Apocalypse Now?
How is it that Israelis, as Ethan Bronner reports, are almost universally in favor of the Gaza operation, including the way it's been prosecuted, while government leaders and educated people around the globe, even those disgusted by Hamas missile attacks, condemn the operation, and especially the way it's been prosecuted?
What's so strange, as veteran Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy rails, is that ordinary Israelis know as well as anybody that hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including perhaps 300 children, have been killed or maimed, and yet this horror has not become a significant part of public debate. For a small minority of peace activists, even a few people in the south, the price in blood has seemed much too high for ending random missile attacks. But most will argue, not entirely convincingly, for humanitarian relief--and then spur on the IDF. Israelis, I hasten to add, are as sickened and frightened by military violence as the rest of the world is, even by their own. They may feel a superficial pleasure in retaliation for the missiles, or a satisfied relief in seeing the IDF perform in a coordinated, disciplined way, but they are not immune to doubts. There were two blockbuster films over the last couple of years, both anti-war films lamenting actions in Lebanon, "Beaufort" and the throat-clenching "Waltz With Bashir." My Palestinian friends will cringe when I say this, but most Israelis think of Israeli soldiers as children, too.Ron Ben-Yishai, the veteran war correspondent whose revulsion over Sabra and Shatila was featured in "Waltz With Bashir," now supports keeping up "the pressure." One young soldier, interviewed this week on the radio, spoke with obvious sadness and compunction--but also with grim determination--about blowing up houses on the edge of Gaza city. He said, haltingly, that he feels he has had to harden his heart: "If it is their house or my house, I suppose I have to destroy their house," he said.
HOW COULD THE vast majority of Israelis feel it morally defensible to take actions bound to result in the deaths of so many kids; how for the sake of gains everybody assumes will be, in the grand scheme of things, tactical and temporary?There is a big clue in that soldier's apocalyptic language. Israelis speak about this operation entirely in terms of Hamas' capabilities. Israelis are asking: Do you not see that any pain they have the capability to inflict on us they will inflict, sooner or later, so we have to go after those capabilities, if not once and for all, then now, while we can? Have you not looked at their covenant? Can you not see how their Iranian patron is arming them? Israelis are intrigued by levels of Hamas' motivation, but never by Palestinian motives more generally. The latter are not ever mentioned because they are assumed to be irrelevant to the confrontation in Gaza. It is their house or our house.Think about this. Occupation, preventive detentions, 300,000 settlers, the annexation and walling off of East Jerusalem, checkpoints, house demolitions, economic collapse, Gaza becoming Somalia--all the things that all Palestinians care about all the time, all the things that people abroad cannot get out of their minds--all irrelevant. Forget for a moment what Hamas is. The point is, for most Israelis nothing Hamas says--i.e., lift the siege, negotiate a "hundred year cease-fire," subject any deal to a referendum--can be responded to by diplomatic or other means. Their sad choice, most Israelis think, is to attack Hamas, even at the expense of mauling Gaza's citizens. Their vague goal--as Tom Friedman surmises, a little too much like King David counting up enemy foreskins--is that although the attack will redouble hatred for Israel , it will significantly raise levels of resentment for Hamas. Hell, hatred for Israel is absolute anyway.WHY APOCALYPSE, of all times, now, when Israel's military power seems so incomparable? Why extend the vendetta culture in which Hamas thrives?What needs to be understood--and Israelis themselves don't see this easily--is that Hamas' professed commitment to Israel's destruction torments a kind of collective unconscious. Any Palestinian threat seems an "existential" one. I am not referring here to some "holocaust complex" outsiders like to go on about (though, God knows, filtered memories of the European genocide are in the emotional background). Nor do Israelis fear that they could never make restitution to Palestinians for dispossession, for the Naqba, though this fear brings us closer to the truth. I am referring to something more actual, a kind of projection from everyday knowledge of Israel's political and legal structure, which Israelis feel protective (if not vaguely guilty) about--a structure they rightly suppose no self-respecting Palestinian could ever accept.Israelis, you see, ask another question, which is not at all about Gaza: How can we have a Jewish state if this cannot really accommodate non-Jewish citizens? Is it not obvious that, in the end of ends, they just don't want us here? One can