Ok, there's a powder keg (your words). What evenly matched alliances match up that might make for an extended and global conflict? I don't see it, yet.

If the US throws in with Israel, as they very well might, what Western or 1st world powers are going to throw in with their enemies? China? It takes evenly matched foes to make for a conflict akin to the world wars, not just a powder keg.

The UN Security Council is a joke. When terrorists declare war on you, you fight back. Period. No more of this mollycoddling and giving away land to people who want you liquidated. If the US can't tolerate the existence of al-Qaeda, no way should Israel tolerate the existence of Hamas and Hezbollah.

In response to Mark's question above, something tells me that sooner or later, Russia will get in the mix of things and they won't be siding with Israel.

I'm going to suggest that at some point Russia will be involved. Read Ezekiel 38-39. You might disagree, but don't say you weren't warned.

Everyone is saying that Israel is over-reacting. I doubt that, but I also suspect that it's a bit of misdirection. Israel may be reacting to something no one can or wants to openly acknowledge.

The sentiment behind Allison Kaplan Sommer's Nothing Left to Lose post is as applicable to today's situation as it was to the post's original topic of two years ago: the news of the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Yassin:

They see that when we try to make nice and compromise we get terror attacks. And when we're tough and aggressive we get terror attacks. Nothing we do seems to lower the motivation to slaughter Israeli civilians -- men, women, or children -- and in the case of Hamas, to see the state of Israel destroyed. So since there's absolutely nothing to lose by getting Yassin, and something to possibly gain -- at least temporarily derailing the Hamas leadership structure, and hopefully weakening it long-term -- so why not go ahead and do it?

Michael Young has a good op-ed in the NYT. Israel should mount a vigorous defense against Hezbollah, but it (and the U.S.) should take this opportunity to defend the Lebanese majority government from Hezbollah's destructive behavior and from Syrian and Iranian interference, all of which are largely unpopular in Beirut. We should do everything in our power to defend a potential or nascent pro-American public (and regime) within the Near East. As for this turning into a regional or global war, that seems unlikely. Syria and Iran wouldn't be so stupid as to attack Israel directly. Far better to rely on Hezbollah and Hamas. Should a regional war actually start, I don't see how it could become a world war; the Russians and Chinese are fairly nonideological these days. They want to make money - and far more money is to be made at peace with the Americans than at war.

Bill Scher links to this AP story from June 20, "Hamas close on agreement to recognize Israel," which reports that Hamas was drawing close to a compromise on a document that would implicitly recognize Israel, a senior official of the Hamas-led Palestinian government said today..."Such agreement would represent significant changes in the Hamas Islamic ideology..."

Now we have a clue as to why the abductions happened. The militant wing of Hamas wanted to send the ongoing talks between Hamas and Fatah straight into oblivion, betting that the Israelis would overreact. Mission accomplished.

There's a very simple Middle East tactic that all the involved actors should already be aware of/prepared for. That is, whenever compromise threatens the status quo, the affected militant group will launch an attack inviting the sort of response that will jettison any progress towards moderation.

I don't imagine to be sending troops to Israel's defense any time soon. First of all, we haven't any to send. Secondly, if Israel is in a precarious position, it ain't a military one---it's the preeminent military and only regional nuclear power. (Via the Washington Note) So far, the extent of our involvement appears to be Condi Rice pressuring the Israelis to "demonstrate restraint," and she was blown off. Lebanon has appealed to Egypt and France to urge the Israelis to urge restraint. But Olmert's gov't is on a tear and the region is on the verge of a full scale war.

I would suggest that the million dollar question is: why the over-the -top response from the Olmert gov't? I get that the militant wing of Hamas got what it wanted, the situation in Lebanon is murkier, with the gov't and populace angry at Hezbollah for inviting the wrath of israel upon them, but other than punishment and revenge, what is Israel getting out of this? What is going on with the Olmert gov't?!

This whole situation in Lebanon is very murky, and I just read an account that claims the Lebanes are actually rallying behind Hezbollah in response to Israeli bombings. If Israel is trying to pressure the Lebanese into turning on Hezbollah, this tactic may not be working.

