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Aug. 23, 2006 Ben Franklin once opined that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. By this definition, Israel’s current government must be insane. Under the flimsy banner of another truce sponsored by the United Nations, Israel has agreed to pull its forces out of southern Lebanon. The UN will fill that void, an 18-mile buffer zone below the Latani River, with a multinational force of 15,000 troops. Lebanon’s government will augment that number with 15,000 of its own soldiers. Right out of the gate, the mission seems doomed to fail. The same polyglot force of uninspired peacekeepers, so infamous for its uncanny ability to allow wholesale genocide in Kosovo and Rwanda, is now supposed to stop determined militants from lobbing rockets into Israel and kidnapping their soldiers. It gets worse. The French, once considered as possible leaders for the mission – and that’s worth a raised eyebrow in itself - have already shown a case of cold feet. They will only commit if the Lebanese army takes care of the tricky part: disarming Hezbollah. The French military has hardly distinguished itself in the past century, save perhaps the 1st Battle of the Marne and a few scenes from “Beau Geste,” but their Lebanese counterpart is even less intimidating. Our Salvation Army could probably take over Lebanon on a good day. To assume that the Lebanese can effectively disarm a terrorist group, with whom many of their soldiers may even harbor some degree of sympathy, strains credulity. To put it another way, the French stance is like Barney Miller agreeing to keep an eye on Hannibal Lecter, but only if Barney Fife puts him in the straightjacket first. While this fiasco unfolds, the ceasefire ends, for now at least, 30-plus days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. However, the entire arrangement operates under the horrible assumption that the latter group is as keen to make nice as a bunch of diplomats on the East River. Hezbollah’s original “mission statement” was to get Israel out of southern Lebanon. One can assume, given their recent encroachment into Israeli territory, that the original charter was reworked sometime around 2000, right after Israel obligingly pulled out of the region. Time and again in the past six years, Israel has been coaxed into unilateral disengagement from the “occupied” territories – Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon – only to be rewarded with terrorist attacks staged from much of the same land. Think of it this way: If you had a neighbor with a propensity for whacking you in the head with his shovel every now and then, at some point you would be compelled to take the shovel out of his hands. In Israel’s situation, the quaint, if disingenuous, claims of “occupied land” are the equivalent of that same neighbor saying, “You took my shovel!” That is to say that the statement is technically true, but ignores the broader context. From its inception in 1948, Israel has waged a nearly nonstop war for its very existence. This latest episode, like the others, is about a hatred of Israel and Jews, not “land for peace,” or a Palestinian state, or any of the other red herring reasons thrown out there by the blame Israel community. If other Arab nations were really that concerned about a Palestinian nation – which has never formally existed – they could easily look to Jordan, where 60% of the population is ethnically Palestinian. This is a war of ideology and survival. A hastily prepared UN resolution is not going to have any lasting effect, especially when it is to be “enforced” by a Benetton commercial in snappy blue helmets. Israel used to understand this. But now, under international pressure, their current government is once again tilting at windmills. And at their own peril. ------------ About Matthew Bastian: Recovering socialst, part-time drummer, long-suffering Brewers fan, and all-around beach hound, Mr. Bastian lives in central New Jersey. Email Matthew Bastian: mbastian19@hotmail.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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