Chris Hedges is the one-time Bureau Chief of the NY Times in the Middle East. Writing in truthdig.com [reproduced on Alternet] he says that Israel has helped to create Hezbollah and Hamas by its own actions - or inaction! As Hedges writes:
"The rage and extremism of the Islamic militants in Lebanon and the occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza appear incomprehensible to the outside world. The wanton murder, the raw anti-Semitism, the callous disregard for human life, including the lives of children and other innocents, permit those on the outside to thrust these militant fighters in another moral universe, to certify them as incomprehensible.
But this branding of these militants as something less than human, as something that reasonable people cannot hope to understand, is possible only because we have ignored and disregarded the decades of repression, the crushing weight of occupation, the abject humiliation and violence, unleashed on Lebanese and Palestinians by Israel because of our silence and indifference. It is the Israeli penchant for violence and occupation that slowly created and formed these frightening groups."
It is worth sticking with Hedges in his lengthy article and analysis, here - for whatever ceasefire or stand-off is arranged, whenever, in the present Middle East conflict it will most likely do absolutely nothing to address the underlying problem [s] and issues confronting each of the critical "players".
"The rage and extremism of the Islamic militants in Lebanon and the occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza appear incomprehensible to the outside world. The wanton murder, the raw anti-Semitism, the callous disregard for human life, including the lives of children and other innocents, permit those on the outside to thrust these militant fighters in another moral universe, to certify them as incomprehensible.
But this branding of these militants as something less than human, as something that reasonable people cannot hope to understand, is possible only because we have ignored and disregarded the decades of repression, the crushing weight of occupation, the abject humiliation and violence, unleashed on Lebanese and Palestinians by Israel because of our silence and indifference. It is the Israeli penchant for violence and occupation that slowly created and formed these frightening groups."
It is worth sticking with Hedges in his lengthy article and analysis, here - for whatever ceasefire or stand-off is arranged, whenever, in the present Middle East conflict it will most likely do absolutely nothing to address the underlying problem [s] and issues confronting each of the critical "players".
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