Veckans lästips

Först måste jag rekommendera Per Ahlmarks kolumn i DN om Pladder-Persson och hans många tystnader. Tydligen har vår statsminister synpunkter på allt och alla är inte lika imponerade av hans talekonst. Men några råd till Israel om hur de egentligen borde ha agerat mot Libanon hade han inte i sin Brännpunktartikel (som jag kommenterade häromdagen). Allt han hade var fördömanden. Ahlmark skriver:

”Skillnad måste göras mellan militära och civila mål”, skriver statsministern. Det är helt sant, och den anklagelsen måste Sverige fortsätta att rikta mot Hizbollah, som inte ens låtsas att distinktionen är av intresse.

För Israels del är saken mer komplicerad. Om terroristerna avsiktligt gömmer sig själva, sina missiler och andra vapen just där civila familjer i Libanon bor – ska man då ändå försöka förstöra vapnen? Eller låta avskjutningsramper med Katjusjaraketer stå kvar, gömda i privata trädgårdar eller i närheten av lägenheter och balkonger. Kanske Sveriges statsminister kan ge ett råd till de israeler som han förr kallade ”vänner”. Ska alltså dessa vänner slå ut Hizbollahs anfallsvapen – med risk att samtidigt döda civila? …

Persson kan väl åtminstone försöka leva sig in i de avskyvärda valsituationer, som israeliska soldater har ställts inför de senaste månaderna. Om han har synpunkter på ”allt i universum” (som Aftonbladet skriver) – varför inte berätta hur man bör föra kampen mot en fiende som avsiktligt och ständigt tar skydd bakom kvinnor och barn?

Så långt Per Ahlmark. Caroline Glick har skrivit en kolumn i Jerusalem Post om Israels dystra framtid. Artikeln heter The coming wars och handlar om hur Israels fiender nu börjar positionera sig för ytterligare anfall. Caroline skriver:

Now, in the aftermath of the cease-fire, which handed Hizbullah and its state sponsors Syria and Iran the greatest victory in their history, forces in the PA are actively preparing for a new round of war against Israel. As Hamas spokesmen have put it, Israel’s defeat in Lebanon has convinced them that it is possible to adopt Hizbullah’s methods to destroy the Jewish state. …

Throughout the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian areas of Judea and Samaria, the Palestinians are gearing up for their next round of jihad with Israel. As was the case six years ago, they are beginning with public executions of Palestinians accused of helping Israel combat terrorism. Just this week, a crowd of hundreds hooted and stomped their feet in ecstasy as unmasked murderers killed one such Palestinian ”collaborator” in Jenin. …

Behind the Palestinians and the Syrians lies Iran, the guiding light behind the present jihad. Iran, with its burgeoning nuclear weapons program, is the single greatest danger to international security. It is the single greatest danger to Israel’s survival. To date, Iran has made do with fighting Israel through its proxies, to great advantage. But Iran has made it absolutely clear that it intends to join the fray directly – when it is good and ready. And of course it will be good and ready when it has nuclear weapons.

If Iran is allowed to attain nuclear weapons, there is no reason to doubt that it will use them. If Iran attacks Israel with nuclear weapons, then of course we are looking at a future war scenario involving not thousands of dead, but millions.

Brittiskan Melanie Phillips, författare till boken Londonistan som handlar om hur islamismen frodas i England, har skrivit en krönika i National Review. Under rubriken Suicide of the West skriver hon hur massmedia och det politiska etablissemanget fortsätter att leva i förnekelse om islams roll i dagens terror:

When America was attacked on 9/11 by Islamic jihadis, it was said that this was a doomsday wake-up call for the West. Within a short while, however, much of Britain decided that 9/11 was actually America’s fault and that Israel was at the core of the problem.

When Britain was attacked last year on 7/7 by Islamic jihadis, it was said that this was a doomsday wake-up call for the U.K. Within a short time, however, much of the country decided that it was Britain’s own fault on account of “Islamophobia” and the war in Iraq. …

From the evidence of one opinion poll this week, the British public has at least woken up to the fact that we are in the throes of a world war. Not so, however, the British establishment and chattering classes. Denial is no longer a river in Egypt but a British pathology.

Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson of the Metropolitan Police described the plot as a “criminal” act which was “not about communities” but about “people who might masquerade in the community, hiding behind certain faiths.” So an act of holy war to be perpetrated in the name of Islam just happened to use that faith as a random bit of camouflage, just as it might have used Zen Buddhism, say, or Zoroastrianism?

Victor Davis Hansons krönikor är alltid läsvärda. I artikeln Hope Amid Despair levererar han bland annat följande salva mot media för att de lät sig bli duperade av Hizbollahs PR-avdelning:

The globalized media is absolutely discredited after the coverage of Lebanon . Reuters has destroyed its reputation, gained from 150 years of world reporting, by releasing doctored pictures and tolerating staged photo-ops. Almost all the Western media outlets failed to distinguish Lebanese civilian from military casualties ”” as if the Hezbollah terrorists they never filmed and never interviewed never died.

Indeed, thanks to the unprofessional reporters abroad, and their disingenuous chiefs back home, the world never saw the killers who sent the rockets nor many of their civilian victims on the ground in Israel . Nor did the reporters apprise their audience of the different landscapes in which they worked: candor in Israel might win loud disagreement; truth in Lebanon meant death. It would be as if Reuters, AP, or the New York Times embedded its reporters within the Waffen SS, beaming daily reports back home about the great morale and noble suffering of the Wehrmacht as it advanced into the snowy Ardennes.

De i England avslöjade terrorattackerna mot 10 passagerarplan kanske har fått människor att vakna upp. Han avslutar:

In an amorphous war of self-induced Western restraint, like the present one, truth and moral clarity are as important as military force. This past month, the world of the fascist jihadist and those who tolerate him was once again on display for civilization to fathom. Even the most timid and prone to appeasement in the West are beginning to see that it is becoming a question of ”the Islamists or us.”

In this eleventh hour, that is a sort of progress after all.

Jag är dock inte så säker på det. Stora delar av den västerländska civilisationen verkar ha drabbats av förstockelse. Vi ser inte klart vilka krafter som är i görningen och vad som står på spel, fortfarande. Jag är rädd att Tel Aviv, London eller New York först måste förintas i en kärnvapenattack innan det dekadenta väst vaknar upp. Och då är det sent, väldigt sent.