I also think it's important to touch upon my old favorite in these matters, and that's perspective.
Take for example what two pundits are saying about Israel's war with Hezbollah. For starters, you have Richard Cohen, a liberal, a critic of war, and yes, a Jew:
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Richard Cohen
A constant state of war makes a country mad. It unnerves it, unhinges it --which is what happened here after 9/11. You only have to read the Israeli press to get a sense of the fury, the anger, the hurt of a people who see their enemy lurking among civilians, their weapons placed in and among children -- and feel the wrath of the world for hitting back. The strike into Lebanon has almost universal support in Israel, the most contentious of all societies, because of a deep and justifiable sense of grievance. What more can it do? What else will be asked of it? Who picked this fight, anyway?
The world has a responsibility here. If it can no longer put up with Israeli excess, with its (understandable) policy to strike back disproportionately, then it has to put an end to the slow bleeding of that country. The world -- the U.N. -- created Israel. It ought to safeguard it. It is the only way.
Israel pulled out of Lebanon in 2000. It pulled out of Gaza last year. It was making plans to pull out of most of the West Bank. Still, the suicide bombings continue, the rockets keep coming down and soldiers get kidnapped, maybe never to be returned. Yet the world, appalled at what it can see on television and untroubled by what it cannot, has had it with Israel. Mel Gibson would understand.
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Contrast that with the opinion of Pat Buchanan, a conservative, an America 1ster, and frankly an anti-semite:
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Pat Buchanan
Within 48 hours, it was apparent Israel was exploiting Hezbollah's attack to execute a preconceived military plan to destroy Lebanon -- i.e, the collective punishment of a people and nation for the crimes of a renegade militia they could not control. It was the moral equivalent of a municipal police going berserk, shooting, killing and ravaging an African-American community, because Black Panthers had ambushed and killed cops.
If Israel is not in violation of the principle of proportionality, by which Christians are to judge the conduct of a just war, what can that term mean? There are 600 civilian dead in Lebanon, 19 in Israel, a ratio of 30-1, though Hezbollah is firing unguided rockets, while Israel is using precision-guided munitions.
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(NOTE: The black panther comment is humorous, if not striking, because urban police departments indeed DID do precisely what he said. But since Buchanan's take on the current conflict involving Jews is so off, I can hardly hold his history accountable when it comes to a bunch of blacks he could probably give two shits about)
The United States has the option here to stand with Israel not merely for the preservation of a Jewish state, but for a liberal democracy (primarily secular), surrounded by totalitarianism.
Who's right, those who fight on, and grieve when they error as in Qana, or those who celebrate the massacres in Qana? Just b/c hezbollah is too inept to actually hit the children of Haifa doesn't mean they wouldn't like to, and if they could, they'd do it again and again and again....