...First, Israel’s actions in no way can be seen as a legitimate response to the small-scale attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah. Instead, what Israel has done has used the pretext of those pin-prick attacks—a couple of border raids and a handful of errant rockets—to launch a strategic attack whose goals are to crush Hamas and the remaining institutions of Palestinian self-rule and decapitate and destroy Hezbollah politically and militarily in Lebanon.
Second, it’s clear that Israel would never have launched this war without having made the calculation that it would win the support of the United States. The rest of the world is solidly aligned against Israel’s outrageously disproportionate attacks, but none of that matters. No diplomatic mission from the feeble United Nations, no angry statements from the Arab League, no fulminations from Western Europe will deter Israel...
Third, by invading and bombing Lebanon and acting brutally to crush the Palestinian Authority, Israel has created a unified field theory of the Middle East’s crises, uniting the escalating world showdown with Iran, the unraveling civil war in Iraq, the crisis over Syria’s role in Lebanon, and the Arab-Israeli conflict itself into one big tangle.
True enough, but the more you unify the field, the stranger the outliers get. For one thing, although the average Israeli on the street is ducking and covering and shooting when he or she is shot at, the average Israeli on the street is not politically naive. Hence, in their news media (as Billmon points out), you can find opinions like this:
"We left Gaza and they are firing Qassams" - there is no more precise a formulation of the prevailing view about the current round of the conflict. "They started," will be the routine response to anyone who tries to argue, for example, that a few hours before the first Qassam fell on the school in Ashkelon, causing no damage, Israel sowed destruction at the Islamic University in Gaza.
Israel is causing electricity blackouts, laying sieges, bombing and shelling, assassinating and imprisoning, killing and wounding civilians, including children and babies, in horrifying numbers, but "they started."
They are also "breaking the rules" laid down by Israel: We are allowed to bomb anything we want and they are not allowed to launch Qassams. When they fire a Qassam at Ashkelon, that's an "escalation of the conflict," and when we bomb a university and a school, it's perfectly alright. Why? Because they started. That's why the majority thinks that all the justice is on our side. Like in a schoolyard fight, the argument about who started is Israel's winning moral argument to justify every injustice.
So, who really did start? And have we "left Gaza?"
Israel left Gaza only partially, and in a distorted manner. The disengagement plan, which was labeled with fancy titles like "partition" and "an end to the occupation," did result in the dismantling of settlements and the Israel Defense Forces' departure from Gaza, but it did almost nothing to change the living conditions for the residents of the Strip. Gaza is still a prison and its inhabitants are still doomed to live in poverty and oppression. Israel closes them off from the sea, the air and land, except for a limited safety valve at the Rafah crossing. They cannot visit their relatives in the West Bank or look for work in Israel, upon which the Gazan economy has been dependent for some 40 years. Sometimes goods can be transported, sometimes not. Gaza has no chance of escaping its poverty under these conditions. Nobody will invest in it, nobody can develop it, nobody can feel free in it. Israel left the cage, threw away the keys and left the residents to their bitter fate. Now, less than a year after the disengagement, it is going back, with violence and force.
What could otherwise have been expected? That Israel would unilaterally withdraw, brutally and outrageously ignoring the Palestinians and their needs, and that they would silently bear their bitter fate and would not continue to fight for their liberty, livelihood and dignity? We promised a safe passage to the West Bank and didn't keep the promise. We promised to free prisoners and didn't keep the promise. We supported democratic elections and then boycotted the legally elected leadership, confiscating funds that belong to it, and declaring war on it. We could have withdrawn from Gaza through negotiations and coordination, while strengthening the existing Palestinian leadership, but we refused to do so. And now, we complain about "a lack of leadership?" We did everything we could to undermine their society and leadership, making sure as much as possible that the disengagement would not be a new chapter in our relationship with the neighboring nation, and now we are amazed by the violence and hatred that we sowed with our own hands...
Billmon also notes that things are getting as interesting among the Jihadis as among the Crusaders:
...the sudden eruption of all out hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel -- complete with TV footage of Iranian-made missiles falling on Jewish heads -- has left Al Qaeda and its sympathizers between a religious rock and an ideological hard place.
The dilemma, of course, is who to treat as the bigger enemy: the God-cursed Shi'a schismatics, or the bloodsucking Crusader/Zionist entity? And if they're both the sworn agents of Satan, why the hell are they fighting each other? What's an honest Takfiri supposed to think?
Sheikh al-Ali never really addresses the latter question. He does, however, answer the first one:
'The "Shari’a position" then, as the sheikh writes, maintains that Palestine is Islam’s problem, as Muslims should not be deceived by Iran taking it as its own. Iran, he believes, is more dangerous than the "Crusader/Zionist" enemy.'
All righty then. This implies that all good Sunnis (which in the Takfiri user's guide means "the only good Muslims") should be rooting for the planes with the stars of David on their tails as they drop their payloads over south Beruit...
Naturally, this is where I start to get a little suspicious of Sheikh al-Ali's jihadist bona fides. Putting hatred of the partisans of Ali ahead of the war against the Crusader/Zionists may or may not be official Al Qaeda doctrine, but it definitely is consistent with the policy preferences of the leading U.S.-backed Sunni regimes in the region, as seen in this public statement last week from the his Royal Highness Abdullah al-Saud, Keeper of the Two Holy Mosques:
'A distinction must be made between legitimate resistance and uncalculated adventures undertaken by elements inside [Lebanon] and those behind them without recourse to the legal authorities and consulting and co-ordinating with Arab nations. These elements should bear the responsibility for their irresponsible actions and they alone should end the crisis they have created.'
When the Saudi government is handing out press releases that could have been written by the Israeli Minister of Information (except, of course, for the part about "legitimate resistance") you know the world has been turned upside down.
No more so than when "Hezbollah"
Or did they just sub-contract out to DynCorp?
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