Our brother

As we hit the tenth day of Israel's offensive in Lebanon, the Times' Steven Erlanger and Jad Mouawad are reporting that Israel Calls Up Reserves, a Sign of Wider Ground Raids.

A quick check of the Jerusalem Post finds this:

The IDF was gearing up for a large-scale ground incursion into Lebanon on Friday. Thousands of reservists were being mobilized to the North throughout Friday to beef up forces stationed in the area in preparation for a possible operation.

In total, three to four ground divisions will be operating along the Lebanese front.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz said on Friday that the defense establishment was evaluating the size of the force needed to conduct a large-scale operation in Lebanon.

So much for this being a quick in, quick out pounding of Hezbollah. The Times article includes this ominous paragraph:

Lebanon’s defense minister, Elias Murr, said on Thursday that the Lebanese Army — which has so far remained on the sidelines — would go into battle if Israel invaded. “The Lebanese army will resist and defend the country and prove that it is an army worthy of respect,” he said.

So essentially, we're close to war; with the added element, ever-present in the Middle East, of emotion driving decisions.

Make no mistake, if Israel triggers a full war, the U.S. is going along for the ride. In many ways Israel is our 51st state--and for good reason. It's our only real ally in the Middle East, and for all the surreal situations they drag us into, if we're serious about democraticizing the world we should stand behind Israel and hold it up as a model that no matter how horrible your strategic situation, you can still be a democracy.

And that's the real problem with the situation in the Middle East. The U.S. tries to play this game where, less from geniune understanding--which always contains nuances and is hard to soundbite--and more out of domestic political considerations, our leading politicians tumble over each other to say things like Israel is 100% in the right, they can do no wrong, we stand strongly behind them.

Which is ridiculous, and patronizing, and makes us look naive and hopeless in the Arab world. Israel is not some golden nation--they make mistakes like any other, and it's no shame to point this out and second-guess, for those who are motivated by a true love for the country. Their political decision-making is just as likely to be driven by base motiviations as ours.

I do think, actually, that because of the stakes involved for them and the almost-familial size of the country in reality Israeli decisions are more carefully thought-out and nuanced than just about any other country's. But just because they're deliberate doesn't mean they're right.

Aside from those with religious ties, I think most ordinary Americans don't identify with Israel because of any sense that everything they do is correct. Heck, given our general paucity of knowledge of anything beyond our borders, we're not qualified from either an analytic or moral position to judge the 'rightness' of many of their actions.

We support Israel because they're like us--a functioning democracy that in many ways looks like and is modeled on the U.S., with a sizeable number of Americans living there and a dominant religion that we're familiar with. It's as if they're our little brother, with all the attendant emotional ties.

A little brother who had to grow up in a bad neighborhood, and hence who has an enormous chip on his shoulder, with a propensity to bristle and rightly or wrongly sees the way of the fist as the only way to get through day-to-day.

And I do think the way we look at Israel is very much is the sense of a 'little' brother. The diminution occurs in part because American Christians tend gaze at the 'Holy Land' through a haze of metaphors, with the odious Pat Robertson and his ilk all but saying that for them Israel matters only insofar as its existence and then destruction is necessary to bring about the Second Coming.

This kind of 'support' for Israel dehumanizes Israelis. And Americans who always totally and loudly support the actions of the Israeli government may be doing it out of good intentions, often driven by religious kinship, but the effect is to treat Israel as if it's one of its neighbors--a dictatorship where the government line is the only line.

I think one reason why so many American Jewish supporters of Israel are so tone-deaf and strident in their position is because they fear that unless they go to the barricades every time, Israel may be wiped out. There's the lingering memory of the 1973 surprise attack that nearly led to disaster for Israel; and behind it all, of course, the pitch-darkness of the Holocaust, which many mistakenly read as equating meekness with death (everyone wound up dead, those who 'fought back' were just tortured rather than gassed).

