Opinion

Greenberg's View

Editorials are posted and archived on JNonline.us .

veS'A' 2°°6

ENRICH URANIUM.

OFFER CONCILIATORY PROCLAIM PEACEFUL REITERATE DESIRE TO
WIPE ISRAEL OFF THE
NATURE OF
WORDS ABOUT TALKING
NUCLEAR PROGRAK FACE OF THE EARTH.
WITH THE WEST

Editorial

Saving Civilians

omparisons between
Israel and Hezbollah
don't go very far, but this
one is striking and serious: Both
sides neglected the civilians they
said they went to war to protect.
Hezbollah, a terrorist group
dedicated to the destruction of
Israel, cynically used Lebanese
civilians as human shields, launch-
ing thousands of deadly rockets
on Israeli civilians. Its unprovoked
attack on Israel this summer
brought tremendous hardships on
the civilians in southern Lebanon
and south Beirut. For weeks, we
read and watched as the travails
of the Lebanese were trumpeted
in the news media. Those sub-
scribing to a culture of victim-
hood took perverse pleasure in
being able to label Israel as inhu-
mane because the "benevolent"
Hezbollah put so many into the
middle of a war zone.
While Israeli civilians didn't
get the ink and TV time that
the Lebanese did, Israel's lack
of preparedness left the most
vulnerable of Israel's population
in the north — the sick, elderly,
disabled and poor — pretty

much abandoned. Dirty, hot and
poorly stocked bomb shelters,
which many couldn't even make
it to, showed how unprepared
the nation was. It appears that
Israel's decision to retaliate with
strength was either made with
the tragically wrong expectation
that Hezbollah missiles could be
halted in days or without regard
to how Israeli civilians who couldn't
leave the north would fare.
We expect more from Israel,
as did its citizens. And the dis-
satisfaction with results on the
military front pale in comparison
with the dissatisfaction with
preparations and action on the
home front. Almost three-quar-
ters of all Israelis told pollsters
from the country's largest daily
newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, their
government had failed to provide
for its citizens during the war.
Just as our government was
responsible for knowing that
New Orleans was vulnerable to
a hurricane the size of Katrina
and that an evacuation might be
needed, the Israeli government
was responsible for knowing that
Hezbollah armaments could make

PRETEND TO *Gomm.
ACHIEVE HEAVY-WATER
PROCESSING.

necessary an evacuation of Israel's
north. And Israel's poor plan-
ning is not new. (A year after the
evacuation of the Gaza Strip, many
of the evacuees still don't have
permanent housing or gainful
employment.)
Thankfully, private individuals
and organizations stepped into the
breach when the Israeli govern-
ment showed itself unprepared or
unable to meet the war's challenge.
Israelis opened their homes, set up
tent cities and rushed aid to the
north.
Hezbollah's Sheikh Nasrallah
famously called Israeli society a
"spider web," which looked strong,

CUCKOO CucK 00
CUCKOO
CUraa
, O . CUCKOO

i.vky plyoU

:v?

FIEAuzEP

e

but could be blown away. Instead,
Israeli resolve, fortitude, unity and
sacrifice showed Nasrallah, once
again, to be a liar. But Nasrallah
wasn't wrong that the ability of
Israel to fight is the strength of its
society. While Israelis are certain
about the evil they are fighting
against, they must be certain of
the good they are fighting for, and
that means having confidence
their leaders have the will and the
means to protect them.
An investigation is in order
to get to the bottom of what
happened and take the steps
to restore trust and ensure that
Israel is prepared in wartime.

We'll leave it to the vibrant Israeli
democracy to come up with a way
to do it.
We stand strong with Israel as
its enemies try to win diplomati-
cally and in the court of public
opinion what Hezbollah could not
achieve on the battlefield. But we
also must stand strong with the
citizens of Israel — who rightly
demand that their leaders do bet-
ter, much better in taking care of
them in time of war.

government official
in some woebegone
African nation and
a few actually send
money to "help" her
smuggle millions
out of the country.
People who do that
should have their
Internet connection
revoked for their
own protection.
I am a skeptic by professional
training and by disposition. I
warn my journalism students
not to trust anything they read
on the Internet until they can
verify the sources and under-
stand what particular ax they
happen to be grinding.
I know several people who call
themselves skeptics and are will-
ing to question any and all beliefs
— except their own. They are
especially susceptible to anything

that reinforces political paranoia
and conspiracy theories.
I get repeated messages, for
example, that we're only in Iraq
because President Bush wants to
ensure a source of cheap oil for
political reasons, and he should
be impeached. But at the same
time, the price of gas soared to
$3 a gallon and became a danger-
ous political issue because Bush
turned over the keys to the vault
to his oil industry buddies ...
and he should be impeached.
Both propositions can't be true,
yet here they come over the
Internet and often from the same
source.
Is that the sound of wind
rushing through cranial cavities?
No, only the telltale click that
tells me I've got mail. E

E-mail letters of no more

than 150 words to:

letters®thejewishnews.com .

Reality Check

Surprise! It's A Scam

A

few weeks ago, a letter
circulated across the
Internet purporting to
be written by Steven Spielberg to
Mel Gibson. Maybe you saw it.
It raked the actor up and down
for his drunken anti-Semitic
remarks, with references to the
Jewish moguls who created
Hollywood and suggestions that
Gibson donate $1 million to
Israel. It was satisfying to read,
but halfway through you had to
realize it was a phony.
Whatever Spielberg may
have thought in private he was
not going to send out this kind
of letter over his signature to
another prominent member
of the show business hierar-
chy. That isn't how it's done in
Hollywood. When the knife goes
in, it is quiet and private and
leaves few fingerprints. The let-
ter also was filled with obvious

cliches, the kind that Spielberg
doesn't deal in.
It was widely believed to be
genuine, however, and Spielberg's
office had to issue a denial.
The Internet has done more to
advance gullibility than any other
agent in contemporary life. There
is still a tendency on the part of
so many people to believe that
if something appears in print
it must be true. Many of these
items even come with claims of
authenticity "because my aunt's
manicurist knows this person!'
But it is younger people, those
who grew up with computers,
who seem especially susceptible
to this odd trust in whatever hap-
pens to pop up on their screen.
For many of them, it is pretty
much their only source of news.
It reminds me of what British
author G.K. Chesterton said
about the decline in religious

faith. "It's not that
people will believe in
nothing:' he wrote. "It's
that they'll believe in
anything!'
Even he would have
to be stunned, however,
at the unquestioning
acceptance of what
appears from disem-
bodied sources.
People buy stuff from
unseen and unknown sellers
on eBay and then are shocked
when the product turns out to
be something other than prom-
ised. They hand over their Social
Security or credit card numbers
to get in on some spurious give-
away. They fly halfway around
the world to meet a sexual
predator who seems to be a real
neat guy.
They get messages purporting
to be from the wife of a former

George Cantor's e-mail address is

gcantor614@aoLcom.

September 14 0 2006

33

