Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (73515)	7/19/2006 1:17:37 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 360941

Israel's On Wrong Course commondreams.org <<...Israel's attack on Lebanon, which has already killed and wounded hundreds and destroyed much of that fragile democracy's infrastructure including airports, seaports, bridges and roads has done nothing to make Israel safer or more secure from threats posed by the militant Islamic organization Hezbollah. Indeed, the terrorist group's attacks on targets in northern Israel have become more brazen and deadly since Israel began striking Lebanon. No serious participant in the contemporary discourse would deny that Israel has a right to protect itself. But many would agree that Israel is not going about the mission in a smart manner. As Henry Siegman, the former head of the American Jewish Congress, explains, "In Lebanon as in Gaza, it is not Israel's right to protect its civilian population from terrorist aggression that is at issue. It is the way Israel goes about exercising that right. "Despite bitter lessons from the past, Israel's political and military leaders remain addicted to the notion that, whatever they have a right to do, they have a right to overdo, to the point where they lose what international support they had when they began their retaliatory measures," adds Seigman. "Israel's response to the terrorist assault in Gaza and the outrageous and unprovoked Hezbollah assault across its northern border in Lebanon, far from providing protection to its citizens, may well further undermine their security by destabilizing the wider region." Seigman's right. Israel's assault on Lebanon won't bring stability to the Middle East. Instead, it makes a bad situation worse. Unfortunately, President Bush has chosen to direct his anger over the crisis toward Syria, a largely disempowered player, and Iran, a powerful player but not one that listens to the U.S. By failing to express blunt concern about Israel's over-the-top response, Bush has encouraged Olmert to continue on a course that has already proved devastating for Lebanon and that, ultimately, will threaten Israel's stability. Bush should start listening to moderate voices from Israel. Both Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Public Security Minister Avi Dichter opposed last week's bombings of Beirut, a move that dramatically increased tensions and violence. In the Israeli Knesset there is a good deal of opposition to the current strategy. Writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, former Israeli Cabinet member Yossi Sarid argues that Israel and the U.S. need to recognize that they are going about things the wrong way. Instead of destroying the infrastructure of Lebanon and Palestine, Sarid wants to increase economic opportunities for those who now see violence as the only way to demand fairness. "Iraq is destroyed, Afghanistan is destroyed, the Gaza Strip is destroyed and soon Beirut will be destroyed for the umpteenth time, and hundreds of billions of dollars are being invested solely in the vain war against the side that always loses and therefore has nothing more to lose. And hundreds of billions more go down the tubes of corruption," wrote Sarid. "Maybe the time has come to put the pistol into safety mode for a moment, back into the holster, and at high noon declare a worldwide Marshall Plan, so that the eternal losers will finally have something to lose," Sarid adds. "Only then will it be possible to isolate the viruses of violence and terrorism, for which quiet is quagmire and which in our eyes are themselves quagmire. And once isolated, it will be possible to eradicate them one day."...>>