The Israel-Lebanese conflict and the massacre at Qana

Check out Professor Juan Cole's (who teaches at my school) blog for some of the best insight and information about the current crisis in the Middle East. I get alot of Middle East news sources from his blog. I myself am disgusted with the Israeli military's actions in Lebanon to systematically destroy the country. Not only have they attacked infrastructure but they've bombed food factories, Lebanese army bases, and social service centers. As a Jew, I support Israel but I don't support this. It won't make Israel any safer nor will it destroy Hezbollah. Instead Israel has killed over 750 civilians (many of them children) and created a humanitarian crisis of 700,000 displaced people. Hezbollah, as Professor Juan Cole points out, can't be destroyed by force very easily. They are not the same as Al-Qaeda, rather they are a sub-nationalist group akin to Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland. Also, the claim that Israel claims that Hezbollah militants hide among civilians is completely false, and couldn't be further from the truth.

I hope that the massacre at Qana that occurred yesterday really is a turning point in this crisis as Rami G. Khouri, an editor at the Beirut-based "Daily Star" newspaper, writes. Israel needs to work more on diplomacy especially when these conflicts usually mean civilian casualities.

Furthermore, the US' do-nothing stance is making things worse for our image across the world. According to the a Washington Post article: "if the war [in Lebanon] drags on, as appears likely, it could leave the United States more isolated than at any time since the Iraq invasion three years ago and hindered in its foreign policy goals such as shutting down Iran's nuclear program and spreading democracy around the world." The Bush administration sees this crisis as fighting against Iran, who sponsors Hezbollah, but the article provides no evidence that Iran actually orchestrated Hezbollah's initial attack and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.