Quotes uit de joodse blogosfeer

De libanese webloggers zijn de afgelopen twee dagen al regelmatig geciteerd hier. De hoogste tijd dus voor een rondje langs de velden in de joodse blogosfeer (israëlische en joods-amerikaanse weblogs). Een random greep uit de recente posts:

Feestende Palestijnen- “I heard a lot of gunshots and firecrackers coming from nearby Arab villages last night. Obviously celebrating the Katyusha “rockets” falling on Haifa. It’s happening all over the West Bank. Let’s stop calling them rockets. Rockets are what were used to explore space in the sixties and seventies. Rockets are used to launch fireworks into the air. Missiles. Missiles. Missiles. They are launching missiles at our cities”. (TheViewFromHere)

Bedankt voor de bommen– “Do they stop for even half a second to think how they would feel if an Arab nation bombed Tel Aviv to gain the upper hand on some Israeli political/military faction?” (RichardSilverstein)

Oorlogseconomie- “Israel’s economy is sustained by its arms industry and by military aid from abroad. If there is no war, there is no money flowing into the region. Therefore, I believe that Israel may choose military options when unnecessary, seeking out justifications for the escalation of the conflict”. (OrthodoxAnarchist)

Zidane et le beurre sur la tête- “Sorry for the Lebanese, but they are simply paying the price for their ( government’s and the UN’s ) weakness and indecisiveness. The UN, France and several other countries and international organizations think that it should be only Israel that pays that price. Well, I couldn’t care less. It seems that most French believe that Zinadine Zidane had the right to defend the honor of his mother and sister in a violent way. With all due respect, the safety of my family and of all soldiers and citizens of my country means more to me than the honor of les dames Zidane, and I think that Israel’s violence is well measured and not less proportional than Zizou’s”. (DutchblogIsrael)

Zuid Libanon gevaarlijker dan zes jaar geleden- “But things are different now. After abandoning our safety net, our control, our intelligence, our allies, and our security, Hizbollah has been given 6 years to build up their forces, weapons, and traps. Eidan is going into a new situation. When I served, we mostly controlled the ground and everything around us, and when we didn’t, we made sure we did fast enough. But Eidan is going in with no safety net, with no allies, with no intelligence, against an enemy that has studied this capitulating regime and can manipulate it like nobody’s business”. (JoeSettler)

Slecht getimed medeleven- “On my trecks around the Jewish American blogosphere yesterday, I came upon many bloggers who had posted articles with the same theme: “As I was watching the news, not only was I terrified by what I saw, I was wishing that I was there, in Israel, with my fellow Jews.” Why is it that foreign so-called pro-Israel Jews only support Israel when times are bad. Why not when times are good? Why not when the economy is doing well? First of all, nobody wants to be in a danger zone”. (Amechad)

Schuilen nabij de grens- “We kept to our plan of visiting my parents for lunch but they live only about 1 km from the border. You can see the the border from my parent’s sitting-room. We spent most of the afternoon in their security room in the company of several terrified pet dogs, eyes glued to the TV news with the constant boom and rattle of gun and artillery fire in our ears. Whenever there was a particularly loud explosion my daughter would leap into my arms. When my husband came to pick us up after work we could see the brown smoke of battle billowing up from behind the ridge and there was strong smell of gunfire in the air”. (Israelisms)

Parallel Mumbia en Israël- “While what happened in Mumbai this week — as well as here in Israel, and in so many other spots in the world over the last few years too — can be viewed in isolation, treated as local incidents of strife over particular pieces of land or unique grievances, it’s becoming clear we would be short-sighted to leave it at that. When Iranian and Syrian fingerprints can be found on the violence-by-proxy in Gaza and Lebanon, when global Islamist organizations like Al-Qaeda export the means and the money and the motive to attack Western and non-Islamic interests worldwide, it just doesn’t make sense anymore to pretend that one can just bribe the local bully and make it all go away. It’s not enough just to duck a punch in a playground fight if one fails to recognize one is surrounded by others who want you taken down as well, and your friends with you”. (Abbagav)

Vluchten uit Haifa- “I just spoke to a friend in Haifa who says that about half his friends took off last night and many more are planning to leave today”. They are worried about a retaliation for the Beirut strike yesterday. (BlogsofZion)

Israëlische soldaten en internationale vredesactivisten- “Well, it pretty much speaks for itself. An Israeli soldier risks, and in this case sacrifices, his life to pull comrades out of a burning tank but the scum of the earth and dregs of society that populate the International Solidarity Movement cannot bring themselves to pull a girl out of the path of a slowly-moving bulldozer that poses little if any physical danger to a prospective rescuer. ISM members call Israeli Defense Force soldiers all kinds of names and accuse them of brutalizing Palestinians but, when they had a chance to show what they themselves were made of, they proved themselves the most abject and dishonorable cowards: walking sewage, subhuman filth, and the absolute refuse of the human species”. (Israpundit)

Wat is waar- The limitations of time make it nearly impossible to provide nuance or context via five or ten minute television news clips. Nevertheless, we watch because we want, we need, we are addicted to instant news. Where did the latest missile fall? How many were killed? How bad is the damage? Those are the questions television news broadcasts can answer. Who, what, where and when are easy – or they should be, but still the reporters do manage (frequently) to get things wrong, mostly because they are crippled by ignorance and/or do not have time to fact check before deadline. But “why” is impossible. For “why,” you need a book. Several books, in fact. And you’ll still end up with a subjective point of view, because the Middle East is like a Rorschach inkblot test: different people(s) look at the same thing and each see(s) something completely different. And, incredibly, they are often willing to kill those who disagree with them. (OntheFace)

Sargasso dossier: Libanon 2006