challenge Israelis on what Palestinians mean by "want" and "here." The great problem is that Israelis themselves don't really know what they mean by "us." This makes public debate increasingly defensive, frustrated, strident. It makes politics dangerous.IT IS NO accident that--just last week, as the Gaza attack raged--Israeli Arabs took to the streets, while a majority of Knesset parties, including Kadima, voted to strip the Arab parties of the right to participate in the upcoming elections (a right, most agree, the High Court will restore). For the growing discomfort of Israeli Jews with the country's Arab citizens, and vice versa, is very much reflected in Israel's fierce response in Gaza. The prosecution of this attack suggests, not just a fear of some next crisis, but of the chronic crisis; the presumed challenge to Israel always waiting around the bend, causing Israelis to prove--so they think--that they have overwhelming staying power.What is the crime these Arab parties have committed? They insist on Israel being "a state of its citizens," not a "Jewish and democratic state." To foreign ears, this sounds like a distinction without a difference. Why not a democratic state, patently Jewish insofar as it is Hebrew-speaking, much like France is "French." But since 1948, Israelis have allowed "Jewish state" to evolve in curious ways: most land is reserved for "Jewish settlement," the state gives the orthodox rabbinate control over marriage and aspects of citizenship, the whole of Jerusalem is decreed a Jewish patrimony, and so forth. (I take this all up in The Hebrew Republic.)While the Arab minority, 20% of the population, has been marginalized, Israel has spawned a kind of Judean settler state around Jerusalem and the West Bank, which Israelis are reluctant to confront for the sake of Palestinians. For most, the word democracy has come to mean, more than anything else, maintaining "a Jewish majority."And this Jewish state, Israelis know in a day-to-day kind of way, is something that they would reject if they were in the shoes of Israeli Arabs. Lurking behind this knowledge is the not unreasonable fear that any peace they make with the Palestinians will unravel as the rejection of Israel by its own Arab citizens unspools.Sadly, you see, Israelis see their Jewish state as a bone in the throat of Palestinians, not just historically, but still. They feel themselves, increasingly, in a desperate "existential" fight where no holds are barred now, because no holds will be barred later. Show weakness about what is yours, and you are a baby-step away from Bosnia. Which is, of course, what Serbians thought, and how "Bosnia" began.
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Apartheid
January 15, 2009 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Araber frei!
January 15, 2009 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I actually have no idea what that means.
January 15, 2009 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
a black-humoured reference to the Nazi slogan “Juden-frei”
According to the google oracle.
January 15, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the justification for the creation of a Jewish state was the safety of Jews, violently taking land and ethnically cleansing its inhabitants in the middle of the culturally different Arab world was not the wisest move.
Of course we know that it was as much about biblical entitlement as safety. And who knows to what extent the creation of Israel was supported by the U.S. and England because of it's proximity to oil, and the West's desire to have a better foothold in the region.
Is it true that during and after WW2, Zionist leaders urged countries to limit their intake of Jewish refugees, so that the case for Israel would be stronger?
January 15, 2009 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Avishai,
With all due respect, because I am a great admirer of your work, and surely speaking only for myself, my only interest in understanding "why" Israelis are murdering Palestinians is if it points the way to getting them to stop. For years I have been told Israelis feel existentially threatened. I see nothing (and never have) that could take away that feeling, given where they live and how they've behaved toward Arabs.
Sadly -- I do mean sadly -- I concluded just this week that Israeli policy is in no way aimed at making peace. It is aimed at keeping Palestinians on the ropes, with a brutal punch to the face any time they try to stand, and to keep weakening them until they cannot stand ever -- until Israelis can think up something else, if ever. They don't have a plan. They are playing for time -- hoping they'll stay the sole nuclear gun in the region, and how long will that last?
The murdering of Palestinians is happening now, on a daily basis. Whatever is in the heads of the Israelis doing this, they need to be stopped.
January 15, 2009 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or more simply: The more children the IDF murders, the more we must understand Israel's "fears."
Sorry, I left that racist reservation long ago.
