PDavidHornik

Patriotic students

How does Israel hold together? Because the large bulk of its population is patriotic and loyal. Note this article's description of the role of the leftists at the campuses.

More on Huntington

Fouad Ajami has this beautiful tribute to Samuel Huntington's wisdom, insight, and refusal to swim with the current.

Arens on stopping rockets

Former Likud defense minister and foreign minister Moshe Arens, whose clear logic graces the op-ed pages of lefty Haaretz every few weeks, enumerates here all of Israel's failed attempts so far to stop the rocket fire, which suffered from a failure to recognize a simple reality: "the only effective alternative--  for the Israel Defense Forces to take control of the rocket launching sites in the Gaza Strip. Over 60 years ago, in World War II, the Allies understood that the only way to put a stop to the shelling of London by German V2 rockets was for Allied armies to reach the launching sites in Western Europe. Much has changed since then, but the rockets are essentially still the same...."

Arens acknowledges that "The prospect of ground forces entering the Gaza Strip is not particularly attractive"--especially after the feckless Olmert govt., in particular, has allowed Hamas to build a 20,000-terrorist army, smuggle in antitank, antiaircraft, and much other weaponry, build a dense network of tunnels, etc. "But," he says rightly, "nobody has yet found a way of defeating an enemy without invading their territory. Call it occupation or whatever else you like, but that is how wars have always been won, and if we are going to defeat Hamas and stop the rockets from raining on Israeli civilians that is what we will have to do."

As for the argument "Once there, how are we going to get out?" he denies that "the IDF, once in the Gaza Strip, will find it impossible to disentangle itself from there; and that Hamas, even after having been defeated, will continue to rule the Gaza Strip." In other words, the IDF could leave, and someone other than Hamas would be in power. That's what worries me--who?

The lowdown from Ralph Peters

Packs a lot of truth into a few pithy sentences.

Steyn on Huntington

Mark Steyn writes this great capsule tribute to Samuel Huntington and particularly The Clash of Civilizations. I found it the deepest, most resonant, most consistently persuasive explanation for realities I experience and witness as a resident of the Middle East--and, particularly, a resident who is outside the dominant in-group of Muslim Arabs. The West ignores culture at its peril. Ironically, the West's own cultural accomplishments foster a shallowness in many of its denizens that lead them into pernicious misconceptions about other cultures.

No more illusions

Here in the Wall Street Journal  Michael Oren and Yossi Klein Halevi cast the current Gaza op as a test for whether Israel, after territorial withdrawals, can get world support if it's attacked from the relinquished territory and has to fight back. They note with concern that "the U.N. Security Council [has] abstained from condemning Hamas and convened only after Israel resolved to act." They also say that "The Gaza crisis...has implications for Israeli-Syrian negotiations. Here, too, Israelis will be unwilling to cede strategically vital territories -- in this case on the Golan Heights -- in an international environment in which any attempt to defend themselves will be denounced as unjustified aggression."

And they say the current Gaza op "may also be the last chance to reassure Israelis of the viability of a two-state solution"--that is, that if Israel withdraws from the West Bank, it would then be permitted to defend itself against the inevitable ensuing onslaught from that territory.

I'd say Oren and Halevi's learning curve is not rapid. Israel is an isolated Jewish state, belonging to no geopolitical bloc and unable to match Arab economic and diplomatic power. The world will never be nice to it. Israel's whole war doctrine centers on rapidity because it's known that Israel will always be given a very short tether to act militarily. It's unfortunate that Oren and Halevi speak so casually about the supposed option of further giveaways of the Golan and the West Bank--far more dangerous yet than ceding southern Lebanon or Gaza. The only approach to suicide is to prevent it.  

What Israel is up against

Here it is in capsule form. It's the mentality of Treblinka or of the Cambodian killing fields. I long ago gave up on the question of how these, too, could be human beings, the same species I belong to. It's possible to understand how their culture and upbringing shaped them and made them what they are, but only up to a point. You have an enemy and you have to fight him.

An Iraqi folk hero

The shoe-thrower is hugely popular in Iraq. Some of us have been saying that this region is woefully pathological and there's not much anyone can do about it, certainly not in the near future. The Bush administration tried to create a democracy in Iraq. Israel left Gaza in the naive hope--among part of the Israeli population--that the removal of the "occupation" would lead the Gazans to start building a peaceful, productive society there. Instead the shoe-thrower is a folk hero, and Israel returns to Gaza today in a war that was made inevitable by its leaving. The Middle East's ability to sow destruction and death could be diminished if people assessed the region, and dealt with it, more realistically. The U.S. should not have done the democracy experiment in Iraq and Israel should not have left Gaza; both moves have caused more harm than good. (The harm from the former lies particularly in the U.S. public souring on the war on terror and Bush adopting an appeasement stance toward Iran and North Korea.) The region is a cauldron of hatred coming from Islam, pathological childrearing practices, and a fury stemming from failure and envy.

Two cheers for monotheism

Monotheism is a net gain for humanity, says Mark Hendrickson in this fine, concise, deeply thoughtful piece. He talks, though, about the Judeo-Christian stream and almost not at all about Islam, a factor that complicates the picture, and could complicate it worse in the future.

Elad's enumeration

Moshe Elad well sets forth the obstacles Israel will face (would face; who knows when we'll do it) in reentering Gaza to protect its citizens from constant bombardment. Essentially, no matter what extreme measures we take to minimize civilian casualties on the other side, up to and including sacrificing Israeli soldiers to this objective as was done in Jenin, the world media, EU, UN, and eventually US are going to come down on us real hard. It's a bitter reality and it's as certain as clockwork. Rockets on Israeli civilians are always tolerable, even for years and years; Israeli self-defense is not. It's known as sacrificing the Jews to one's economic interests in the Arab world, and in the case of the media, to one's warped, decadent "morality." As Elad sums up: "What then can we expect? We shall either embark on a failed operation but gain the world’s 'understanding,' or launch a successful operation, which will come at the price of harsh condemnation."

This morning a rocket slammed into the roof of a house in a kibbutz. Yawn; nobody cares. George Bush, the "great friend of Israel," can live peacefully with this for half a decade and more. Do something that gets the Saudis mad and he'll be hot on your case.