"Israeli Guy" Discusses Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's T.V. Interview
I really enjoyed your input on Barak's interview, Gil. I agree with most of it. I also enjoyed listening to Barak speak. I voted for him twice and have admired his sagacity ever since he was head of military intelligence. I can envision a time in the future that I would vote for him again. But quite a few things would have to change for that to be possible.

You wrote, "I quite certain that the withdrawal from Lebanon was a smart move. Israel was bleeding there for 20 years and Barak put an end to it. A lot of people in Israel don't agree with me on that point: Imshin J for example is calling the Lebanon withdrawal a "fiasco". "We all sighed with relief when we got our boys out of that hellhole, but the hurried, even hysterical withdrawal whetted the Palestinians appetites and gave us this war". I don't agree with her. I think that the Palestinians would have eventually started this war anyway. If we were still in Lebanon today and had to deal with two fronts it would have been almost impossible to cope with that situation."

Well, maybe "fiasco" was a bit strong. I tend to get carried away.

A friend of mine, who grew up in the streets of a very tough neighborhood, has been trying to persuade me for years, that the rules that held true for him as a child trying to survive in the “shchuna” (neighborhood) are also relevant with regard to how Israel should be behaving with its neighbors in the Middle East. Since Camp David and the following eruption of Palestinian violence, I have gradually began to understand what he’s been talking about, all this time. Among criminals, your perceived strength of character determines what your life is going to be like - if you’re going to be the guy who tells everyone what to do, gets the best women and so on or the one who eats shit (excuse my language) from everyone else, and who’s life is a living hell. It’s the same with animals, in business, wherever. But it’s very clear-cut with criminals. That’s why it’s a good example.

Did you see that movie with Sean Connery as a criminal who does a robbery with his son and grandson? I’ve forgotten the name of the movie. Anyway, at the end of the movie, he’s in the vehicle being transported back to prison with the other convicts. What is the first thing he does? He picks a fight with some guy and beats up on him, right there in the vehicle. Why does he do this? He’s giving out the message that although he’s old, he’s still a force to be reckoned with, and not to be messed about. He knows that, especially at his age, he won’t survive otherwise.

So here we are in the Jessy Cohen (blue-collar neighborhood in the town of Holon south of Tel Aviv) of the world, and we’re behaving like we’re in Herzliya HaYeruka (middle class area in the town of Herzliya north of Tel Aviv). O.K. so we're a democracy and we have certain moral standards. But our neighbors aren't and don't and we mustn't let them take advantage of that.

For years we’ve been acting weak. Remember the Gulf war? We just sat there and did nothing. Maybe it was the right thing to do at the time, but it didn’t look good.

Lebanon was a quagmire. I’m grateful we’re out. I suppose we’ll never know what would have happened if we had got out of there in a different manner. What’s done is done. But we have to try and learn from it, to see how we can better handle similar future challenges, such as evacuating settlements.