Prevarications By Supporters of Israel’s Invasion Of Lebanon

I recently received what purported to be a message that was delivered by the Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, and was supposedly published in Maariv on July 31, 2006. It turns out that the message was a hoax. It was written by one Ben Caspit, and published on a blog called NRG under the title “We Will Not Capitulate.” It was also posted on a blog called Pundit Review.

Even though it was a hoax, or at least not anything Olmert said, I believe it deserves a response because its arguments may have appeal to many and because it contains exaggerations that are so gross as to amount to lies and is in other ways misleading.

The message follows: (With my rebuttal interjected in indented form and in a contrasting color).

“Ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world, I, the Prime Minister of Israel, am speaking to you from Jerusalem in the face of the terrible pictures from Kfar Kana. Any human heart, wherever it is, must sicken and recoil at the sight of such pictures. There are no words of comfort that can mitigate the enormity of this tragedy. Still, I am looking you straight in the eye and telling you that the State of Israel will continue its military campaign in Lebanon.

“The Israel Defense Forces will continue to attack targets from which missiles and Katyusha rockets are fired at hospitals, old age homes and kindergartens in Israel. I have instructed the security forces and the IDF to continue to hunt for the Katyusha stockpiles and launch sites from which these savages are bombarding the State of Israel. We will not hesitate, we will not apologize and we will not back off. If they continue to launch missiles into Israel from Kfar Kana, we will continue to bomb Kfar Kana.

“Today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Here, there and everywhere.

My objection to this it that it gives the impression that the present conflict was started as a result Katyusha rockets fired at Israel from Lebanon. This is not true. The rockets were not fired from Lebanon until after Israel responded to what was a minor provocation, i.e. two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped, and three others were killed. A similar foray several years ago led to a prisoner-swap deal that saw hundreds of Palestinian detainees released, as well as prominent Lebanese held for decades by Israel. Thus Hezbollah had every reason to expect a similar reaction. Instead what has been achieved? As of 8 August 2006, 102 Israeli deaths, 690 Israelis injured, 500,000 Israeli’s displaced; 998 Lebanese dead, (mostly non combatants), 3,493 Lebanese injured, 915,762 Lebanese displaced. (Mostly non-combatants) and more and more rockets are raining down on Israel.

“The children of Kfar Kana could now be sleeping peacefully in their homes, unmolested, had the agents of the devil not taken over their land and turned the lives of our children into hell. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time you understood: the Jewish state will no longer be trampled upon. We will no longer allow anyone to exploit population centers in order to bomb our citizens. No one will be able to hide anymore behind women and children in order to kill our women and children. This anarchy is over. You can condemn us, you can boycott us, you can stop visiting us and, if necessary, we will stop visiting you.

The reference to “turned the lives of our children into hell” again implies that Israeli children were being bombed. This was not the case.

“Today I am serving as the voice of six million bombarded Israeli citizens who serve as the voice of six million murdered Jews who were melted down to dust and ashes by savages in Europe. In both cases, those responsible for these evil acts were, and are, barbarians devoid of all humanity, who set themselves one simple goal: to wipe the Jewish people off the face of the earth, as Adolph Hitler said, or to wipe the State of Israel off the map, as Mahmoud Ahmedinjad proclaims.

There is no doubt that Iran and Hezbollah would like to wipe the state of Israel off the map but that is a reality that has existed from various changing sources ever since the state was born. The question is not what they would wish, but how to deal with a wish as opposed to a real threat intelligently and without a total disregard for non-combatants. As to the reference to the six million Jews killed by the Nazis, that is an emotional reference, which has no bearing on present realities.

“And you - just as you did not take those words seriously then, you are ignoring them again now. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world, will not happen again. Never again will we wait for bombs that never came to hit the gas chambers. Never again will we wait for salvation that never arrives. Now we have our own air force. The Jewish people are now capable of standing up to those who seek their destruction – those people will no longer be able to hide behind women and children. They will no longer be able to evade their responsibility. Every place from which a Katyusha is fired into the State of Israel will be a legitimate target for us to attack.

The reference to the rockets is constant but none were fired until after Israel’s unwise attack.

“This must be stated clearly and publicly, once and for all.

“You are welcome to judge us, to ostracize us, to boycott us and to vilify us. But to kill us? Absolutely not.

“Four months ago I was elected by hundreds of thousands of citizens to the office of Prime Minister of the government of Israel, on the basis of my plan

“my plan” – it was not his plan. It was Sharon’s

for unilaterally withdrawing from 90 percent of the areas of Judea and Samaria,

There is no indication that the Sharon plan called for withdrawal from 90% of the west bank. The reference to the areas as Judea and Samaria shows that the author belongs to the annexationists who consider the west bank to be part of Israel and advocate ethnic cleansing.

the birth place and cradle of the Jewish people; to end most of the occupation and to enable the Palestinian people to turn over a new leaf and to calm things down until conditions are ripe for attaining a permanent settlement between us. The Prime Minister who preceded me, Ariel Sharon, made a full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip back to the international border, and gave the Palestinians there a chance to build a new reality for themselves.

