Newsgroup: it.arti.cinema
Titolo: [MO]  thread contenitore

http://www.disinformazione.it/israele7.htm
-- 
www.iaciners.org
Napoleon Dynamite: You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills,
computer hacking skills... Girls only want boyfriends who have great
skills.

 
http://www.disinformazione.it/israele7.htm
Anche tu con questi cazzo di link buttati alla peggio.
-- 
Joe
« Adesso lo posso dire, io stanotte non ho chiuso occhio fino alle 7 di
mattina, sono andato ventotto volte al bagno. Alla fine mi sono messo un
cubetto di ghiaccio... avete capito dove. Ma è stata brutta, ma brutta
brutta brutta"

Fosforo bianco Munizioni termobariche sulle città libanesi. 
Decine di civili carbonizzati, tanti i bambini
Armi proibite, come a Falluja
Manlio Dinucci (manifesto)
Sembra una piccola mummia egizia. Non risale però amigliaia
di anni fa, ma a pochi giorni fa. E’ una bambina libanese: il corpo
intatto,ma interamente nero, come mummificato. E’ una delle foto che
documentano che le forze israeliane stanno usando in Libano bombe al
fosforo bianco e probabilmente altre armi chimiche anche di nuovo tipo.
Immagini che ricordano quelle di Falluja, quelle della «strage nascosta»
documentata da Rai- News24 nel novembre 2005. Siamo di fronte a un’altra
strage nascosta, questa volta in Libano. Lo testimonia il prof. Bachir
Cham, un medico di origine libanese che dirige un ospedale in Libano
affiancato da altri medici belgi. In una conferenza stampa organizzata a
Bruxelles dalla segreteria dell’arcivescovo di Tripoli Mons. Jean Abboud,
il prof.Chamha dichiarato (via telefono mobile) che sono stati portati al
suo ospedale e fotografati otto corpi «dall’aspetto di mummie»,tra cui
quelli di due bambini. Sui corpi «non vi sono segni di ferite provocate da
esplosione: ho l’impressione che un prodotto tossico sia penetrato nei
corpi attraverso la pelle, provocando la morte». Che le forze israeliane
abbiano proiettili di artiglieria al fosforo bianco lo ha documentato il
giornale israeliano Haaretz il 10 novembre 2005 (subito dopo il
documentario di RaiNews24 su Falluja), inunarticolo intitolato «Le forze
didifesa israeliane usano proiettili al fosforo nelle esercitazioni,
contro la legge internazionale». Il fatto è venuto alla luce perché, il 17
agosto 2005, un giovane beduino era stato ucciso e altri tre gravemente
feriti dalla detonazione di un proiettile al fosforo inesploso, trovato
sulle colline di Hebron. Non potendo negare l’episodio, il portavoce delle
forze armate israeliane lo definì «uno sfortunato incidente», aggiungendo
che «i proiettili al fosforo vengono usati unicamente nelle esercitazioni
per illuminare gli obiettivi». La stessa spiegazione che proprio in quei
giorni forniva il Pentagono, assicurando che «a Falluja le forze Usa hanno
impiegato proiettili al fosforo solo a scopi di illuminazione». Subito
dopo, però, l’Usinfo (il programma governativo di informazione
internazionale) doveva prendere atto del rapporto pubblicato dalla rivista
dell’esercito Usa Field Artillery (riportato dal manifesto il 12-11-2005)
e ammettere, smentendosi, che le forze Usa avevano impiegato proiettili al
fosforo in operazioni «scuoti e cuoci» condotte contro gli insorti di
Falluja. Il fosforo bianco è un’arma proibita dal Protocollo sulle armi
incendiarie (1980): esso vieta l’uso di tali armi contro obiettivi
militari situati in zone in cui sono concentrati civili. Solo che Israele,
come gli Stati uniti, non lo hanno sottoscritto negandone la validità. Vi
sono ormai le prove, anche fotografiche, che le forze israeliane usano
proiettili al fosforo in Libano e a Gaza.Vi sono inoltre seri indizi
sull’uso di altre armi chimiche, anche di nuovo tipo. Lo confermano le
istruzioni inviate il 23 luglio agli organi di stampa dal colonnello Sima
Vaknin-Gil, capo censore militare israeliano. Neldocumento (di cui abbiamo
avuto indirettamente copia) si proibisce ai giornalisti che seguono le
operazioni terrestri in Libano di fornire informazioni sull’«uso di tipi
unici di munizioni e armamenti». Nonostante la proibizione, è stata
diffusa la foto di uno speciale proiettile usato in Libano. Secondo gli
esperti, può contenere o fosforo bianco o altre sostanze chimiche usate
per le munizioni termobariche: esplodendo all’interno di edifici e rifugi,
esse creano il «vuoto», ossia risucchiano l’aria dall’ambiente e dai
polmoni di chi si trova al loro interno. Altri tipi di proiettili
aria-combustibile, giunti in prossimità del suolo, spargono una nube di
aerosol chimico che, fatta detonare da una spoletta, crea un’onda d’urto e
una tempesta di fuoco tali da uccidere chiunque nel raggio di centinaia di
metri. E, poiché il capo censore militare proibisce di dare informazioni
sui «tipi unici di munizioni e armamenti », è praticamente certo che in
Libano vengono usate anche armi segrete di nuovo tipo. Vengono così
testate nelle condizioni reali di una guerra per essere perfezionate.
