Nirvana, I agree totally with what you said. But there is that question you and everybody have raised: How the hell do we stop this blind, institutional hatred? How do we stop the killing and bring about a lasting peace among people, neighbors and co-workers, actually, who learn in school to hate?
Has anything ever been done to rid the world of those schools, those Madrassa's (I hope i am spelling that correctly). Instistutional hatred starts very young with arabic children.
Seaver, you're facts are indeed correct. I didnt go into great detail about the inquisition. I could have because my family was orginially from spain but fled because of the inquisition. My family migrated first to greece for about 300 years and then settled in Bulgaria, which is where my father is from. My mother's family had been settled in Vienna for hundreds of years. Not a really healthy place to be a jew in the 1930's.
dlishsguy- send me your addy and i'll forward it to Oslo for consideration.
But seriously, Israel's killing of the innocent children tears at me horribly. Why? first, it's tragic to the extreme. Second, that is NOT how jews think or wish to act. Killing is breaking one of the ten commandmants. Not a good thing. Remember what i said earlier;
There is nothing more painful to a jewish parent than the loss of his/her child. Personally, I would choose my own death if it would protect my children if such a situation arose.
Why cant arab's feel the same way? Why cant hezbollah respect their own countrymen, their own people, their own neighbors? Why do they allow such brutalities to occur to their own people?
Ok, you say hizbollah is a rag tag army. Get them all together, get them away from all civilians and then have at it. That's one solution. But they will never do it. They prefer screaming headlines, "Israel bombs mosques', "Israel bombs house with children in it".
You talked about Israel trying to play the high road, using the past injustices as a means for this onslaught. But what do you call how hizbollah operates? They know they are going to be attacked but they choose to hide with the very youngest and oldest, the most vulnerable. So, who's the culpable party here? Who's is trying to play the media here?
God, i wish we had some answers.
But Israel explained what they did what they did last night. That area was filled with arms, militants, etc etc etc. I have no idea if this is true or if it just propoganda. I can only hope and pray that the latter is true. Otherwise, it's just state-sanctioned murder. Israel was NOT built to allow that.
Quote:
|
see..most lebanese are sick of war. as you'd know they are still recovering from war. so to 'rock the boat' so to speak and plummet the country back another 50 years is ok by some in the west. but we realllly dont need that now. within 3 weeks we have taken lebanon back 20 years now.
|
I know that this is horrible. How can anyone deny it? On the surface, the wanton destruction of Lebanese infrastructure is insane. But when you look at it from a miliatary and political view, it makes sense. For thousands of years, armys/countries at war have always destroyed civilian's as a means to force their gov't to try to stop whatever conflict/war that was going on. Perfect example: Sherman's march to Atlanta. The union soldiers burned, stole, murdered, raped and pillaged their way through the south, leaving nothing left.
Israel is doing the same thing but, sadly, tragically, that strategy wont have the same effect. The intensity of the arabic hatred is only rising. Hatred of Israel is at an all time high, if that is even possible. So, current Israeli strategy is not even close to being in the best interests of Israel.
I just wish someone, anyone, knew and could implement a permanent, rationale, working solution. I just dont know if it could ever happen.
But what else can Israel do? How can they stop these militants from attacking Israel whenever and whereever they want? I dont mean to sound mean or vindictive but do YOU have an answer on how to stop these daily attacks?
Diishguy, you failed to answer one issue i raised. Prior to this war, the daily rocket attacks, the suicide bombers. How many countries on this planet have to deal with that every day? In your case, what would John Howard and the aussie govt. do if Australia was attacked every single day by a foreign country or foreign extremists? I doubt they would just throw another shrimp on the barbie.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Nirvana
ok i was just watching an interview with thomas friedman, writer of From Beirut to Jeruslaem. Thomas Friedman, as you may or may not know, is a decorated New York Times columnist and he has great kowledge of the middle east, spending many years there since the 80s or so. he said that he was in syria talking to three journalists. one wanted the complete destruction of israel. the other, as he put it, got a "buzz" from watching hezbollah fight israel. the final journalist said that hezbollah and nasrallah is a menace. three verying opinions. then he commented that too many people in the arab world get the same buzz as the second reporter and have similar hopes as the first reporter and that they need to get over it. he said there will be no new middle east when people like Rafik Hariri, who in my opinion was one of the most progressive and hopeful minds in the middle east, get assassinated and "old-timers" liek nasrallah keep their shit up. he said that these people need to get over their hate and idea of destruction (both ideological and physical) destruction of israel and concentrate on building and moving forward. he also said that the cycle of violence needs to stop because all it does is continue this pattern.
then earlier in the day, i saw comments from the ambrassador of lebanon to the U.S. say that Nasrallah has his respect and the president of lebanon himself has said he holds nasrallah in high regards and that he upholds "arab honor" in the middle east. this is exactly what Friedman was saying. they need to let go of this hope of trying to regain arab honor and to bounce back from what many arabs se as humiliation after losing wars to israel and concentrate on building up. what has been going on in the middle east clearly doesn't work, so it's time for a change.
he then made a commentary on India, a country that has the second most muslims in the world. after the bombings in mumbai weeks ago, he showed how calm india was. why? because india concentrates on building up. they have a muslim president. their leading movie actress is muslim. the richest computer software developer in the country is muslim. in my opinion, thomas friedman knows his stuff.
|