Partisan political comment prompted by recent news events

[Miriam C.]

Ira, A real question, please.
Does the Torah say the State of Isreal will not exist or does it say all Jews will not return? Yes I really just want to know. Intellectual thing.

What Muslems get is that Jesus was a Jew. Not all Christians have the same understanding of what that really means to a Muslim or Jew.

Ira, perhaps the Jewish people of the past didn't feel safe enclosed in a tiny area, surrounded by people who wanted to kill them and without a Messiah to assure the peace. No faith in human Nature after the holocaust.

[angib]

Yeah, there's a powerful Jewish lobby in the U.S., but folks have to be pretty careful about bringing this up as a reason to lessen support for Israel.

To an outside observer, it is difficult to see how 'bringing this up' could even happen in mainstream US media - for example, the US media coverage of the recent fighting in Lebanon was itself actually news in other countries, because it was so different.

I don't think powerful lobbies, however good the cause they support, are good for freedom of the press/media.

Andrew

[Ira]

Miriam--I wish I could give you an answer. Like I said, my knowledge of this is based on that movie, not on the rabbis who ripped me off.

And Andrew, that's a good point about powerful lobbies not being very good--except we don't feel that way when those lobbies reflect our own views. When the oil companies lobby, it's for profit. When Greenpeace lobbies, it's for the selfish reason of saving the planet.

But with Israel, it's our constituencies here (as well as the formal lobbies) with their votes and political contributions that have consistently supported Israel. And as I said above, it hasn't traditionally been just Jews.

This is changing however, with a lot of gentiles now believing, "If it wasn't for Israel, we wouldn't be having these problems with those crazy Arabs!"

As far as the European media reporting on U.S. media coverage of the Lebanon incursion, this really baffles me. What happened there that WASN'T highly covered by our press here? Including the innocent deaths and big mistakes? In fact, our coverage was TOTALLY skewed to the opinion that Israel screwed up royally on this one, because victory and success is the best argument, and Israel didn't achieve it here.

However, to deny a nation its right to defend itself against guerilla groups on its borders with rockets, determined to see that nation's total destruction, well, I just can't blame Israel for ignoring the fact that other countries "just don't get it."

But I don't think anyone can claim that everything wasn't reported in depth here in the U.S. Yeah, our "news" people were "rooting" for Israel and that colored the news, but they repoeted all of the negative stuff anyway.

[angib]

However, to deny a nation its right to defend itself against guerilla groups on its borders with rockets, determined to see that nation's total destruction, well, I just can't blame Israel for ignoring the fact that other countries "just don't get it."

The fascinating thing about what you've said here, Ira, is that both sides feel this description applies precisely to them. Both have rejoiced in the killing of the other's civilians. Both consider they are the 'innocent victim' and therefore are morally entitled to strike out in any way they can. Both have been the aggressor, but both think they are only engaged in 'defence'.

Neither is right, in my view.

Andrew

[Guy]

Dear Ira,

Please check out HaaretzDaily http://haaretzdaily.com before you think that only gentiles are questioning Israel's right to defend itself in this Lebanon fiasco.

The only source of Israeli news in America is that which comes from the Jerusalem Post a hard core right wing Israeli newspaper. What the rest of the world gets is a mixture of all Israeli perspectives. The sister paper of Haaretz Daily is the International Herald Tribune. Haaretz is one of the earliest Israeli Newspapers spawned by the kibbutzum movement. It is an incredible read and published in Hebrew and English. It is the only way to go to get a complete read and they email you a copy each day.

The only problem is you will have to endure the Talis adverts.

And I stole your Tsis sis money and you will have to wait until Tishabov to get it back.

[Joseph]

Both have been the aggressor, but both think they are only engaged in 'defence'.

Andrew, the problem with this view is that Israel has never had a national objective of destroying the Islamic nations that surround them, nor have they ever initiated aggression, only responded to it. OTOH, many if not all of those nations have gone on record with a national objective of the destruction of Israel.

Sorry, there is no moral equivalency here.

Joseph

[Ira]

Joseph, thanks for putting it that clearly. There IS no moral equivalency.

Yet an awful lot of Americans think there is--despite this supposedly incomplete U.S. media coverage.

