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Not every Arab commentator automatically blames Israel There is a very interesting editorial in the Arab Times that takes the view that Hezbollah is a blight on Lebanon. Moreover the writer, Arab Times chief editor Ahmed Al-Jarallah, clearly dislikes the fact that it is the Lebanese people, not Syria and Iran, who are paying the price for Hezbollah’s lethal antics. He is none too flattering about the Lebanese government either.
[Hezbollah leader] Nasrallah has dragged Lebanon and its people into misfortune. In spite of the destruction caused by Israel, Lebanese politicians don’t want to be frank with their people and tell them that they should not support Nasrallah’s decision to declare war on Israel. Nasrallah has hijacked the authority of the Lebanese government to have control over the people of Lebanon while Lebanese politicians continue to remain mute spectators without voicing their true feelings.
Read the whole thing for a very clear Arab opinion of where the blame should lie for the ongoing horror… and it is not Israel.
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Ever wonder why a newspaper based in Kuwait that purports to be a voice of Arab opinion publishes its paper in English?
In any event, if you take the Arab Times to be representative of Arab opinion, then you will no doubt be cheered to find that Arabs believe that, “Bush is the President of not only the United States but the whole world for he is making history on this small planet”, and that Iraq, “is making progress towards completing the foundations of an exemplary country that will be the beacon of freedom, democracy, and respect to human rights”.
What do you hope to accomplish by providing an echo chamber for juvenile propaganda?
I was pretty sure I would never read an article like that & am flabbergasted to hear the voice of reason out there…………………Is there hope?……Maybe?
Felix, the irony of your comment no doubt escapes you but to find an Arab commentator who does not just reflect the unthinking anti-Israeli echo chamber is quite refreshing.
You must be shocked to discover there are people who actually see the world differently to you.
Oh, and may Arab papers have English language editions. Duh.
It does not take an intellectual colossus to make the causal links here – Hezbollah committed an act of war against Israel from the Lebanese territory that it controls, thereby causing a war with Israel without so much as a “by your leave” from the notional Lebanese government. Far from excoriating Hezbollah, the Lebanese government tacitly admitted they do not control their country by doing precisely nothing.
The fact that an Arab journalist accepting that Hezbollah started this chain of events is even worthy of comment is a measure of how hopeless a large portion of Arab culture must be. At least in the west delusional fools like Robert Fisk are a minority.
Last night, on Australian SBS news, there was BBC report from the Mid. East in which the correspondent stated that “Hezbolla drove Israel out of Southern Lebanon” in 2000.
Fantasy is rife everywhere; I have no problem accepting that there are pockets of realism scattered about as well.
There is a certain amount of goodwill for Israel among Arabs because they must admit that Hezbollah is the guilty party. That goodwill will vanish when Israel decides to extend this mission beyond Hezbollah. And they will.
Well why do you think they left? You do not have to be an anti-semitic idiot to recognize that Hezbollah are a formidable enemy and Israel does not like fighting wars of attrition.
Israel left Lebanon because they decided it was no longer in their interests to remain there, for several reasons.
The more important point is each time Israel tries to do what many think is the right thing – withdrawal from Lebanon, from Gaza – its enemies trumpet this as Israel’s “defeat”, thus encouraging them to continue the violence and making the prospect of further withdrawal by Israel more remote. The real turning point would be if an Arab/ Hamas/ Hisbollah spokesman welcomed Israel’s moves and promised reciprocal gestures.
“Israel left Lebanon because they decided it was no longer in their interests to remain there, for several reasons.”
Israel left Lebanon because it was unable and unwilling to continue to sustain the losses that Hizbollah inflicted on it’s army. This, in pure military jargon means: Israel folded and fled under hostile pressure.
Israel is doing now what should have been done back in the late 1990ies – inflicting casualties and damage on it’s enemies which will, maybe, cause them to dessist from their aggression.
Jacob is correct but I would describe what Israel did as sound military judgement. I would say they ‘retreated’ to defensible positions inside Israel rather than they were ‘defeated’. The IDF was exposed and taking losses for no commensurate gain, so they pulled out. Sounds perfectly sensible to me.
Whatever I thought at the start of this current mess, what is done is done and I now think Israel must stay the course and go for the kill against Hezbollah. I also think that perforce requires a highly destructive war with Syria which the objective of either complete capitulation or the complete destruction of Syria’s logistic war-making ability… and and quite possibly strikes against Iran as well.
“I also think that perforce requires a highly destructive war with Syria which the objective of either complete capitulation or the complete destruction of Syria’s logistic war-making ability… and and quite possibly strikes against Iran as well.”
Syria and Iran have a huge arsenal of long range missiles, probably WMD tipped (chemical and bactereological, at least).
You have to be very careful about that.
Israel, of course, also has some resources, but I wouldn’t want this can of worms opened at this time (or ever).
To build upon permanentexpat’s point, I wonder if Jewish bloggers – who harbor no love for the Arab press (with good reason) – will acknowledge Mr. Al-Jarallah’s* sober commentary.
