[scandium]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

As you think it is. For a minute there you were sounding like Mike Hense.

No, and that is an unfair comparison and you know it. Without commenting on Mike's views or his posting habits it should be abundantly clear by now that I back up my assertions and make an effort to prove my claims. You may disagree with what I say, but they are not mere rants and I am not alone in this perception of events there (which is not even a "perception", it is an under-reported reality that more and more people are finally waking up to) or in the conclusions that I have asserted.

Most, if not all of what I've written in this thread, you can find in whole or in part from other sources. For instance Gideon Levy, Israeli journalist for Haaretz and former spokesman for Shimon Peres:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/738739.html

Operation Peace for the IDF

Every neighborhood has one, a loudmouth bully who shouldn't be provoked into anger. He's insulted? He'll pull out a knife. Spat in the face? He'll draw a gun. Hit? He'll pull out a machine gun. Not that the bully's not right - someone did harm him. But the reaction, what a reaction! It's not that he's not feared, but nobody really appreciates him. The real appreciation is for the strong who don't immediately use their strength. Regrettably, the Israel Defense Forces once again looks like the neighborhood bully. A soldier was abducted in Gaza? All of Gaza will pay. Eight soldiers are killed and two abducted to Lebanon? All of Lebanon will pay. One and only one language is spoken by Israel, the language of force.

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The war we declared on Lebanon has already exacted from us, and of course from Lebanon, too, a heavy price. Did anyone give any thought to the question whether it should be paid?

Everyone knows how this war begins, but does anyone know how it ends? Heavy casualties in the Israeli rear? A war with Syria? A general war? Is it all worth it? Look what a new rookie government can do in such a short time.

Behind the operations in Lebanon and Gaza is the same foolish idea about pressure on the population leading to political changes that Israel wants. In the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict, that concept has only led us from one disaster to the next. We "cleansed" southern Lebanon of Palestinians in 1982, and what did we get? Hezbollahstan instead of Fatahland. Hamas won't fall because Gaza is in the dark, and not even because we bombed the Palestinian Foreign Ministry building at the weekend - another nonsensical move; Hezbollah won't be smashed because the international airport in Beirut has been put out of commission.

Israel once again is not distinguishing between a justified war against Hezbollah and an unjust and unwise war against the Lebanese nation. The camouflage concealing the war's real goals was ripped off by this defense minister, who says what he means: "Nasrallah is going to get it so bad that he will never forget the name Amir Peretz," he bragged, like a typical bully. Now at least we know that Israel went to war so that the name Amir Peretz is never forgotten. It's the war for the perpetuation of the name Peretz and the blurring of Dan Halutz's failures. And to hell with the cost.

And from Henry Siegman, former President of the American Jewish Congress and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...821621,00.html

In Lebanon as in Gaza, it is not Israel's right to protect its civilian population from terrorist aggression that is at issue. It is the way Israel goes about exercising that right.

Despite bitter lessons from the past, Israel's political and military leaders remain addicted to the notion that, whatever they have a right to do, they have a right to overdo, to the point where they lose what international support they had when they began their retaliatory measures.

Israel's response to the terrorist assault in Gaza and the outrageous and unprovoked Hizbollah assault across its northern border in Lebanon, far from providing protection to its citizens, may well further undermine their security by destabilising the wider region.

On the surface, the situations in Gaza and in Lebanon may seem similar, but there are important differences. No matter how one judges the rights and wrongs of the recent Hamas assaults and Israeli reprisals, in Gaza the fundamental casus belli is Israel's occupation that has now lasted for nearly 40 years. Israel's leaders continue to suffer from the delusion they can defeat violent Palestinian resistance to that occupation without offering the Palestinians a credible, non-violent political path to statehood, promised in various international agreements.

Following the precedent set by Ariel Sharon with his unilateral disengagement from Gaza, his successor as Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, believes that if Israel dodges the bullet of a bilateral peace negotiation with the Palestinians - something it has successfully done so far by claiming 'there is no Palestinian partner for peace' - it will be able to create unilaterally a rump Palestinian state that will leave in Israeli hands large chunks of Palestinian territory and make a mockery of Palestinian national aspirations.

Despite the massive imbalance of forces, the Palestinians will never abide such an outcome.

And lastly, for tonight, from John Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science at Chicago and Stephen Walt, Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html

For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state...

[T]the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical...

It is the only recipient that does not have to account for how the aid is spent, which makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the US opposes, such as building settlements on the West Bank. Moreover, the US has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems, and given it access to such top-drawer weaponry as Blackhawk helicopters and F-16 jets. Finally, the US gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its Nato allies and has turned a blind eye to Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons...

Washington also provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support. Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members.

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Beginning in the 1990s, and even more after 9/11, US support has been justified by the claim that both states are threatened by terrorist groups originating in the Arab and Muslim world, and by ‘rogue states’ that back these groups and seek weapons of mass destruction. This is taken to mean not only that Washington should give Israel a free hand in dealing with the Palestinians and not press it to make concessions until all Palestinian terrorists are imprisoned or dead, but that the US should go after countries like Iran and Syria. Israel is thus seen as a crucial ally in the war on terror, because its enemies are America’s enemies. In fact, Israel is a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states.

‘Terrorism’ is not a single adversary, but a tactic employed by a wide array of political groups. The terrorist organisations that threaten Israel do not threaten the United States, except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon in 1982). Moreover, Palestinian terrorism is not random violence directed against Israel or ‘the West’; it is largely a response to Israel’s prolonged campaign to colonise the West Bank and Gaza Strip.