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Originally Posted by djtestudo
Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't Hezbelluh, the so-called "wacko group", either under the protection, or supported by, Lebenon?
If so, then I don't see a problem.
Same with the governing body of the Palestinians allowing their terrorists to attack across the Israeli border they themselves have demanded be there.
If you don't want Israel attacking you, how 'bout not allowing these attacks? Israel isn't innocent in the grand scheme of Middle East politics, but it isn't as though they are trying to expand either.
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Originally Posted by djtestudo
Host, those have absolutely nothing to do with anything I said, nor with what I asked.
As opposed to this, which tells me everything I need to know.
Sounds to me like it is essentially the same thing as Hamas: a terrorist organization masquarading as a political party.
I have no doubt that there are innocent people involved here. However, I also have no doubt that there are a hell of a lot of guilty people as well, and to ignore the guilty would be sending a terrible message to anyone who wants to protect the innocent. |
djtestudo, I am not trying to "single you out", but because of your comments, in both of your most recent posts, I consider your views a proxy for several posters who, IMO, could have posted similar statements to the ones you did.
Before you posted your "wacko" question, in regard to Hezbelluh, I posted Noam Chomsky's interview, it was displayed on this thread, a day ago. I posted the preface:
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* Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is author of dozens of books, including his latest "Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy." <b>In May he traveled to Beirut where he met, among others, Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah.</b> He joins us on the line from Massachusetts......
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Chomsky also stated:
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.....At the same time, it's partly in Gaza, and sort of hidden in a way, but even more extreme in the West Bank, where Olmert announced his annexation program, what’s euphemistically called “convergence” and described here often as a “withdrawal,”
but in fact it’s a formalization of the program of annexing the valuable lands, most of the resources, including water, of the West Bank and cantonizing the rest and imprisoning it, since he also announced that Israel would take over the Jordan Valley.......
.......The United States regards Israel AS VIRTUALLY A MILITARIZED OFFSHOOT, and it protects it from criticism or actions and supports passively and, in fact, overtly supports its expansion, its attacks on Palestinians, its progressive takeover of what remains of Palestinian territory, and its acts to, well, actually realize a comment that Moshe Dayan made back in the early ’70s when he was responsible for the Occupied Territories. He said to his cabinet colleagues that we should tell the Palestinians that we have no solution for you, that you will live like dogs, and whoever will leave will leave, and we'll see where that leads. That's basically the policy. And I presume the U.S. will continue to advance that policy in one or another fashion......
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Now....Chomsky isn't God, but he is the only voice who I have some respect for, who just met with Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah in the last two months. Chomsky's comments could have impressed you enough to preclude the following comments in your post that I responded to, but your comments indicated to me, that you were unimpressed with Chomsky's opinions, because you posted, in addition to your "question", this:
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...Israel isn't innocent in the grand scheme of Middle East politics, <b>but it isn't as though they are trying to expand either.....</b>
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djtestudo, most of the region is arid, uncultivated, uninhabitable desert. I thought Chomsky's statement regarding control by Israel of water and of the Jordan (as in...."river"...) Valley, and his quoting of Moshe Dayan, contradicted your "expand either" opinion, before you posted it.
I responded to you with:
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Eitan's old organization, the fighters who founded the modern state of Israel, were, by their own admission, (bottom of this post...) an organization that "The Palmach also launched violent guerilla warfare against the hostile British mandatory rule and its military war machine: destroying police stations and radar installations, sinking naval vessels, mining the railroad system, demolishing the border bridges and more."
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and yet...you came back with this statement:
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Sounds to me like it is essentially the same thing as Hamas: a terrorist organization masquarading as a political party.
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Hezbollah, Hamas, or the Palmach of the founders of the modern state of Israel. Hamas and the Palmach leaders have been elected in democratic elections. Hezbollah has a charasmatic leader and has popular backing that will probably insert it's politcal wing into the Lebanese Parliament.
Consider that Hezbollah has controlled southern Lebanon since before the present Lebanese government, and it's army, existed. Consider that IDF has been unsuccessful, even with all of it's might and resources, in dislodging Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. How successful has the U.S. military been in it's attempts to dislodge insurgents from Anbar province, in Iraq? It's fine to recite opinions about the shortcomings of the flegling Lebanese government, when it comes to their ability or desire to dislodge the armed guerillas of Hezbollah from the territory that they have defended and died to hold for 25 years. Again, it's a simplistic response, and excuse that justifies a bias towards Israel. I endeavor to acquire and maintain a more accurate opinion.
