Israel invades Lebanon, Hezbollah attacks N. Israel - Page 6 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

roachboy · 07-20-2006, 03:58 PM

picking up from nirvana's post:

there is a wide range of political opinion in israel--i know that there are many israelis who oppose the position like those you read above, which fall somewhere between likud and those tiny extremist rightwing parties whose politics are explicitly racist---hell, the range of people that i know personally encompasses a great diversity of positions about the ways in whih the israel government chooses to act---many many people are very distressed about the decision to destroy lebanon, even as "collateral damage" for a more focussed campaign--this distress cuts across usual political divisions. what i find remarkable is that out there in 3-d land, there is a far greater range of positions, even amongst people who in general support israel's action in lebanon, than you see amongst those who choose to support it here.
and far more ambivalence.
but no matter--it makes no sense to assume that israel is of one mind, any more than it makes sense to assume any other complex society is of one mind, on this or anything else. to impute a single motive to all israelis is idiotic.
for example:
not all israelis support the state's brutalization of the palestinians.
not all israelis support the wall.
not all israels support the state's efforts to destroy the pa in order to prevent hamas from assuming power--hamas was moderating and everyone knows it--perhaps it was easier for the state to maintain the old hamas.
not all israelis support the military repression in gaza.
not all israelis have forgotten about gaza.
not all israelis function with a disconnect when it comes to thinking about the obvious empirical connections between idf actions in gaza and the present conflict with hebollah/destruction of lebanon.
not all israelis support the olmert government. not all israelis never ask themselves about the connection between this carnage in lebanon and the weak status of the olmert government.
nto all israelis simply repeat the official state arguments for the destruction of lebanon/conflict with hezbollah.
not all israelis assume that all arabs are terrorists.
not all israelis are mystified about the connection between routine brutalization and radical politics.
not all israelis do not understand that much of the trouble israelis have with their neighbors they bring down on themselves through the brutality of measures taken to "prevent" such trouble.

it seems to me that most who support israel's actions and who post in this space operate with a discourse that is particular to the right in israel--but here they present it like it is the only way to speak about israel, the only way to understand this conflict.
because, for whatever reason, the political spectrum reproduced in the united states from israel is to pitifully narrow.
how is that?
that only one of a whole range of political positions within israel about the conflict going on now is ever represented in this space?
what imagines folk to assume that by parroting a rightwing view of israeli actions that they speak for or even coherently on behalf of israel?
where did this presumption come from?
it is unbelievable.
and it is really tiresome.

Nirvana · 07-20-2006, 04:44 PM

willravel, if my memory serves me right olmert ran on the campaign of pulling out of the west bank. i might be wrong so if i am , anyone please correct me. i find it funny that you find anyone labeling the people of lebanon as supporters of hezbollah wrong and immoral (which it is) but you have no problem using such a blanket generalization for those "gun toting, bulldozing" israelis, eh? hezbollah, a shiite radical group, is actually made up of 15% of the entire lebanese population (they are shiites. also hezbollah makes up about half of the entire shiite population of lebanon) with supporters scattered around the country. clearly that is not the majority of the population. the same thing applies to israelis. the most radical who claim relgious property of the land, etc only constitute about 12% of the population. that 12% is "ultra conservative" and in my opinion is just as messed up as any other group of people with fundamental religious beliefs. about half of the population defines itself as "secular." these are the people that I was around and generally, these people are in agreement. they wanna raise their children, work, and live in peace. maybe they were just hiding their bulldozers, though.

Willravel · 07-20-2006, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nirvana

willravel, if my memory serves me right olmert ran on the campaign of pulling out of the west bank. (etc...)

Please tell me you took my last post as being ironic. That's the way it was intended. Maybe I didn't make it clear enough.

Nirvana · 07-20-2006, 05:04 PM

lol well by the tone of my post, it's safe to assume that's not the way i took it. no harm, no foul.

Willravel · 07-20-2006, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nirvana

lol well by the tone of my post, it's safe to assume that's not the way i took it. no harm, no foul.

Sorry, it was a bit sarcastic. I carry no resentment or ill will towards the populace of Israel. I'm sure most of them are honest, hard working people simply trying to live their lives and make their way in the world. It honestly isn't their fault that some very stupid and bad people want to kill them.

Nirvana · 07-20-2006, 05:30 PM

i apologize for my sarcasm as well. thats pretty much what i wan't for the middle east. i just wan't those people who genuinelly want peace and not the destruction of each other to finally get it. both sides and all of the "side players" need fresh mind because unfrotunately, all that these people see daily is death and destruction.

Willravel · 07-20-2006, 05:38 PM

It's good to know that we both want the same thing...now if only we can agree on how to get there....

Nirvana · 07-20-2006, 05:45 PM

i don't think either one of us or anyone here for that matter wants innocent people to be killed. i've always thought that is both sides were to just agree to at least a 6 month non-violence period to show that they are series, maybe to a certain degree that would lower some supiciopns of both populations and bring talks forward. however, i just dont think its going to go any farther until that violence does stop and both sides loudly and boldly say "we support your right to exist" and really mean it. if something to that effect ever happens, we'll just have to wait and see.

also im starting to feel this thread has moved away the whole lebanon-israel thing but thats ok, threads grow and evolve into even more interestig discussion,

Charlatan · 07-20-2006, 06:00 PM

Now if only Hezbollah and Israel could kiss and make up like you two...

/me wipes away a tear.

Willravel · 07-20-2006, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nirvana

i don't think either one of us or anyone here for that matter wants innocent people to be killed. i've always thought that is both sides were to just agree to at least a 6 month non-violence period to show that they are series, maybe to a certain degree that would lower some supiciopns of both populations and bring talks forward. however, i just dont think its going to go any farther until that violence does stop and both sides loudly and boldly say "we support your right to exist" and really mean it. if something to that effect ever happens, we'll just have to wait and see.

The biggest problem I see is that if there were ever peace in the Middle East, Israel would still exist, but the various extreemist groups would not. This outcome isn't favorable to the extreemist groups, so that makes the peace process all the more difficult (trying not to oversimplify). The trick to peace in the region, in my humble opinion, would be a complete pull out of all outside forces. No more US support to Israel. No more Chinese or Russian support to Iran or Syria. No more economic support to Saudi Arabia. Most importantly: no more oil. That damn stuff seems to breed corruption.

Of course that's never going to happen...at least not in my lifetime.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nirvana

also im starting to feel this thread has moved away the whole lebanon-israel thing but thats ok, threads grow and evolve into even more interestig discussion,

Yeah, but at the same time, I can't help but feel like I've threadjacked more than a few times. I do want the discussion to evolve, but I don't want to disrespect the reason we clicked on the "Israel invades Lebanon, Hezbollah attacks N. Israel" link.

Nirvana · 07-20-2006, 06:18 PM

The outside support will never stop, like you said, until all the oil is gone. but then there will be other problems such is floundering economies because a lot of those economies depend on their oil exports. who knows what additional problems that will bring. to a certain degree though, i have a feeling that if foreign support does disappear, the violence won't end. i feel like it will escalate fast into somehting big. to a certain degree, while foreign support causes a shitload of problems, it does prevent others.

on a side-note, i saw a discussion i saw on pbs mentioned that the middle east is ready for democracy, but the outside world needs to allow fundamentalist pan-islamist groups to take power first and wait until the population can eventually overthrow them due to a desire for refrom. i think that reform will be what eventually gets rid of a lot of these extremist ideologies as well. however in the current climate of the middle-east, i don't think anyone has the patience to allow these groups to take place. who knows though, we have a whole lifetime ahead of us to see what happens.

stevo · 07-21-2006, 04:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abaya

Okay, let me clarify. I meant that if you basically switch all the references around in your post, you will clearly reflect the other side's opinion... except that the ethnic group is different. Which, in my opinion, doesn't put you on much of a moral high horse in terms of making objective judgements on the best path to take here.

From the point of view of a Palestinian, using your post:

I'm not looking for the moral high ground, as shocking as that may sound. I'm looking for victory. Maybe thats a suprise to you, perhaps hard to understand. But we aren't going to beat the terrorists by taking it easy. There is one thing islamists respect and that is strength. negotiations and unilateral concessions might be the "moral" thing to do, but in the eyes of the terrorists you are weak and acts like that only serve to embolden them, make it look to them that you are on the run, that you don't want to fight any more. The situation would be different if we were fighting a different enemy. But we are fighting a people who do not want peaceful co-existance. They are fighting for total victory and will stop and nothing short - that alone requires us to do the same. they will never give up, so we have to kill them. If, if they were willing to negotiate a truce and live peacefully side by side with israel and the rest of the western world we would not be fighting.

Leto · 07-21-2006, 05:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Canada doesn't really play into any of these discussions except as a future source of oil.

Over 40,000 Canadian citizens live in Lebanon. Over 25,000 have registered with the embassy to be evacuated. So far only approx 1400 have managed to get out (100 of whom hitched a ride on the Prime Minister's flight which diverted from Paris to snag a few refugees).

This is a huge logistical nightmare. Not to mention a tragic one. 8 members of the same Montreal family were killed by an Isreali bombing raid. They were visiting relatives for summer vacation.

We have a lot of emotional stake in this situation.

Nirvana · 07-21-2006, 10:36 AM

i agree with stevo that there are groups out there that want nothing short than the destruction of israel. let's say that there was peace tomorrow. i have strong doubt that these groups will stop their assault. because for these groups, their is the idea of a middle east with sharia law (hezbollah wanted that for lebanon) and they thrive on pan-arab, pan-islamist (notice i didn't say pan-islam) ideology. i am postive these people won't rest until the area is no longer "infested" with jews.

roachboy · 07-21-2006, 05:24 PM

this is probably the best analysis i have seen yet.
read the article, check the source and site, etc.

