lebanon (or Syria), the US will have all the justification needed for mounting a self-defensive war on Iran. Barbara Boxer would like totally support it.
BTW...Steve Clemons is hearing rumors that the PM's office basically told Condi to f-off when she urged them to back down and use restraint. But that's okay 'cause the Israelis think she's a pushy b.... who is reported to have stamped her foot during a meeting.
July 13, 2006 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
"War is in no one's interests, (save, perhaps, Iran's--attempting to turn attention away from its failure to meet yesterday's deadline on nuclear disclosure.)"
Oh, here we go. Talk about a disingenuous neocon statement.
Go read this article, Kleinfeld:
Analysis: Kidnappings give Israel excuse to neutralize Hamas, Hezbollah
Then go read this one from Justin Raimondo.
Money quotes:
'"The Israeli offensive against Iran – until now, purely polemical – morphed into military action the moment the IDF crossed the border into Lebanon and took on Hezbollah. As our regular readers know, this turn of events was predicted in this space three months ago:
"War with Iran will probably not begin with a frontal assault by the U.S. and/or Israel on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons facilities, or even a skirmish along the Iraq-Iran border. Look to Lebanon and Syria for the first battlegrounds of this developing regional war. The Israelis know perfectly well that Iran's nuclear ambitions, if they ever materialize, are not an immediate threat: their real concern is their volatile northern border, where their deadly enemies – Hezbollah – are an effective obstacle to Israeli influence. The Israelis are also looking to exploit growing opportunities to make trouble in Syria, where the restive Kurds are their reliable allies, and the brittleness of the Ba'athist dictatorship is an invitation to regime change."
The suggestion, by Professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, in their now famous "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," that the Iraq war was fought for Israel's sake, and against our own interests in the region, was received in many quarters with outright horror, and not only from the Amen Corner. Noam Chomsky and Stephen Zunes both objected to this thesis of an Israel-centric foreign policy: Israel, they insist, is the "junior partner" of the American hegemon, and is only acting at the behest and under the de facto control of its masters in Washington.
The war's aftermath, however, tells a different story. Examined in light of Israel's postwar actions – the unilateral "withdrawal" from Gaza, the absorption of more territory and the building of more settlements on the West Bank, the war against Hamas, and now the re-invasion of Lebanon – the chief (and only) beneficiary of the new regional balance of power is clear enough. The American invasion and occupation of the Mesopotamian heartland has empowered the Israelis as never before – and now they are on the offensive, carving out a greatly expanded sphere of influence extending into Kurdistan as well as Lebanon, bringing closer to fulfillment the old Zionist vision of an empire stretching "from the Nile to the Euphrates."
The U.S., on the other hand, has considerably reduced leverage in the region. Our troops in Iraq are exposed, vulnerable to the Iranians – and stalemated by the Iraqi insurgency, which shows troubling signs of extending into Shi'ite areas. As the Israelis advance, with American support, Sunni and Shi'ite factions in Iraq – including those in the governing Shi'ite coalition – are radicalized, and turn their fire on the Americans.
Yet the U.S. is still shilling for the Israelis, blaming Syria and Iran for acts that occurred well outside the purview of the mullahs and the increasingly isolated regime of Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile, in the UN, we are bringing the issue of Iran's nuclear power program to the Security Council, pressing for a confrontation that can only end in $200-per-barrel oil.
In 1996, a group of pro-Israeli Americans – including Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser – prepared a policy statement for then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that proposed a strategy of regime change as the only solution for Israel's growing encirclement and isolation. The main problem, they averred in "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," was Syria, and the troublesome border with Lebanon:
"Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon."
But this could occur only if Iraq was taken out first:
"Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions."
With Saddam out of the way, the second phase of the "Clean Break" scenario is unfolding before our eyes. And the propaganda war is going just as well as the military aspect of the campaign: the Israelis are no fools. They realize they can't proceed without the tacit complicity of the U.S. and the Europeans, who must be made to look the other way as the IDF commits war crimes on the ground. Under the pretext of avenging the "kidnapping" of one of their soldiers – and, more recently, two more – they have unleashed a military assault planned well in advance of the allegedly precipitating incidents.
This is surely one of the most threadbare excuses for a war ever uttered. One wonders how Israel's spokesmen can say it with a straight face. Soldiers in wartime are captured, not "kidnapped."'
