Someone, in one of the tussles I get into online, which are
both draining and refreshing, dulling and clarifying, called Israel a
"gangster state".
I can't resist contemplating the following rejoinder: to the
east of Israel there's a monarchy, more traditional than gangsta per se but not
even close to democratic; it's a relatively nice place we call Jordan. To the north,
there is Lebanon, dominated by Hezbollah, a well-armed Shiite, Iranian backed military
force, which, lately, has been too pre-occupied trying to rescue the murderous Syrian
regime of Bashar al-Assad to devote itself to its main purpose, namely the utter
annihilation of the state of Israel, but has been husbanding all sorts of weaponry
for that eventuality.
Moving east, we find Egypt, the most populous state in the
Arab world. After exemplifying to the utmost the unfortunately stunted aspirations
of the Arab spring, Egypt has lapsed back into military dictatorship and is ruled
by a take no prisoners junta that extinguishes any kind of opposition.
Shall we go north, to Iraq, a state which was irresponsibly splintered
by the United States — broke, that is, but not owned — and is now yet another joint
in the Shiite arm that stretches from Teheran through Bagdad onto Damascus and Beirut?
Or shall we pause for a moment to underline the rabid Sunni response — ISIS —
to this development?
I haven't even mentioned Iran, per se, the theocratic Shiite
force to the north or Saudi Arabia, its Sunni counterpart to the south.
Given all this, Israel stands out as a "gangster
state"?
And yet Israeli seizure of West Bank land is nothing but gangsterism,
fortified by religious nationalism, and I completely and utterly oppose it.
