Hawks, the birds of prey, are known for their extraordinarily keen vision. Hawks of the human variety, not so much. Oliver Kamm has been blogging only sporadically this summer, but the last couple of posts have been teeth-clenching. Here he reprimands the voters of Connecticut for handing a primary victory to Ned Lamont; he also wishes Joe Lieberman luck in his useless and vainglorious independent bid. In another post, on Israel/Lebanon, Kamm argues:
Calling for an immediate ceasefire is equivalent to calling for an enduring threat to the lives of Israeli civilians from an Iranian-backed private army driven by theocratic ideology.
Odd that he should write this on August 11, the very day the UN Security Council came to agreement on a ceasefire resolution. In any case I must object, since I backed the UN’s call for an immediate ceasefire early on. I will not accept that in so doing, I “called for an enduring threat to the lives of Israeli civilians.” Along with quite a few others, I believe the best way to address that threat is not to plunge Lebanon into chaos, not to kill civilians and then issue cavalier apologies, not to… well, too late. (It appears the Israeli offensive will continue until Sunday, when Olmert presents the UN draft to his security cabinet.)
It’s not remotely clear that Kamm’s approach — the Bush-Rice-Olmert approach — will usher in a new era of security for Israel. Quite the contrary. And to suggest that the alternatives are “equivalent” to not caring about Israeli civilian life is below the belt. It’s also plain wrong. I’m sure that Kamm, like me, is disgusted by the Hezbollah apologists (and, yes, supporters) on the far left. But what the Galloways and the Finkelsteins say is not true. We are not all Hezbollah now. Those of us who insist on criticizing Israel, as harshly as we see fit within bounds of reasoned discourse, should not be tarred as appeasers.
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