Additionally, Lebanese cabinet ministers who normally accuse Syria and Iran of using Hezbollah to serve their own ends, (and ask for Hezbollah's disarmament) are calling Israel "brutal aggressors." Is the fragile one year old democratically elected gov't in danger of collapsing?

The perceptions on the ground in Lebanon, average-person pointing the finger-wise, may be more nuanced than either for or against Hezbolah. It may be they're PO'ed at Hezbollah for bringing on the Israeli response, but are supporting Hezbollah as long as the attacks on them continue. So there may not be any accounting until this is all over, depending of course, on what's left of Lebanon and who's left standing...

As for Israel overreacting, consider the following. The US Marines have a policy of doing the utmost to bring back every soldier, dead or alive often expending seemingly very disproportionatly high costs in men and materiel to recover the body of one slain soldier. This is official policy, debated, considered and in place.

How is Israel's response so different? If one response is "right" is not the other, and likewise if wrong are both wrong?

Mark Olson

Proportion. Do you really think that US military brass would recommend levelling entire countries over the kidnapping of 3 soldiers? The utmost? Where would we draw the line, nuclear annihilation?

Why exactly do you think those soldiers were kidnapped? Both the Hamas and the Hezbollah abductions were carried out to invite exactly the responses they got from Israel.

I illustrated above one possible reason for the Hamas kidnapping, and why they were inviting the response they got for israel.

In the case of Hezbollah, the kidnappings were ostensibly about using them as bargaining chips to get back Lebanese prisoners in Israel.

But the timing of it (right on the heels of the Hamas abduction and the resulting Israeli incursion into Gaza and attack on the Palestinian Authority) indicate that other factors may be in play. Keep in mind that Hezbollah is not very popular in Lebanon, so perhaps regional anger for the Israeli response to the Hamas kidnappings gave them the confidence to embroil Lebanon in yet more fighting (in the middle of tourist season, so you know that there are gonna be some mighty POed Lebanese right now).

Israeli bombing of the country's infrastructure only serves to undermine Lebanon's democratically elected gov't (remember the Cedar Revolution?) to the point of possible collapse, and to send the Lebanese people who normally oppose Hezbollah right into their arms. And if Israel reoccupies southern Lebanon, Hezbollah REALLY wins big---it'll be back in business as the Lebanese resistance movement fighting the occupation.

And Syria and Iran get to sit back and enjoy watching us squirm. While we expect that pro-US governments in the region will forcefully condemn Hezbollah, (remember that although Hezbollah is not popular in Lebanon, it is popular in the rest of the region), that will put those gov'ts in a funky position. (Anti-Hezbollah means pro-Israel---not such a good position to take in the ME right now.)

Further US squirming: Rice was reportedly rebuffed by Olmert in her efforts to get him to show "restraint." We couldn't even directly appeal to Syria to caution them to restrain Hezbollah, we had to appeal to Egypt and Saudi Arabia to do it for us because the Bush administration has cut off relations with Syria. Looks like we got rebuffed there, too.

Maybe Israel should just bomb the you-know-what out of the Palestinians, and everyone that assists them, so they can have their land back. Sounds like solid foreign policy to me.....

If I was intending say anything as pointlessly, unbelievably stupid as that, I'd stay anonymous too.

BTW, there are 25,000 Americans stranded in Lebanon right now, you idiot...

"If I was intending say anything as pointlessly, unbelievably stupid as that, I'd stay anonymous too."

And yet you haven't.....

You are absolutely correct. I haven't.

Professor Martin van Creveld, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is Israel's most prominent military historian. In this 2002 interview with Jennifer Byrne he claims that despite the recent increase in Israel's military operations, the huge Israeli defence forces will inevitably lose to the Palestinians.

Byrne: Martin... how is it that the mighty Israeli army --- one of the worldís most powerful - with its helicopter gunships, with its tanks, with it's missiles, can be losing to this relatively small, relatively under-armed if fanatical group of Palestinians?

Van Creveld: The same thing has happened to the Israeli army as happened to all the rest that have tried over the last sixty years. Basically itís always a question of the relationship of forces. If you are strong, and you are fighting the weak for any period of time, you are going to become weak yourself... The same happened to the British when they were here, the same happened to the French in Algeria, the same happened to the Americans in Vietnam, the same happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan, the same happened to so many people that I can't even count them.

