Soccer Dad

Haveil havalim daily edition 08/07/2006

Haveil Havalim is the weekly Jewish/Israel blogging carnival. The most recent edition is here.

Since I originated the carnival, I've adopted the name for a daily edition that I will try to produce during the war against Hezbollah, Mondays through Thursdays. Unlike the weekly edition, the daily edition will be broken down into three sections. In Depth, Regular Stuff and Assignment Desk. In Depth will be an issue that I wish to explore. Regular Stuff will be a linkfest, though not as extensive as the weekly edition. Assignment desk will be a topic or project that I'm suggesting other bloggers or e-mailers explore. I'll be happy to publish links to or publish e-mails from anyone who responds.

IN DEPTH: Almost 2 weeks ago Howard Kurtz wrote Liberals and Israel about the lack of comment by liberal bloggers on the war. Kurtz quotes from Oxblog on the topic
"Clearly, something else besides complexity is preventing liberal bloggers from writing about Israel. I would suggest that there is a part of the online left which is so viciously anti-Israel that moderates have been intimidated into silence. Let's hope that this kind of viciousness never migrates off line, where it might threaten bipartisan support for Israel."

(Oddly Kurtz then quotes Matthew Yglesias claiming that Yglesias conceded some of Oxblog's points. Actually Yglesias turned the intimidation question around blaming it on the "powerful" pro-Israel side.)

But in case you're worried they haven't all gone silent. Bill Maher, for one, supports President Bush for a change.

And I hope this doesn't ruin your birthday, but I have to say, watching George Bush talk about Israel the last week has reminded me of a feeling that I hadn't felt in so long I forgot what it felt like: the feeling of pride when your president says what you want your president to say, especially in a matter that chokes you up a bit. I surrender my credentials as Bush exposer - from the very beginning - to no man, but on Israel, I love it that a U.S. president doesn't pretend Arab-Israeli conflict is an even-steven proposition. Lots of ethnic peoples, probably most, have at one time or another lost some territory; nobody's ever completely happy with their borders; people move and get moved, which is why the 20th century saw the movement of tens if not hundreds of millions of refugees in countries around the world. There was no entity of Arabs called "Palestine" before Israel made the desert bloom. If those 600,000 original Palestinian refugees had been handled with maturity by their Arab brethren, who had nothing but space to put them, they could have moved on -- the way Germans, Czechs, Poles, Chinese and everybody else has, including, of course, the Jews.

Though I suspect that this is the exception, not the rule. Take Taylor Marsh for example. Marsh isn't upset about the bias against Israel that was so recently exposed, except that it makes the making the anti-Israel case that much tougher.

Nor is she impressed that the United States and Britain are taking a principled stand against allowing Hezbollah to reap any benefit from violating international law.

The United States and Britain continue to stand by and encourage Israel by their unwillingness to demand Israel withdraw from southern Lebanon, while demanding Hezbollah disarm. This is untenable because Hezbollah is being strengthened by Israel bombing indiscriminately, while the west doesn't want to admit that democracy has put Hezbollah within the Lebanese legitimate government. Voting is all.

Israel did withdraw from Lebanon and its withdrawal was confirmed by the UN. That didn't stop Hezbollah from crossing that border kidnapping and killing 3 Israeli soldiers a few months later. That withdrawal didn't stop Hezbollah from claiming continued justification for attacking Israeli soldiers and civilians for the next six years. It didn't stop Hezbollah arming itself over the next six years with the aid of the Islamist regime in Iran.

Hezbollah's flouting of its obligation to disarm after Israel's withdrawal and the Lebanse failure to secure Israel's northern border violated the very resolution that Israel adhered to when it withdrew. Read it Ms. Marsh.

She continues by favorably quoting Juan Cole

The wholesale destruction of all of Lebanon by Israel and the US Pentagon does not make any sense. Why bomb roads, roads, bridges, ports, fuel depots in Sunni and Christian areas that have nothing to do with Shiite Hizbullah in the deep south? And, why was Hizbullah's rocket capability so crucial that it provoked Israel to this orgy of destruction? Most of the rockets were small katyushas with limited range and were highly inaccurate. They were an annoyance in the Occupied Golan Heights, especially the Lebanese-owned Shebaa Farms area. Hizbullah had killed 6 Israeli civilians since 2000. For this you would destroy a whole country?

Hezbollah had killed 6 civilians since 2000 *and* 19 soldiers. Each and every one of these murders was in violation of international law. Remember that Israel's withdrawal was certified by the UN. (Let's not forget the injuries and property damage either.)

Calling Shebaa Farms Lebanese territory is simply being an apologist for terror. I'm sure that Cole knows that Syria didn't consider Shebaa Farms Lebanese territory until after Israel withdrew form Lebanon. Why? Because it gave Hezbollah an excuse to continue attacking Israel. I don't know if Marsh accepts this view out of her support for terror or out of ignorance.

And of course why would Israel destroy all that infrastructure? Well maybe because they were used to supply arms to Hezbollah. With Israel out of Lebanon and the world community complicit in allowing Iran to supply its proxy how else can Israel prevent Hezbollah from re-arming? Remember as of July 12, 2006 this is the materiel that Israel estimated Hezbollah had (pdf) in its poseesion.

