The 2nd Lebanon war began 36 days ago after the abduction of 2 soldiers, the killing of another 3 and rockets attack on some northern populated areasin Israel, all those actions committed by Hizballa warriers.
The response of the Israeli government was declaration of war.
Israel is historically divided into 2 main political blocks: the right wing identified with support of the settlements in Judea and Sameria, and support of aggressive policy against the Palestinians and the left wing identified with supporting territorial waiving and define itself as the “peace camp”. (in the last few years this division changed and another block has emerged – the “Center”).
Usually, acts of aggression made by the army against our neighbors were condemned by the “peace camp”, this time however, about 90% of the population supported the acts of the government in general and believed that Israel is justified in it’s retaliation on Lebanon and the Hizballa.
Amongst the supporters of the justification of this war were many important humanists who are considered to be part of the “peace camp”, among others: Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua and David Grossman who justified the war (but on later stage urged the government not to expand the scope of the war), Yehosua Sobol, Yoram Kanyuk, and even young artists like Aviv Gefen a well known anti – institutional singer songwriter.
I believe that it raises a simple question: how come people who identify themselves as peace people, who support negotiations with the Palestinians, who want to withdraw from the 1967 occupied territories – how come those people supported this war?
I believe the answer is that this time the people in Israel felt that the Hizballa attack had no justification what so ever, and listened to Nassralah when he said that his ultimate goal is to destroy Israel.
Since Lebanon has no territorial dispute with Israel after the unilateral withdraw of the Israeli army forces from south Lebanon on 2000, any attack on Israel from Lebanon was perceived as a “causus belli”.
That’s in addition to the fact that Lebanon didn’t follow the 1559 UN resolution that demanded the disarm of Hizballa and the deployment of the Lebanese army in the area of south Lebanon.
The Israelis who see Hizballa as an extension of Iran are very concerned with the voices coming from Tehran. The fact that the Iranian president keeps talking about the need to destroy Israel and the fact that Iran is developing nuclear weapon.
All those facts made the Israeli people very agitated and naturally they see Hizballa as the front line of the confrontation with Iran.
Most of the people in Israel believe they have no partner for negotiation, both Nassralah and Ahmadinijad made very clear statements about their goal – to destroy Israel, so most of the Israeli believe that we have no one to talk to, therefore military reaction was the only option.
In future posts, I’ll discuss the Israeli’s army air strikes on Lebanon and the situation in Israel after the cease fire began….