Skip to main content

The Mid-East Slugfest

"Recent events in Gaza and on the Israel-Lebanon border reveal the extraordinary value of symbols in the region. News of kidnapped Israeli soldiers prompts rejoicing in the streets of Gaza City and Beirut, as Arabs revel in the blow delivered to the powerful Israeli Goliath. Meanwhile, for Israelis, and many Jews around the world, the image of captured soldiers induces a kind of tribal rage that demands the use of overwhelming force. This force is intended, first, to return the soldiers, but no less important, to send a message that Israel's military might remains as potent as ever.

And so the power of symbols brings Israel and its Arab foes together again in a deadly dance. Driven by the need to protect these symbols, the competing sides have entered into yet another cycle of violence that threatens to plunge the region into a new abyss. Indeed, the current pair of conflicts could easily expand from two to four fronts, if Hamas' and Hezbollah's patrons, Syria and Iran, are lured into the battle."

So writes David Myers [a teacher of Jewish history at UCLA] in an op-ed piece [here] in the Los Angeles Times. Myers'piece is worth reading because it is a sober analysis of what is happening in the Middle East and doesn't follow the usual drum-beating and polemic of so many writers on the vexed subject of the ongoing conflict. Many Jewish readers and other supporters of Israel will not like Myers' conclusions.....

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t
Post a Comment
Read more

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

Isn't there something radically wrong here?    Israel, a non-signatory to the NPT has, evidently, been the cause for those countries that are Treaty members, notably Canada, the US and the UK, after 4 weeks of negotiation, effectively blocking off any meaningful progress in ensuring the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.    IPS reports ..... "After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told IPS. “This Review Conference has demonstrated beyond any doubt that continuing to rely on the nuclear-armed states or their nuclear-dependent allies for l
Post a Comment
Read more

#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas  stopped  him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed  behind his back  into their patrol car, where they say he  shot himself  in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story,  says in an interview  that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?
Post a Comment
Read more