1. Despite the Israeli Air Force’s massive attack, in our estimation Hezbollah has an enormous and varied quantity of weapons which it stockpiled over the years with the aid and support of Iran and Syria.
2. In Israeli estimation, when the fighting began a week ago, Hezbollah had about 2,000 rockets of various types. According to Israeli security sources, about 50% ofthe rockets and artillery were eliminated, thus its potential is still great.
3. The organization has the following weapons:
A. Rocket arsenal
1) Several thousand 107 mm and 122 mm rockets with a range of 20 ilometers (about 12.5 miles).
2) Long-range Fajr rockets made in Iran with a range of about 43 kilometers
(almost 27 miles).
3) Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets with a range of about 75 kilometers (about
46.5 miles).
4) Syrian 220 mm rockets with a range of about 70 kilometers (about 43.5
miles).
5) Long-range Iranian Zelzal rockets with a range of up to 200 kilometers
(about 124 miles).
B. In addition, it has drones capable of carrying explosives, hang gliders and
powerful explosives.
C. The organization also has several thousand cannons and mortars of various types, SAGGER and TOW anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft guns of various types
including SA-7s and very possibly upgraded SA-18s.9
4. To date, Hezbollah has attacked Israel with most of its rocket types with the
exception of the long range Fajr-5 and Zelzals.

So sure you could argue that a lot of Hezbollah's arsenal were wildly inaccurate rockets, but there were plenty of them. Given the deaths of over 40 Israeli civilians int he past 3 weeks it's absurd to dismiss these weapons as ineffective.

I guess that being a liberal critic of Israel being ignorant, willfully or not. Most people would rather not display such ignorance but it didn't deter Taylor Marsh.

In a related topic, Martin Peretz had an excellent description of the forces now becoming dominant int the Democratic party. (Taylor Marsh would prefer that John Bolton acquiesce to Hezbollah's keeping its arsenal intact.)

In Lieberman Peretz argues

Yes, Mr. Lieberman sometimes sounds a bit treacly. He certainly is preachy, and advertises his sense of his own righteousness. But he has also been brave, and bravery is a rare trait in politicians, especially in states that are really true-blue or, for that matter, really true-red. The blogosphere Democrats, whose victory Mr. Lamont's will be if Mr. Lamont wins, have made Iraq the litmus test for incumbents. There are many reasonable, and even correct, reproofs that one may have for the conduct of the war. They are, to be sure, all retrospective. But one fault cannot be attributed to the U.S., and that is that we are on the wrong side. We are at war in a just cause, to protect the vulnerable masses of the country from the helter-skelter ideological and religious mass-murderers in their midst. Our enemies are not progressive peasants as was imagined three and four decades ago.

If Mr. Lieberman goes down, the thought-enforcers of the left will target other centrists as if the center was the locus of a terrible heresy, an emphasis on national strength. Of course, they cannot touch Hillary Clinton, who lists rightward and then leftward so dexterously that she eludes positioning. Not so Mr. Lieberman. He does not camouflage his opinions. He does not play for safety, which is why he is now unsafe.

(Interesting, Peretz now writes about Joe Lieberman the way he once wrote about his onetime protege Al Gore.)

I certainly hope that Lieberman wins tomorrow. It would be one more affirmation that the Kos crowd isn't nearly as influential as it thinks. (Remember how Howard Dean, according to all the polls, was going to trounce John Kerry?) It would also be one more egg on the face of the media that has alternated between reporting on this race and cheerleading for Lamont.

Bill Kristol in the Weekly Standard Anti-war, Anti-Israel Anti-Joe notes one more thing that anti-War, anti-Joe party has difficulty with

The Times also asked which of the following statements comes closer to your view: "The United States should continue to align itself with Israel," or "The United States should adopt a more neutral posture." Republicans: 64 percent say align with Israel, 29 percent want a more neutral posture; Democrats: 39 percent say align with Israel, 54 percent want a more neutral posture. So even with a centrist Israeli government that is responding to a direct attack and not defending settlements in the territories, Democrats have adopted a "European" attitude toward Israel.

I think that other polls show stronger support for Israel among Democrats than the LA Times poll, but still, in recent years support for Israel has been stronger among conservatives than liberals in the United States.

Thanks to Dr. Sanity for featuring my Jimmy Carter entry in this week's Carnival of the Insanities. She also has more on the Peretz article.

Crossing the Rubicon2 expresses her own very similar sentiments.

(More discussion on the Peretz article at buzztracker.)

REGULAR STUFF: Who said, "The best diplomat I know is a fully-loaded phaser bank. Was it John Bolton?

Backspin notes an irony.

Not only has a dead tree media organization, Judeosphere tells us that a lot of live trees have been destroyed too.

(h/t Crossing the Rubicon2) Powerline exposes the odd accusation of a washington Post reporter. You wonder where Ricks gets his military analysts from. CAIR? WRMEA?

PostWatch has more. Ricks claims he was talking hypothetically, but there's no hint of it in the exchange that was quoted by Powerline.

One more reason to read the news first, then check the blogs for the truth.

Israel Perspectives considers, with sadness, leaving home.

Secular Blasphemy is convinced that Israel has been restrained in its response.

Mere Rhetoric brings a proof to that contehtion.

Daled Amos wonders if HRW is any more accurate in Lebanon that it was elsewhere. (I wondered if Mark Garlasco would go to Qana and explain how the building couldn't possibly have been destroyed by an Israeli round. My guess is that he'd go to Qana, but would keep quiet if he found exculpatory evidence.)

AbbaGav asks not to forget the refugees. (link fixed, thanks Daled Amos.)

Finally Kesher Talk wonders about those anti-Israel protesters.

There a couple of bloggers who do daily roundups whom I haven't mentioned before. Occidentality has cut back on his blogging and gone to a daily after midnight roundup.

Though I've mentioned him before I don't think that I noted that A blog for all has an ongoing series called Diplomacy and the Hounds of Hell.

ASSIGNMENT DESK: Who do you think is better for Israel. Democrats/liberals or Republicans/conservatives?

Technorati Tags: Blog carnivals, haveil havalim, Israel, Judaism, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Haveil Havalim Daily.

Posted by SoccerDad at August 7, 2006 10:17 PM | TrackBack