Continued...
Israel has suffered an immense defeat. No longer invincible. Hizbollah has demonstrated that they can throw stones, pretty big stones, and get away with it. The mighty, the invincible, the brutal --Israel-- can do nothing against it. That makes the Hizbollian the most manly of men --among a certain group. This group is the "Resistance", normally Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza, who throw stones and blow themselves up in Pizza Parlors and then run to the protecting clucking hen of European public opinion crying "brutality" and enjoying the supporting clucks "Bad Israel", "Over reaction", "Disproportionallity". That segment, the nuts and the clucks, will be always with us; but things are a changing.
Rocket attacks are serious. They make life difficult. And this is Hizbollah, the Iranian state-within-the-Lebanese state. And they can't be stopped because they can't be hurt, they have no investment in this nation. And they've proven they can get rockets and that means they can get bigger ones.
This is a problem. It's not something Israel can handle without international support, not without the West taking a stand against Hizbollah. Not equivalency and balance, but against. Can that happen?
It seems there may be a point at which the West ceases its pleasant clucking and gets serious. It is not satisfying to see a Western nation, even if it is Israel, being terrorized with rockets from across its nation's borders. This is not good "international law", especially when those thugs are proxies for Iran and certain elements in Iran are nuts and they do want the bomb and may get it. The thought of the bomb does sober one who is not nuts. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, states close to the bomb, are not nuts, and so in this conflict have withheld their reflexive and opportunistic condemnation of Israel and have criticized the real threat. Is that kind of pragmatic rationality possible for an European? It does seem to me that with deep thought and much effort it might be possible for at least some Europeans to be able to conclude that it's better to protect Israel than Iran.
So I see a possibility that European states may take sensible action. They do have to get over their habitual twitch of condemning Israel. That could happen. The gun isn't yet to their head but it is coming. It may be that soon they'll come to see that "disproportionallity" in the service of freedom is no vice.
So, the fighting is over, at least in as much as Israel can secure what in the Arab world will be seen as a victory. They can struggle yet, they can marginally increase their security. But they have been defeated. Israel the mighty, the independent, the invincible, is dead. They're just a small nation that can be kicked around if the right tactics are used.
Having accepted this defeat I now no longer need pour over the news anxiously scanning for news of mobilization and lightening thrusts and clever strategery that I never would have guessed. It's not going to happen. But there are positives. Reality, a punch in the face, is positive.
NOTE:
Just found this article posted on Yoni's blog. It exactly confirms my assertions about the loss of the image of Israeli military prowess as seen by much of the Arab world. --Yone says: Just give us the leadership and we'll show the power.
Rocket attacks are serious. They make life difficult. And this is Hizbollah, the Iranian state-within-the-Lebanese state. And they can't be stopped because they can't be hurt, they have no investment in this nation. And they've proven they can get rockets and that means they can get bigger ones.
This is a problem. It's not something Israel can handle without international support, not without the West taking a stand against Hizbollah. Not equivalency and balance, but against. Can that happen?
It seems there may be a point at which the West ceases its pleasant clucking and gets serious. It is not satisfying to see a Western nation, even if it is Israel, being terrorized with rockets from across its nation's borders. This is not good "international law", especially when those thugs are proxies for Iran and certain elements in Iran are nuts and they do want the bomb and may get it. The thought of the bomb does sober one who is not nuts. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, states close to the bomb, are not nuts, and so in this conflict have withheld their reflexive and opportunistic condemnation of Israel and have criticized the real threat. Is that kind of pragmatic rationality possible for an European? It does seem to me that with deep thought and much effort it might be possible for at least some Europeans to be able to conclude that it's better to protect Israel than Iran.
So I see a possibility that European states may take sensible action. They do have to get over their habitual twitch of condemning Israel. That could happen. The gun isn't yet to their head but it is coming. It may be that soon they'll come to see that "disproportionallity" in the service of freedom is no vice.
So, the fighting is over, at least in as much as Israel can secure what in the Arab world will be seen as a victory. They can struggle yet, they can marginally increase their security. But they have been defeated. Israel the mighty, the independent, the invincible, is dead. They're just a small nation that can be kicked around if the right tactics are used.
Having accepted this defeat I now no longer need pour over the news anxiously scanning for news of mobilization and lightening thrusts and clever strategery that I never would have guessed. It's not going to happen. But there are positives. Reality, a punch in the face, is positive.
NOTE:
Just found this article posted on Yoni's blog. It exactly confirms my assertions about the loss of the image of Israeli military prowess as seen by much of the Arab world. --Yone says: Just give us the leadership and we'll show the power.
posted by mouse at 6:30 PM
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