Quote:

Letting Lebanon Burn
Editorial, MERIP, 21 July 2006

Israel is raining destruction upon Lebanon in a purely defensive operation, according to the White House and most of Congress. Even some CNN anchors, habituated to mechanical reporting of "Middle East violence," sound slightly incredulous. With over 300 Lebanese dead and easily 500,000 displaced, with the Beirut airport, bridges and power plants disabled, the enormous assault is more than a "disproportionate response" to Hizballah's July 12 seizure of two soldiers and killing of three others on Israeli soil. It is more than the "excessive use of force" that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan decries. The aerial assault dwarfs the damage done by Hizballah's rocket attacks on Israeli towns. Entire villages in south Lebanon lie in ruins, unknown numbers of their inhabitants buried in the rubble and tens of others incinerated in their vehicles by Israeli missiles as they attempted to escape northward. As it awaits the promised "humanitarian corridor," Lebanon remains almost entirely cut off from the outside world by air, sea and land. As of July 20, thousands of Israeli troops have moved across the UN-demarcated Blue Line. Yet virtually the entire American political class actively resists international calls for an immediate ceasefire, preferring to wait for an Israeli victory.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert set the tone immediately after Hizballah struck, branding the cross-border raid as "an act of war" whose consequences would be "very, very, very painful." Moreover, Israel would hold the Lebanese government and the Lebanese nation as a whole responsible. Israel's determination to inflict pain upon Lebanon was fanned on the fourth day of Israeli bombardment when Hizballah Secretary-General Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah likewise declared "open warfare," and the Shiite movement's militia stepped up rocket fire that has taken 15 Israeli civilian lives. Though the Katyushas and larger projectiles are much deadlier than the Qassams of Hamas, Israel faces no existential threat from the rockets on either front. It is in Lebanon, to paraphrase Israeli army chief of staff Gen. Dan Halutz, where the clock has been turned back 20 years.

The American broadcast media nevertheless labor to fashion symmetry where there is none. There is balanced treatment of the casualties on both sides. The Israelis forced into bomb shelters are juxtaposed with the Lebanese politely warned to flee their homes. For competing renditions of the day's bloodletting, CNN's avuncular Larry King turns first to nonchalantly windblown Israeli spokeswoman Miri Eisen and then to a program director from Hizballah's al-Manar satellite channel, Ibrahim al-Musawi, who always seems to have one eye on the sky. The rock-star reporters who parachuted in to cover the story dispense dollops of confusion. CNN's Anderson Cooper in Cyprus explained that, since Hamas members are Sunni and Hizballah members Shi'i, they are "historic rivals." MSNBC's Tucker Carlson, sans bowtie to convey the seriousness of the occasion, wondered if Hizballah had rocketed Nazareth because its residents are all Christian, ignoring the images on the screen behind him from the attack victims' funeral at a mosque.

The likes of Carlson can perhaps be forgiven for grasping at clash-of-civilizations straws. The White House's immediate fingering of Iran and Syria as the masterminds of Hizballah's self-described "adventure" substituted phantoms and bogeymen for real political causes. Israel was similarly quick to espy an "axis of Islamic terror" stretching to Damascus and Tehran. Former Speaker of the House and would-be presidential candidate Newt Gingrich went officialdom one better, declaring on NBC's Meet the Press that the US and its allies are in "World War III." A steady stream of Congressmen goes before the cameras to aver that Tehran and Damascus are pulling the strings.

No evidence, beyond leaked Israeli intelligence of secret meetings between Nasrallah and his alleged Syrian and Iranian puppeteers, has been presented for the thesis of broader conspiracy, let alone for the core proposition that Hizballah snatched the Israeli soldiers on orders from Bashar al-Asad and/or Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Who else sees the hand of Iran, by the way? Saddam Hussein, admonishing Syria from his Baghdad jail cell not to "deepen its coalition with Iran, because Iranians have bad intentions toward all Arabs and they hope to do away with them.") The fact that Hizballah's arsenal includes missiles of Iranian and Syrian provenance is also adduced as proof. By this same logic, of course, Washington must be ordering every sortie of Israeli F-16s over Beirut and every demolition of Palestinian homes by Caterpillar bulldozers.

Hizballah is not shy about acknowledging its external patrons, who presumably assented to its operation. But the timing of the militia's cross-border raid, as Israel was punishing all of Gaza for the capture of one soldier, suggests another motivation rooted in regional politics -- namely, that Hizballah aimed to impress the Arab public as capable champions of the Palestinians, in contrast to the impotent grumbling of the US-allied Arab regimes. Surely, as well, Saudi and Egyptian criticisms of Hizballah stem more from the popularity of Nasrallah among their own (all or mostly Sunni) populations than from a genuine fear of a "Shiite crescent."

The scholars who know Hizballah best say the movement is more Lebanese and nationalist now than any time in its history. Even before the departure of Syrian troops in the spring of 2005, Hizballah was increasingly speaking with nationalist rhetoric. While their political opponents staged what they call the Independence Uprising, Hizballah-mobilized demonstrators "thanked" the Syrians for their services, rather than demanding that they stay, and waved Lebanese flags alongside the party's yellow banners. Hizballah has been pressing the issue of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails, along with Lebanon's claim to the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms along the Syrian-Lebanese border, for some time. The Lebanese government backs both of these causes.

But it is odd, to say the least, to hold the Lebanese government responsible for Hizballah's initial cross-border operation. To the contrary, the evidence suggests that the Islamist party acted unilaterally, despite having representatives in the cabinet and in Parliament. This circumstance suggests that the raid should be interpreted as Hizballah muscle flexing on the domestic stage to ward off pressure to relinquish its arms to the Lebanese army, as per the requirements of UN Security Council Resolution 1559. Perhaps, having exchanged prisoners with Israel as recently as 2004, the movement miscalculated how Israel would react, and now they are getting more than they bargained for. Certainly, Lebanon is.

Whichever combination of these factors accounts for Hizballah's action, the real question is what Israel hopes to accomplish by bombing the whole of Lebanon in reprisal. The strategy behind the assault, apart from blind retribution, is difficult to fathom. Even though Israeli jets buzzed Asad's presidential palace after Hamas captured an Israeli soldier, and even though evidence of Syrian influence over Hamas is far wispier than its ties to Hizballah, Israel seems disinclined to draw Damascus into the fighting. "We're not a gang that shoots in every direction," an Israeli officer told Ha'aretz. Nor, despite bellicose talk of "root causes" and rumors of Iranian Revolutionary Guards firing from Hizballah launching pads, does Israel or the US appear prepared to do more than trade insults with Tehran. There is a risk of catastrophic escalation, but it is reasonable to hope it is not planned.

Rather, the stated objective (beyond the recovery of the captive soldiers) is the implementation of a UN resolution, an instrument of international diplomacy for which Israeli spokespeople have developed a touching new fondness. If the Lebanese government will not disarm Hizballah, then Israel will. If the Lebanese will not "exercise their sovereignty," as Eisen demanded on CNN, then Israel will appropriate that sovereignty and exercise it in Lebanon's stead. Perhaps because the US has its own history of invading Middle Eastern countries to "enforce UN resolutions," the American media seem to regard Israel's case as entirely sensible. One wonders how the media would have treated similar external intervention to impose UN Security Council Resolution 425, which called for Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 1978, and, of course, was not honored until 2000, under the pesky fire of Hizballah.

But that is what-if history. Back in the present, says the tough-talking Israeli ambassador in Washington, David Ayalon: "We'll have to go for the kill -- Hizballah neutralization." Thus far, independent assessments of "operational success" are bleak. On July 20, the Times of London quoted "a senior British official" as saying: "Our concern is that Israeli military action is not having the desired effect ... . We are concerned that continued military operations by Israel will cause further damage to infrastructure and loss of civilian life which the damage to Hizballah will not justify." The well-connected military affairs columnist for Ha'aretz, Ze'ev Schiff, penned a similarly pessimistic appraisal.

Hence the large-scale Israeli ground incursion that commenced on July 20. While Halutz told the troops that the incursion could last for "an extended period of time," Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz has stressed that it will not lead to permanent reoccupation of south Lebanon. Indeed, from the Israeli government's perspective, one benefit of Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, like its pullout from Gaza in August 2005, is the latitude to deploy the full force of bombs and tanks unavailable as long as Israel was the occupying power. The architect of Gaza disengagement, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, came to appreciate this logic despite having vehemently denounced the peril to Israel's "deterrence capability" when the Labor government brought troops home from Lebanon. Whether the ground incursion will "degrade" Hizballah's fighting effectiveness or strengthen their argument that Lebanon needs their independent militia for its own national defense remains to be seen. It seems that Israeli strategists are making up the military objectives as they go along, with one eye on the degree of "operational success" and another eye on what Washington will let its tank commanders and bombardiers get away with.

Asked how long Israel's campaign could continue, a high-ranking US official told the Washington Post: "There's a natural dynamic to these things. When the military starts, it may be that it has to run its course."

Many European chanceries, like Annan, evoking rules-of-war distress at Israel's "excessive use of force," are calling for an immediate ceasefire. These calls were faint indeed amidst a week of air raids and the Group of Eight's toothless tut-tutting about "extremist forces." From Washington came the bright green go-ahead to keep on bombing. Asked how long Israel's campaign could continue, a high-ranking US official told the Washington Post: "There's a natural dynamic to these things. When the military starts, it may be that it has to run its course."

So we arrive at the Bush administration's breathtakingly cavalier stance and, again, the human cost of its decision to use Lebanon's agony to tilt at Iranian and Syrian windmills. On July 15, by several accounts, US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton blocked Security Council discussion of the ceasefire resolution for which Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora has pleaded in every available forum. Since then, despite blatant violations of principles of proportionality and growing international alarm about the internally displaced Lebanese, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pledges only to work for a ceasefire "as soon as possible when conditions are conducive to do so." The conditions, of course, grow less "conducive" the longer Washington's green light glares.

