Even in the 'liberal' Israeli daily Haaretz, it is not usual to find a columnist opposing Israel's racist war on Lebanon in unambiguous terms.
Gideon Levy devotes much of his essay to tearing the so-called 'Zionist left' a new asshole for their utter uselessness and dependable cravenness on every occasion when Israel launches agrressive, illegal war against civilians in neighboring countries.
Since we've grown accustomed to thinking collective punishment a legitimate weapon, it is no wonder no debate has sparked here over the cruel punishment of Lebanon for Hezbollah's actions. If it was okay in Nablus, why not Beirut?
More in the extended entry:
Lebanon, which has never fought Israel and has 40 daily newspapers, 42 colleges and universities and hundreds of different banks, is being destroyed by our planes and cannon and nobody is taking into account the amount of hatred we are sowing. In international public opinion, Israel has been turned into a monster, and that still hasn't been calculated into the debit column of this war. Israel is badly stained, a moral stain that can't be easily and quickly removed. And only we don't want to see it.
The people want victory, and nobody knows what that is and what its price will be.
The Zionist left has also been made irrelevant. As in every difficult test in the past - the two intifadas for example - this time too the left has failed just when its voice was so necessary as a counterweight to the stridency of the beating tom-toms of war. Why have a left if at every real test it joins the national chorus?
Read the whole thing.