Tensions have been rising in Israel since the construction freeze on the West Bank was lifted just last month. As of earlier today, the situation just got a bit stickier when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad let loose an anti-Israel speech in Lebanon just four kilometers from its border with Israel. He stated "Zionists, go back where you came from" while telling his audience (who were thousands of Hezbollah supporters) to "Bring defeat to the Zionists" by forcefully freeing themselves. Ahmadinejad also blames Israel for the economic crisis and air pollution of the world. His whole speech was a complete verbal bashing of Israel along with an attempt to discredit other western nations including the United States. It is clear that Ahadinejad wants to wipe Israel off the map and he attends to gather as many supporters as possible. He only sees the violent method of solving this conflict. Not once was there anything mentioned about peace.
Just a few hours after Ahadinejad's speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted that Lebanon was on its way to become an "extension of the ayatollah regime in Iran…This is a tragedy for Lebanon, but Israel knows how to protect itself from this development". He believes that "All those people who think that Zionism will disappear — not only is it not disappearing, but it is growing stronger". Netanyahu continued by stating that the fact that Israel was created and has developed into a strong nation in only 62 years is enough to discredit those seeking to harm it. While Israel has developed a significant amount since its birth of a nation, Netanyahu seems to be antagonizing the enemies of state by purposely gloating about the success of Israel. Provoking another war would just create pointless death in a region of the world that has already been covered in blood. When questioned about assassinating Ahadinejad, Netanyahu did not give a direct answers, but said as a general statement that "we consider with reason what needs to be done to protect the state". With that being said, Israel indirectly says it would assassinate an enemy if it were done for the safety of the nation. Surely, these two heavy weight leaders of the middle east have strong feelings of disgust towards each other. Peace talks will just prolong the inevitable.
After these recent events, I have come to the conclusion that peace will not come soon enough in the middle east. There is too much hostility between nations and powerful militant groups that reside within them. But it is not for me to say if politics will prevail or not.
I find the reliability of my articles to be solid. Both sources came from the highly rated Israeli news sites Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. If you read both of the articles closely, you will notice that authors Chaim Levinson and Herb Keinon were as unbiased as they could possibly be. They both quoted quite a bit and I just interpreted how I saw fit. However, I will admit that there were a few sentences that seemed like their point of views favored Israel, but overall, it was just a series of quotes by Ahmadinejad and Netanyahu with very little author commentary.
