Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Berlusconi israeliano

Junkies of War
08/05/2006
FOR ME it was a moment of shocking revelation.
I was listening to one of the daily speeches of our Prime Minister. He 
said: "We are a wonderful people!" He said: We have already won this 
war, it is the greatest victory in the history of our state. He said: We 
have changed the face of the Middle East. And more to that effect.
Well, I told myself, that's Olmert.
I have known him since he was 20-something. At that time, I was a member 
of the Knesset, and Olmert was the book-carrier (literally) of another 
member. Since then I have followed his career. He has never been 
anything but a party functionary, a small-time politician specializing 
in manipulations, a run-of-the-mill demagogue. On the way changed 
parties several times and served as a mayor with a grade of D minus, 
until he climbed on the bandwagon of Ariel Sharon. More or less by 
accident he was given the empty title of "Deputy Prime Minister", and 
when Sharon suffered his stroke, something happened that took Olmert too 
by surprise: he became Prime Minister.
Throughout his career he has remained a complete cynic, basically a 
right-winger but willing to pretend to be a liberal when faced with 
leftists.
So, I told myself, this is just another cynical speech. But suddenly a 
ghastly thought struck me: No, the man believes what he is saying!
Hard as it is to imagine, it seems that Olmert really believes that this 
is a successful war. That he is winning. That he has radically changed 
Israel's situation. That he is building a New Middle East. That he is a 
historic leader, far superior to Ariel Sharon (who, after all, was 
beaten in Lebanon and who allowed Hizbullah to build up its arsenal of 
rockets). That the longer he is allowed to go on with the war, the more 
his stature in history will grow.
Ehud Olmert has obviously cut himself off from reality. He lives in a 
bubble all by himself. His speeches show that he has a very real problem.
Of all the dangers facing Israel now, this is the most severe. Because 
this man is deciding, quite simply, the fate of millions: who will die, 
who will become a refugee, whose world will be shattered.
BUT OLMERT'S problem with megalomania is nothing compared to what has 
happened to Amir Peretz.
Exactly nine months ago, after his election as Labor Party chairman, 
Peretz made a speech in Tel-Aviv's Rabin Square in which he revealed his 
dream: that in the no-man's land between Israel and the Gaza Strip a 
football field will be built, and a match between the Israeli children 
of Sderot and the Palestinian children of nearby Bet-Hanoun will take 
place. An Israeli Martin Luther King.
Nine month's later, a monster has been born to us.
In the Knesset election campaign, Peretz appeared as a social 
revolutionary. He announced that he would change the face of Israeli 
society, set new national priorities, cut billions from the military 
budget and transfer them to education, welfare and measure to reduce the 
glaring gap between rich and poor. As a veteran peace-lover, he would, 
of course, achieve peace with the Palestinians and the entire Arab world.
This won him the votes of many citizens, including many who would 
normally never consider voting for the Labor Party.
What followed is history. He seduced himself, when Olmert offered him 
the Ministry of Defense. That was still Olmert the cynic. He knew, as we 
all did, that Peretz was walking into a trap, that as a rank civilian 
without serious military experience he would be easy prey for the 
generals. But Peretz did not shrink back. The supreme aim of his life is 
to become Prime Minister, and in order to become a credible candidate he 
believed that he must present himself as a security expert.
Since then, Peretz has become a rabid warmonger. Not only does he 
endorse all the demands of the generals, not only does he act as their 
spokesman - he has also helped to push Israel into war, and since then 
he has been demanding that it should continue, enlarge, widen, kill 
more, destroy more, occupy more. He himself declared, "Nasrallah will 
never forget the name Amir Peretz!" - like a spoilt child inscribing his 
name on a tourist attraction.
At the moment, he is trying to be more extreme even than Olmert. While 
the Prime Minister is afraid of continuing to advance, fearing that too 
many casualties from the rockets and the battle on the ground might 
cloud the brilliance of his victory, Peretz wants to reach the Litani 
River, whatever the cost. There's no other way - if one wants to become 
Prime Minister, one has to walk over dead bodies.
Thus a monster has been born to us. Rosemary's Baby.
TODAY, THE 25th day of the war, we can draw up an interim balance. What 
were the aims? What are the results?
"To destroy Hizbullah".
Who would have believed it, but on the 25th day Hizbullah is still 
standing and fighting. A few thousand fighters against the fifth 
strongest army in the world. Nobody speaks anymore about eliminating it. 
Not Olmert, not Peretz, not even Dan Halutz - the third corner of this 
unholy triangle.
"To weaken Hizbullah".
That is a watered down version of the first aim. It is more convenient, 
because it cannot be measured. After all, in any war both sides are 
weakened. People are killed and wounded, arms are destroyed, 
installations demolished. But while the Israeli army can mobilize 
another division and another one, and the Americans are rushing more 
bombs to us, can Hizbullah absorb such losses?
Nobody knows how many fighters the organization has lost. The Israeli 
army distributes estimates, without being able to prove them. The 
Lebanese speak about far smaller numbers, and do not have any proof either.
But that is not the main thing. An organization like Hizbullah has no 
problem in raising more and more volunteers for "holy war". Be their 
losses as they may, after the war the organization will train as many 
new fighters as necessary. Their arsenals will also be replenished with 
new weapons arriving from Iran and Syria. The border is long, it is 
impossible to seal it.
