International Accident or Deliberate Warning?

That seems to be the question.

According to the United Nations, Israeli forces fired into Lebanon yesterday. It seems there was a wall on the Lebanese side which had a mural painted on it. The mural showed a Jewish star (like the one that appears on the flag of Israel) with a clenched fist coming out of it. It’s a popular design I’ve seen before, as if their strength will break the flag and the State of Israel. In this case, on the wall in Lebanon, someone added the name used by Hezbollah to refer to the Second Lebanon War of 2006, “Divine Victory.”

Of course, they call that war Divine Victory and we call it Divine Stupidity because that’s how we fought it and of course, there is a direct line between that war and the troubles we had recently in Gaza. The actions we took, or didn’t take, in Lebanon, emboldened the Palestinians, made them think that we would accept endless rocket attacks…and of course, we, unlike the Palestinians, really do learn from our mistakes. And so, what Hamas learned was that we could be defeated. What we learned is that in order not to be defeated, we must fight properly – including bombing a mosque if it is used as an arsenal, a school if it is used to store weapons.

So this mural, of the star and the fist, is painted on this wall. And, according to the United Nations and their friends in the Lebanese army, an IDF patrol fired five bullets at the wall, which was 20 meters away, and hit it twice. The UN deems this a “serious incident.” Interestingly enough, maybe I missed it, I don’t remember the UN having such a sharp and instantaneous reaction to the last three times some group in Lebanon shot katyusha rockets at northern Israel – where there was a lot more damage than a wall being hit by two bullets.

But the funny part of this comes in with the Israeli army reaction. It was basically the equivalent of an “oops.”

I have to admit that my first instinct was slightly different. The first thing I felt was worry that they had accidentally shot in artillery and I thought of Elie in the north. Once I found out it was 5 bullets, none of which hurt anyone, 3 of which missed everything, and 2 of which hit a wall which happened to have anti-Israel graffiti on it, I have to admit I gave a bit of a smile.

See, on the one hand, it’s not hard to believe an Israeli soldier took exception to the mural. It is hard to believe he actually fired intentionally at it. And, if he did open fire, intentionally at a wall that was merely 20 meters away, how the heck did he miss it?

If I were his commanding officer, THAT would be my first question! Elie seems to indicate that hitting anything within 100 meters is no big deal…so, how DID that soldier miss a WALL that was just 20 meters away? Unless, of course, it really WAS an accident…in which case, we are back to one of the ironies of life. Isn’t it funny that a soldier who accidentally shot…managed to actually hit, of all things, an anti-Israel mural?

The best part, of course, is that there are probably a bunch of Lebanese soldiers contemplating this very question right at this moment…did they do it on purpose…but if they did…how could they have missed….and, if they didn’t do it on purpose…wow, how’d they manage to hit THAT wall?

As for the Israeli reaction, that too is so perfectly Israeli. No big deal. Just a wall. No sweat. Oops.

3 Comments

  1. Yeah, you can’t shot at a wall (taka how did they miss?), but THEY can shoot rockets. Typical world reaction…….

    We can only trust G-d, I think He is trying to tell us…….

  2. Great take on the “incident”! And I totally agree… I can’t believe that the UN cares about this and is indifferent to rocket fire. But of course, anything WE do is grounds for war crimes investigation, while anything others do is just provoked response to what WE do. I keep forgetting that. ;/

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