Ed&Pub: Why Israeli Columnists Are Now Worried About Middle East War

Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher in his Pressing Issues column once again gives us a unique, much-needed perspective on the attacks on Lebanon by Israel seeking to wipe out Hezbollah. Once again, I encourage you to read the entire piece, but here's a big fat snip:

After nearly two weeks of relative silence about the extent of the Israeli air strikes against Lebanon, more voices of opposition are finally being heard - in both the American and Israeli press. It's about time: The Lebanese prime minister yesterday asserted that the bombing had set his country back "50 years." Even if it's 10 years, that's quite enough.

Several leading U.S. editorial pages-from the Los Angeles Times to The New York Times -- have now called for restraint and/or an immediate ceasefire, although this is still the minority view. There's a strong editorial in today's The Sun of Baltimore that notes that Israel "can't encourage residents to evacuate the area, bomb their fleeing cars and not expect outrage over the maimed and the dead." Columnists Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post and Nick Kristof in The New York Times today criticize Israel's self-defeating attacks, though the most popular liberal bloggers remain silent.

But here I'd like to focus on opinions starting to spring from the respected Israeli daily newspaper Ha'aretz and Haaretz.com. Two columns, one from a "hawk" and another by a "dove," illustrate the growing unease in that country that goes beyond the fear of incoming rockets.

...Also at Haaretz.com is a new column by Ze'ev Maoz, a professor of political science at Tel Aviv University. Here are excerpts:"There's practically a holy consensus right now that the war in the North is a just war and that morality is on our side. The bitter truth must be said: this holy consensus is based on short-range selective memory, an introverted worldview, and double standards.

This war is not a just war. Israel is using excessive force without distinguishing between civilian population and enemy, whose sole purpose is extortion.

"That is not to say that morality and justice are on Hezbollah's side. Most certainly not. But the fact that Hezbollah 'started it' when it kidnapped soldiers from across an international border does not even begin to tilt the scales of justice toward our side.

"Let's start with a few facts. We invaded a sovereign state, and occupied its capital in 1982. In the process of this occupation, we dropped several tons of bombs from the air, ground and sea, while wounding and killing thousands of civilians. Approximately 14,000 civilians were killed between June and September of 1982, according to a conservative estimate. The majority of these civilians had nothing to do with the PLO, which provided the official pretext for the war.