So says Richard Cohen of the Washington Post:"The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself."
Some other quotes from Mr. Cohen:
"There is no point in condemning Hezbollah." and "And there's not much point, either, in condemning Hamas."
Now consider a thoughtful response to Mr. Cohen prepared by Kesher Talk.
8 comments:
"Hunker down and take it." The stirring words of the left are always invigorating. To predators.
Cohen doesn't acknowledge that Israel now has a free hand in determining the level of response which it may choose to employ. And the Lebanese will be able to assess the correctness of allowing Hezbollah to operate without restraint.
Lebanon is unlikely to ever be able to resist Israel militarily but they do have the ability to conduct a civil war with Hezbollah to settle the matter of whether they are entitled to be a nation state. Freedom implies responsibility for choices made - the Lebanese made an incorrect initial choice.
Lebanese made an incorrect initial choice.
Lebanon, like much of the Middle East, is a collection of tribes, not a true nation state. That's its problem. The tribes are just learning to live together again, they don't want a civil war, so their position is understandable, especially as Hizb'allah is probably the single largest power in the country.
Cohen doesn't acknowledge that Israel now has a free hand in determining the level of response which it may choose to employ.
If I was making the decisions in Israel I would be going crazy. There are altogether too many choices and the wrong choices can have severe consequences.
chuck—
If I was making the decisions in Israel I would be going crazy.
So would I.
"There is no point in condemning Hezbollah." and "And there's not much point, either, in condemning Hamas."
There is no point in trying to reason with Mr. Cohen, as his most formidable enemy is reason itself.
He wrote a column about a year ago indicating what a dreadful dunce he'd been in school. I suppose he just wants to prove to us that he's still the dummy.
(OTOH, George Wills did better in school, and today in the same paper he shows he's a dummy, too.In his case it seems to have been brought on my an over-estimation of the breadth of his intelligence.)
In both cases they are poster boys for my view that we really need term limits for pundits.
As long as the mullahs rule Iran, what difference does Israel's level of response make? Except to the Israeli's, of course.
The precipitating event - kidnapping the soldiers - was not within Israel's control and the cascade won't be within Israel's control. Whatever Israel's response, Iran will claim that its next move (or the next move of its proxy) was justified.
So will Cohen.
George Wills did better in school, and today in the same paper he shows he's a dummy,
I suspect George longs for the carefree days of yore, say about 100 years ago, when the US could ignore the world and the British kept the peace.
Why does anybody bother to pay attention to anything Cohen writes anymore?
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