Question...

I'm not sure how much longer I'll actually be over here, but I just checked with a couple of world news sites and I honestly can't formulate a solid opinion on what is happening over here.

I'd really appreciate hearing from those of you who read this (post a comment) what you think of this current Mid-East conflict. Who thinks Israel is doing the right thing? Who thinks that the US should continue to back Israel? I'm really conflicted. From the perspective of an Israeli, everyone has always and will always want them obliterated. Domestic attacks have become a veritable culture here and military offensives from the outside are the constant rather than the variable. Israeli experience has cultivated defensive wisdom from the very pragmatic realization that if Israel doesn't stick up for Israel, no one else will. So...in large part, I completely understand why Israel has decided to respond with "disporportionate" force.

The fact remains that this is a response. Israel didn't just decide to stretch forth an iron arm in Middle East and make war with it's neighbors. Rather, the neighbors decided for whatever reason that they wanted to provoke Israel. It's like kicking a sleeping dog. If after kicking the dog a number of times, it gets pissed off enough to bite a chunk out of your leg, well - which of us would say it was fair to put the dog to sleep for reacting violently?

And Israel isn't exactly a poodle. If you're going to kick Israel, you shouldn't be surprised when the jaws of a relentless pitbull lock into you. For centuries - Israelis (Jews) have been malnourished puppies left to shiver out back in the snow. Hence, they've developed a certain streetsense which seems entirely foreign and "disproportionate" to the well-fed and over-groomed in Europe. Give that pitbull a box to sleep in, and his experience with frost will incite him to defend that box against all odds.

At the same time, my balanced libran sensibilities can imagine the other dogs in this overpopulated desert ghetto we call the Middle East. It's not hard to sympathize with the neighbor's dog - also huddled in the cold - who gets the brave notion to risk all for a chance at his neighbor's cardboard shelter. Being that I am a human - a human with four siblings - I also know that we would all too often risk everyone being sent to bed early with no desert than see a brother or sister get away with some punishable dinner table offense. So it makes sense to me that someone could become charged with righteous jealousy and irrational malice which would rather blow itself and a busload of "siblings" to Kingdom Come than grant them a moment of psychological security.

Is it right?

No.

Do I understand it?

Certainly.

Should Hezbollah have decided to rain rockets down on Tiberias and Haifa?

Umm, no.

Is it a mystery that they did?

Umm, again, no.

Is all of Lebanon card-carrying supporters of Hezbollah?

No.

Should we assume that they are if they don't pack their things and leave to...wherever people leave to when their mailing address suddenly implicates them in plots of world terror?

No.

Are there innocent people who are unfortunately trapped under a flag they don't necessarily back?

Yup. (I need only point to so many stars and stripes to illustrate that the people under the flag aren't necessarily holding it up.)

Is backing down and saying, "they get the point; enough is enough" going to suffice?

The archives of MaAriv, HaAretz, and The New York Times are filled with enough articles to expose such a proposition as tragically naive.

Would it be vastly hypocritical for a nation to withdraw its support and revert to a policy of drooling indifference which in recent times replaced its motto "In God We Trust" with "We War Against Terror and Evil-Doer Idiologies"?

I think so.

Would turning a blind eye to Hezbollah expose a split personality among those who made deposing Saddam Hussein an international priority in response to an attack from Bin Laden?

I think it probably would.

Can we continue to police the globe without taxing them to pay for it all?

Stupid question which even non-regents highschool economics could equip one to answer. Of course not. We can't police a village without taxing the people who live there. Yet somehow we think we can continue to provide international security pro bono. I mean, maybe if we sell enough of those magnetic yellow ribbons we can? Or is that just Canadian optimism?

What do you think? What do you think? Inquiring minds want to know.