Does anybody around here understand what is going on with Israel right now? Does Sharon truly speak for Israel? He just seems to be leading people down a dark road, and his latest comments call to mind the dread I felt when he came into power.

I bring this up because the current world situation, the current unpleasantness, whatever we want to call it, has had an odd side effect on me that I'm only just realizing. The attacks, with their attendant emotional ripples, along with the current spirit of coalition building, have conspired to make me forget the nuances that are the hallmark of so much of our affairs with foreign powers. I've allowed myself to start thinking in simple black and white terms of "for and against" forgetting the nuance.

We are already taking so much heat for our support of Israel, you'd think Sharon would be sensitive to that and back off for a bit from the rhetoric. But no. It just seems to me that he's stepping it up, and that is just killing us right now.

Does anybody else out there have a take on this? Am I way off? My thinking is so clouded right now, and certainly no one in power is going to overtly criticize him or any other coalition leader right now. I have to wonder how long that will last, considering the kind of support we are hoping for from the Muslim world.

Thanks in advance, guys.

-Amanpour

I think Sharon may well be taking advantage of our current dilemma and he's probably concerned that the US position will shift in the face of the need to include Arab states in our coalition. Bush has already come out and endorsed, if vaguely, the notion of a Palestinian state. This is nothing new for US policy but it's brand new for this administration. Also it seems Rumsfeld's trip to shore up confidence among our friendly Middle Eastern governments is including weapon sales by way of payoffs. Sharon may feel he needs to force a local crisis to put us in a position of taking sides before his position can deteriorate too much.

Sharon's not alone in taking advantage, if that's what he's doing. I recently heard the foreign minister of India explicitly implying that there will be no end to terrorism until Pakistan as well as The Taliban are brought into line. He may have some valid points but now, diplomatically speaking, isn't the time for us to be considering these measures.

That SHARON sure has STONEs, if you know what I mean! I saw him cross and uncross his legs at the press conference, and he wasn't even wearing panties! He even said that taking Jerusalem would give him "pleasure."

Sheesh! He's off my Christmas card list.

Israel is basically a state under constant threat of violence. Many of their arab neighbors hate and fear them. Israel has in the past used covert intelligence and assassination, military strikes and even limited invasions against them. None of them have attacked Israel in what? Almost 30 years? Yet Israel continues a policy of pre-emptive strikes against neighbors that appear to be developing capabilities that the Israelis do not want them to have.

Okay. Everyone down there hates Israel. Since we support them, in defiance of the desires of all their neighbors and the huge racial majority, we are seen as immoral, corrupt and meddling. Hence, America becomes the great evildoer. It's not such a big leap, really, especially when you consider average education levels there, and the groups that have the capability to distribute propoganda. I'm not even ready to say they are all that wrong in their beliefs.

Now, add in that Sharon is belligerent. He does not seem to seek peace with the arabs, but rather subjugation, or a separate land. Any concession or negotiation with an arab state, in his mind, is a direct threat against the security of his own state. It seems to me that there is no thought of reconciliation or peace in the man. In fact, a number of his statements sound eerily like those of Hitler himself. The "appeasment" comment he recently made just underscored where his mind was.

Last, Israelis have a good reason, I think, to worry. The are hated and reviled by the nations around them. All the "good Islam/Islam is about peace" rhetoric in the world doesn't change the reality of what would happen if Iraq or Syria gained control of Israel. It would probably make the Balkans look like a flower power sit-in.

So I think the Israelis should be very afraid of the potential threats America may unmask by expanding our relationships with the other states in the region. Especially if they become strong enough to do to Israel what Israel has been doing to them for the past twenty-odd years. It's all down to a bunch of neighbors who all hate the one guy on the corner. Unfortunately, that guy on the corner has their holy places inside his yard, and a big dog keeping them at bay. If the guy on the corner is a mean man, it's just going to make it worse.

Does that sound about right?

This article may help you understand how some people view Ariel Sharon.

http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=54872

'None of them have attacked Israel in what? Almost 30 years? Yet Israel continues a policy of pre-emptive strikes against neighbors that appear to be developing capabilities that the Israelis do not want them to have.'

You left out the whole Syrian-funded Palestinian terror bombing bit. Amusingly, if you go all the way back to the UN mandate it all started with Palestinian guerillas making border raids from the newly created Palestine into the newly created Israel.

