Lebanon: the Israelis bash away, Hezbollah stands fast, Lebanon gets fucked, the world complains, but what can it do?

1. Two Wars – by David Hirsh (via wood s lot)

Since before it even existed, Israel has been engaged in two wars with its neighbours. One is a just war, waged by Palestinian Arabs for freedom - which became a demand for Palestinian national independence; the other is a genocidal war that aims to end Jewish life in the Middle East.

The job of the left is to insist on the reality of this distinction and to stand against those who recognise the reality of only one or other of these two separate wars.

Nevertheless, when Israeli tanks are stalking through the crowded streets of Gaza, when Katyusha rockets are slamming into Haifa, when Israeli F16s are blowing up buildings in the suburbs of Beirut and when Israeli soldiers are being held in underground dungeons waiting for their own beheading to be broadcast on al-Jazeera, the distinction seems entirely notional.

Many people believe the war for Palestinian independence is a pretend war that functions only to give a liberational facade to the real war of annihilation; many others believe the war of annihilation is an Israeli propaganda invention that functions only to allow Israel to thwart the just demands of the Palestinians — an invocation of the Holocaust as a blank cheque.

The problem with social reality is that if enough people believe something to be true, and act as though it is indeed true, then it may become the truth. So if Israelis believe they are only ever fighting a war of survival, then they will use tactics and strategies that are proportionate to the war they believe themselves to be fighting. If Palestinians, meanwhile, come to believe that they can win their freedom only by destroying Israel, then they will think of the Jew-haters of Hamas, Hizbullah, al-Qaeda and the Syrian and Iranian regimes as their allies in the task.

The only way out is for cosmopolitan voices and political movements to insist on the reality of both wars — to separate them conceptually and to stand clearly for a Palestinian victory in the fight for freedom and equally clearly for an Israeli victory in the fight against annihilation.

There is a left common sense in the UK that sees only one struggle going on — a war of the oppressed against the oppressors. This way of thinking denies that there is a substantial project to annihilate Israel and insists that this is in any case not an immediate prospect because Israel is so heavily armed. But there really is a serious global political movement that aims to kill the Jews of Israel. It rules in Iran and in Syria, it was elected into office in Palestine and it occupies southern Lebanon.

If the left is relying on Israel's military superiority to guarantee its survival, then it must also be in favour of Israel's allies, particularly the US, maintaining that military superiority. I think that an atmosphere is building in parts of the British left that would lead many to respond to the annihilation of Israel by saying: "This second genocide of the Jews is tragic, but really, they have only themselves to blame." Israeli Jews would be making a mistake if they relied on the solidarity of the British left to stand against their slaughter.

Meanwhile, the left in Israel is failing to insist on the reality of the just struggle for Palestinian independence. Most of the Israeli left was convinced in 2000 that Palestine had rejected victory in its war for statehood in favour of the hope for victory in the war for Israeli annihilation. But there are still those in Israel and Palestine who have not given up on the project of separating the two wars.

The collapse of the peace process convinced many Palestinians that the war for independence could never be won and that their only option was to join the jihadi movement against the Jews. Yet Palestinian nationalism has not yet been entirely defeated by the jihadis.

Even if events march on, and cosmopolitan perspectives are defeated, it is still the job of the left to represent conceptually — even if it is unable to do so materially — a different possible world. The wars of annihilation can only end in ever deepening horror; the struggle for freedom can end in peace.

So we must keep fighting against those who think that the only real war is an Israeli war of survival, as we keep fighting against those who think that the only real war is against the Israeli oppressor. The left has to think differently, and it has to create a different reality. We have to know which side we are on. We're on the side of the Palestinian struggle for independence and we're on the side of the Israeli struggle against the jihadists (not to mention the Palestinian, Iranian, Syrian, Egyptian and Lebanese struggle against the jihadists, as well as the trade union, socialist, democratic, lesbian and gay, feminist and secular struggles against them).

But that's absurd, cries one camp: the jihadists are currently dictating the struggle for Palestinian independence. Hasn't it become one struggle? Hasn't it always been one struggle, Jews against Arabs? We offered them peace and they chose war — then they started raining missiles down on our heads.

But the other side insists: Barak's offer was to set Palestinian oppression in stone, wasn't it, not Palestinian liberty? He offered slavery, not freedom. You talk about the annihilation of Israel, but it is Palestine that is prevented from existing — Israel, I can assure you, exists. It has destroyed the project of Palestinian liberation and is currently in the process of destroying the cedar revolution in Lebanon along with the infrastructure of the state.

Is it a war of annihilation or a war of liberation? Both wars are real, even if only in our minds. And human beings have the capacity to shape the world according to what is in their minds.


2. When Terror Is Just Fine – by John Chuckman (via wood s lot)

Following the assassination of Reinhard Heidrich by Czech partisans in 1942, Hitler’s government executed all the men in the village of Lidici, sent its women and children to concentration camps, and razed the village to the ground. A few weeks later, the barbarism was repeated on the village of Lezaky.

Lidici was far from being the worst atrocity of the war, but it rightly came to symbolize heartless oppression by occupiers, what we sometimes today call state terror.

I cannot think of another historical example which better parallels Israel’s savage behavior in Lebanon. Two of its soldiers are kidnapped, and Israel quickly destroys much of the infrastructure of Lebanon, cuts the country off from the world, and kills, at this writing, two hundred civilians.

Already forgotten in the press is Israel’s behavior leading up to events in Lebanon. Israel had blown up an entire family on a Gaza beach and carried out a number of other killings and assassinations. It killed about twenty innocent people in a week or so. The pitiful efforts of people in Gaza to respond to the outrages were met by more killing and a partial invasion. Most of the cabinet of Palestine was kidnapped, and the elected Prime Minister was openly threatened with assassination.

We might try a thought experiment to bring a contemporary perspective to Israel’s behavior. Suppose we take the view of Hezbollah as a vicious, well-armed street gang in a city like Chicago, rather than a guerrilla movement in a country previously invaded by Israel. This is in fact something close to Israel’s view of Hezbollah.

Now, suppose the Chicago gang kidnapped a couple of policemen and tried to ransom some of its members out of prison. This would cause a huge response, but would that response include the Illinois National Guard bombing the city’s black ghetto areas, indiscriminately killing hundreds, destroying homes and businesses, and imprisoning tens of thousands by not allowing normal contact with the city? Would the government say it is up to the people of the ghetto to get rid of the gang?

To ask the question is to have the answer. Such ruthlessness would bring immediate, overwhelming, world-wide condemnation.

Then, we must ask why Israel isn’t condemned in the same fashion? Actually, it is condemned by much of the world, but it is praised and supported by Bush and most of the powerful, war-loving American press.

No, instead of condemnation, we get Orwellian stuff about Israel’s “measured” or “appropriate” response, as though anything short of carpet-bombing or nuclear weapons qualifies as “measured,” and about a second front opening up, as though Israel were bravely fighting a war, but there is no war, only Israel’s savage retribution against two states with groups it hates.

Somehow Israel expects a weak state like Lebanon to take on Hezbollah and eliminate it. Yet Israel is too fearful itself of casualties to take on this gang directly. It would rather bomb and threaten others into attempting it, something that if even attempted would tip Lebanon into civil war once again.

Of course, Israel’s view of civil wars in other countries is rather different than the view of those who must suffer through them. Violence weakens and effectively neutralizes them, just as the American-induced anarchy in Iraq effectively sweeps an old foe away for years to come.


