[Dialogue] Lebanon: Analysis of 2 New York Times op ed articles

[Charles or Doris Hahn]

Hey Jim,
Thanks for sharing this piece with us.  I am glad to
know that two such op-ed pieces were in the New York
Times.  Your webbing it together makes it a real
breath of fresh air on the American scene.

Charles Hahn

--- jim rippey <jimripsr at qwest.net> wrote:

> I emailed this critique to both op ed columnists
> tonight.    --Jim Rippey
> 
> 
> 
> A strange symbiosis 
> 
> There is a strange symbiosis between Tuesday's op-ed
> columns by John Tierney and Nicholas B Kristhof. In
> their differences, I believe Kristhof has the better
> of the argument. He cites examples of the benefits
> that flowed from Israel's previous restraint in
> responding to Hezbollah outrages. He notes similar
> benefits from India's restraint when terrorists
> bombed train lines in Mumbai, India, recently,
> killing nearly 200 people (about 10 times as many as
> had been killed in all the Hezbollah attacks on
> Israel since the withdrawal from Lebanon.) Kristhof
> notes that India's prime minister wisely recognized
> that military action would only make the problem
> worse.
> 
> On the other hand, Tierney quotes from James
> Bowman's new book, "Honor: A History." "The honor
> system in Arab culture is the default honor system,
> the one you see in street gangs in America - you dis
> me, I shoot you," says Bowman, a scholar at the
> Ethics and Public Policy Center. "We need a better
> system that makes it honorable to be protective of
> those who are weaker instead of lording it over
> them."
> 
> When you're confronted with an honor culture like
> the one in the Middle East, there are two rules to
> keep in mind, he says. One is that you are not going
> to placate the enemy with the kind of concessions
> that appeal to Western diplomats. "Hezbollah is
> fighting for honor, to humiliate the enemy, not for
> any particular objective," Bowman says. "Israel has
> no choice in what it's doing. Nothing short of
> victory by either side will change anything."
> 
> In contrast, Kristhof states that "For now Israel's
> Lebanon adventure is playing out a bit like
> America's Iraq adventure. It is bolstering
> hard-liners (like Bashar al-Assad of Syria) and
> undermining moderates (like King Abdullah of
> Jordan), while handing propaganda victories to Iran
> and Shiite militants. Arab television channels have
> shown an unending stream of pictures of dead
> Lebanese children. We put our Arab allies in an
> impossible position when militants ask how they can
> work with a U.S. government that supplies the
> munitions that kill those children?" He might also
> note worldwide revulsion over, and condemnation of,
> what Israel is doing.
> 
> It seems clear to me that Hezbelloh is not not
> simply acting out an Arab "honor" system. It goes
> deeper to a universal human failing, a bitter
> determination to seek revenge when wronged. Bear in
> mind that many of today's Hezbelloh's fighters have
> long memories for Israel's previous treatment of
> Arabs in Lebanon.... the expulsion of Palestinians
> from what it now Israel, the continued building of
> illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian land
> , the ongoing harassment of Palestinians, and, most
> particularly, the Sabra-Shatilla massacre in
> September 1982. 
> 
> In that, Israeli soldiers invading Lebanon
> encouraged, or at least allowed their allies, the
> Lebanese Christian Philangist miliatia, to enter the
> refugee camp there and brutally slaughter thousands
> of unarmed Arab refugees, including many women and
> children. Israelis guarded the entrances to the
> camp, even fired flares at night to illuminate the
> camp for the attackers, according to various new
> reports. The Red Cross listed the dead at 2700,
> other estimates varied widely. An Israeli
> investigation eventually blamed Ariel Sharon and
> demoted him for allowing the massacre, but he was
> soon rehabilitated.
> 
> It's human nature that friends and relatives
> bitterly remember atrocities like these. And it
> seems obvious to me that the wholesale destruction
> of Lebanese buildings, bridges, airports and the
> killing of hundreds of innocent Lebanese will create
> more militants bitterly seeking revenge. As Tierney
> quotes author Bowman, "We need a better system that
> makes it honorable to be protective of those who are
> weaker instead of lording it over them." What Israel
> is doing is just the opposite, and is producing the
> dire results Kristhof predicts. Military action only
> makes the situation worse.
> 
> Obviously there is no easy solution. But as Tikkun's
> Rabbi Lerner has stated, "we need to communicate to
> the Israeli people that the mass punishment of a
> million people for the acts of a few is as
> unacceptable when it comes from a democratic society
> as when it comes from the willful oppression of
> entrenched authoritarian dictators." However, if the
> U.S. and the UN would insist that Israel dismantle
> its illegal settlements and withdraw totally from
> occupied Palestine, it would be a big start. Huge
> financial assistance will be needed to make it work,
> but that will be cheaper than what we are spending
> on our losing battle in Iraq. And it probably is
> essential that there be an international peace force
> kept in the area for years, to restrain those
> seeking revenge. But surely that would be preferable
> to the widespread war in the Mideast that we are
> plunging toward now. 
> 
> James C. Rippey Sr., 702 Ft Crook Rd S, Bellevue, NE
> 68005 402-291-3868
> > _______________________________________________
> Dialogue mailing list
> Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
>
http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net
>