January 15, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Occupying Gaza?
Regarding Mrs. Klein anti-Israeli article
The occupying Gaza that was mentioned in the article on the 10.1.09, Klein mentioned
That all the world should boycott Israel.
Three years ago that you all might be busy in the daily news, the Israeli government decided that she is tired from getting to any agreement with
The divided Palestinian people, and decided a one side decision that it is going to get out of Gaza and clear all the settlements around it.
You can google it - the disengagement - it really happened.
You all must be asking yourself, why, is so, the Palestinian people did not do anything to build them self their own economy? good question. the answer is that the terror leadership of the Palestinian preferred to invest all its resources and time in arming and shooting Israel. not attacks over soldiers or settlements since they are not around but only on civilians - regular villages. amazing news not?
For 15 years Israel is trying to find a arrangement with the Palestinian people, in 2000 Yaser Arafet got a proposal that "he can't refuse" a proposal that gives him more than 90% of the land of east Jerusalem! his reaction was the second Intifada, of course.
The Palestinian people suffer greatly, all will agree. but the occupation - that is a result of the historian attack on the '67 borders of Israel - as very little to do with it.
The bad lack of the Palestinian is that every time that are been lead by leaders that are thirsty for blood and money from Iran.
These people that without thinking twice, killing their own people if they try to resist their own leaders - that were been selected "democratically". their terror crimes upon Israel include only by killing civil ans and in schools, teenagers parties, restaurants, busesץ When the Hamas took over Gaza it killed more than 600 Palestinian, and guess what? the Al-Jazeera news station was not there.
Moreover, the Hamas is not ashamed to say and publicly that their cause is holy - to erase Israel from the map, that no Jew will no longer pollute the air, you better google them also? highly recommended.
The War in Gaza is not against the Palestinian but rather only on the Hamas!it is not a simple problem specially because that the Hamas people chose hospitals and schools as their hiding places. but since that the Hamas is shooting on Israel for years not, and killing children, women and men, the Israeli government had to agree on a very hard decision - the war on Gaza. but the Israeli government should spare on the Palestinian people more than its own people?
The Hamas, refused in all the last there years, for a one sided cease-fire - he wants to continue the killing and the missiles launching, interesting what would you do in this situation? just stand and wait for them to kill you? is this is the solution that you are trying to achieve by boycott Israel?
Could be that you ask yourself why no one is talking or writing about these things?
the answer is for Mrs Klein especially, the answer is really sad but real. that although Israel has extremely well high-tech skills, and dozens of novel prizes, its public relation, is not getting even 1% of recognition. Israel is a failure when it has to explain it self.
But on the other side Mrs. Klein is wizard in public relation, for your new book that is coming out, you are choosing to avoid the clear facts, and show a clear ignorant. will you do to recognize your new book with these popular, opinions that are antisemitism?
I do not recall you or any one saying boycott Russia, Georgia or boycott USA for invading Iraq.
Mrs. Klein is the one who support terror that slanderer Israel with her article.
In the Israeli people things that people who writes about things they do not have any understanding, should be boycott because you Mrs. Klein support Terror.
Lilach Sigan,
Globes Newspaper.
here is another link to look and understand:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/operation-cast-lead/videos/bbc-news--military-analysis
February 7, 2009 4:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Today, Israel -apparently either through reckless "accident" or deliberate intent- bombed the UN humanitarian supply depot. Even by Lapdog W. Bush's standards, this goes too far. It's UN membership should be put on probation at a minimum. Interesting as they may be, and Mr. Avishai's observations are informative in this respect, Israelis have had decades to work out their psychological problems, it is time now for the US government to stop acting so blatantly against the interests of America by continually coddling these foreign misfits. I make no apology for the Palestinians who are even more eager than the Israelis to seize almost every opportunity to misbehave, and I fully expect some kind of paradigm shift in the AIPAC propaganda line next week, when it will be all about "restoring" the "peace process" or some such platitude for the inauguration. But, regardless of any of that, America cannot continue to allow its foreign policy to be so flagrantly hijacked for such stupid and immoral purposes. It is time for action. It is time for pro-American citizens, Jewish or not, to take back THEIR government's Mideast policy.