Such signals to Israel are not unprecedented, of course, but in this case they are completely and rather shockingly public. The secretary of state has disagreed with the Egyptian foreign minister about the urgency of a ceasefire while standing before the same bank of microphones in Foggy Bottom. Making the Sunday talk show rounds on July 16, Rice again shopped an applause line from her June 2005 American University in Cairo address: "For the last 60 years, American administrations of both stripes -- Democratic, Republican -- traded what they thought was security and stability and turned a blind eye to the absence of democratic forces, to the absence of pluralism in the region." This policy, she still claims, has been reversed. In reality, with its unabashed approval of Israel's pounding of Lebanon, the Bush administration has reversed 60 years of basing US policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict on the premise -- however fictional in practice -- that the US seeks peace between the parties. Meanwhile, as Rice dithers over setting a date certain for a Middle East diplomatic mission, the US green light may actually exacerbate the carnage in Lebanon, since Israeli military commanders know that they will have limited time to accomplish their goals.

On July 19, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Tony Snow if Bush's insistence that Rice not undertake shuttle diplomacy until Israel "defangs" Hizballah made the conflagration in Lebanon a US war as well as an Israeli one. Snow dissembled: "Why would it be our war? I mean, it's not on our territory. This is a war in which the United States -- it's not even a war. What you have are hostilities, at this point, between Israel and Hizballah. I would not characterize it as a war."

It is a war, an unjustified war. Israel's legal justifications -- protecting the sanctity of its borders and enforcing UN resolutions -- are disingenuous to the point of being dishonest, after Israel's own years of ignoring the will of the international community and crossing and erasing boundaries with impunity. The US is the only international actor with the power to stop this war, and instead has chosen to encourage the fighting. So the US, too, will be held accountable by history.

source: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5154.shtml

dlish · 07-22-2006, 10:48 PM

thought id keep you updated.

my wife was meant to leave on sunday on a ship organised by the australian government to cyprus or turkey. this was the last ive heard from her. she is up north in tripoli, so she is relatively safe i think. however, i got an sms from a friend telling me she will be going through the border to damascus now. no idea why yet as ive been anable to contact her for the last 2 days.

apparently israel bombed telecommunications towers in nth lebanon. no mobile phone network whatsoever now. i have no landline number for her. ive contacted the australian embassy, and they cannot help me.

..and they keep telling me its all about hezbollah? this is collective punishment! there is no hezbollah in nth lebanon, and this is totally unjustified. ..oh thats right..hezbollah uses mobile phones, so its ok to bomb the telecommunications towers...reminicent of how alqaeda justifies its attacks on innocent civilians..

ktspktsp ..how is your family????

AVoiceOfReason · 07-23-2006, 12:49 PM

Ok, I've just scanned six pages of notes here, and have neither the time nor inclination to cut and paste, nor to make sure I'm not repeating some things. Let me try to bulletpoint this situation:

1. Why is there a current armed conflict? Isn't it because Hezbollah (and Hamas) grabbed some Israeli soldiers and had been firing rockets into Israel?

2. Why is Hezbollah allowed to set up shop in Southern Lebanon? If the Lebanese goverment don't want them there, then aiding Israel in rooting them out would be the proper course of action; if they want them to stay, then they have sided with the enemy of Israel. There is no middle ground, no area of grey on this point. Destruction of the Lebanese infastructure is a means to the end of the elimination of Hezbollah.

3. A cease-fire demand by anyone that doesn't carry with it clear and unambiguous penalties for violation is worthless.

4. If the accounts of Hezbollah refusing to allow civilians to flee is correct (and I'm not sure where I read/heard it), then the deaths of said civilians is not on the heads of Israel. Those that use human shields are the ones responsible for said shields.

5. While I'm thinking of it, aren't Hezbollah members also "civilians?" They aren't a military force in uniform, fighting under the banner of a country. Are those "civilian death" totals we're getting counting those folks (and their family members)?

6. If Israel has fired missiles indiscriminately into Lebanon (that is, with no military or stategic target), then it is proper to make a moral comparison with Hezbollah's firing of rockets into Israeli cities. I'm not aware of such, but it may be that it's happened and I just don't know about it.

host · 07-23-2006, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AVoiceOfReason

Ok, I've just scanned six pages of notes here, and have neither the time nor inclination to cut and paste, nor to make sure I'm not repeating some things. Let me try to bulletpoint this situation:

1. Why is there a current armed conflict? Isn't it because Hezbollah (and Hamas) grabbed some Israeli soldiers and had been firing rockets into Israel?

2. Why is Hezbollah allowed to set up shop in Southern Lebanon? If the Lebanese goverment don't want them there, then aiding Israel in rooting them out would be the proper course of action; if they want them to stay, then they have sided with the enemy of Israel. There is no middle ground, no area of grey on this point. Destruction of the Lebanese infastructure is a means to the end of the elimination of Hezbollah.

3. A cease-fire demand by anyone that doesn't carry with it clear and unambiguous penalties for violation is worthless......

IMO, if the "conflict" could be reduced to the first sentence in your bulletpoint "1.", in the "real world", you might have made some important points in your post.....

But.....you don't get to frame the discussion based solely on where you decide, for the sake of your argument, where "a current armed conflict" begins. The "conflict" is influenced by the history of the region, and that history contains everything in my post here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...3&postcount=21

I could ask, with what I've supplied in that post, how two "terrorists"
could be allowed to "set up shop" in the office of the Israeli PM....ever? Could such a thing happen in the U.S.....could the POTUS be a former terrorist leader???

You fail to mention that Israel has responded in the past month to two incidents where armed opposition, not officially sponsored by either of the elected governments of it's two neighbors, staged attacks on Israeli military positions and killed and kidnapped Israeli soldiers, by launching large scale attacks on civilian infrastructure in both of those neighboring jusrisdictions.

If I post that the "current armed conflict" began in 1983, when more than 250 U.S. soldiers were bombed to death in their barracks in Beirut....an attack that Hezbollah is said to have taken "credit" for, would that justify U.S. military intervention in Lebanon now?

Israel has "tolerated" sporadic attacks of a few "dumb" rockets per incident, fired into it's territory from southern Lebanon for at least the last six years. Has invasion of it's neighbors and large scale exertion of force, brought lasting peace to the region inhabited by Israel, in the 30 years since official armies of sovereign neighbors have ceased attacking Israel? What is the goal that you believe will be accomplished by Israel's disproportionate use of force, this time?

You hold the "Lebanese goverment" responsible. How can you expect a fledgling government of a poor nation with a small army, a government tentatively knit together that is comprised of several opposing elements of both religion and nationality, to control Hezbollah, when Israel, with it's mighty IDF, occupied that region for 18 years and could not eliminate or signifigantly reduce Hezbollah?

The U.S., many times more powerful militarily than Israel, has no success in controlling illegal entry at it's own southern border, or the insurgency in Iraq.....yet you give Israel a "green light" to collectively punish all of Lebanon, and I assume, all of Gaza, too.

I see a new "game", here. A game where, in a new era of popularly elected political factions of "terrorist" labeled insurgents, the voters themselves become "fair game", in order to justify disproportionate military responses....like Israel's on civilians and civilian infrastructure.

By that measure, are all of the U.S. voters who backed Bush/Cheney 2004, "fair game" for Queda or Sunni "sleeper cells" in the U.S.

Where is the collective voice against all violence, beyond defense?
Pre-emption seems to be a spreading disease. Was diplomacy so flawed that it is to be abandoned in favor of whipping up the discredited cycle of violent retribution? Take the U.S. for example.
Has our government's violent response to "terror", in Afghanistan or in Iraq, or by abondoning the "peace process" in the M.E., made us "safer", or wealthier? Are there less "terrorists today, that "hate us for our freedom", than there were in the autumn of 2001.

Can't we stop picking sides, stop the madness of the cycle of violence, and talk ourselves to death, face to face with our adversaries instead? It will happen anyway, but the question is, how many will die in vain before it falls to diplomats to attempt what could have been tried, all along? Empty finger pointing to justify killing that accomplishes nothing for those who allow themselves to be caught up in it, and escalate it, only obstructs the path to peace.

Taking "sides" is only useful if the plan is to exterminate all men of fighting age on the "other" side. Is that the plan?

Sun Tzu · 07-24-2006, 02:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Now is in fact the BEST time for a real war there. The USSR is dead, and China hasn't started to reach out as of yet. Do you think China would want to get involved in a fight with the US right now? In 20 years sure, but they are not ready now. We on the other hand have a sizeable force already in Iraq.

I was curious in what information has led you to this conclusion.

Seaver · 07-24-2006, 05:38 AM

Quote:

2. Why is Hezbollah allowed to set up shop in Southern Lebanon? If the Lebanese goverment don't want them there, then aiding Israel in rooting them out would be the proper course of action; if they want them to stay, then they have sided with the enemy of Israel. There is no middle ground, no area of grey on this point. Destruction of the Lebanese infastructure is a means to the end of the elimination of Hezbollah.

Because Lebanon, who fought a very long and very bloody civil war, has never made ammends for the causes of the war.

They have a Constitutionally Split government, 60% Marionite Christian 40% Muslim according to the 1919 Census. The figures today, with the Palistinian fleeing and the effects of Black September put the population closer to 68% Muslim, 2% Druze, 30% Marionite Christian.

These are simply estimates, as the Marionite Christians refuse to allow more Census' because they would lose seats. It's a "form" of democracy, where the quotas are set by your religion. It worked well early on, but the rigidity left it open for Civil War.

