Category Archives: Israel

Israel Needs Precision Pac Men

Israel

My column, Call “Israel Needs Precision Pac Men” (Or “Call Off the Israeli Air Force!”), calls for calling off the Israeli Air Force, “ they’ve done a horrific job:

“But first, let us agree that a lumbering army of reluctant conscripts (IDF) is no match for a lean mean force of volunteers (Hezbollah). In addition, a conventional military force hasn’t the capability to contain an outfit like Hezbollah …
The Golani Brigade, an outstanding elite unit, is now on the ground. But Israel has better. In future, she should consider stationing on the borders the best of her special-operations units such as the ‘Sayeret.’ It’s trained in surgical strikes, including modern urban counterterrorism operations …
Since special ops soldiers are highly select, motivated volunteers, their esprit de corps will match Hezbollah’s. Since they’re trained in precision, “ deep-penetration operations, they won’t be turning countries into parking lots and their inhabitants into homeless people, or piles of ash.

Comments are welcome, but what I said in this post about some missives not being fit for this classical liberal forum obtains. Letters reveling in the joys of killing non-combatants don’t belong here. Sorry.

Israeli Kids are Just Like Palestinian Kids—NOT

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism

Moral relativists desire nothing more than to equate with impunity the rather civilized and way-too-liberal Israeli society with the savage society adjacent to it. Well, to be fair to these equivocators, moral relativism is the least of their problems; outright immorality is. Their general impetus is to delegitimize Israel in any way possible (of course, as I’ve pointed out, Israel may be helping in the effort.) And if this involves ditching the powers of analogy, so be it.

Enemies of Everything Israel sprung into action, concluding that this image is no different to these:

The first is a photo of Israeli little girls from Kiryat Shmona, on the border with Lebanon and subject to many terrorist assaults over the years. The worst was a massacre in which nine children were slaughtered (a family friend—a pathologist—performed the autopsies).

The girls emerged from the shelters after five days of shelling to find their small town crawling with the military and the press, foreign and local. According to Lisa Goldman, one of the parents addressed a tank shell with the words, “To Nasrallah with love.” The kids decorated it with Israeli flags.

Is there anything wrong with this picture? Not to my mind. Nasrallah is a very bad man indeed. I’d gladly add my signature.

The other photos are a slideshow starring future little suicide bombers, dressed in fatigues, carrying arms, or strapped with Toys “R” Us suicide belts, screaming “Itbuch El Yahud”—death to the Jews. This is clearly a communal educational effort, as the tykes are surrounded by immediate and extended family, grandmothers too.

These delightful folks and their progeny are not inveighing against Sharon, Olmert, or the IDF, but against—the Jews. They are dressed to kill.

Contrast that with the little girls in their dainty frocks. They addressed the shell to a man who wants to do them harm, not to the Lebanese people or to all Arabs. Theirs was an act of patriotism. Is it so evil, in this liberal, emasculated, deracinated world to identify with your defenders and hope they win? Apparently so.

And consider this: how likely is it that those girls, now being indirectly maligned, will grow up to be suicide bombers? Yes, you get my drift.

The girls, moreover, do not have the deductive powers to reason that the shell may harm innocents. This is more than can be said for the idiots who equate them with Tots for Terrorism.

The same creeps also disguise their disingenuous unwillingness to draw objective distinctions with simpering, broad-brush generalities: “woe betides me, for all these kids—Jews and Arabs—are victims…”

Repulsive indeed.

Buchanan Again…

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Lebanon, Politics

Larry Auster of View From The Right deftly dissects Patrick Buchanan’s latest outré opinions on Israel:

“ I think it’s a legitimate question whether Israel’s reprisals are going too far. But Buchanan, having set up the entire situation as Israel’s fault, having portrayed Israel as provoking the Palestinians to dig a tunnel into Israel to kill Israelis, having portrayed the Hezbollah attack on Israel as a mere pretext that Israel seized upon to carry out a pre-planned attack on Lebanon (rather than as an act of war by a party that is an elected member of the Lebanese government), and, of course, having totally ignored the Israeli policy of appeasement that led to all this (since that would spoil the picture of Israel as a heartless aggressor) — Buchanan has zero credibility to make the case that the Israeli offense is excessive in execution, though technically justified, since the whole point of the first half of his column is that it is not justified.

