Weeklies

Raising questions for Israel

Jack Miles' essay asking if Lebanon is Israel's Iraq — and whether the war on Hezbollah is a miscalculation that might leave Israel worse off — would not be so surprising except for its venue. It's the cover piece in this week's Jewish Journal.

Whatever the intent of Israel's attack, its effect has been catastrophic for Lebanon as a whole. Entire neighborhoods of the capital have been reduced to rubble. (Imagine the Upper West Side of New York demolished as a "Zionist stronghold.") The national airport has been put out of service. Three of every four bridges -- more than 50 in all -- have been destroyed. Power plants have been blown up. Key roads have been rendered impassable. The beaches have been fouled. Telephone and media transmission centers have been put out of service. More than one out of every six Lebanese has been rendered homeless.

As Prime Minister Fouad Siniora summarized it, "Israel in a matter of five days took Beirut and the whole country 50 years backward."

Could Lebanon have spared itself this Israeli onslaught by "cracking down" on Hezbollah activity in its southern region? It could have tried, but the price of the attempt would have been a civil war in which Hezbollah might well have been the victor.

Miles is author of Judas and Jesus and God: A Biography, and the former book editor of the Los Angeles Times.

RabbiAlso in the new Jewish Journal: A David Mamet cartoon on Mel Gibson, and longtime character actor Arthur Rosenberg — he was Kevin Bacon's Uncle Wes in Footloose and has played numerous rabbis, doctors and chiefs of police on TV — has hung up his acting spikes to become staff rabbi at the Motion Picture and Television home in Woodland Hills.

Photo: Jewish Journal


More by Kevin Roderick:
Standing up to Harvey Weinstein
The Media
LA Times gets a top editor with nothing but questions
LA Observed Notes: Harvey Weinstein stripped bare
LA Observed Notes: Photos of the homeless, photos that found homes
Recent Weeklies stories on LA Observed:
'Profitable' LA Weekly put up for sale
Malibu beach hijinx, take 256
Sue Laris puts Downtown News up for sale after 44 years
Drew Tewksbury named LA Weekly managing editor
LA Weekly's Maddaus to Variety and more media notes
OC Weekly sold to publisher Duncan McIntosh
LA Weekly loses film critic Amy Nicholson too
LA votes to move Santa Monica 'closer'


 

LA Observed on Twitter