Two Sides to Every Story
I know it's been a while since I've written a blog, I've been wrestling with a professional decision (which I am still not sure about) and have been way too scatter-brained to focus enough to write one of these at work the past week.
Israel is 100% right and Lebanon is a terrorist state without any redeeming qualities; or at least that's what Dan Gillerman (the Israeli ambassador to the UN) would have me believe. Ibrahim Assaf (the Lebanese ambassador) on the other hand, if I were to believe him, tells me that Israel is an evil aggressor bent on the destruction of Lebanon. Every story has more than one side, and it's tough sometimes to really determine which side to take as the truth and which to take with a grain of salt. Though this conflict has been brewing for 60 years, Lebanon (through the actions of Hezbollah) technically started it with the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. Lebanon is partially at fault because of their foolish support for Hezbollah and pathetically weak internal security forces. The Lebanese military is dominated by Hezbollah and the government cowers to the terrorist organization. A rational Lebanon would never have allowed Hezbollah to provoke Israel and their superior millitary might. Despite the fact that Lebanon made the first attack, (and continues to rain missiles on civilians, including the 3rd largest city in Israel) the Lebanese ambassador called for the Israeli aggressors to be brought up on charges for war crimes. When you have two sides both calling the other war criminals, maybe they are both right.
Crime begets crime. When someone is a victim of a crime, they vow revenge, and sometimes that revenge involves criminal action. When my house was robbed back when I was 19 and I lost basically every item of baseball memorabilia and electronics I owned, I would have beaten those robbers into a coma, or worse. I felt personally wronged, as if they had chosen to rob me in order to cause me pain instead of the fact that they would have robbed me regardless of who I was. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I had no idea who they were and could never exact my revenge. Israel was robbed of two soldiers and they sought the return of their property as well as the satisfaction of revenge and the prevention of future incidents. Hezbollah, I believe, sought to enrage Israel and provoke them to attack Lebanon, and that's exactly what happened. Even though Israel has been dropping leaflets on Hezbollah strongholds urging civilians to evacuate, they have still been killing all kinds of "innocent" Hezbollah sympathizers and the poor people who cannot afford to evacuate. The Israeli military has always been known to take aggressive action to prevent counter-strikes. Case-in-point: About 1.5 months ago the Lebanese agovernment had arrested a 7-man Mossad ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossad ) assassination squad active in Lebanon, so Israel isn't exactly being 100% open and innocent in this. Obviously Hezbollah isn't a charity group seeking to create a peaceful world of harmony, they are a group of religious zealots who are bent on creating a Islamic theocracy.
When two people see a different side to the same story, it's hard to determine which story is actually the true one. In the (absolutely amazing, thought provoking, humorous and compelling) film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Dog ), the main character is assaulted and has his life saved by a small-time mafia associate. He then changes his life by dedicating himself to the code of the Samurai and pledges his loyalty to Louie the Mafia associate. However, Louie saw a completely different version of the assault. Instead of the assaulters pointing a gun at Ghost Dog (as was seen in his flashback), Louie sees (in his version of the same flashback) the assaulters point a gun at him when he confronts them. This is a major point of the film, and it is echoed in life every day. In relationships there are always two sides to every story or argument, the man's and the woman's (or the top and the bottom, or the butch and the femme, etc.) and though they might be able to hear and understand the opinions, neither side will truly see what the other saw. Even words have double meanings based solely on the meaning that people take from them. I could tell a girl she looks hot today at lunch and she could either think I was sexually harrassing her or that I was commenting on the weather. Well, Israel and Lebanon are just like a couple that was forced together in an arranged marriage, they don't care for each other, but their lives are intertwined. They hear what each other say, but do not listen.
What makes this situation dangerous is that each side believes that they are the forces of good fighting against evil aggressors. Israel believes that Hezbollah is acting under the guise of a terrorist organization in behalf of Iran and Syria in order to destroy Israel. Lebanon believes that Israel desires to take control of Lebanon and revoke their self-determination. With their bombing campaign, Israel has sent Lebanon back at least 3 decades, destroying infrastructure and renewing fears of a destabilizing Lebanon. The destabilization will not help to oust Hezbollah, but in fact it will do the exact opposite. Hezbollah, like Al-Qaeda, is only gaining in strength as a nation declares war on them. Hezbollah is gaining support not only in Lebanon, but in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and even Jordan. Israel could be in very bad shape if Eilat becomes a target of aggression, and it should be considering its economic and stragetic significance, because fighting a war on two fronts is always devastating to the nation. Look at Germany during the World Wars if you don't believe me.
So what is going to happen with this? Will they create a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon? Will Hezbollah give up their bombing campaign? Will Israel step down and call for peace? Will it matter? The Middle East is just waiting to erupt, and that's scary considering how unstable and violent it has become. We're living in a world today that is far more dangerous than it's ever been. We have private citizens with the power of a nation, rogue scientists who help to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons for terrorist organizations. We have democratically elected dictators (Chavez in Venezuela, Ahmadinejad in Iran) who threaten the global community with radicalism and hatred. But what if we're really the evil aggressors? Even the devil believed that he was good, in fact, he was an angel who fell out of favor with god. It's not as if Bush has a lot of evidence to support his claims and every time I hear an Arab on TV he believes that his people are the victims. What if the side of the story that we're seeing is really the imagined one and that gun was actually being pointed at them and not us? Or what if we were all evil and had eliminated good from the planet years ago? Something tells me that we'll never really know for sure...
