Jul
17
If Not Now, When?
ByThe Israeli withdrawals [from Lebanon and Gaza] have been been– for me and I suspect many others– a great clarifier. Now that occupation is no longer an issue in these two instances, Israel’s right to oppose aggression on its territory should no longer be in doubt. If not now, when?
Gene, Harry’s Place. Read on here.
7 Comments
July 18th, 2006 at 12:03 pm
Of course Israel has the right to oppose aggression. That doesn’t mean that anything it does towards the end of opposing aggression is justified. I have the right to defend my home against burglars. But I don’t have the right to suddenly start killing off innocent members of the burglar’s family and then saying “blame it on your dad, it’s his fault”.
Do you know what’s really shocking about all this? In the West we rightly oppose Islamic terror on the grounds that you shouldn’t be setting off bombs which kill civilians to aid your political cause. How can people, with one face, say that when Israel fires rockets into Lebanon it is “self-defence” and when rockets go the other way it is “terrorism”. Let’s have a consistent definition of “terrorism” and apply it properly, otherwise it is just a tool for justifying and condemning without have to resort to reason.
July 18th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
Matt, to use your burglar analogy…
What if your neighbor’s son occassionally likes to throw molotov cocktails at your house.
Then one day, he breaks into your house, kills one of your sons and kidnaps your other son.
Your neighbor says he’s terribly sorry, but there’s nothing he can do to keep his son under control.
Wouldn’t you have every right to go over to your neighbors house to try to get your son back and to stop your neighbor’s son from being able to throw Molotov cocktails in future?
In the West, we do not share our borders with hostile states or states that harbor people hostile to our very existence.
If British troops were being attacked from Scotland and Wales by Scotish and Welsh nationalists who disputed England’s right to exist, and rockets were raining down on British towns and villages, I doubt that Britain would stand by either.
July 18th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
The first, and most crucial, point is that the people that Israel are killing had nothing to do with the metaphorical molatov cocktails or the burglary – except living in the same house/country as the offenders.
The second point is that the response is obviously totally disproportionate. Over 200 civilians dead for 2 soldiers. Lebanese progress totally jeopardised. Valuable infrastructure that was going to help Lebanon back on its feet is lost. This is an incredible tragedy for everyone involved, including Israel.
The third point is that Israel don’t even seem to be maximising their own situation – at least from the point of view of their civilians. This is causing a massive escalation in violence and even in the short term we can see the Israeli lives that have been lost by this behaviour. Goodness knows what the long-term consequences will be, but we’re at the stage where everyone on the planet could be affected. Going back to the burglar analogy, Israel are retaliating against their kidnapped sons by setting a fire in the offender’s house which may consume the whole neighbourhood, including Israel.
Let’s also not forget, while we talk of tit-for-tat justifications, that the taking of the Israeli soldiers itself was an act of retaliation – equally reprehensible, of course, but then nobody has trouble grasping that side of things, do they?
July 18th, 2006 at 8:05 pm
Matt
I’m going to try to be brief. The quote above that sparked this post was from an article at Harry’s Place. (If you click on the quote it will take you through to the main article.)
This is how it begins:
If the Lebanese can’t deal with Hezbollah–let’s face it, they can barely criticize Hezbollah–then what is Israel supposed to do?
July 19th, 2006 at 9:52 am
In the short term Israel can recover the soldiers by negotiation. Israel has something hezbollah wants and vice-versa.
In the long term Israel can punish Hezbollah (not Lebanon) by helping the Lebanese government regain sovereignty. This was a process that was happening before Israel started bombing; a very delicate one in which progress was being made.
If anything Israel has rewarded Hezbollah and punished Lebanon as a whole. Hezbollah are LOVING these attacks so far. When your enemy bombs your civilians airports, drops bombs on fully occupied family homes, etc. you have a serious (home and international) propaganda victory. Israel are playing right into the hands of Syria and Iran even if they do manage to decimate the infrastructure of Hezbollah.
I have some sympathy with the idea that Hezbollah might be removed if Israel send in ground troops after the bombing in a hopefully tidy operation. However, it is a mistake to think of Hezbollah as something which exists outside of a framework of extreme anger at frequent Israeli incursions into the Arab world, and outside of a framework of Lebanese weakness. Israel is setting the Lebanese economy back into the 1980s. Are you telling me this is going to defeat terrorism in the long run? Think about what the images of 9/11, of a foreign enemy attacking and killing American civilians and destroying American civilian infrastructure, did to America. It made many ordinary Americans ready to tolerate foreign civilian deaths in exchange for the advancement of American aims. Do you not think other countries are the same?
I am sure many Israelis who feel endangered are very satisfied by this bombing campaign. But a response which disregards the value of human life and jeopardizes ones own situation without solving the problem is a hysterical one.
July 19th, 2006 at 11:13 am
Matt, Again, I’ll be brief. I’m trying (unsuccessfully) to rest my wrist!
I agree with most of what you say. (I don’t believe Israel should negotiate the soldiers’ release. But I do agree that Israel is playing into the hands of Hezbullah.)
However the “extreme anger at frequent Israeli incursions into the Arab world” of which you speak is matched by the Israelis’ despair at the constant rocket attacks and suicide bombings it has to endure.
Is it not possible that by launching its attack on Israel, Hezbullah has also played into the hands of the Israelis’ by giving them a justifiable reason for taking the fight to the enemy?
For years Israel has claimed that Hezbollah has been stockpiling rockets to use against it. And for years the international community has done nothing to stop it. According to Robert Fisk (via Tom Gross), the rockets didn’t even exist:
You said it yourself:
“Think about what the images of 9/11, of a foreign enemy attacking and killing American civilians and destroying American civilian infrastructure, did to America. It made many ordinary Americans ready to tolerate foreign civilian deaths in exchange for the advancement of American aims. Do you not think other countries are the same?”
Yes, I do. And as long as Hezbullah and Hamas cross the border into Israel to capture and kill their soldiers or fire rockets at Israeli towns, the Israeli public will be prepared to watch their army take whatever action is necessary to try to prevent it. That’s probably why, according to the BBC, 80% of the Israeli public support the action.
The problem with the whole situation is that, as with this thread, it can go on forever, tit-for-tat.
I hate to say it, but since the majority of Israelis, and probably the majority of Lebanese and Palestinians, just want to live in peace, it is groups like Hamas and Hezbullah that are the problem here, not Israel.
July 20th, 2006 at 11:13 am
The point I was making was that when the majority of a population believe that bombing their enemy is the solution that isn’t the kind of scenario that’s going to produce peace.
The atmosphere in America after 9/11 was, and perhaps still is, tinged with a fear and desire for revenge that inhibited the American public from making informed choices. They wanted to see action rather than the kind of boring, long, hard work that really gets you out of tough situations.
The more one side attacks the other, especially with the kind of horror that Israel is inflicting on Lebanon (which far outweighs anything Hezbollah has done to Israel) the more each country will give support to the extremists. Lebanon will believe Israel must pay the price for this and Israel will believe Lebanon will pay the price for that. Can we ‘blame’ Israel for doing as the other side does? I certainly blame those neutral parties, Britain, America and Germany who refuse to make their support for Israel conditional on them adopting sensible policies which do not centre around the liberal application of atrocities to the situation.
The arguments that the Israeli government use about revenge and Lebanon ‘paying the price’ are exactly the same arguments that Hezbollah use to justify their own attacks. If you want to defeat that argument this is not the way.