Soccer Dad: The heights of omissions

October 31, 2006

The heights of omissions

The north's in the news.

More than two months after the war ended in stalemate, many Israelis have come to see it as a costly failure. Those who live closest to Lebanon, though, say it altered their lives dramatically for the better.

"The war erased a threat we lived with for years," Greenberg said. "We aren't afraid of snipers or kidnappings anymore. We can breathe."

The article recounts how Israelis living on the border with Lebanon now longer feel threatened by Hezbollah. It is a very encouraging article and implicitly argues that the war did achieve a tangible benefit to Isreal - relief for its residents on the northern border.

That's well and good. But if true, it raises a troubling question. Where were all the reporters over the past 6 years? If these people were living under a very real threat why didn't we know much about it? Why is it reported that Israel went to war over the crossborder kidnapping of two soldiers - wasn't the real reason Israel had to fight the intolerable conditions under which its northernmost citizens lived?

No doubt part of the problem is that Israel didn't communicate this situation effectively. But surely if tens of thousands of people are threatened by terrorists daily, that should rank some pretty serious coverage.

Scott Wilson of the Washington Post reported on efforts of Israelis to recruit new residents to the Golan. Not surprisingly there are serpents in this idyllic land: settlers and occupation.

We learn

"No doubt the steadfastness of the resistance in Lebanon, ending the legend of the undefeatable Israeli army, has strengthened our belief that the end of the occupation is closer than ever," said Hail Abu Jabal, 62, a Druze political leader in the town of Majdal Shams who spent seven years in Israeli prisons for campaigning against Israel's hold on Golan. "But expanding these settlements is a mistake, making peace more distant and violent confrontation closer."

and that
"After almost 60 years, the basic question of whether the Israelis have a right to create a Jewish state is being asked again after this war," said Taiseer Maray, director of Golan for Development, an Arab-rights organization in Majdal Shams. "This shows the stupidity of power. If I were a clever Zionist, the first thing I'd do is seek peace."
and further

"What we want is for our rights to be the same as theirs," Abu Jabal said. "I'm not against the Jew as a person. But we want the occupation to end and for us to live in peace."

The article is also scrupulous to note that President Assad has sent out peace feelers. So given all this it really seems that Israel ought to do something.

Just like the history of the threats of the past six years have been largely ignored, so to has the history of Israeli-Syrian relations, such a they are. Six years ago then PM Barak sent President Clinton to Geneva with a peace proposal to the elder Assad. You know, the sphinx, the shrewd negotiator. Barak was reportedly offering over 90% of what Assad was demanding. He just insisted that Israel keep a bit too much beachfront property. Did Assad engage in negotiation to try to get more land for peace? No, he went to his grave refusing to deal with Israel.

Why the missed opportunity of 2000 is absent from this article is incomprehensible. Unless Wilson's goal is to spread Syrian propaganda.

So in these two stories we learn a bit more about Israel's north. But we also realize that a lot has been left out.

Technorati tags: Washinton Post, Media Bias, Israel.