Hmmm... I was going to post a quick comment on Israel's use of collective punishment against the Lebanese, and note that this just continues its policy of collective punishment against the Palestinians, but after reading a few of the comments responding to Michael's bigotry post, maybe I need to deliver a bit of a preamble.
Some of the comments are less than ideally coherent, so I may be misreading them, but the Bush administration is not composed of "rabbinical warpigs." The names Bush, Cheney, and Rice come to mind as prominent gentile hawks working in the White House. Paul Wolfowitz is, of course, the most famous Jewish proponent of the Iraq war, but let's not forget that he was booed in the spring of 2002 at a pro-Israel rally in Washington for the crime of mentioning that Palestinians were suffering and dying in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The booing prompted protests not only from Frank Rich, who went so far as to express hope in President Bush, but also Edgar Bronfman, the President of the World Jewish Congress. In other words, the American Jewish community, like all groups or "communities," is itself riven with various disagreements, contradictions, and differences, and it is stupid to believe otherwise. Just to make sure we're clear: Using the word "rabbinical" as an insult is vile and ignorant.
By the way, I'm not Jewish, and have more than once been accused of anti-Semitism for daring to criticize Israel, a state which bases its immigration policy entirely on race and has been engaged in a forty-year military occupation of a civilian population that currently numbers over three million (for more on the Israeli treatment of Palestinians living under their occupation, see the work of Amira Hass). It also practises collective punishment, both against this civilian population and against the civilian population of Lebanon. I'm not only talking about the 1,000+ Lebanese civilians that were murdered during Israel's recent invasion of Lebanon to recover two kidnapped soldiers (who are still there), but its use of cluster bombs, which have left over a million "bomblets" unexploded in southern Lebanon. Here are the highlights from the BBC's story:
From an earlier story:Up to a million cluster bomblets discharged by Israel in its conflict with Hezbollah remain unexploded in southern Lebanon, the UN has said.
The UN's mine disposal agency says about 40% of the cluster bombs fired or dropped by Israel failed to detonate - three times the UN's previous estimate.
It says the problem could delay the return home of about 200,000 displaced people by up to two years.
The devices have killed 14 people in south Lebanon since the August truce.
The manager of the UN's mine removal centre in south Lebanon, Chris Clark, said Israel had failed to provide useful information of its cluster bomb strikes, which could help with the clearance operation.
Last month, the UN's humanitarian chief, Jan Egeland, accused Israel of "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in the conflict.
Israel says all its weapons and munitions, as well as their use, comply with international law.
Mr Clark said information Israel had provided to help with the bomblets' clearance had been "useless".
"We have asked for grid references for [cluster bomb] strikes," he said.
"We have not received them so far."
The UN's humanitarian chief has accused Israel of "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in Lebanon.
UN clearance experts had so far found 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 separate sites, Jan Egeland said.
Mr Egeland described the fresh statistics as "shocking new information".
"What's shocking and completely immoral is: 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," he said.
"Every day, people are maimed, wounded and killed by these weapons. It shouldn't have happened."
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