Israel takes vengeance

When war is almost continuous, does it cease to matter? Perhaps so, in the Middle East. Violence is so much a part of national life that it makes no sense to talk about the human perspective any longer; the imperative is to take sides. Death and destruction are par for the course and collateral damage is a given.

Over the last two weeks, the Jewish State, as though it still has something to prove, has shown a degree of diplomatic courage that few nations can muster. It has proceeded with what most people in the world can see is a blatantly one sided battle. Yet, while the explicit battle is blatantly one sided, the underground war is far from being an unequal one.

What do we mean by "underground war"? It is about systematic subversion of modern societies, about poisoning the well of democracy. As democratic people across the globe drink from this poisoned well, their sense of fairness is turned against them; civil liberties are used as an excuse to push through a Dark Age agenda. The Islamic way of life, which is the very antithesis of freedom, justice, civil liberty and democracy is suggested as a viable alternative to the values of a modern liberal society, exploiting the very freedoms that such a society bestows upon Islam. In turn, modern liberal societies are taught to despise themselves for their best qualities and in this argument between sanity and insanity, the loudmouths, with the radicals to back them, win over the pacifists rather easily. The underground war is fought along the fault lines of society in India, in Europe and the United States. And because modern societies, having espoused progressive values, have obviously succeeded in mustering modern military might and obviously prevail whenever the underground war breaks out above ground, modern societies are cast as zealous aggressors. In contrast, Islam fights its war for Dark Age values through personal sacrifices instead of institutional power and comes out looking like the victim.

In the Middle East, where war is almost continuous, this conflict comes to the fore like nowhere else. Everyone (except those who believe that "Israel should be wiped off the map") agrees with Israel's right to defend itself and its citizens. However, it is difficult to endorse Israel proceeding into a thoughtless war without clearly formulating war aims. When the conflict began in late December, everyone expected Israel to come out with a clear statement of its aims. As days passed and casualties in Gaza mounted, it became increasingly clear that Israel had given very little thought to its war aims. Worse, Israeli Defence Forces on the ground did not even have a clue about their war plans, much less their war aims. It is easy to support Israel and the side of freedom on most occasions, but perhaps, not on this one.

In the absence of information, the world community has had to look beyond the justifiable and honourable to find possible aims for Israel. Could Ehud Olmert, who has become the most unpopular man in Israel, be doing this to give a fillip to his Kadima Party in the General Elections, now just a month away? Could the Israeli establishment be taking one last shot at the Arabs before a possibly pacifist President takes charge at the White House? Israel's image is not helped by the fact that the US Government is always seen as "covering" for Israel. If Israel is courageous enough to fight its military battle with so many hostile neighbours, it should be wily enough to fight its own diplomatic war. For its part, Israel could have assuaged these concerns rather easily, by simply stating, for instance, that their aim was "to deal a severe blow to Hamas' terror infrastructure". Instead, Israel chose a more absolutist position, declaring that the war would end when Hamas stopped its rocket attacks against Israel, leaving people to ponder whether there was a real difference between the character of Hamas' and Israeli aims. Even a more extreme position, such as pressing for regime change, would have, at least, had the merit of being an honest one. Instead, Israel chose to obfuscate and made the US complicit in all this... as if people in the civilized world already didn't despise themselves enough! The underground cause of Islam has just been furthered by an extra mile.

Why did the rest of the world react the way it did? The tiny Czech Republic, which had just ascended to the Presidency of the European Union, promptly swallowed the American-Israeli position and supported Israel's right to self defence. The French came down heavily on Israelis, as did most other major nations in the EU. French President Sarkozy, who had doubled as EU President for the just concluded six month term, has made something of a name for himself as a deal maker. The French, as do most of Europeans, abhor military conflict, having seen the worst of it themselves. Over the last six months, they have seen Russia and the US slip back into Cold War mode. The spectacular failures in the US financial system have shaken the world. The last thing the EU really wants to see is more of war. India has also taken the diplomatically unwise statement of sharply criticizing Israel. While the Oracle is decidedly more familiar with the ignoble ulterior aims of the rulers of India in criticizing Israel while going silent on Hamas, it seems fair to admit that citizenry in both India and Europe have been disturbed by the images of carnage coming out of Gaza. We cannot excuse ourselves from our humanity. It's what makes us human. We do not like war, violence and death; nor do we support the taking of any innocent human life as a mindless act of vengeance. In judging the Hamas-Israeli conflict, we are pitted, as much against our own conscience, as against Islam.

Of course, condemnation of Israel in the civilized world is worth only so much. It will never proceed so far as to actually undermine Israel's activities. In fact, producing terrible images from Gaza is a rather fruitless activity. If the Muslim world wants us to heed their images of carnage, it must convince us beforehand that the Muslim world actually cares about peace. If beheading and public stoning were not cultural events in the Muslim world, there would be more sympathy. We would care more about women and children becoming victims if we knew that Muslims actually cared for their women more than they cared for their cattle. We would care more about little children dying in an Israeli bombing if we were assured that Muslims were not committing the worst form of child abuse themselves by filling innocent 5 year olds with hatred and racism. As far as the Muslim populace around the world is concerned, they are sufficiently frenzied already and they don't really need this fresh dose of violent images to replenish their anger and hatred.

The most interesting of all has been the reaction of Arab governments to the events in Gaza. While the Arab people and their co-religionists in Europe and America and India have been on the streets protesting the actions of Israel, the Arab governments, outside of the Arab League meeting have continued to sup with Israel. Egypt has refused to open the Rafah border crossing, hosted Israeli diplomats in the midst of ongoing crisis, Hezbollah(aka de facto govt. of Lebanon) itself has apologized for some of their men firing a rocket into Israel. There is only one explanation: the Israelis have won the respect of their enemies, in the process, however, they might have lost some of the sympathy of their friends. And that does sound like a good bargain, doesn't it?