Read the blog post, “The Mideast Conflict According to Buchanan, in its entirety, here.

BAB Letter of the Week: Lebanese Must Choose

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East, Terrorism, The Military

As I said, “Letter of the Week” is a feature I’ll endeavor to keep up on Barely a Blog. In response to “Israel Risks Squandering Moral High Ground,” John McClain, a retired Marine who served in Lebanon from 1982 to 1983, shares his insights. I don’t necessarily agree with his argument, mainly because he equates the collective with the individual. (“Facing the Onslaught of Jihad,” while a little dated, discusses some of the issues invloved.) However, his reasoning is realistic—we operate within the confines of the nation-state. He was, moreover, right THERE in the thick of things:

Dear Ms. Mercer,

As a retired Marine who spent from August of 82 through early spring 83 in Beirut, I have a personal connection with what is taking everyone’s attention at this particular moment. I was there when the IDF was there, and when U.S. forces interceded to keep the IDF from confronting the Syrian Army in southern Lebanon. I got to know many Lebanese people, the ordinary workers at the Airport for the most part, and both Muslim and Christian Lebanese were apparently grateful for our intervention.
As you point out, Israel withdrew in full accordance with the U.N. demands, and left Lebanon up to their own defenses. The U.N. did absolutely nothing to enforce any other aspect of its resolution and denigrated all those who disdained their obvious bias.
Now that Israel has been forced to go back, there is no such thing as “losing the moral high ground” when it comes to defending your own Nation. This right of self-defense is an extension of what we consider a “natural right of self-defense.” As a person, and under actual attack, there are no reasonable limits in one’s acts of tactics used for survival.
The issue with Lebanese civilians is entirely the fault of the Lebanese people themselves. They have chosen to make Hezbollah part of their nation, and when that part of their chosen nation attacks another sovereign nation, the attacking faction represents Lebanon, so the onus of “cause” falls on their own shoulders.
The defense minister of Lebanon has said that if Israel launches a ground offensive, he will have no choice but to oppose the IDF with the Lebanese Army. Why is it that the Lebanese Army has the capacity to confront the world’s most experienced modern military force—one that no one has defeated—yet they cannot disarm terrorists who are their own citizens? The two things cannot co-exist, either they have the forces to defend their nation, and therefore are fully responsible for what their people do, or they can’t confront their own enemy, and under such circumstances, they must accept the incursions by Israel as legitimate defense not only of Israel, but of the free and democratic people of Lebanon. If the Lebanese people don’t see it this way, then they have openly declared their support for Hezbollah, and therefore must accept what ever befalls their nation as the results of their own actions or inactions.
The greatest lesson my mother ever taught was one that caught me harshly every time. She raised us with the full understanding that we were responsible for our own actions regardless of outside influences. The lesson was: “not to decide is to decide,” and it completely encompasses this issue today. If the Lebanese people wish to be counted as part of the civilized world, then they cannot accept terrorist groups as part of their legitimate government. If they choose to keep Hezbollah as a legitimate part of their government, then they must accept that the enemy of Hezbollah is their enemy also, and they must be prepared for the response of their enemy to the actions of their Hezbollah compatriots. When I was walking the streets of Beirut, I believed the people who seemed happy for our intervention. All the good intents are of no value if they are not supported by action, and the Lebanese people have long accepted the notion that a substantial part of their citizens are terrorists and wish to see Israel gone. Just as the United States cannot distance itsself from what the U.S. Army does [and Israelis from what their army does.–ILANA], neither can the Lebanese disassociate themselves from what their fellow citizens do in the name of Lebanon. I can have no pity for anyone who will not fight for their own freedom, and the people of Lebanon have had ample opportunity to choose sides. They apparently have, and they will reap the whirlwind.

Sincerely,
John McClain
GySgt, USMC, ret.