s.berkowicz
29.07.06, 20:39
(...)
The temptation, in any conflict that engages the attention of Americans, is
to choose a side and believe the propaganda told about it. If we are
Christian Zionists, then Israel is a righteous nation doing too little to
defend its people from Islamic terrorists. If we are tired of our Zionist
foreign policy, then we may conclude that Israel is a bellicose national
socialist state, guilty of war crimes against the unoffending Lebanese. If
truth be told, however, none of the sides (Israel, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Syria,
Iran) is guiltless. Hezbollah, undoubtedly, incited the current conflict,
with a manifest disregard for the lives of the Lebanese people. While
Hezbollah is, from one point of view, a legitimate political organization and
a recognized party in Lebanon, it also has a long history of violence and
terrorism. I say “violence and terrorism,” because not all of Hezbollah’s
violence can be described as terrorism. Killing or kidnapping Israeli
soldiers is an act of war, not terrorism, while randomly shelling Israeli
cities is terrorism.
But if Hezbollah’s initial missile strikes were acts of terrorism, so is the
much greater Israeli campaign that has so far killed nearly 400 Lebanese,
mostly civilians. This is ten times the number of Israelis who have died in
the conflict. If sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, that makes
Israel ten times more terrorist than Hezbollah. If the Muslim terrorists are
recklessly sending missiles every which way into Israel, the IDF is
deliberately targeting civilian neighborhoods. They say it is because they
believe they have located missile launchers or military installations or
vehicles carrying weapons. In many instances, this belief was mistaken.
Everyone is now a target, whether they are residents of formerly peaceful
neighborhoods or fleeing refugees. IDF officers tell of finding tunnels with
exits under mosques—clearly an advance justification for shelling Muslim
shrines. It hardly matters whether or not the Israelis are telling the truth,
because they are guilty either of deliberate mass murder or a reckless
disregard of human life that amounts to the same thing.
It is important not to forget the history. Hezbollah amounted to very little
until Israel’s failed invasion of 1982. Then, as now, they thought they could
roll up all resistance, but the Lebanese and their (then) Syrian allies
proved to be tougher than they imagined. When Israel retired to a neutralized
border zone, she did not give up her mischief, and the result was, as Martin
Van Creveld concludes, hardly in Israel’s interest. Van Creveld is not only a
leading defense expert in the Middle East but also a rabid Israeli
nationalist. The entire paragraph, from Van Creveld’s book Defending Israel
(2004), is worth studying:
“Fourteen years into the struggle, Israel, then under the rule of Begin and
Sharon and unable to make headway, decided on a massive invasion of Lebanon.
First it mobilized most of its armed forces. Net, it overran half the
country, inflicted thousands upon thousands of casualties, took thousands
more prisoner, forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes, and brought
almost a million Lebanese under its rule. The crowning glory came when it
occupied Beirut and stood by as its Christian allies committed large-scale
atrocities in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla. The amount of
firepower it used was unprecedented in the annals of the Middle East; yet
none of these measures stood the slightest chance of showing results. Within
two weeks of the beginning of the invasion, a vicious guerilla war got under
way. Soon enough, hardly a day passed, without vehicles being attacked,
buildings blown up, and soldiers killed. In 1985 Israel decided to cut its
losses and withdrew to a “security zone” in the south, again to no avail.
Having suffered approximately 1,500 casualties in dead alone—proportionally
more than the US took in Vietnam—Israel ended up by conceding defeat and
withdrawing across the international border in the south.”
(...)
caly artykul:
www.chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/hardright.cgi/2006/07/24/Bleeding_Lebanon