3. A Protracted Colonial War
With US support, Israel is hoping to isolate and topple Syria by holding sway over Lebanon
By Tariq Ali

In his last interview - after the 1967 six-day war - the historian Isaac Deutscher, whose next-of-kin had died in the Nazi camps and whose surviving relations lived in Israel, said: "To justify or condone Israel's wars against the Arabs is to render Israel a very bad service indeed and harm its own long-term interest." Comparing Israel to Prussia, he issued a sombre warning: "The Germans have summed up their own experience in the bitter phrase 'Man kann sich totseigen!' 'You can triumph yourself to death'."

In Israel's actions today we can detect many of the elements of hubris: an imperial arrogance, a distortion of reality, an awareness of its military superiority, the self-righteousness with which it wrecks the social infrastructure of weaker states, and a belief in its racial superiority. The loss of many civilian lives in Gaza and Lebanon matters less than the capture or death of a single Israeli soldier. In this, Israeli actions are validated by the US.

The offensive against Gaza is designed to destroy Hamas for daring to win an election. The "international community" stood by as Gaza suffered collective punishment. Dozens of innocents continue to die. This meant nothing to the G8 leaders. Nothing was done.

Israeli recklessness is always green-lighted by Washington. In this case, their interests coincide. They want to isolate and topple the Syrian regime by securing Lebanon as an Israeli-American protectorate on the Jordanian model. They argue this was the original design of the country. Contemporary Lebanon, it is true, still remains in large measure the artificial creation of French colonialism it was at the outset - a coastal band of Greater Syria sliced off from its hinterland by Paris to form a regional client dominated by a Maronite minority.

The country's confessional checkerboard has never allowed an accurate census, for fear of revealing that a substantial Muslim - today perhaps even a Shia - majority is denied due representation in the political system. Sectarian tensions, over-determined by the plight of refugees from Palestine, exploded into civil war in the 1970s, providing for the entry of Syrian troops, with tacit US approval, and their establishment there - ostensibly as a buffer between the warring factions, and deterrent to an Israeli takeover, on the cards with the invasions of 1978 and 1982 (when Hezbollah did not exist).

The killing of Rafik Hariri provoked vast demonstrations by the middle class, demanding the expulsion of the Syrians, while western organizations arrived to assist the progress of a Cedar Revolution. Backed by threats from Washington and Paris, the momentum was sufficient to force a Syrian withdrawal and produce a weak government in Beirut.

But Lebanon's factions remained spread-eagled. Hezbollah had not disarmed, and Syria has not fallen. Washington had taken a pawn, but the castle had still to be captured. I was in Beirut in May, when the Israeli army entered and killed two "terrorists" from a Palestinian splinter group. The latter responded with rockets. Israeli warplanes punished Hezbollah by dropping over 50 bombs on its villages and headquarters near the border. The latest Israeli offensive is designed to take the castle. Will it succeed? A protracted colonial war lies ahead, since Hezbollah, like Hamas, has mass support. It cannot be written off as a "terrorist" organization. The Arab world sees its forces as freedom fighters resisting colonial occupation.

There are 9,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli gulags. That is why Israeli soldiers are captured. Prisoner exchanges have occurred as a result. To blame Syria and Iran for Israel's latest offensive is frivolous. Until the question of Palestine is resolved and Iraq's occupation ended, there will be no peace in the region. A UN force to deter Hezbollah, but not Israel, is a nonsensical notion.

(Email to: tariq.ali3@btinternet.com)


4. The Most Dangerous Alliance in the World -- by Norman Solomon

After getting out of Lebanon, writer June Rugh told Reuters on Tuesday: "As an American, I'm embarrassed and ashamed. My administration is letting it happen [by giving] tacit permission for Israel to destroy a country." The news service quoted another American evacuee, Andrew Muha, who had been in southern Lebanon. He said: "It's a travesty. There's a million homeless in Lebanon and the intense amount of bombing has brought an entire country to its knees."

Embarrassing. Shameful. A travesty. Those kinds of words begin to describe the alliance between the United States and Israel. Here are a few more: Government criminality. High-tech terror. Mass murder from the skies. The kind of premeditated action that the U.S. representative in Nuremberg at the International Conference on Military Trials -- Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson -- was talking about on August 12, 1945, when he declared that "no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy."

The United States and Israel. Right now, it's the most dangerous alliance in the world.

Of course, Israeli officials talk about murderous crimes against civilians by Hezbollah and Hamas. And Hezbollah and Hamas officials talk about murderous crimes against civilians by Israel. Plenty of real crimes to go around. At the same time, by any measure, Israelis have done a lot more killing than dying. (If you doubt that, take a look at the website of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem and its documentation of deadly events.)

In American media, the current mumbling about the need for "restraint" is little better than window-dressing for bomb-dropping. The prevalent dynamic is based on a chain of rarely spoken lies, however conscious or unconscious: none more important than the lie that a religion can make one life worth more than another; render a human death unimportant; elevate certain war-inflicted agonies to spiritual significance.

"Israel has overwhelming military superiority in both southern Lebanon and Gaza," the New York Times noted in mid-July. A pattern is deeply entrenched in U.S. media and politics: the smaller-scale killers condemned, the larger-scale killers justified with endless rationales.

Stripping away the righteous rhetoric, media manipulation and routine journalistic contortions, what remains in joint U.S.-Israeli policy is the unspoken assumption that might makes right. Myths spin around as convenient. Israel ceremoniously "withdraws" from Gaza, only to come back with missiles and troops however and whenever it pleases. The West Bank also continues to be a place of subjugation and resistance. And, as W.H. Auden observed, "Those to whom evil is done / Do evil in return."

The Israeli leaders who launched this month's state-of-the-killing-art air assault on Gaza and Lebanon had to know that many civilians would be killed, many others wounded, many more terrorized. The smug moral posturing that Israel's military does not target specific civilians is moldy political grist -- and, in human terms, irrelevant to the totally predictable carnage.

"There are terrorists who will blow up innocent people in order to achieve tactical objectives," President Bush said on July 13. Of course he was referring to actions by Hezbollah and Hamas. We're supposed to pretend that Israel does not also "blow up innocent people in order to achieve tactical objectives."

Israel calls itself a Jewish state, and its leadership often claims to represent the interests of Jewish people. Killers who terrorize often claim to be acting on blessed behalf of others of the faith. Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus... By now, such demagoguery ought to be transparent.

In the 40th year of Israel's unconscionable occupation of Palestinian territories, Israeli leaders have their agenda. What's ours?

It should include clearly opposing the most dangerous alliance in the world.

In the United States, evading the "might makes right" core of the alliance is easy. The dodge makes dropping bombs on Lebanon and Gaza that much easier for the Israeli government. As usual, you can hear it in the weasel-worded statements from even the better politicians on Capitol Hill. You can read it in New York Times editorials. Instead of saying that aggressive war by Israel "is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy," the message is that aggressive war by Israel is accepted and embraced as an instrument of policy.

Most of all, you can hear it in the silence.

(Norman Solomon is the author of the new book " War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death ." For information, go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com)


5. Open Mike, Closed Mind – by Robert Scheer

Bombs were exploding and innocents dying, from Beirut to Haifa to Baghdad, and yet George Bush managed to pose for yet another photo op, smiling as he gave the thumbs up at the close of the G-8 summit. Thanks to an unsuspected open mike, however, we could also glimpse the mindset of a leader unaccountably pleased with his ignorance of the world.

