Conflicted Loyalties/Conflicted Priorities
Hezbollah rockets have been directed toward Nazareth. The very name of the site has an exalted history within the Christian community at large, and a respected place in world history as well. As Israel's largest Arab-populated town of Israeli-Arabs it would appear that everyone appeared at least somewhat confident that this name-hallowed place would not become a target for Hezbollah. Exactly why is beyond this onlooker's imagination.You've got to ask yourself: Does Hezbollah give much of a damn whether its actions have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Lebanese? Moreover, Shia Muslim Lebanese living in their midst, loyal to Hezbollah, certain in their minds that this Islamist hand-of-God group which has also provided civil infrastructure for them, including hospitals and health care, schools and local governing institutions has their well-being uppermost in mind. Obviously they do not. Events even now spiralling out of control, much to the satisfaction of jihadist-bent Hezbollah have conspired to ensure that these Shia Lebanese are bearing the brunt of Israel's defensive moves against Hezbollah. For the greater the numbers of innocent, albeit Hezbollah-supporting Lebanese pile up, the more fuel to the fire is provided for Hezbollah's "public relations" machinery.
Arabs cannot believe certain truths. They cannot believe, despite their history, that Arabs will deliberately target and murder or caused to be killed, other Arabs. Not, in any event, when there is a perceived intruder within the geographic area whose presence can be pointed at as the true instigator of death against Arabs. Not only has Hezbollah (like Hamas in the Palestinian Territories) positioned itself, its command posts and its armaments within crowded civilian populations, but it has taken the initiative to ingratiate itself completely with its civilian neighbours by providing it with the civic institutions required in the pursuit of life and normalcy. This population, seduced and manipulated by Hezbollah's social operatives see Hezbollah as their protector - against poverty, illiteracy, disease - and looming frighteningly large - the seizure of their beloved land, and their equally beloved lives by Israel.
A cunningly media-literate, public opinion coersive group like Hezbollah has discovered how gullible the collective can be and works human frailties to their profit. Succour people who have been abandoned and you have their loyalty. You are able to establish a presence within large groups of civilians, install weapons caches, military emplacements and the civilians consider that this is for their protection, not that they have become one vast living, human shield for the war-bent military aggressors. For their face of aggression has been targetted elsewhere, while the face of compassion has fallen upon them.
With such a willing human shield loyalty expands to induce non-military, civilian males to offer to aid and assist their protectors. Full allegiance is established. And in the end, to accomplish the task at hand, the fact that in targeting Hezbollah positions deliberately established within the perceived "safety" of crowded civilian populations means that those whom Hezbollah attacks must exercise a kind of restraint and constraint that Hezbollah would never impose upon themselves. Nor does Hezbollah regret the harm it visits upon its human shield, for they perform yet another purpose: that of poor unfortunate victims of the aggression of the army attempting to protect its own civilians and in the process exterminate the threat so imminent to its own survival.
So we have Israeli Arabs divided in their loyalties, and understandably so. Do they support the State of which they are an integral and valued part? Or do they support their Arab brethren whose loyalties do not reflect their own? The pull of history, culture, tradition, religion and regional alliances are not to be denied, and the uncertainty and outcome are painful in the extreme. Israeli Arabs may feel and state that Sheik Hassan Nasrallah is a maniac and that Israel should immobilize him and his Hezbollah army of terrorists, but they grieve for the damage and lives lost to the conflict.
Israel is home to one and a half million Arabs, current descendents of the original 150,000 residents who decided not to join the exodus of frantic, frightened Palestinians, Muslim and Christian; other Arabs and Kurds during the 1948 war when Israel had to defend itself against its neighbours, post-statehood. Now Arab children and their parents are being targetted as well as their Israeli counterparts. Two Arab children died in just such an attack, a three-year-old and his seven year-old brother.
"These were our own sons. this wasn't supposed to happen to us. " (But it did.) "It was a complete surprise for everyone. We never thought Hezbollah would make this kind of mistake" said Abu Jawad whos field was hit by a separate rocket in the same attack, which sent 50 people to hospital.Half of the population of Nazareth is Jewish. In their neighbourhood there are bomb shelters and air raid sirens. The Arab neighbourhoods have none of these warning signals and shelters.
"They assured us we would not be a target so there was nothing to worry about," said Mamoun Satiti, a security official in the town. The Israeli Arabs living in Nazareth are mostly unwilling to assign blame; they feel that the rocket attack was in error, that it was meant to fall elsewhere, and they're likely correct. They will not believe that Hezbollah would ever deliberately hurt them. And there they are wrong.
"We want both countries to end this war. We don't have anywhere to hide from rocket attacks. Blood is spilled on both sides of the border. Why? Why? Why? asked Yousef Abudaya who convened a meeting of village elders for the purpose of putting tother an evacuation plan. "Both sides are to blame - Israel and Hezbollah. It is the civilians who are paying the price for it", he said.One must have pity, one must have some shame, but blame cannot be equally apportioned. On the other hand, it is the civilians who pay the price for war, disproportionately, and it has always been so.
"There is no difference between Jews and Arabs here. there is no difference between blood and blood" sobbed Nihad Taluzi, the mother of the boys, clutching photographs of her dead children. "Let my sons' lives be a sacrifice for the end of this war. That is the only honour they can have in death", she said.Their poor lost lives should be honoured, but the price they paid will not end this war. The source of the hostilities and the intent to push Israel into oblivion by whatever means must be completely extinguished, and to that end the war will continue. Otherwise this will remain but one little war after another; one war of attrition following another. There must be an end to it.
And when it is over, and Israel exhales a collective breath of security it will have to ask itself many questions. Among them should be why it is that Arab Israeli segments of a town bordering a hostile neighbour were not deemed to be sufficiently worthy of the same safeguards against imminent harm as their Jewish neighbours.
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, July 23, 2006
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