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• Monday, January 12, 2009 08:26 PM

  Means, not will

  The thing that separates Israel and Hamas in this and previous battles is means, not will. Had Hamas, Islamic Jihad and its supporters the means to prosecute as lopsided a campaign as Israel is currently engaged in, they would be feverishly doing so. It's easy to decry slaughter. This is a war that has been ongoing with fits and starts for 60 years in this era alone. In the present architecture, it would be occurring because of one impetus or another of Hamas' creation and Israel's predictable military reflex. A US resident, I have Israeli relatives and indeed many run the gamut between callous and racist in regards to Palestinians specifically and Arabs in general. But in this regard they are matched, indeed grossly overmatched, by racism from the other side of the conflict.

  To my mind, "Waltz with Bashir" also reveals a distinguishing strength of national character: the deep and public struggle of conscience not only possible but lauded in Israel. I'm unaware of a comparable current flowing from the popular media in Palestine. Hamas, improving on doctrinaire public affairs strategy set in place by the old PLO, has encouraged a nihilism among young men that will inflict more lasting damage on Palestinians than will all the munitions in Israel -- it is the source of the tireless provocation that has again driven the militarily superior Israel to its last raw nerve.

  —bhameans Read bhameans's other letters
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