Here's a totally off the wall thought.

Rumsfeld is in the Middle East meeting with Arab leaders trying to get them in line for the upcoming actions (BTW, what a great set-up: "yes, we are preparing to airlift and airdrop food and medical supplies to the suffering Afghan population - but we first must make sure it's safe for our planes and people." heh heh.) Anyway, Rumsfeld is sitting with the Arab leaders, trying to get them comfortable or least in line. At the same time, Sharon comes out and practically condemns the U.S. and states "Israel is now on her own!"

If I were trying to set something up to nudge the Muslim nations my way, I can't imagine anything better than having Sharon condemn the U.S. and declare that Israel was now on her own.

"Amusingly, if you go all the way back to the UN mandate it all started with Palestinian guerillas making border raids from the newly created Palestine into the newly created Israel."

Maybe not so amusing to the Palestinians whose houses and places of business were taken away to help Europe feel better about letting the Jews get slaughtered during WWII.

I'm not antisemetic -- feel I have to preface any anti-Israeli-government thoughts with that statement -- but I don't understand how taking away houses from Palestinian families in order to create a new nation overnight was exactly the smartest idea for creating peace. Sounds like one hell of a loaded "gift." If I were Jewish I might be somewhat pissed that a "homeland" had been created in my name by bulldozing Palestinians into refugee camps.

In a way it's sort of like watching the United States being built in modern times. Sharon is their Custer, I suppose. If the Native Americans had been able to hijack an airliner back in the old west times and plow it into the White House, they'd probably have had good reason.

'Maybe not so amusing to the Palestinians whose houses and places of business were taken away to help Europe feel better about letting the Jews get slaughtered during WWII.'

Palestinians weren't forcibly ejected/fled to become refugees until the start of the first war, where Syria invaded with the stated goal of destroying Israel. It's not like I'm an expert here, but as far as I know everything bad that has happened to them has been the direct result of them, or their benefactors, fighting a war with Israel and losing.

Then again, I get my history of the region from an online encyclopedia, so I could be wrong.

'In a way it's sort of like watching the United States being built in modern times. Sharon is their Custer, I suppose. If the Native Americans had been able to hijack an airliner back in the old west times and plow it into the White House, they'd probably have had good reason.'

I think Native Americans are the wrong analogy, as the US continually booted them off land it wanted. Israel hasn't ever done this directly, to my knowledge.

Jason, the entire nation of Israel was built on land that somebody else "wanted." More than a million people were chased from their homes and businesses.

But there are so many different stories and points of view on Israeli history that I don't think that anyone knows the truth any more. The general view over the past decade, however, has been shifting towards seeing the Israelis as the aggressors. I've been reading a book called "The Iron Wall" of late that's sort of become the Bible (uh, Torah? Koran? ;-) of this school of thought. It basically sets out Israeli leaders as paranoid and antagonistic from the very beginning.

Some accounts of how these border conflicts began are absolutely absurd. One time in the early 1950s, Israel wanted to send a strike force into Jordan because the Jordanians wouldn't return a flock of sheep that had crossed the border. UN officials called it Operation Bo-Peep and barely managed to negotiate a peaceful resolution. Israel had planned a full assault on the Arab Legion in retaliation. Other incidents are terrifying and indicate why the Arabs hate Americans and the Israelis enough to kill themselves for the cause. In 1955, for example, four months of minor border incursions involving solo infiltrators crossing from Gaza into Israel (two incidents, some documents stolen, one passerby on a bike killed) was met with the complete destruction of an Egyptian military post by a paratrooper team led by Ariel Sharon. Almost 40 Egyptians were killed and more than 30 wounded. Crazed over-reactions like this seem to define Israel's history.

Brett

I can certainly understand a streak of paranoia in Israel. After all, they were surrounded by enemies, many of whom avowed that nothing less than the destruction of their state would satisfy them, and they were certainly vastly outnumbered in terms of population.

I'm sure they made plenty of mistakes, but in their case I can see erring on the side of aggression.

I can understand the psychology as well but Operation Bo-Peep? The tactics seem to be getting stung and whacking the hornet's nest to teach them a lesson.