Israel is 100% right and Lebanon is a terrorist state without any redeeming qualities; or at least that's what Dan Gillerman (the Israeli ambassador to the UN) would have me believe. Ibrahim Assaf (the Lebanese ambassador) on the other hand, if I were to believe him, tells me that Israel is an evil aggressor bent on the destruction of Lebanon. Every story has more than one side, and it's tough sometimes to really determine which side to take as the truth and which to take with a grain of salt. Though this conflict has been brewing for 60 years, Lebanon (through the actions of Hezbollah) technically started it with the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. Lebanon is partially at fault because of their foolish support for Hezbollah and pathetically weak internal security forces. The Lebanese military is dominated by Hezbollah and the government cowers to the terrorist organization. A rational Lebanon would never have allowed Hezbollah to provoke Israel and their superior millitary might. Despite the fact that Lebanon made the first attack, (and continues to rain missiles on civilians, including the 3rd largest city in Israel) the Lebanese ambassador called for the Israeli aggressors to be brought up on charges for war crimes. When you have two sides both calling the other war criminals, maybe they are both right.
Crime begets crime. When someone is a victim of a crime, they vow revenge, and sometimes that revenge involves criminal action. When my house was robbed back when I was 19 and I lost basically every item of baseball memorabilia and electronics I owned, I would have beaten those robbers into a coma, or worse. I felt personally wronged, as if they had chosen to rob me in order to cause me pain instead of the fact that they would have robbed me regardless of who I was. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I had no idea who they were and could never exact my revenge. Israel was robbed of two soldiers and they sought the return of their property as well as the satisfaction of revenge and the prevention of future incidents. Hezbollah, I believe, sought to enrage Israel and provoke them to attack Lebanon, and that's exactly what happened. Even though Israel has been dropping leaflets on Hezbollah strongholds urging civilians to evacuate, they have still been killing all kinds of "innocent" Hezbollah sympathizers and the poor people who cannot afford to evacuate. The Israeli military has always been known to take aggressive action to prevent counter-strikes. Case-in-point: About 1.5 months ago the Lebanese agovernment had arrested a 7-man Mossad ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossad ) assassination squad active in Lebanon, so Israel isn't exactly being 100% open and innocent in this. Obviously Hezbollah isn't a charity group seeking to create a peaceful world of harmony, they are a group of religious zealots who are bent on creating a Islamic theocracy.
When two people see a different side to the same story, it's hard to determine which story is actually the true one. In the (absolutely amazing, thought provoking, humorous and compelling) film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Dog ), the main character is assaulted and has his life saved by a small-time mafia associate. He then changes his life by dedicating himself to the code of the Samurai and pledges his loyalty to Louie the Mafia associate. However, Louie saw a completely different version of the assault. Instead of the assaulters pointing a gun at Ghost Dog (as was seen in his flashback), Louie sees (in his version of the same flashback) the assaulters point a gun at him when he confronts them. This is a major point of the film, and it is echoed in life every day. In relationships there are always two sides to every story or argument, the man's and the woman's (or the top and the bottom, or the butch and the femme, etc.) and though they might be able to hear and understand the opinions, neither side will truly see what the other saw. Even words have double meanings based solely on the meaning that people take from them. I could tell a girl she looks hot today at lunch and she could either think I was sexually harrassing her or that I was commenting on the weather. Well, Israel and Lebanon are just like a couple that was forced together in an arranged marriage, they don't care for each other, but their lives are intertwined. They hear what each other say, but do not listen.
What makes this situation dangerous is that each side believes that they are the forces of good fighting against evil aggressors. Israel believes that Hezbollah is acting under the guise of a terrorist organization in behalf of Iran and Syria in order to destroy Israel. Lebanon believes that Israel desires to take control of Lebanon and revoke their self-determination. With their bombing campaign, Israel has sent Lebanon back at least 3 decades, destroying infrastructure and renewing fears of a destabilizing Lebanon. The destabilization will not help to oust Hezbollah, but in fact it will do the exact opposite. Hezbollah, like Al-Qaeda, is only gaining in strength as a nation declares war on them. Hezbollah is gaining support not only in Lebanon, but in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and even Jordan. Israel could be in very bad shape if Eilat becomes a target of aggression, and it should be considering its economic and stragetic significance, because fighting a war on two fronts is always devastating to the nation. Look at Germany during the World Wars if you don't believe me.
So what is going to happen with this? Will they create a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon? Will Hezbollah give up their bombing campaign? Will Israel step down and call for peace? Will it matter? The Middle East is just waiting to erupt, and that's scary considering how unstable and violent it has become. We're living in a world today that is far more dangerous than it's ever been. We have private citizens with the power of a nation, rogue scientists who help to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons for terrorist organizations. We have democratically elected dictators (Chavez in Venezuela, Ahmadinejad in Iran) who threaten the global community with radicalism and hatred. But what if we're really the evil aggressors? Even the devil believed that he was good, in fact, he was an angel who fell out of favor with god. It's not as if Bush has a lot of evidence to support his claims and every time I hear an Arab on TV he believes that his people are the victims. What if the side of the story that we're seeing is really the imagined one and that gun was actually being pointed at them and not us? Or what if we were all evil and had eliminated good from the planet years ago? Something tells me that we'll never really know for sure...
posted by Dan Pasternack at 10:47 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home