Middle East Crisis

I was in two minds about if to make this posting, firstly because its bound to cause a large amount of disagreement and discussion and secondly because there has already been an inordinate amount of coverage in the press about the whole business anyway. The problem is that in many respects the comments in the press and the official sources, while giving the issue plenty of attention, are not approaching it from the correct angle at all.

The reality on the ground is really quite simple. We have two sides firing blind at each other with nothing but hatred and thoughts of revenge in their hearts. Casualties in the intended target range on both sides (miltary/terrorist type targets) are minimal if not non-existant, while civilians continue to die in ever increasing numbers. Irrespective of what you read, that really is the bottom line of the situation – there is no getting away from it.

One must ask the question then; who with the power to broker peace terms between the sides fighting this losing and devastating battle is selfish and inhumane enough to sit on the sidelines and watch people be slaughtered? It’s not my place to name countries or political groups etc. because the blame game is not the answer. The answer I would hope to see to that question is no one, after all do we not all strive for peace?

I think the peace loving people of this world need to take a long hard look at the people who result in you answering that question in a way other than I have described. Do you want them to make decisions that implicate non-violent and peace loving people in the slaughter of innocent civilians? I’m not saying go out there and just march on anti-war demos because the problem runs deeper than that. We live in a society where there are accepted norms and irrespective of how shocking the consequences of those norms are we are unwilling to challenge them. It’s high time people stood up to this stigma and made a concious personal decision about what and who to support and why.

Just because others around you in the street are beating the crap out of each other doesn’t mean you have to join in or even support one group of people or another. Why then are our governments dragging us into a situation where we not only have to take sides and get involved in issues on our doorstep but that require us to travel to the next town just to put the boot in. Its time to stop being the sneering mob behind a few big bullies, after all a bully without its mob is barely a bully at all in the face of a whole playground of opposition.

 

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2 Comments

  1. Chris Worfolk Said,

    July 31, 2006 @ 11:05 am

    Ok, time for me to stick my opinion in here.

    Israel is getting hit from rockets fired by Hezbollah every day. These aren’t isolated incidents, there are loads of the rockets hitting Israel every day and Israel is expected to sit back and think “yeah well if they want to bomb the crap out of us, that’s their choice.”

    It’s hypocritical for us to condemn them. 9-11 was one incident. A damn big incident but only one incident none the less and yet based on that we launch a massive ground invasion on Afghanistan yet when Israel does the same from constantly bombardment they are internationally condemned.

    If you take the approach that we have towards Afghanistan and Iraq, Israel pretty much has a moral obligation to go in to Lebanon and destroy Hezbollah. If we should be doing anything it is sending support troops in to help them.

    And that is only if you class Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. If you look at it in the way that Hezbollah virtually acts as a government in Lebanon (I realise they have a proper elected government but according to CNN, they are effectively running the country and if you look at it like that it’s simply an act of war and so Israel has even more right to fight back and indeed invade and conquer Lebanon if it wishes.

  2. Gareth Said,

    August 1, 2006 @ 2:41 am

    The only thing I think of when i hear “crisis in the middle east” is that there has been crisis in the middle east for as long as i can remember.

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