What seemed to interest him most at that farewell get together of leaders bitterly divided over a disintegrating Mideast was not some last-minute proposal for peace but rather the fact that it would take China President Hu Jintao eight hours to fly home from St. Petersburg to Beijing.

Bush had started the exchange by noting, absurdly, that, "This is your neighborhood, doesn't take you long to get home." Uh, yeah, incurious George, sure thing. Never mind that St. Petersburg is in Europe, on Russia's northwestern corner, due north of Turkey, and Beijing is on the eastern edge of mainland Asia.

"You, eight hours? Me too. Russia's a big country and you're a big country," he said when corrected, sounding for all the world like an earnest kindergartner, processing new information. "Russia's big and so is China."

Unfortunately, Bush's private remarks to British Prime Minister Tony Blair several minutes later also revealed a cluelessness about more important matters: Israel's bloody assault on Lebanon, its causes and possible solutions.

"See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it's over," he said, apparently referring to the guerilla force's firing of rockets into Israel. "I felt like telling Kofi to get on the phone with [Syrian leader Bashir] Assad and make something happen."

While it is refreshing to note that our President employs language that would earn a radio shock jock a fine from his own rabid obscenity-sniffers at the FCC, his profound ignorance is appalling. Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah all have their own hardcore agendas--Syria is just one player in the tortured region. Furthermore, Bush's complete disinterest in the Mideast peace process--especially as an "honest broker" between Israel and the Palestinians--since the Supreme Court handed him the job in 2000 has paved the way for this moment.

But should we be surprised at Bush's poor grasp of the world he supposedly leads? After all, the blundering of the Bush Administration has seriously undermined secular politics in the Mideast and boosted the religious zealots of groups like Hezbollah to positions of pre-eminence throughout the region, from savagely violent Iraq to the beleaguered West Bank and Gaza.

But what is truly "ironic" is that the Bush Administration, having overstretched our military and generated no foreign policy ideas beyond the willy-nilly "projection" of military force, has become a helpless bystander as the entire region threatens to burn.

Responding to Bush, Blair at least sounded somewhat constructive, offering to go directly to the Mideast and pave the way for a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In this, he seemed to be unwittingly aligned with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who expressed on Sunday frustration with her successor for not leaving the conference to engage in emergency shuttle diplomacy in the Mideast.

Where Albright was critical of the "disaster" in Iraq for distracting from the dormant Mideast peace process, Rice was shrilly defensive.

"For the last sixty years, American administrations of both stripes--Democrat, Republican--traded what they thought was security and stability and turned a blind eye to the absence of democratic forces, to the absence of pluralism in the region," she said Sunday. "That policy has changed."

While this is certainly a dramatic sound bite, the words have no logical meaning: The United States continues to embrace the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, as has been the case for sixty years. In fact, Bush has added Libya to the "approved" list. Meanwhile, Israel is attacking elected governments in the Palestinian Authority and Lebanon with US support.

As for the democracy in Iraq that Bush wants Russia to emulate, things haven't worked out as neocons like invasion architect Richard Perle had hoped when he fantasized about Pentagon favorite Ahmed Chalabi leading Baghdad to recognize Israel. On Sunday, according to Reuters, the notoriously divided Iraqi parliament unanimously passed a motion condemning the Israeli offensive and urging the UN Security Council and Group of Eight leaders meeting to intervene "to stop the ... Israeli criminal aggression."

Instead of creating a malleable US-Israel ally, the overthrow of the secular Sunni leader Saddam Hussein has extended a fiery arc of Shiite-dominated religious fanaticism blazing across the Mideast skyline that betrays Bush's claim to be bringing democracy and stability to the region.

(Robert Scheer is editor of TruthDig, where this essay originally was published.)


6. Our Coarse President Can’t Fix Middle East -- Joe Conason

Watching the President of the United States try to fulfill his responsibilities at an international summit is a sobering experience these days. To observe George W. Bush talking trash, chewing with his mouth open and demonstrating his ignorance of geography marks still another step down in the continuing decline of U.S. prestige. It’s the diplomatic equivalent of flag burning.

While Mr. Bush’s little misadventures make headlines, what they symbolize is a collapse of policy and a vacuum of competence that are far more troubling than mere cloddishness. Preoccupied from the beginning of his Presidency with Iraq, alienated from our traditional allies and the United Nations and neglectful of broader American interests in the Middle East, he and his team now confront a sudden crisis for which they seem woefully unprepared.

We are learning what happens when the leadership of “the indispensable nation” takes a mental vacation. We are also beginning to learn why regime change in Iraq, originally sold as the solution to every problem in the region, has proved to be such an enormous liability for us and for our allies.

Recall that when the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq—on the pretext of disarming Saddam Hussein—a new era of peace and democracy was supposed to dawn. Making an example of the toppled Saddam would, according to neoconservative theory, persuade other despots in the region to reform and reconcile themselves to co-existence with Israel, and stimulate the “peace process” too. (That same theory, of course, similarly predicted flower-strewn parades in Baghdad and enough oil revenues to finance the whole bloody enterprise.)

Indeed, when the weapons of mass destruction didn’t turn up, those anticipated dividends became the retrospective justification for the war.

The theory was plausible for about five minutes, around the time that Libya formally agreed to destroy its chemical and biological weapons and forgo terrorism. Even that achievement was an illusion, as Ron Suskind reports in The One Percent Doctrine , because the Libyan government had been seeking quietly to restore relations with the West long before March 2003.

That illusion of success through muscular statesmanship has given way to a grimmer reality. The Palestinians have elected a government led by the suicide-bombing terrorists of Hamas. The Syrians, after withdrawing from Lebanon, have cemented an alliance with Iran against the U.S. and Israel, and continue to be suspected of aiding the Iraqi insurgents as well as Hezbollah.

The Iranians, having elected a defiant Islamic radical, are pursuing their suspicious nuclear program, predicting the fiery destruction of the Jewish state and supporting proxy terror groups. Wielding unwholesome influence over Shiite forces in Iraq, Tehran is well aware of the constraints imposed on us by the occupation.

The overthrow of Saddam has emboldened the mullahs and spurred their quest for nuclear weapons rather than instilling fear in them. Instead of encouraging moderation and reconciliation, the debacle in Iraq has undermined those objectives.

Their marvelous theory lies in gory ruins, but the neoconservatives are again banging the drums with as much gusto as if they had been vindicated. The missile barrages between Israel and Lebanon are actually the harbinger of World War III, they burble, and frankly they can’t wait for World War IV. Things haven’t worked out in Iraq, but why not take this opportunity to hit Iran and Syria?

Let us hope that Mr. Bush resists this mad counsel. While his performance so far has been dismal, especially in his reluctance to endorse an immediate ceasefire, at least he isn’t promoting a wider war. Yet while he dithers, the killing and destruction continue—which is exactly what Hezbollah and Hamas want.

The President’s disengagement from Israel and Palestine—combined with his strategic blunder in Iraq—created the conditions for the current crisis and the danger of global disaster. By abandoning the traditional American role in peacemaking followed by his father and by President Clinton, Mr. Bush permitted the enemies of peace to achieve their aims. Despite the Hamas electoral victory, there was the prospect of a revived peace process in the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the commitment by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to a negotiated settlement, and the endorsement by prominent Palestinian prisoners of a two-state solution. It seems likely that the provocations ordered by the Hamas military chiefs abroad were intended to prevent any tacit recognition of Israel by the local elected officials.