L’Italianon è estranea a tutto questo. Lamaggior parte di queste armi è
fornita a Israele dagli Stati uniti emolte passano daCampDarby e altre
basiUsa nel nostro paese. Per di più la Legge 17 maggio 2005 n. 94, che
istituzionalizza la cooperazione tra iministeri della difesa e le forze
armate di Italia e Israele, prevede la «cooperazione nella ricerca, nello
sviluppo e nella produzione » di tecnologie militari tramite «lo scambio
di dati tecnici, informazioni e hardware» e incoraggia «le rispettive
industrie nella ricerca di progetti e materiali» di interesse comune.
Tutto sotto la cappa del segreto militare. Non è quindi escluso che
qualche arma di «tipo unico», sperimentata dalle forze israeliane nel
«poligono» libanese, incorpori già tecnologia italiana.

On Israel, We Must Never Be Silent 
By Jonathan Tasini
July 27, 2006, CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0727-22.htm
When I announced that I was entering the race for the US
Senate, I began with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.:
'Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things
that matter.' I am not a professional politician whose sole
goal is to accumulate power, so I have the freedom to speak my
mind and I will not be silent.
The truth is that while people view talking about Israel-
Palestine as the 'third rail' of politics in New York, the
more I think about it, the more I realize that there are a
growing number of people in the Jewish community who are
willing to speak up, out of love for Israel, about the
dreadful occupation and the never-ending violence that is
spinning out of control, in large part because the United
States-and politicians like Hillary Clinton-continue to
blindly pursue a one-sided policy in the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict, a policy that is causing more death and sorrow for
civilians on all sides of the conflict.
From the beginning of this race, I was committed to speaking
the truth, whether about the Iraq war/occupation or abusive
corporate power or the corruption coursing through our
political system. People are simply fed up with the pandering,
the triangulation, and the inability to speak the truth that
is endangering our country's future, our relations in the
world, and our well-being at home. We need a real opposition
party, a Democratic Party with a vision that has the spine to
stand for something authentic and honest.
It's worth voters in New York knowing a little about where I
come from on the issue of Israel-Palestine and the raging
conflict engulfing the region today. I speak about Israel out
of love and pain, in the same way that I am a deeply patriotic
American who is harshly critical of our government and its
behavior in Iraq-and of Hillary Clinton's vote to send our men
and women to die in an illegal, immoral war.
My father was born in then-Palestine. He fought in the Haganah
(the Israeli underground) in the war of independence; my
father's cousin, whose name I carry as a middle name, was
killed in that war. I lived in Israel for seven years, during
which I went through the 1973 war: a cousin of mine was killed
in that war, leaving a young widow and two children, and his
brother was wounded. My step-grandfather, an old man who was
no threat to anyone, was killed by a Palestinian who took an
axe to his head while he was sitting quietly on a park bench.
Half my family still lives in Israel. I have seen enough
bloodshed, tears, and parents burying their children to last
many lifetimes.
For that reason, I believe passionately in a two-state
solution, which includes a strong, independent, economically
viable Palestinian state existing alongside a strong,
independent, economically vibrant Israel. It is the only
solution that will bring peace to the civilians who now live
in fear of death raining down from above-either because of the
missiles of Hezbollah or the bombs of Israeli aircraft.