*snip*

Byrne: What options does the Israeli army have, do you think?

Van Creveld: Nothing will work.

Byrne: Nothing at all? Do you think there's no change of strategy?

Van Creveld: No. There is one thing that can be done --- and that is to put and end to the situation whereby we are the strong fighting the weak, because that is the most stupid situation in which anybody can be.

Byrne: : And how do you do that?

Van Creveld: Exactly. How do you do that. You do that by A, waiting for a suitable opportunity... B, doing whatever it takes to restore the balance of power between us and the Palestinians... C, removing 90% of the causes of the conflict, by pulling out... and D, building a wall between us and the other side, so tall that even the birds cannot fly over it.... so as to avoid any kind of friction for a long long time in the future...

Let me rephrase: and yet you sign your name....

Israel has effectively declared war against the civilian population of Lebanon. There is simply no gain in that for them, besides the fact that wreaking that kind of destruction on the country's infrastructure is just plain evil. Israel should know that it gains nothing by stooping to the level of its enemies.

Time after time, Israel has tried to prove that making a disportionately larger response will bring them success and it never does.

WE THE PEOPLE should sincerely wish that our president will join up and fight and die in the cause for Israel.It's the least he can do.

I believe Joel's comment speaks to JohnS's much earlier question about why Israel has responded with such overwhelming force in Lebanon. Israel has always had the advantage in force within Palestine and therefore when dealing with Gaza and the West Bank consistently chooses to escalate violence to staggering levels. This has had some success within Palestine (thus, I differ from Joel in that I think escalating violence has been a successful strategy at some points historically, but has led to human rights violations -ie the recent situation in Gaza- and is therefore wrong and fuels terrorism), but as several have noted, is very destabilizing for Lebanon, a moderate state, and will not likely be successful. Israel has pledged to pummel Lebanon until Hizbollah is disarmed...something the Lebanese cannot do.

Doug, I do not know your reasons for advocating such a position, but I'll throw a general statement out there and say that I sincerely wish that our president would work diligently for peace (with justice for the Palestinian people and an end to terrorism), not fight blindly for Israel.

anyway, i appreciate the dialogue that has occurred here.

If civilian deaths in Lebananon from Israeli indisriminate attacks were translated to the U.S. population, it would equate to the death of more than 43,000 Americans. Israel has a moral right to defend itself and respond, but not in a manner so grossly disproportionate to the original wrong.

If civilian deaths in Lebananon from Israeli indisriminate attacks were translated to the U.S. population, it would equate to the death of more than 43,000 Americans.

And if we translated as such with respect to China, the figure would be ~160,000 Chinese.

Or we could translate it into Bloomington Residents and it would be about 14 people.

That's what, one hundredth of a percent? Probably a bit more, say .013%?

Now, that's not meant to minimize anything. But it is meant to point out how silly it is to "translate" numbers like that.

Silly to translate numbers like that? Out of curiosity Nick, what did the number of deaths from the World Trade Center attacks work out to, percentage-wise, that managed to drive us here in the U.S. so over the edge?

Steve Clemons, of the American Strategy Program asks on his blog, the Washington Note, "Why is Israel pounding most of Lebanon rather than just the South and rather than pinpointing its attack against Hezbollah assets? "

Clemons suggests that the Israelis may not only have been responding to threats from Hezbollah in Lebanon, but also to perceived threat from Washington. He notes that the "realist" wing in Washington was pursuing some new Middle East policy courses for the U.S., including, "a broad deal with the Arab Middle East, a new push on final status negotiations with the Palestinians, and a deal to actually negotiate directly with Iran..."

Mr Clemons notes that while the Lebanon attacks will establish the Olmert gov't's "bona fides," they will also kill the possibility of our pursuit of those new "realist wing" policy options:

"Israel is constraining American foreign policy in amazing and troubling ways by its actions. And a former senior CIA official and another senior Marine who are well-versed in both Israeli and broad Middle East affairs agreed that serious strategists in Israel are more concerned about America tilting towards new bargains in the region than they are either about the challenge from Hamas or Hezbollah or showing that Olmert knows how to pull the trigger."

Food for thought...

