the escalator goes up

mood: calm.
state i'm in: not in the mood to hang up all that washing.
tune: armand van helden "summertime".
achievement for the day: getting intimate with 'dora'.


so as the dust settles on this latest arab-israeli conflict, a few thoughts come to mind. new precedents have been set, but philosophies remain largely set in stone.


1.
hizbullah has shown israel's nose can be bloodied and it can be gotten away with. both sides have claimed victory, however each side entered the war with vastly asymmetrical goals: israel failed outright in its aspiration of destroying hizbullah; hizbullah succeeded in fulfilling its goal of merely surviving. to that end, hizbullah won the war. however, it might be more aptly stated that the war was a loss to moderate islamic states. egypt and saudi arabia for example, bastions of moderate islam, may now find themselves hard pressed to quell an upswelling of violent anti-zionist sentiment should it arise there. hassan nasrallah has set an example - he is an inspiration to other fundamentalist clerics in the region who will not only be keen to emulate his approach to the jewish state, but, for the first time in decades, may just find a willing base of support in their moderate homelands to help see to this end.


2.
clearly, the united states shows no signs of changing its approach toward israel, that of unconditional support. for very many reasons, feelings of fondness toward israel remain tightly woven into the societal fabric of the US. an 'us-and-them' approach was apparent from the very outset between israel and the US and hizbullah and its shiite brethren, notably iran and syria, hizbullah's arms and ideas suppliers. sadly, the foreign policy of the UK, one of the former regional colonial powers, is but a footnote to US policy. it may fall to that other former regional colonial power, france (with the support of its western european extended family) to take a more active role in the brokering of any peace deal between the jews and the arabs.


3.
countries such as canada and australia face a different type of issue. many immigrants from lebanon remain citizens of that nation, whilst also holding passports of their adopted nation. these dual citizenships entitle them to work and live in lebanon, paying taxes due there. however when the proverbial fan is struck, it is their adopted homelands that foot the bill to haul them to safety. are these people merely canadian or australian citizens for convenience? in saying that, it is any wonder any australians in lebanon even made it out; for some time, i was convinced they were to be left to rot.


4.
whilst significant in several ways, this is just another chapter to a repetitive story. what is most pertinent however, is that in the current mood in which this chapter is being written, there is a far greater chance that this will have more global follow-on effects. the US will not budge on its insistence not to speak sternly to israel, thereby enraging an already unhappy iran - an unhappy iran that is continuing to enrich plutonium. whether this will escalate further depends largely on where the US chooses to stomp next. i fear, however, that "responsibility" is not a word found in US diplomatic vocabulary.


it seems to me like more and more kindling is being thrown onto the fire...