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picking up from nirvana's post:
there is a wide range of political opinion in israel--i know that there are many israelis who oppose the position like those you read above, which fall somewhere between likud and those tiny extremist rightwing parties whose politics are explicitly racist---hell, the range of people that i know personally encompasses a great diversity of positions about the ways in whih the israel government chooses to act---many many people are very distressed about the decision to destroy lebanon, even as "collateral damage" for a more focussed campaign--this distress cuts across usual political divisions. what i find remarkable is that out there in 3-d land, there is a far greater range of positions, even amongst people who in general support israel's action in lebanon, than you see amongst those who choose to support it here.
and far more ambivalence.
but no matter--it makes no sense to assume that israel is of one mind, any more than it makes sense to assume any other complex society is of one mind, on this or anything else. to impute a single motive to all israelis is idiotic.
for example:
not all israelis support the state's brutalization of the palestinians.
not all israelis support the wall.
not all israels support the state's efforts to destroy the pa in order to prevent hamas from assuming power--hamas was moderating and everyone knows it--perhaps it was easier for the state to maintain the old hamas.
not all israelis support the military repression in gaza.
not all israelis have forgotten about gaza.
not all israelis function with a disconnect when it comes to thinking about the obvious empirical connections between idf actions in gaza and the present conflict with hebollah/destruction of lebanon.
not all israelis support the olmert government. not all israelis never ask themselves about the connection between this carnage in lebanon and the weak status of the olmert government.
nto all israelis simply repeat the official state arguments for the destruction of lebanon/conflict with hezbollah.
not all israelis assume that all arabs are terrorists.
not all israelis are mystified about the connection between routine brutalization and radical politics.
not all israelis do not understand that much of the trouble israelis have with their neighbors they bring down on themselves through the brutality of measures taken to "prevent" such trouble.
it seems to me that most who support israel's actions and who post in this space operate with a discourse that is particular to the right in israel--but here they present it like it is the only way to speak about israel, the only way to understand this conflict.
because, for whatever reason, the political spectrum reproduced in the united states from israel is to pitifully narrow.
how is that?
that only one of a whole range of political positions within israel about the conflict going on now is ever represented in this space?
what imagines folk to assume that by parroting a rightwing view of israeli actions that they speak for or even coherently on behalf of israel?
where did this presumption come from?
it is unbelievable.
and it is really tiresome.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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