So, here is what I said-and did not say-that has touched off
this discussion and the press coverage (I certainly hope there
is such interest when I release my economic program). I did
not say that Israel is a terrorist state. I did say-and have
said for a long time-that Israel has committed acts that
violate international standards and the Geneva conventions. In
Israel, my statement that the military has committed acts that
violate the Geneva convention and international standards and
has also engaged in torture (or, as it is called, 'moderate
pressure') would be a subject of debate but hardly considered
novel or particularly radical. Among the many sources for the
truth, beyond my personal experience, is the English/Israeli
human rights organization, B'Tselem. If you visit the
organization's website, you will find condemnation of both
Israeli and Palestinian violence against civilians of each
side.
Here is what B'Tselem says about the current escalation:
'…the organization reiterates that international humanitarian
law (IHL) obligates all parties taking part in hostilities to
refrain from launching attacks against civilians or against
civilian objects. IHL requires that the combating sides direct
their attacks only against specific military objectives, take
cautionary measures to prevent injury to civilians, and
refrain from disproportionate attacks, i.e. attacks directed
against legitimate targets, but that are likely to cause
excessive harm to civilians. Furthermore, IHL clearly forbids
the intimidation and terrorising of civilians, as well as
collective punishment.
Over the past week, Israel has killed hundreds of Lebanese
civilians in its attacks against targets in Lebanon. There is
a concern that at least some of them were disproportionate
attacks, which constitute war crimes. In addition, Israel has
launched deliberate attacks against civilian infrastructure
throughout Lebanon, such as bridges, the Beirut international
airport , the electricity supply and fuel reservoirs. There is
a concern that such attacks are intended to put pressure on
the Lebanese Government and not to obtain a specific military
advantage. If this is the case, these attacks constitute
collective punishment and a grave violation of IHL. Moreover,
even if these targets constitute legitimate military objects,
or civilian objectives that may be used for military purposes,
Israel must respect the principle of proportionality and
refrain from attacks that would cause excessive harm to
civilians.'
The problem is not the debate in Israel. The problem is the
debate-or lack thereof-in the United States. We should not
allow the power brokers in Washington, DC to silence the
voices of people who love Israel but are willing to stand up
and be critical of its policies.
Senator Clinton's spokesperson has called my comments 'beyond
the pale.' With all due respect, it is Senator Clinton's
behavior, lack of leadership, and failure to call for a
respect for international law that should be questioned by the
press, the Jewish community, and the voters of New York. At a
time when the violence against people on both sides of the
border has killed hundreds of innocent people (mostly
Lebanese), Hillary Clinton has fanned the flames of the
conflict by recognizing and condemning the violence only
against Israelis and effectively encouraging military action.
I, too, have stated clearly, from the outset, that Hezbollah's
actions violate international law. But, to ignore Israel's
actions is abhorrent, weak, and cowardly.
I don't believe Senator Clinton is a true friend of Israel. A
friend of Israel, not someone who simply seeks votes, would
understand that employing collective punishment against people
in Lebanon only embitters a population, possibly for
generations, and that even a short-term military victory will
be empty if it leaves behind a shattered country. As an
article in the New York Times illustrated: 'We're not
Hezbollah supporters, but we cannot excuse what the Israelis
are doing,' said Rima Beydoun, a secular Shiite who owns an
advertising agency. 'We knew there would be repercussions, but
no one expected they would be like this,' Mr. Salhab, the
filmmaker, said of Shiite support for Hezbollah. 'I am very
critical of that part of my country, but I have to put it
aside, because we are being destroyed. At this point, I can't
just say: Hezbollah, go to hell.'
A friend of Israel, not someone who simply seeks votes, would
never have stood before the 'security wall' in the West Bank,
as Senator Clinton did, and praised it-even though it has been
found to be illegal under international law and by the Israeli
Supreme Court (which said that, if a wall needed to be built,
it should not stray outside the 'green line' into the occupied
territories). A friend of Israel would argue strenuously that
Israel's moral fiber and its security is weakened every moment
that that wall stands in its place, in violation of the law of
Israel, severing families from their land, separating people
and filling more people with rage and despair.
A friend of Israel, not someone who simply seeks votes, would
deplore the collective punishment employed by the Israeli army
in Gaza. As Rabbi Michael Lerner has suggested, in the wake of
the democratic elections that brought Hamas to power in Gaza,
'Instead of narrowly focusing on Hamas's capacity to make war,
the Israelis chose the path of collective punishment, a
frequently ineffective counterinsurgency policy used to
eliminate public support for resistance movements. In the
height of the oppressive summer heat, Israel bombed the
electricity grid, effectively cutting off Gaza's water and the
electricity needed to keep refrigeration working, thereby
guaranteeing a dramatic decrease in food for the area's
already destitute, million-plus population. This act was yet
another violation of international law that include[d] the
arrests of thousands by Israelis and the shooting of Qassams
at population centers by Hamas.'
