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Cohen @ WaPo to Israel: Learn to live with it
 This is what passes for brilliant analysis from Richard Cohen,the sage of the WaPo. I wonder how soon we'll see outright anti-semitism on the op-ed. The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. No, the greatest mistake would be not to eliminate HezbAllan while they have the chance. Only someone who has converted to Islam could say Israel is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. No one is culpable? Not even George Bush? Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself. Israel, always launching rockets that land and explode in its own cities. This is why the Israeli-Arab war, now transformed into the Israeli-Muslim war (Iran is not an Arab state), persists and widens. It's the mistake's fault! It is why the conflict mutates and festers. It has nothing to do with co-dependents like the UN, EU and SA, who help the Paleostinians live forever in the past nursing the grudge of their grandfathers. It is why Israel is now fighting an organization, Hezbollah, that did not exist 30 years ago and why Hezbollah is being supported by a nation, Iran, that was once a tacit ally of Israel's. Israel created HezbAllan? Who knew? The underlying, subterranean hatred of the Jewish state in the Islamic world just keeps bubbling to the surface. The leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and some other Arab countries may condemn Hezbollah, but I doubt the proverbial man in their street shares that view. So let's listent to the ignorant man in the street who cannot figure out what even his dimwitted leaders have begun to understand. There is no point in condemning Hezbollah. The WaPo wouldn't carry the story anyway. Zealots are not amenable to reason. Look at Pinch. And there's not much point, either, in condemning Hamas. Nope. Wouldn't run that either. It is a fetid, anti-Semitic outfit whose organizing principle is hatred of Israel. I thought that was the UN. There is, though, a point in cautioning Israel to exercise restraint -- not for the sake of its enemies but for itself. Whatever happens, Israel must not use its military might to win back what it has already chosen to lose: the buffer zone in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip itself. Right. Israelis, stop resisting. Accept the rockets red glare with good cheer. It is also true, as some critics warned, that Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon was seen by its enemies -- and claimed by Hezbollah -- as a defeat for the mighty Jewish state. Hezbollah took credit for this, as well it should. We were rooting for it all the time. Its persistent attacks bled Israel. In the end, Israel got out and the United Nations promised it a secure border. The Lebanese army would see to that. (And the check is in the mail.) What's with the intrusion of sanity? But worse than what is happening now would be a retaking of those territories. That would put Israel smack back to where it was, subjugating a restless, angry population and having the world look on as it committed the inevitable sins of an occupying power. The smart choice is to pull back to defensible -- but hardly impervious -- borders. That includes getting out of most of the West Bank -- and waiting (and hoping) that history will get distracted and move on to something else. LALALALALALALA I can't hear you. That's always proven to be a successful tactic. This will take some time, and in the meantime terrorism and rocket attacks will continue Israel, just turn the other cheek one more time. Hunker down while Iran nukes up. A-friggin-stounding! Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-07-18 |
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