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Baylor: Middle East Conflict Will Last until One Side Expires
by Joe Dooley
 Israel is not to blame. Hizballah was, and still is, ensconced in southern Lebanon on the smallest scale. Its militia faction deliberately occupies the same apartment buildings that families live in, putting those civilians in harm's way. Any counterattack the Israelis engage in will thus directly result in civilian casualties, which doesn't help Israel's image. For this reason, one must admire Hizballah for its shrewd tactics. Civilian casualties incurred by the IDF's response have elicited sympathy for Lebanon and condemnation of Israel from the worldwide community, excluding those nations that have held on to their reason. (The Lariat)
Butler: A First-Hand Account of Present Day Israel
by Ellen Kizik
 Random bombings in Israel have been a part of daily life way before Sept. 11 and Iraq. Every one of my five visits that started in 1993 has occurred either a month before or after a suicide bombing. Such news did not deter me from going although it was the reason for several failed trips. Luckily the day that 200 some rockets were launched from Lebanon to northern Israel is in the past and the situation is looking up for the first time in six months. The Middle East in general is a region to visit at least once in a lifetime. (Dawgnet)
Connecticut: Mideast Muslims Must Denounce Violence
by Rob Casapulla
 If the rest of the world were to apply Middle Eastern Muslim logic to situations, Israel should have nuked Iran a long time ago. The rhetoric spewed from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's mouth, calling for the annihilation of Jews, solidly falls into the category of offensive. Despite this, you do not see Jews rioting and burning down buildings or attacking Muslims. How about instead of rioting the Muslims make a deal with the pope. He apologizes for his comments and all the Muslims throughout the Middle East who are upset at being characterized as "violent and insensible" publicly denounce jihad and the concept of a holy war. (Daily Campus)
Georgetown: Religious Violence Between Shia and Sunni Adds to Tensions Tearing Political Fabric
by Charles A. Kupchan and Ray Takeyh
 Buoyed by the power shift in Iraq as well as its rising oil revenues, Iran's theocratic government is reveling in the Shia resurgence and pursuing a more muscular regional diplomacy. The war in Lebanon has further heightened sectarian tensions, once again dividing the country along religious lines and putting Iran-backed Hizballah at the helm of the anti-Israel cause. The intensifying rivalry between Shia and Sunnis promises to make an already volatile Middle East even more unstable. Kupchan is a professor of international affairs at Georgetown. (Newsday)
Stanford: 'Martyrs' on the March
Arnold Beichman
 And while that oh so moderate spokesman for peace in the Middle East, Mahmoud Abbas, is busy glad-handing and sweet-talking his willing audiences, a sermon by a prominent sheik, Ismail al-Radouan, broadcast on Mr. Abbas' Palestinian Authority television begins like this: "When the shahid [martyr] meets his maker, all his sins are forgiven from the first gush of blood. He is exempted from the torments of the grave; he sees his place in paradise, he is shielded from the great shock and marries 72 dark-eyed virgins." Hard to compete with such an offer. The writer is a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. (Washington Times)
Tel Aviv: The System's Broken and Needs Fixing
by Dan Ben-David
 The primary lesson to be learned from what has transpired in this country over the past three decades is that our system of government is dysfunctional to the core. It yields disasters accompanied by nonaccountability and an increasing paralysis in our national ability to deal with ongoing problems. There is no alternative to a comprehensive and immediate overhaul of the system before the existential crises that we face pass the point of no return and become unsolvable - with all that this implies for the collective destiny of a people with such varying opinions. The writer teaches economics at Tel Aviv University. (Ha'aretz)
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Brown: What I Did Last Summer
by Nadia Maccabee
  I am now completing my seventh week in Israel as a volunteer with Magen David Adom, the Israeli version of The Red Cross. Volunteering has been incredibly educational, a little frightening at times and lots of fun. I spent the first week of the trip in Jerusalem learning in a very intensive crash course in emergency medicine. We studied from 8:00 AM until midnight while being frequently tested on the skills we learned such as CPR and how to backboard a person with a spinal injury. (Brown Alumni Magazine)
Cal State Dominquez Hills: L.A. Ghetto Fantasy Emerges from Visit to Israel
by Argenis Villa
  After visiting the Yad Vashem museum of the Holocaust in Jerusalem, I was overcome with emotion. So many atrocities were committed against the Jewish people, and yet they have risen above it. The tours they lead of their neighborhood tell a story of triumph over oppression, over poverty, over injustice. It is painful and confusing to compare them with my fantasy tour of my neighborhood. How did the Jews overcome all their years of oppression? Was it their culture? Their religion? I became desperate in Yad Vashem. I wasn't looking at history in there; I was looking for answers. The writer attends Cal State Dominquez Hills. He recently returned from an ADL Campus Editors Mission to Poland and Israel. (Jewish Journal)
Dawson College - Canada: Somewhere between Montreal and Jerusalem
by Sean Benjamin
 The single shooter found the cafeteria one floor below the "JewCaf." Our Hillel room was right around the corner from the shooting. One of my old golf teammates is now comatose with a bullet lodged in his brain. Irony is a funny thing. In order to come to Jerusalem and study at the Hebrew University, I needed two letters from two of my Dawson College professors. As they handed me their envelopes they both pleaded: "Don't go to Israel. It's just not safe there." (Jerusalem Post)
See also Rabbi's Call for Prayers for Dawson Victims Heard (Canada.com)
Harvard: Using Israel as a Peace Offering Only Hurts America
by Ben Shapiro
  Somehow, it’s never enough. Israel can concede and concede and concede. It can surrender and retreat. It can appease terrorism and fund its own enemies. No matter what Israel does, destroying Israel in toto will remain the end goal of the United Nations and its Islamic puppet-masters. We are not fighting Israel’s battles; they are fighting ours. And they are losing because we grant their enemies legitimacy and refuse to untie Israel’s hands. The moment Israel is exterminated and the Muslim hordes run roughshod through Jerusalem burning churches, the truth will become painfully apparent. The writer attends Harvard Law School. (Family Security Matters)
Tufts: Losing the Struggle
Nate Grubman
  I approached the window [of the dorm]. Because it was open, I asked the resident why he had a Hizballah flag in his window. “Do you have a problem with it?” he asked. I told him that they were a terrorist organization and they targeted innocent civilians. He responded by saying it’s no different than wearing an IDF shirt, and that it was a very personal matter for him. Obviously, in my mind at least, posting a Hizballah flag is different than wearing an IDF shirt. It’s true that both were responsible for civilian casualties this summer. However, the IDF, as the army of a democratic government, had the intention of limiting civilian casualties. Whenever the IDF dropped bombs on a village, it first dropped pamphlets warning its residents. The IDF had rules of engagement preventing attacks in which civilians would likely be killed. (Tufts Observer)
Yale: Hizballah's Puppet-Masters Need their Strings Cut
by Rachel Bayefsky and Harry Etra
 It is not a mystery that Hizballah answers to the political agendas of Tehran and Damascus,” Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Saniora told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on July 20. The summer’s attack on Israel succeeded in diverting the world’s attention from the uranium-enrichment activities of Hizballah’s backers in Tehran, and surely emboldened the Iranian government into pushing even harder. As long as the United Nations continues to dither on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program, the nation will move ever closer to that gray day when its true ambitions are within reach. The writers are co-presidents of the Yale Friends of Israel. (Yale Herald)
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