What's the Big Idea, Israel?
It always did seem a rather stupid idea to concentrate half the world's Jews in one tiny spot and then have them work overtime trying to offend all they could, especially Arabs.
That supremely trenchant statement was how someone who called himself "Harzion" (which must mean "a place of Zion" or some such) ended a comment that he or she posted to an article that appeared yesterday in Haaretz, the news publication that does such a great job of expressing the liberal and therefore the moral side of Israeli thought, which has traditionally been more characteristic of Jewish leanings than is the right wing leadership with which that country now and then chooses to flail itself, as if it has just emerged from an ice-cold sauna bath there in the desert around the Dead Sea. I thought Harzion hit the nail right on the head when it comes to trying to understand what the big idea is of Israel being where it is, not only geographically but also in the realms of ordinary common sense that one would expect from a people who should've benefited from a very long tradition of such amazing accomplishments of the mind.
The article, titled "Iron Dome Won't Save Israel," was by Jarel Israel, and it was about the missile defense system that Israel has been using in the most recent deadly "ping-pong" game that it has been waging against Hamas in Gaza. The article is in Haaretz's Opinion section, and that section today is more striking than usual, because of the picture it presents of a nation under attack, although its reprisal shots are far more lethal than anything that Hamas can fling back in return. And, as has almost always been the case throughout this generations-long struggle that started with Israel's founding, this opinion page is also necessarily one-sided, because it doesn't and most likely can't present the Palestinian side of things.
Still it's enlightening to run down the opinion pieces of those who dwell among the aggressors in this battle -- the Israelis, as with their arrival from overseas, also started this latest round of volleys by assassinating someone in Gaza that they called a highly placed terrorist == but these dissidents have dire misgivings about where this leaves Israel, even though, as usual, it appears to be "winning," as it should, overwhelmingly, not because it is smarter or more deserving, but instead because it has been given great masses of superior military equipment that have on the other hand been systematically withheld from Hamas and the other Palestinians by the same badly misguided foreign "super power," the U.S.
They speak of how this latest affray is really an attempt by the Lieber-yahoos to maintain control by keeping the Israeli people in a state of unjustified fear, resulting in a million Israelis in the south of their country cowering in bunkers, though the Hamas rockets, though numerous, appear to be on about a par with the fireworks smuggled just before the Fourth of July from various more lawless southern states in the U.S. They speak of how there is bad feeling between two Israeli cities in this contest,, because the more southerly Siderot is receiving the lion's share of these rockets while people are continuing to dance in the streets of Tel Aviv, and of how that larger metropolis of the privileged can expect soon enough to have its day as a target. They speak of the much more serious missiles that Israeli is certain to have to endure should its leaders carry out their constant threats to stage an unprovoked attack on distant Iran. They speak of how they've been assured by those leaders that in that case Israel will incur a magic maximum of no more than 500 fatalities, while it will be the Iranian lot to have to mourn as many as 20,000. And one can also read a wistful conjecture on what would happen if, this year, the Israeli leaders let well enough alone and did not attack Iran or do anything else of the kind, though lots of luck on that, due to the habit of Israeli leaders to talk for only so long before something, maybe just their own static discharges, drives them to do something, anything, without regard, one can add, to anything resembling intelligence.
That supremely trenchant statement was how someone who called himself "Harzion" (which must mean "a place of Zion" or some such) ended a comment that he or she posted to an article that appeared yesterday in Haaretz, the news publication that does such a great job of expressing the liberal and therefore the moral side of Israeli thought, which has traditionally been more characteristic of Jewish leanings than is the right wing leadership with which that country now and then chooses to flail itself, as if it has just emerged from an ice-cold sauna bath there in the desert around the Dead Sea. I thought Harzion hit the nail right on the head when it comes to trying to understand what the big idea is of Israel being where it is, not only geographically but also in the realms of ordinary common sense that one would expect from a people who should've benefited from a very long tradition of such amazing accomplishments of the mind.
The article, titled "Iron Dome Won't Save Israel," was by Jarel Israel, and it was about the missile defense system that Israel has been using in the most recent deadly "ping-pong" game that it has been waging against Hamas in Gaza. The article is in Haaretz's Opinion section, and that section today is more striking than usual, because of the picture it presents of a nation under attack, although its reprisal shots are far more lethal than anything that Hamas can fling back in return. And, as has almost always been the case throughout this generations-long struggle that started with Israel's founding, this opinion page is also necessarily one-sided, because it doesn't and most likely can't present the Palestinian side of things.
Still it's enlightening to run down the opinion pieces of those who dwell among the aggressors in this battle -- the Israelis, as with their arrival from overseas, also started this latest round of volleys by assassinating someone in Gaza that they called a highly placed terrorist == but these dissidents have dire misgivings about where this leaves Israel, even though, as usual, it appears to be "winning," as it should, overwhelmingly, not because it is smarter or more deserving, but instead because it has been given great masses of superior military equipment that have on the other hand been systematically withheld from Hamas and the other Palestinians by the same badly misguided foreign "super power," the U.S.
They speak of how this latest affray is really an attempt by the Lieber-yahoos to maintain control by keeping the Israeli people in a state of unjustified fear, resulting in a million Israelis in the south of their country cowering in bunkers, though the Hamas rockets, though numerous, appear to be on about a par with the fireworks smuggled just before the Fourth of July from various more lawless southern states in the U.S. They speak of how there is bad feeling between two Israeli cities in this contest,, because the more southerly Siderot is receiving the lion's share of these rockets while people are continuing to dance in the streets of Tel Aviv, and of how that larger metropolis of the privileged can expect soon enough to have its day as a target. They speak of the much more serious missiles that Israeli is certain to have to endure should its leaders carry out their constant threats to stage an unprovoked attack on distant Iran. They speak of how they've been assured by those leaders that in that case Israel will incur a magic maximum of no more than 500 fatalities, while it will be the Iranian lot to have to mourn as many as 20,000. And one can also read a wistful conjecture on what would happen if, this year, the Israeli leaders let well enough alone and did not attack Iran or do anything else of the kind, though lots of luck on that, due to the habit of Israeli leaders to talk for only so long before something, maybe just their own static discharges, drives them to do something, anything, without regard, one can add, to anything resembling intelligence.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 7:03 AM
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