In 1967 and in 1973, I was squarely on the "side" of Israel. I can't just do that, anymore. It would not be an opinion that "fits the facts".
All have used terror against civilians as a tactic to achieve their goals. To simply side with the most successful of the three groups, Palmach, and to label their successors as less violent and more legitimate, especially considering the current IDF rampage on two fronts, is simplistic and indefensible, IMO.
Please read the follwoing excerpts from an article in my last post:
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/com...821036,00.html
The capture of three Israeli soldiers by the Lebanese resistance movement, Hizbullah, to bargain for prisoner exchange should come as no surprise - least of all to Israel, which must bear its own responsibility for the abductions and is using this conflict to pursue its wider strategic aims.
The prisoners Hizbullah wants released are hostages who were taken on Lebanese soil. In the successful prisoner exchange in 2004, Israel held on to three Lebanese detainees as bargaining chips and to keep the battle front with Hizbullah open. These detentions have become a cause celebre in Lebanon. In a recent poll, efforts to effect their release attracted majority support, much more even than the liberation of Shebaa Farms, the disputed corridor of land between Syria and Lebanon still occupied by Israel.
The domestic significance of these hostages is ignored by those who choose to reduce the abductions to an act of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Indeed Israel's media are aware of recent attempts to capture soldiers, including a botched attempt a few months ago in which three Hizbullah fighters were killed. Hizbullah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, confirmed the attack took five months to plan. Its timing was probably a coincidence. It would seem, though, Hizbullah exerts some influence over the fighters in Gaza - those who captured Corporal Shalit were at the very least inspired by Hizbullah.....
......But the nature of that relationship has changed much over the years. Since Syrian forces left Lebanon, Hizbullah has become the stronger party. It has never allowed any foreign power to dictate its military strategy.
It is ironic, given Israel's bombing of civilian targets in Beirut, that Hizbullah is often dismissed in the west as a terrorist organisation. In fact its military record is overwhelmingly one of conflict with Israeli forces inside Lebanese territory. This is just an example of the way that the west employs an entirely different definition of terrorism to the one used in the Arab world and elsewhere, where there is a recognition that terrorism can come in many forms.
The attempt to frame Hizbullah as a terrorist organisation is very far from political reality in Lebanon, from public opinion across the Arab and Islamic world, and from international law....
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Consider that none of this strife started in 2006, or in 1973, or in 1967. Consider that some Israelis put a higher priority on the rule of law than the officials of their own government, and are more sympatheitc to the circumstances of innocent Palestinians than some of the Americans who post,
here at TFP politics:
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/734705.html
Last update - 08:37 05/07/2006
Ministry admits 'blacklist' of Palestinians who left W. Bank
By Akiva Eldar
......The property has been used to establish settlements and military bases in the Jordan Valley.
The blacklist began with 100 people, but swelled to over 2,000 by late 2004, when Brigadier General Ilan Paz, then-commander of the army's Judea and Samaria (West Bank) District, ordered that no new names be added henceforth. Palestinians on the list who sought to rejoin their families in the territories, or even to come on brief visits, were refused permission "for security reasons."
Following a report on the blacklist published in Haaretz on March 14, the head of Meretz's Knesset faction, Zahava Gal-On, demanded a response from Defense Minister Amir Peretz. Tuesday, Gal-On received a letter from Peretz's bureau which said that the practice of "approving the entry of Palestinians on the basis of the background described above has been canceled.......
......According to a 2005 State Comptroller's Report, thousands of dunams of "Palestinian-owned lands were allocated to Jewish settlements in the Jordan Valley" during the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Numerous ministers, senior government officials, and officials of the World Zionist Organization's Settlement Division were involved in this process.
By law, however, property owned by absentee Palestinians was supposed to be held in trust by the Civil Administration's Director of Government Property, a representative of the Custodian General. <b>Such land could not legally be used for settlements, and it could be used for security purposes only if an official expropriation order were issued.</b>
But according to military sources, a significant portion of the Jordan Valley settlements were established on land owned by Palestinian absentees. Parts of the absentees' lands were also given to local Palestinians in exchange for their lands, which were than transferred to the settlements.
