The cycle of devastation followed by rebuilding is as old as humanity. Wars destroy, peace is a time to start over and rebuild. Enemies learn to coexist, even become friends perhaps — England, France and Germany come to mind.
England and France during the hundred years war, and off and on through to the Napoleonic wars, a period of about a millennium. They never seemed to stop until the rise of a rapidly industrializing Germany, which had not that long ago become a united country through the forceful cajoling of Otto von Bismarck.
He became known as the Iron Chancellor, whose famous phrase “Blood and Iron” followed from his belief that the great questions of the day will not be settled by speeches and majority decisions but by “iron and blood”. He called politics the art of the possible, the attainable … the art of the next best.
As Netanyahu continues his devastation of weak and defenceless people, this time in Lebanon, the question arises as to what has happened to the US, the world’s sole superpower. Having assumed the mantle of defender of freedom — witness the speeches on Ukraine — it appears to have morphed into the three Japanese monkeys who ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ even when civilian populations are being displaced or killed as Netanyahu continues his war.
No senator or representative dare stand up to the powerful Israel lobby for fear of being terminated by them in the next election. Some have already paid for their principles in primaries this election year. And the current U.S. president is not the type to stand up to it.
As children, women and men, the young and the old all perish in Gaza and Lebanon with no one to speak for them, the scourge of the middle-east continues its plague followed by the grim reaper and the body count rises daily.
There are no rival superpowers, no cold war, no geostrategic balance, and no nuclear sword of Damocles but the law of unexpected consequences reigns supreme. Israel has learned to circumvent the executive branch and go directly to the legislative; not that it needed to with the current administration.
And in the coming election, the leading candidates are firmly in its corner. Trump is a New York City property developer and Kamala Harris has had four years with Biden to brush up her credentials.
In the meantime, the death toll rises daily and is now (Sept. 23) up to 45,000. That it includes 224 humanitarian workers highlights their courageous, selfless devotion to helping the desperate.
Humanity, humanitarians … all the words that apply to them are the polar opposite of what can be ascribed to Netanyahu, adding of course corruption given the numerous cases filed against him. He was legally required to relinquish all his ministerial portfolios other than prime minister.
All the while the people he is oppressing have little hope.