If the war, the "this" was not inevitable. "'This' -- as Bukhakin told the Great Purge Trial Prosecutor Vyshinky, "is the most difficult word in Hegel's philosophy." At "this" point, everyone in the region, and despite some loose and silly talk from the President (of Iran), the Iranians too -- de facto accepts the existence of Israel inside the Green Line. All the Israelis have to to do is to get the fuck out of the West Bank and Gaza and now Lebanin, and treat their neighbors like reasonable antagonists rather than like the subjects of an occupation, and there will be no or few rockets or suicide bombers. I
It will not all stop at once because US and Israeli policy has made a lot of intransigent enemies who will take a lot of persuading that Israel as a state is not a psychopathic butcher, if they can be persuded at all. But reasonably civil even if politely hostile treatment will drain the extremists of their support, because most Arabs and Muslims in the region really just want to be left to make a living.
The current and long-standing policy of war, occupation, and military retaliation, by contrast, produces rockets and suicide bombers and will do so ad infinitum -- at least until someone who is not responsible gets hold of something really nasty chemical, biological, or nuclear, and uses it, as will happen sooner or later. And of course the Israeli response will be the Samson option -- to blow everything up as they go down. It is as plain as the nose on your face. Even an Israeli politician should be able to see this coming, as it has been for 40 some years.
So, Michael, the question of what children were doing in a "war zone," aside from being appalling and inappropriate (what were children doing in London during the Blitz or Dresden or Tokyo during the thousand bomber raids?) is desperately misguided if you want to avert catastrophe on a far greater level than the killing of some Lebanese children who had the misfortune live in the path of the "inevitable," while you condemn "this," whatever "this" is.
Personally I feel desperate --I cannot imagine anything that will stop this awful war -- at least, having been beaten in Iraq, the US will go home in five or six years and some hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths. But the Israeli government . . . .
I really need to know what, if anything, I can do. Besides the usual pointless marches, vigils, and letters.
--- Carl Remick <carlremick at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: "Michael Pugliese"
> <michael.098762001 at gmail.com>
> >
> > Oh brother, of coarse I condemn this. ... [But]
> > Given that Hizbollah has their rockets placed in
> dense, urban
> >areas, this is inevitable,
>
> Yes, that's what I consider a coarse "condemnation."
>
> Carl
>
>
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