*Is that the proper form?
…meant to say, “..will acknowlege Mr. Al-Jarallah’s sober commentary as a welcome voice in the wilderness.”
Perry, about the “retreat” from Lebanon in 2000:
“I would describe what Israel did as sound military judgement. I would say they ‘retreated’ to defensible positions…”
Wrong.
What Israel retreated to weren’t militarily “defensible positions”, it retreated to within it’s political borders, not to militarily advantageous positions. The better military positions were right where they were sitting inside Lebanon. It wasn’t a military judgement, it was a political one, driven by weakness.
The retreat was politically motivated, in the hope that Hizbollah will be nice guys and leave us alone.
We now “enjoy” the fruits of that decision.
I disagree Jacob. The IDF did not have the strategic ability to take those sort of losses on a continual basis, losses they stopped taking as soon as they moved back into Israel, ergo they were by defination in more defensible positions… so much for the military facts.
However the mistake (and it was a big one) was political and that was abandoning the Israeli backed South Lebanese Army to its fate (and without warning), making it hard for any anti-Hezbollah Lebanese faction to ever trust Israel again.
I once discussed the SLA and “Hadad-land” with a Lebanese chum of mine in the USA and he said to me (he was a Christian militia leader, though not in the south and I believe he still has active ties back there) “the SLA thought they could depend on an alliance with Israel because people like us share common enemies, but I guess we were just expendable Arabs to them after all”.
Perhaps not entirely fair but it is not hard to see how some anti-Hezbollah Lebanese might be a bit bitter towards Israel.
Shiite commentators will be more complimentary than Sunni as hezbollah is Shiite driven. This is the only reason for any equivocation on any issue involving Israel. My personal view is that they are all full of shit and any reasonable sounding rhetoric is…well rhetoric,self serving. Who do you want to be terrorized by, shiite or sunni?
Perry,
“However the mistake (and it was a big one) was political and that was abandoning the Israeli backed South Lebanese Army to its fate”
Correct, but there was no way of supporting and helping the SLA once the IDF abandoned the area.
The problem with the SLA was that it lost it’s effectiveness and some of it’s soldiers even started to collaborate with Hizbollah, once they sensed the weakenss of Israel and it’s intention of leaving. It was the disintegration of the SLA and Hizbollah’s breaktrough in their sectors that caused the unplanned, hasty retreat of IDF.
All that is true, Jacob. Hezbollah had infiltrated elements of the SLA.
Was Israel right to bale from South Lebanon? Probably, but I wish they had planned it a great deal better so that the SLA was not left hanging.
As it was some SLA people were given shelter (and in fact citizenship) in Israel, but that does not disguise the fact it was a badly handled dog’s dinner.
“…it was a badly handled dog’s dinner.”
No doubt about that.
Various Christian groups have been betrayed in Lebanon again and again (by various powers – not just Israel).
As for trying to make deals with Hiz. Some people value their lives so highly that are prepared to do almost anything to stay alive.
It is odd when one considers that everyone dies anyway.
I suppose it is a desire “to see another day” and so on.
As for Felix (and other supporters of the Hiz, the Iraqi “resistance” and lots of other groups).
I suppose it just some leftists going from a belief in buidling something (however evil), to just a desire to destroy.
Instead of working to build the “social justice” society (as experiments in this – from Lenin to Pol Pot have not turned out well) some modern leftists have just mutated into “death-to-America” types.
They no longer care who they ally with – as long as these allies are the enemies of the United States.
On the question of Israel:
Whether the choice to take on the Hiz was wise or not – the choice has been made and now the Hiz must be defeated (or Israel will be greatly weakened).
It is much the same as Iraq.
Whether the choice to try and create a democracy in Iraq was wise or not (and I tend to the opinion that it was not wise), the fight must now be carried on to the finish.
No game playing (as in Vietnam), the enemy must be destroyed.
Ecomomic lessons should not be forgotten.
Whether they are the mad trade restrictions that Israel put on Southern Lebanon in the 1980s (which helped push people into the hands of the Hiz) or the demented price controls that have long existed in Iraq (the government there needs to do what was done in West Germany in 1948).
As for Afghan matters: The “war on drugs” is absurd, it is pushing farmers towads the Taliban.
Whether the choice to try and create a democracy in Iraq was wise or not (and I tend to the opinion that it was not wise), the fight must now be carried on to the finish.
No game playing (as in Vietnam), the enemy must be destroyed.
I would say that argument isn’t even confined to those who see a pure motive in the invasion: whether you see it as creating democracy, opposing terrorism, profiteering, establishing hegemony, a personal vendetta, or just the toppling of a psychopath (personal vendetta in a good way 🙂 ), we have to finish what we started. Whether going in was right and wrong to begin with, leaving now is wrong. Not just strategically, but morally too.
But most people don’t seem to see that “we shouldn’t have gone” and “we shouldn’t stay” are two different statements.