Israel: A wolf dressed in victim’s clothes

July 26, 2006

"It was meant to be over by now. This time last week Israeli military planners were demanding another 72 hours to finish the job: that’s all they needed, they promised, to clear southern Lebanon of Hizbullah." — Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, Wednesday July 26, 2006

I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down said the Wolf. Well the Wolf is huffing and puffing but the house is not built of straw and Hezbollah (how is it spelt? Hez or Hiz?) are proving to be a very tenacious opponent. Okay, Israel has overwhelming orthodox military power but has it got the means or the political support at home for a protracted war?

No doubt, given enough time Hezbollah will be driven back from the border but will regroup elsewhere, and anyway, how much time does Israel have? Just like Iraq, the country can be trashed but it makes no difference, such barbaric destruction far from turning the Lebanese against Hezbollah has simply united the country against Israel and the US and critically, the rest of Middle East, especially their leaders.

Note, as predicted, the calls from Tel Aviv and elsewhere, for a NATO-led force to occupy what’s left of Lebanon but it didn’t need a crystal ball to figure that out. The EU leaders however, are less than enthusiastic about the idea, seeing themselves being dragged down into the same quagmire most of them are busy extricating themselves from in Iraq. It would appear that US options get fewer by the day.

Aside from anything else, the longer the Blitzkrieg goes on, Israel, in spite of its massive propaganda advantage and the assistance it’s had from the Western media, will find it difficult to maintain the same level of wanton destruction and it is definately in no position either militarily or economically to occupy the entire country. At some point the real world creeps up on these barbarians whether they like it or not.

For if nothing else the sheer ferocity of the onslaught has woken a lot of folks up to the reality of the Zionist state who have revealed themselves for what they really are; wolves dressed in victims’ clothes. The decades-long mythology of Israel the victim has finally been shattered even as the Western media struggles desperately to keep the rotting corpse of anti-semitism alive as a justification for imperial/colonial conquest.

The other aspect that has emerged from this US-made disaster is the critical role of the corporate/state media. I think it’s time for a major campaign directed at the media for its criminal role in selling the slaughter, for without its craven complicity, the Blitzkrieg would have been impossible to undertake.[1]

But let’s not be under any illusions, Hezbollah are NOT the main objective of the Nazi (sorry, Zionist) Blitzkrieg, if they were, why destroy Lebanon as a viable state (BBC, Channel 4 and the rest of the corporate media, take note, not that you will)? Why didn’t Israel focus on Hezbollah if they were the objective? More questions that the MSM has studiously avoided asking.

Why force Syria out (see update on Hariri for more on the Hariri connection to the current situation) and then ask it to come back and sort out the mess (ditto questions for the corporate media again).

However, if there are any positive aspects to this situation I contend they are the following:

Far from creating conditions for a 'New Middle East’ as the evil Condi maintains (what gives with this woman, or is it my incredulity/naivity that a black woman can be so thoroughly assimilated?), the assault on Lebanon is more likely to unleash regional resistance, firstly (and hopefully) against the Quisling leaders of the Arab states but also, if this what the Zionists have in store for Syria and Iran, the imperialists have given notice to the people of both countries what they can expect to get.

Then consider the immense logistical enterprise the Wolves have bitten off, an enterprise they will undoubtedly choke on just they have on Iraq. It’s difficult to get into the mindset of these animals, are they so self-deluded that they think weapons conquer people? Weapons can kill but never conquer, this is the lesson of history, a lesson repeated over and over again, but one apparently, not learned on the Beltway or Whitehall or Tel Aviv no matter how times they get taught it.

Consider that in order for Condi’s 'New Middle East’ to become a reality, it will mean occupying and for the forseeable future, not only Iraq and Lebanon, but also Syria and then Iran (the ultimate objective as the only country with the resources to give as good as it gets). How, exactly, does Condi see this enterprise being executed?

Okay, the Wolves give Syria the Lebanese 'treatment’; more really pissed off people, then what? Iran is no Lebanon nor Syria, so unless they envisage using nukes, short of occupation (what with?), the 'plan’ such as it is, is simply unworkable.

No doubt the 'Armaggedonists’ amongst you contend that occupation is not the objective, simple destruction is the easiest 'solution’. Okay, but even total destruction merely delays the day of reckoning. The issue comes down to whether or not the Wolves, not being strong enough to carry off the prey, would rather destroy it?

I contend that those who run US foreign policy are not only myopic to the extreme, but are simply incapable of comprehending how people think as by and large, they judge everyone by how they think.

The Blitzkreig on Lebanon may well be a last desperate attempt to rescue what’s left of 'Plan Middle East’ or as it’s more commonly known, The Project for the New American Century’. We need only look to what the MSM pundits are now saying, even the gung ho supporters of Zionism have gotten the message,

"The result is that the core conflict has been allowed to fester. Had it been solved, or even if there had been a serious effort to solve it, the current crisis would have been unimaginable. Instead, Bush’s animating idea has been that the peoples of the Middle East can be bombed into democracy and terrorised into moderation. It has proved one of the great lethal mistakes of his abominable presidency – and the peoples of Israel and Lebanon are paying the price." — 'At the heart of the Lebanon crisis lie the lethal mistakes of George Bush’, Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, Wednesday July 26, 2006

"Rice lacks recipe for success
The US secretary of state believes in a New Middle East, but her narrow focus on security leaves little room for the aspirations of ordinary people", — Brian Whitaker, The Guardian, Tuesday July 25, 2006

"Ironically, by forcing Syria to withdraw its military from Lebanon last year, the United States and its allies diluted the significant direct leverage Syria might have had over Hezbollah." — 'Why Syria Has Much to Lose if Hezbollah Is Finally Halted’, By NEIL MacFARQUHAR, New York Times, July 26, 2006

I could go on, but what is clear is that the destruction of Lebanon is a strategic disaster of enormous dimensions. As Freedland says in his Guardian piece

"It was meant to be over by now. This time last week Israeli military planners were demanding another 72 hours to finish the job: that’s all they needed, they promised, to clear southern Lebanon of Hizbullah."

A 'strategy’ piece in the NYT has all kinds of excuses as to why the Blitzkrieg has been such a failure, that is to say, a failure insofar as its stated objective was the destruction of Hezbollah. Thus we read

"At the Pentagon, senior military planners cast the conflict as a localized example of America’s broader campaign against global terrorism and said any faltering by Israel could harm the American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Hezbollah "has features of a stateless terrorist organization, but it also holds territory — and is quite dug in there — and is able to hold at risk the population of the regional superpower in the way that only national militaries once could," said a senior military officer with experience in Iraq, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly on the issue." — 'Israel Finding a Difficult Foe in Hezbollah’, By STEVEN ERLANGER and THOM SHANKER, New York Times, July 26, 2006

Which just goes to show how out of touch these high paid 'planners’ really are. As the reality sinks in, expect a rush for the exit from the US’s and Israel’s 'allies’ in the region, who see their own time coming up. Already, there have been demonstrations in Egypt and in Jordan against their governments over precisely this issue. It maybe awhile in coming but I contend that Condi’s 'New Middle East’ may well turn out to be the complete opposite of the one the Wolves envisage.

1. See the latest two MediaLens' essays: Demolishing Lebanon – Part 1 and Demolishing Lebanon – Part 2