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….

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.