Our old pal Nasrallah up in Lebanon appeared in public for the first time in a long time according to recent news posts. Not to rehash all the old news about how Israel messed up in not being able to lay proper waste to this man in the LW2 and also to avoid thinking too deeply on Shabbat morning, I simply point out the grusome macabre scene which must have acompanied this comment:

Our mujahideen used to fight these Zionists, killing them and collecting their body parts. I am not talking about regular body parts. I tell the Israelis, we have the heads of your soldiers, we have hands, we have legs

I am pretty sure that Islam forbid cannibalism, so the only reason they could have been collecting Israeli body parts is to haunt the people left on this side of the war. I also wonder, since Islam and Judaism are so close, if they have the same prohibition on touching dead things that we do. In either event this is pretty gruesome and disgusting. Imagine if you will, the scene is Lebanon, a couple summers ago…

Hey Abdul, is that a Jew finger?

Oh yes my brother, Achmed, it is a Jew finger and we must collect it to properly show we have the fingers of our dead oppressors!

What a great idea, I have a Ziploc right here! We will put it next to the keys to the house in Jaffa we will return to one day!

Ah, yes, this Jew finger will bring down the Zionists once and for all!

I mean really….

But it kind of sucks too. I just did a quick lunchtime read of the The Iraq Study Report and the situation is not looking too good for Iraq. I wish I could say I was amused, even sarcastically bemused, at the smug sense I get while reading. Everything those of us on my side of the war debate have been saying for years is 100% justified - no make that 100% correct. We win. HA HA. Ok that is enough, because almost a million people are dead, wounded, and crippled.

There are 4 key parts to the report that I want to highlight:

• The insistences on the need for broad ranging diplomatic consensus. Thank you for telling us something we didn’t already know, or should I say, have been saying for YEARS.
• As noted just about everywhere, James Baker is not a Jewophile. Recall him saying: “Fuck the Jews. They don’t vote for us anyway.” No, you do not recall that? This will help.
• The mention of Israel and Syria is, in my opinion, appropriate, however, you have to keep Baker’s love for Jews in mind and read the conditions carefully. Syria would basically have to cease to exists as it does today - stop being a pain in Lebanon, stop smuggling arms into Iraq, stop being a pain to Israel. After a page of “only ifs” then you get to the point that Israel should give up the Golan. There are 2 major reasons for Israel to keep it: military importance and water. (I will dismiss the Zionists reasons for keeping it, for now.) If Syria is a friend, maybe the military importance diminishes. Water, on the other hand, is in short supply over there. It would benefit all those involved to start to own up to the major role water rights play in the region.
• The mention of a need to bipartisanship from these people is simply offensive.

Keep these items in mind as you read yourself into a rage.

Hot on the heals of accusations of war crimes, excessive force, and other hot air from the Old World there comes news of an impending problem in Gaza:

Yuval Diskin, director of Israel’s Shin Bet Security Services, told the Knesset last month that since the Jewish state withdrew from Gaza, the Palestinians successfully have transferred from the neighboring Egyptian Sinai desert hundreds of tons of advanced rockets; anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles; rocket propelled grenades; raw explosives; rifles; ammunition and other heavy weaponry.
…
“If we don’t move to counter this smuggling, it will continue and create a situation in Gaza similar to the one in southern Lebanon,” Diskin said.

And the response from the terrorists:

“I think Diskin made those statements to try to distract the Israelis from their losses in Lebanon by focusing on another area, but he is right. We are turning Gaza into south Lebanon.” (emphasis added)

Well EU and UN where are you now? Haven’t you been supposedly monitoring the crossing between Egypt and Gaza? Look what a good job you have been doing. Better yet, at the head of this effort are the Italians. Again, soccer, yes, clothing, yes, hard work and diplomacy, no. How’s suggesting that we mail Iran nukes for diplomacy? No thanks, back to your pasta, please.

Europe: you have the warning, you have the will, so it seems, immediately if you want to prevent 500,000 Palestinian deaths, do something about this situation. Explain to them that poking the snake is not going to get them what they want. Terrorists might kill 100 Israelis, but they still will live in the shit box of Gaza, with no power, no government, no economy, no social welfare, no nothing.

I am scared, however, because the response from Israel to a large attack from Gaza will not be minor given the post Lebanon ‘06 mindset. That is the Aquarian in me, the New Yorkers in me says, lay waste while the sun shines.

So says this week’s The Economist cover story. A quote from the opening paragraph:

Israel’s prime minister set himself an absurd aim�the complete demolition of Hizbullah’s power in Lebanon�and failed to achieve it. The shrewder Mr Nasrallah said victory would consist merely of surviving, and Hizbullah, however battered, did survive.

They want to be martyrs? We should give them what they want. The paper, once again, proves why it is far more balanced and insightful than most news sources out there:

But peace does not depend only on Israel. Six years ago Israel withdrew from Lebanon to a border painstakingly demarcated by the UN. Hizbullah fought on anyway. Like Iran, it says its aim is Israel’s destruction. Though an authentic political movement with a domestic agenda in Lebanon, it is also blatantly anti-Semitic. Mr Nasrallah once reflected that collecting the Jews in Palestine made them easier to wipe out.

Lets keep that in mind, shall we? I have noted my remarkable change in perspective on this issue and it is multifaceted. I used to think we in the west are getting what we deserve for our policies of the past, and this might still be partially true. Now, however, I am starting to get very worried about the survival of the enlightenment and how it has started to effect my life, my friends, my country, and my planet. There is an interesting and related article in Tikkun this month. When it is on line I will write more about it.

It is images like this, from NYTimes, that make me howl at the computer! I am assuming that the fence is somewhere on the southern boarder with Israel. This is not going to be the end of the influence of Hezballah has on this region, the state with in a state is note gone. You can see this in the statements of the Lebanese in the region: �We are all Lebanese. It�s not a problem.� Referring to the army, but clearly saying that these people do not view the situation as a problem. What is more astonishing is they do not view the situation as a problem while having no homes, bombed roads, etc… If I were an Israeli solder, or just a normal Israeli, I would have a hard time not sniping these idiots and pissing on the signs. They get everything coming to them.