Posted on 08/18/2006 12:28:25 AM PDT by goldstategop
We've all known brave soldiers who fought courageously in multiple conflicts only to succumb to lingering and debilitating illnesses years later.
Likewise, history tells us of nations that never lost a battle in combat only to die because they lost their sense of purpose, their will to survive.
I think that's what is happening in Israel today. I think the Jewish state is terminally ill.
Israel may have won three major wars in its 60-year history, but it will be lucky to survive another decade of morally bankrupt leadership.
It's not just former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who is comatose. It seems the whole current Israeli government is brain dead.
How else can one explain Israel's agreement to Lebanon cease-fire terms that amount to unconditional surrender?
I know few other commentators who have explained the development in these stark terms, but this is the reality of what Ehud Olmert's government has done. It represents, in my opinion, one of the biggest strategic blunders in the history of the country.
Let's review what Israel has done:
It launched a war on Iran-directed Hezbollah terrorists after they kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, killed eight others and rocketed northern Israel towns. From the beginning, Israel demanded the return of its troops and the disarming of Hezbollah terrorists.
What did Israel get in the cease-fire deal? No return of the kidnapped troops and Hezbollah terrorists remain under arms.
For the life of me, I don't understand why Israeli civilians are not massing in the streets of Jerusalem demanding the immediate resignation of Olmert and his Cabinet. The Israeli army is returning from Lebanon with its tail between its legs.
How can you ask soldiers to kill and die for a simple objective that is later abandoned without explanation or reason?
Does Olmert not understand what his surrender means? It means he has given aid and comfort to Israel's enemies. He has handed Hezbollah its biggest victory since former Prime Minister Ehud Barak unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon, handing the southern part of the country to Iran's proxy army and positioning it to claim it had defeated the Jewish state.
He has also proved to Israel's other terrorist enemies – those in Hamas and the Palestinian Authority – that rocket attacks, assassinations and kidnappings are winning tactics against the Jewish state. Prepare to see more of them under the terms of this "cease-fire."
He has demonstrated for the entire world that Israel has lost the kind of resolve it had in previous military campaigns. When the going gets tough, today's Jews evidently will just sue for peace.
Hezbollah has won. That's the unimaginable bottom line after this conflict. The terrorists have won – not in the battlefield, mind you. But they won before the war ever began because weak-kneed, cowardly, morally unfit leaders in Jerusalem would never permit Israel to win.
With Hezbollah's victory, Iran and Syria have been emboldened as well. This is bad news not just for Israel, but for the entire world.
If you think I overstate the case, ask yourself this fundamental question: Is Israel more secure after abandoning its conflict in Lebanon or less secure?
You know the answer. Everyone knows the answer.
Israel may have one of the greatest military machines in the world. It may have an intelligence apparatus that is the envy of superpowers. It may even have right on its side.
But Israel is being led by men unworthy of its history, unworthy of its sacrifices, unworthy of its hard-fought victories of the past and unworthy of God's sovereign promises to bless the Jewish state forever.
It's clear the only enemy that could ever destroy Israel is the kind of internal moral rot we are witnessing today in Jerusalem. Israel has just one shot at surviving its terminal illness – cutting out the cancer that is the Olmert government.
Expect a no confidence vote by the end of the year. Olmart is finished.
Prediction : Bibi and Likud back in.
>>It isn't about ideology for someone like Hillary Clinton. It is all about attaining power. The preferred method would be as a socialist. But she'd run as a Bible-thumping moderate with a hawkish defense policy if it garners her 270 electoral votes. I suspect the same could be said about Bayh of Indiana, Mark Warner of Virginia, and Osama Bama Ding Dong of Illinois.
Think it isn't possible? We're rapidly descending to a "only Nixon could go to China" moment...permitting a Dem pseudo-hawk to do with foreign policy what the Republicans have abdicated from doing.
<<
Ehhh, maybe !
getting pretty close to that point if you ask me.
Drop one on Damascus, Tehran, Medina and suddenly the Mideast becomes much more tame.
Vote Bibi. I've been wondering what they're waiting for.
he thinks Olmert will be gone in a few weeks
I wish I could believe that. The shameless weasel will find a way to hang on and brazen it out. Kind of what Clinton did after the Lewinsky scandal broke. Anyone with a sense of shame and honor would have resigned.
Israel needs a buffer zone in Southern Lebanon--period. They are relying on an international force to provide one, but methinks that force will provide cover for Hezbollah more than anything else. Especially if you see it filled with troops from places like Malaysia and Bangladesh. So next time the Israelis need to take-care-of-business, they'll have to fight their way through Hezbollah and the UN.
Who is this non-existing democrat with this self-defeating agenda? He couldn't be electedi n any Primary of the Planet
I am beginning to believe Bibi may return. However, I do believe that Moshe Ya'alon is high up on the list as well. Either way these 2 individuals have what it takes to lead with strength. Not really a hard act to follow (Olmerde).
The "great man" fallacy again.
Israel in its present form is terminal not BECAUSE Olmert is PM, but because it is the People of Israel who put him in office.
Olmert is a nobody. What he signifies is that the People will not defend the land if it is necessary to do so with weapons other than words.
*T'Heck R U talking about. He vetoed it several times before republicans FORCED him to sisgn it as he was heading into an election.
Triangulation? Try reality
It's actually the same person as the mythological 12th Imam, and the unicorn and the centaur and the honest Clinton.......
If Golda Meir was made to resign after 1973 (which was quite perilous for Israel but ended well), Olmert should be tarred, feathered and then made to resign after the fiasco so far...
I don't know about that. I heard this from my friend in Haifa on August 14. She knows the war was necessary but is glad life is returning to "normal". Here's what she wrote.
"The son of a very well known peace activist, and also a will known author, David Goodman....Who only two days ago, begged to end the fighting and bring the soldiers home..His 19 years old son was killed by anti tank rocket fire. This happened not long before the cease fire.hours.I know it is hard on all those parents, but this was so sad,as his father was well respected by the Arab community...Tragic indeed and the fact that he was against all these wars.."
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