If you can't figure out who is benefiting from this situation, you certainly don't have any qualifications to be a "pundit."
But, of course, you CAN figure it out - you're just on the wrong side, as your statement about Iran clearly shows.
July 14, 2006 1:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
"So unless you accept Hamas's contention that Israel itself constitutes occupied territory, the notion that Hamas was taking hostage an Israeli occupier is sheer nonesense."
This is disingenuous at best. Of course Israel is an "occupier" - unless YOU buy Israel's contention that it's "unilateral withdrawal" is legitimate.
Which, in any event, is irrelevant now since they have reinvaded Gaza.
As for getting facts straight, Haaretz reported the following:
"Meanwhile, the deputy of the Hamas political office, Musa Abu Marzuk, confirmed that Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's call for a cease-fire Saturday followed a statement by Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter that Israel would be willing to release prisoners as part of a deal that would free Gilad Shalit.
Speaking to the London-based Arab-language Al-Hayat, Abu Marzuk said that the first step is for Israel to recognize the principle of prisoner exchange, and then negotiations would begin on the number of Palestinian prisoners to be freed.
The newspaper stresses that Hamas is willing to accept the release of some 100 female prisoners and 30 men who have already served long sentences, in addition to observing a complete cease-fire."
It would seem that two or more Hamas officers made differing offers, with Khaled Meshal, the Damascus-based head of the Hamas political office, offering a swap for an unspecified amount of Palestinian prisoners, and the above officer offering a swap for females and others.
This is probably where the confusion lies.
July 14, 2006 2:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Talk about splitting hairs! The individual soldier doesn't have to be physically in the OCCUPIED TERRITORIES in order to be an armed, uniformed member of an OCCUPYING FORCE, who is a PERFECTLY LEGITIMATE TARGET in any military confrontation.
The irony and hypocrocy is simply astounding. Here we have a President who claims the right to pick up random strangers from all over the world, ship them to Gitmo, torture them, and keep them indefinitely, and yet a Palestinians that has the audacity to resist racist Israeli apartheid occupation of their country are labelled as "terrorists" for capturing a member of the occupation jackboot-wearing forces who go around doing things like shelling picnicers, running over peace activists like Rachel Corrie with bulldozers, shooting BBC correspondents, and murdering children such as Mohammad Alddura as he cowers behind his father's back.
Well boo hoo for Israel.
But I guess since according to Golda Meir, "There are no such things as Palestinians", then Hamas doesnt' exist either.
July 14, 2006 6:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rache stop trying the shift the blame onto Iran. The Palestian were legitimately resisting being ethnically cleansed long before Iran got involved - too bad that Iran is making it so hard for Israel to accomplish its goal of eradicating the Palestinians by shoving them into open-air prisons and bantustans.
Israel receives BILLIONS of US taxpayer dollars from the US. It is time to end that.
July 14, 2006 6:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let me demonstrate that a coherent statement on many of your concerns can be made without the dramatic rhetoric and sarcasm you seem to find necessary. You see, my back is sore this morning and it's too much effort to put on my jackboots, or to comment on Rachel Corrie's rather naive view of the world.
Israel, like the US in Iraq, appears to meet the international definition of an Occupying Power, a concept in the Hague and Geneva conventions. In both cases, the situation would be much more clear if there were a formal declaration of war.
Wailing about splitting hairs is not especially helpful when it seems that a mighty oak is being split.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 14, 2006 8:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let me get this straight - Rachel Corrie had a "naive" view of the world and therefore it was justified for the Israeli army to run her over with a bulldozer?
Sorry, but I'm not going to apologize for making my views on Israel=Racism prefectly clear. It is about time that the self-described "liberals" and "progressives" who have remained either stone-cold silent on Israel's racist apartheid occupation regime or who only apologetically and hedgingly dare criticize Israel to grow some gonads and tell it like it is:
for once could we please stop buying into the narrative - as on display by Ms Kleinfeld - which characterizes Israel is the perpetual victim of someone else's aggression? Israel's monopolization of victim-status is merely a cop out and a way to justify their aggression and to either deny their atrocities or portray them as merely responses to someone else's actions. It takes two to tango, and Israel is an aggressor who has decided to use the "kidnapping" of members of it racist apartheid civilian-murdering occupation force as an excuse to spark a wider war and to remove the legitimate and democratically elected leaders of the Palestinians. It is time for the real progressives and anyone who is simply honest to stop promoting that narrative of Israel as the victim and face up to some facts about our "ally" in this conflict.