The "government" wants Hezbolla out. By that I mean the 60% Marionite Christian government. However if they support Israel, which even the Christians hate, Civil War would undoubtably resurface.

It's hard for people to understand, I studied it for 3 semesters and I find it hard to explain, but absolutely nothing was changed at the end of the Civil war. There were no winners, no reforms followed, it just ended.

That left many, many, armed and highly trained militias after the war. Hezbolla was the only one who maintained and upgraded their training and arms afterwards. But because their aim, officially, was aimed at someone else the government was too tired and weak to do anything. Now, well, we'll have to see.

ktspktsp · 07-24-2006, 05:46 PM

dlishsguy,

Thank you for asking about my family. They're still in Lebanon (I don't think they'll be leaving anytime soon). They're still in safe areas and I can still call them everyday (I can't reach them on their cell phones but the landlines still work) so I'm grateful for that.

Did your wife make it to Syria? I hope she's safe now.

Seaver:

The general content of your post is correct, but I thought I'd rectify some incorrect details:

The census was in 1932.
The parliament is now evenly divided between Christians and Muslims, and generally so is the Gov't. The ratio of Christians to Muslims in the parliament used to be 6 to 5, but it was changed to 1-1 after the war.
Druze make up more than 2% of the population (5 maybe?).
Both Christians (Maronite and others) and Sunni Muslims tend to be more politically opposed to Hezbollah, which is a Shia militia.

And yeah, the war just ended one day. General amnesty for everybody. The warlords of yesterday are the political leaders of today :P.

Seaver · 07-24-2006, 07:30 PM

Thanks for the clearification Kts, I mistook the 1919 Census... the 1919 was Eygyptian. My fault... after reading through 8 different countries Census'.. well... they start to blend together. Lets just put it this way, if you ever have the bright idea of forming a large research paper supported by a populations' employment by what religion they adhear to... dont. It's a LONG process.. and you wont find many professors who'll translate the arabic required.

And as far as the Druze go, do 3% really matter? They're very much a minor minority. While their militias fought (arguably) more fiercely than any other, their size was a primary limiting factor. However they are extremely minor in comparison to the Marionite-Muslim factions.

And I never read anything about the 1-1 changes. Maybe I was simply relying on sources which were too old.

abaya · 07-25-2006, 10:25 AM

This article by an Israeli professor of political science (based in Tel Aviv) is quite interesting. It's taken from http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/742257.html, an Israeli newspaper. That's right, even some Israelis don't believe they have a moral high horse in this issue... would be nice to see more coverage like this in American newspapers.

Quote:

Morality is not on our side
By Ze'ev Maoz

There's practically a holy consensus right now that the war in the North is a just war and that morality is on our side. The bitter truth must be said: this holy consensus is based on short-range selective memory, an introverted worldview, and double standards.

This war is not a just war. Israel is using excessive force without distinguishing between civilian population and enemy, whose sole purpose is extortion. That is not to say that morality and justice are on Hezbollah's side. Most certainly not. But the fact that Hezbollah "started it" when it kidnapped soldiers from across an international border does not even begin to tilt the scales of justice toward our side.

Let's start with a few facts. We invaded a sovereign state, and occupied its capital in 1982. In the process of this occupation, we dropped several tons of bombs from the air, ground and sea, while wounding and killing thousands of civilians. Approximately 14,000 civilians were killed between June and September of 1982, according to a conservative estimate. The majority of these civilians had nothing to do with the PLO, which provided the official pretext for the war.

In Operations Accountability and Grapes of Wrath, we caused the mass flight of about 500,000 refugees from southern Lebanon on each occasion. There are no exact data on the number of casualties in these operations, but one can recall that in Operation Grapes of Wrath, we bombed a shelter in the village of Kafr Kana which killed 103 civilians. The bombing may have been accidental, but that did not make the operation any more moral.

On July 28, 1989, we kidnapped Sheikh Obeid, and on May 12, 1994, we kidnapped Mustafa Dirani, who had captured Ron Arad. Israel held these two people and another 20-odd Lebanese detainees without trial, as "negotiating chips." That which is permissible to us is, of course, forbidden to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah crossed a border that is recognized by the international community. That is true. What we are forgetting is that ever since our withdrawal from Lebanon, the Israel Air Force has conducted photo-surveillance sorties on a daily basis in Lebanese airspace. While these flights caused no casualties, border violations are border violations. Here too, morality is not on our side.

So much for the history of morality. Now, let's consider current affairs. What exactly is the difference between launching Katyushas into civilian population centers in Israel and the Israel Air Force bombing population centers in south Beirut, Tyre, Sidon and Tripoli? The IDF has fired thousands of shells into south Lebanon villages, alleging that Hezbollah men are concealed among the civilian population. Approximately 25 Israeli civilians have been killed as a result of Katyusha missiles to date. The number of dead in Lebanon, the vast majority comprised of civilians who have nothing to do with Hezbollah, is more than 300.

Worse yet, bombing infrastructure targets such as power stations, bridges and other civil facilities turns the entire Lebanese civilian population into a victim and hostage, even if we are not physically harming civilians. The use of bombings to achieve a diplomatic goal - namely, coercing the Lebanese government into implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1559 - is an attempt at political blackmail, and no less than the kidnapping of IDF soldiers by Hezbollah is the aim of bringing about a prisoner exchange.

There is a propaganda aspect to this war, and it involves a competition as to who is more miserable. Each side tries to persuade the world that it is more miserable. As in every propaganda campaign, the use of information is selective, distorted and self-righteous. If we want to base our information (or shall we call it propaganda?) policy on the assumption that the international environment is going to buy the dubious merchandise that we are selling, be it out of ignorance or hypocrisy, then fine. But in terms of our own national soul searching, we owe ourselves to confront the bitter truth - maybe we will win this conflict on the military field, maybe we will make some diplomatic gains, but on the moral plane, we have no advantage, and we have no special status.

The writer is a professor of political science at Tel Aviv university.

roachboy · 07-26-2006, 01:36 PM

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...23714384920696

this is a good 1 hr 10 minute documentary that focusses on american media coverage of the israeli/palestinian conflict, and that offers the outline of an actual explanation for the appallingly one-sided view of this horrific conflict that is presented day in day out to televiewers of america.

it is well worth the time to watch.
it also explains how and why folk on either side of debate about israel's massacre of civilians in lebanon differ from each other--fundamentally different information.

magictoy · 07-26-2006, 04:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AVoiceOfReason

Ok, I've just scanned six pages of notes here, and have neither the time nor inclination to cut and paste, nor to make sure I'm not repeating some things. Let me try to bulletpoint this situation:

1. Why is there a current armed conflict? Isn't it because Hezbollah (and Hamas) grabbed some Israeli soldiers and had been firing rockets into Israel?

2. Why is Hezbollah allowed to set up shop in Southern Lebanon? If the Lebanese goverment don't want them there, then aiding Israel in rooting them out would be the proper course of action; if they want them to stay, then they have sided with the enemy of Israel. There is no middle ground, no area of grey on this point. Destruction of the Lebanese infastructure is a means to the end of the elimination of Hezbollah.

3. A cease-fire demand by anyone that doesn't carry with it clear and unambiguous penalties for violation is worthless.

4. If the accounts of Hezbollah refusing to allow civilians to flee is correct (and I'm not sure where I read/heard it), then the deaths of said civilians is not on the heads of Israel. Those that use human shields are the ones responsible for said shields.

5. While I'm thinking of it, aren't Hezbollah members also "civilians?" They aren't a military force in uniform, fighting under the banner of a country. Are those "civilian death" totals we're getting counting those folks (and their family members)?

6. If Israel has fired missiles indiscriminately into Lebanon (that is, with no military or stategic target), then it is proper to make a moral comparison with Hezbollah's firing of rockets into Israeli cities. I'm not aware of such, but it may be that it's happened and I just don't know about it.

7. What concessions of any sort has Hezbollah ever made in the interest of peace?

powerclown · 07-26-2006, 06:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JustJess

2. The analogies around here are just killing me. BUT... here's one more. Ever hear about the school bully? You know, the one that beats every one else up because he's really insecure? That's Israel. They're so finely wired at this point that it takes something little to set them off now. Not that I agree, but I can see where it began...

"Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,
His enemies say he's on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He's criticized and condemned for being alive.
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin,
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He's wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He's always on trial for just being born.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He's the neighborhood bully.

He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Every empire that's enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one's command.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He's the neighborhood bully.

What's anybody indebted to him for??
Nothin', they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He's the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars??
Does he change the course of rivers??
Does he pollute the moon and stars??
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully."

-Bob Dylan, "Neighborhood Bully"

Willravel · 07-26-2006, 06:49 PM

I'm glad Bob Dylan was able to chime in on this.

Maybe I should ask this: since the creation of the Israeli state after WWII, how many Israelis have died? And how many arabs have died? Now put thatr on a giant, depressing scale. I'm normally not a fan of moral equasions, but this one's a doozy.

Nirvana · 07-26-2006, 07:20 PM

willravel, you yourself have said that human life is important and precious, no matter what nationality that life is. what's the point of weighing the death tolls on scales if that's the case?

Willravel · 07-26-2006, 07:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nirvana

willravel, you yourself have said that human life is important and precious, no matter what nationality that life is. what's the point of weighing the death tolls on scales if that's the case?

I dunno. I guess I was thinking outloud. Do you feel the same way? Do you believe that all human life and consciousness is such a mericle that to lose a life in an untimely mannor is a tragic loss on the scale of all humanty? Yes, I am indeed a bleeding heart liberal. Of course, being such a softy, I would like to explore the possibilities in saving life or avoiding untimely death. Let's say, for the sake of the discussion, that the ratio between the dead is 300:1 between Arab and Israeli deaths. Would that have meaning? Would that have bearing on the perceptions of the topic at hand?

