{"id":5010,"date":"2006-07-25T16:49:30","date_gmt":"2006-07-25T16:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=5010"},"modified":"2006-07-25T16:49:30","modified_gmt":"2006-07-25T16:49:30","slug":"a-light-unto-the-nations-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=5010","title":{"rendered":"a light unto the nations (II)"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a follow-up to yesterday, I want to emphasize that Israel may defend itself. However, as a democracy, it needs national unity and the authentic support of fair-minded outsiders. Both will come only if Israel has a reputation for actively seeking a just peace.<\/p>\n

Today, Prime Minister Olmert’s office said <\/a>that “Israel has no intention of harming the Lebanese population and that Israel is fighting against the Hezbollah terrorist organization and not against the Lebanese government or its citizens. … The prime minister said he was very sensitive to the humanitarian situation in Lebanon.”<\/p>\n

This is something you have to show and not just say. In fact, treating Lebanese refugees as simply a “humanitarian” problem threatens to reduce their self-respect. Given Israel’s overwhelming conventional military superiority, it should take pains to:<\/p>\n

\n
  • show explicit and deep respect for Arab and Moslem civilizations;\n
  • forcefully maintain a commitment to respecting Arab lives;\n
  • express solidarity with the democracy of Lebanon, even while complaining about its unwillingness to confront Hezbollah;\n
  • explain that Israel’s goal is to coexist in peace with strong, prosperous, independent neighbors;\n
  • refrain from undermining the dignity and self-respect of Arab populations, even during wars; and\n
  • take all reasonable measures to spare non-combatants.<\/blockquote>\n

    The last precept would be more difficult to follow if killing civilians in aerial attacks were Israel’s most effective means of self-defense against Hezbollah’s rockets. However, I doubt very much that that is the case.<\/p>\n

    [Update: See Gideon Levy’s “Days of Darkness<\/a>” in Haaretz: “Israel is sinking into a strident, nationalistic atmosphere and darkness is beginning to cover everything. The brakes we still had are eroding, the insensitivity and blindness that characterized Israeli society in recent years is intensifying. …”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As a follow-up to yesterday, I want to emphasize that Israel may defend itself. However, as a democracy, it needs national unity and the authentic support of fair-minded outsiders. Both will come only if Israel has a reputation for actively seeking a just peace. Today, Prime Minister Olmert’s office said that “Israel has no intention […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}