But you weren't talking about percentages; you talked about raw numbers (more than 43,000 Americans). My point is only that to talk about straight numbers, rather than percentages, is silly if you're going to claim that a response is disproportionate.

To answer your question, 3,000 Americans in the WTC equates out to about .001%. But again, I'm not debating policy here - who we or Israel or anyone else should attack and to what extent we/they should if we/they should. I'm stating flat-out that it's disingenuous to use raw numbers (43,000 DEAD! OMG WTF LOL BBQ!) when the percentage - or proportion - of deaths is what's at issue.

Nick,

If it isn't significant that 237 Lebanese civilians are dead, then it isn't significant that 5,000 or so Americans died in the WTC bombing. It is one thing when civilians are unavoiadably killed in war. It is quite another to deliberately put civilians in harm's way as a tool to pressure a government to do something it probably doesn't even have the power to do.

The problem is that Israel has chosen to attack an entire country over the kidnapping of two soldiers. You can ignore the Bible -- that is that the maximum response is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I am impelled to invoke it. Israel has the right to respond, but no moral grounding to make a widespread attack on the infrastructure of an entire country, with talk of a possible ground invasion. Israel has even attacked the Lebanese Army, killing 17 of their soldiers, without offering any justification. Israel knows very well that if the Lebanese army had the power to control southern Lebanon it would do so. In reality, the official Lebanese government is nothing more than the defacto government of southern Lebanon.

...

I am very specifically criticizing your mention of 43,000 American deaths because regardless of my personal thoughts on the situation in the Middle East, I don't think rhetoric like that helps your argument at all.

So: All I'm saying is that if you want to talk about proportionality, you don't make your point by talking about real numbers, particularly not by talking about real numbers from a wholly different sample that has nothing to do with the case at hand. You make it by talking about proportions.

Everything else you mention - effectively the entirety of your responses to me - is basically one big straw man.

I haven't seen anything that indicates the Israeli attacks on Lebanon have been "indiscriminate." Granted, I've spent the past week on vacation outside the US and did not read (or watch) a great deal of news. But it seems to me Israel is doing in Lebanon something similar to what the US did in Afghanistan. Can you imagine the US tolerating the ongoing presence of terrorist groups on our borders which are dedicated to our destruction? Yet that is what much of the world expects Israel to do.

Nick, I think you're misunderstanding the value of re-scaling into American population numbers, in terms of helping get an intuitive grasp on the events involved (for any sort of event like this -- it's nothing particular to these recent tragedies). It's not that different, really, from reporting facts about foreign economies converted into dollars, or of past economic figures converted into contemporary dollars. We have a rough sense of what a certain quantity means in terms of our own experience, and it facilitates communication to map things back to that experience whenever possible.

So I don't think that it's a rhetorical trick to make the number look bigger. It's a communicative device, meant to help us ask ourselves what kind of impact this would be having on the country in question. Note that it shouldn't quite matter which scale one chooses to map to, as long as it's one that is intuitive; maybe using Indiana would have been better than the US, I don't know. Your example of Bloomington is pretty good, actually -- if someone attacked the town and 14 people died, I think that Bloomingtonians would think it was a _huge_ event.

Nick,

Many defenders of Israel translate their civilian deaths into what the U.S. equivalent would be. Ditto for many Congressional representatives.

There is a good chance that Israel's actions will cause the Lebanese government to fall and a more radical government to take its place.

If 200 dead civilians (wait, that has now risen to 300)in Lebanon is no big deal, then exactly what would be a big deal to you? One high-ranking Israeli official said the purpose of the attack is to terrorize the Lebanese population into opposing the terrorists. I don't get that logic.

Anyway, Israel used a similar plan to try to bring it safety from Palestinian extremist attacks only to find that Israel is less safe than before. It seems to me that Israel is locked in a revenge mindset rather than a visionary one. It is not Israel being tough that I mind. It is Israel being stupid, for that makes the world a much more dangerous place.

Here's another equivalence: translated to the United States, the Lebanese population displacement would translate to 39 million Americans driven from their homes. Since Americans can't stand it if they have to wait more than 20 seconds in line or at an ATM, it does strike me as kind of amusing that so many are indifferent to this massive attack on Lebanon.