Forced to respond to unprovoked aggression, the wiser Israelis know that they can never obtain security through military force alone. The only way forward for them and for us is to achieve a rapid cessation of hostilities—and to revive international initiative toward a political solution as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, that would require the American President to abandon his own illusions and step forward in a way that seems far beyond his feeble grasp.

Israeli girls write messages on a shell at a heavy artillery position near Kiryat Shmona, in northern Israel, next to the Lebanese border, Monday, July 17, 2006.(AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner). Someone got the message.



7. Maxims · and · Reflections
Speak
Comments

sweet_nothing
CNN yesterday was the richest. They had on some tool in the afternoon talking by phone to an American woman from Lebanon who kept saying that the bombs were falling all over civilian areas, they're destroying vital infrastructure, blowing up kids, there's nobody from Hezbollah here, etc. And he kept cutting her off, finally he said with an evil smile, "Well, I don't have time to debate this with you now..." And this is Lebanon, about which you can get at least trickle of human feeling and common sense out of the U.S. media. One word you don't hear anymore is Gaza.

And say I did want to write about it, where would I start? Should I start here:

"We are here to show solidarity and support for Israel," Senator Clinton told thousands of people who rallied outside the UN offices in New York. "We will stand with Israel, because Israel is standing for American values as well as Israeli ones." Senator Clinton said she supported whatever steps were necessary to defend Israel against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria in the military conflict in the Middle East. "I want us to imagine if extremist terrorists were launching rockets across the Mexican or Canadian borders," she said. "Would we stand by, or defend ourselves against the extremists?"

But that doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. It might be worth coming back to though.

I'm going to start with this instead: "New Conflicts in an Old War" by James Carroll.

Carroll is a novelist and former Catholic priest best known for being a thoughtful anti-war writer. I haven't read his two big books, one about the Catholic Church's history of anti-Semitism and one about the influence of the Pentagon, but I regularly read his columns and find him a humane, decent thinker. Thus when I read this, I was reminded of Edward Said in Orientalism quoting the pro-imperialist passage out of Marx; what happened to this guy when his mind turned to these matters, Said wondered, where did all his compassion, his concern for human liberation, where did it all fly to when he thought about dark-skinned people living elsewhere? So too do I wonder about Carroll:

“As one who rejects war, and who asks of Israel, therefore, only what I ask of my own country, I regret Israel's heavy bombing of Lebanon last week, as I deplored Israeli attacks in population centers and on infrastructure in Gaza. Authentic concern for the seized Israeli soldiers, as much as for the welfare of innocent civilians, can prompt criticism of the Olmert government's actions. Yet, given the rejectionism of both Hamas and Hezbollah, the only relevant powers, is the path of negotiations actually open to Israel? As this conflict becomes redefined in larger terms, it seems urgent to move away from the internal polarization of ambivalence by reaffirming foundational support for Israel. There is no moral equivalence between enemies here, and those who sympathize exclusively with the suffering of Palestinians make a terrible mistake in thinking otherwise. Nothing makes this clearer than the Hamas elevation of suicide-bombing to the effective status of religious cult. This perversion, in which cowardly older men exploit the anguished gullibility of the young precisely to target innocents, reveals the depth of the life-hating cynicism with which Israel is confronted. Now Hamas turns the entire Palestinian population into a suicide-bomber writ large. To destroy Israel, the mantra becomes, we will bring destruction down on ourselves.

“Much of this is new, but the apocalyptic energy of this hatred, running from Gaza City to Tehran, draws on currents that run deep in history. The fury of anti-Israel rage among Arabs and Muslims is accounted for only partially by the present conflict. It resuscitates -- and then draws breath from -- the long European habit of scapegoating Jews. The fantasy that Arab and Muslim problems will be solved by the elimination of Israel partakes of the old European illusion that climaxed in the 20th century. No one should think that embedded contempt for Jews -- anti-Semitism -- is not part of the current crisis. Nor should anyone think that fresh consequences of that contempt are limited to the Middle East.”

If this is a rejection of war, what would an embrace of war look like?

Okay. Let's work our way through this. Note one prominent feature of this rhetoric: phrases like "no moral equivalence," "religious cult," "perversion," "life-hating cynicism." This language should be familiar to us from the writings of Paul Berman, Thomas Friedman, Christopher Hitchens and others. Its effect is to dehumanize the official enemy, to suggest that they are
1.) outside of the moral parameters in which "we" operate and so legitimate objects of any form of violence we can inflict;
2.) automata acting as a hive-mnd and driven by weird alien demons and so, again, legitimate objects of the kind of violence you would reserve for insects.

To combat this propaganda, let us stipulate two counter-propositions:
1.) individuals and various collectives of individuals (states, militias, etc.) act for complicated combinations of reasons but, especially when it comes to warfare, material interests have the most influence; 2.) the denial of the moral equivalence of morally equivalent acts is fundamentally immoral.

Number 2 is the most important there for our purposes. Carroll focuses on anti-Semitism; he doesn't come out and say it, but his proposition that there is widespread and energized anti-Semitism throughout the Middle East tends to justify Israeli actions with the cover of "self-defense". But run the argument the other way: there is plenty of fierce anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias among the citizens of New York and London and Mumbai, which has the effect of giving support to extraordinarily violent actions against Muslim peoples and states carried out in the name of the "war on terror." This anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias indeed has more violent consequences than Middle Eastern anti-Semitism. Does this justify the murder of thousands of civilians in New York or London or Mumbai? No. Again: NO. NO. NO.

A consequence of Carroll's unstated assumptions is what we might take his lead in calling "rejectionism" on the American/Israeli side. The mere notion of negotation, diplomacy, prisoner exchange such as has been practiced since the beginning of human history is met with loud guffaws by the ranting proponents of World War III. You don't negotiate with a beehive, after all. So counterintuitive, so apocalyptic is this thinking, so foreign would it be to an observer from the benighted past — from the Middle Ages! — that even replying to it is to accede in some way to madness. But this is the time we live in.

So Carroll's argument is illogical and immoral bunk: it doesn't matter if every last man, woman and child in Gaza or Lebanon is an anti-Semite; they no more deserve to get blown up or starved than any of the bigots I know and love (and am related to) deserve to get blown up or starved. To think otherwise is simple lunacy, insanity brought about propaganda.

Similarly, much of what Carroll has to say about Hamas applies equally to the Israeli leadership, if we agree that it's a fair description of Hamas and it is quite simply not at this point (as Mike Whitney points out, the elected Hamas leadership has been reasonable throughout this assault). You want perversion? Look at that picture of the Israeli children writing messages on the missiles, missiles that will destroy hospitals, schools, gas lines, water lines, human beings. That...I mean words fail. That's almost worse than killing a child. That kind of moral murder is almost worse than physical murder. And to do that to children who have no choice but to trust, who learn what we show them, I almost can't think of a higher crime. It makes me sick. That's Israeli values which are American values — and let's not bullshit, that's not so far from the truth. I grew up in the relatively affluent suburbs so I know those are the values of more Americans than I want to think about — and not "rednecks" either. And you can say, well, Hamas has done that too, in the past at least. So that means that Palestinian children should be killed? I don't think because the Israeli leaders are so warped and twisted to do this to children that Israeli children should be killed.