"To push Hizbullah away from the border".**
That is the crumpled aim, after the two preceding ones were shown to be 
unattainable. It, too, has not been realized yet, and never will be, 
because it is also unattainable. Most Hizbullah fighters are local boys 
of the South Lebanese towns and villages. They will continue to be 
there, overtly or covertly. No international force can prevent that, and 
certainly not the Lebanese Army.
The rockets can be moved further away. How many kilometers? Ten? Twenty? 
That will not remove the threat from Nahariya, Haifa and Tel-Aviv - 
especially since the range of the missiles is bound to grow with time, 
when technologically more advanced types arrive.
"To kill Hassan Nasrallah".
For the time being, so it seems, the report of his death was an 
exaggeration, to quote Mark Twain. True, in a kind of parody of the 
Entebbe exploit, Nasrallah was pulled out of a hospital in Baalbek, but 
it was another Hassan Nasrallah. Oops.
In the meantime, the original Nasrallah is flourishing. Compared to the 
kitschy speeches of Olmert, with their endless clichés and the fist 
thumping on the table, the Hizbullah leader comes over as a sober 
speaker, measured and mostly quite credible.
"To return to the Israeli army the power of deterrence".
Nobody has any doubt that the Israeli army is a good, professional army, 
capable of defeating regular armies. But this war proves that it is not 
capable of achieving a military decision against an able guerilla 
organization with determined fighters. If Hizbullah is alive and kicking 
after 25 days, the deterrence power of the Israeli army has been 
weakened - whatever happens from now on.
 From this point of view, the war has harmed the security of Israel. It 
has proved that the Israeli rear is exposed, that the Hizbullah fighters 
are not inferior to the Israeli soldiers, that there is no de-luxe war, 
that the Air Force cannot win without land forces. Not even in ideal 
circumstances, when the other side has no anti-air defense to speak of.
Some comfort themselves with the thought that "the Arabs have seen that 
we are crazy". We react to a small local provocation with an orgy of 
killing and destruction, destroying whole countries, a sort of national 
amok. But running amok is not a policy. It does not solve any problem. 
It is an uncontrollable reflex. It does not allow for straight thinking. 
It even allows the other side to manipulate us with premeditated 
provocations.
"Deploying an International Force along the border".
That is a kind of emergency exit, after all the other aims have gone up 
in smoke.
At the beginning of the war, Olmert himself strenuously objected to such 
a force, because it would restrict the freedom of action of the Israeli 
army. Clearly, no international force will dare to come, unless there is 
a cease-fire in place and an agreement with Hizbullah has been reached. 
Nobody wants to be exposed to cross-fire. Therefore, this force will 
also have to serve Hisbullah's interests, for fear of a guerilla war 
starting against it. Have all the sacrifices been made for this?
"We shall create a new situation in the Middle East".
This aim has indeed been achieved - but not the way Olmert told himself 
(and us).
The long-range results of the war are not immediately obvious. They 
belong to the category defined by Bismarck as "imponderables" - things 
that cannot be measured.
Every day on their TV screens tens of millions of Arabs and hundred of 
millions of Muslims see the atrocious pictures of crushed babies, the 
sights of the horrible destruction. These are deeply imprinted in the 
consciousness of the masses and will leave behind them an accumulation 
of anger and hatred that is far more dangerous than an arsenal of 
missiles. In these 25 days, thousands of new suicide bombers have been 
created. And as the stature of Nasrallah as the hero of the Arab world 
increases, so the respect for the "moderate" Arab regimes hit new lows - 
the very regimes that the US and Israel rely on for creating the New 
Middle East.
AFTER THE 25th day, the 26th will arrive, and so on and on. President 
Bush, who pushed us into this war to start with, is now pushing us to 
fight on ("Until the last Israeli soldier," as the saying goes.) Like 
Olmert, he lives in an imaginary world.
Bush, Olmert and their like can incite and draw the masses behind them, 
until the call of "the Emperor is naked" finds receptive ears.
One of the most sickening sights of the war is the picture of the 
international diplomats doing everything they can to enable Olmert &amp; 
Co. to go on with the war. The UN has long since become an agent of the 
White House. Hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness are having a field day, 
while lives are being destroyed and the dead buried on both sides of the 
border.
Olmert wants to "gain" as many days as possible for continued fighting. 
What sort of gain is this? We are conquering South Lebanon as flies 
conquer fly-paper. Generals present maps with impressive arrows to show 
how Hizbullah is being pushed north. That might be convincing - if we 
were talking about a front-line in a war with a regular army, as taught 
in Staff College. But this is a different war altogether. In the 
conquered area, Hizbullah people remain, and our soldiers are exposed to 
attacks of the kind in which Hizbullah has excelled from its first day.
So we shall get to the Litani River. Beyond it, there is another river, 
and another one. Lebanon has an abundance of rivers we can get to.
Perhaps it would be worthwhile for these two junkies, Olmert and Peretz, 
to come down from their "high" and study the map.
Uri Avnery
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1154819859/
A quanto pare c'è un altro che legge narrativa Hezbollah oltre a me.
Comunque pare che tutto si spieghi, anche in Israele è stato eletto un 
"venditore di sogni", speriamo nelle prossime elezioni.
Riot, l'elitista ademocratico

"venditore di sogni",
Certo, certo...
*pat pat*
-Stefano