The pro-Israel lobby also has (realistically) feels that given the always-present undercurrent of anti-semitism in this country, they need to shout that much louder to 'get through' to and counter-balance a sleepy populace that otherwise might be fine just staying out of it and letting the parties in the Mideast fight it out for themselves.

So a lot of Americans wind up supporting Israel out of what seems sometimes like grim duty... when really, they should let themselves support Israelis out of clear-eyed love, which also happens to be much more sustainable.

Let's also have the maturity to see in Israeli society the same level of complexity and nuance that ours has, which means supporting 'Israel' can mean very different things at very different times and can't equate with just backing up whatever comes out of the prime minister's office in Tel Aviv.

It's not anti-Semitic or self-hating to say politics is driving much of the current offensive, and there are a lot of serious problems with what the Israelis are doing in Lebanon--they've killed mostly civilians so far, and are essentially lashing out at a neighbor for being too weak to control its own country, thus weakening it even more.

What Israel is calling a 'kidnapping'--of soldiers, no less!--it calls 'capturing' when it go after Palestinians, who are usually civilian. Plus it's all totally destroyed what was a promising move by the Palestinians toward long-term negotiations.

Even the right-wing Jerusalem Post has linked this soon-to-be-war to newly-elected Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's need to 'prove' his toughness to critics and supporters at home and foes abroad, made especially necessary in the eyes of some because of his lack of defense or military experience, in contrast to Israel's long tradition of warrior princes.

Let's not forget that Israel ended its previous adventures in Lebanon because public opinion turned against its version of Vietnam. There's an interesting 1991 Israeli film, Cup Final, about a reservist with tickets to the 1982 World Cup in Spain who's instead called up to duty during the war. He gets captured by the PLO, and the film follows their journey through wartime Lebanon to Beirut--it's an interesting portrait of what happens to people who, although enemies, really know each other; with an ending that few Hollywood directors would dare to make.

It is ironic that a lot of misguided Americans kept supporting that pointless war long after the Israelis who were doing the dying did. Just as many Americans support the very same settlements in Palestine that most Israelis see as sapping political payoffs to the far-right.

Indeed, Israeli left-wing director David Benchetrit's Dear Father, Quiet, We're Shooting profiles how some of even the most alpha of Israeli males, its fighter jets pilots, wound up refusing to bomb cities and civilians in Lebanon and Palestine.

But by the logic of the knee-jerk pro-Israel lobby, those soldiers are traitors just because they don't conform to the cartoon image of Mideast politics we project onto Israel. Yet it's the most patriotic who are usually the first to say hey, I love this country too much to stand by silent while it does what I see as wrong, I have a moral duty to speak up even, and sometimes especially, if by doing so I frustrate my government's actions.

Paired with our vocal vapid public support of Israel's government, the U.S. tries to pretend that we can also play the role of honest broker in the region, pushing Israel to the bargaining table after we've deemed they've fought long enough, and hashing something out that works for everyone.

Our insane close ties to what are essentially dictatorships in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, our friendship with moderate Jordan, and the dictates of big oil complicate our position and 'balance' us in the sense that a news story with a rabid pro-lifer and pro-choicer is good journalism.

It's all further muddled by the Europeans, with their anti-semitic history, status as ex-colonial masters of the area, and overriding economic considerations, tilting toward the Arab states. Add in that Russia/the Soviet Union, which funneled huge amounts of aid to Syria and at one point Egypt as part of its fond hopes of world domination, historically opposes whatever the U.S. position is.

Which leaves the UN, even with all its historical baggage in the creation of Israel and present-day problems with anti-semitism, feeling like surely if any region needs it it's the Middle East, and trying to carve out an appropriate role for itself. Hence, this in the Times article:

On Thursday in New York, Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, called for an immediate ceasefire and spoke of the human suffering caused by the offensive, which has displaced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from their homes.

He proposed that Hezbollah release the two soldiers, that attacks by both sides be halted and that an international peacekeeping force be deployed. And he condemned the Israeli operation as an “excessive use of force.”

