The war against the Jews (7)

phil

Brilliant explanation Melanie -maybe one day the west will wake up.

field

Yes, undoubtedly - regime change in Iran is necessary for peace and for Israel's survival. Of course the worst outcome of the Iraq debacle was that Tehran is now off the menu. We (the USA and its allies) can defeat Iran's nuclear ambitions without recourse to invasion, but regime change at a distance is more difficult to achieve. If you are saying Israel has the right to fight a war against Iran itself, then undoubtedly the answer is yes, but it is difficult to see how such a war could be waged given the lack of proximity and the population differential. We should certainly pouring everything we can into a determined effort for regime change.

Alcuin

Such is the perversity of the ruthless. The issue is carefully argued here. Hamas know that the Jews are decent people, they use their very decency as a weapon against them. Hiding weapons among civilians has no strategic merit - flesh is very poor armour - it only works in that it stays the hand of your foe. If the Jews really were the ruthless murderers that Hamas portray them as, the tactic would not work. So it can be argued that the IDF should not stay their hands, but go in hard, children or no children. As Hamas learn that the IDF do not care for the lives of children, they will see the tactic as ineffective. So in the long run, killing the children is a mercy as your foe realises that the tactic only kills more people, they may remove them from the battle zone.

But such a cruel-to-be-kind strategy requires the supression of communications. That, i.e the destruction of Gaza radio and TV stations and the severing of the Internet would probably be good in itself.

epaminondas

Melanie .. I hope your purpose for all this is for the record, because if you think for one second, facts, logic, fairness, and the 3000 year old history of the oldest racism will make the slightest difference in this world anxious to hope that being rid of that 'shitty little country' will end what Nasrallah, Qaradawi, Bin Laden and the Qutb brothers have hoped planned and worked for, you are deluding yourself. Human nature weighs against jewish people. HUMAN NATURE has made of the jews, the CHOSEN. If nothing else, 1932-1945 should have taught every jew that only force is effective in this world. "This war differs from other wars, in this particular. We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war." Billy Sherman

Michael B

It's a generalization only, nonetheless at the root of much of this is the academic-ideological complex, in some ways more lethal and certainly more mendacious than Eisenhower's military-industrial complex; it is in fact an ideological war, most fundamentally, that is being waged. A generalization only, together with all the caveats that implies, but one that is strongly indicative of some basic truths and some basic elements of the general calculus nonetheless.

BJ

I think we can get the measure of the "WorldNet Daily" website by following their link to "Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict" which advertises for sale the infamous work of historical falsification by Joan Peters "From Time Immemorial" exposed as a hoax some years ago by Norman Finkelstein and others. I'm surprised they're still flogging it.

Austin Barry

Regime change in Iran? Agreed, but how is that end to be achieved and by whom? At this stage, if Israel were to attack Iran's nuclear installations and military targets I suspect that it would receive the tacit approval of the west, if only because of the somewhat fugitive reason that it appears to be classic symmetrical warfare which everyone can understand.

Jonny English

Phillips should make her mind up. Is she Israeli or English? Can't be both.

Anthony Hunt

With the way Jews have conducted themselves over the years, since imposing themselves on Palestine, I've now come to an understanding as to why they've been persecuted throughout history.

Not important

This I have no doubt is a Jewish owned publication. Only your side counts or matters. Should be ashamed of yourselves.

Josh Filer

Melanie Phillips stands for truth. Her journalism is a role model to the media

Tim Fellows

Good to see SOMEONE is thinking straight. Well said, Melanie.

Adam B.

Anthony Hunt, that's truly pathetic. Get a history lesson about the Jews in the Holy Land. I suppose you think Jesus was a Jew who "imposed" himself on the Holy Land 2000 years ago. Where were your descendants 2000 years ago? If you don't know, can you be sure you haven't "imposed" yourself on the UK? Get a brain, and if you really "understand" the gas chambers, the Inquisition and the pogroms, get some humanity, you bigot.

epaminondas

BJ you have to be kidding. Norman Finkelstein? Holocaust minimizing, Hizballah (better that the jews all gather in one place so we don't have to chase them around the world)loving, freedom loathing philosophical frankenstein child of Chomsky, Finkelstein? He has all the credibility of Al Muhajiroun on this subject. He can only expose himself. He is a disgrace to free men, his parents, his countrymen, and the idea of objective reality

Thinkster

Anthony Hunt: Yikes!

The Jews have been persecuted because they are fair and trusting - and therefore an easy target. And despite all, they generally work AND do war according to the rule of law, not hatred or the prehistoric animal like ruthlessness of their enemies - who are also YOUR enemies Mr. freedom loving individual who is going to be in for a shock when his status loses its quo over the next few years if we don't stop what Melanie warns us about on her more recent WOTW posting.

Anyway, all this doing things by the rule of (fair and democratic) law upsets corrupt, nasty and prejudicial entities from the Nazis, to regimes in the Middle East and Africa, so they will never accept a tolerant democracy in their midst.

If Israel was to vanish tomorrow and be replaced by a Jewless democracy, it would still be targeted! Of course, no one is perfect, and Israel makes mistakes (like any well meaning nation or being), and it's formation was flawed thanks to mistakes by the British (not the Jews!), but the evidence that the world is generally anti-semitic as much anti-Israel is the fact that the media is almost entirely focused on Israel while vile regimes elsewhere persecute their OWN people. And that means that the media are complicit in such intentionally unacceptable behavior for being distracted by the actions of a country that has only one goal, to be stable, industrious and open - like other democracies that blossom when ages old prejudices are banished to the history books! (Germany, Japan etc.)

While there are a few annoying Jews out there (annoying, not evil!), the majority of Jews I know are forgiving, generous and while very hard (business like) - extremely fair and have a fantastic self-deprecating sense of humor. 'Fair' is the key word here.

