For starters and because nothing clears the palate for grim reality like a dollop of inanity:
Hollywood Calls for A Stop to Terrorism.
Yeah, that'll work. From The herald Sun, an Australian Newspaper.
Aw, that's sweet. Isn't it? It wasn't just Nicole Kidman, but a host of other "moguls" and "heavyweights." It's "a powerfully worded full-page ad."
[quote from The Herald Sun article begins]
We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas," the ad reads.
"If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die.
"We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs."
[quote ends]
To return to this pronouncement: The language bothers me, more for what it doesn't say than for what it does. Is it a statement of support for Israel or for Bush's policies?
As with everything else I read these days (including Israel), I am of two minds about the sentiments expressed, to which I say both "yes" and "no" simultaneously.
As to the publication of this piece, I am of one mind, and what it says is, "Um....?" If they are trying to change my mind, it isn't going to work. I support Israel, but that doesn't mean that I have to approve of its every action. I don't approve of everything my own government does, for God's sake.
"Moral Equivalency."
I do get fed up with the (typically) black-and-white view of events which says that you must either be with Israel or against it, and that any criticism means that you are anti-Israel. That is arrant nonsense.
It's quite possible to feel critical of the action of a person or a whole nation because you have a high opinion of it and its people and wish them the best. You can believe that a particular action is wrong or mistaken while still feeling exactly the same about a person or a nation.
And you can believe that the action in Lebanon was wrong without holding the opinion that it was the "moral equivalent" of the sort of action engaged in by Israel's enemies. Of COURSE you can. For someone to say, "I expected better of you," signifies that the person sees and appreciates the distinction and continues to honor the character of the person at the receiving end of the criticism.
I'm responding here to an article by Tim Rutten in the L.A. Times.com, deploring "the obscenely anti-Israeli tenor of the European and world press." He's talking about some allegedly fake photographs from Lebanon that I haven't seen, and don't want to see, which he believes are anti-Israel propaganda designed to stir up anti-Israeli feeling. That seems quite possible to me.
Where I think he misses the point is in assuming that people need photographs of dead children to make them feel critical of Israel in this instance or that to criticize Israel is to side with Hezbollah. It's not that simple.
Here's the quote:
[quote from LA Times article begins here]
What the major news organizations ought to be doing is to make their own analysis of the images coming out of Lebanon and if, as seems more than likely, they find widespread malfeasance, some hard questions need to be asked about why it occurred. Some of it may stem from the urge every photographer feels to make a photo perfect. Some of it probably flows from a simple economic imperative — a freelancer who produces dramatic images gets picked up more and paid more. Moreover, the obscenely anti-Israeli tenor of most of the European and world press means there's an eager market for pictures of dead Lebanese babies.
It's worth noting in this context that there is no similar flow of propagandistic images coming from the Israeli side of the border. That's because one side — the democratically elected government of Israel — views death as a tragedy and the other — the Iranian financed terrorist organization Hezbollah — sees it as an opportunity. In this case, turning their own dead children into material creates an opportunity to cloud the fact that every Lebanese casualty, tragic as he or she is, was killed or injured as an unavoidable consequence of Israel's pursuit of terrorists who use their own people as human shields. Every Israeli civilian killed or injured was the victim of a terrorist attack intended to harm civilians. That alone ought to wash away any blood-stained suggestion of moral equivalency.[quote ends here]
He's right about this: "Every Lebanese casualty...was killed or injured as an unavoidable consequence of Israel's pursuit of terrorists." The question is whether using a sledgehammer to kill a few vicious wasps is an acceptable strategy if you kill everything else in the vicinity.
I maintain that it is not. Furthermore, I maintain that it is unlikely to accomplish the intended results---rooting out terrorism----as though by killing a few terrorists, you kill terrorism's root cause. That position is patently absurd. I will be very happy if I am wrong, but I suspect that this recent action is going to substantially worsen the problem----and not just for the Israelis.
Perhaps the rest of the world simply doesn't wish to suffer the consequences of what even to Israel's friends appears to be a misguided strategy. Israel's friends may be unwilling to condone what by their lights appears to be not only a morally questionable action but also a tragically misguided strategy.
Finally, I'd still think that Israel's action was misguided if there had not been a single civilian casualty. While casualties were the "unavoidable consequence," they are not the reason why the action was---according to some sincere well-wishers of Israel---the wrong thing to do at the wrong time.
And I am as pro-Israeli as it is possible to be. But I am also pro non-terrorist Lebanese civilian.
And being generally supportive of Israel doesn't imply that one will necessarily support every policy of the Israeli government, particularly one that strikes the observer as self-destructive as well as generally destructive.
What was achieved by all the death and destruction? An Israeli soldier answers this question.
It's a quote from an Israeli soldier from an article at CBS News.com. Here's what the war did to Israel's own young:
[quote begins]
Israeli soldiers returning from the war in Lebanon say the army was slow to rescue wounded comrades and suffered from a lack of supplies so dire that they had to drink water from the canteens of dead Hezbollah guerrillas.
"We fought for nothing. We cleared houses that will be reoccupied in no time," said Ilia Marshak, a 22-year-old infantryman who spent a week in Lebanon.
Marshak said his unit was hindered by a lack of information, poor training and untested equipment. In one instance, Israeli troops occupying two houses inadvertently fired at each other because of poor communication between their commanders.
"We almost killed each other,” he said. "We shot like blind people. ... We shot sheep and goats." ...[quote ends]
Poor sheep, poor goats. They didn't deserve it either. Better to wait and let God sort them out.
And in the end, what?
When soldier Gil Ovadia returned home, his commander made no mention of victory in an address to their battalion. Instead, the commander told them the war was over, said they did a good job, and advised that they be prepared to come back soon and fight again.
"We'll be back in Lebanon in a few months, maybe years," Ovadia said.[quote ends]
He could be wrong; and so could I. We can only hope.
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