Pinging Two Ping Lists!
|
|
Let me know if you want in or out. Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson |
Posted on 07/28/2006 4:55:11 AM PDT by Tolik
A “ceasefire” would occur should Hezbollah give back kidnapped Israelis and stop launching missiles; it would never follow a unilateral cessation of Israeli bombing. In fact, we will hear international calls for one only when Hezbollah’s rockets are about exhausted.
“Civilians” in Lebanon have munitions in their basements and deliberately wish to draw fire; in Israel they are in bunkers to avoid it. Israel uses precision weapons to avoid hitting them; Hezbollah sends random missiles into Israel to ensure they are struck.
“Collateral damage” refers mostly to casualties among Hezbollah’s human shields; it can never be used to describe civilian deaths inside Israel, because everything there is by intent a target.
“Cycle of Violence” is used to denigrate those who are attacked, but are not supposed to win.
“Deliberate” reflects the accuracy of Israeli bombs hitting their targets; it never refers to Hezbollah rockets that are meant to destroy anything they can.
“Deplore” is usually evoked against Israel by those who themselves have slaughtered noncombatants or allowed them to perish — such as the Russians in Grozny, the Syrians in Hama, or the U.N. in Rwanda and Dafur.
“Disproportionate” means that the Hezbollah aggressors whose primitive rockets can’t kill very many Israeli civilians are losing, while the Israelis’ sophisticated response is deadly against the combatants themselves. See “excessive.”
Anytime you hear the adjective “excessive,” Hezbollah is losing. Anytime you don’t, it isn’t.
“Eyewitnesses” usually aren’t, and their testimony is cited only against Israel.
“Grave concern” is used by Europeans and Arabs who privately concede there is no future for Lebanon unless Hezbollah is destroyed — and it should preferably be done by the “Zionists” who can then be easily blamed for doing it.
“Innocent” often refers to Lebanese who aid the stockpiling of rockets or live next to those who do. It rarely refers to Israelis under attack.
The “militants” of Hezbollah don’t wear uniforms, and their prime targets are not those Israelis who do.
“Multinational,” as in “multinational force,” usually means “third-world mercenaries who sympathize with Hezbollah.” See “peacekeepers.”
“Peacekeepers” keep no peace, but always side with the less Western of the belligerents.
“Quarter-ton” is used to describe what in other, non-Israeli militaries are known as “500-pound” bombs.
“Shocked” is used, first, by diplomats who really are not; and, second, only evoked against the response of Israel, never the attack of Hezbollah.
“United Nations Action” refers to an action that Russia or China would not veto. The organization’s operatives usually watch terrorists arm before their eyes. They are almost always guilty of what they accuse others of.
What explains this distortion of language? A lot.
First there is the need for Middle Eastern oil. Take that away, and the war would receive the same scant attention as bloodletting in central Africa.
Then there is the fear of Islamic terrorism. If the Middle East were Buddhist, the world would care about Lebanon as little as it does about occupied Tibet.
And don’t forget the old anti-Semitism. If Russia or France were shelled by neighbors, Putin and Chirac would be threatening nuclear retaliation.
Israel is the symbol of the hated West. Were it a client of China, no one would dare say a word.
Population and size count for a lot: When India threatened Pakistan with nukes for its support of terrorism a few years ago, no one uttered any serious rebuke.
Finally, there is the worry that Israel might upset things in Iraq. If we were not in Afghanistan and Iraq trying to win hearts and minds, we wouldn’t be pressuring Israel behind the scenes.
But most of all, the world deplores the Jewish state because it is strong, and can strike back rather than suffer. In fact, global onlookers would prefer either one of two scenarios for the long-suffering Jews to learn their lesson. The first is absolute symmetry and moral equivalence: when Israel is attacked, it kills only as many as it loses. For each rocket that lands, it drops only one bomb in retaliation — as if any aggressor in the history of warfare has ever ceased its attacks on such insane logic.
The other desideratum is the destruction of Israel itself. Iran promised to wipe Israel off the map, and then gave Hezbollah thousands of missiles to fulfill that pledge. In response, the world snored. If tomorrow more powerful rockets hit Tel Aviv armed with Syrian chemicals or biological agents, or Iranian nukes, the “international” community would urge “restraint” — and keep urging it until Israel disappeared altogether. And the day after its disappearance, the Europeans and Arabs would sigh relief, mumble a few pieties, and then smile, “Life goes on.”
And for them, it would very well.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author, most recently, of A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.
Pinging Two Ping Lists!
|
|
Let me know if you want in or out. Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson |
bump
Consistently superb writings from this man. He nails it again.
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel.
also Keywords 2006israelwar or WOT [War on Terror]
----------------------------
Excellent article.
A very good vocabulary lesson. I plan to memorize the definitions - to use when necessary in conversations with the uninformed, aka consumers of the DBM.
 |
| Sounds like Victor is as frustrated with silly world opinion as I am. |
I have a simple philosophy: No action taken in responce to an aggression by another can be deemed to be "overkill".
Our problem is that everyone has been brought up on those cartoons of the fifties and sixties, where an aggressive bully is overcome and defeated, then allowed to escape, strengthen, and return later for an even stronger aggression; that is, given another chance. Why, in the name of fairness, do we insist on giving a bullying aggressor another chance to kill us?
I just don't understand why nobody educates the public that there are some things in life which don't match the competitive sports analogy, where there are timeouts to rest and the competition is subject to rules of fairness rather than the need to win. Fairness in such life-threatening situations ultimately results in defeat -- and death.
In sports, you win some and you lose some, and a successful season results if you win more than you lose and especially if you win more than your other competitors. In warfare, losing means you don't get to come back and fight another day, because if you lose at warfare, you're dead.
This idea of proportional response is nothing more than nonsense.
Hizbullah wants to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. They willingly kill innocent Lebanese in the process. They willingly die in the process. Nothing Israel does, therefore, can be "disproportionate" or "excessive". It is merely what's necessary to survive against an enemy that cannot be deterred or reasoned with.
"As soon as Israel were wiped off the map, the Islamists' attention would be turned towards Europe." Yes, but they don't understand that.
Ping!
*
You would have to kill a million Jews to wipe Israel off the map. Before that would happen, there would be millions of dead Arabs to bury...
And for them, it would very well.
No, it wouldn't. Maybe this is what Europeans and Arabs would like to think but they are deluding themselves. What these Europeans and Arabs need to realize is that these Jews are not going to go quietly. The repercussions of what happens are going to affect them for a long time; and the sooner they realize that, the better it will be for them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
