Saturday, July 29, 2006
Anti-Israel criticism.
In addition to my last post about the Israel-Hizballah conflict (press link to go to the other post), I'd like to talk about criticism against Israel and why they are not benefitting any side, not to mention a two-sided solution.
So let's examine the types of criticism Israel as a government and as a people gets:
Neo-Nazi/Anti-Semetic (when I say Anti-Semetic, I mean Anti-Jewish, despite other people being of that same category):
Now, you are probably asking "why address this kind of group in the first place, they are not going to change", but I want introduce you to all types and you can decide what is just, what is democratic, what is inciting, what is damaging, etc...
So, those groups not only do they believe in the destruction of Israel, they also believe in hurting Jews as much as they can.
Examples of their ideologies: denial of the Jewish Holocaust, seeing Jews and other people as sub-human or instead see themselves superior next to the said people, facsism (not democratic, the strong one rules) and a few other anti-Democratic ideologies.
I believe that Anti-Semetism in 19th-20th century in Europe evolved from ignorance, simply people like to hate other people - hatred generates national identity 'us against them'.
However, some more radical Anti-Semetic groups, namely Nazis evolved from desperation, Hitler needed a quick, easy, powerful national identity to make sure things work well, and it worked for him at first.
However, there aren't so many Jews in Europe currently, so Anti-Semetism and Neo-Nazism also naturally became an Anti-Israel ideology, considering that the Nazis actually wanted the Jews out of Europe in the first place, quite ironic.
Radical Anti-Zionism:
There are groups, even Orthodox Jewish among them who claim that the creation of Israel was a mistake for the many reasons (Palestinian problem, can't really have a state for Jews before the Messiah comes, etc...).
Now, being more moderate and at least not openly Anti-Semetic, those groups claim that (despite being impossible) the state of Israel time needs to end.
You probably sense the vagueness of this ideology, as long as Israel exists it will be criticised by that group but also it is impossible to go 60 years back, therefore this ideology does not promote anything but more hatred to Israel which creates racism and discrimination towards Israelis around the world (hence "Boycott Israel", "Jews Against Zionism", etc...).
Also, I find this ideology to be racist because being Israeli is ethnic.
If you think this ideology is just, try to figure how many people you are hurting.
Anti-Israeli occupation/Pro-Palestinian state solution:
Now, this ideology is generally ok; being anti-war and looking for the safety of people is a good thing.
However, some people who share this ideology forget that they are criticising actions rather than intentions; Israel does not intend to gain any benefit from occupying land, it intends to silence terrorism and civilians are being hurt.
After all, the purpose of the Israeli government is to protect its people.
Let's look at it differently, what would your country do if it's being terrorised by a neighbour nation? normally, they'd go on an offensive to silence the source of terrorism, the means are never just because it's war, but the intention is pure and legitimate: guarantee the safety of your people.
To make it simple, the cause of this criticism is terrorism in the first place, Israel is being criticised for going to war, can you suggest any other solution?
Generally speaking, in my opinion, this type of criticism does not help anybody, it may generate a more extreme type of ideology (see below), and it isn't realistic, countries go to war, if you want to criticise war, do it in general, don't criticise Israel.
So if you look for something that can benefit our region, try my diplomatic ideology which is guaranteed to be the best solution and to make the middle east a peaceful place:
1. Israel, Palestine and the Middle East people are victims of all the hatred.
2. Terrorist organizations (i.e. unauthorized, non-democratic, civilian targetting groups) should be criticized and banned.
3. Israel overreaction shall be condemned, NOT Israel itself.
4. Understanding that the people in the region have strong ideologies, some are justified and some are not, the sources of those ideologies shall be condemnded (i.e. propganda, education) and that people should strive to avoid hatred in general; understand your enemy, do not hate it.
Thank you very much for reading, I hope we will all be entitled to diplomacy, and that peace and love will overcome hate (real peace, not on paper).
So let's examine the types of criticism Israel as a government and as a people gets:
Neo-Nazi/Anti-Semetic (when I say Anti-Semetic, I mean Anti-Jewish, despite other people being of that same category):
Now, you are probably asking "why address this kind of group in the first place, they are not going to change", but I want introduce you to all types and you can decide what is just, what is democratic, what is inciting, what is damaging, etc...
So, those groups not only do they believe in the destruction of Israel, they also believe in hurting Jews as much as they can.
Examples of their ideologies: denial of the Jewish Holocaust, seeing Jews and other people as sub-human or instead see themselves superior next to the said people, facsism (not democratic, the strong one rules) and a few other anti-Democratic ideologies.
I believe that Anti-Semetism in 19th-20th century in Europe evolved from ignorance, simply people like to hate other people - hatred generates national identity 'us against them'.
However, some more radical Anti-Semetic groups, namely Nazis evolved from desperation, Hitler needed a quick, easy, powerful national identity to make sure things work well, and it worked for him at first.