July 14, 2006 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
There was no assumption, by the Israelis, of special rights for "peace protesters". If she wasn't prepared to die, she should not have laid down in the path of a bulldozer. She tried to push her view of ethics on the Israelis, with no means of enforcement. Both sides in the British -Indian conflict had a reasonably common set of rules. Here, there were no rules mutually agreed. In that case, if you won't use force to impose your will, and the other side will, the nonviolent force loses.
Were I to try to stop a bulldozer under such circumstances, I'd go for a side shot into the engine with an AT-4, followed by multiple rockets into the cab, from hit-and-run soldiers.
I have never said I either am an ally of Israel, or a progressive.
I have never said that Israel's acts are the rights of a victim. I have said that they do certain military things with no effective resistance, and their disproportionate response is nice for internal politics but counterproductive for peace.
Call Israel a racist all you want, and I won't necessarily disagree. I find it announcing itself as "the" Jewish state, when there are many Jewish citizens of other states who have no special attraction to Israel, arrogant at best and in violation of those other Jews' right of self-determination at worst.
What I have said is I don't need revolutionary jargon about jackboots to make my points. My gonads are just fine, and irrelevant to this discussion. You see, when I do political analysis, I use my big head, not my little head. -- Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 14, 2006 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rachel Corrie was not a soldier in a war. She was a young peace activist who was trying to prevent the racist US-funded apartheid occupation forces of the Self-Chosen from murdering and ethnically cleansing more innocent people. The Israelis ran her over with a bulldozer. The reaction in the US? To blame her. As you're doing.
And this isn't the first time. Everytime Israel commits an atrocity, they first deny it happened, then they say it was merely a response to a prevous atrocity, then they blame the victims.
Example: the massacre of Palestinians at Deir Yassan, the shelling of Qana, the massacres at Sabra and Shatiall, the murder of 12-year old Mohammad Adurra, etc ,etc. Never happened. And if it did, it was their fault.
Once again I ask: when will respectable intellectually honest people for ONCE deny Israel's perpetual self-characterization as the victim?
July 14, 2006 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
As much as you want to make this Israel-Palestinian, it would have been stupid behavior in any conflict. If she took a shot at the bulldozer and then was blown away, I'd have much more respect. Look at the paragraph above and show me where I'm making excuses for Israel.
I also suggest you study more about the exact nature of a word usually translated as "separate development."
Deir Yassin was a planned attack and an atrocity. Sorry, someone throwing oneself in front of a bulldozer is not going to make one whit of difference. If I sell my life, I intend to sell it at high price. -- Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 14, 2006 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
My sentiments exactly. I have two sons. I live with the same fears.
July 14, 2006 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
He does make a good point - regsrdless of where the occupying force individual was, he's still a member of the occupying force and thus a legitimate target.
The problem is whether Hamas or Hizballah constitute a legitimate state force authorized to capture enemy soldiers or even as a legitimate resistance.
I'd say Hamas qualifies as a legitimate resistance even if Israel was "technically" no longer an occupier once they withdrew from Gaza. I say "technically" because the whole Israeli program is to make a Palestinian "state" impossible to function so it doesn't matter WHERE Israel "withdraws" from.
Hizballah isn't quite as clear - although it is obvious from their prisoner release demand that they still have issues with the Israelis - not to mention their whole program is based on getting rid of Israel.
Who cares? They're enemies. Therefore both sides have a reason to kidnap or kill each other. The question is why.
The only advantage to declaring any of this is who gets to claim "they started it" - which is obviously bogus because it "started" at any arbitrary place along the timeline from either when Jews got kicked out of Israel two thousand years ago or from the late nineteenth century when Zionism arose to the Holocaust to 1947 to 1967 to today. Everybody picks their own point to start arguing "they started it" from.
My place on the timeline is when the notion of kicking out the Palestinians and creating a Jewish state without equal representation for Palestinians was first considered - which was probably a lot earlier than the 1940's.
July 14, 2006 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can't disagree with any of that.