The arguments about Israel and Arabs eventually seem to boil down to moral high ground (or apologism). I've seen quite a few people that *seem* to think that Israel can do no wrong. Maybe this is my perception, but when I try to take a centeralist stance on the subject of Israel and Palestine or Israel and other Arab nations, I am branded as a terrorist sympathizer or anti-semetic. That, of course, is silly. My wife is half jewish and I love her mother dearly. I would never condone the act of terrorism, no matter who carries it out. What this tells me is that if I am taking a centerist stance, and am being branded as being anti-semetic, then that means that those doing the accousing are apologists for whatever reason. "Israel can do no wrong" and all that jazz.

Maybe I should ask this: What could Israel do right now to arabs or Palestinains that would make you think that they were wrong (short of nuking them all)?

roachboy · 07-28-2006, 01:09 PM

Quote:

A voluntary 'putsch'

By Yagil Levy

In Israeli historical memory, two incidents have been metaphorically defined as a military "putsch": the pressure applied by Israel Defense Forces generals on then prime minister Levi Eshkol to embark on the Six-Day War in 1967, and the |quiet putsch" as journalist Ofer Shelach termed the behavior of the army at the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Nevertheless, neither of these resembles the move that led to the start of "Lebanon War II."

On July 12, 2006, the Israeli government decided to bring about "a new order in Lebanon" by means of a massive military attack, which would cause the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, or at least to remove it from the border with Israel and to deploy the Lebanese Army in its place. Like the expanded goals of "Lebanon War I," an attempt is being made here to reshape Lebanon's fragile political order by means of force.

In the history of the relationship between the political and military leaderships of Israel, the government has never made such a significant decision so quickly, operating in crisis mode just a few hours after the kidnapping of the soldiers. Under these circumstances, the military contingency plan was the main plan presented to the ministers, if not the only one. As absurd as it may sound, the government decision to embark on the Lebanon War I in 1982 was the result of a longer and more orderly decision-making process.

Advertisement

An expedited discussion in the cabinet does not enable an examination of non-military options - or, alternatively, a discussion of the full significance of a military operation and a positing of realistic political goals. The accelerated process did not enable the ministers to discuss the practicality of the demand to deploy the Lebanese Army, part of which is Shiite, along the border, as a force that is capable of imposing its authority on the independent Shiite militias that will remain after the dismantling of Hezbollah, if it is in fact dismantled.

It is doubtful whether the significance of the two possible results of the Israeli military blow - a change in the fragile inter-ethnic balance of power in Lebanon as a result of the disintegration of Hezbollah as the center of power that will not be replaced by another, or, alternatively, its success in surviving the attack - could be discussed in such a pressured time framework.

The lack of time also prevented the possibility of looking into the diplomatic option of the "package deal" for implementing UN Security Council Resolution No. 1559; this option was proposed by the UN a few months earlier, and included a deployment of the Lebanese Army in the south in exchange for Israeli concessions.

It is also reasonable to assume that under such conditions, the Foreign Ministry and the National Security Council cannot present alternative viewpoints. And, of course, in all the excitement, the Sharon-Mofaz-Ya'alon doctrine of restraint was in effect delegitimized, with no serious attempt made to examine whether it was worth preserving.

Even if we assume that the price to be paid by the home front was clear to the cabinet, it has exposed the citizenry to real danger in exchange for what has been presented as the removal of a future threat - but without providing a possibility of conducting a public discussion on it.

Armies are criticized because the excess of power that they accumulate enables them to dictate steps of political significance during a time of crisis. In these situations, military contingency plans become the principal alternative available to the politicians, which is why they tend to accept the army's viewpoint. But this time we have before us a particularly extreme case. Not only was the military plan the only one, but the political leadership voluntarily relinquished its duty to discuss it thoroughly. This places political thinking, to which military thinking is supposed to be subordinate, in a particularly inferior situation.

This inferiority stems, paradoxically, from the "civilian" label of the present leadership. The term "civilian" does not relate in this case only to the biography of the leaders, but to their political agenda as well - i.e., the convergence plan. A civilian leadership often tends to increase the army's freedom of operation, particularly when it operates in a cultural-political environment in which half of the voters favor the use of force to solve political problems. Under these circumstances, the civilian leadership needs the army as a political instrument for the purpose of implementing the civil agenda. After all, the "disengagement" plan was implemented thanks to the support of the army, and the same will be true of the convergence plan in the future.

This dependence makes it difficult for the political leadership to hold the army back in times of crisis - not to mention the fear of losing legitimacy by demonstrating "hesitancy" as compared to the determination of the army. Political leaders with a military past, or "hawkish" civilian leaders, have a greater ability to restrain the army in similar circumstances, as seen in the difference between former prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir (the Gulf War) and Benjamin Netanyahu (the Western Wall tunnel episode), on the one hand, and Moshe Sharett (the retaliatory operations), Levi Eshkol (the Six-Day War) and Shimon Peres (Operation Grapes of Wrath), on the other. Prime Minister Olmert now joins the second group.

Yagil Levy is a professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

source: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/741795.html

this is an interesting perspective on things, dont you think?

dlish · 07-28-2006, 08:23 PM

just to let u guys know, my wife safely made it to damascus early friday morning and caught a flight to dubai the same day where she is currently staying for a few days.

i'd like to thank those who gave me support and had my family in their prayers. even though my wife and in laws are safe, my heart still bleeds for Lebanon. And honestly, it bleeds for Nth Israel too. it bleeds for any form on injustice against any people regardless of race, colour, religion or creed.

now for the remaining 11 family members still stuck there...

Mobo123 · 07-28-2006, 09:18 PM

I find it fascinating that peeps here quote from israeli newspapers, which run editorials and articles against the war. Doesnt everybody wish the Arab countries would allow the same freedoms to any arab newspaper free from censorship?

Hey, what do you know, there is no such thing. Every arabic outlet I've read espouses hatred, injustice and vengeance against Israel and 'The West".
Does anybody really believe that that is what the individual arab person feels? I can only imagine that the individuals suffer because they have allowed their governments to be hijacked by (and i hate to use these terms because they are so broad) radicals, fundamentalist Islamists, who only care about killing and hate.

"There will be peace only when the Arabs start to love their children more than they hate the jews".

Israel is the only democracy surrounded by a sea of unilateral, fundamentalist Islamists/Monarchists. Does anybody dispute this statement?

Does anybody actually believe Israel WANTS to be at war???? That they want their sons and daughters to die in war??? If you do, you need psychological help and quickly. I'm jewish and i have two teenage boys. If we lived in Israel, the oldest would be in the IDF right now. What parent wants their child to die for something as stupid as this? Every day when I hear more young Israelis and arabs are getting killed, I die a little bit myself. I cant belive that arabic parents dont feel the same way.

Respect each other, leave each other alone, (mlitarilarly at least) and be done with it.

Forgot to mention one truly ironic and tragic fact. Iran, the primary backer of Hizbollah and all these other arabic 'radical' groups, are NOT EVEN ARABIC. They are persian/aryan.

Where are all the arabs helping broker some type of peace, or try to help Lebanon and Syria rid their countries of terrorist groups? Complete Silence.

Very sad.

roachboy · 07-29-2006, 07:37 AM

mobo: you should watch this film for starters:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...23714384920696

then maybe we could start to have a conversation about this massacre in lebanon.

Mobo123 · 07-29-2006, 09:30 AM

roachboy, i must ask. Are you jewish? Because if you arent, you dont, and absolutely cannot, understand how jews feel about war and how important Israel's survival is to the deepest part of the soul of every single jew.

I watched the video. Interesting. I found it upsetting to witness the misery the lebanese are going through. I also agree that two wrongs dont make a right.

However, all the videos in the world cannot describe and understand the jewish psyche and what it is to be jewish. Unless you are one, you can never understand what it feels like and what it is to be jewish to understand how jews truly believe that war is truly abhorrent.

Dont you believe that the killing of civilians is a sin and a crime? I agree it is.

However, when these groups hide among the civilians, what choice is there but to go where the militants and the arms caches are? Hezbollah is an extremely cynical and hypocritical group. They claim Israel is purposely murdering innocents. Israel has dropped thousands and thousands of leaflets begging the innocents to leave. Unfortunately, there is no place for these people to go.

Jews also know, implicitly, that the entire world hates the jews. Just look through history. From the inquisition in spain, to the pogroms throughout Europe, to the holocaust, the 1948 fight for independance, the six day war, etc etc etc. We know that and accept that. Why do you think Israel ignores the UN? Every single resolution that is submitted re" the middle east condemms Israel. So what else is new?

But most important, non-jews can never understand how important it is to be jewish and live free, free in our own country, free from attacks, free from being kicked around, free from pogroms, from being persecuted, murdered and massacred for 5,000 years.

Israel, just like the US, will lash out like the most violent beast there is to protect it's very survival. and that's what this is about. Survival. It's not about conquest, lebensraum or any other political bullshit term. It's survival. Period.

The arabs dont give a shit about their own people. If they did, their 'army's' woudnt hide among women and children for their own protection.

I dont believe that you can ever fully appreciate that. No criticism of you.

It's just that you've never lost family in the holocaust. I have. My entire family consists on one cousin living in Tel Aviv plus my parents and one brother. That's it. Everybody else was murdered in the camps.

A very cruel irony of this fact is that when i went for my physical exam. My doctor asked questions about family history (diabetes, etc etc). So I asked my mother. She said she didnt know because none of our family lived long enough to develop any of those diseases.

Once you understand that, then maybe, you could understand why Israel is doing what it is doing.