Anyway, Carroll is wrong, he himself is all fucked up and twisted, probably by stuff he's been hearing since he was a kid. I'm still half fucked up myself; it takes so long to saw the chains off your mind. But, you know, one day it's going to happen. People will throw off this shit, nationalities and religions and all the other stickers we put on each other's kids saying it's okay to kill them, and we'll realize that there's only one enemy, the killers. The killers secure our allegiance by pretending to be enemies to each other. But the killers are playing on one team and we are playing on the other and we are losing . But, in the absence of worldwide anarchist revolution, it's important to keep score, especially if you are a taxpaying citizen in the country that's paying for all this carnage, without which it would not be taking place.

The worst thing I think I saw on TV was last week, on C-Span's morning call-in show, where you think you would hear the voices of people somewhat knowledgable about international affairs, about history, about anything, if they're bothering to call this relatively highbrow show. But there you could hear the result of the U.S. educational system, of the media, of the barbarism of popular culture. The calls alternated from "left" to "right" and practically everyone was a racist. Someone started going on about the Jews controlling the media, etc., then the next one said that the previous caller's racism was unconscionable and doesn't he know that Israel has to destroy these Arab animals, and it went on in that vein. People are being butchered, nobody knows anything, nobody has anything to offer but miles and miles of hate...

Via Waggish, here is the blog of Mazen Kerbaj, an excellent artist and no doubt excellent musician living in Lebanon.

dear friends and family from lebanon and abroad,

i am receiving tons of supportive emails everyday. thank you all. we really need your eyes and ears.
i am trying as much as possible to answer everybody.
however, some questions are common to all, and i think it is relevant to answer to the most asked one here.

to the question: "how can we help?"

the answer is: speak.

speak about the shit happening here. speak with your family. with your friends. with people you don't know. in a bar, a restaurant, at work. with the people in the streets. talk to everybody. talk to buildings.
from here, it seems for us that no one in the whole world cares for those fucking burned children corpses.

On July 19th, an anonymous reader commented :
Longtime (intermittent) lurker, here. Yes -- we all have to speak (yelling at the TV is just the beginning). Maybe I'll never get a handle on all of this. I question everything I hear. Regardless it's obvious that it's all so *wrong*. All of it. Photos of kids writing on missles. Photos of babies dressed up as suicide bombers. For every real or imagined provocation there's an equally catastrophic response. We're the lucky ones. What else can we do but talk and try to understand? Except with all the talking you end up having to listen to the hatred spewed from each "side," and that takes quite an effort.
What I'm writing isn't good enough, not by half...but we all have to speak.
Good luck with the move.

sweet_nothing replied :
Thanks! Yes, I agree, we need more and more speech, speech in the streets, because what's on TV is useless.
As for the hate on both sides, there's just no excuse for it in this country. Workaday people in the Middle East (including Israel) maybe have some excuse, since they live with the threat of violence which is bound to put anyone out of sorts, but there's no reason for this bullshit racism here among the middle class where people have some money and some free time to figure stuff out; this is just what the warmongers want, a confused and hateful public wrapped up in nonsense about religion and skin color when the issues are about who gets land and resources.


8. Putting things in perspective -- by Lisa Goldman

The image above (of little Israeli girls signing bombs on their way to Lebanon) caused a huge storm of outrage in the Arab blogosphere. Huge. You wouldn't believe how huge. The widely-read Gulf-based Palestinian blogger who was the first to post it received so much traffic that he had to move the photo to another server. Many others, including several I know personally, posted it and expressed their disgust. Israeli children taught to hate! Lebanese children are dying and they're happy! They're no better than... (fill in the blank, I don't want to go there).

Below is the story behind the photo - from the source.

I phoned Sebastian Scheiner, the Israeli photojournalist who took the photo for Associated Press (AP), explained that the image had given a really terrible impression and asked for the context. He sketched it out quickly and fluidly, but asked me not to quote him. So I spoke with Shelly Paz, a Yedioth Ahronoth reporter who was also at the scene and agreed immediately to go on record. She was quite shocked to learn how badly the photo had been misinterpreted and misrepresented; and she told me the same story Sebastian did, but with more details and nuance.

The little girls shown drawing with felt markers on the tank missiles are residents of Kiryat Shmona, which is right on the border with Lebanon. And when I say "on the border," I'm not kidding; there's little more space between their town and Southern Lebanon than there is between the back gardens of neighbouring houses in a wealthy American suburb.

No, how close is it really?

Well, there's a famous story in Israel, from the time when the Israeli army occupied Southern Lebanon: a group of soldiers stationed inside southern Lebanon used their mobile phones to order pizza from Kiryat Shmona and have it delivered to the fence that separates the two countries.

Anyway.

Kiryat Shmona has been under constant bombardment from South Lebanon since the first day of the conflict. It was a ghost town, explained Shelly. There was not a single person on the streets and all the businesses were closed. The residents who had friends, family or money for alternate housing out of missile range had left, leaving behind the few who had neither the funds nor connections that would allow them to escape the missiles crashing and booming on their town day and night. The noise was terrifying, people were dying outside, the kids were scared out of their minds and they had been told over and over that some man named Nasrallah was responsible for their having to cower underground for days on end.

On the day that photo was taken, the girls had emerged from the underground bomb shelters for the first time in five days. A new army unit had just arrived in the town and was preparing to shell the area across the border. The unit attracted the attention of twelve photojournalists - Israeli and foreign. The girls and their families gathered around to check out the big attraction in the small town - foreigners. They were relieved and probably a little giddy at being outside in the fresh air for the first time in days. They were probably happy to talk to people. And they enjoyed the attention of the photographers.

Apparently one or some of the parents wrote messages in Hebrew and English on the tank shells to Nasrallah. "To Nasrallah with love," they wrote to the man whose name was for them a devilish image on television - the man who mockingly told Israelis, via speeches that were broadcast on Al Manar and Israeli television, that Hezbollah was preparing to launch even more missiles at them. That he was happy they were suffering.

The photograpers gathered around. Twelve of them. Do you know how many that is? It's a lot. And they were all simultaneously leaning in with their long camera lenses, clicking the shutter over and over. The parents handed the markers to the kids and they drew little Israeli flags on the shells. Photographers look for striking images, and what is more striking than pretty, innocent little girls contrasted with the ugliness of war? The camera shutters clicked away, and I guess those kids must have felt like stars, especially since the diversion came after they'd been alternately bored and terrified as they waited out the shelling in their bomb shelters.

Shelly emphasized several times that none of the parents or children had expressed any hatred toward the Lebanese people. No-one expressed any satisfaction at knowing that Lebanese were dying - just as Israelis are dying. Their messages were directed at Nasrallah. None of those people was detached or wise enough to think: "Hang on, tank shell equals death of human beings." They were thinking, tank shell equals stopping the missiles that land on my house. Tank shells will stop that man with the turban from threatening to kill us.

And besides, none of those children had seen images of dead people - either Israeli or Lebanese. Israeli television doesn't broadcast them, nor do the newspapers print them. Even when there were suicide bombings in Israel several times a week for months, none of the Israeli media published gory photos of dead or wounded people. It's a red line in Israel. Do not show dead, bleeding, torn up bodies because the families of the dead will suffer and children will have nightmares. And because it is just in bad taste to use suffering for propaganda purposes.

