> Doug Henwood wrote:
>>
>> On Jul 21, 2006, at 8:30 AM, Bryan Atinsky wrote:
>>
>>> soldiers doing their compulsory service
>>
>> How motivated are these people? How does Israel avoid the Vietnam
>> problem? Are these wars popular enough that conscripts don't get high
>> and frag their bosses?
>>
>> Doug
chance of a fragging near nil...
We will see how things go once there are sizable troops in Lebanon, but for the moment this war is quite popular, from soft left to hard right.
(Check out this from the founder of the Four Mothers, which called for the end of the occupation of South Lebanon: http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/07/21/israeli_peace_activist_says_military_campaign_is_justified/ ...granted she said she would oppose ground troops, but lets see what she does now). Also, have you noticed that while the editorial board at Ha'aretz was quite critical of the Gaza campaign, they have been supportive of the Lebanon campaign? The media and government have been able to frame this well as a defensive war against a terrorist entity who attacked across a definite international border, and the Katyusha fire has cemented it in the psyche of the Israelis that we are being attacked and we are responding as needed defensively. On the three main tv channels 1 (state owned), 2 and 10 (both private ownership), there seems to be very little normal programming...it is nearly all news, and on spot reports of Katyusha hits, plus analysis from the notorious Arab Affairs correspondents. I think that Ilan Pappe's statements from last Feb about them is, mutatis mutandis, even more true than in 'normal circumstances':
“The Israelis are news addicts and the news broadcasts on primetime television are eagerly watched by millions. It is there each night that one can find the images conveyed about Palestinian society in a nutshell, repeated over and over on the TV screen. The ‘painters of these images,’ so to speak, are a very distinct group of people. They are called ‘our correspondents for Arab affairs’: a senior correspondent for the Arab world at large, and a junior one for the Occupied Palestinian Territories. There are three news channels […] So, in total, there are six to seven Arab affairs correspondents. […] Ideologically, they do not differ from one another, and the pictures they draw are not only similar, they are identical. For most Jews in Israel, this is their sole source of information about Palestinian society: its politics, culture and identity. In the daily reports in the Israeli electronic media, the Palestinians are described as being governed by a group of gangsters. Narrow minded politicians—with only personal interest at heart, violent in nature and easily bribed or incited as the case may be—directing, at their whim, a primitive, traditional and underdeveloped society. You can search in vain in these reports for the existence of a national sentiment on the Palestinians’ side, nor can you find any historical context for Palestinian individual or collective actions. There is no physical hardship under occupation, there is no accumulative suffering under the economic strangulation and heavy oppression, and there are no human beings who react—by any standard with a lot of patience—in the face of one of the world’s cruelest occupations in modern times. There is only unexplained and barbaric hatred that has to be contained within walls, fences and military bases”(Ilan Pappe, “Our Correspondents for Arab Affairs” in News from Within,” Vol. XXI, No. 2, February/March 2005).
Moreover, as usual the gov/military is stating that they are doing everything possible to limit civilian casualties, that it is impossible to prevent any civilian casualties (which, in general, is probably true in any military campaign), and, as is the usual Israeli excuse, that the numbers are the fault of the other (Hezbollah in this case) because they purposefully place their installations and katyusha launchers in the middle of civilian areas. And, as usual, most Israelis are buying these reasons/excuses.
So, my perception is, most will accept their tzav 8 (צו 8)(reserve call up papers) and with more conviction than they would have being called to serve in the West Bank or Gaza, they will make their way up north and over the border into Lebanon. At least as things are going the way they are now.