Tuesday, August 22, 2006

TWO PEOPLES' ARMIES

Today's irony:  If you weren't aware of it before, you know by now that the Israeli army is a people's army: otherwise, they wouldn't be going on camera complaining of the way their superiors ran the recent war.  (Also, in this country of 6 million, everyone knows everyone else..)  But it seems clear that defective leadership is not the only reason why the Israeli army cannot fight as well as the Lebanese people's army (Hezbollah): both are fighting for their land, but Hezbollah recruits don't need to be told contorted rationalizations why it is their land, whereas the Israeli soldiers do.  Those who are defending their land from the gut always win over those who are defending it from the head.

P.S. Defective Israeli leadership also has a lot to do with the fact that Israel's case is a rationalization.  The first generation, for whom the Holocaust and settlement were a reality, is gone.  The second will choose an opportune moment to take former Prime Minister Sharon off life-support, but it cannot instill in today's Israelis the flame that made their elders think, in defiance of every religious morality, that two wrongs could make a right.

P.P.S. CNN replayed yesterday's presidential press conference with the intent of minimizing the terrible impression it made to see George Bush joking as he talked about the need to continue sacrificing lives to the "war on terror".  Shameful.

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