Voicemail (August 10, 2006)

In response to Elizabeth Wright’s article in the last issue of Knoxville Voice (week of 7/23/06) for which I was interviewed and quoted, I will appreciate if you will publish the main points I made in  a follow-up letter that I have sent to Mrs. Wright, which arrived too late to be incorporated in the article itself. The main points of my letter follow.

It was my understanding during our interview that the article (“Degrees of Separation”, 7/27 issue) will not discuss the political aspects but rather will focus on the ongoing efforts within the local Israeli and Palestinian communities to maintain good and civil relationship based on human and individual values. I respected that approach and did not discuss the political aspects of the conflict. Yet, while the last half of your article does maintain this spirit, the first half in which you interview Mrs. Mary Harb and Renee Jubran, is focused on political positions with accusations exclusively against Israel while showering great sympathy and complements to Hezbollah and the Palestinians. The only political opinion given in the article by an Israeli, turned out to be from the extreme left who is apparently completely sold to the Palestinian view. By the way, Mary Harb and Renee Jubran might very well have founded the Knoxville chapter of Women in Black but the original movement was oiginally founded much earlier by Israeli and Palestinian mothers in Israel who mourned the killing of their children on both sides of the conflict. I do share and sympathize with this original cause. Unfortunately, here in Knoxville this movement became very bias and one-sided exclusively against Israel. I did not see in your article any expression of mourning or sympathizing with the suffering and killings of Israelis in this conflict or any protest against the cruel terror tactics of suicide bombers slaughtering innocent Israeli civilians.

The current conflict in Lebanon is a direct result of an unbearable situation in Israel in which Israeli towns and citizens are continuously terrorized by rockets and armed incursions by Hezbollah. Hezbollah, whose name “Army of God” reflects their mission, is an unauthorized group originated, organized, armed and trained by Iran and backed by Syria. In the name of “defending” Lebanon, they occupied southern Lebanon from which they launch rockets and incursions into Israel. They continue to do so in spite of Israel’s total withdrawal from Lebanon in year 2000 behind the international boundaries, a withdrawal that was fully accepted and certified by the U.N. Israel does not have and never had any territorial claims in Lebanon whatsoever and all it wants is peace and quiet for its citizens within its own borders. Hezbollah’s mission and desire however, is nothing less than their declared intent of total destruction of the state of Israel.

What makes this current situation worse is that Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran, which itself has grandiose goals of radical-jihadic Islamic domination of the entire region (to say the least). Just as their patrons in Iran, whose fanatic president is well known by now in his inexcusable declarations on Israel and the Jews, Hezbollah uses terror tactics, which includes indiscriminate attacks on citizens with random rockets. Those rockets are useless from military point of view but are designed specifically to kill and terrorize civilians (their rockets are filled with hundreds of ball bearings, which fly in all directions to kill and wound as many civilians as possible—a clear terrorist goal by all means).

In addition, the activities of Hezbollah in Lebanon are against the wishes of the Lebanese government, which would like to implement U.N. resolution 1559, which was adopted after the end of Lebanon’s occupation by Syria two years ago. This resolution calls for complete disarmament of all militias of all their weapons. All militias did indeed implement this agreement except for Hezbollah, who is basically occupying south Lebanon against the wishes of the international community and Lebanon itself. Hezbollah maintains basically a terrorist state within the state of Lebanon, the Lebanese army is too weak to do anything about it and the population too terrified to stand up to them since the Hezbollah does not hesitate to “eliminate” their opponents (civilians or not) in Lebanon.

The situation in the south (Gaza Strip) is similar but with another terrorist organization called Hamas, which is also fully supported by Iran and Syria. They are also utilized by Iran and Syria for their own selfish and destructive ambitions. The more I think about it the more it looks to me that Iran is orchestrating all these activities and strategies including “buying out” the masses through social services, nationalism and religion. When one combines all this with Iran’s nuclear ambitions and plans, one can or should see the bottom line which is the great danger that Iran poses to the tolerant and progressive democracies of the world. However, I do not wish to expand too much into that subject which is another long and very serious story.

The bottom-line is that in spite of the relatively mild progress made by the more moderate Arab states toward the acceptance of Israel’s existence in the region (and even that is possibly only skin deep), Israel is still surrounded, after almost 60 years of existence, by very powerful countries like Iran, Syria, and terrorists groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, [Islamic] Jihad, etc. All of the above parties have NO PEACE in mind and make no distinctions between civilian or non-civilian populations and are single-mindedly dedicated and committed to Israel’s total destruction. Remember that these states, groups and movements, with their huge population and territory, can afford to lose many times but Israel cannot afford to lose even once, because nobody will save them from these fanatical enemies.

