That seems a bit simplistic to me, Anonymous. I/S made the good point the other day that this type of conflict is fought among the civilian population because there is nowhere else to fight it.
This conflict is particularly complex, because there is no obvious right or wrong. There are powerful reasons to accept and support a Jewish state. Yet that state has powerful problems and injusticies that can be laid at its door.
Black and white (or jew and arab) views of this will never solve things. Justice for one means injustice for another. We need more creative and tolerant thinking to deal with this.
Meanwhile, the fact is that this was a hugely embarassing tactical defeat for Israel. However, it was of minor strategic importance - because they don't want to occupy Lebanon anyway.
It does annoy me when people like fisk say "repeatedly claiming it was trying to avoid civilian casualties" Obviouly the israeli army was trying to avoid killing civilians or they would have used chemical weapons and fire-bombs to kill everyone. What Fisk means was "they did not try hard enough".
Meanwhile those who wanted them to win are probably thinking "actually, tried a little too hard"
That seems a bit simplistic to me, Anonymous. I/S made the good point the other day that this type of conflict is fought among the civilian population because there is nowhere else to fight it.
ReplyDeleteThis conflict is particularly complex, because there is no obvious right or wrong. There are powerful reasons to accept and support a Jewish state. Yet that state has powerful problems and injusticies that can be laid at its door.
Black and white (or jew and arab) views of this will never solve things. Justice for one means injustice for another. We need more creative and tolerant thinking to deal with this.
Meanwhile, the fact is that this was a hugely embarassing tactical defeat for Israel. However, it was of minor strategic importance - because they don't want to occupy Lebanon anyway.
It does annoy me when people like fisk say "repeatedly claiming it was trying to avoid civilian casualties" Obviouly the israeli army was trying to avoid killing civilians or they would have used chemical weapons and fire-bombs to kill everyone. What Fisk means was "they did not try hard enough".
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile those who wanted them to win are probably thinking "actually, tried a little too hard"
GNZ