They probably would have adopted a less cocky approach if they couldn't count on as much American assistance but those were the days of Cold War when mercenary Arab governments and political movements would flirt back and forth over the Iron Curtain. Even though Israel did do some business with the USSR they were firmly indebted to us and because we knew that we came to rely on them. So much so that somehow we ended up leaning on Israel to the point that we couldn't stand on our own anymore in the region. We became yesmen to Tel Aviv.

I think we've been trying to readdress the balance but it's too late for easy answers. Over the decades Middle Eastern dictatorships and autocracies have used to Palestinian question as, I've heard it described, a steam valve to focus domestic hostilities and frustrations that are many cases really due to their own government's economic and anti-democratic processes, against Israel and the US. They fund radical groups because they believe they can control the Imams, or did. In many countries this has led to the radical and militant fundamentalism we see today. This is also why few Arab governments, for all the rhetoric, seem to actually do anything for The Palestinian people.

That's only one dimension of the PR problem facing us in the Middle East but it's a cornerstone.

'Jason, the entire nation of Israel was built on land that somebody else "wanted." More than a million people were chased from their homes and businesses.'

So? Israel lost it to the Romans around 200 BC, who lost it to the Arabs back in AD 600, who lost it to the British in WWI. Who's the official owner?

Yes, the Israelis horribly overreact, and they shouldn't. To my knowledge, however, every one of there Very Bad Actions has been in reaction to arab invasion or the like. The Palestinians fled the area back during the founding of Israel due to the Arab nations invading and losing, not because the Israelis booted them out. At least, that's my understanding.

The key there, Jason, is "to my knowledge." Not to sound like too much of a dick, but do some more reading. There are a lot of layers here.

For example, Israel initiated all of the serious direct conflict in the 1950s. The Suez War planned out with England and France pretty much set the stage. Heard about that? England and France wanted to screw over Nasser and maintain their control of the Suez Canal. They asked David Ben-Gurion, Israeli PM, to order an attack on Gaza, whereupon English and French troops would be sent into the Suez area to "maintain order." Ben-Gurion promptly seized Gaza and then the Sinai. His overall plan, actually, was to seize the Sinai, much of Jordan, and parts of Syria to create a Greater Israel. The only reason that this wasn't attempted, was strong international condemnation. Both the US and the Soviets told off the Brits and French, and told the Israelis to vacate the Sinai right away. After a brief delay, they did.

Anyways, there was no provocation for any of this, aside from Nasser trying to rid Egypt of colonial influence. There was never any threat to Israel. And until 1956, Nasser wanted to deal with Israel. After that, well, he wasn't quite so interested in peace. So we got the build-up to the 1967 and 1973 conflicts.

'Anyways, there was no provocation for any of this'

http://www.worldbook.com/fun/wbla/israel50/html/conf.htm

This is just an encyclopeida, but 'Egypt also blocked Israeli ships from using the Suez Canal and stopped Israeli ships at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba' sounds like one to me. As do the commando raids.

There were no commando raids that I'm aware of. There were border crossings, by one or two spies looking for information, but no commandos. Nothing on a par with, say, Israel's sending agents into Cairo in the early 1950s to plant bombs at theatres frequented by foreigners, in the hopes that Western governments would believe that Egyptian radicals were too dangerous, and thus leave the country. Yep, it really happened.

A trade dispute -- and that's what the Suez Canal thing was -- isn't exactly a valid reason to invade a neighbor and seize a huge chunk of their territory. If it were, British Columbia loggers would be talking about occupying part of Washington State at this very moment. ;-)

Anyways, there's no point arguing this stuff. Not like we're going to come to a resolution when real intellectual heavyweights (y'know, like Madeline Albright ;-) can't make heads or tails of the stupid region.

'A trade dispute -- and that's what the Suez Canal thing was -- isn't exactly a valid reason to invade a neighbor and seize a huge chunk of their territory. If it were, British Columbia loggers would be talking about occupying part of Washington State at this very moment. ;-)'

The world only became civilized very recently; the US intervened all over the far east for trade reasons back in the 19th century. Anyway, analogies is useful: can you imagine France putting up with Germany locking them out of, say, the North Sea? Ok, that's not the most useful parallel, since it's not an artificial construct. Countries have justifiable gone to war for much less.

Both sides are bastards, and no one has a clear claim to the land. Next up: what's up with Japan & Russia still yelling at each other over those islands?