Israel was correct in going to war to defeat Hezbollah, just as the U.S. was correct in going to war to defeat Sadam Hussein.  However, both have ended up making the same mistake.  They chose not to fight a real war.  
    Israel should have put 50,000 troops into Southern Lebanon in one large-scale attack, with all the necessary air-support they needed.  Such an attack would have crushed Hezbollah.  However, like the U.S. in Iraq they chose to try and save civilian lives at the expense of their own soldiers.  A government's first obligation is to its own people, and Israel chose not to honor that obligation, just as the U.S. has done in Iraq.  
    Now Nasrallah is claiming victory, declaring his terrorists defeated the vaunted Israeli IDF.  All reasonable people know this is not true, and others will not consider that Israel jeopardized an outright success because of humanitarian concerns.  They will only point to the 800 dead Lebanese civilians killed because of the way Hezbollah chooses to hide among them and label Israel the bad guy.  In the end, as has been the story for 40 years, the media will slant everything to support this charge and we will go on as usual.
    Because the U.S. and now Israel, have lost the will to fight an all-out war, it is unlikely Western Civilization will survive this Islamic assault.  It is true that in human relations, just as in nature, only the strong survive.  Strong includes having the will to do unpleasant but necessary things to ensure survival.
    The Western Culture of plenty, safety, protection against all bad outcomes, weakening of masculinity, and general self-loathing has positioned it for defeat.  Unless we can toughen up and take care of ourselves, we are not worth saving.

David McKee
MGySgt, USMC (Retired)
Sacramento, CA

 

In 1999, at a meeting with the President of China, Benjamin Netanyahu was approached by the President, Jiang Zemin, who expressed to him his great admiration for the legacy of the Jewish people, who produced such geniuses as Albert Einstein. “The Jewish people and the Chinese people are two of the oldest civilizations on earth,” he said, “dating back four and five thousand years respectively.”

Netanyahu concurred, adding India to the list.

“But there are one or two differences between us,” Netanyahu said. “For instance, how many Chinese are there?”

“1.2 billion,” replied Jiang Zemin.

“How many Indians are there?” Netanyahu queried.

“About 1 billion.”

“Now how many Jews are there?” Netanyahu pressed on.

No answer.

“There are 12 million Jews in the world,” Netanyahu said.

Several Chinese jaws dropped in the room, understandably, given that this number could be contained in a large suburb of Beijing.

“Mr. President,” Netanyahu said, “since the Jews have been around for thousands of years that is a remarkably low number. Two thousand years ago the Jews constituted ten percent of the population of the Roman Empire. Today there should have been 200 million Jews.”

“What happened?” asked the Chinese President.

Many things,” Netanyahu replied. “But they all boil down to one big thing. You, the Chinese, kept China; the Indians kept India; but we Jews lost our land and were dispersed to the four corners of the earth. From this sprang all our calamities, culminating in our greatest catastrophe in the twentieth century. This is why for the last two thousand years we have been trying to retrieve our homeland and re-create our independent state there.”

Netanyahu was trying to impress upon the Chinese leadership the importance of refraining from supplying Iran with nuclear weapons technology and the importance of a homeland to a people.

I lead with this story to try and impress how important it is that the world receives a history and geography lesson about the Middle East and the state of Israel.

As a result of the Versailles Conference (1919), First Conference of London (1920), San Remo Conference (1920), and Sevres Conference (1920), the world powers granted Britain the Mandate to build a Jewish National Home in the British Mandate of Palestine. The Jewish National Home was to include what is modern Israel as well as what is now modern Jordan. The area extended from the Sinai to the borders of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. However, between 1922 and 1948, the betrayal of the British and other European governments, as well as the successful Arabian propaganda and “reversal of causality” changed greatly the land that was finally granted the Jewish people.

The nation of Israel is 10,840 square miles. Its Muslim enemies occupy a territory stretching from the west coast of Africa to mountains of Afghanistan. Iran and Iraq alone are over 1,000,000 square miles.

Of these 10,840 square miles, the most Jewish of all the land is the West Bank. Netanyahu says of the West Bank, “This land, where every swing of a spade unearths remnants of the Jewish past and where every village carries the barely altered Hebrew names of old. Elon Moreh, where Abraham was promised the land, and Hebron, where he buried Sarah; Beth El, where Jacob dreamed of the ladder to heaven, and Bethlehem, where he buried Rachel; Jericho, where Joshua entered the land, and Schechem (Nablus), where he read the people the law and buried Joseph; Shiloh, which housed the tabernacle and served as the center of the Jewish people for four centuries before Jerusalem; Beth Horon, where the Maccabees defeated the Seleucids; and Betar, where the second great revolt against Rome was finally crushed. Above all, there was the Old City of Jerusalem, the heart and breath of the Jewish people since the time of David and the prophets. When Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau recognized the Jewish people’s claim to Palestine, it was places such as these of which they thought above all others. This land, in which the Jews became a nation and over which they shed more tears than have been shed by any other people in history; this land, the loss of which resulted in an exile of the Jews such as has been suffered by no other people and the spilling of a sea of blood such as has been spilled by no other nation; this land, which never ceased to live as a distant but tangible home in the minds of Jewish children from Toledo in medieval Spain to the Warsaw ghetto in our own century; this land, for which the Jews fought with unsurpassed courage and tenacity in ancient as well as in modern times----this is the “foreign land” that world leaders now demand be barred to Jews and that Israel unilaterally forsake. This is an unjust demand.” Lord Cecil said of the Balfour Declaration, “Judea for the Jews, Arabia for the Arabs,” the world is now saying, “Arabia for the Arabs, and Judea too.”

What Benjamin Netanyahu explains cannot be denied by a reasonable person. The Jews must have “this land” by all that is just in this world. They must have and fight to keep this land if they are to survive. And all that remain sane in this world must help them.

David McKee
MGySgt (USMC Retired)

 Has Israel learned from the U.S.  I have always admired Israel's decisiveness when pursuing military actions.  They usually approach war as we did in World War II and as we began Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Now they seem to be mimicking out current actions in Iraq, that is fight with half a commitment.  All reasonable people understand there can be no peace until the Islamic Fascist element is crushed, destroyed, obliterated.  There can be no dealing with this animals.  Look how Israel has fared after 40 years of negotiation and concession.  They are further from peace than ever before.  Someone once said of war, there is peace when there is a winner and a loser.  Japan and Germany understood that.  Until Islamic Fascists are brought to their knees, where ever they are, there will be no peace.  Here's hoping that Israel can shake off its reluctance to destroy Hezbollah in order to buy good will.  No one could hate them more than they are hated now.  They should create their own peace by sending Hezbollah, Syria and Iran packing.

David McKee
MGySgt, USMC (Retired)