Seeking peace; forced to fight.

[Ian David]

Yitzhak Frankenthal
The Arik Institute For Reconciliation, Tolerance and Peace,In Memory of Arieh Zvi Frankenthal. (הי"ד)

Seeking peace; forced to fight.


Lebanon, by abducting two Israeli soldiers, firing at Israel and killing eight Israeli soldiers, has this morning declared war. Such attacks, when carried-out from within Lebanese sovereignty, can be seen as nothing but a declaration of war.

A distinction must be made here, between Lebanon and other sovereign states, and the Palestinians. The Palestinians are fighting occupation, the worst form of terror, and the occupier. If I was a Palestinian I would undoubtedly be struggling for my independence and vigorously opposing the occupation. To do so is the natural duty of every Palestinian. Opposing the occupation and struggling for independence can be done in numerous different ways, however. Personally, I would have chosen to oppose it by massive demonstration (hundreds-of-thousands' of Palestinians), without letting up until Israel ceased its occupation of my lands and my people. I would not use force of arms or suicide bombers for a number of reasons, not the least of which being:
a. Israel is incomparably stronger, especially in contrast to the Palestinians.
b. Terrorizing Israel will not force Israel into surrender, as no nation can afford to give in to terrorism. Palestinians as well, cannot afford to despair and surrender in the face of Israeli terrorism.
c. Those who take part in terrorist activities inevitably reduce themselves to the level of those who they are fighting with just cause – ultimately placing themselves in the wrong.
d. Terror aimed at civilian populations is justly perceived by the world as an illegitimate form of warfare. Without support from the free world, establishing a sovereign state is impossible.
True, in this regard we can see a great degree of hypocrisy in the world: despite Israel's incessant terrorizing of the Palestinian population, the world does not look upon Israelis as terrorists. When Palestinians terrorize Israel on the other hand, they are unjustly equated to fundamentalist Muslim terrorists such as Bin Laden.

The events which occurred this morning on the Israeli-Lebanese border are an act of war. Israel has an obligation to retaliate and defend itself. Lebanon, unlike the Palestinian population, is an autonomous country. The Hezbollah in this case is of no interest to me. Only the Lebanese government, which cannot control the armed factions within it, is of interest to me - a government that cannot control the armed forces within-it is nothing but a government of puppets.

Within reason, I would be willing to do anything to achieve peace. As an Israeli, however, I cannot tolerate a self-governing country attacking mine. If I was the Prime Minister of Israel today, faced with the events of this morning, I would give Lebanon an ultimatum by which to return the abducted Israeli soldiers to Israel - alive and in one piece. If they failed to fulfill this deadline, I would begin bombing infrastructures in Beirut, starting with the electricity. If the soldiers are still not returned, I would destroy every bridge in Lebanon - and if the Lebanese government remained stubborn, I would have Lebanese soldiers, dignitaries and Hezbollah operatives captured - only to be released in return for the Israeli soldiers.
I am not playing games… As much as I want peace, I want my fellow Israelis to live securely in their country. No more fooling around with Lebanon.

More:
http://www.tikkun.org/rabbi_lerner/news_item.2006-07-13.2604750814

[BillZBubb]

1. Keep catapulting that propaganda!

Israel isn't forced to do anything. They do what they want. And what they are doing is ultimately self-destructive.

[Ravenseye]

2. Passive Resistance Works

One thing I pulled out of this was how he would have chosen to oppose it. I agree with that.

Something that's always irritated me about people is how no matter how often passive resistance has worked, and how frequently terror campaigns have failed, they still lash out at each other. The adage of "eye for an eye" just continues or even increases a cycle of violence. If the Palestinians had performed passive resistance on a massive scale, even as far back as 1948, I wonder what the world would be like today.

If without warning on any given sunny day in Israel, instead of a single suicide bomber blowing up 20 innocent people in a bus, you had two thousand palestinians (having crossed in to work for the day), gather on that same street and all lay down and refuse to move. Instead of killing people and making more enemies, you'd kill noone. You wouldn't 'resist' by throwing rocks, but by passing out flowers. Organizing hundreds of palestinian children to gather in say a random suburb of Haifa to pass out flowers to every house, asking for their rights and land and country.

Never gonna happen though. It'd be nice if people thought that way though.

[pelsar]

the passive protest would have worked...

some history: intifada I was a semi passive and semi non violent...its was a mass uprising by the palestenains using just rocks, Molotov cocktails and limited to the territories. That brought over 50% of the israelis to "their side" and got the oslo process going. If they had used real non violence they would have had even more israelis on their side. (there was already a gray rebellion going on in the IDF about serving in the territories)

when they started intifada II which was based on guns and suicide bombers.... they lost any support from the israelis.....dumb mistake.

a couple of years ago some palestenian intellectuals (ashrawi, etc) put an add in a palestenin paper about stopping with the suicide bombers and starting with real non violence protests...a week later they put an add in and apologised for insulting those palestenains that lost their lives in the conflict.

if they had used real non violence, sit down strikes, passing out flowers to the soldiers etc, they would have torn israeli society to pieces, no reservist would stand up to that and later no soldier would either..they would have won everything they wanted......

but its the wrong culture....

[KyndCulture]

3. dude, seriously

give it a rest.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RufusEarl]

6. Thanks for the link, this is very telling history!

[Ian David]

7. Why are you posting a link to a neo-nazi website?

"Zionist Terrorism" includes Jewish refugees escaping during The Holocaust according to this site.


Here's a nice excerpt:

May 27, 1947, Germany. Jewish underground migration officials in Frankfurt-am-Main declared they hoped to transport 1,000,000 Jews from Europe to Palestine, 30,000 of them this summer. The Costa Rican ship “Colony Trader” has been detained at Gibraltar under suspicion of its use for smuggling illegal immigrants into Palestine. London is investigating reports that non-Jewish Poles and Slavs in DP camps are being recruited for the Palestine army. Other investigations are being conducted into persistent reports that Soviet Russia has been supplying technical advisors to The Jewish terrorist groups.

[SeaBob]

5. Lebanon/Israel

Mr. Frankenthal,
If you want piece in Israel, then have your government stop treating the palestinians, whose land your government is occupying as an invading force,and controlling access to water, electricity, destroying their farm crops, in other words Mr Frankenthal stop treating the palestinians the way the Jews in Europe were treated in WWII. It makes your government no better than the Nazi's who produced your Holocaust.

[Denver Dave]

8. Can be seen as nothing but .... ??

Lebanon, by abducting two Israeli soldiers, firing at Israel and killing eight Israeli soldiers, has this morning declared war. Such attacks, when carried-out from within Lebanese sovereignty, can be seen as nothing but a declaration of war.

How about seeing it as "abducting two Israeli soldiers, firing at Israel and killing eight Israeli soldiers" and not an excuse to have a war.

That might have been the right time to request the UN police the border rather than displacing a half million people, making enemies and refrain from building support for those that we don't want to have support.