Israel's surge of despair

[bemildred]

Salon, you gotta watch the ad.

Hezbollah operatives plant explosives along the disputed border area between Lebanon and Israel. The Israeli military moves in and destroys them. Israeli and Lebanese forces engage in sporadic gun battles.

It may sound like the prelude to the war waged last summer between the Israeli military and Hezbollah, but it happened just last week. Tensions are running high along the Israel-Lebanon border again, and political and intelligence analysts are predicting another major flare-up of hostilities this spring or summer, or perhaps even sooner. According to Israeli military intelligence, Hezbollah remains firmly rooted in Lebanon and has successfully rearmed -- the Iranian-backed Shiite militia now has even more missiles than it had before last summer's war. To many Israelis, it seems as if that war, and the destruction it brought, were all for nothing.

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To many in or involved with the Israeli government, George W. Bush's presence in the Oval Office was once reassuring. Now, it is increasingly worrying. Back in early 2004, when I started working in the Israeli Mission to the U.N. — during the first year of the U.S. occupation of Iraq — one of the senior diplomats there had an autographed photograph of Bush hanging behind his desk. But by the summer of 2005, as Iraq spiraled into chaos, I noticed that he had replaced it, without explanation, with a photo of U2's Bono.

For several years earlier this decade, many in Israeli society and government were avid fans of the Bush administration (to the dismay and even embarrassment of some on the Israeli left). Because of Bush's hard-line Middle East policies and staunch support for Israel's own often hard-line policies under Sharon, approval ratings for the president were often much higher in Israel than anywhere else in the world — even the United States itself. Recently, though, as the recognition that the last six years may have actually made the situation in the Middle East considerably more unstable and dangerous for Israel, reverence for Bush is quickly diminishing in many quarters.

Salon

[PATRICK]

1. The list is long

of the cruelest "disappointments" in making hopeful alliances with the "wrong kind of guy" over and over and over again. James Michener's "Covenant" is partly a depressing epic of ally abuse that spans beyond the Biblical disasters of smart alliances with Egypt and the desire to be a player among the big kingdoms
simply to survive.

This one was woefully predictable, the crutch of a giggling prat boy puppet looking for oil in all the Right places for their own decrepit delirium of Sharon style Sturm und Drang solutions to the game Hitler set them up for half a century ago. At least they knew Hitler was their enemy, right? But the progeny of Hitler's backers and the ideologies and the hegemony gamesters. Well, the good old self-dooming realpolitik that lost Holy land for them in the first place has done it again.

Predictable, repetitively predictable. No, you don't need the prophets anymore to get stoned for their troubles.

And the salt tears of God move against the shore and reclaim the land back for the waters of creation while desert and famine and assorted wars pass the time, the long lanky coastline eaten away by the global warming their current idiot ally is lashing on with lies as lunatic as those under which innocent peoples everywhere wither, one sore wound like Baghdad after the other.

[Shaktimaan]

2. You know it's interesting.

I remember a conversation my father had with my great uncle a few years ago. My father is American but my uncle (my grandfather's brother) is Israeli, a participant in the early Zionist movement that built the country and an experienced, successful, intelligent man. Uncle Yak stated, "In Israel, we like Bush." He based this on the belief that despite Bush's politics, an unwavering support for Israel would ultimately be beneficial for the country. My father looked at him very seriously and said, "You don't know this guy. I think his view of the world and the policies that he will enact are going to make the world, especially the mid east, much more dangerous. I think that you'll change your mind about Bush in the coming years."

My father, of course, ended up being correct.

I never thought I'd be wishing for Sharon, but strong leaders are the only ones who have been able to make peace in Israel. Olmert is inviting more violence with his subservient relationship to Bush and his weak image than Sharon's bluster ever could.

[pelsar]

3. israeli politics...

its known that in israeli only the strong right can make the peace gestures and actions....

by their standing and actions they neutralize the "right" and the left goes along:

The present combo of olmert (who in my eyes is no more than a slick politician who climbed his way up the ladder by greasing everybodys palms and Perez who is just as bad, but used different techniques) is about as bad as it gets. Two inexperienced non ideological politicians are sitting in seats way too large for them.

[Shaktimaan]

4. I'm shocked

that Olmert is still hanging on.

[pelsar]

5. i'm not..

olmert like peretz arent known for their principles...they like the chairs they're sitting in....much like katzav, these are not men of principle. Eventually they will be kicked out/removed....

[Englander]

6. When did Sharon make peace?

[Shaktimaan]

7. he didn't

but men like him have.

[AdHocSolver]

8. Israelis and many Americans confused strong rhetoric with competence and resolve.

Bush is a front man, a puppet, for Cheney. Cheney really runs the government as it is coming out now in the "scooter" Libby trial. I concluded several years ago that Bush was bad for U.S. foreign policy as well as for Israel. His push for war with Iraq while ignoring Iran and Syria was proof enough for me that his pro-Israel rhetoric was meaningless. Bush and Cheney's financial and political ties to the Saudi royal family was another reason to conclude Bush/Cheney was not good for Israel. It has only been wishful thinking that led Israelis and Americans to think that Bush/Cheney was good for anything.

It has become clear that the war in Iraq was never to spread democracy, but mainly to secure the Iraqi oil fields for the American oil companies. It is not necessary, and never intended by them, to "win" a war in Iraq: the sole purpose was to secure the oil fields. As long as they maintain control of the oil, the rest of Iraq can have their civil war for as long as they want. Now with Iraq being primed to sign long-term exclusive oil contracts with Big Oil, Bush/Cheney can head into Iran to get that country's oil fields under contract the same way.

The war in Afghanistan was waged in the same way. The Taliban were refusing the building of a gas pipeline through their country so the U.S. sent troops to throw them out and install a U.S.-friendly government in Kabul. As soon as the pipeline deal was assured, Bush/Cheney "forgot" about bin Ladin and started beating the drum against Saddam and his imaginary WMD's.

There is no intention of stopping the fighting in the Middle East and there never was any. In another thread, it was told about a huge arms deal about to be negotiated between the U.S. military industrial complex and several "scared" Arab oil states. Cheney is heavily tied to Halliburton and Daddy Bush is connected to the Carlyle group. These guys aren't going to ignore the huge profits to be made in prolonged Middle East war. This is not good for the U.S. or Israel.