{"id":1925,"date":"2002-04-09T08:44:40","date_gmt":"2002-04-09T13:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=1925"},"modified":"2002-04-09T08:44:40","modified_gmt":"2002-04-09T13:44:40","slug":"the_brutality_o","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/04\/09\/the_brutality_o.html","title":{"rendered":"The Brutality Option"},"content":{"rendered":"

This particular article<\/a> on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict basically says that the only course available to peace is to try to “burn out,” by war, the urge to martyrdom among the latter party. The brutal analogy the author holds up is the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.<\/p>\n

By late 1987, the carnage of the Iran-Iraq war had burned out the martyrdom syndrome among young Iranian men. Boys who’d once believed with seemingly invincible conviction jang jang ta piruzi <\/i>(“War! War until Victory!”) were left lost and shell-shocked. Within a short time, they loathed the leaders who’d once so inspired them. <\/p>\n

The author, Reuel Marc Gerecht, holds out little hope that even a full-blown Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza will bring an end to the bloody conflict.<\/p>\n

And with such a success, again, why would the Palestinian suicide bombers stop? If they blew their way into East Jerusalem, why not West? What is it that the Bush administration sees in the pro-martyr Palestinians that makes them more reasonable than Hezbollah, which has eagerly continued its war against the Jewish state after Israel’s withdraw from Lebanon in May 2000? Can the Middle East hands in Foggy Bottom name one nation in the Middle East born of such radical, revolutionary violence that has become pro-American, peace-loving and opposed to terrorism? <\/p>\n

While I am not sure I fully agree with the socio-political assertions that Gerecht makes elsewhere, I would feel much better if I could think of some cogent arguments against his conclusions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This particular article on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict basically says that the only course available to peace is to try to “burn out,” by war, the urge to martyrdom among the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1762,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/05\/01\/belaboring_the.html","url_meta":{"origin":1925,"position":0},"title":"Belaboring the obvious","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 1-May-02 9:19pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I was listening on NPR to an interview with an Arab scholar, just back from Lebanon, reporting that, oh no, Arab kids are boycotting KFCs. Anyway, the interviewer pressed the...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":52013,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/31\/it-doesnt-matter-whether-you-win-or-lose-you-still-lose.html","url_meta":{"origin":1925,"position":1},"title":"It doesn't matter whether you win or lose … you still lose","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 31-Jul-15 5:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Lindsey Graham seems to think that in war (say, a war between the US and Iran) one side or the other either \"wins\" or \"loses,\" and that our inevitable \"winning\" means all our problems are solved and everything would be better than it was before and puppies and unicorns and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24549,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/15\/mission-accomplished.html","url_meta":{"origin":1925,"position":2},"title":"Mission Accomplished?","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 15-Dec-11 11:21am","format":false,"excerpt":"The best thing that can be said for the Iraq War is that, yes, Saddam Hussein is gone, and even (future) potential of his (perhaps once again) pursuit of WMDs (even if he wasn't doing so at the time of the invasion) is eliminated. That's ... it. Non-trivial, but ...Have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1955,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/04\/02\/choosing_sides.html","url_meta":{"origin":1925,"position":3},"title":"Choosing sides, dammit","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 2-Apr-02 8:56pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I've really been trying to not say too much about the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the last few weeks. Partly it's because it's been such a polarizing sort of dispute,...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131494,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/10\/so-how-did-donald-trump-feel-about-the-iraq-war-beforehand.html","url_meta":{"origin":1925,"position":4},"title":"So how did Donald Trump feel about the Iraq War beforehand?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 10-Sep-16 11:28am","format":false,"excerpt":"Reply Hazy, Try Again Later.http:\/\/www.factcheck.org\/2016\/02\/donald-trump-and-the-iraq-war\/If you listen to Donald Trump, people were actively seeking him out before the war and soliciting his learned opinion, and he was vigorously warning them off of such a silly adventure in the most great and warning tones you can imagine (they were yuuuge warning\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Donald%2BTrump%2Bjabbering.gifimgmax%3D660.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":30779,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/23\/syria-as-irans-route-to-the-sea-round-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":1925,"position":5},"title":"Syria as Iran's "route to the sea" (Round 2)","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 23-Oct-12 1:52pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Actually, the more Romney's supporters\u00a0keep defending the \"non-issue\" of Romney's odd semantics changing \"Syria is an ally of Iran and could serve as a base for Iranian naval vessels in the Mediterranean\" into \"Syria is Iran's route to the sea\", the odder the assertion gets.In the National Review Online's analysis,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}