Wise comments on the current outbreak of war in the Levant

[womzilla]

On LJ, no less: nancylebov points to a piece by osewalrus about what is allowed and what is smart. The outstanding part, though, is Nancy's frame:

[This is a] longish essay looking at all the major players in the Israel/Palestine/Lebanon conflict as though they have comprehensible motivations and aren't going to be willing to curl up and die because the other side is so obviously in the right. You'd think this would be the obvious way to think about the situation, but . . . It's harder than it looks when there's so much anger and fear and everyone is trying to grab the moral high ground.

And also

I think that if I were living [in Lebanon], it would be obvious to me that Israel is quite willing to screw up my life or end it at any time because of terrorist behavior I have no chance of controlling, and I'd be more inclined to blame the Israelis (who are operating on a much larger scale) than the terrorists.

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much.

That second bit was intended to apply both to Lebanese and Palestinians.

I entirely agree about the disasterous effects of "they can't hate us more than they already do". Hatred is an emotion, and being pleased when people kill you isn't the same thing as being willing to die to kill you.