On a final note, my own experience indicates that far more white people dislike Jews than do Arabs. It is just that anti-semites use the Arabs (in particular the Palestinians) against them through crafty politics and proxy wars. That is my opinion/observation by the way, not necessarily something as black and white as my main point that Jews (and other law abiding people) are targeted because their fairness is their weakness.

Omri

Melanie, you might want to introduce your readers to the actual legal definiton of the war crime that Hamas commits by hiding behind women and children: Perfidy. It is defined by the Geneva Conventions, and its definition is something the "international community" is conveniently forgetting.

Mladen Andrijasevic

Hamas's human shields http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1204546401057&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Ann

Norman Finkelstein? Good heavens, the man is a travesty of an academic author.

Ann

Johnny English: she is a human being with a brain. Unfortunately, we still need to work out whether you are one.

Ann

If Hunt is the product of a British school, then this country is doomed. The Jews 'imposed themselves on Palestine'??? There is no such place as 'Palestine'. Israel was the homeland of the Jews 1300 years before the Romans arrived and invented this foreign name. That is also why there are no 'Palestinians': the people claiming to be are Arabs.

phil

johnny english mistakes his nationality -the english are a decent people and mr hunt just cant spell

Dee Ranged

Regime change - by whom? The US and EU are consumed by a self-sufficient complacency and continue to have no stomach for it. Russia and China, on the otherhand, actively support Iran because it is profitable to do. so. The problem is not confined to Iran but more accurately encompasses the whole of the Muslim world

Michael B

"The problem, however, is that Israel is in not just an ethical but a geo-strategic trap which is closing ever tighter by the day. That is why the genocidal sabre-rattling from the Islamic world which is growing ever louder must be taken seriously." [...] "... in a situation where there are no good options only less terrible ones, there needs to be a conceptual leap." [...] "There is therefore only one way out of this trap. Regime change in Iran." - I'm afraid I believe that with all my heart; the logic of it is increasingly inescapable. Yet too many people are either asleep or are half-awake at best. Some great and probative pieces of commentary here, clear-eyed, clear-headed, cogent, insightful, trenchant but nothing excessively leveraged, a steady grasp of some momentous indicators, all of it well and consistently grounded; fine stuff, bracing but not at all overly excitable.

Lynne Teperman

BJ: For Norman Finkelstein to accuse anyone of a lack of credibility is a case of the blackest of [crack]pots denouncing a fairly new and scarecely used kettle.

BJ

As an antidote to the lunacy on this blog I recommend the excellent article by Prof Avi Shlaim recently published in the Jewish Chronicle. You can also read on Norman Finkelstein's website!

foxmoth

Keep it coming, Melanie, perhaps you will get through to some of the blind folk some day. But if only some of the bloggers had your command of English.

sebastian

I've given up astonishment, but not abandoned nausea. I'm therefore nauseated by how so much of the western press swallows hook, line and sinker the notion that somehow Hamas and the so-called Palestinians are victims: of Israeli military might; of western neglect; of Islamaphobic sentiment that fails to appreciate the cruel actualities of this hard-pressed, Islamist democracy; of Israeli genocide; of merciless Jewish, child-slaughtering invasions; and so on...............ad nauseam actually. Much of this coming from the Balenreportaphobic BBC. There's presumably a warped psychology driving all this biased coverage - but I can't fathom it. I'm left only to wonder how long it will take before the ugly facts of Hamas' rule and its animating ideology of pure hate, surfaces and is seen for what it is. Hamas, as part of a "Palestinian" entity that cannot even achieve amity within itself, can never form peace with anyone else - especially with a nation and a faith group it has sworn to destroy. The "Palestinians" (formerly "occupied" by Egypt and Jordan and never actually independent) are their own worst enemies and should be seen as such. At war among themselves, they pick fights with others too, as if they hadn't enough blood-shed of their own. Launching attacks from behind human shields, they provoke retaliation in the hope of inviting photogenic civilian casualties. Given all this, Israel has been remarkably restrained. If they were, say, the Lebanese, the Syrians or the Jordanians, Hamas and supporters would've been indiscriminately flattened. That hasn't happened. Why? Because Israel does have ethics in these matters. It's part of Judaism. Israel fights back merely to defend a tiny portion of an otherwise largely hostile, muslim peninsula that's huge by comparison. It doesn't fight for slaughter's sake. The press should recognise this.

Ann

For anyone who admires the ridiculous and ignorant Finkelstein (and even Shlaim, with his huge agenda, chip and axe) to complain about 'lunacy' on this blog can mean one thing only: this person knows nothing about the Jews and about Israel.

MazalUK

Anti-semitism lives on, its shape and form may change, but it is still there. No where is this better expressed than by "Jonny English", "Anthony Hunt" and "Not Important" who add nothing to the debate but denigration of the Jewish people. It is a mercy that today we have Israel, unlike our unfortunate bretheren who lived in mainland Europe between 1933 and 1945.

Ben-Tsiyon

Jonny English, like me, Melanie is definitely not 'English'. Like me, she is Jewish, and it's clear from your phraseology that you regard 'Jewish' as being synonymous with 'Israeli'. As far as citizenship is concerned, Melanie would probably describe herself as 'British', but since I feel rather strongly about definitions, I prefer for myself 'UK citizen', as 'British' suggests blood (or if you prefer, DNA) ties that I'm pretty certain do not exist. I hope that this will assist in dispelling your confusion.

Rob

"There is therefore only one way out of this trap. Regime change in Iran." Well, regime change in Israel would do the trick too. But that wouldn't suit you, Mel. Still, putting aside the "blame the victims" diatribe you launch into and returning to the Reuters piece: for once I agree with you, it is horribly sanitised and they shouldn't have published it.