Israel is back?

Submitted by Abu Nudnik (Canada), Apr 2, 2009 at 17:39

My favorite line of the speech? "The fact that we say the word 'peace' twenty times a day will not bring peace any closer."

Years ago I was vehemently excoriated just for responding to the question "surely you are in favor of land for peace?" with the question "Do you mean the word "peace" or peace itself?" (peace is easy to lose, land quite hard to get back) as if there could be no doubt that the two were the same thing. Since "d'varim" means both "words" and "acts" in Hebrew, perhaps it's deep in the collective unconscious of my unfortunately naive race.

Well, we'll see if it's talk or more than talk. It used to be that every strike against Israel received a strike in return. By sitting out the 91 war, Israel fell back on its heels. It needs to reassert that it will defend itself no matter what "world opinion" is - a world opinion formed in great part (what about the "anti-Israel Lobby?") by lazy and stupid journalists like those working for the LA Times in the case you mention. It isn't necessary to be stupid to be a journalist but, these days, laziness is a prerequisite.

In response to a letter protesting that the BBC ought to get two independent confirmations before printing a story because the reader, not being on the scene is incompetent to establish facts they responded that they were proud to report rumors and their denials and leave the reader to decide for him(her)self based on his/her prejudices. Really! I kid you not!

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