Yeah, Israel has made mistakes, but who hasn't?

[Laredo]

Ira,
Forgive me a minute.

Israel as a nation is barely more than 50 years old -- a veritable babe of a nation. Her heroes are people still among, and well remembered by, her living populace -- Shomron, Meir, Dayan -- and her battles both within and without her borders (Golan, Entebbe) remain writ large on history's page in fresh ink.

I hope my country is never so foolish as to desert her.
I hope my people are never so venal as to turn their backs on the one true democracy in the Middle East.

[Joseph]

Including the innocent deaths and big mistakes? In fact, our coverage was TOTALLY skewed to the opinion that Israel screwed up royally on this one, because victory and success is the best argument, and Israel didn't achieve it here.

That's because in the past, when Israel was attacked, they'd go in and kick ass on the countries that were attacking them - just as we did in Afghanistan and Iraq. But like Al Qeida, Hezbollah isn't a country and kicking Lebanon’s ass wouldn’t accomplish much, since their government is pretty much powerless to evict Hezbollah, at least at the present.

Israel is faced with the same enemy we're facing – civilian terrorists who IMHO are NOT covered by the Geneva Convention, and who, when captured, should by all rules of war be summarily executed once their interrogation is complete. Ask Nathan Hale or John André – and they were only spies. But I digress. The media delights in touting Israel’s failure to defeat these thugs just as it delights in ours. The problem is they can only be defeated by killing them, which is just fine with me, but it’s not going to happen overnight, which is what the media seems to expect. “We won the war, but we can’t secure the peace.” Just like they said on January 7th, 1946. For those who want us to get out of Iraq, I say first let's get out of Germany and Japan - I think after sixty years our work there is done.

Joseph

[Ira]

Let's go off on a tangent, because I'm trying to understand something about the murders in Iraq that are occuring overnight, where they find all of the mutilated bodies in the morning:

As we know, the Sunnis are pissed because they no longer hold the (same) power. And one would figure that the Shiites in Iraq would have, at least up until awhile ago, mostly supported the U.S., because they would no longer be under the thumb of the Sunni minority. Yeah, we've been there a long time, but the fact is that we are trying to form a stable, coalition government there, one that will be overwhelmingly Shiite anyway.

So are these people being found dead in the morning actually SUNNI, the BAD Sunnis, whom the Shiites are purging?

In other words, does someone, somewhere know the truth about this--and that this is really a GOOD thing as far as we're concerned?

[Miriam C.]

Ira,
When you have a few million people in a city, and your heritage says you avenge your family, and you want to control your neighborhood----
Are some mulitated bodies a supprise or some bigger plot?

Gangs have always existed in Bagdad just as they exist in New York City. Don't think anyone will ever know who does this.

[Ira]

Ira,
When you have a few million people in a city, and your heritage says you avenge your family, and you want to control your neighborhood----
Are some mulitated bodies a supprise or some bigger plot?

Gangs have always existed in Bagdad just as they exist in New York City. Don't think anyone will ever know who does this.

I'm just curious as to whether it's more skewed toward one group doing it to the other.

[Miriam C.]

Ira,
When you have a few million people in a city, and your heritage says you avenge your family, and you want to control your neighborhood----
Are some mulitated bodies a supprise or some bigger plot?

Gangs have always existed in Bagdad just as they exist in New York City. Don't think anyone will ever know who does this.

I'm just curious as to whether it's more skewed toward one group doing it to the other.

I guess I don't believe it is one larger group doing it to another. All of the information we get on it is filtered through the media and the governments of a bunch of countries. Not something I have a lot of faith in. Especially under wartime circumstances.

[Joseph]

I'm just curious as to whether it's more skewed toward one group doing it to the other.

I expect it's rather hard to tell from a corpse whether the individual is Sunni or a Shiite. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's the Sunnis sending a message to the Shiite majority. But with these fanatics, who knows?

Joseph

[madjack]

...well ya got Sunni insurgents on the one side and Shite death squads on the other...and these folks have been fighting this fight for a millenia or so...and we are so arrogant to think we can waltz in there and wave the magic money and freedom(democracy) wands and everyone will just make nice...sheeeesh...ain't it a wonder.........
madjack