Let me begin by laying out my bias for all to see: born in the U.S., immigrated to Israel where I lived for a number of years, served in the IDF, eventually returning to the U.S. where I currently reside.
Obviously I'm pro-Israel, as are many on dKos. And over the last week my unease has slowly yet inexorably grown.
More below the fold:
I'm not uneasy about Israel striking back at Hezbollah, even disproportionately. I don't subscribe to the theory of proportionality, especially in the middle east where strength and capabilities are used to demonstrate deterrence. Initially, I wasn't even that uneasy about projecting Hezbollah onto Lebanon. The Lebanese have, after all, provided some level of comfort to Hezbollah, and have refused to control their own borders.
But my unease has grown. Pictures of Israeli children signing artillery shells? At first I clung to blog posts claiming they were spent Hezbollah shells. Yeah...that wasn't sustainable. So we're left with the thought that Israeli children are acting much like Palestinian children in their glorification of violence, with government sanction (make no mistake about the `government sanction' concept - children don't just sidle up to IDF tanks or artillery units in combat zones without some sort of permission).
Some say: So what? The Palestinians have done this for years. Holding up bloody hands after lynching Israelis. Taking remains of those killed in Israeli strikes on cars. Drawing pictures of killing Jews, and elevating suicide bombers ("shahids') to an almost iconic eminence.
Yes, but that wasn't Israel. That wasn't MY Israel. That was always them, the other side, the "bad" guys. (the `Evildoers,' right?)
MY Israel was born of tragedy, and was my shining beacon of freedom...the courageous story of survival and military superiority and distinction. MY Israel was defensive...stretching out her hand in a gesture of peace while maintaining the capability to rescue hostages at an airport 6,000 miles away in Uganda. Suffering under an arms embargo immediately after her founding, with a handful of holocaust survivors straight from the horrors of Birkenau and Dachau and Bergen-Belsen, fighting off millions of hostile neighbors. MY Israel recognized an Iraqi threat, and in audacious air raid attacked the Osirak reactor 18 miles south of Baghdad in 1981, to considerable world condemnation. MY Israel is a leader in technology and science, exemplified by the tremendous reputation of the Technion in Haifa (Israel's MIT/Cal-Tech). That was MY Israel: the nation of Entebbe and Osirak. The glory, the worldwide admiration, the technical capabilities and remarkable transformation of swampland into lush, fertile farmland.
All forgotten now. Today, Israel is playing by the same rules as those she despises. Mistakes abound. More importantly, Israel's moral authority has been eroded by her own actions. And while I still agree with the desired endgame (in this particular case, the elimination of Hezbollah as a military factor), it is becoming harder and harder to defend her methods.
MY Israel is wistfully remembered as one reads through Leon Uris' tomes. I want MY Israel back. I want a nation that stands as a reminder of man's inhumanity, but also man's ability to overcome inhumanity with fairness, strength and conviction. And I see no way for Israel to recapture that enchanted (and perhaps illusory) standing with today's conflict.
Perhaps MY Israel is a sign of my naiveté. Perhaps she represented an ideal that isn't realizable or sustainable in the world in which we find ourselves. Or perhaps we can weep for her transformation.
Just my two-cents. If you don't like them, send them on to the Treasury Department to begin working our way out from under this horrid debt-load.