Perspectives on the Middle East crisis #5 (Norman Geras)

As explained in my previous post, Some perspectives on the Middle East crisis (Norman Geras), Norm is periodically updating his collected commentaries on the unfolding Middle East crisis. His first four installments can be seen here and here and here. The latest installment is below. --Jeff Weintraub
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Norman Geras (Normblog)
July 23, 2006
The crisis in the Middle East 5 (updated)

Amos Oz on the attitude of the Israeli peace movement:

This time, Israel is not invading Lebanon. It is defending itself from a daily harassment and bombardment of dozens of our towns and villages by attempting to smash Hizbullah wherever it lurks.

Likewise (via Jeff Weintraub) Ada Aharoni who 'founded the Four Mothers, a grass-roots movement that led a decisive public campaign to withdraw Israeli troops from Lebanon':

... [T]hey started this. They didn't try to talk. It's a situation where you either defend yourself or you're dead.

Interesting post here by a 'new Israeli':

Israel remains the pre-eminent regional superpower, although you wouldn't know it talking to Israelis.

Rami Khouri on why he wants to get home to Beirut:

I want to return mainly because steadfastness in the face of the Israeli assault is the sincerest - perhaps the only - form of resistance available to those of us who do not know how to use a gun, and prefer not to do so, for there is no military solution to this conflict. .....
Piecemeal solutions and stopgap measures will not work any more. Ending this kind of military eruption requires a more determined effort to resolve the core conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Jeff Weintraub on 'What Hezbollah is fighting for':

Hezbollah... is not in any meaningful sense a "resistance" movement with defensive or potentially valid goals. It is an effective and dedicated political, military, and terrorist organization, armed with thousands of rockets that it has shown itself willing and able to use against civilians throughout northern Israel (a straightforward war crime, by the way), which is determined to continue open-ended military conflict against Israel with the ultimate goal of Israel's destruction.

Amir Taheri on Hezbollah as an arm of the Iranian regime:

Since 1984 Iran has created branches of Hezbollah in more than 20 countries. None has equalled the success of the Lebanese branch...

See also Fouad Ajami here and Michael Young from Beirut (free registration required).

When bloggers become the story:

[L]eading liberal bloggers - including Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo.com, Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly and Matt Stollar of MyDD.com - acknowledged that they... were reticent to weigh in, for reasons that included both the vehemence of rhetoric from readers on both sides, and the difficulty of commenting on the rare issue that truly divides liberals.

Posted by Norm at 03:31 PM | Permalink