This was not done “to enable the Palestinian people to turn over a new leaf and to calm things down,” it was done because Sharon finally realized the impossibility of maintaining a situation which he had created in building the settlements. The settlements were and continue to be a lodestone around Israel’s neck. Since they were and are invariably in Arab territory they required Israeli troops in numbers out of all proportion to the settlers being protected, thus tying down and exposing those troops unnecessarily. In addition Sharon finally realized that Israel could either let the Arabs vote and end up being a minority in it’s own state or keep them from citizenship and give up all pretense to being a democracy. It was to avoid these problems and not out of an unrealistic hope that Arab hostility would dissipate that Sharon made his decision to dismantle many settlements.

The Prime Minister who preceded him, Ehud Barak, ended the lengthy Israeli presence in Lebanon and pulled the IDF back to the international border, leaving the land of the cedars to flourish, develop and establish its democracy and its economy.

The withdrawal from Lebanon was also a pragmatic tactical move. Israeli defense forces were being constantly harassed and exposed and there was general agreement in Israel that it was in an untenable position.

“What did the State of Israel get in exchange for all of this? Did we win even one minute of quiet? Was our hand, outstretched in peace, met with a handshake of encouragement?

Nothing! And it expected nothing. No, that is not entirely true. The period following Arafat’s death was one of the quietest Israel had experienced and Hamas had declared a truce.

Ehud Barak's peace initiative at Camp David let loose on us a wave of suicide bombers

This is another falsehood. The Intifada was caused by Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount with a large contingent of Israeli police. This was a deliberate provocation intended to provoke an Intifada which Sharon knew would assure his election.

who smashed and blew to pieces over 1,000 citizens, men, women and children. I don't remember you being so enraged then. Maybe that happened because we did not allow TV close-ups of the dismembered body parts of the Israeli youngsters at the Dolphinarium?

The reference to 1,000 is a deliberate exaggeration bordering on a lie. Twenty Israelis were killed and over 90 others were wounded at the Tel Aviv disco Dolphinarium.

Or of the shattered lives of the people butchered while celebrating the Passover Seder at the Park Hotel in Netanya?

Thirty people were killed and 140 injured - 20 seriously – that is not to minimize the lives lost, the injured whose lives will never be the same or the grief of the survivors. But in any serious presentation the truth is always to be valued.

“What can you do - that's the way we are. We don't wave body parts at the camera. We grieve quietly. We do not dance on the roofs at the sight of the bodies of our enemy's children - we express genuine sorrow and regret. That is the monstrous behavior of our enemies. Now they have risen up against us. Tomorrow they will rise up against you. You are already familiar with the murderous taste of this terror. And you will taste more.

“And Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza -- what did it get us? A barrage of Kassem missiles fired at peaceful settlements and the kidnapping of soldiers. Then too, I don't recall you reacting with such alarm.

Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) the president of the P.L.O. expressed great alarm and in fact there was a firefight between his forces and Hamas over this.

And for six years, the withdrawal from Lebanon has drawn the vituperation and crimes of a dangerous, extremist Iranian agent, who took over an entire country in the name of religious fanaticism, and is trying to take Israel hostage on his way to Jerusalem - and from there to Paris and London.

There is no connection between the withdrawal from Lebanon and the extremism of Iran.

An enormous terrorist infrastructure has been established by Iran on our border, threatening our citizens, growing stronger before our very eyes, awaiting the moment when the land of the Ayatollahs becomes a nuclear power in order to bring us to our knees. And make no mistake - we won't go down alone. You, the leaders of the free and enlightened world, will go down along with us.

“So today, here and now, I am putting an end to this parade of hypocrisy. I don't recall such a wave of reaction in the face of the 100 citizens killed every single day in Iraq. Sunnis kill Shiites who kill Sunnis, and all of them kill Americans - and the world remains silent.

Not true! The slaughter in Iraq has drawn the horror of the world. The American invasion loosed that horror on the Iraqi people, just as the Israeli invasion has loosed horror on the Lebanese people.

And I am hard pressed to recall a similar reaction when the Russians destroyed entire villages and burned down large cities in order to repress the revolt in Chechnya.

Not true! There was a strong reaction even though the Chechnya’s resorted to terror tactics.

And when NATO bombed Kosovo for almost three months and crushed the civilian population - then you also kept silent.

Kosovo was the west’s finest hour. We went to the defense of people being subjected to ethnic cleansing. If only we would do the same in Darfur.

“What is it about us, the Jews, the minority, the persecuted, that arouses this cosmic sense of justice in you? What do we have that all the others don't? In a loud clear voice, looking you straight in the eye, I stand before you openly and I will not apologize. I will not capitulate. I will not whine. This is a battle for our freedom. For our humanity. For the right to lead normal lives within our recognized, legitimate borders.

“It is also your battle.

“I pray and I believe that now you will understand that. Because if you don't, you may regret it later, when it's too late.”

The West will always support Israel, as it has whenever Israel was attacked. A blank check is neither in Israel’s interest nor in the interest of the rest of the world. Speaking for myself, I will not shrink from criticizing the actions either of my government or of the government of Israel. As a Jew and a survivor of Hitler’s holocaust I value the survival of Israel as much, if not more than most, but that is exactly why I feel the obligation to speak out when I believe that is what is called for.