Hezbollah's defeat?

On days when I'm feeling particularly superficial, my analysis of Middle East politics devolves into a very simplistic (naive?) assessment: Is this good for the Jews or bad for the Jews? Today is one of those days.

Despite GWB’s delusional claims, it’s quite clear that Israel lost the war. A ceasefire has been enacted, Hezbollah is still armed, and those kidnapped soldiers are nowhere to be found. After at least 1000 dead Lebanese, and about 150 dead Israelis (not to mention Lebanon’s decimated infrastructure) Israel will now attempt to locate them via diplomatic means. (Images of carts before horses come to mind…)

And this is but one of two failed missions to find kidnapped Israeli soldiers; since June 28th, the Israeli mission in Gaza to free Gilad Shalit has killed 188 people, 44 of them children (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/750978.html).

A few years ago I went to hear a well known scholar speak about the Middle East. He argued that Israel was created in such a way that the Jewish State would forever would be at war with its Arab neighbours, and that this action, facilitated by the international community, was an intensely antisemitic undertaking.

Yes, certainly Israel has the right defend itself from its attackers, and yes, I believe that these attackers would very much like to see Israel destroyed. But in this very sad and circular game of means and ends, it's not clear who the real losers are.


*This well known scholar was Noam Chomsky. Despite the common accusation that he is a self-hating Jew, Chomsky's position did not attack the Jews or the State of Israel. To my understanding, his argument was that of a Jew who considered Israel's precarious positioning by the international community as part of the history of antisemitism.