News from the sandbox

So a couple of weeks ago, Yossi Peled, former IDF general and now a minor minister in the Israeli government, spoke in some school in the North and said they must be prepared, because he predicts there will be another war with Hizballa in the coming years. Immediately, the Lebanese jump and accuse Israel of threatening to open war on Lebanon.

Then, last week, Defense Minister Barack gives a speech, and says that we should make peace with Syria now, for if we don't, we might have war, and after that war we will negotiate peace for the exact same terms we can get now. So why don't we skip the war, and proceed directly to the peace? Immediately, the Syrians jump and accuse Israel of threatening to open war on Syria.

Why are they doing this? Are they that dumb? No, they really do believe it. The Syrian and Lebanese have reiterated the lie about Israel wanting to take over their lands so many times that they started to believe in it wholeheartedly.

And then come the idiots on the Israeli side, those who believe that the Arabs behave like that simply because they are looking for any excuse to kill Jews. Foreign Minister Lieberman opens his big mouth, and threatens the Syrian President that he better not go to war with Israel, because it will cost him his position. And so, the atmosphere gets tense.

This is the kind of moronic behavior that gets many people killed for no reason. I'm not very worried at the moment: none of the sides is even remotely interested in going to war, so this will most probably just die down in a couple of weeks. However, there is someone who is very interested in seeing things blow up. The Iranians are under a lot of pressure from the international community, and a war between Israel and its neighbors would suit them just fine. It is very possible that they are behind it all, that they were the ones pressuring the Lebanese and Syrians to escalate the war of words. And if we don't bring things down, they might take it to the next level, and order Hizballa to start shooting.

This is still on a very low level of probability. In the meantime, let's revel in the stupidity of humans and their leaders.