Last, the final tradegy is that there will be no winners after this episode winds down. The arabs will continue to hate the jews as fierce as ever. The world will continue to despise Israel despite whatever false words they utter in support of Israel.

Did you happen to catch the german PM, Merkel, come out in support of Israel? That made me laugh because at the same time, a neo-nazi group in Bavaria is parading around, supporting the arabs while claiming that Israel is the new hitler. That was amusing in a very sick sense.

So, this war will solve nothing, will prove nothing and will benefit nobody. It's a total clusterfuck.

Sun Tzu · 07-29-2006, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mobo123

"There will be peace only when the Arabs start to love their children more than they hate the jews".

She also stated "There was no such thing as Palestinians...
It was not as though there was a Palestinian People in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people, and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist."

Ironic; being a Ukrainian immigrant herself.

Nirvana · 07-29-2006, 02:00 PM

willravel, all I said was that life, whether it is one or one million, is important. so what is the point of weighing death tolls on imaginary scales if even one life is important. the rest of the post seems irrelevant.

dlish · 07-29-2006, 06:11 PM

mobo...

what happened to the jews is no excuse to what they are doing in lebanon. i feel that your post was there only to make us feel sorry for the past victimisation ofthe jews and how they deserve better and how they are 'hated by the rest of the world'. this is exactly what this whole conflict is about, trying to gain sympathy from the worlds media about who is the biggest victim in this whole thing. it happens in the jewish and arab media. period. you are just doing the same withouty being subjective. i could tell you that as a lebanese muslim how we went through hell in the civil war, how muslims have been treated unfairly all over the world..but i dont. lets just stick to the current facts, cos what hitler did 60 years ago is irrelevant in what is happening now. the only connection now is that the victim has become the oppressor.

oh yeah...just for your info..the spanish inquisition was targeted at jewish AND muslims there. lets not forget that the moors were driven from spain by queen isabella, in which the jews and muslims lived in relative harmony in a golden age of knowledge for both. so lets not victimise the jews.

one other thing... there is no 'army' fighting the jews (or hiding in civilian areas). just a bunch of rag tag hezbollah fighters. the lebanese army has reletively stayed on the sidelines in the conflict so far.

Mobo123 · 07-29-2006, 11:13 PM

dlishsguy, i agree with you on the certain facts you raised. The inquisition was indeed persecuted aganst ANY non-catholic religion. That obviously includes muslims. I cant even speculate how many muslims were burned at the stake because they refused to renounce their solemm right to practice their religion of their own choosing.

But regarding my statement: My point is not to simply re-hash history and make people feel sorry for the jews. First and last, nobody is ever going to feel sorry for the jews. The German PM's word's carry as much weight as a fart in the wind. (sorry for the crude analogy).

I obviously missed that which you read, which stated that Israel has the right to run roughshod through Lebanon because of the horrible historical treatment of the jews.

My point is simply this: Survival. Period. End of story. Israel is surrounded by a sea of enemies. Thankfully, they have peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. As cruel as it seems and IS, Israel will do what they feel they must to survive in a world that wishes Israel doesnt exist.

and since we are sticking to current facts, remember, Israel didnt start this conflict. There wouldnt be a war had Hezbollah not kidnapped those soldiers, whom they still havent repatriated.

Had the soldiers not have been kidnapped, Israel would just be going through their normal daily routines. There would be an occasional rocket or three every day fired into Israel, just like every single country on this planet expects to happen daily in their own country; There would continue to be suicide bombers in pizza parlors and bars, shreddng and killing innocent civilians, just like every single country in the world expects to happen in their own country and so forth and so forth.

My point is that Israel isnt just a regular, everyday country. It is, for lack of a different or more apt term, chosento suffer these atrocities. and why? 5000 years of hatred, jealousy, extremism, sectarianisms, fundamentalism, and 'ism' after 'ism' you can think of.

Israel is going anywhere, and that's what drives the extremists crazy. The average arab person just wants to live, feed their kids and lead a normal life. But, as i said before, they have let their countries be hijacked by these 'organisations' that seek to destroy not just Israel but their own country. When, by god, or Allah, will they realise that?

If you could think of a way to negotiate a lasting and REAL peace between Israel and all it's neighbors, including that maniac in Iran, I will personally nominate you for the Nobel Peace Prize.

On a side note, you, being muslim and me, jewish, both must laugh at these christian fundamentalists who support Israel to the end of the world. Does anybody actually believe fundamentalist christians give a damm about the jews? Not for a second. Their rationale is that by keeping the jews in charge of Jerusalem, Muslims wont come in and bar Christians from visiting the birthplace of jesus. F.C's are scared to death that if Muslims take over control of Jersulem, they will stand by their pledge that ONLY muslims will be allowed in. That's the sole and only reason F.C's support Israel. It's certainly not out of love or care for the jews.

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This is a post I found from a member of a different board I am part of. He is lebanese christian and has an interesting perspective. I wont try to correct his english because he makes his points perfectly.

----------------------------------------------------------------

ok lemme try to break this down to you.. because noone here really knows whats going on in lebanon cause non of u lived or live their... well at least non that are speaking so..
anyway, lebanon IS capable of taking out hizballah.sure, hizbalah are very strong now, just as they were 20 years ago.
now, what i mean by are capable is this
Lebanon has its own militias. Many of them, but there is only 1 extremely powerful militia. its called the uwait.
i was part of the uwait 20 years ago, and we faught against hizbllah and themuslim population to keep our country. the uwait is extremely strong, it consists of 32 groups of 150-250 men. All of us who are in the uwait.. some call it mgaweer are skilled with almost every weapon, and we get our weapons from america
now 20 years ago we had to fight of the muslim population and we suceeded, we ended the war pretty much, driving them to the south and west.. Now we can do it again, the uwait is still a very strong militia, but its all behind the lebanese president, and other people in power. See they dont want to fight off hizballah, they are the only reason that they are in power and they want to stay that way..
they are also scared for their life, because if they give the militia the go, yhe will be killed
so the bottom line is.. lebanon is capable of getting hizballah out, but dont want them out........ at least the people in power

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He also said this about the relationship between the lebanese christians and muslims:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
yes they have hated each other... heck the land is split into sections
for eample, if any christian was to go to dahye he would be killed. and if any muslim would go to deir el qamar he would also be killed.. but most other parts muslims and chrisitan leave together peacfully, like in beirut.
most arab muslims and chrisitians have always hated each other, and always will, but that doesnt mean the whole country should suffer for hizballah mistake..

My opinion? Lebanon is a total clusterfuck.

The christians hate the muslims, the muslims hate the christians and everybody hates the jews.

host · 07-30-2006, 02:35 AM

I alternate, in the course of what I find in my researching reports on the current, "out of control", Israel/Lebanon/Palestinian/U.S./U.K./Iraq "situation" in the M.E., of trying to surpress, alternately, and sometimes....even simultaneous....an urge to scream, or to laugh uncontrolably.....

Once, upon a time....there was a guy, Wayne White, at the State Dept., where he worked as State's chief inteligence expert on Iraq. I detailed his middle east expertise here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...73&postcount=2

Mr. White has an impressive background; he seems qualified to reliably say:

Quote:

http://harpers.org/sb-six-questions-...308402183.html

Posted on Sunday, July 23, 2006. Wayne White, now an Adjunct Scholar with Washington's Middle East Institute, was Deputy Director of the State Department's Office of Middle East and South Asia Analysis until March 2005.....

1. Condoleezza Rice is leaving for the Middle East. Is her trip likely to lead to any favorable diplomatic outcome?

<h3>I don't think so. At least not anytime soon..........
I believe her activities have been tailored to give the impression of action while not designed to make any real progress toward the urgent ceasefire that should be everyone's highest priority.</h3>

Now....a challenge to any of you folks who support Mr. Bush. I'm assuming that, if you read Wayne White's answer, above, regarding Sec. of State Rice's efforts at diplomacy....can anyone read the following Q&A, and then watch the 90 second video of it, and tell us your version of what the fuck it was the Mr. Bush had to say....in response to David Gregory's simple question?

Quote:

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache...s&ct=clnk&cd=2
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 28, 2006

Remarks by President Bush and Prime Minister Blair of the United Kingdom in Press Availability

......PRESIDENT BUSH: David Gregory.

Q Thank you. Mr. President, both of you, I'd like to ask you about the big picture that you're discussing. Mr. President, three years ago, you argued that an invasion of Iraq would create a new stage of Arab-Israeli peace. And yet today, there is an Iraqi Prime Minister who has been sharply critical of Israel. Arab governments, despite your arguments, who have criticized Hezbollah, have now changed their tune. Now they're sharply critical of Israel. And despite from both of you, warnings to Syria and Iran to back off support from Hezbollah, effectively, Mr. President, your words are being ignored. So what has happened to America's clout in this region that you've committed yourself to transform?

PRESIDENT BUSH: David, it's an interesting period because instead of having foreign policies based upon trying to create a sense of stability, we have a foreign policy that addresses the root causes of violence and instability.

For a while, American foreign policy was just, let's hope everything is calm, kind of managed calm. But beneath the surface brewed a lot of resentment and anger that was manifested in its -- on September the 11th. And so we've taken a foreign policy that says, on the one hand, we will protect ourselves from further attack in the short-run by being aggressive and chasing down the killers and bringing them to justice -- and make no mistake, they're still out there, and they would like to harm our respective peoples because of what we stand for -- in the long-term, to defeat this ideology, and they're bound by an ideology. You defeat it with a more hopeful ideology called freedom.

And, look, I fully understand some people don't believe it's possible for freedom and democracy to overcome this ideology of hatred. I understand that. I just happen to believe it is possible, and I believe it will happen. And so what you're seeing is a clash of governing styles, for example. The notion of democracy beginning to emerge scares the ideologues, the totalitarians, those who want to impose their vision. It just frightens them, and so they respond. They've always been violent.

