Israel/Lebanon and Iraq
A good set of observations from Glenn Greenwald on Israel-Lebanon and the implications of Lebanon for our own war in Iraq:
These columns illustrate several important points:
1) Many Israelis are openly acknowledging that the Israel-Lebanon war has been a disaster for Israel;
2) Waging unnecessary wars, particularly when they are waged poorly, makes a nation much weaker, not stronger (see, e.g., Iraq);
3) Contrary to the reprehensible accusations in this country that opposition to, or criticism of, the Israel-Lebanon war is evidence of anti-Israel bias or even anti-Semitism, many people are opposed to the war — and critical of President Bush’s foolishly unrestrained support for it — precisely because it is so harmful to Israel;
4) Israel’s democracy is sufficiently healthy that journalists and other citizens not only can criticize the country’s leader in the middle of a war but can call for his resignation — without being branded a traitor, a subversive, a coward and all of the other slurs to which Bush critics in the U.S. are routinely subjected.
However, it should be noted that Haaretz journalist Ari Shavit’s call for Olmert’s resignation comes from the hawkish Israeli left devastatingly dissected here and mirrors neocon criticism that a good and necessary war had been bungled by timid leaders–not all of the wartime dissent in Israel is coming down on the side of objecting to the war itself. These sorts of objections are like those of Kristol and McCain that we need to send more troops to Iraq and that we need to be more aggressive. One wonders, though, how many Americans will continue to be “more Zionist than the Israelis,” so to speak, and fail to see Israelis themselves turning against an ill-conceived, unwise and unjustly executed war.
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