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July 26, 2006
The War against the self-named Party of God
I fully support Israel's attempt to destroy the self-named Party of God AKA Hezbollah. Hezbollah has a stated objective to destroy the state of Israel. Hezbollah is a part of Lebanon's government and has ruled much of southern Lebanon for a decade. They have also hidden their war materials quite carefully amoung civilian infrastructurs as much as possible. To the Western idea of rules of war and keeping military supplies and soldiers seperate from civilian, Hezbollah says "We do this for good reason. We want civilian casualties."
The good news (rather, the news that could be worse) is that Hezbollah hasn't used chemical, biological or nuclear weapons against Israel. Almost certainly becuase they don't have them.
The bad news is that it is not clear how Israel's creation of a new 15-mile buffer in Lebanon will improve the situation. The limited war aims of the Israeli government seem unlikely to do much long term damage to Hezbollah. It is true a 15 mile buffer will spare Israel from bombardment by simple rockets, but what about large missiles which Hezbollah will continue to get from Iran (or Syria)?
Certainly the attacks on Israel by Hezbollah give the lie to the idea that Israel can exchange some land for peace with the Arabs. So far Gaza has been the stage for many rocket attacks and so (recently) as southern Lebanon.
This is how Melanie Phillips sees the current British media attitude towards the conflict:
- But the moral crisis in Britain extends far wider and deeper than the wretched BBC and other media. The surreally distorted response by so many to Israel’s attempt to destroy the would-be purveyors of genocide raises the question of whether Britain will ever again support a just war — because it no longer knows what a just war is, and no longer has the intellectual capacity to know. This is in large measure because moral agency has disappeared altogether from the analysis. Intention, the essence of moral actions, is now tossed aside as of no significance. All that matters are the consequences of an action. This is in accordance with the prevailing amoral consensus which has negated moral agency altogether in order to remove the burden of personal responsibility. What someone intends to do is therefore held to be of no account. All that matters is the consequences of their action.
So the fact that Israel is at war solely to prevent the deaths of innocents is dismissed. All that matters is that the consequences of its actions are that Lebanese civilians are dying. The fact that the Israelis do not intend them to die is irrelevant. Those deaths are deemed to be the equivalent of the deaths caused by Hezbollah. The fact that Hezbollah deliberately sets out to murder innocent Israelis is irrelevant. Thus the only thing that matters is which side has more dead people. The fact that there are more dead Lebanese than dead Israelis settles the matter. The Israelis are in the wrong, are behaving disproportionately, are committing war crimes, are the villains of the piece. The fact that they are actually the victims of unprovoked genocidal aggression is deemed irrelevant. Thus the moral bankruptcy of Britain’s post-modern cultural desert.
I see the reason to view the current war in this moral-free-way is because there seem to be no good solutions. The Hezbollah hate Israel and are not willing to compromise. Hamas (in power in the south) also hate Israel and seem unwilling to compromise. The logical response to people who have an unwaving hatred and no willingness to negotiate is clearly violence until one side or the other is defeated and surrenders. As this level of violence will produce many civilian casualities, the average person throws up their hands and says "why can't they just live together in peace?"
Well quite clearly Israel can live peacefully with its neighbors, but Hezbollah is not interested in peace, nor is Hamas. It is possible to have no peace but no war but only if both sides refrain from using violence and that hasn't happened on the Arab side.
Posted by rakhier at July 26, 2006 12:16 PM