Would love to post something further but face a horible deadline tody, so I'd just like to say thanks to Josh and ITA for this post---a lot of blogs seem to be avoiding the Israel/Gaza/Lebanon crisis like the plague. Please keep them coming...

If 200 dead civilians (wait, that has now risen to 300)in Lebanon is no big deal, then exactly what would be a big deal to you?

For the love of all that is holy, have you not read a single thing I said?

At no point whatsoever have I said that the number of civilians dead was not a "big deal." At no point have I even attempted to address your argument on the merits.

For the absolute last time, I am addressing the way you argue, not your argument. I don't think translating numbers is a good rhetorical tactic. For cryin' out loud, this is an opinion of mine! You can feel free to disagree, but just have the common decency to address the issue I'm talking about (the way phil did!) instead of ignoring it.

I just don't know why you keep responding to me. Either you've completely ignored everything I said, in which case you have no reason to respond to me, or you don't understand the point I'm trying to make, in which case you could simply ask me to be more clear and I would be.

So I don't think that it's a rhetorical trick to make the number look bigger. It's a communicative device, meant to help us ask ourselves what kind of impact this would be having on the country in question.

Perhaps my opinion is tainted from having seen far to many politicos misuse the device, but I am always wary when people use numbers in that way.

I won't deny that the trick can't be useful in other areas (e.g., explaining science; "Driving from the Earth to the Sun would be like driving from New York to LA every day for ninety years!"), but when it comes to politics, I think we should stick as close to the facts at hand as possible.

When someone says, "300 Lebanese have been killed so far in Israel's response to the kidnapping of 2 soldiers," the proportionality of the response is perfectly clear. The policy can be debated nonetheless, to be sure, but the numbers are right there.

When I hear someone instead say, "Imagine if 43,000 Americans were killed..." then I instantly assume that they're trying to dodge the point. I assume that most Americans would respond more to Americans being killed than Lebanese, and so when we start talking about American deaths - particularly hypothetial ones! - in an attempt to simplify an argument, I think there's a problem.

Joel,

You are correct that some defenders of Israel use the same "U.S. equivalent" argument, but I agree with Nick that it is a misleading rhetorical tactic.

Both absolute and relative numbers matter. Do Americans value each human life 180 times less than Lebanese do, simply because our country has 180 times the population of Lebanon? Clearly not.

I think if one wishes to put the Lebanese casualties in perspective for Americans, it would be best to compare Lebanon to an American city with similar population. Lebanon's population is estimated at 3.5 million, similar to the population of Los Angeles (3.8 million within city limits). So imagine that 200-300 people had died in Los Angeles.

200-300 dead in LA wouldn't be a big deal if they were from South LA. It would be a huge deal if they were from Brentwood. And that is exactly why I make the comparisons.

Nick, I get your point. I was just trying to emphasize how stupid I though it was. I can't prove your point wrong becauase it is a matter of perception and judgment, not of fact.

"When I hear someone instead say, "Imagine if 43,000 Americans were killed..." then I instantly assume that they're trying to dodge the point. I assume that most Americans would respond more to Americans being killed than Lebanese, and so when we start talking about American deaths - particularly hypothetial ones! - in an attempt to simplify an argument, I think there's a problem."

But isn't that rather part of the point of such exercises -- to overcome everyone's natural focus on themselves & their own group? If you're trying to understand what impact the events will be having on Lebanon, you need to be imagining it in terms of people who care a lot about what happens to Lebanon; so, since we care a lot about the US, but only in a more abstract way about the Lebanese, mapping onto the US helps convey the relevant information. Again, you're mapping onto the reader's own experience (as someone who cares about their own country) in order to communicate what the situation is like in a far-off part of the world.

The numbers when mapped to Bloomington, or to the US, or Eric's example of LA, all work fine for these purposes. I'm just not seeing how this is at all misleading, frankly, unless the reader misinterprets the nature of the comparison.

200-300 dead in LA wouldn't be a big deal if they were from South LA.

I disagree. I think there are very few Americans who are so callous that they would shrug off several hundred American deaths--even if most of the dead were poor and non-white. Of course, the tragedy of that many dead in LA would be *felt* a lot more deeply in southern CA than in rural IN (or OK). So to understand what the Lebanese people are experiencing, it would be best to visualize the casualties in a region of similar population near where you live.