There is so much shit flying around as regards the situation with Israel, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip that it's hard to know where to start, or to try to narrow this post down to a single relatively coherent strand.
(Though first I must make mention of team Bush's initial response, after six days of escalating violence, a spokeman said yesterday that the administration would "likely" dispatch Condi Rice to the Middle east "at some point in the future." The whole powderkeg's on the verge of exploding, and this is how the leader of the free world deals?)
Obviously, there's a lot of bad blood flowing in all directions here. Long standing grudges are coming into play. Israel is pissed at Palestine for electing a Hamas-based government, since Hamas is a terrorist organization devoted to the destrucion of Israel. Ah, but this government was democratically elected, by a people pissed off at Israel's bullying tactics along the Gaza Strip. But Israel's bullying tactics were as a result of Palestine...It goes on and on, an Escher print of resentment and denial, in which all perspectives are warped or non-existant.
So there's that. But for me, the real chamber of horrors here is the wrath-o'-God fury Israel is unleashing on Lebanon. Israel's rationale is that they are "defending" themselves, that they are under attack from Hezbollah, a terrorist faction based in Lebanon. Okay...but Hezbollah is not in any way sanctioned by the Lebanese government. Doesn't matter, according to Israel, because by not somehow reigning them in, the government is at fault. Therefore, Israel is justified in attacking Palestine. Not just attacking suspected Hezbollah strongholds, mind you, but deliberately targeting the very infrastructure of the nation, knowing full well the level of suffering this will bring to ordinary citizens.
It's a strange thing--on the world stage, to criticize Israel is to be branded an anti-Semite. So the world remains largely silent, suggesting that the Israeli government is--perhaps, just maybe--overreacting a little. Nobody seems willing to follow Israel's twisted logic to its obvious, chilling conclusion.
Namely, if an entire nation and all its citizens can be held accountable for the rogue actions of a few--who do not represent the government or its peoples--and if said accountability involves the deliberate murder of civilians, how is that honestly different from what happened on 9/11?
