Friday, July 28, 2006

why defend Israel


What I believe to be the most influencial Portuguese blogger writes in his ABRUPTO about the present Israeli-Helzbollah conflict. I will translate hoping that he won't mind. Thank you J. P. Pereira.
A few days ago he posted a map as did other bloggers. Just to situate us.
Today he writes: (Blame my rough transation for any innacuracies or plain bad writing.):

It has been written that anti-americanism is the actual antisemitism. It is a different anti semitism, but very much alike. Israel is being the victim of that peculiar form of anti semitism.
History does not teach as much as we would like, but it does give us useful comparisons. Israel's case is very interesting in the analysis of the ideological and political evolutions of the 20th century. When the state of Israel was born, against the vehement unwillingness of the English and those siding with the great Mufti of Jerusalem, friend of the Nazis, the Zionist cause was felt as a leftist issue. The USSR was the great promoter of the UN resolutions for the division of the area of Palestine, and the first state to recognise Israel. At the time, the portuguese clandestine communist newspaper Avante, greeted the Israeli struggle against "the feudal Arab monarquies" that were warring against it and the socialist saga of the kibutz was part of the utopian imaginary of the left and not just communist. Socialists and their International gave great political support to the newly formed state.
Well, from the first minute, the "cause" of Israel was dependent on winning wars against the countries by which it was surrounded and even some that were far. I remember visiting Argelia a few years back and verifying with some surprise that they were still in a state of war against Israel, many years after the last military conflict that oppsed the jewish country against other countries and not against guerrilla or terrorist groups.
Well, in its wars, always defensive - it's useless to explain to those in bad faith that the offensive character of some military operations has nothing to do with the defensive caracter of the conflict-, today's Israel is no different than that of the end of the 40's. At the center of those wars was the pure survival of the state of Israel, from one side or the other. The refusal in recognizing the existence of Israel was always at the center of the arab wars, now more and more Muslim, and only years later did "the palestinian question" arise.
The inflexion of the left against Israel kept pace with Krutchev's political support of arab nationalism, that in the long run shifted alliances in the region. Supporting Nasser, reacting to the last hold out of colonialism, the Suez conflict, the USSR openned the way to the progressive isolation of Israel from its supporters on the left. In the 60's 70's and 80's, until the end of the Soviet Union itself, it (the Soviet Union) became one of the main logistical and political supporters of the guerrilla movements and of palestinain or pro palestinian terrorists, although its control was never complete, due to the complex emeshement of nacional intrigues and of the clans that have always been around the Middle East and North Africa. Having to deal with Libia, Siria, Iraq, and Iran, the net of international terrorism that spanned the globe from Germany to Japan was hard, but nevertheless the Soviett Union was always present in that world and sub world.
It was the Americans, not always very volunteeristic in the region, (as seen in the Suez war), that ended up becoming the main allies of Israel. For that to happen there were motives of cold war and important jewish pressure in the US, but it was in this context that the the actual reality of alliances was created. Therefore the Isrealis ended up also being the target and in some cases more than that, of the central pretext of the contemporary anti americamisn.
European paralysis in a part of the world that is part of its geopolitical sphere comes from that anti americanism , wherein Europe, in part due to a post Gaulist France, let itself get caught up in such a way as to turn it irrelevant. To see a state that was a french creation like Lebanon, giving vassalage to Siria and to assist to the complete political and military impotence of France is only a bigger symptom of the same impotence of the European Union and its separation from the US.
All of this is a by line of sorts. For Israel very little has changed since May 15th of 1948, in that immediatly after the formalization of its independence by the UN, the arab League states declared war on Israel, which was attacked by Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. The league's secretary of state, Azzam Pasha, invoqued a jihad and appealed for a war of "extermination". Since that day, some things have changed, some for the better, but for Israel it continues to be a question of pure suvival. That is why in Israel, the left and right have never divided themselves in the essencial, that is the military operations conducted to defend the state of Israel.
Thank you Pacheco Pereira @ ABRUPTO

I state again: I support Israel

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