Wake Up Lebanon

Eli Wiesel says that it was not that the world was unaware of what was going on during the Holocaust, it was that the world was indifferent to the massacre.

The world now seems indifferent to the massacre happening in Lebanon and Gaza. At the beginning of this conflict, I a long time empathizer of Israel, was appalled at their behavior, and immediately called them bullies.

Later I came across an interview with an old Professor at UFT, Janice Stein, who likened the situation to the following scenario: US militias crossing the 49th parallel and capturing two Canadian soldiers on patrol in the area, and the US government doing nothing to rectify the situation. Put like that, I began to realize that I too would see the incursion into a countries sovereign borders and the capture of its soldiers as an act of war.

A war in any situation is complex, and usually more trouble than it is worth.

A war on terrorism seems to be the most pointless kind of war to date. The enemy is so indefinable, that it is a war in which you could literally fight with against everyone, and endlessly.

Some of the root causes of terrorism appear to be a lack of education which results in a polarized view of the world and poverty. War thus perpetuates the root causes, it does not negate them. I sympathized with Israel’s early plight. A nation founded on contested land. Putting aside whether or not they had the right to, perhaps in the beginning, all Israel wanted to do was exist.

Flash forward twenty years, Israel is the regions most superior force. Their actions in Palestine and in Lebanon can only be described as bullying. Bombing civilian infrastructure and still claiming to only be acting against militia forcers is dishonest. The fact is they are at war with Lebanon and Palestine.

If I were Lebanese, I would be seriously disappointed with my government. They are letting my fellow Lebanese die with only useless words of criticism as a pathetic shield of defense.

I understand the politics of crises containment. I understand the Lebanese government realizes that they cannot win against Israel and are hoping for international diplomatic intervention, but putting myself in a Lebanese person’s shoes, I would want them to mobilize every possible resource to at least put up some sort of fight.

It is like the Lebanese government is paralyzed from policing its own borders from the militia. The Lebanese government seems to lack a back bone to say ‘enough is enough, you have killed three hundred and fifty of our civilian population and that is enough grounds for us to at least make a heroic attempt to stem more deaths.’ Wake up Lebanon, your commitment should be to your people, and not the international community or some militia.

Lastly, a word on the Israeli army, I read that the Israeli army employs a high tech telephone alert system that calls reserve members to arms. Interestingly, this is all it takes in Israel for people to willingly throw themselves in harms way. What other military in the world can say they have similar levels of loyalty? Israel is a truly a militant and philosophical nation. It is the only nation in the world where it citizens seem to be fully engaged in public life. It seems almost experimental. How do you get your nation to be less apathetic to public life? Be in a constant state of war. I suppose in Israel there is no choice in the matter.

Interesting since Islam always gets a bad rep for being violent religion and by extension the states governed by its law. On the flip side Palestinians who are in an equal yet more impoverished state of crises as Israel, do not seem to share the same levels of loyalty. What explains the difference? Is it a lack of buy in for the overlying philosophy of the Palestinian nation? Is it money?