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16th, 20th, 25th July 2006
AUSTRALIAN DIARY
What is "objective analysis"?

ARCHIVES.

- HAMAS & HIZB'ALLAH -

One cynic stated that Hamas held off the kidnap until after the world cup.  I wonder..

The Iranian President has been reported on Drudge as likening the Israelis to Hitler. Ahmadinejad: Israel acting like Hitler.


Mr Ahmadinejad, we in the West have heard stories of what Hitler did.  If you are going to cast aspersions against Israelis, at least try to make them believable.   If Hitler had been President of Israel, and Palestinians had kidnapped a few soldiers, Hitler would have captured and had shot (say) 10 Palestinians from the nearest town for each day for each soldier until his soldiers were returned.  If his soldiers were then killed, he would have executed (say) 1,000 people for each soldier.

Another problem, Mr
Ahmadinejad.  You have publicly promised, in the event that Israel decides to attack Syria, to come to Syria's aid.  Now just how would you plan to fulfill that promise?  You have no common border with Syria, (see map) so how would you plan to deliver your aid to Syria?  I imagine that the Americans would take a dim view of hostile Iranian forces or ordinance passing over or through or near their bases in Iraq or Turkey.  They might get to try out their new ABM.  And the Saudis are not your best friends, let alone the Jordanians, so they probably wont grant you passage.

And please remember, the Israelis might well have a few surprises of their own.

I remember a war about half a century past, when the world was amazed that a tiny country demolished proud armies that outnumbered their population.

This is a warning that you probably will not believe.  I suggest that you back off.
  Just write off Hizb'allah.  I think that the midget will have teeth that you would not believe.

The situation in Lebanon reminds me somehow of Brer Wolf and the tar baby.  I concur with Putin.  The Israelis have an agenda.

20th July.. Well things have developed somewhat, and I still have not posted this.  Trendy lefty journalists are telling Australians that this war won't solve anything, that the people in Lebanon blame Hizb'allah for bringing the Israelis in, but now they are forgetting the "why" and starting to blame the Israelis.  Saudi Arabia and a few other Arab states are blaming
Hizb'allah for stirring up the ant nest.

On a lefty blog my attention was drawn to the story of Ishmael, in chapters 16 & 17 of Genesis.  According to Mohommed, Ishmael was the founder of the non-Jewish Arab race.  He was also the first son of Abraham, borne by Hagar, who was his wife Sarah's servant/slave.  About ten years after Ishmael was born, Sarah had Isaac, who was the founder of the Jewish tribe.

In normal circumstances, Ishmael would have had problems with his younger brother.  Ishmael was the bastard elder son of a servant or concubine who did not inherit legitimacy.  In fact, an angel of God laid this prediction on Ishmael prior to his birth:

He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone's hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.

However the Arab Prophet Mohommed founded a world religion after identifying Arabs as those descendants of Ishmael that were written of in this chapter and verse.  It seems reasonable that the circumstances that brought about the prediction would propagate among Ishmael's descendants.  It is psychologically plausible that in their bible text Muslims identify Jews as the favored brother who inherited legitimacy.

Perhaps the solution to this conflict is to rewrite Genesis 16 & 17.

25th July.. 
Golda Meir stated another precondition for the end of the Palestinian wars.  "There will be peace when the Palestinians love their children more than they hate us.".

Sounds as though Hamas is prepared to stop fighting and return the prisoners in Gaza. 
There are rumors that the Iranians stopped Hamas from settling around a week ago.

As for Hizb'allah, current informed thinking seems to be that the Iranians put them up to the kidnapping, hoping thereby to take the heat out of the developing situation in the UN regarding uranium 235 refining.  They certainly managed to move the world's attention away from that issue, however the USA is not likely to be so easily diverted.

Basically, Israel seem to be following the advice of Machiavelli.   You should not delay a war if the delay will benefit your opponent.  I suspect that Israel will not be in a hurry to discontinue this fight until Hamas is destroyed.

Meanwhile liberal world opinion is beginning to notice that the Israelis are causing civilian deaths.  Unfortunately for Lebanese civilians, this is one of the harsh lessons of war.  Both Australian Prime Minister John Howard and GWB have enunciated the rights of the victims of terrorists.  If terrorists attack from a foreign state, and the government of that foreign state does not exert it's sovereignty & curtail their activities, then whoever suffers as a result of that terrorism has a right to infringe the sovereignty of that foreign state and deal with the terrorists.  As the civilians of that foreign state are guilty (by toleration) of the crimes of the terrorists, they must suffer the unintended consequences of any military action where the primary intention is to eradicate the threat.


MAIL