January 15, 2009 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
As M.J. says, we've gotta reform congressional campaign finance before anything will change.
There's too much Zionist money involved. Just don't say that in public or you'll be a raging anti-semite.
January 15, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Campaign finance in US politics needs more than reform, more like revolution perhaps, but there are much shorter paths to liberating Congress from a Mideast policy dictated by the interests of West Bank settlers. Too much "Zionist money" is a dubious distraction. "Zionists" are wealthier than Saudi and Gulf sheiks? Is Soros a "Zionist"? You are much more on target with your final remark, Bill. People need to stand up and say that the U.S. Congress's lap-dog Mideast policy is an asinine emperor with no clothes, and not be scared off by sticks, stones, or silly names like "self-hating Jew" or lies that conflate anti-West-Bank-fanatic with anti-Semite.
AIPAC claims to speak for (a) Israelis, for (b) Jews, and for the (c) interests of America, which is (a) a distortion, (b) a much bigger distortion, and (c) a vile stupidity that lives on for dozens of times its natural shelf life due to indifference, ignorance, various forms of misunderstanding from simple confusion to elaborate brainwashing and above-all, cowardice. True anti-semites should be expected to keep their mouths shut, and to try to reform their warped minds, or be publicly excoriated. Anyone who is not actually an anti-Semite, however, should not fear being labeled as such, especially not by the hypocrites and traitors currently rationalizing the slaughter of children in Gaza.
January 15, 2009 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Boring. Sorry.
This little side show has been going on too long, receives far too much attention, has every prospect of going on forever and is ugly.
Outsiders, supporters of the two sides make the fight worse.
Proposal : shut off ALL the money and arms and support to both sides. Turn off the cameras and the microphones. Wall the two sides in together until they come up with something better.
Change the channel.
January 15, 2009 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
In wanting a Jewish state in a sea of Palestinians without granting the Palestinians their own independent state,the Israel government is doing what amounts to trying to put a square peg into a round hole. You can hear the frustration of accomplishing this task in the voices of the Israeli politicians as they grapple with what to do with the Israeli Arabs.
The choice for Israel is between internal civil war if it attempts to establish a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital or the continuation of apertheid with the smokescreen of peace talks. Unless there is pressure from the US, Israel will choose apartheid.
If apartheid continues, in the future there will be a one state solution. The Palestinians will change their focus from wanting their own state to wanting equal rights. Just like South Africa, boycotting Israel will be the cool thing to do. And so it shall be because the movement of history is to break down all walls.
January 15, 2009 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for your substantive post Bernard. I agree that the Hamas charter is an issue, however, to be fair, the counterpoint rarely gets heard, and the Likud platform says this:
Practically speaking, this is the real 'road map' that Israel has been following for many years, even after international courts have found the settlements to be illegal. What is the difference between the Likud and Hamas platforms? The Likudnik platform has been acted to a much greater degree. Settler expansion predates both the suicide bombers and rockets, and has never abated, so, in this sense, it is the Israelis who have never kept a truce, or held to the road map.
The Palestinians are the easiest enemy for Israel to go to war with, so they have become a political prop. The 'enemy' that Israel wants to fight even less than Iran are the crazy rightwing settlers, and it is their appeasement of this group that continues to drive this madness.
January 15, 2009 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Likud says:
And what is the basis of that assertion, I must ask? The Bible, I'm assuming. So, then, how does one interpret the bible? And can one really conclude that because a long time ago some people wrote that the land they fought for had been "promised" to one of their forefathers by their tribal deity - that this must be a "right" forever in a modern state? Even interpreters of the bible do not all agree on that! (mostly only the most fundamentalist would)
But now let's look at the Inquisition. Because that terrible abuse ALSO was perpetrated for the same kind of reasons - based upon a fundamentalist view of scripture and backed by a hierarchy of church power (akin to the Likud is power hierarchy).
It seems that when people in power justify abuse of others via narrow readings of scripture terrible things can happen. And normal citizens can be induced to condone the abuse.