Those kids had seen news footage of destroyed buildings and infrastructure, but not of the human toll. They had heard over and over that the air force was destroying the buildings that belonged to Hezbollah, the organization responsible for shelling their town and threatening their lives. How many small children would be able to make the connection between tank shells and dead people on their own? How many human beings are able to detach from their own suffering and emotional stress and think about that of the other side? Not many, I suspect.

So, perhaps the parents were not wise when they encouraged their children to doodle on the tank shells. They were letting off a little steam after being cooped up - afraid, angry and isolated - for days. Sometimes people do silly things when they are under emotional stress. Especially when they fail to understand how their childish, empty gesture might be interpreted.

I've been thinking for the last two days about this photo and the storm of reaction it set off. I worry about the climate of hate that would lead people to look at it and automatically assume the absolute worst - and then use the photo to dehumanize and victimize. I wonder why so many people seem to take satisfaction in believing that little Israeli girls with felt markers in their hands - not weapons, but felt markers - are evil, or spawned by an evil society. I wonder how those people would feel if Israelis were to look at a photo of a Palestinian child wearing a mock suicide belt in a Hamas demonstration and conclude that all Palestinians - nay, all Arabs - are evil.

And I wonder why it is so difficult to think a little, to get it into our heads that television news and photojournalism manipulate our thoughts and emotions.

Links to anti-Israel websites with that photo placed prominently next to the image of a dead Lebanese child have been sent to me several times. Someone has been rushing around the Israeli blogosphere, leaving the link to one particularly abhorrent site in the comments boxes. And it makes me really sad that the emotional climate has deteriorated to this point.

The moderates of the Middle East are locked in a battle with the extremists. And look what they did to the moderates. Without blinking, without thinking, we fell victim to the classic "divide and conquer" technique. We work hard for months and years to build connections, develop our societies, educate ourselves, promote democracy and free speech... And they destroy it all, in less than a week. And we let them.

Comments
Roger:
Excellent article which is already being linked to in discussions at UK sites like Harry's Place.

In Britain and America there must still be large numbers of people alive who worked in munitions factories in WW2 and customarily wrote similarly cheerful messages on the bombs that killed one and a half million German and Japanese civilians.

In Israel in 2006 a couple of small children are egged on by some idiotic and irresponsible adults and a small shit-storm erupts.

Moral progress or just another example of the double standard always applied to Israel?

Sharvul:
Storm in a tea-cup. These girls have healthy instincts.

What bothered me more is the spelling mistake in Hebrew. Girls this age should know their spelling better...

David Paran:
Thanks for the article. I live in Israel and was completely horrified but not surprised by the picture. I consider myself fairly media savvy, but the tastelessness of that juxtaposition was appalling. Unfortunately, I more or less assumed much what you described, but that doesn't make it that much less disturbing for me: children treating missiles as saviours is a worry to me. Writing messages indicates that they see them as being targeted at PEOPLE (albeit Hezbollah) rather than installations (such as Katyusha launchers). On the other hand, Jews write messages and stick them in the Western Wall, so maybe it was more like: May the force be with this missile and help it hit its target. (I still find it distasteful).

I can actually understand Lebanese who are being hit by those missiles misinterpreting the picture and I appreciate your efforts to somewhat straighten the record.

The MOST disturbing aspect of this whole thing is the Israeli media's efforts to underplay or ignore the Lebanese fatalities. It's not just a matter of not showing the bodies. The Yediot and Maariv dailies had NO mention today of the Lebanese killed yesterday. Channel One news opened by listing the figures of the dead on both sides, but then made no further mention of the Lebanese casualties (and referred to the refugees only from an Israeli strategic perspective). Haaretz newspaper has been much more responsible and evenhanded (in fact far more so than most foreign press is vis a vis Israel, I think) and Channel 10's coverage is a little better than the others.

I'm not sure Israeli media is any different to, say, the US during the Iraqi campaigns. But is that a model we want to follow?
Bottom line: even if the pic was misinterpreted by the Lebanese viewers, based on a dehumanization of the Israeli victims, it still represents a general dehumanization of the Lebanese victims through the total silence about their plight.

Alparis:
All Israelis and Jews should be grateful that you took the time to get to the bottom of this story. One could only wish that your post would get the same number of hits as those trying to make us out to be barbarians. However, this is very unlikely and a lot of damage has already and will continue to be done. Just like the al Dura video, people who want to believe the worst will eat it up.

Regarding your point of how Israeli media does not show gory photos of dead people, I can tell you as one who reads the Arabic media on a daily basis that this is certainly not the case there. Most of the Arabic sites I've seen have been showing graphic photos of wounded and dead children. I'm still shocked every time I encounter this.

The Sphinx:
I'm still convinced that anybody who lets kids near live shells and eggs them on to do that - regardless why - is not correct in their minds. Kids are kids, they still can't always distinguish what's right from what's wrong, so it's not their fault.

"None of those people was detached or wise enough to think: 'Hang on, tank shell equals death of human beings.' "

Well duh, tank shells don't mean an extra ride on the ferris wheel, do they..

I seriously hope you wouldn't let your kids do that ..

Lisa Goldman:
Sphinx, I did write that those parents acted unwisely. Before judging them, though, I invite you to spend 5 days and nights in a bomb shelter during a constant bombardment, without anything to amuse you, limited food and no air conditiong in the height of summer. Then tell me how you feel.

Anonymous:
They teach their children to become suicide bombers and then complain when Israeli kids write messages on bombs.

What the children are doing is a perfectly healthy response to the situation they find themselves in. Perhaps people not in that situation wouldn't understand, it is kind of like black humor in that respect, but given the situation they face it is a way for them to regain some control at least psychologically.

Writing messages on bombs is a tradition that goes way back. US soldiers used to do that in WWII.

Outrage about this seems so "Politically Correct" when the truth is that this is war. Of course during war you teach your children to hate the enemy. You also make up names for your enemy like Americans did for the Japs.

Take no mind of those who would criticize such a picture. They were your enemy to begin with. Just remember, you can't win a "politically correct" war so don't fall into the trap of trying to do so.

Anonymous:
You are exactly right... We watch the world news as the Islamists parade their children around holding "Death to Israel" signs, dress their children up as suicide bombers, indoctrinate their children in the religion of hatred that pushes them to want to kill Israelis, and yet we act like it is an atrocity when the civilized people of Israel have had enough and retaliate against the savages...

This is a double standard, and it disgusts me.

If the Islamists wish to glorify their terrorist savages, then why should anyone be shocked when the victims of these terrorists see glory in the death of their antagonists?

I share their sentiment. Death to Nasrallah, and maybe someday there can be peace in the Middle-East.

Carsten Agger:
I think the reluctance to publish pictures of the victims of war is an error - of course there are considerations for the feelings of the families of the victims to be taken, but I think if the Israeli media were to broadcast and print pictures of the victims of the actions of Israeli soldiers, support for the country's very aggressive military policy might dwindle.

I mean: If it's not nice then don't do it - doing it and not showing it is hypocritical.

And the dehumanization which make the children believe that the tank missiles are not for Lebanese children, but for the "man with the turban" is precisely what makes wars possible.

Apart from that, thanks for the explanation - it does not entirely take away the spookiness of the pictures, though. If Israel right now were in the process of responding to Hizbollah's rockets in a way that were

a) in reasonable proportions,
b) likely to produce the desired outcome or even harm Hizbollah,

there would have been no anger over the pictures. They are - erroneously, if we look at the specific children and the specific picture - seen as consistent with Israel's violent and in the eye of many beholders wildly exaggerated attacks on first Gaza and now Lebanon.

