Places to go for analysis about Israel’s situation
I’ve decided to place this post at the top periodically as a good way to publish links that I find interesting in analyzing the situation in the Middle East. Scroll down for any new posts I may have put up.
Here are two good places to go for information about what’s going on in and around Israel: Counterterrorism Blog and DEBKAfile.
Charles Krauthammer has a lucid analysis focusing on the who hit whom first aspect of the current fighting. While Kofi Annan may be all over Israel (isn’t he charming?), Krauthammer actually looks to the facts and knows where to point the finger.
Mona Charen also does a great job at analyzing both the hypocrisy of the world’s response to Israel’s actions (the bit about Amnesty International is really disgusting), and in pointing to the Palestinians’ conduct since the Gaza withdrawal — conduct that Israel had, until this week, borne with remarkable forbearance.
And kudos to the Wall Street Journal for its whole-hearted attack on those governments, NGOs, UN apparatchiks and, yes, Condi Rice, who condemn Israel for acting disproportionately:
Israel’s military invasion and naval blockade of Lebanon is being denounced in European capitals and at the United Nations as a “disproportionate” response to the kidnapping this week of two of its soldiers by Hezbollah. Israel’s decision late last month to invade Gaza in retaliation for the kidnapping of another soldier by Hamas was also condemned as lacking in proportion. So here’s a question for our global solons: Since hostage-taking is universally regarded as an act of war, what “proportionate” action do they propose for Israel?
In the case of Hamas, perhaps Israel could rain indiscriminate artillery fire on Gaza City, surely a proportionate response to the 800 rockets Hamas has fired at Israeli towns in the last year alone. In the case of Hezbollah, it might mean carpet bombing a section of south Beirut, another equally proportionate response to Hezbollah’s attacks on civilian Jewish and Israeli targets in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s.
We aren’t being serious, but neither is a feckless international community that refuses to proportionately denounce the outrages to which Israel is being subjected. That goes also for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who says “all sides must act with restraint.” But Israel’s current problems result in part from an excess of restraint in responding to previous Hamas and Hezbollah provocations.
SATURDAY UPDATES: Robert Satloff analyzes the fact that this is Iran’s proxy war, though its puppets and agents. To the extent that Iran is a big, big player in world geopolitics, that it is about to go nuclear, and that the Europeans have already shown themselves willing to bow down before it, Israel’s initiative is very, very important.
Captains Quarters is awash in updates regarding the situation in Israel and analyses about the meaning and effect of various statements and actions from involved parties. Excellent reading, all of it.
MONDAY UPDATES: Today, Jeff Jacoby gets my nod for most lucid analysis about the current situation in the Middle East. I think he connects the dots to Iran in an very lucid way that deserves consideration.
I’ll admit that it’s a little technical for me, but I can almost understand Phibian’s rundown about the Israeli ship that was attacked, with the loss of four sailors. Those more intelligent than I will appreciate even more than I do what Phibian has to say on the subject.
TUESDAY UPDATES: Dennis Prager has an article cutting through the “cycle of violence” and “retaliation” garbage one constantly hears about in connection with Israel’s fight for survival. And just to put things in perspective, let me remind you of this Protest Warrior’s t-shirt.
Andrew C. McCarthy carefully explains the Iran connection to Hezbollah, which is why Israel’s current war is also our war.
Patrick has alerted me to a William Kristol column in which he explains why this war is not like all other wars. Read it and learn wonderful things!
Talking to Technorati: Hezbollah, Hizbollah, Lebanon, Israel