However, there aren't so many Jews in Europe currently, so Anti-Semetism and Neo-Nazism also naturally became an Anti-Israel ideology, considering that the Nazis actually wanted the Jews out of Europe in the first place, quite ironic.
Radical Anti-Zionism:
There are groups, even Orthodox Jewish among them who claim that the creation of Israel was a mistake for the many reasons (Palestinian problem, can't really have a state for Jews before the Messiah comes, etc...).
Now, being more moderate and at least not openly Anti-Semetic, those groups claim that (despite being impossible) the state of Israel time needs to end.
You probably sense the vagueness of this ideology, as long as Israel exists it will be criticised by that group but also it is impossible to go 60 years back, therefore this ideology does not promote anything but more hatred to Israel which creates racism and discrimination towards Israelis around the world (hence "Boycott Israel", "Jews Against Zionism", etc...).
Also, I find this ideology to be racist because being Israeli is ethnic.
If you think this ideology is just, try to figure how many people you are hurting.
Anti-Israeli occupation/Pro-Palestinian state solution:
Now, this ideology is generally ok; being anti-war and looking for the safety of people is a good thing.
However, some people who share this ideology forget that they are criticising actions rather than intentions; Israel does not intend to gain any benefit from occupying land, it intends to silence terrorism and civilians are being hurt.
After all, the purpose of the Israeli government is to protect its people.
Let's look at it differently, what would your country do if it's being terrorised by a neighbour nation? normally, they'd go on an offensive to silence the source of terrorism, the means are never just because it's war, but the intention is pure and legitimate: guarantee the safety of your people.
To make it simple, the cause of this criticism is terrorism in the first place, Israel is being criticised for going to war, can you suggest any other solution?
Generally speaking, in my opinion, this type of criticism does not help anybody, it may generate a more extreme type of ideology (see below), and it isn't realistic, countries go to war, if you want to criticise war, do it in general, don't criticise Israel.
So if you look for something that can benefit our region, try my diplomatic ideology which is guaranteed to be the best solution and to make the middle east a peaceful place:
1. Israel, Palestine and the Middle East people are victims of all the hatred.
2. Terrorist organizations (i.e. unauthorized, non-democratic, civilian targetting groups) should be criticized and banned.
3. Israel overreaction shall be condemned, NOT Israel itself.
4. Understanding that the people in the region have strong ideologies, some are justified and some are not, the sources of those ideologies shall be condemnded (i.e. propganda, education) and that people should strive to avoid hatred in general; understand your enemy, do not hate it.
Thank you very much for reading, I hope we will all be entitled to diplomacy, and that peace and love will overcome hate (real peace, not on paper).
Thursday, July 27, 2006
The Israeli-Hizballah conflict - my view.
Due to the intensity and seriousness of the conflict in Israel (against Hizballah - an armed party in Lebanon), I'd like to share what I think about the situation.
A brief to this conflict: about two weeks ago Hizballah decided to launch a military-political operation called "True Promise", an operation which its goals were to rescue Lebannese prisoners who are kept by Israel, Samir Kuntar among them.
The operation conisted of infiltration to Israeli territory, kidnapping two Israeli soldiers (and killing a few others) who were on patrol and on top of it, they launched Katyusha rockets on Israel as a diversion.
The kidnapped soldiers shall be used for prisoner exchange - it's not the first time Hizballah launches such operation, it is one of the fewest times however that Israel responds by attacking without negotiating at all, as they feel Hizballah is pulling Israel's strings, and Israel is tired of it.
Israel responded with an immediate military operation, bombing Lebannese territory which they claim is being used by Hizballah as infrastructure and recently launching limited ground attacks on southern Lebanon - the goals of the Israeli operation are vague but are known to A) cause Hizballah to be disarmed and B) return the kidnapped soldiers.
As for now, the conflict is in its stat-quo situation which is consistent attacks from the air on Beirut and southern Lebanon, plus a small ground military operation (Israel), and about one-hundred missiles a day being fired from Lebannese territory towards Northern Israel (Hizballah), the Lebannese government however demands cease fire.
Needless to say how deadly this operation is, we'll skip to the point.
Hizballah - I don't have any problems with the ideologies of this group, if they want to hate Israel, they can hate it how much they like and their local affairs shouldn't bother me, I do not sympathize their ideology, just feel that they have right to believe in what they want.
On the other hand, being a political party in a country which claims to be democratic, they have NO right to have their own military, they have no right to control Lebannese territory and most importantly, they have no right to attack Israel on the behalf of Lebanon, they weren't democratically selected to do so, I feel that Lebanon is paying the price for this; Hizballah IS the major problem in this conflict and should be disarmed or at least lose their military control in Lebanon.