Anonymous:
"If it's not nice then don't do it " Hello? This is War!

Nice isn't really an objective here.

Should America have been "nice" during WWII?

Anonymous:
Let's fight a war, but let's do so "nicely"?

Can't win a war by being nice.

Carsten Agger:
Perhaps not, but then don't hide what happens to the victims. If you must fight a war then do so, but don't prettify it.

And what Israel is doing right now is not really hurting Hizbollah - an important point to be made.

Destroying Lebanon's infrastructure and terrorizing her citizens doesn't hurt Hizbollah - rather, it strengthens it, relatively withing Lebanon, I mean.

The Sandmonkey links to an analysis in Ha'aretz (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/740649.html) which reaches the conclusion that the ongoing operations haven't hurt Hizbollah at all.

Lisa Goldman:
Carsten, please do not take this thread into an argument/analysis about military tactics. That is really off topic. Many thanks, in advance...

Carsten Agger:
Okay, point taken.

I'm glad you published the story behind the pictures, though - helps putting a human face on all sides of the conflict, and I think that's very important - I just wrote a small piece about the picture and your story on my own blog (Danish).

I personally think these photos and their story as uncovered by you teaches a small tale precisely about the human face on both sides - and for that, I am grateful.

Adina:
Internationally, however, it seems that we are getting far more explicit footage in the past week, than we ever get from Iraq.

Anonymous:
It is certainly true that imagery is a potent weapon of misinformation and control - it always has been. It is also true that on both sides of this conflict the innocent are dying: literally and imaginatively, for how can a child that writes on bombs (what ever the circumstances under which they do so) retain the innocence that should be cherished in childhood? I would never look at any issue on the surface. But I would also delve further still. There are short term reasons for stress as to why this event took place, but have these people been asked why they remain in a place of bombardment? Or more importantly, why they went there in the first place? My own friends from Israel avoid the border areas at all cost: a huge difference from those that were recently evicted by the Israeli army and those that here live on the border fence. I am afraid that the expansionist logic of Israel, and its own extremism is manifest in families such as these, who stay generation after generation at the frontline, and who do not move for any cost. That, surely, is the next layer that must be investigated, and perhaps the image's meaning will be reverted once again.

Lisa Goldman:
Anonymous -

I wrote very clearly in my post that these people remained in Kiryat Shmona because they did not have the money to leave and did not have family in other parts of Israel to host them. In other words, they were hostages of their socio-economic circumstances.

"Why did they go there?" They live there! Kiryat Shmona is their home.

And I fail to see what "expansionism" has to do with this story. Kiryat Shmona is and always has been inside Israel's internationally recognized 1948 borders.

Anonymous:
"how can a child that writes on bombs (what ever the circumstances under which they do so) retain the innocence that should be cherished in childhood?"

Any child who has to live in a bomb shelter because they are being shelled by enemy rockets has already been forced out of innocence.

Anonymous:
It is time for the Israeli Government to remind Israeli journalists about their responsibility as Israeli citizens not to do things that could hurt the war effort.

Anonymous:
Almost a century and a half ago an American General (the notorious Sherman) said something that seems to equally apply here.

"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace."

Sony Pony:
A couple of points:
While I understand how these pictures came about, I am not at all sure it was taken entirely out of context. I remain unconvinced that the parents of these children were unaware that these shells were intended to kill people. You don't need to be bombarded with images of dead people to know that explosions are a bad thing. I'm pretty sure no one in this group were singing peace songs for the Lebanese.

Secondly: Media storm? huh? where? You mention the Arab blogosphere--a very very specific targeted group with a very very specific audience. The vast majority of the Media have been completely forgiving of these pictures. Can you imagine if these were Palestinian children signing off on missiles to Israel? I wouldn't have been able to pick up a newspaper, or turn on the news, w/out running into them. Don't you understand that a large part of the anger comes from this lopsided, this wholly biased and racist view of the conflict?

Lisa Goldman:
Sony Pony -

The fact is, both Arabs and Israelis are constantly complaining that the media is biased against them. As I have written before on this blog, the Middle East is like a Rorschach inkblot test : different people(s) look at the same thing and each see(s) something completely different.

My point is that there is a climate of hate in the Middle East that makes reasoned debate nearly impossible and forgiving attitudes nearly impossible.

Psychotoddler:
Thanks for the explanation, Lisa. I too was put off by the picture.

But notice what an uproar it caused simply because they are Jews. If it had been Palestinian children doing this (and it frequently is, and much worse), no one would have batted an eye.

Another sign of the double standard Israel is held too.

But to some degree, I think there should be a double standard. As Jews, we have to hold the moral high ground. If we become like the animals, there's not much reason for us to be around anymore.

Like I said over at the Muquata--teach our kids to defend and stand up for themselves. Teach them to fight. But don't teach them to like it.

Max M:
Is this a joke?
Seriously, i don't see the "well written explanation" that people are talking about. Everyone knows what you wrote.
Terrorists (with their kids holding guns) can say the exact same thing.

Our kids saw the guns and saw us and they consider us heroes so they thought it's cool and they did just like us.
Then some photographer showed from nowhere and took a pic !! bad timing.. !!

ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS !!!
What the "parents" did by letting their childred do this is "NON FORGIVABLE" no matter what !!!
And what the children did is un acceptable...

Think again people..
What if you saw a "palestenian" child doing the same... (and you did) ..
You never gave them such a stupid execuse.. you critisized them and their families..
And you forgot that for them, israelians are "Evils". You look the same to them as the "hassan nasr allah" looks for you and your kids....

Anonymous:
Max M this is an healthy activity that people do during war to help promote morale.

It has a long tradition.

The children did nothing wrong (except for their spelling perhaps but since I don't know Hebrew I really can't say. Perhaps they can pratice their spelling while they are down in the bomb shelter during the next attack to keep their mind off their situation).

Mohamed:
Lisa, Thank you for that. Will link to it on my blog, with your permission.

Though, i'm not really buying the argument of "they've never seen a dead body on teli". This is not Switzerland! - this is Israel, which has been, well, almost continuously at war with various countries/groups since it was created, killing people and having people killed.
Or is it only the bodies of terrorism victims shown on your television?
Also, while I can understand the particular context of those photos, I refuse the idea that Israeli children are not endocrinated -- not like them . Sorry, not buying that. No moral judgement involved here, but the the facts, including the portrayal of the palestinians/arabs/even arab israelis in the media, school books, prove otherwise.

Thanks -- until next time!

Mavros Gatos:
Lisa

I don't have the slightest sympathy for the Hezbollah, but I also cannot tolerate propaganda, regardless the side it would originate from.

You said "missiles crashing and booming on their town day and night. The noise was terrifying, people were dying outside, [in Kiryat Shmona, where the photos have been taken]

Could you please tell me, EXACTLY how many people have died in Kiryat Shmona ? I'm asking that because I have the impression that you are trying to create an atmosphere in order to justif;y the children, or rather their parents. Anyway, they do not seem as terrified as that to me.

But then maybe you're right, and Kiryat Shmona really lies in ruins. In that case I apologise for my being agressive.

