The latest Avnery includes an important fact about Lebanon 1982 that ties into the fact that Gaza also was preceded by relative calm, till an Israeli raid, November 2008, that upped the violence and “justified” Cast Lead.
For example, for 11 months before Lebanon War I, not a single shot was fired from Lebanon into Israel. Against all expectation, Yasser Arafat had succeeded in enforcing a total cease-fire even on his Palestinian opponents. Yet after Ariel Sharon started the war, practically all Israelis clearly “remembered” that the Palestinians had shot across the border every single day, turning life in Israel into hell…
The whole world is against us. Everybody is out to destroy us. Every move is a threat to our very existence. Everyone critical of Israeli policy is an anti-Semite or self-hating Jew.
It has been said that paranoiacs also have real-life enemies. The trouble is that the paranoid, by their offensive and distrustful behaviour, create more and more real-life enemies.
The slogan “All the world is against us” may easily function as a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Israel is not the only country to suffer from this affliction. At some time, the Germans have been afflicted. So have the Serbs. So, to some extent, has the US and many others. Unfortunately, the costs of paranoia are very high.