In a legal opinion drafted in October 2003, <b>the legal adviser for Judea and Samaria warned that the use of these lands was illegal, and suggested that the government find a way to resolve the problem, since if it ended up in court,</b> "it would not benefit the state in any way, and would cause a chain reaction that would endanger the entire fabric of the relevant settlements' lan."
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I'm not directing all of what was in my previous towards you, per se, djtestudo. I am trying to show you why I mentioned your name, at all.
In modern times, the collapse of the Ottoman empire, ninety years ago, is the catalyst for what we observe in the middle east, today, As the victors in WWI, Britain and France called the shots in it's aftermath. British strategists drew the borders in Palestine and in Iraq. From non-left leaning democrats, on one end of the U.S. politcal spectrum, to <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTYzNGM3YjY3ZDk4NWUwYWI5YTJmNDM1MDMzMzExNjc=">Michael Ledeen</a> on the other, Americans mostly supported the Bush policy regarding Iraq and Israel. Indeed, if the following is any indication, this sentiment is still alive and well:
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http://corner.nationalreview.com/pos...cxMDI0YzEwMjA=
Saturday, July 15, 2006
The Administration [John Podhoretz]
I'm at a total loss to understand Mike Ledeen's blast at the Bush administration for the way it's handling the Israel crisis. John Bolton works for Condi Rice, and has been making brilliant statements at the U.N. and vetoed an evil Security Council resolution. Mike, you can't think Bolton is acting alone here. The Bush foreign-policy team has, in effect, given Israel a green light by saying it has the right to defend itself but not to be disproportionate — which is code for saying what Israel has done so far is not disproportionate. <b>Once again the Bush administration has proved itself the best friend Israel has ever had — and, relative to almost any other administration one could think of, standing up to appeasing world opinion here in a very resolute manner.</b>What Mike proposes sounds wonderful in theory but is something only a president in a fantasy novel would actually do. What this president is doing in actuality deserves praise, not brickbats.
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I lsitened to Sean Hannity yesterday make a similar statment as Podhoretz does, above. They both assume (or whoever writes the TP's for both of them, assumes....) that having and asserting (with force, if there is even a one percent chance....according to Ron Suskind's new book...) an opnion about Israel, Iraq, or just about anything political, that is contrary to the opinion of statesmen and populations in the rest of the world, is a sign of superior wisdom, strategy, possession of the moral "high ground".
It looks to me, though that this is bullshit, and that it has been so, as long as any of us in America have been alive. Consider now that the verdict is coming in, like it or not....who was more accurate in his assessment on March 7, 2003, GW Bush, Mr. Powell, Mr.Tenet, Mr. Cheney, or....French PM Mr. De Villepin:
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http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_...82752441633846
....How could anyone have known back then that invading Iraq was going to be a mistake wrought with negative consequences?
The speech that follows was surely heard by the key planners in America, including everyone in the White House. It was delivered to the United Nations Security Council just days before the Iraq invasion. The speaker used the same reports and evidence available to the US. Note how accurate his comments were:
- He correctly ascertains the degree to which Iraq represented a threat to the world, and to its neighbors.
- He identifies the convergence of international institutions as the reckoning force that was successfully disarming Iraq.
- He debunks the Iraq / al Qaeda link.
- He predicts that innocent families would suffer.
- He forecasts the postwar carnage.
- And, he zeroes in on the Bush administration's disingenuous motives for war.
He did all this before the Iraq invasion; ....
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Excerpts of De Villepin's speech to the UN follows, at the link in the preceding quote box. Our leaders and many of our country men were wrong, when it came to justifying and executing the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This thread is an example, IMO, that we still don't all fucking "get it".
<b>How many more times, in matters of where to project armed force, and who to align ourselves with, will the French be right and the POTUS be wrong?</b> 62 years ago today, France was not even yet returned to being a sovereign country. Now, they are smarter than we are? What is this neocon mindset that sez that a sign that we are right is when the rest of the world disagress with us? The days when the U.S. stood alone behind Israel, are over. Israel provides for itself, quite adequately. Are we doing the same for ourselves?
Last edited by host; 07-15-2006 at 06:51 PM..
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