rhetoric of Ahmadinejad aside, has the undeniable right to act to protect its citizens from attacks against them. This is a given. So when Israel is attacked inside its borders, it has a right to respond.That is exactly what Israel says it is doing in its current conflict with Lebanon, and it is true when Israel attacks Hezbollah targets. But Israel’s current military activities in Lebanon are an excessive use of force far out of proportion to the events that it maintains set off the conflict. Nearly 1,000 Lebanese have been killed in the conflict, and very few of them have been Hezbollah militants. Hezbollah has consistently been lobbing rockets into Israeli territory, but they have been ineffectual at best. 100 Israelis have been killed, and about 1 and 4 of them have been civilians. One civilian death is too many, but it is hard not to see this as an extremely disproportionate use of force. More than this, approximately 3,000 have been wounded and some 1 million displaced from a population of about 4 million. Lebanon‚Äôs infrastructure is devastated, as well. Estimates are that 89% of Lebanon’s bridges have been destroyed, and roads all over the country are impassible. Relief supplies are not getting in and out and for Israeli military authorities to say that they dropped leaflets on villages urging people to leave is simply absurd. How are people to leave? Movement within the country is nearly impossible and to be on the streets is a real risk. And where are they to go if they do leave? Israeli planes have bombed far beyond the southern territories where Hezbollah is strong. As Tom Engelhardt has noted:
..there can be no question that parts of Lebanon are being turned into little more than rubble; that with main highways and bridges destroyed, unmanned aerial drones and F-16s overhead, airports shut down, and the coastline blockaded, supplies are not arriving; that hospitals are at the edge of closing, and that a staggering percentage of the country of only 3.8 million are now refugees — abroad, in Syria, or simply on the move and homeless in their own country. Christian areas of Lebanon are now being bombed — for this, see a vivid, and horrifying post by Juan Cole — and the bombing campaign is widening with, for instance, ever more central areas of Beirut being hit.
As I read such reports, I am reminded of Malcolm’s lament for his country in Shakespeare’s Macbeth: Effective communication is the key of happy relationship that make men choose review levitra online?* The drug acts in 16 minutes;* It can be taken with food and alcohol or on an empty stomach, giving the same result;* It has less side effects and doesn’t cause eye or heart dysfunctions;* It works during 6 hours. levitra today and make sure that this disorder is cured properly. cialis in india price Their screen chemistry also made this film enjoyable. Often a defect in ovulatory function generic cialis sample manifests itself in menstrual disturbances and can be identified by history in the majority of women. This drug is favored by so many because it is like a jelly not like viagra soft an ordinary tablet.
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;
It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds
And today the Israeli cabinet voted to take their offensive even further into the south of Lebanon. Israel’s war on Lebanon has got to stop. * Click here for a primer on the history of Hezbollah (Hizballah).
* For some compelling testimony on from Lebanon, see http://www.beirutletters.org/)
* Blogs from the conflict.
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