I have challenged Senator Clinton to come out into the public
arena, stop hiding behind her spokespeople and spinners and
image consultants. Let's debate the future of Israel and
Palestine, publicly, on television, in front of the voters.
Right now, in the coming days, because the violence in the
Middle East is rising. Pick the time and place.
I would end with this thought: As a Jew, I have always been
proud of the Jewish concept of 'Tikkun Olam' or 'repairing the
world.' I like to think that that is what brought so many Jews
into the civil rights and labor movements in the 1960s and
1970s, and into the current anti-war movement-and, personally,
guided me into the world of social justice work. I feel great
sorrow that Israel is an occupier of another people and I
believe that Israel can never be whole and can never be at
peace until that occupation is ended in a just way. And I also
believe that the concept of Tikkun Olam means that we must
never be silent.
-- 
www.iaciners.org
[Introducing Alex at the convention]
Announcer: Give him a hand, he's British.

On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 17:44:27 +0200, AP wrote:
In merito al dibattito sulla televisione e l'informazione:
------------------
Bush's Enemy du Jour
By Marjorie Cohn
American television broadcasts, replete with images of
dead and wounded civilians, and buildings reduced to
rubble in Lebanon, are accompanied by voiceovers
supporting Israel's right to "self-defense."
The word "Hezbollah" is seldom mentioned in a sentence
unaccompanied by the word "terrorist."
Commentators speculate on whether al Qaeda or Hezbollah
is a worse terrorist threat to the United States.
Richard L. Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State during
Bush's first term, has said Hezbollah might be "the
A-team of terrorists," and that "Al Qaeda is actually
the B-team."
Former CIA agent Robert Baer admits there is no
evidence Hezbollah is operating in the United States.
But in response to questioning by a "fair and balanced"
Fox News anchor, Baer speculates that Hezbollah "could"
attack on US soil.
Hezbollah is George W. Bush's enemy du jour.
Although suspected of complicity in the 1985 hijacking
of a TWA jet, Hezbollah denies ever attacking anyone
outside of Lebanon and Israel. The group, which
comprises the Shiite brand of Islam, doesn't even
attack other sects inside Lebanon. Its leader Sheikh
Hassan Nasrallah claims Hezbollah is "like Jesus,"
citing the group's 2000 action in Lebanon, where
Hezbollah did not take vengeance within Lebanon.
There is overwhelming support for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
According to a poll by the Beirut Center for Research
and Information, 87 percent of Lebanese support
Hezbollah's fight with Israel. The level of support for
Hezbollah is high among non-Shiite communities. Eighty
percent of Christians, 80 percent of Druze and 89
percent of Sunnis polled support Hezbollah.
These numbers are likely to rise in the wake of
Israel's bombing of Qana yesterday, which killed over
60 civilians, mostly children. Thousands in the Middle
East have taken to the streets, outraged at the
carnage.
Unlike Osama bin Laden, who targets pro-Western Arab
countries, Nasrallah tells Saudi Arabia, Egypt and
Jordan to just stay neutral in this conflict.
In a televised speech on Saturday, Nasrallah said, "The
Israelis are ready to halt aggression because they are
afraid of the unknown. The one pushing for the
continuation of the aggression is the US
administration. Israel has been exposed as a slave of
the US," he said.
Noam Chomsky says we should always call it the
"American-Israeli destruction of Lebanon." Although he
thinks Israel started with proportional force as in the
past, the US began pushing its one-sided view of the
conflict at the G-8 summit. Bush reportedly told
Israel: you can't stop now; you're acting for all of
us.
That was a green light for Israel, acting on orders
from the United States.
If not, why is so much attention focused on Condoleezza
Rice's every move? Because her boss is in charge of
this war.
While the rest of the world calls for an immediate
ceasefire, Bush-Rice's excuses just don't wash. They
blame Iran and Syria. They say they want a
"sustainable" ceasefire - to build "a New Middle East."
Bush started his dangerous folly in another Middle
Eastern country - the former "central war on terror:"
Iraq.
Bush has created such a disaster there that many Iraqis
who hated Saddam Hussein wish he were still in power.
According to a United Nations report, 14,338 civilians
died violently in Iraq in the first six months of this
year. That tally is based on figures from the Iraqi
Ministry of Health and Baghdad's central morgue.
