"We are grateful for the analysis that we will hear tonight. It is important for us to understand as best we can the terrible conflict that rages on Israel’s northern border.
Still, as much as we appreciate analysis and commentary, it seems to me that the distinguishing feature of this conflict is the utter clarity of the issues and of the moral choices that it presents.
This is a war in which the rights and wrongs are beyond all doubt.
Southern Lebanon is taken over by Hezbollah after Israel’s withdrawal. Supported by Syria and Iran, Hezbollah amasses an arsenal of 13,000 missiles and rockets. Over a period of 6 years, it launches dozens of unprovoked attacks into Israeli territory— striking at military installations or launching rockets at civilian targets. All the while, Hezbollah’s leaders proclaim their genocidal intentions: Israel is to be wiped off the map.
And then, after it attacks again, kidnapping and killing Israeli soldiers, Israel finally strikes back. After 6 long years, it has had enough. But without hesitation, Hezbollah unleashes a barrage of 2500 rockets against Israel’s northern cities, each and every rocket aimed at civilians, each and every rocket intended to kill, or to maim, or to terrorize.
And terrorize they have. A half million Israelis have been driven from their homes; nearly a million pass most of their days in bomb shelters. Life in the northern half of the country has come to a standstill. And not only that. Hezbollah intentionally operates from civilian areas, knowing that this will increase civilian deaths, no matter how precise Israel’s weaponry. And these deaths in turn will be used to ratchet up the violence and the hate.
Could the rights and wrongs of this conflict be any clearer? If Israel’s cause is not just in this war, then no cause can ever be just..." http://urj.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=11224 Many here probably know that Rabbi Yoffie is a HUGE critic of Bush and the war in Iraq. Many may also know him from the remarks he has made criticizing the religious right back in November 2005 that caused a big stir.
Rabbi Yoffie is the president of the Union of Reform Judaism (the US body of the World for
Progressive Judaism).