Many scholars began to examine scripture after the Inquisition and it may be that many scholars will begin to examine scriptural claims by Israel after the recent wars on Lebanon and particularly on Gaza.
World courts are simply not going to see "scriptural texts" as an excuse for war crimes!
January 15, 2009 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't really see how this post ultimately reconciles these two statements:
"that ordinary Israelis know as well as anybody that hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including perhaps 300 children, have been killed or maimed, and yet this horror has not become a significant part of public debate."
"Israelis, I hasten to add, are as sickened and frightened by military violence as the rest of the world is, even by their own."
You're either sickened by it or your not.
January 15, 2009 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
The world needs to move into the next phase of this whole discussion:
The Two State solution is now impossible. The settlement of the West Bank has taken it off the table forever.
Not that Palestinian terrorist factions are blameless, but I don't see them as ultimately making the Two State solution "impossible." Difficult, yes.
But the settlements have made it impossible, or at least 99% certain never to happen. It seems that this was conscious on the part of some Israelis, and just given a blind eye by many more.
So:
1) The Israelis aren't leaving the West Bank.
2) What's left can't form a viable Palestinian state.
Where does that leave us? Debating from the flawed assumption that a Two State solution is still possible is just wasting time. We've entered the next phase and we're stuck debating the last one.
January 15, 2009 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't understand Bernard's perplexity. Israel has long behaved in such a way as to suggest that Israelis by and large believe that the way to defeat its more militant enemies is to inflict punitive pain on the broader familial and social matrix in which those enemies live. Collective punishment has been a characteristic feature of Israeli defensive operations for a very long time.
In response to the second intifada, they launched Operation Defensive Shield which inflicted widespread damage throughout the West Bank; in response to Hizbollah border skirmishes in the north, they launched an operation to rain widespread damage down on Lebanon; and now in response to rocket attacks and kidnappings in the south, they are tearing Gaza apart. It seems clear that the point here is to show Gazans that there is a price to be paid for tolerating and promoting Hamas in their midst. Israelis apparently support the sending of this lesson, as they frequently have in the past.
January 15, 2009 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not being an Israeli, I can't speak for or explain their sentiments. But I can certainly explain why the Israelis (or any other educated, informed people) wouldn't take seriously the endless accusations of war crimes or human rights abuses. That's because of the double standard, which is rather blatant and obvious. Plenty of other nations have committed much, much worse war crimes, especially the US and the UK in Iraq, at much, much greater cost in civilian casualties and yet there is no outcry, no UN resolutions, and no attempts to prosecute anyone. The Israelis kill a 1000 people in Gaza, and everyone acts like it's the end of the world, and yet the million deaths in Iraq are treated as if they are nothing. And there are many other instances. Despite all of the horror, the I-P conflict isn't even close to being one of the most violent conflicts in the world. Not even close. When, and if, the world decides that it's had enough of war and war crimes and decides to actually do something about them, rest assured that the Jews will be there every inch of the way. And, by the way, Israel is in a formally declared war with its enemies. Under international law countries still have the right to wage war. And war is hell, with children suffering the most. But until other nations renounce war, don't expect Israel to do so.
January 15, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
"When, and if, the world decides that it's had enough of war and war crimes and decides to actually do something about them, rest assured that the Jews will be there every inch of the way."
"But until other nations renounce war, don't expect Israel to do so."
I notice that everything that happens in Israel/Palestine is somehow the world's fault or responsibility.
The question isn't some technical definition of "war crime" or "just war."
The question is: what the f**k is Israel going to do?
I mean in the long run. What is the 20-year end game? Where is this heading? What is Israel doing? If I'm going to be sending them the bombs that they drop on dense urban neighborhoods, I want to know.
Here is the fact-on-the-ground that no Israeli or Israeli supporter has an answer to: Israel is methodically and intentionally colonizing the West Bank, which makes up more than 90% of "Palestinian" territory.
There is no Two State solution. So I repeat, what is Israel doing? Not now in Gaza. In general, in the long run. What is their long term policy? Is it something we want to support?
That debate is not even taking place. Screw the narrow question of "war crimes." No western state is ever held accountable for such things.
