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What is "Disproportionate"? "It must surely be true that the level of lies and hypocrisy that a society can tolerate is in direct proportion to the degeneration of that culture. Personally I am not particularly pro or anti Israel, pro or anti Arab or pro or anti Islam. But I do have a dislike of myth, hypocrisy and lies as opposed to reality, fairness and truth. Watching the bombing of Lebanon it is impossible not to feel horror and pity for the innocent civilians killed, wounded or rendered homeless. But certain of our politicians, seeking easy populism and the cheapest round of applause in modern history, have called the Israeli response "disproportionate." Among the politicos are Jack Straw and that master of EU negotiations William Hague. That accusation can only mean: "disproportionate" to the aggression leveled against them. Really? Why did the accusers not mention Serbia? What has Serbia got to do with it? Let's refresh our memories. In 1999 five Nato air forces "US, British, French, Italian and German " began to plaster Yugoslavia, effectively the tiny and defenceless province of Serbia. We were not at war with the Serbs, we had no reason to hate them, they had not attacked us and no Serbian rockets were falling on us. But we practically bombed them back to the Stone Age. We took out every bridge we could see. We trashed their TV station, army barracks, airfields and motorways. We were not fighting for our lives and no terrorists were skulking among the civilian population but we hit apartment blocks and factories anyway. There were civilian casualties. We did not do it for 25 days but for 73. We bombed this little country economically back 30 years by converting its in frastructure into rubble. Why? We were trying to persuade one dictator, Slobodan Milosevic, to pull his troops out of Kosovo, which happened to be (and still is) a Yugoslav province. The dictator finally cracked; shortly afterwards he was toppled but it was his fellow Serbs who did that, no Nato. Before the destruction of Serbia, Kosovo was a nightmare of ethnic hatred. It still is. If we wanted to liberate the Kosovans why did we not just invade? Why blow Serbian civilians to bits? Here is my point. In all those 73 days of bombing Serbia I never heard one British moralist use the word "disproportionate." The entire point of Hezbollah is not to resolve some border dispute with Israel; its aim is to wipe Israel off the map, as expressed by Hezbollah"s master, the crazed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. That aim includes the eradication of every Israeli Jew; i.e. genocide. Serbia never once threatened to wipe the UK off the map or slaughter our citizens, yet Straw, in office in 1999, and Hague, leading the Conservative Party, never objected to Serbia being bombed. As an ex-RAF officer I am persuaded the Israelis fighter pilots are hitting civilian-free targets with 95% of their strikes. These are the hits no TV network bothers to cover. It is the 5% that causes the coverage and the horror: wrong target, unseen civilians in the cellar, misfire, unavoidable collateral casualties. Unavoidable? Israel has said I effect, "If you seek to wipe us out we will defend ourselves to the death. You offer us no quarter, so we will offer none to you. But if you choose intentionally, inadvertently, or through the stupidity of your government to protect and shelter the killers among yourselves then with deepest regret, we cannot guarantee your exemption." Yesterday we Brits learned that certain elements in our society had tried to organise a mass slaughter of citizens flying out of our airports. We will have to take draconian measures against these enemies in our midst. Will Messrs Hague and Straw complain our methods are disproportionate? Not a chance. Now that, dear readers, is blatant hypocrisy.
Towards a Ceasefire?
Today was a day of heavy fighting inside of Lebanon -- with the IDF having made it up to the Litani River, and rockets still being fired in the north of Israel. Israel says it will cease firing at 7 a.m. tomorrow but that does not mean the end of the operation. Until the Lebanese army and international forces deploy, the IDF will remain. Not only will it remain, it will take defensive action wherever necessary. The rush to get to the Litani, as I am understanding it, was to block off Hezbollah. Neither guerillas nor weapons can be brought north, out of the southern sector -- the IDF is waiting for them. Of course, the question that remains uppermost is whether there will be any ceasefire tomorrow: Will Hezbollah stop shooting? ~~~~~~~~~~ The Israeli cabinet met this morning, and after contentious discussion approved United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 unanimously (with former Sec. of Defense Mofaz abstaining). PM Olmert says that this is a good resolution -- that Hezbollah won't be a "state within a state" any longer, and there will now be accountability from the Lebanese government. Don't believe it. But no need to take my word for the fact that this is a bad resolution: Consider what Israel's own ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, told the UNSC, in the course of the debate regarding the resolution: He warned that unless the means to enforce the resolution were to be defined, "We will be back [in the UNSC], if not in a week, then in a month or a year, facing an even greater tragedy." Consider this and ask yourself why Olmert would then support the resolution even though it does NOT provide means for enforcement. And consider what Ahmed Barakat, a member of Hezbollah's central council, said in an interview to the Qatari newspaper al-Watan: "Today Arab and Muslim society is reasonably certain that the defeat of Israel is possible and that countdown to the disappearance of the Zionist entity in the region has begun. "This is the reason that Shimon Peres said it was a life or death battle and this is why the triumph of the resistance is the beginning of the death of the Israeli enemy. For, if a mere organization succeeded in defeating Israel, why would Arab nations not succeed in doing so if they allied? Many Arabs and Muslims viewed Israel in a fictional way and the resistance has succeeded in changing this." Barakat said that the leadership was not hurt and that Hezbollah was still in possession of many rockets and other "surprises" for use later. Consider and understand well, for this is the essence of the failure: With this resolution we will have weakened our deterrence capability, and given Hezbollah the time and space to come back to hit us even harder on another day. This is simply a hudna, sanctioned by the international community. A hudna, although it is often represented as being a ceasefire, is not. It is a temporary cessation of hostilities intended to buy time for regrouping and rearming, and it is built into Muslim law. You're going to hear all sorts of arguments about our successes -- that we took out long range rockets, that we've shown the world that we respond with force when provoked, that we've now changed the parameters of Lebanon. But before you decide that the resolution may be a good thing, read what Caroline Glick says today: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525859901&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull ~~~~~~~~~~ This posting can be found at: http://www.arlenefromisrael.info/current-postings/2006/8/13/posted-august-13-2006.html
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