I hear this amazing kind of editorial thought that says, all of a sudden Hezbollah has become violent because we're promoting democracy. They have been violent for a long period of time. Or Hamas. One reason why the Palestinians still suffer is because there are militants who refuse to accept a Palestinian state based upon democratic principles.

And so what the world is seeing is a desire by this country and our allies to defeat the ideology of hate with an ideology that has worked and that brings hope. And one of the challenges, of course, is to convince people that Muslims would like to be free, that there's other people other than people in Britain and America that would like to be free in the world. There's this kind of almost -- kind of weird kind of elitism, that says, well, maybe certain people in certain parts of the world shouldn't be free; maybe it's best just to let them sit in these tyrannical societies. And our foreign policy rejects that concept. We don't accept it.

And so we're working. And this is -- as I said the other day, when these attacks took place, I said this should be a moment of clarity for people to see the stakes in the 21st century. I mean, there's an unprovoked attack on a democracy. Why? I happen to believe, because progress is being made toward democracies. And I believe that -- I also believe that Iran would like to exert additional influence in the region. A theocracy would like to spread its influence using surrogates.

And so I'm as determined as ever to continue fostering a foreign policy based upon liberty. And I think it's going to work, unless we lose our nerve and quit. And this government isn't going to quit.

<h3>Q I asked you about the loss of American influence in the region......</h3>

You can watch the 90 second video of the above "exchange", here:
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Bus...ir-7-28-06.wmv

IMO, 30 percent of the world's petroleum is supplied by the M.E. region. The region is currently descending into escalating violence/chaos, and the U.S., formerly looked at and listened to as the diplomatic arbiter that could subdue violent exchanges between the regional "players" and get the parties talking to each other, instead of shooting, has lost both the will and the ability to lower tensions, or be respected as a fair and trustworthy arbiter by anyone, except the Israelis.

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...072701537.html
3,700 Troops' Stay In Iraq Is Extended

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 28, 2006; Page A21

......President Bush this week said that additional troops were needed to fight the "terrible" violence that has erupted in Iraq...

...The move will temporarily push U.S. troop levels in Iraq above 130,000 for at least the next few months and decreases the chances that the United States will be able to significantly reduce the number of forces in Iraq by the end of the year.....

The increased chaos and the loss of U.S. influence in containing it, will support an uncertainty premium on petroleum prices, at minimum, and possibly interrupt supply. In addition to the higher costs of petroleum:

Quote:

http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstrac...no=GAO-06-885T
Global War on Terrorism: Observations on Funding, Costs, and Future Commitments, GAO-06-885T, July 18, 2006

The U.S. has reported substantial costs to date for GWOT related activities and can expect to incur significant costs for an unspecified time in the future, requiring decision makers to consider difficult trade-offs as the nation faces increasing long-range fiscal challenges....

.....Since 2001, Congress has appropriated about $430 billion to DOD and other government agencies for military and diplomatic efforts in support of GWOT. This funding has been provided through regular appropriations as well as supplemental appropriations, which are provided outside of the normal budget process........

So far, I wonder what the folks who backed the invasion of Iraq, the "reality" of Iraqi WMD, the GWOT, and the Bush encouraged, at least since 2003;total support for anything Israel decides to do, diplomatically and militarily, regarding it's neighbors, have assessed correctly.

None of these policies.....WMD or Democratization "justified" invasion and occupation of Iraq, or the 2002 shift in focus and military presence from Afghanistan to Iraq, or the unequivocal U.S. support for Israel, have been in the national interest of the U.S. Time is beginning to reveal both the costs and the "results" of these M.E./GWOT policies.

IMO, David Gregory asked a simple question to Mr. Bush, on behalf of all of us.......

dlish · 07-30-2006, 03:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mobo123

My point is simply this: Survival. Period. End of story. Israel is surrounded by a sea of enemies. Thankfully, they have peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. As cruel as it seems and IS, Israel will do what they feel they must to survive in a world that wishes Israel doesnt exist.

ok..israel a right to do what they MUST..not what they 'feel'. and what they 'must' do has to be within the confines of international law. the indiscriminate levelling of buildings and killing of innocent civilians only furthers the hatred against israel by those that may have been neutral. it is only natural that those that the IDF kills become sworn enemies of the state

and since we are sticking to current facts, remember, Israel didnt start this conflict. There wouldnt be a war had Hezbollah not kidnapped those soldiers, whom they still havent repatriated.

there have been kidnappings left right and centre on both sides. lets not kid ourselves eh? there are plenty of hisbollah leaders in israeli jails that have been taken by israel in military oprations from within lebanese borders, and the same can be said about hizbollah taking israeli prisoners. so to say that this is all about two soldiers is utter crap. had these two soldiers been killed with the rest of the convoy they were with, there would have been little retribution the likes of what we have seen lately.

Israel is going anywhere, and that's what drives the extremists crazy. The average arab person just wants to live, feed their kids and lead a normal life. But, as i said before, they have let their countries be hijacked by these 'organisations' that seek to destroy not just Israel but their own country. When, by god, or Allah, will they realise that?

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.

If you could think of a way to negotiate a lasting and REAL peace between Israel and all it's neighbors, including that maniac in Iran, I will personally nominate you for the Nobel Peace Prize.

ill hold you to it...

On a side note, you, being muslim and me, jewish, both must laugh at these christian fundamentalists who support Israel to the end of the world. Does anybody actually believe fundamentalist christians give a damm about the jews? Not for a second. Their rationale is that by keeping the jews in charge of Jerusalem, Muslims wont come in and bar Christians from visiting the birthplace of jesus. F.C's are scared to death that if Muslims take over control of Jersulem, they will stand by their pledge that ONLY muslims will be allowed in. That's the sole and only reason F.C's support Israel. It's certainly not out of love or care for the jews.

i agree with you there, but the FC's have a lot of motives. i wish it was only for that reason. the USA was the first country to recognise israel and has done so through countless UN resolutions which it vehemently vetos time and time again. actually, i dont laugh though.. i yearn the day that america stands up for justice (regardless of which side) and not just for its allies. cos only that day will it earn the respect of the rest of the world, including all muslim and arab nations.

My opinion? Lebanon is a total clusterfuck.

The christians hate the muslims, the muslims hate the christians and everybody hates the jews.

clusterfuck..isnt that abayas word??? hehe.. i'd have to disagree iwth you there also. though there are areas that are exclusively muslim and others that are exclusively christian in lebanon, the level of hatred that you speak of hasnt been seen since the days of the civil war. war does strange things to ppl. i have been there and did not see this hatred. sure, there would be extremist elements, but the general population just wants to get by. living here in australia i have many lebanese muslim and lebanese christian friends. there is no hatred, nor anomosity . maybe its cos we are so far away.. maybe your lebanese christian forum poster has just been headfucked by the civil war....

]

p.s. need i send you my details for the nobel prize?

07-20-2006, 03:58 PM	#201 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	picking up from nirvana's post: there is a wide range of political opinion in israel--i know that there are many israelis who oppose the position like those you read above, which fall somewhere between likud and those tiny extremist rightwing parties whose politics are explicitly racist---hell, the range of people that i know personally encompasses a great diversity of positions about the ways in whih the israel government chooses to act---many many people are very distressed about the decision to destroy lebanon, even as "collateral damage" for a more focussed campaign--this distress cuts across usual political divisions. what i find remarkable is that out there in 3-d land, there is a far greater range of positions, even amongst people who in general support israel's action in lebanon, than you see amongst those who choose to support it here. and far more ambivalence. but no matter--it makes no sense to assume that israel is of one mind, any more than it makes sense to assume any other complex society is of one mind, on this or anything else. to impute a single motive to all israelis is idiotic. for example: not all israelis support the state's brutalization of the palestinians. not all israelis support the wall. not all israels support the state's efforts to destroy the pa in order to prevent hamas from assuming power--hamas was moderating and everyone knows it--perhaps it was easier for the state to maintain the old hamas. not all israelis support the military repression in gaza. not all israelis have forgotten about gaza. not all israelis function with a disconnect when it comes to thinking about the obvious empirical connections between idf actions in gaza and the present conflict with hebollah/destruction of lebanon. not all israelis support the olmert government. not all israelis never ask themselves about the connection between this carnage in lebanon and the weak status of the olmert government. nto all israelis simply repeat the official state arguments for the destruction of lebanon/conflict with hezbollah. not all israelis assume that all arabs are terrorists. not all israelis are mystified about the connection between routine brutalization and radical politics. not all israelis do not understand that much of the trouble israelis have with their neighbors they bring down on themselves through the brutality of measures taken to "prevent" such trouble. it seems to me that most who support israel's actions and who post in this space operate with a discourse that is particular to the right in israel--but here they present it like it is the only way to speak about israel, the only way to understand this conflict. because, for whatever reason, the political spectrum reproduced in the united states from israel is to pitifully narrow. how is that? that only one of a whole range of political positions within israel about the conflict going on now is ever represented in this space? what imagines folk to assume that by parroting a rightwing view of israeli actions that they speak for or even coherently on behalf of israel? where did this presumption come from? it is unbelievable. and it is really tiresome. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

07-20-2006, 05:30 PM	#206 (permalink)
Nirvana Crazy	i apologize for my sarcasm as well. thats pretty much what i wan't for the middle east. i just wan't those people who genuinelly want peace and not the destruction of each other to finally get it. both sides and all of the "side players" need fresh mind because unfrotunately, all that these people see daily is death and destruction. Last edited by Nirvana; 07-20-2006 at 05:33 PM..

