Mind

There's a thought, a philosophical question, a phrase that pops up for myself and my fellow Jewish people when something Jewish makes the news. It returns when Al Gore chose Joe Lieberman to be his running mate, and it's popping up with the Hezbollah-Israel War right now.

Is it good for the Jews?

It's not so often, "Does this advance Jewish prestige in the world?" as, "Will this make more people hate the Jews?" As in, will this ultimately lead to another Pogrom, another Holocaust.

The Holocaust this time would be obliterating Israel from the map of the earth.

So it's the one thing on everyone's mind this weekend, at least every liberal Jewish friend who's even remotely up on current events with whom I spoke.

The fact is that this war is scaring the shit out of everybody. Hezbollah has more powerful missiles and Israel is proving that they can destroy any part of Lebanon they feel like.

In the past there have been typically two American-Jewish positions, that kind of solidified when Israel's rightwing Likud Party took over in the late 70's, with Prime Minister Menachim Begin ironically delivering peace with Egypt through soon-to-be-assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

American "Likudniks", including most of the Neoconservatives who successfully prosecuted for invading Iraq, never ever question even Israel's most aggressive moves.

On the other hand, Liberal U.S. Jews take what at that time was more Labor Party position, and this being the Israeli political party that was in charge during the first 25 years of the Israeli miracle, when Sabras coaxed fruit from the desert and fought off all the attacking Arab states. While precision hits like the raid on Entebbe score big with our crowd, we're also the first to admit that there might need to be a Palestinian state to solve the problem of disproportionate population growth, and hopefully negotiate into eventually becoming regional partners.

But with Hamas winning the Palestinian democratic vote (W.'s democratic Mid-East revolution?) and not renouncing their call for the destruction of Israel, while Iran's Prime Minister calls for the elimination of the Jewish State, the folks on the Left of the "Is it good for the Jews?" question are a little relieved that Israel isn't putting up with Hezbollah's bullshit (to paraphrase, you know who). At the same time they're the most likely to despise Bush and his debacle in Iraq, so the death of over 200 Lebanese civilians, not to mention some ruinous destruction of their infrastructure, is cause for alarm.

On the neocon Likudnik side, all the armchair generals and service-dodging chickenhawks are praising Bush for letting Israel blow up whatever and whoever it wants, receive massive shipments of U.S. weapons, and keep on fighting because at this juncture in history, according to Iraq War architect William Kristol, fighting is good and Bush loves to fight.

Kristol finishes with the usual shameless neocon conflation of Israel's wars of survival and the BushCheneyCo "War on Terror", as if sealed with 9/11. How pathetic it seems in cold light of July 23, 2006.

I can't speak for the Likudniks on the mean streets of my suburbia, but for the Liberal Jews I think the opinion has yet to harden. At the same time, there's a sense that Israel is right in their choice to make a harsh response, maybe even right to seize the moment and fight a short term war. In fact, this pre-planned strategy, designed not to seize any permanent land but to neutralize the dramatically increased threat by Hezbollah, has leaked easily to the media. In fact, it's a bit reassuring to this Liberal Jew. And it's looking like exactly the amount of time Bush/Rice are giving Israel before even meeting someone in the Middle East about it.

The main reason is that, massacres in Sabra and Shatila excepted, if this really is the Israeli plan and they stick to it, we don't expect them to blow it like Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush. After all, we won the Six-Day War.

I think we're all taken aback by the U.S.-style collateral damage, the poor children and other innocents killed or wounded, the decimation of essential freeways and power stations, the mass exodus from the country. Anyone who isn't, well, that's not quite human enough.

There's glimmers of hope. Israel, for the first time ever, is open to a United Nations Peacekeeping Force, Syria wants to talk, and in Iran most Persian citizens don't want their asshole government backing Hezbollah.

Which is where the realpolitics are going on. According to this intriguing Haaretz interview with Professor Martin Kramer -- expert on Lebanon, research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and former director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University:"Hezbollah's hubris has created an opportunity for Israel."

"I doubt Hezbollah expected the Israeli reaction to be as swift, extensive and destructive as it has been. Hezbollah probably believed it would score a few points in Arab public opinion by a cross-border operation, and that it would make one more incremental change in the rules of the game.

"It was a strategic miscalculation. Hezbollah didn't internalize changes in the broader strategic climate. The top regional issue today is Iran's nuclear drive, not the fate of Hamas or the Palestinian issue. If Hezbollah had understood this fully, it would have laid very low until needed by Iran in a mega-crisis with the United States. At that point, its threats against Israel would have been added to the overall deterrent capabilities of Iran, and might have caused the United States to think twice.

Under this interpretation, hubris has similarly led Iran, if it gave the green light, to make an error they didn't need in their nuclear brinksmanship.

"Hezbollah now finds itself spending all sorts of military assets that were supposed to serve a much more important purpose than freeing a few Lebanese prisoners or winning a few propaganda points. These are assets it probably won't be able to replenish, and their very use exposes them and makes them vulnerable."

He goes on to talk about how the Islamism narrative replaced the old Arab nationalism narrative, which was finally vanquished in the Six-Day War. He says this is Israel's one opportunity to degrade Hezbollah to an irritant level and make it's leader as publicly ineffectual as Bin Laden currently appears to be.

Look, I don't know exactly how Likud or Labor this guy is, but he considers the right caveat, Israeli errors:

The most obvious pitfalls are too much 'collateral damage' or a reoccupation of part of Lebanon. Either could drain Israel legitimacy, sap American support and leave Israel isolated. Since this is a new government headed by a new prime minister, it's impossible to predict whether they will know how to handle the unexpected twists that are inevitable in war."

So I hope he's right and events will unfold to Israel's advantage. I pray that Israel can make a lasting peace with its surrounding countries, even Syria -- since they want to talk to the U.S., and as a more modern state don't want to be part of Iran's Shi-ite Crescent (including post-U.S. invasion Iraq).

I hope, ultimately, it will be good for the Jews.

That's a tall order.