Israel - I believe that the operation against Hizballah is necessary, Hizballah is not going to stop bothering Israel and they are surely not going to be disarmed on their own.
Many people think that the Israeli operation is not justified, in reply to only 2 soldiers being kidnapped and a few missile attacks, however, let us not forget that the above aggression is the last straw in this whole Israeli-Hizballah conflict, all of the diplomatic attempts were failed, a UN force which was sent to Lebanon to silence Hizballah is not doing its job, something the UN is very good at, watching as an observer and never really risk their forces.
Israel had no choice but to launch an offensive to mute Hizballah once and for all, and for this I support the government in full.
I do not however think the means, specifically the air raids are the right tool for the job, not only many innocent people are being hurt- hundreds of dead Lebannese civilians and hundreds of thousand people being evacuated out of Lebanon, this is not going to benefit Israel;
I think the large scale air campaign was selected because Israel fears of another Israeli-Lebanon war and rightly so, the said war costed over six-hundred Israeli soldiers (about 25% the casualty size of Israel's deadliest war - Kipur... this is a catastrophic size).
So therefore Israel has full legitimacy to act in Lebanon, the means might not be just, but that's beside point... Israel had ENOUGH of it.
I'd like to add that from my knowledge about military operations, air attacks are not a good tool against terrorist/guerilla infrastrcuture simply because the infrastructure is mostly civilian, the air force, no matter how precise it is can never pinpoint the exact targets.
Next time I'll talk about how and why Israel is being internationally criticised and what are the consequences of it.
A brief to this conflict: about two weeks ago Hizballah decided to launch a military-political operation called "True Promise", an operation which its goals were to rescue Lebannese prisoners who are kept by Israel, Samir Kuntar among them.
The operation conisted of infiltration to Israeli territory, kidnapping two Israeli soldiers (and killing a few others) who were on patrol and on top of it, they launched Katyusha rockets on Israel as a diversion.
The kidnapped soldiers shall be used for prisoner exchange - it's not the first time Hizballah launches such operation, it is one of the fewest times however that Israel responds by attacking without negotiating at all, as they feel Hizballah is pulling Israel's strings, and Israel is tired of it.
Israel responded with an immediate military operation, bombing Lebannese territory which they claim is being used by Hizballah as infrastructure and recently launching limited ground attacks on southern Lebanon - the goals of the Israeli operation are vague but are known to A) cause Hizballah to be disarmed and B) return the kidnapped soldiers.
As for now, the conflict is in its stat-quo situation which is consistent attacks from the air on Beirut and southern Lebanon, plus a small ground military operation (Israel), and about one-hundred missiles a day being fired from Lebannese territory towards Northern Israel (Hizballah), the Lebannese government however demands cease fire.
Needless to say how deadly this operation is, we'll skip to the point.
Hizballah - I don't have any problems with the ideologies of this group, if they want to hate Israel, they can hate it how much they like and their local affairs shouldn't bother me, I do not sympathize their ideology, just feel that they have right to believe in what they want.
On the other hand, being a political party in a country which claims to be democratic, they have NO right to have their own military, they have no right to control Lebannese territory and most importantly, they have no right to attack Israel on the behalf of Lebanon, they weren't democratically selected to do so, I feel that Lebanon is paying the price for this; Hizballah IS the major problem in this conflict and should be disarmed or at least lose their military control in Lebanon.
Israel - I believe that the operation against Hizballah is necessary, Hizballah is not going to stop bothering Israel and they are surely not going to be disarmed on their own.
Many people think that the Israeli operation is not justified, in reply to only 2 soldiers being kidnapped and a few missile attacks, however, let us not forget that the above aggression is the last straw in this whole Israeli-Hizballah conflict, all of the diplomatic attempts were failed, a UN force which was sent to Lebanon to silence Hizballah is not doing its job, something the UN is very good at, watching as an observer and never really risk their forces.
Israel had no choice but to launch an offensive to mute Hizballah once and for all, and for this I support the government in full.
I do not however think the means, specifically the air raids are the right tool for the job, not only many innocent people are being hurt- hundreds of dead Lebannese civilians and hundreds of thousand people being evacuated out of Lebanon, this is not going to benefit Israel;
I think the large scale air campaign was selected because Israel fears of another Israeli-Lebanon war and rightly so, the said war costed over six-hundred Israeli soldiers (about 25% the casualty size of Israel's deadliest war - Kipur... this is a catastrophic size).
So therefore Israel has full legitimacy to act in Lebanon, the means might not be just, but that's beside point... Israel had ENOUGH of it.
I'd like to add that from my knowledge about military operations, air attacks are not a good tool against terrorist/guerilla infrastrcuture simply because the infrastructure is mostly civilian, the air force, no matter how precise it is can never pinpoint the exact targets.
Next time I'll talk about how and why Israel is being internationally criticised and what are the consequences of it.
