Israel has bombed Lebanon’s airport and instituted a naval blockade, essentially holding the entire Lebanese people hostage. Hezbollah, the renegade militant organization with reputed assistance and encouragement from Iran and Syria, had previously launched some missiles into Israel and had captured a few Israeli soldiers to use as barter and leverage for the soldiers or civilians abducted by Israel previously. These Hezbollah capturings follow the capture of a single Israeli solder in Gaza a few days earlier and massive retaliation and move into Gaza territory by Israel as a response on that front.
Reportedly some Lebanese are pretty pissed off at Hezbollah, who may have liked nothing better than to “set things off”, and in this case they seem to have been granted their wish. The inappropriately massive Israeli response has been condemned by the EU and others, but in a funny way it may have reinforced the Lebanese disavowal and disenfranchisement of Hezbollah, which is the desired effect, according to Israel. We’ll see if that doesn’t change to support as the bodies add up. Beirut, once the Paris of the middle east, is still a vacation spot for Arabs, but probably not this summer — which will mean a big loss of revenue for a country just pulling itself together.
(Still thinking about those dogs in Argentina. How some can’t resist periodic incursions into others’ territory, despite the inevitable and painful repercussions. How dogs form temporary alliances. How they often bluff, or attempt to bluff, those with greater strength.)
A dangerous game. Israel’s inappropriately large response (73 Lebanese civilians dead at last count) may have the desired effect of alienating the Lebanese people (and the Palestinians) from the radicals in their midst, but it may also serve to rile up and provoke the surrounding nations who would like nothing better than an excuse to attack Israel. Israel naturally feels that they have the tacit unspoken support of the mighty U.S. should any such larger scale attack occur, and this is probably true. For now. And Israel has superior military arms, technology and strength. (The U.S. looked the other way as Israel developed the bomb.) But with oil getting scarcer and scarcer one wonders how long those U.S. promises to protect Israel will hold out. The U.S., it will be remembered, did NOT welcome Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis with open arms — they were often turned away. Many went to Argentina. (Many of the members of La Portuaria have Jewish ancestry.) Odd that Argentina would also welcome fleeing Nazis in later years — or maybe that was the ultimate act of neutrality. Anyway, the U.S. has found ways to reverse its promises and commitments in the past, and oil may be a powerful and sad pragmatic incentive to do so in the future.
Hezbollah leader: "You wanted open war. We are ready for an open war."
I remember years ago during a lovely Seder dinner in Sydney with a friend’s extended family there was talk of “bombing them all”. It reminded me of the quote from Gen. Westmoreland in the Vietnam era urging the U.S. to bomb the Vietnamese back to the Stone Age.
