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The State of Israel
Djinn
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Registered User regular
I'm paraphrasing here this article on Avraham Burg.
By any measure, this has been a bad year for Israel. Last July, the Israeli army launched a hasty organized assault on Lebanon to force Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, to return two kidnapped soldiers or face utter destruction. Ultimately the soldiers were not returned, Hezbollah was not destroyed, scores of Israeli soldiers and Lebanese civilians were killed and in they eyes of both the Arab world and the Israeli people, Israel had been defeated.
More recently, Hamas has led a violent uprising in the Gaza strip against Fatah, and now lobs missiles into Israel from the south. After withdrawing troops from the Gaza settlements, Israel can no longer respond effectively. The country is now in the unusual position of having to drop up Fatah, their old enemy in Palestine.
To the East, suspicions have increased that Iran is working on developing nuclear missiles -although to be fair, Tehran has recently made some concessions to the UN. Still, Iran is hostile to Israel and increasingly powerful. They are generally considered in the prime position to dominate affairs in post-coalition Iraq.
Internally, the current Israeli Prime Minister has lost face over Lebanon, and the President was recently force to resign on sexual abuse charges.
In this context, Avraham Burg, a former Speaker of the Knesset and leader of the world Zionist organization, has recently published a controversial book: Defeating Hitler. In this book he argues that the spirit of Israel is essentially dead:
-Educated youth are leaving the country in droves for Europe and the United States; consequently the country is increasingly anti-intellectual and more religious.
-A large portion of the population increasingly disdain parliamentary democracy.
-Israel has become Holocaust obsessed, quick to tar any constructive criticism with the brush of anti-semetism, and the Holocaust has been increasingly used to justify oppression of Palestinians.
-The country is not independently stable; increasingly reliant on US aid and military assistance (such as last weeks massive arms deal)
-The Palestinian question is increasingly poisoning Israel's moral soul; the people are becoming increasingly xenophobic. Thirty-eight percent of Israelis want Yigal Amir -the assassin of Yitzak Rabin- to be pardoned. Burg likens the situation to 1930's Germany, ripe for an extremist party to fill the vacuum: calls for "Arabs out" a modern "Juden Raus."
Burg's position is obviously extreme, he has drawn criticism within Israel from the Right and many on the Left. But some have argued that despite his hyperbole, he makes a convincing case. What do people make of his arguments? In such a hostile environment, how can Israel survive without loosing its soul?
By any measure, this has been a bad year for Israel. Last July, the Israeli army launched a hasty organized assault on Lebanon to force Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, to return two kidnapped soldiers or face utter destruction. Ultimately the soldiers were not returned, Hezbollah was not destroyed, scores of Israeli soldiers and Lebanese civilians were killed and in they eyes of both the Arab world and the Israeli people, Israel had been defeated.
More recently, Hamas has led a violent uprising in the Gaza strip against Fatah, and now lobs missiles into Israel from the south. After withdrawing troops from the Gaza settlements, Israel can no longer respond effectively. The country is now in the unusual position of having to drop up Fatah, their old enemy in Palestine.
To the East, suspicions have increased that Iran is working on developing nuclear missiles -although to be fair, Tehran has recently made some concessions to the UN. Still, Iran is hostile to Israel and increasingly powerful. They are generally considered in the prime position to dominate affairs in post-coalition Iraq.
Internally, the current Israeli Prime Minister has lost face over Lebanon, and the President was recently force to resign on sexual abuse charges.
In this context, Avraham Burg, a former Speaker of the Knesset and leader of the world Zionist organization, has recently published a controversial book: Defeating Hitler. In this book he argues that the spirit of Israel is essentially dead:
-Educated youth are leaving the country in droves for Europe and the United States; consequently the country is increasingly anti-intellectual and more religious.
-A large portion of the population increasingly disdain parliamentary democracy.
-Israel has become Holocaust obsessed, quick to tar any constructive criticism with the brush of anti-semetism, and the Holocaust has been increasingly used to justify oppression of Palestinians.
-The country is not independently stable; increasingly reliant on US aid and military assistance (such as last weeks massive arms deal)
-The Palestinian question is increasingly poisoning Israel's moral soul; the people are becoming increasingly xenophobic. Thirty-eight percent of Israelis want Yigal Amir -the assassin of Yitzak Rabin- to be pardoned. Burg likens the situation to 1930's Germany, ripe for an extremist party to fill the vacuum: calls for "Arabs out" a modern "Juden Raus."
Burg's position is obviously extreme, he has drawn criticism within Israel from the Right and many on the Left. But some have argued that despite his hyperbole, he makes a convincing case. What do people make of his arguments? In such a hostile environment, how can Israel survive without loosing its soul?
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Doctor Evander to the Zion Room.
