Let me see if I understand this. North Korea test fires a handful of missiles, harming no one and breaking no international laws. Israel is in day six of its illegal war against the sovereign nation of Lebanon, killing and maiming hundreds of innocents, including children. The U.N.s response? Sanctions against North Korea, but no cease fire in Lebanon! Lebanon’s representative in the UN, Nouhad Mahmoud, summed up this farcical state of affairs quite nicely. He was “very disappointed” and this will “send a very wrong signal not only to the Lebanese people, but to Arab people”. No kidding.
Israel is punishing everyone in Lebanon for their failure to evict Hezbollah from their territory. Collective punishment is illegal under international law, and makes the Israeli militants no better than the bus bombers and rocket launchers this war is purportedly meant to stop. The fledgling Lebanese government was just getting back on it’s feet after the mess caused by the civil war and the last Israeli invasion. In fact they had just managed to get the Syrians out of Lebanon. But because of Israel’s desire to free two soldiers, sixteen years of Lebanese nation building is undone? Doesn’t Lebanon have the right to live without fear of Israeli attacks?
Of course this war isn’t about two captured Israelis. Israeli militants have decided the time has come to destroy their enemies in Syria and Iran. In a desire to create a fantasy world where no Israelis can ever come to harm. Why is this a fantasy world? Because it is also a world where Israel is free to kill and maim their Arab neighbors any time they please. The west does not or cannot see, this is the same old western colonial world where killing brown people is OK but killing white people is a crime. Those days are over, and it’s time for the USA and Israel to make peace with their enemies. It’s not like they posed a serious threat to the world’s two most powerful militaries. There will be no peace as long as Israel and the USA do not respect international law and the sovereignty of other nations.
Israel’s misbegotten war will no more bring about their comic book fantasies of compliant western oriented Arab governments than America invading Iraq caused democracy to flow throughout the middle east.
“They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no head; it will produce no flour. Were it to yield grain, foreigners would swallow it up.” Hosea 8:7
1 Comment
November 25, 2006 at 3:26 am
[...] July 16, 2006 at 11:29 pm · Filed under men Doug writes: “Israeli militants have decided the time has come to destroy their enemies in Syria and Iran. In a desire to create a fantasy world where no Israelis can ever come to harm. Why is this a fantasy world? Because it is also a world where Israel is free to kill and maim their Arab neighbors any time they please.” [...]