An average of more than 100 Iraqi civilians were killed
per day last month, the UN reported. The overwhelming
majority of the casualties in recent months took place
in Baghdad.
The report said, "Civilians are reported to be severely
affected by heavy MNF [Multi-National Force] bombing."
Samuel W. Bodman, the US energy secretary, must've had
his rosy-colored glasses on when he recently met with
Iraq's oil and electricity ministers in Baghdad. "The
situation seems far more stable than when I was here
two or three years ago. The security seems better,
people are more relaxed. There is an optimism, at least
among the people I talked to," he said cheerfully.
Of course, Bodman gave his interview from the heavily
fortified Green Zone, the only place in Iraq other than
the Kurdish north that has any security at all.
"Killings, kidnappings and torture remain widespread"
in Iraq, according to the UN report.
"In some Baghdad neighborhoods, women are now prevented
from going to the markets alone," the report says.
Attorney Nadia Keilani told an audience at a recent San
Diego teach-in that
if a woman leaves her house with her head uncovered,
she is often stopped and her head shaved as a warning. 
The next time, she is beheaded.
Keilani's 26-year-old cousin leaves her home in Iraq
only three times a month. She spends her days looking
through a peephole. "She is a prisoner in her own
home," Keilani said.
Homosexuals are "increasingly threatened and
extra-judicially executed by militias and 'death
squads' because of their sexual orientation," the UN
reported.
"Attacks against teachers, university professors and
students as well as extremists inside universities
resulted in numerous deaths and an increasing number of
academics and intellectuals leaving the country," the
UN found.
Eighty-four percent of the colleges have been
destroyed, Keilani noted.
Kidnappings proliferate, according to the UN. Many
hostages are killed even after the ransom is paid.
The "extent of the violence in areas" other than the
Kurdish region "is such that likely every child, to
some degree, has been exposed to it," the UN report
says.
Yesterday's New York Times reported: "Iraq's anemic
investigative agencies have been ill-equipped to keep
up with soaring crime, so for families seeking
information, the morgues have often provided the only
certainty."
Yet people who go to the morgue to retrieve their loves
ones are often kidnapped and killed if their identity
card says Sunni instead of Shiite.
Things are going so badly in Iraq that the tours of
4,000 US soldiers who had been slated to leave have
been extended for up to four months.
Iraq's leaders elected under occupation with Bush's
blessing are refusing to toe the line. Mahmoud
al-Mashhadani, speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, called
the US invasion of Iraq "the work of butchers." He said
the US government wanted Iraq "to stay under the
American boot."
"Leave us to solve our problems," al-Mashhadani
declared. "We don't need an agenda from outside."
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is caught between
Iraq and the Bush place.
At a Washington news conference last week, al-Maliki
criticized Israel's air strikes in Lebanon and urged an
immediate ceasefire "to stop the killing and the
destruction."
A resolution of the Iraqi parliament had called
Israel's attacks "criminal aggression."
In an attempt to appear more pro-Israel than the
Republicans, twenty congressional Democrats called for
the cancellation of al-Maliki's address to a joint
session of Congress because he wouldn't condemn
Hezbollah.
Al-Maliki addressed Congress as planned, but forgot to
mention the war on Lebanon for some reason.
An influential Iraqi Shiite cleric, Sheik Aws Khafaji,
called al-Maliki's visit to Washington a betrayal of
Islam and a humiliation to the Iraqi people. "What
forced you to eat with the occupiers?", Khafaji asked.
"Is that your reward? You know more than anybody else
that the car bombings, terrorism, explosions and
bloodletting in Iraq are under the protection of the
Zionist-American plans."
This morning, Bush said "the status quo in the Middle
East" led to the 9/11 deaths.
He's right, but for the wrong reasons. It was not Iraq,
Hezbollah, Iran or Syria that perpetrated the September
11 attacks. It was al Qaeda. What was Osama bin Laden
so upset about? US-UN sanctions against the people of
Iraq, US bases in Saudi Arabia, and US-Israel's
treatment of the Palestinians.
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School
of Law, president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild,
and the US representative to the executive committee of
the American Association of Jurists. 
-- 
www.iaciners.org
Napoleon Dynamite: Just tell them that their wildest dreams will come true
if they vote for you.

