The former army intelligence officer with an easy smile was busy as the face of Israel\’s foreign media outreach, giving more than 80 interviews to international media networks and newspapers during the war.
How is Israel\’s security served by the creation of a failed state on its northern border? This is the question that has fallen like a dark shadow across the landscape of stunningly unanimous Israeli, Jewish, and American support for Israel\’s ongoing attack on Lebanon. Has Israel truly attacked Lebanon, or has it merely attacked Hezbollah as a terrorist organization operating from within Lebanon? On July 23, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seemed to answer that question for the benefit of his cabinet: \”We have no war with the Lebanese people, and we have no intention to harm their quality of life.\”
With the fighting along Israel\’s northern border showing no sign of letting up, Israel\’s most popular summer tourist region has been turned into a battle zone. Instead of the sounds of kids splashing in swimming pools and canyons, there is a constant booming of artillery shelling and tank fire. Instead of birds quietly hovering in the skies over the Hula Nature Reserve, attack helicopters and fighter jets streak across the sky headed north, into Lebanon.
Overall, though, Jewish-Muslim relations are strained, and tensions will likely worsen before getting better, predicts Rabbi John Rosove, senior rabbi at Temple Israel of Hollywood.
The border raid by Hezbollah that sparked swift and strong Israeli military reaction in southern Lebanon was not only an act of war by Hezbollah, but an act of war by proxy by Iran. It is inconceivable that such a provocative act could have been undertaken without the knowledge and approval of people at the highest levels of Iran\’s government.
\”Every head is ailing, and every heart is sad\” (Isaiah 1.5). We read these words in this week\’s haftarah for Shabbat Khazon (Sabbath of Vision), the Shabbat before Tisha B\’Av. The words seem especially poignant and true these past few weeks, as we watch in angst as events unfold in Israel, Lebanon and Gaza.
After the Lebanon and Gaza experiences — sustained rocket attacks on Israel in the wake of unilateral pullouts — will Olmert still want to adopt last summer\’s Gaza model of withdrawal without agreement, or will he seek a different formula, such as bilateral arrangements with moderate Palestinian leaders or the introduction of international forces to keep the peace after Israel pulls back?
The most remarkable aspect of the war Israel is fighting now in Lebanon is not who Israel\’s enemy is, but who its friends are.
Nearly 40 years ago, Israel and the Arab world fought a war that altered the course of Middle Eastern history. Now, as the region teeters on the brink of a new and potentially more violent cataclysm, it is important to revisit the lessons of the Six-Day War, a conflict that few Middle Eastern countries wanted and none foresaw.
With the distant booming of Katyusha rockets becoming louder and more frequent, only a few brave souls ventured out – and when one boom sounded particularly close, everyone rushed back into the shelter, some in near-hysteria.
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