dilemma

Submitted by john h. rubel (United States), Jul 19, 2006 at 21:54

Are the premises of this article adequate to the argument they are designed to sustain? I suggest not. Israel WAS inadequately prepared for the Yom Kippur War, true. But their desire for peace and disengagement was not merely the "exotic" venture of a dispirited and overconfident nation. Surely even Israel at war with Hisbollah STILL desires peace and the disengagement that translates into being left alone to enjoy normal life.

The underlying dilemna, obviously, is the struggle of a tiny, largely Westernized country surrounded by millions of Arab Muslims whose median age is 15-18, raised on hatred of the Jew and Israel, in a culture at odds with the West since Xerxes was driven out of Greece at Plataea 2,500 years ago, to live at a normal temperature in that cultural cauldron.

Israelis know full well that they are damned if they DO and damned if they DON'T. Doing nothing, or the peace thing, will and has invited provocation and obvious preparations to mount ever-larger attacks on Israel. DOING what Israel IS doing to counter that predictably evokes the disapproval of the UN, the EU and US factions and media commentators procaliming OVER-REACTION.

There really is NO reaction that would be okay, except no reaction. By the time the UN and the EU and the rest got around to deciding that Israel was being massacred by Muslim hordes, it would be all over for Israel. Nobody knows THAT better than the Israelis, who, nevertheless, are not entirely independent of the interests, values, indifference, hostility or potential support of the rest of the world outside the region.

The tides of hostile enemies is rising on all sides. Right now, Israel has seized the opening made by Hisbollah to execute what obviously is a well-laid plan prepared long ago. After this, what? The tides of hostile enemies is rising on all sides. Right now, Israel has seized the opening made by Hisbollah to execute what obviously is a well-laid plan prepared long ago. After this, what?

If it is true, as the article says, that Israeli dissillusionments are followed by "orgies" of remorse and reconsideration (if so, a tribute to their civilization), and followed by appeasement and retreat, we may well wonder: just where is the haven to which Israel CAN retreat? When Xenephon led the famous retreat of 10,000 Greek soldiers safely out of Mesopotamia, they could and did go "back home" to Greece. Israel IS home to the embattled Israelis. No real retreat is possible. Alas.

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