"What Can Israel Achieve?"
by Immanuel Wallerstein
Commentary No. 190, August 1, 2006
The State of Israel was established in 1948. Ever
since, there has been continuous violence between Jews
and Arabs in Israel, and between Israel and its
neighbors. Sometimes, the violence was low-level and
even latent. And every once in a while, the violence
escalated into open warfare, as now. Whenever full-
scale violence broke out, there was an immediate debate
about what started it, as though that mattered. We are
now in the midst of warfare between Israel and
Palestine in Gaza and between Israel and Lebanon. And
the world is engaged in its usual futile debate about
how to reduce the open state of warfare to low-level
violence.
Every Israeli government has wished to create a
situation in which the world and Israel's neighbors
recognize its existence as a state and
intergroup/interstate violence ceases. Israel has never
been able to achieve this. When the level of violence
is relatively low, the Israeli public is split about
what strategy to pursue. But when it escalates into
warfare, the Jewish Israelis and world Jewry tend to
rally around the government.
In reality, Israel's basic strategy since 1948 has been
to rely on two things in the pursuit of its objectives:
a strong military, and strong outside Western support.
So far this strategy has worked in one sense: Israel
still survives. The question is how much longer this
strategy will in fact continue to work.
The source of outside support has shifted over time. We
forget completely that in 1948 the crucial military
support for Israel came from the Soviet Union and its
eastern European satellites. When the Soviet Union
pulled back, it was France that came to fill the role.
France was engaged in a revolution in Algeria, and it
saw Israel as a crucial element in defeating the
Algerian national liberation movement. But when Algeria
became independent in 1962, France dropped Israel
because it then sought to maintain ties with a now-
independent Algeria.
It is only after that moment that the United States
moved into its present total support of Israel. One
major element in this turn-around was the Israeli
military victory in the Six Days War in 1967. In this
war, Israel conquered all the territories of the old
British Mandate of Palestine, as well as more. It
proved its ability to be a strong military presence in
the region. It transformed the attitude of world Jewry
from one in which only about 50% really approved of the
creation of Israel into one which had the support of
the large majority of world Jewry, for whom Israel had
now become a source of pride. This is the moment when
the Holocaust became a major ideological justification
for Israel and its policies.
After 1967, the Israeli governments never felt they had
to negotiate anything with the Palestinians or with the
Arab world. They offered one-sided settlements but
these were always on Israeli terms. Israel wouldn't
negotiate with Nasser. Then it wouldn't negotiate with
Arafat. And now it won't negotiate with so-called
terrorists. Instead, it has relied on successive shows
of military strength.
Israel is now engaged in the exact same catastrophic
blunder, from its own point of view, as George Bush's
invasion of Iraq. Bush thought that a show of military
strength would establish U.S. presence unquestionably
in Iraq and intimidate the rest of the world. Bush has
discovered that Iraqi resistance was far more
formidable militarily than anticipated, that American
political allies in Iraq were far less reliable than he
assumed they would be, and that the U.S. public's
support of the war was far more fragile than he
expected. The United States is heading towards a
humiliating withdrawal from Iraq.
Israel's current military campaign is a direct parallel
of Bush's invasion of Iraq. The Israeli generals are
already noting that Hezbollah's military is far more
formidable than anticipated, that U.S. allies in the
region are already taking wide distance from the United
States and Israel (note the Iraqi government's support
of Lebanon and now that of the Saudi government), and
soon will discover that the Israeli public's support is
more fragile than expected. Already the Israeli
government is reluctant to send land troops into
Lebanon, largely because of what it thinks will be the
reaction of its own people inside Israel. Israel is
heading towards a humiliating truce arrangement.
What the Israeli governments do not realize is that
neither Hamas nor Hezbollah need Israel. It is Israel
that needs them, and needs them desperately. If Israel
wants not to become a Crusader state that is in the end
extinguished, it is only Hamas and Hezbollah that can
guarantee the survival of Israel. It is only when
Israel is able to come to terms with them, as the
deeply-rooted spokespersons of Palestinian and Arab
nationalism, that Israel can live in peace.
Achieving a stable peace settlement will be extremely
difficult. But the pillars of Israel's present strategy
- its own military strength and the unconditional
support of the United States - constitute a very thin
reed. Its military advantage is diminishing and will
diminish steadily in the years to come. And in the
post-Iraqi years, the United States may well drop
Israel in the same way that France did in the 1960s.
Israel's only real guarantee will be that of the
Palestinians. And to get this guarantee, Israel will
need to rethink fundamentally its strategy for
survival.
[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by
Agence Global. For rights and permissions, including
translations and posting to non-commercial sites, and
contact: 
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These commentaries, published twice monthly, are
intended to be reflections on the contemporary world
scene, as seen from the perspective not of the
immediate headlines but of the long term.]