What is Israel doing?
January 15, 2009 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
The 20 year plan for Israel is nada. Zilch. As non-existent as any Westbank-zealot might fear for Israel, or fail to ever concede for Palestinians. What does exist is a two month plan of Livni and Barak to take votes away from Netanyahu in the February elections: I'm tough and stopped the tunnels and rockets, vote for me. We kicked Arab ass this time, not our own like in Lebanon three summers ago. THAT is why children are being slaughtered and UN food depots blown up in Gaza. A little accidentally-on-purpose collateral damage as icing on the "tough" cake baked for a worn-out and morally bent out of shape Israeli electorate. Democracy has its important pluses, despite G W Hypocrite Bush, but in a feud-ridden rat's nest like Israel-Palestine it has facilitated the creation of a Knesset grovelling to messianic and murderous settlers, and a Gaza run by terrorists.
January 15, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait a minute. You're saying there is a formal war going on? I know Israel is a nation. When did Palestine become a nation? And if Palestine is not a nation, how can you have a formal war? Gaza is veritable prison. All its land, its water, its access, is controlled by the state of Israel. Israel is inflicting punishment on people who cannot flee. The power differential is so huge here.
But if somehow Palestine has now been declared a state, well, I missed that part....
January 15, 2009 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
WILL THE AMERICANS PAY A PRICE FOR GEORGE W. BUSH'S POLICY ON GAZA?
President George W. Bush may be right when he says that Barack Obama's most serious challenge may be another 9/11 type attack on the U.S. soil. Bush should know because he has caused enough pain around the world, first by attacking Iraq then supporting Israel on their failed war against Lebanon and now the blatant support for attack on Gaza.
Those in Gaza, Iraq or Lebanon who have lost a parent, a brother or a sister in the conflicts could very well take up arms and plot and plan revenge against the U.S. This will be unfortunate because a majority of Americans do not approve Bush's foreign policy and have at least this time, openly opposed Bush's support for attack on Gaza. Even the Orthodox Jews have protested Israel's behavior in Gaza.
But unfortunately the U.S. public may end up paying the price for Georoge W. Bush's policies as angry young Arabs suffering in these conflicts do not distinguish between Bush & the U.S.
I hope Barack Obama can move the Middle East peace process forward quickly so the Gaza nightmare does not come back to haunt the U.S. public.
January 15, 2009 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
How convenient for Bush. The terrorist lay off Bush because he's attaching and wasting US treasury. If Obama stops attacking, the terrorist attack us on US soil again. Looks to me like the terrorist and Bush have the same goal. Hmmm makes you wonder doesn't it.
January 15, 2009 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Bernard, for this excellent post, which gets close to the heart of the matter.
It was obvious from the start this "war" was not just about Gaza, and certainly not about Hamas's ineffective homemade rockets.
I keep seeing reports of polls saying 91% or 94% of Israelis back the attack on Gaza. Pretty clearly, those pollsters aren't bothering to ask the one-fifth of Israelis who are Arab. Or if they are, tallying their responses separately.
I'm going to let your post sink in a bit more.
January 15, 2009 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israelis see Gaza as a prototype for the West Bank. They pulled out their settlers and troops years ago. The result was rocket fire. They figure that if they pull out of the West Bank they'll just get another rocket launching base firing at them. Lord only knows why they think that but that's the conventional wisdom there.
My guess is that Israeli soldiers see their assault on Gazan civilians the way American, and many South Korean, soldiers saw the same in the Korean War. The North Koreans often used local villagers as human shields. The choice was to kill innocent civilians or have your own lines overrun and quite likely dying yourself. The few soldiers I have met willing to talk about this still had horrible memories, though they accepted that they had no choice in the matter. No one says that war is fun. I've never heard from any North Korean veterans about their view of the matter.
I doubt that Israelis are very concerned about world opinion or the "Arab street". The general world and street consensus has been "death to the Jews" for a number of centuries now. Gandhi proposed mass suicide as an option back in the 1930s and 1940s. In general, Jews were not expected to fight back until they created the state of Israel. Modern Jews may seem a bit paranoid. That probably comes from all the "death to the Jews" crap of the last few hundred years, generally matched by actual death to the Jews.