Publisher Dane Baker responds:

Hezbollah grew in prominence as an organization largely in response to Israel’s monstrous 1982 invasion of southern Lebanon (with the Orwellian name of “Operation Peace for Galilee”). A recent Wall Street Journal article describes the group as the “only force in the country proven capable of facing up to Israel,” cementing its place in southern Lebanon as it “delivered food to the poor, cared for orphaned children, provided health-care services and brought a sense of meaning to a Shiite community long neglected by Lebanese society.” Hezbollah’s social services are regularly depicted with contempt in the Western—particularly American—press as nothing more than a ruse designed to garner support for Hezbollah’s armed wing, for which there is little to no support in Lebanon, or so the story goes.

The Lebanese apparently don’t agree: “Eighty-seven percent of the Lebanese back Hezbollah’s response to ‘Israeli aggression,’ the Beirut Center for Research and Information found in [a] survey taken July 24-26. That included strong majorities in Lebanon’s four major religious groups: 96 percent of Shiites, 87 percent of Sunnis, 80 percent of Christians; and 80 percent of Druze”, according to the Program on International Policy Attitudes.

Mr. Siman-Tov also echoes popular sentiment about Israel generally: that of a vulnerable state surrounded on all sides by “fanatical enemies” who, if unchecked, will destroy the country and drive the Jews into the sea. Reality, however, is quite different: Middle East analyst Peter Singer recently wrote that “Well-trained and equipped with the latest American-made (and paid for) technology, the Israeli Defense Forces are matched by no military in the Middle East, and some argue, on a qualitative basis, are among the best in the world.” The impressive destruction Israel has visited on Lebanon and Gaza in recent weeks reinforces this reality, despite claims of weakness and vulnerability.

Any sane person would characterize Hezbollah’s cross-border raid, abduction of two Israeli Defense Force soldiers, and firing of thousands of rockets into Israel as deeply irresponsible at best and criminal at worst, particularly given that it’s the people of Lebanon—innocent men, women, and children—that must bear the brunt of the all-out Israeli assault. But this does not justify the Israeli response, which has been planned for some time, if press reports are to be believed: “More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail” (San Francisco Chronicle).

The narrative takes another twist when one compares the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers (two by Hezbollah and one by Hamas) to routine IDF kidnappings of civilians—the former is reported as “kidnappings” or “abductions” in the Western press, the latter as “arrests” or “detentions.” Yet for the tens of thousands languishing in Israeli prisons on undeclared charges of terrorism, there is no due process: they simply disappear. A textbook case occurred the day before the June 25 kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit in Gaza: The IDF kidnapped a Palestinian doctor and his brother—Osama and Mustafa Muamar—in Gaza. As Noam Chomsky notes, the two events “reveal that by Western moral standards, kidnapping of civilians is just fine if it is done by ‘our side,’ but capture of a soldier on ‘our side’ a day later is a despicable crime that requires severe punishment of the population.”

Israel’s response has been characterized, correctly in my view, as constituting war crimes by the world’s two major human rights organizations (Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch), as U.S.-made Israeli planes flown by U.S.-trained pilots obliterate bridges, fire missiles at ambulances (piercing the precise middle of the painted Red Cross emblem, in one case), destroy power stations, bomb U.N. outposts (despite hours of pleas beforehand to Israeli officials to spare the site), and on and on. As Mr. Siman-Tov notes, press accounts have reported altered Hezbollah rockets that include ball bearings, but scarcely known is Israel’s use of cluster bombs in populated areas of Lebanon, reported by Human Rights Watch on July 24 and reiterated in a New York Times article three days later (in which an IDF general “acknowledged that Israel had used cluster munitions in the conflict”). While ball bearings are certainly lethal and illegal, cluster bombs, according to media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, “pose an even deadlier threat to civilians, as they can spread hundreds of ‘bomblets’ that become ‘de facto antipersonnel landmines’ (Human Rights Watch, 3/03).”

Experts also warn that Israeli violence in Lebanon and Gaza is not only strengthening the support of Hezbollah, but hard-line governments as well. A leading opposition figure in Iran, Ibrahim Yazdi of the Freedom Movement, told the New York Times that “Such acts strengthen [Iranian president] Ahmadinejad’s position.”

The curious observer, Mr. Siman-Tov apparently included, might wonder why the Knoxville Voice places the onus upon Israel to halt its attacks. The reason is simple: Concerned citizens are responsible for actions they are complicit in, however indirectly. Support from the world’s superpower is no small measure and Israel enjoys fervent U.S. aid to the tune of $3 billion-plus annually, including critical military and diplomatic support. As Israeli air strikes continued, the New York Times reported on July 22 that “The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel”, a decision which “was made with relatively little debate” as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prepared to block European and U.N. calls for an immediate ceasefire. As American taxpayers continue to exclusively fund the Israeli military machine and our elected leaders insist on blocking immediate end to violence, we bear some measure of responsibility and owe it to the victims—Arabs and Jews alike—to face up to it.