Thanks in advance for your eventual response
Mavros Gatos
Greece

Lisa Goldman:
Mavros -

If you had been to the northern border over the past few days then you would have been terrified - unless you were blind and stone deaf. More than 1,000 missiles were launched in one week on civilian areas. The children don't seem terrified to you in the photo? That is because they were so happy that the bombardment had temporarily stopped and they were able to go outside of the bomb shelters and breathe some fresh air for the first time in five days.

How many people have died in Kiryat Shmona? I don't know, but don't you think that one would be too many? As for the amount of destruction, again, what is your point? My point is that this war is horrible for both Lebanese and Israelis; your point seems to be something else entirely, but I am not quite sure what it is. I sort of get the feeling that you think the kids didn't suffer enough for your tastes. But you weren't there, so how in the world would you know what they went through?

Amr:
Look, if you try to justify this relatively mild act because of the relatively mild suffering of these kids, then it does not take too much effort to try to justify the much more intense antagonism in Palestinian and Arab kids, given that the death ratio is about ten to one and the destruction far more. I don't think that argument is particularly efficacious.

Lisa Goldman:
Justify? Argument? Neither word is appropriate.

Again (and for the last time) this post is about explaining and putting into context. And please re-read the last two paragraphs of my post again - you know, the bit about a climate of hatred. I would be (and have been) equally critical of bloggers who post photos of children posing with weapons as an illustration of the supposedly violent culture of Palestinians and Iranians.

I abhor propaganda and hyperbole from any source and in any context. Full stop and 'nuff said.

Amr:
OK, fine, I accept that. But trying to `explain the context' is rarely effective, because there's a defensive mechanism on the other side, an interpretive framework, that does not uually allow for the reception and digestion of such attempts -- how easy is it to try to explain to your average Israeli the context of Palestian hate? BTW, there's another rerlevant point, you imply that these kids and their parent are rather unsophisticated -- this applies far moe to the majority of people in Israel's neighbouring populations.

Best regards

Anonymous:
Why must the Israelis be ruthless?

Because their enemies are ruthless, and if the Israelis aren't more so then their enemies win and they will be annihilated.

But this bomb signing thing is so small. It is not immoral. Not in the least. It is a wartime tradition. It is kind of like black humor. It builts morale.

It is perfectly healthy for the children to be doing this. And it isn't dangerous to be next to the tank missiles. They can't explode unless fired.

By the way, for those who say that this is just like having children sing songs about how they are going to grow up to be suicide bombers, it isn't.

Anonymous:
Abraham Lincoln. the American President during our Civil war was known to be a gentle man. But when discussing how to fight the war with his cabinet he said the following.

"Lincoln: One matter further, gentlemen. We fight on their level. With trickery, brutality, finality. We match their evil. I know, I was reputed to be a gentle man. But I was commander in chief during the four bloodiest years of my country's history. I gave orders that sent a hundred thousand men to their death. at the hands of their brothers. There is no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war except its ending. And we are fighting for the survival of the Union."

Actually, it was an Star Trek episode.

But it was a pretty good Star Trek episode.

lazarus:
lisa,

i'm not sure how other people took these pictures, but the main point is that israelis are human too, and that they err too.

i remember how many circulated images of hezbollah and hamas children carrying guns; two year olds who probably had no idea what was going on, yet those pictures were used to explain a "culture of hate." in reality, the setting for those is no different then the setting for these.

although such pictures may be understandable, they are in no way right, whether it is the arab children or of these israeli children innocently signing missiles.

as i said, all these pictures do is show that israelis also err, that they also make moral errors (this time on the parents side), and they are not on a moral highground - hence the "uproar".

stay safe.

Mavros Gatos:
Of course the Israelis are humans, but so are the Arabs too! All I wanted to say is that you were trying to create impressions by saying "people were dying all around ", in order to prove the Israeli children less guilty of hatred than they actually are. One dead person in their village would be too many, you are right. But 500+ are far more than one...

It is a terrible situation. I am ashamed to be a human.

Anonymous:
Oh, pleese.

To make so much out of this morale building activity. It is war after all.

But it does show why the Israeli media needs to be required to submit themselves to government review regarding miltary/national security matters. There should be a requirement that the media has to give their stuff to the government so they can decide whether such stuff should be published.

That is how such stuff was handled in America during WWII. We didn't all the media to publish anything that could harm the war effort.

Lisoosh:
Lisa, slightly OT.
Is it possible to change the anonymous setting to allow people (or make them) use an alias without having them sign in, the multiple "anons" are getting really confusing and it looks in some cases (from similar tone/language) that sometimes the same person is backing him/herself up?

Lisa Goldman:
Hey Lisoosh -

I really have no idea how to do that. I'll ask the experts (Joey! Are you reading this?) and see what I can do.

Eric:
war brings out the worst forms of jingoism and sensationalism.

i don't, however, know if the fault lies with the photographers. the pictures are what they are. the fault would lie in how we so often seek to demonize depending on our worldviews.

Anonymous:
During WWII in America every picture, every story regarding the war effort had to go through a government official whose job it was to decide if the picture and/or story would get to be published. The military and the press worked hand in hand to ensure that nothing that would harm the war effort would be published.

That is what the Israel Government needs to do now.

Adina:
Enough! This is NOT WWII.

Anonymous:
Lisa,

Thank you for explaining the picture and putting things in perspective. It's sad and shameful how irresponsible journalists can be sometimes (nay, often).

I happen to think both Israelis and Lebanese (and the West as well) should get to see more of the uncensored consequences of war. It's often so easy to armchair quarterback these matters while far removed from harm's way, when the innocent victims (on both sides) are faceless or mere numbers on a tally.

And thank you, overall for this blog which is a great example of moderation and enlightenment, in what seems like a sea of hatred these days.

-A Moderate Lebanese

Anonymous:
Lisa, if you saw GMT's post on Kos I will email him this link and try to get him to apologize. He put together the picture in the post and one of two Lebanese men crying in an irrigation channel, which were in a photo collection by Der Spiegel.

isirota1965:
Found your blog through SM's blog, which I hold in very high esteem. It's good stuff, and I'll check it out often!

Michelle:
Lisa, thank you so much!!! I was sickened on one hand by the photos and on the other hand by the Palestinian blogger's manipulation of them to demonize these children and create cheap demagogy out of a complex human situation. Your responsible and serious examination of this story was badly needed, and I am completely with you in denouncing incitement to hatred, dehumanization and violence on either sad. Thank you again.

Anna:
Now even Tom Tomorrow -who's usually a smart guy - has put this pic on his blog. With a really bad paparazzi style commment below it.

Which makes we think again: is it possible to have a sane conversation about the MidEast?
Pics like that -without a proper explanation - r exactly what makes people go nuts and start ranting insanely.

Grant (NZ):
I am not shocked at all by these pictures.

This event of a few children writing on ordinance is meaningless. According to Lisa, the children merely drew flags while the parents wrote a rather mild message. Even if the children participated in writing of the message, so what?

The children are happily doodling in innocence. They are not emanating hate. They are not supporting death of any person other than Nasrallah. This act of producing a rather placid flag or message to their tormentor is utterly inconsequential until latched upon by those who have anti Israeli agendas.

The children's acts are meaningless. Innocence of the children dictated their innocent message in an act of innocence because that's what the whole innocent event was. Desire for Nasrallah's termination = innocent desire. Desire for Nasrallah's good health = wicked desire.

I see what is good and true. A wish for peace.