Shava looks into her crystal ball and says, Israel will establish a buffer zone in southern Lebanon which it will effectively annex, and that buffer zone will include the Litani River.
For over a decade, geography and politics observers have wondered how long it would take for Israel to make a serious grab for this particular piece of territory.
Think it's about terrorism? Think it's about kidnapping two young IDF soldiers? Yes, Hizbollah is a great excuse. But remember, whenever you see a war, look for the resources.
In this case, it's likely that Israel is further endangering their own domestic security in this move. Why?
Not oil. Water. Even more important -- and it will continue to be more important all over the world in the coming decades.
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The cost of removing salt from sea water is 3-5 times that of brackish water. Brackish water is not cheap -- we're under treaty obligation to do this for the Colorado River before it goes to Mexico. You can see the economics in 1980 dollars for that here.
The Litani is an abundant source of melt water. It's the foundation of the southern Lebanon economy.
I could be wrong, but I doubt I am. The Litani will be used to support northern Israel for as long as the Israelis can figure a way to hold control.
On a purely strategic analysis, absent international repurcussions, it's a fantastic move. No doubt there are people in Jerusalem breaking their arms to pat themselves on the back for leveraging what should have been a minor terrorism incident into a huge coup on resources.
As far as ignoring repercussions, they must be feeling smug. The Israelis have, according to some reports, displaced half a million people. That's about 1/8 of the Lebanese population.
To put it in perspective, the US population is about 300 million now. Katrina displaced 400,000 from NO and the gulf states. That's .13%, vs nearly 13% -- a difference proportionally of a factor of 100.
2% of Indonesia's population was displaced by the December 2004 tsunami, vs about 12% of Lebanon's population. Yet do you see anything like the coverage or aid being offered?
So far as I can tell the world seems pretty blase', don't you think?
Our country has set a fine example that our friends can ignore human rights and international relations and diplomacy with utter impugnity.
The ripple effects may be subtle, but I believe they will come to bear on Israel and on us in the long term, and over a very long term to our ultimate detriment.
They "swap land for peace"
They'r treated like patises and bombed and rocketed.
They're wrong
Got it.
What you mean is, the Israelis are constantly threatened as a nation. The violence within Israel barely distinguishes among the Jews, Moslems, Christians and other religious minorities that live there. Bombs in busses and malls don't ask.
And Israel, best of my knowledge, has never "swapped land for peace" with Lebanon. You're thinking of the Palestinian Territories, which are a far different issue. Even the PLO, in Lebanon, was the secularist branch, not the religious fanatics in play now, like Hammas and Hizbollah and such.
I'll note that Hizbollah didn't exist before the Israelis came to Lebanon in the 80's to punish Lebanon for harboring the (secular) PLO. More recently, they've made gains in the Lebanese government, but lost good will with many in Lebanon for protesting Syrian withdrawal after the Cedar Revolution. However, 74% of Lebanese Christians view Hizbollah as a resistance movement, not a terrorist organization. I think they may be being forced to change opinions this month.
Hizbollah was trying to get Israel to retaliate to force Syria back into Lebanon. If Syria does engage this war, it's going to be a wildfire that burns a lot of people.
If you're aiming to be incendiary, you should try some of the more subtle methods that this sort of rhetorical stuff that might even be based on fact. Your argument that would be much better founded, and our time better spent.
So we agree that Israel has the right to exist..Right?
Now we're arguing strategy.
Ok
So please tell me your strategy for Israel's survival in a hostile area.
No sarcasm..just want to know.
I'm not trying to be incendiary at all when I ask you to answer Elmo's question, I believe it to be a fair one.
Please explain your strategy for Israel's survival in such a hostile area.
I am not justifying racial hatred (whether the hated party is Jewish or Moslem...wait, those aren't races, they're religions -- yet more confusion).
It is not bigoted to say that this war in Lebanon is most likely about water. It's not hateful to say that the situation has unacceptable collateral damage. It's not anti-semitic to say that Israel is bound to continue a cycle of suffering, with all her neighbors and some of her residents and citizens pitching in.
The analysis of this being about water rights is a military/economic analysis. It has nothing to do with relgion, ethnicity, or whatever.
Frankly, I don't have a strategy for Israel to survive. Do you have a strategy for her to survive? Does it involve making peace somehow, or further violence and suffering?
I'd love to hear some ideas about answers.
Frankly, I also thought that South Africa was an irrecoverable mess, and they seem to have dredged themselves through the worst of their trauma.
In my youth the three big morasses of this sort I thought about were ZA (see above), Ireland (more pacific than it used to be), and Israel.
The best survival I can think of is some externally enforced, negotiated peace. What are the odds of such a thing being fashioned from available materials? What are the odds it would hold?
Here's a part of a response to a comment I made after an article I wrote about how I feel about this issue (I'll give the title and link at the bottom of this comment):
In the middle east the problem is all about Israel and its right to exist. As I have said before (quoting Dr Phil...) "You cannot change what you do not acknowledge."
Until the Arabs all acknowledge the existance of Israel ( and stop calling it "The Zionist Entity"), until the Arabs stop teaching racial hatred of Jews in their schools, until the Arabs stop teaching Holocaust denial, until they stop enculturating racial hatred, until the Arabs stop blaming everything that's wrong in the region, and in the world, on the Jews... until those things happen, nothing in the middle east will change... oil money or not.
I am against racism, hatred, and intolerance in any form. Just because the Arab's target of racial hatred is the Jews makes it no less repugnant, only more so to me. As I have titled this article, I am sick and tired of the jews being the nigg3rs of the world.
Jews are the N!gg3rs of the World: A History Lesson and Chronology of the Middle East, Part I
Nor Egypt
nor "Palestine"
Nor Germany
Nor Japan
Nor Jordan
So your point is...?
But I believe Japan and Germany give more aid per capita than we do. Could you show me some evidence that we give them enough aid to qualify as a crutch to either economy?
Thanks!
We don't station troops in Israel. We give them billions in aid, yearly, for their own military. Don't you think that's different?
I don't think Germany in particular is greatly in need of military protection.
Of course, if you think that the US should establish military bases in Israel, and occupy a significant chunk of real estate with our military folks there rather than (or in addition to) SA or Iraq, well, maybe that would be something that the current administration would entertain...
I just can't see it...
The countries we give such aid to are called "Allies"
And Saudi Arabia is one such.
Plus trillions of $'s a year in petro-dollars - tho that of course is trade.
But we don't buy petrol from Iran or (after 1991) from Iraq.
If you don't think we should consider Israel an ally, who do you think we should?
But we weren't talking about allies. We were talking about whether Israel could abide on her own without us propping her up with military dollars.
I think it's clear that we're not propping up the German or Japanese economies. They would be fine without us.
But that wasn't my point. Do you get the point now?
Israel isn't an independent country, in the same way that Germany and Japan are, because she could not survive without foreign aid from the US, and the money that pours in from the US Jewish community every year.
When I was little, planting orange trees in the Sinai sounded romantic. Now I am less sure it was a great idea. (Of course, I'm even less sure that rice farming in the central valley of California was ever a good idea...:)
But I wonder how much of that money ever went to orange trees... ah well.
US aid to Israel is 3.2% of GDP, compared to 14% in 1986.
(from Niall Fergusson, LA Times)
Yes they're a US puppet alright