Still, its the lesser of two evils as far as I'm concerned. Also, they're using that military aid to create amazing military tech that is saving American lives and yadayadayada this are really crappy excuses aren't they?
Again, they can fuck right the hell off.
Yeah, my first thought on seeing this thread was "Great, someone decided to whip out the ol' "Summon Evander" scroll."
I think the issue is that simply that the piper has come, and is demanding payment.
Part of why I refuse to talk about this situation with anyone part Israeli is that they inevitably refer to the Palistinians as being incapable of taking care of themselves or having an organized society. It keeps reminding me of civil-war era racism. "We can't trust the darkies! They're like children!"
The points you listed sound fairly reasonable to me. Especially the Palestinian business.
But they're not if you're in Israel. Which, to be honest, is the crux of the problem.
The invasion itself wasn't entirely unreasonable. The methods used, on the other hand...
That's my usual issue with Israel. No matter how much I'd support retaliation against a group, they manage to do it in such a heavy handed manner with no regard for civilian lives that it's really hard to keep thinking they're at all in the right about things.
When you make people feel sorry for the guys who are actively attacking your civilians, you may just be responding with a little too much force/spite.
(Looks at rocket attacks that occurred as soon as Israel left Gaza.)
You know, they might have a point. Also, I have never heard of black people massacring white people at the end of the civil war, or any freemans associations ever doing anything violent except possibly anti-klan purposes.
(Realizes that Israel could be seen as the klan considering that they're blasting the crap out of territories where the bombers are coming from when there are civilians still in them.)
Fuck.
They are both awful, aren't they?
"Arabs" don't massacre "Israelis," nor the other way around.
When you start attributing the actions of a small group to an entire race or culture, discourse tends to go down the shitter.
Hezbollah "captured" a couple of Israeli soldiers who they wanted to trade for some of Israels "prisoners." Israel decided that invading Lebanon was a better alternative than that.
Because Israel thought it could destroy Hezbollah quickly and never have to deal with them again.
It clearly didn't work as intended.
Then there's that whole "Litani River" thing...
There's quite a bit of hate under the surface, between the 60 years of arab propaganda that has told the populace that Israel is the source of the worlds problems and the territory issues that have never been resolved. This seems more like Israel starting to hate the arabs like the arabs hate the Israeli's.
Israel did blast the crap out of Hezbollah, but what they didn't realize was how embedded Hebollah was in the cilivian population. The israeli intelligence agency is good at counterterrorism, not setting up a war, considering that they haven't worked to perfection since 1967.
This isn't the kind of shit first-world, civilized countries are supposed to do. This is the kind of shit we expect from the Kim Jong Ils and the Slobodan Milosevics of the world.
Wasn't very surprising then was it?
Either no, or they thought that the massive bombing of Hezbollah areas would root them out.
I'm not saying that its good reasoning, I'm saying that it was the reason that massive bombing of south Lebanon was done before any Israeli troops touched the ground. There was clear incompetence and lack of preparation by the Israeli army, as admitted by Ehud Olmert. Why else would Israel put the lives of its own soldiers at risk?
Okay, lets try this again.
The north was pretty much left alone despite the supply routes going through there to resupply Hezbollah during the war. If Israel was on some murderous rampage with the intention of killing everyone in Lebanon then they would have done so, but instead they targeted an enemy who primarily fought within the civilian population and hid himself after he launched a rocket. Declaring that they killed everyone who didn't evacuate is a boldfaced lie.
The Israeli government dug this hole they're in. They've repeatedly fucked over the Palestinians for decades, stolen land and resources, ignored Palestinian attempts at peace and broken pretty much every agreement they've made.
Even if I do evacuate, you just carpet bombed everything I couldn't carry out of there. This is in no way going to make me turn down an offer later by someone who offers me a rocket and the location of your fucking house.
"Oh here, you can have the Gaza Strip -- the most fertile farmland in the area. You can't have access to your own fresh water, though."
And when their ridiculous offers are rejected, they say "Look how our great and generous offer was rejected out of hand!"
Good job on ignoring 2500 years of history.
Okay whatever I didn't know I have to point out the incredibly long religious conflict with Jerusalem, or the equally long amount of existance of anti-semitism.
I thought we were just talking about the current nation of Israel and the conflicts involving it.
Thank you for being a wise ass though.
I'm not talking about the religious conflict. At all. I'm responding to your insane assertion that the intense dislike that Israel's neighbours have for it is irrational. It's not irrational - it's actually to be expected, given the history of the region for the past 2500 years. Even if we limit ourselves to the 20th century, one can fairly easily get a handle on why there is alot of Israel-hate. Let me give you a hint: it has very little to do with hating jews because they are jews, and alot more to do with a history of foreign oppression and injustice.
Well, to be fair, it wasnt for a lack of trying to kill civilians.
So your saying their exactly equally bad at their objectives? Both are only at 10% accuracy.