Skip to main content

A fallout with consequences...and possibilities

"Now, Jewish Israelis as a group are faced with the momentous choice of whether they want to continue to live as an embattled, isolated outpost within a predominantly Arab part of the world, and an outpost that is prepared to pay the heavy costs--particularly in terms of the conscription burden for young people-- associated with that... Or, are they prepared to look to other, more creative and potentially long-lasting ways to assure their security, primarily through building relationships of peace and cooperation with their neighbors in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon?"

So writes Helena Cobban in her blog - republished, here, in The Nation. The piece follows on from the first Winograd Commission Report on the Israel-Lebanon war last August.

Overnight, one Israeli cabinet Minister has already resigned in the wake of the damning Report.

In its editorial on the Commission's Report, Haaretz says:

"With all due respect to Judge Winograd and his committee members, the conclusions being published in the committee's interim report - after months of hearing witnesses and working intensively - are the very conclusions that most of the Israeli public had reached by the end of the Second Lebanon War. Some people even reached these conclusions in the first days of the war."

Its conclusion leaves no one in doubt what the newspaper thinks:

"Israel is now facing the risk of masses of ballistic missiles targeting its cities from Lebanon and Syria, and the threat of Iran's continuing nuclear armament. After the painful experience of the Second Lebanon War, we cannot trust the present leadership to prepare adequately for these dangers. It is time for a change at the top."

Comments

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

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

#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?