Sunday, July 20, 2014

Israelis and Americans: Recover Your Souls

The Israeli slaughter of Gaza civilians continues uninterrupted by any human decency inside Israelis or by the ridiculous pretense of Western respect for human life or the rule of law.

It also continues unchallenged by the threat of countervailing force.

The at least 1,600 Hamas and other rockets have so far, killed one Israeli (a civilian; one other was killed by mortar fire).  In addition to being, in my view, impermissible (there is a legal right to resist aggression and occupation, but the rocket tactic does threaten civilians), they constitute perhaps the least effective munitions in warfare history.

The rockets are no deterrent to Israel.  They give Israel political cover.

The only partial deterrent, that used to exist, was from the armies of Arab states like Egypt, and, in recent times, the briefly floated -- and abandoned -- notion that Turkey might stand up somehow.

Lethal violence is an abomination, but, on rare occasions, it is necessary, if using or threatening it against armed killers is what truly seems required to save lives.

The Israeli polity is in a state of something like sustained war frenzy.  It requires inflicting periodic Arab or Muslim mass death for energy and rejustification.

It is a hotter, faster-paced version of the US doctrine/ compulsion.

As the US strategist Michael Ledeen once explained it: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business" ( as rendered by Jonah Goldberg in the conservative National Review online, April 23, 2002).

Faced with countries like this that feel internally compelled to continually kill beyond their borders, it is justified for the outside world to consider using armed deterrence.

This is an ugly, dangerous, state of affairs.

There is a better -- peaceful -- alternative:  Israelis and Americans, recover your souls.  Stand up and say no more slaughter.


Allan Nairn 



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