how to win a war

How to win a war?

By David Verveer

We first of all have to admit, wars are bad, and many innocent people die or suffer and lose everything they ever possessed. Everybody knows this and agrees to this, but her in Israel (all great believers in peace, the most popular word in our language) seem to get into wars every two to five years, not because we want something of our neighbors, besides living in peace, but we fight order to defend our citizens, a duty of any sovereign state in the world.

The second point is, if going to war, you have to be stronger than your enemy, and win the war or else you lose everything, as nations like ours have no alternative, we finally returned after 2000 years, and losing the war, which is what our opponents intent, means fleeing back to the original countries, from where we or our ancestors fled (after the holocaust), who are far from anxious to take us back.

But this is simplifying a very complex situation in "the modern media" fought skirmishes, in which clever propaganda masters use the internet and media, by picturing events in a false light, capable of manipulating heroic and humanistic behaviour into defeat, cruelty and homicide.

There is no doubt that the last action in Gaza of the Israeli army against a small group of Islamic terrorists (Hamas) was a military victory for Israel, in which it accomplished in hurting the Hamas, temporary reduce he missile bombardment of the south, and even slow down the re-arming efforts of smuggling through tunnels coming from the Egyptian Sinai dessert.

But which value has a military victory in our days, when our brave enemies have the World Press in their pocket, and every reporter, reporting from the Israeli border, received from their Palestinian counterparts, living in Gaza, reports showing Israel's cruelties, even though, in most cases proven incorrect by the Israeli videos, but who believes those blood thirsty Jews, a father with a dead child in his hand, is much better propaganda material, than a very sophisticated video film, taken by an unmanned Israeli airplane. The very few Palestinians who dared to tell the visiting Press (after the war) the truth about Hamas' behaviour and that of the Israelis, were / are treated extremely humane by the Hamas, after they reappeared from their safe hiding places (underneath the hospital), they shoot the Palestinians who talked in the legs, as they are enemies of the Islam, (see video by the French television).

This war shows again how the world reacts against anything Israel does, who really wants to know the truth. The world is talking about an unbalanced power struggle, with more than 1300 Palestinian death and only 13 Israelis, that is unfair, we should have given them a fair chance to kill some more Israelis, and so what, 8 years of bombing innocent Israelis can not be compared with the havoc created in the strip, with those modern planes, tanks and artillery. I see it as a kind of Anti-Semitism, as we did not see the same reactions when Russia dealt with Chechnya, or NATO in Bosnia, not to forget our allies, the USA in Afghanistan or Iraq.

But what could you care, seeing the war in Gaza is an entertaining event, just as the Obama's swearing in a few days later. The talkback fighters in the cyber press were able to give air to their intelligent and informed opinions, some bordering
Anti-Semitism, blaming Israel for everything which has gone wrong in the last 400 years (some even used arguments older than 2000 years), only a few took the Israeli side of the argument. Funny anough, most Dutch talkbacks in comparison with the Belgium's Flemish opinions were fair and more objective in their blame and accusations. I have no idea why the Flemish people are so against Jews and Israel, but that is irrelevant to my argument, which deals with the fact that even though we won the war, we lost it in the world opinion, which does not make a lot of difference, military wise, but might bring Israeli officers into war crime tribunals shows, put up by humanism loving countries.

For those who are sorry they missed some interesting episodes of the last Gaza campaign, don't worry, we will have soon new episodes of our next war with those nice quaint Arabs, as the war has been fought, won and lost, but the problem remained unchained, and the world is already poring in money to rearm them as soon as possible, so they get a fair chance to try again. What a wonderful world we are living in.