January 15, 2009 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
95% of the "actual deaths" in the current Gaza operation are not Jews. More Jews live in the US than Israel, and there is no "consensus" in any "street" since that in the Berlin avenues immediately surrounding Hitler's bunker in April, 1945, if even there and then, about "death to" these millions of American Jews. Sure, for 30 years Tehranis have been shouting "death to America" (which might theoretically include Jews IN America), while however fondly dreaming of immigrating to America as so many have already done. The term "crap" might therefore best be applied to a knowledge of history that appears to come largely from a poor reading of the AIPAC handbook.
January 15, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right. If Israel pulls out of the West Bank without any co-ordination with Palestinian leadership, and then puts the West Bank "on a diet" and generally blockades the West Bank so that vast numbers of children have their growth stunted, there would probably be glorified bottle rockets shot into Israel. There also probably wouldn't be a citizen effort to arrest the rocketeers, because of severe bitterness at watching children die in under supplied hospitals, and slowly starved from an intentionally provocative blockade.
Did it occur to you that the severity of the blockade might have been designed to provoke the Gazans, to provide an excuse to act tough before an election? Was this whole thing not planned 6 months ago?
Wallowing in your historical ethnic victimhood could justify anything, couldn't it? Why not kill all the children in Gaza? Why stop there? The whole world is evil, right?
Everybody has historical grievances, but using it to numb yourself to the murder of other innocents is very dangerous.
Join the world community, where everybody has historical grievances but tries to find a way to get along. Otherwise, keep desiring the self-fulfilling prophecy that justifies land theft, ethnic cleansing, and mass imprisonment.
January 15, 2009 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
You offer the sort of ethnic justification for genocide that is always offered for every genocide. This leaves no doubt as to your moral character.
January 15, 2009 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course the Israeli objective was not ending the missile attacks. They, echoed by Condi , have been perfectly clear about that, regularly stating that they would not negotiate any peace unless it is sustainable. And have explained that the key criterion ,not unreasonably, of sustainability is that it must ensure no more missile smuggling.
Some , like David Grossman were nevertheless misled to propose that Israel temporarily suspend its attacks accompanied by the unambiguous message that they would resume immediately after the next missile attack. That would almost certainly have ended the attacks. At the very least it would have ensured that the whole world, and the whole of suffering Gaza would clearly understand that Hamas was responsible .
But of course that would have failed to achieve that key criterion of preventing missile smuggling.So it was never a possibility.
I expect that what now will happen is that Israel will indeed achieve that sustainable peace and the fighting will end. But the further radicalization of Arabs in general and Gazans in particular will ensure more Israeli deaths through suicide bombings than would otherwise have been the case.
Irrespective of how the Gazan War concludes the two state solution was informally doomed years ago by the now irreversible expansion of the settlements. Maybe the temporary outcome will be two bantustans in Gaza and the non settled part of the West Bank. Until some Muslim dominated nuclear power, Pakistan perhaps, will create the disaster that Israelis properly fear.
The educated ,intelligent Israeli public must understand this and the rejoicing for the coming peace will be like the enjoyment on the Titanic's penultimate night. Because since they all understand that the settlers can't be removed they have subconsciously accepted that there is no other option than hoping for the best.
And it's idle to hope that Obama can unscramble that omelet. That shipped sailed during the last wasted 8 years.
For the avoidance of doubt, I don't write this with any modicum of pleasure. I see this oncoming tragedy and feel the deepest grief.
January 15, 2009 10:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pakistan's extremists finding common cause with Al_Qaeda are the real threat to Israel now. Since Hamas (and Hezbollah) kept and keep them in check, removing Hamas removes the most effective barrier to their gaining a serious presence in Israel's face.
We shall see if Israel is so foolish as to expose their northern flank in the same manner.
January 16, 2009 12:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe the existence of the large Arab population within Israel will help protect it. Altho the inevitabilty of muslim deaths did not protect Mumbai.
January 16, 2009 4:26 AM | Reply | Permalink