We see Israel’s attack on Lebanon (or many of us do here) as a disproportional response to the threat it faces. Air strikes in civilian areas that have nothing to do with Hizbollah. The destruction of valuable infrastructure which undermines the fragile Lebanese democracy. Murderous assaults on civilians such as the recent Qana bombing that killed at least 60, including 34 children. But that is not how many Israelis view their recent military adventure north of their border. To them it is a life or death struggle they mean to win:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israelis see the war against Hizbollah in stark terms. It’s about the survival of the Jewish state — and that means showing Israel’s enemies, especially Iran, that any attack will be severely punished.

That is why Israel is resisting mounting demands for an immediate ceasefire after an air strike killed 54 civilians, including 37 children, in a Lebanese village on Sunday. […]

“Israelis see Hizbollah as a proxy of Iran that every morning threatens us with extermination,” said Yaron Ezrahi, a political science professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

“This has triggered visions of the Holocaust and extermination. It explains why there has been such intense support here for the operation against Hizbollah.”

Many Israelis fear Hizbollah is the speartip of Iran, whom they accuse of trying to build nuclear bombs and whose president has said the Jewish state should be wiped off the map.

We’ve seen this mindset before, here in our own country where right wing voices continually shout about the Islamofascist Menace in terms that approach apocalyptic rhetoric. It is the mindset of unrelenting tribal fear, that makes everyone who is not a member of the tribe suspect, and somehow less than human, that turns the “enemy” into a demonic other whose members should be eradicated. It is the mindset that justifies atrocities based on the principle that “The only Good [Fill in the blank] is a Dead [Fill in the blank].”

(Cont.)

I don’t mean to belittle the threat to Israel posed by Hizbollah and Hamas, but can anyone seriously think it is close to being overrun and destroyed by militant Islamists? Israel has the best military forces in the region, far better trained and equipped than any of its neighbors. Although beset by terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hizbollah, those attacks do not really represent a threat to its existence, except perhaps in the mind of some conservative’s feverish nightmare. Hizbollah’s weaponry cannot even effectively target Israeli cities, unlike the far more precise and deadly arsenal employed by Israel. Looking at the respective death tolls of the two civilian populations, it isn’t difficult to determine who has the power to eradicate a civilization and who cannot.

And this is true even without considering Israel’s nuclear arsenal, the only one in the entire Middle East (Pakistan is a nuclear power, yes, but its focus is on India, its traditional enemy, and it is more properly seen as being a Central Asian power, rather than a threat to Israel). Indeed, in the last 3 decades, it has been the Israelis who have been the aggressor in the Middle East, attacking at different times Iraq, Jordan, Syria and (most frequently) Lebanon. Israel is the local bully on the block, its only significant enemies being terrorist organizations that cannot inflict significant harm on its population.

What these feeble terrorists have been able to accomplish, however, is perhaps far worse: the militarization of the Israeli psyche. A significant portion of Israeli citizens believe they are in a fight to the death with their Arab neighbors, not based on the physical reality of their situation, but on the mental reality that these terrorist attacks have created. Fear truly is the mind killer:

While Hizbollah fighters were not about to march through the streets of Israeli cities as many feared the Arab armies would do in 1967, the stakes were just as high, [Michael Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem] said.

“The fear is of being perceived as weak and vulnerable. Then when Iran acquires nuclear weapons Hizbollah can shell Israel with impunity and we will not be able to respond,” Oren said.

“Foreign investment would flee the country, tourists would not come. The country could be strangled economically. In essence it would be the destruction of the Jewish state.” […]

“You are not fighting here about settlements and territory. Everybody realizes the other side wants to exterminate us.”

Alon Kelderon, 43, a plumber in the northern city of Haifa, a favorite target for Hizbollah rocket attacks, said Israel had to show the Arab world it had not gone soft.

“Let’s face it, no one will shed a tear if Israel is destroyed. We must finish this for our own existence,” he said.

This is how terrorists gain their victories. Not on the ground, but in the minds of their adversaries. By creating fear among those who are their victims, the terrorists bring into existence a culture of revenge, a society willing to strike with maximum force at innocent people who are not responsible for the terror attacks. Because of the skewed perception that society itself is in danger of collapse, extreme measures are adopted, and extremist viewpoints become the norm. The necessity of eradicating one’s enemies because they hate you and wish to destroy you becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It is difficult to reject fear. It is a far more intense emotion than almost any other. From it comes anger and rage and blood lust, and the irrational viewpoint of a child who can only lash out at those around him, a child who has lost the ability to think calmly and objectively about the true nature of the world around him. We have seen the same thing here in the United States. How easy it is to rally to the cry of “9/11 Changed Everything” and “Support the Troops” and “God Bless America.” There is a reason we often qualify the word “patriotism” with the adjective “blind.”

But if we and the Israelis are to have a chance to build a lasting peace between our respective societies and the Islamic world, then collectively we will have to open our eyes. We will have to employ our talents for empathy and reason, rather than our acumen at creating violence, death and destruction. In short we need to talk to Muslims, and even more importantly we need to listen to what they have to tell us. It will not be easy, for there is much anger and mutual distrust. But it is the only path that has any hope of creating the “lasting peace” to which Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice disingenuously give lip service.

Let me close by reminding you of the difference between seeing violence as the solution, rather than diplomacy and simple human contact. Back in 1998, Hezbollah was also firing rockets into Israel. President Clinton, rather than encouraging the Israelis to invade Lebanon and eliminate, Bill Clinton got on the phone with then Syrian President Hafez Assad and requested that Syria use its influence with Hezbollah to stop the rocket attacks. Not surprisingly, Hezbollah shortly thereafter did stop firing its missiles into Israel.

Could Bush and Israel do the same thing now that Clinton did back in 1998? Same parties, similar situation. Who knows, but they won’t even try, because in their minds the enemy must be eliminated, and war is the only solution. They accept, without question, that the survival of the State of Israel is at stake in the present conflict. Just as diehard Bush supporters here in the US conflate “Islamofascism” with the real fascism of the Nazis, and the “War on Terror” with World War III.”

Bush supporters and Israelis are both prisoners of their fears, fears they have exaggerated beyond all reason. And that is the true tragedy of what we are witnessing today in Lebanon, and across the Middle East. The victory of the terrorists is complete.