Israel

Oh bother. What does one say about Israel, Lebanon, Gaza, etc?

My problem is that - emotionally, I suppose - my natural allegiance would lie with Israel. Not just for the obvious matters of justice for the holocaust, but because for a while there, Israel looked like it was building a really strong, progressive society in what can only be called infertile soil. That, and the history of Israel's founding - if you ignore the messy stuff like expulsion of Palestinians - is really cool. (Read up on the early years, when Ben-Gurion had to face down the terrorists on the Israeli right in order to stabilize the Middle East to get an impression of what a great man he was.) So, superficially, it's easy for me to side with Israel.

The problem is Lord, does Israel make me work for it.

Knocking out the power in Gaza is simply cruel - indeed, it's cruelty is exactly what reccomended it as an attack. The idea that it will reduce violence is bizarre, but I'm not sure even Labour thinks that's a possibility anymore. Attacking Lebanon over some rockets fired in to Galilee sounds awfully familiar. I guess Ariel Sharon's spirit lives on in more ways than one. And the fact that this now threatens to spiral out of control, bringing Syria and Iran in to a war with Israel is terrifying.

(Paranthetical Paranoia: The British and French acted in concert with Israel to justify the Suez Crisis. Israel started the ball rolling by invading Egypt in realiation for attacks, and the Brits and French were supposed to go in and restore order while incidentally retaking the Canal from Nasser. Given the rumours out of the Pentagon via Seymour Hersh about attacks starting this summer, this seems awfully well-timed to me. It also is a far better explanation for Israel's actions than anything else I've seen. [Paranoia off, for now.])

Most of all, it's precisely situations like this that make me wish someone other than Dubya was President.