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Monday, January 5, 2009 12:00 AM

Why Israelis support the Gaza offensive

Israel's post-traumatic war is not just about stopping Hamas rockets, but about repairing reputations -- and erasing the stain of failure.

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  • Monday, January 5, 2009 11:26 AM

    "Trauma"?

    Nevertheless, beyond its immediate political-military context, the current war serves a deeper need for Israelis: recovering from the trauma of our debacle in Lebanon in 2006. We grew to believe that our military is invincible, and whenever it fails to fulfill our expectations, we feel defenseless and doomed. The only way out of it is to go for another round and hope for better results.

    The honesty here is painful. What, sir, of the trauma of the Palestinians? What second round shall we expect from them when they wish to regain their feelings of potency, or "invincibility?"

    Is this like the U.S. invading Iraq in order to "kick the Vietnam syndrome?"

    The folly, the idiocy, the complete madness of depending on one's military in order to feel invincible, or, for that matter, believing that "feeling invincible" should matter in the least, should be readily apparent to those whose abstract reasoning functions are intact.

    In both cases, the "trauma" was not to the people, not at all, but to the power elite's propaganda machine and its ability to convince the citizenry that killing masses of strangers is ever in their interests.

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