Russia, which reduced parts of Chechnya to rubble in its fight against rebels there, also sharply criticized Israel: the Russian Foreign Ministry called Israel’s actions in Lebanon “far beyond the boundaries of an antiterrorist operation” and urged a cease-fire.

At the White House, President Bush’s press secretary, Tony Snow, said, “I’m not sure at this juncture we’re going to step in and put up a stop sign,” although he called on Israel to “practice restraint” and said Mr. Bush was “very much concerned” about a growing human crisis in southern Lebanon.

Yeah, as if holding up our hand would be enough to get Israel to stop. Historically, we can force Israel to do things that it doesn't want to do, but only at great political and often monetary costs.

And on the political level there are those purse strings that irrecovably tie Israel to us, and are a significant factor for why America does share in the moral responsibility for Israeli actions. The Jewish Virtual Library has these interesting facts about U.S. aid to Israel, a country of 6 million which has received more money from us since WWII than anyone else:

In 2005, Israel received $360 million in economic aid and $2.22 billion in military aid. In 2006, economic aid is scheduled to be reduced to $240 million and military aid will increase to $2.28 billion. ...

Altogether, since 1949, Israel has received nearly than $100 billion in assistance. ...

Though the totals are impressive, the value of assistance to Israel has been eroded by inflation. While aid levels remained constant in total dollars from 1987 until 1999, the real value steadily declined. On the other side of the coin, Israel does receive aid on more favorable terms than other nations.

For example, all economic aid is given directly to the Israeli government rather than allocated under a specific program. Also, starting in 1982, Israel began to receive all its economic aid in a lump sum early in the fiscal year instead of in quarterly installments as is done for other countries. Israel is not required to provide an accounting of how the funds are used.

Heck, I wonder how many states have netted $100B from the federal government in the last six decades.

But at least we get something for our aid--Israel has always been there for us, and I have no doubt that if aliens invaded earth to target only America, Israel would be the first (and maybe only) country to jump in on our side.

And to put it in comparison, a 2004 Christian Science Monitor article headlined $50 billion later, taking stock of US aid to Egypt details how much we've given to the country of 79 million:

Aid is central to Washington's relationship with Cairo. The US has provided Egypt with $1.3 billion a year in military aid since 1979, and an average of $815 million a year in economic assistance. All told, Egypt has received over $50 billion in US largesse since 1975.

Egypt is historically the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid (Iraq has temporarily pushed both Israel and Egypt down a notch), with pretty much all of it coming after the 1979 Sinai accords.

The CSM article essentially contends much of our money has been wasted in a Soviet-style economy, a claim which is echoed in a 2001 article in Egypt's respected al-Alhram paper headlined What have we done with US aid?, with the subtitle, Why has substantial US aid to Egypt failed where it has succeeded elsewhere? We have mainly ourselves to blame, writes Mustafa Kamel El-Sayed. But the issue of utter Arab dysfunction is another post.

At the end of the day, what's going on in Lebanon is not a tragedy--that pushes it from the realm of real life into the dusty bins of metaphor.

It's a horrible, man-made situation, with blood and blame on both sides, that is absolutely representative of Israel's life-long dilemma: How much provocation can it endure beset on all sides, before striking back hard, drawing the attention of the world, which tut-tuts and then at some point intervenes--only to have it all start up again as stiff-necked Israel keeps operating as if it's an oasis in a desert?

If Israel is ever to become a 'normal' nation, they need to solve this problem. The policies of the last six decades are not sustainable, even if they were desirable. Israel is a small, concentrated country that at its narrowest isn't even 10 miles across; even if it wins 99.9% of its battles, at some point--10 years, 20, 50--terrorists will obtain nuclear devices and strike.

Its only hope is to persuade its neighbors before then to live in peace. It can be done--look at the U.S. and Germany and Japan.

Maybe Israel, with our help, can set up its own Marshall Plan.

Uncredited photo of American F-16 sold to Israel via The Electronic Intifada.