Monday, August 11, 2003

Actually, he wasn't yet 16. His birthday would have been in a fortnight's time. He looks even younger than 15 in the photo. The anti-aircraft missiles were not aimed at any aircrafts, because none were in the air when the attack took place. Even the Guardian reluctantly mentions this, in their usual style of hinting that they don't believe anything the Israelis say. The Guardian doesn't bother to point out that the Hizbullah also sometimes aims at civilian aircrafts on the Israeli side of the border. They couldn't do that. It would make Israel look like it was in the right. This way they can make it look, as usual, like it was Israel's fault that a kid in a not very affluent border town (to put it mildly) got killed while busy working at his summer job.

In today's Yediot Aharonot (print), Sever Plotzker (I just love that name, it's so wonderfully weird, even to a Hebrew speaking ear) points to Hizbullah's irrelevance since Israel got out of Southern Lebanon. He says that they have lost not only their reason for being (getting Israel out of South Lebanon) but also their advantage as guerilla fighters. They have grown in size (by enlisting large numbers of unemployed youths [and by acquiring large amounts of ammunition with the help of their patrons from among Arab sovereign states]) and thus have become more vulnerable to attack. He says they often organize Nazi-style parades in South Lebanon towns and villages, these days. When they were fighting Israel, he points out, they didn't parade. Now, although they try to sell themselves as supporting and aiding the Palestinian national struggle, in effect all they have to offer their followers is a Humeini style Islamic revolution. This isn't very popular in the Arab world these days, he says, and in Iran it is downright unpopular.

Maybe it's time to hold their Syrian patrons accountable, before they kill more children.

Gil has more on this issue. [I would also like to point out (re Gil) that working on your tan can give you skin cancer and make you age prematurely. Sorry. Couldn't help it. I know it's none of my business]