The main point to remember, though, is that Israel was WILLING to run over a peace activist - TWICE - with a bulldozer.
Of course, the people who REALLY should remember that are the peace activists - but, hey, we should remember it, too, when discussing Israeli behavior.
We should also remember the Palestinian idiots who blow up busses instead of Israeli tanks like the Iraqi resistance does. That's another sort of fool. As you said, if you're going to die anyway, take out someone important, not a bunch of clueless civilians.
July 14, 2006 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only difference being of course that the Rwandan perpetrators of genocide, the Khmer ROuge, and the Nazis are treated as international war criminals, where as Israel continues to receive billions of dollars in US money to murder yet more innocent people and then people like you come here and call innocent peace activits "fools" who deserved to be run over by bulldozers.
Sheesh
Rachel Corries status was that of a HUMAN BEING. Does that register?
July 14, 2006 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you really think that your trying to make an idiotic act specific to one political situation you dislike is going to convince me of one damn thing?
Status of human being? I can think of several, with clinical AIDS, with metastatic breast disease, with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, who are doing everything they can to continue living, and I support them every way I can.
A human being that throws themselves in front of a bulldozer, as far as I am concerned, resigned its human status, and relegated any decision about its continued existence to others. Nope. Not the slightest sympathy on her part, and it is morally equivalent to throwing herself on a Khmer Rouge's machete. I have much more respect for people that will take up weapons.
When the situation is one, as in India, where there were some common values recognized between the two sides, there could be value to passive resistance. In the segregated days of the American South, when there were other parts of the country supportive of freedoms, there could be value to passive resistance.
Grant me the courage to change the things I can, the serenity to deal with the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference. She utterly failed on the wisdom part.
You accept that there is a meaningful concept of peace activism. I do not.
I look forward to hearing your next burst of indignant self-righteousness, hoping against hope it contains something creative. If you wanted to talk about solutions, we might get somewhere, but if you simply want to consider the drama, I shall treat the performance as such.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
July 14, 2006 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reminds me of the guy who laid down in front a train carrying military supplies.
Remember him?
Lost both legs.
I think about that when I see that Chinese guy standing in front of the tanks in Tianemen Square.
No way you're gonna catch me doing that.
July 14, 2006 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rachel
I politely disagree with your assessment that in war their are no victors. History is on my side. Without going into the dozens of exceptions to your proclamation I will limit this post to American interests.
World War I. America was the only victor and it propelled this nation to the forefront of all nations. Industrially and militarily the U.S. became the most important and powerful nation in the World.
World War II. Once again the U.S. is the only clear-cut victor. Unlike our allies, whose cities lay in ruins, the U.S. was the only nation in the world (save perhaps the Soviets) who could write the peace accords. The Marshall Plan, along with things like the United Nations and NATO, propelled us once again to the forefront of international matters.
Korean War and Vietnam. Ostensibly these campaigns resulted in stalemate and defeat respectively. But that is only when the result is compared with the stated intentions of the U.S. In reality the spread of Communism was very real in the three decades following World War II. Despite the U.S. failing in its stated aims, it accomplished strategically what it set out to do: stop the spread of communism. Sure we were unable to unite North and South Korea under one democratic government. Yes we were unable to defeat the NVA and completely dispell its Communist ideology. But we did succeed, in both cases, at isolating North Korea and North Vietnam.
Wars do benefit nations. A region-wide Middle Eastern war will benefit the United States. Need I delve into the socioeconomic reasons?
July 15, 2006 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you so much for not making me stand alone as the only American who has not been brainwashed by BUSH into beleiving that all Arabs are the enemy and Israel is always the victim. It is so obvious to me that the countries that they are battling/murdering are not strong enought to take care of themselves. They live like we did in the early 1900's. No electricity, refrig., stoves, cars, telephones, no trash pick-up. They still wash by hand, grind their herbs and spices after drying them in the sun. Are you kidding me. They have no $$. How can they defend themselves against a modernized people like Israel. America needs to stand up, give Israel the spanking that they need, and send them to bed early. They aare Bush's children. They listen to him and him only. So hello Mr. president TELL YOUR KIDS TO BEHAVE AND PLAY NICE. OH YEAH, COULD YOU TEACH THEM TO SHARE?
July 22, 2006 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink