Did nobody notice what's wrong with the German Foreign Minister's comment about Lebanon & Israel?

Countless news articles quoted it without reflecting on what her comment actually implies.

Reporting on her call to German citizens to leave Lebanon, news articles in Israel and abroad quoted an “X” post attributed to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock:

With every rocket across the Blue Line between #Lebanon & #Israel, the danger grows that a miscalculation could trigger a hot war from one moment to the next. All who bear responsibility must exercise extreme restraint.

Did you read that and just read on? Or did you stop to think “What? … every rocket … could trigger … All must exercise, none of that makes sense.”

Many politicians, op-ed and editorial writers, analysts, and more, have pointed out the double standard inherent in the second sentence: BOTH sides must show restraint? Everyone knows — and yes, that includes rabid Israel haters — everyone knows that if Hezbollah stopped lobbing missiles over the border, Israel would stop as well. At least, that was true before Oct 7th. The equation has changed since the Hamas atrocities in the south and now Israel cannot stop until northern Israel is safe enough for the over 60K internally displaced residents to return home and rebuild their lives.

This very statement, the request that BOTH sides show restraint, even after seeing what Hamas did while a ceasefire — essentially a signed contract for restraint — was in place, shines a maccabre light on the first sentence: Warning that a ‘miscalculation’ could trigger a real war (as opposed to the not-real war we are currently witnessing).

The ‘Miscalculation’ comment shows that

1. Nobody really accepts that Israel has the right to defend herself.

At the annual international Herzeliya Conference for strategy and policy five days ago in Israel, Baerbock repeated the tired and worn-out mantra, “Israel has the right to defend herself like every other country.” There should be no reason to even have to make that statement and it brings to mind the phrase, methinks thou dost protest too much.

2. Nobody understands the nature of the ‘miscalculation’

When Baerbock told Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati that a miscalculation in just one of the thousands of missiles Hezbollah is shooting at Israel from Lebanese soil could trigger a hot war, she was saying that it is okay to launch rockets, drones and anti-tank missiles at Israel as long as they do not do the kind of harm that will compel Israel to regard that as an open declaration of war.

There is so much wrong with this. With about 5000 missiles launched so far since Oct 8th, in barrages of 10, 30, 100 at a time, that have killed 18 soldiers and 10 civilians and injured many more, set fire to over a thousand acres of land, and damaged buildings and homes to an extent not yet measured — is this not enough to merit being called a declaration of war? It would have been for any country other than Israel.

Four days ago, Hezbollah aimed a UAV at Leshem, a research facility developing and producing advanced weaponry. If Israel had not managed to intercept the drone and it had hit the target, that would possibly have qualified for what Baerbock calls a ‘miscalculation.’

She would have got it wrong.

The ‘miscalculation’ was the ‘miss.’ I cannot imagine that Hezbollah seeks to hit ‘open areas’ with missiles that fall useless to the ground or are intercepted in the air. The terrorist organization is playing chicken with Israel, goading her into responding for its own propaganda purposes. And with that, even as Hezbolla tells foreigners who are trying to make both sides “play nice” that they do not want war, they are showing that they do.

By saying that war will be triggered if there is a ‘miscalculation’ on the part of Hezbollah, Baerbock suggests that, just like Israel had no justification for the ground war before Oct 7th, Israel will have no justification, in the eyes of her allies, for a “real” war in the north unless some atrocities or just large number of dead or abducted Israelis (Jews or otherwise) can flash across screens around the world.

It will only be a “real” war when Israel takes unambiguous measures to ensure that Hezbollah can no longer threaten Israel. And we see how the world reacts to Israel’s unambiguous measures, chanting for Israel to stop a genocide-that-is-no-genocide against the genocidal Hamas that unabashedly proclaims its aims to kill Jews and eradicate the blot on their map called Israel. Hezbollah’s aim is no different than this.

Language is important

By calling significant enough damage to give Israel the justification needed to do what it takes to protect her citizens a ‘miscalculation,’ the German Foreign Minister plays into the hands of Israel’s enemies. I suggest Baerbock is not alone in this. Israel’s allies behave as if they do not really believe Israel has the same right to defend herself as they do because they would never have regarded one single missile from a neighbouring country into their own as anything BUT a declaration of war.

Well, maybe one missile. Maybe missile one can be considered an ‘accidental’ weapons discharge. But two? five? five thousand?

Not one other country would consider ‘misses’ any different from bullseyes. And no other country would call a bullseye a ‘miscalculation.’

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