Reply #18: Three comments: [View All]

[bemildred]

1.) It seems obvious that if one has no good options, one wants at least to avoid tentativeness. Thus for someone with no better ideas, audacity may well be the best option, and it may at times be the tactically correct response, your best shot. On the other hand, it may just be desperation.

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

2.) It seems obvious that the opponents of the current Israeli regime (such a nice, loaded word, eh?) stand little chance of defeating it so long as it enjoys the backing of the USA, and so long as the USA maintains it's position. Well what does one do if one is not willing to give up? What would the USA do when faced with someone it despises but cannot attack directly? Why you attack them indirectly, politically, militarily, economically, tear at the threads of the political and social fabric. That is what is going on in Iraq, in fact that is what everybody is doing in Iraq right now. That is what "terrorism" is all about. That is what the strategic bombing of Lebanon that just occurred was all about, an indirect attack where a direct attack (on Hizbullah) was inadvisable. In the end, Israel wound up attacking directly anyway.

Of course, these measures will also commonly be used in hot wars. This is what is meant by the statement that war is the "continuation of politics (Politik) by other means".

3.) The notion that the opponents of Israel should give up is based on the premise that the advantage that Israel currently enjoys will be durable. The notion that they should continue to resist, on the premise that it will not. One can point to evidence that suggests either might be true.

"Time is a tailor specializing in alterations" -- Don't know