The Daily Background

I have no idea what the Cumberland Times-News is (other than that it’s a local newspaper in Maryland and West Virginia– rather than a mainstay of the mythical “liberal media”), but one of their columnists published a great piece today regarding the 34-day Israel-Hezbollah war. It’s not very long and I’d encourage you to click through and read the full item but I’ll post a teaser.

Perhaps your poll question: “Has Israel over-reacted in its assault on Hezbollah forces in Lebanon” might have had different results if it had been worded thusly: If you knew that Israel’s attack on Lebanon had been planned for over a year, and that the capture of two Israeli soldiers was just their excuse, would you still think their attack was justified? If you knew that Israel has about 10,000 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners, some held for 20 years, and that capturing two or three Israeli soldiers was to attempt a prisoner exchange, would you still think Israel did not “overreact?”

If you knew that Israel started dropping bombs on Lebanon before Hezbollah started firing rockets on Israel, would you still support Israel’s attack? If you knew that Israel made over 6,000 bombing raids to over 1,000 rocket attacks by Hezbollah, would you still support Israel’s attack? If you knew that Israel has killed over 1,000 civilians and displaced over 700,000, while Hezbollah has killed a few dozen Israeli civilians, would you still support Israel’s attack?

While I differ from the columnist on a few points, I think this is a pretty good read. One thing I differ from the author on is lack of calling out Hezbollah as committing war crimes as well in addition to the Israeli military in his or her column. Though this can be excusable considering the heavy concentration on Hezbollah’s crimes that already exists. Secondly, as you might have noticed, shortly after the conflict began I started to refer to actions as done by either Hezbollah or “the Israeli military.”

I try to never say “Israel.” Just as I would not want to write about the Iraq war as the fault of the American people (of whom I am one) who now think the war was a mistake– I would not want to blame the Israeli people (who are also now firmly against the war their leaders fought). So one of my disagreements with the columnist is content-wise, the other is message-wise. But still, a good read- I encourage you to check out the full item. It’s not long.

Update: After re-reading the piece, I think it may be a letter to the editor, rather than a columnist. Whatever.

Filed under: Middle East Crisis, Z-TDB Blog