Israel has failed to understand that it cannot expel a people and call itself the victim; that it cannot conquer its neighbours and treat any and all resistance to that conquest as terrorism; that it cannot arm itself as a regional superpower and annihilate the institutional fabric of two peoples without incurring the fury of their children in the years that follow.

Peter Lewin - 8/3/2006

I did not judge it by where it appears. I just wondered why you seemed to keen to post that kind of nonsense and then proceeded to explain why I thought it was nonsense - potentially very damaging nonsense.

Sheldon Richman - 8/3/2006

Let's not judge an article by where it appears. Far tougher things are said in the Israeli press.

Peter Lewin - 8/3/2006

Sheldon,

I honestly don't understand why you would want to post something like this - especially from the likes of the Guardian, whose anti-Israel credentials are well known (I know I am going to get into trouble for that). Yes bad things are happening in this war. But that does not change the fact that Israel was attacked. Paragraphs like the one below don't contribute a damn to a disinterested, rational, fair assessment. It is inflamatory drivel. To use the word "conquor" to describe Israel's actions over its history is a deliberate distortion; and then to seek to justify the terrorism that it supposedly provoked doubles the distortion. This is the sort of thing the Left are doing all the time. How is one to respond to this paragraph when considering the question "What is Israel to do?"? She is not allowed to arm herself, not allowed to defend herself and not allowed to complain about her neighbors' deliberately targeting its civlians. As I have explained before, it is one thing to criticize Isreal's actions and strategy in this conflict (where indeed intentions DO matter), it is quite another to extrapolate from this to the legitimacy of anything that Israel does or has done.

"Israel has failed to understand that it cannot expel a people and call itself the victim; that it cannot conquer its neighbours and treat any and all resistance to that conquest as terrorism; that it cannot arm itself as a regional superpower and annihilate the institutional fabric of two peoples without incurring the fury of their children in the years that follow."