07-20-2006, 05:45 PM	#208 (permalink)
Nirvana Crazy	i don't think either one of us or anyone here for that matter wants innocent people to be killed. i've always thought that is both sides were to just agree to at least a 6 month non-violence period to show that they are series, maybe to a certain degree that would lower some supiciopns of both populations and bring talks forward. however, i just dont think its going to go any farther until that violence does stop and both sides loudly and boldly say "we support your right to exist" and really mean it. if something to that effect ever happens, we'll just have to wait and see. also im starting to feel this thread has moved away the whole lebanon-israel thing but thats ok, threads grow and evolve into even more interestig discussion, Last edited by Nirvana; 07-20-2006 at 05:46 PM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost

07-20-2006, 06:00 PM	#209 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	Now if only Hezbollah and Israel could kiss and make up like you two... /me wipes away a tear. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

07-21-2006, 10:36 AM	#214 (permalink)
Nirvana Crazy	i agree with stevo that there are groups out there that want nothing short than the destruction of israel. let's say that there was peace tomorrow. i have strong doubt that these groups will stop their assault. because for these groups, their is the idea of a middle east with sharia law (hezbollah wanted that for lebanon) and they thrive on pan-arab, pan-islamist (notice i didn't say pan-islam) ideology. i am postive these people won't rest until the area is no longer "infested" with jews. Last edited by Nirvana; 07-21-2006 at 10:40 AM..

07-20-2006, 04:44 PM	#202 (permalink)
Nirvana Crazy	willravel, if my memory serves me right olmert ran on the campaign of pulling out of the west bank. i might be wrong so if i am , anyone please correct me. i find it funny that you find anyone labeling the people of lebanon as supporters of hezbollah wrong and immoral (which it is) but you have no problem using such a blanket generalization for those "gun toting, bulldozing" israelis, eh? hezbollah, a shiite radical group, is actually made up of 15% of the entire lebanese population (they are shiites. also hezbollah makes up about half of the entire shiite population of lebanon) with supporters scattered around the country. clearly that is not the majority of the population. the same thing applies to israelis. the most radical who claim relgious property of the land, etc only constitute about 12% of the population. that 12% is "ultra conservative" and in my opinion is just as messed up as any other group of people with fundamental religious beliefs. about half of the population defines itself as "secular." these are the people that I was around and generally, these people are in agreement. they wanna raise their children, work, and live in peace. maybe they were just hiding their bulldozers, though.

07-20-2006, 05:04 PM	#204 (permalink)
Nirvana Crazy	lol well by the tone of my post, it's safe to assume that's not the way i took it. no harm, no foul.

07-20-2006, 05:38 PM	#207 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	It's good to know that we both want the same thing...now if only we can agree on how to get there....

07-20-2006, 06:18 PM	#211 (permalink)
Nirvana Crazy	The outside support will never stop, like you said, until all the oil is gone. but then there will be other problems such is floundering economies because a lot of those economies depend on their oil exports. who knows what additional problems that will bring. to a certain degree though, i have a feeling that if foreign support does disappear, the violence won't end. i feel like it will escalate fast into somehting big. to a certain degree, while foreign support causes a shitload of problems, it does prevent others. on a side-note, i saw a discussion i saw on pbs mentioned that the middle east is ready for democracy, but the outside world needs to allow fundamentalist pan-islamist groups to take power first and wait until the population can eventually overthrow them due to a desire for refrom. i think that reform will be what eventually gets rid of a lot of these extremist ideologies as well. however in the current climate of the middle-east, i don't think anyone has the patience to allow these groups to take place. who knows though, we have a whole lifetime ahead of us to see what happens.

07-22-2006, 10:48 PM	#216 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	thought id keep you updated. my wife was meant to leave on sunday on a ship organised by the australian government to cyprus or turkey. this was the last ive heard from her. she is up north in tripoli, so she is relatively safe i think. however, i got an sms from a friend telling me she will be going through the border to damascus now. no idea why yet as ive been anable to contact her for the last 2 days. apparently israel bombed telecommunications towers in nth lebanon. no mobile phone network whatsoever now. i have no landline number for her. ive contacted the australian embassy, and they cannot help me. ..and they keep telling me its all about hezbollah? this is collective punishment! there is no hezbollah in nth lebanon, and this is totally unjustified. ..oh thats right..hezbollah uses mobile phones, so its ok to bomb the telecommunications towers...reminicent of how alqaeda justifies its attacks on innocent civilians.. ktspktsp ..how is your family???? __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

07-23-2006, 12:49 PM	#217 (permalink)
AVoiceOfReason Psycho Location: Greenwood, Arkansas	Ok, I've just scanned six pages of notes here, and have neither the time nor inclination to cut and paste, nor to make sure I'm not repeating some things. Let me try to bulletpoint this situation: 1. Why is there a current armed conflict? Isn't it because Hezbollah (and Hamas) grabbed some Israeli soldiers and had been firing rockets into Israel? 2. Why is Hezbollah allowed to set up shop in Southern Lebanon? If the Lebanese goverment don't want them there, then aiding Israel in rooting them out would be the proper course of action; if they want them to stay, then they have sided with the enemy of Israel. There is no middle ground, no area of grey on this point. Destruction of the Lebanese infastructure is a means to the end of the elimination of Hezbollah. 3. A cease-fire demand by anyone that doesn't carry with it clear and unambiguous penalties for violation is worthless. 4. If the accounts of Hezbollah refusing to allow civilians to flee is correct (and I'm not sure where I read/heard it), then the deaths of said civilians is not on the heads of Israel. Those that use human shields are the ones responsible for said shields. 5. While I'm thinking of it, aren't Hezbollah members also "civilians?" They aren't a military force in uniform, fighting under the banner of a country. Are those "civilian death" totals we're getting counting those folks (and their family members)? 6. If Israel has fired missiles indiscriminately into Lebanon (that is, with no military or stategic target), then it is proper to make a moral comparison with Hezbollah's firing of rockets into Israeli cities. I'm not aware of such, but it may be that it's happened and I just don't know about it. __________________ AVOR A Voice Of Reason, not necessarily the ONLY one.

07-24-2006, 05:46 PM	#221 (permalink)
ktspktsp Addict Location: Reykjavik, Iceland	dlishsguy, Thank you for asking about my family. They're still in Lebanon (I don't think they'll be leaving anytime soon). They're still in safe areas and I can still call them everyday (I can't reach them on their cell phones but the landlines still work) so I'm grateful for that. Did your wife make it to Syria? I hope she's safe now. Seaver: The general content of your post is correct, but I thought I'd rectify some incorrect details: The census was in 1932. The parliament is now evenly divided between Christians and Muslims, and generally so is the Gov't. The ratio of Christians to Muslims in the parliament used to be 6 to 5, but it was changed to 1-1 after the war. Druze make up more than 2% of the population (5 maybe?). Both Christians (Maronite and others) and Sunni Muslims tend to be more politically opposed to Hezbollah, which is a Shia militia. And yeah, the war just ended one day. General amnesty for everybody. The warlords of yesterday are the political leaders of today :P. Last edited by ktspktsp; 07-24-2006 at 06:04 PM..

07-24-2006, 07:30 PM	#222 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	Thanks for the clearification Kts, I mistook the 1919 Census... the 1919 was Eygyptian. My fault... after reading through 8 different countries Census'.. well... they start to blend together. Lets just put it this way, if you ever have the bright idea of forming a large research paper supported by a populations' employment by what religion they adhear to... dont. It's a LONG process.. and you wont find many professors who'll translate the arabic required. And as far as the Druze go, do 3% really matter? They're very much a minor minority. While their militias fought (arguably) more fiercely than any other, their size was a primary limiting factor. However they are extremely minor in comparison to the Marionite-Muslim factions. And I never read anything about the 1-1 changes. Maybe I was simply relying on sources which were too old.

07-26-2006, 01:36 PM	#224 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...23714384920696 this is a good 1 hr 10 minute documentary that focusses on american media coverage of the israeli/palestinian conflict, and that offers the outline of an actual explanation for the appallingly one-sided view of this horrific conflict that is presented day in day out to televiewers of america. it is well worth the time to watch. it also explains how and why folk on either side of debate about israel's massacre of civilians in lebanon differ from each other--fundamentally different information. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

07-26-2006, 06:49 PM	#227 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	I'm glad Bob Dylan was able to chime in on this. Maybe I should ask this: since the creation of the Israeli state after WWII, how many Israelis have died? And how many arabs have died? Now put thatr on a giant, depressing scale. I'm normally not a fan of moral equasions, but this one's a doozy.

07-26-2006, 07:20 PM	#228 (permalink)
Nirvana Crazy	willravel, you yourself have said that human life is important and precious, no matter what nationality that life is. what's the point of weighing the death tolls on scales if that's the case?

07-28-2006, 08:23 PM	#231 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	just to let u guys know, my wife safely made it to damascus early friday morning and caught a flight to dubai the same day where she is currently staying for a few days. i'd like to thank those who gave me support and had my family in their prayers. even though my wife and in laws are safe, my heart still bleeds for Lebanon. And honestly, it bleeds for Nth Israel too. it bleeds for any form on injustice against any people regardless of race, colour, religion or creed. now for the remaining 11 family members still stuck there... __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

07-28-2006, 09:18 PM	#232 (permalink)
Mobo123 Insane	I find it fascinating that peeps here quote from israeli newspapers, which run editorials and articles against the war. Doesnt everybody wish the Arab countries would allow the same freedoms to any arab newspaper free from censorship? Hey, what do you know, there is no such thing. Every arabic outlet I've read espouses hatred, injustice and vengeance against Israel and 'The West". Does anybody really believe that that is what the individual arab person feels? I can only imagine that the individuals suffer because they have allowed their governments to be hijacked by (and i hate to use these terms because they are so broad) radicals, fundamentalist Islamists, who only care about killing and hate. "There will be peace only when the Arabs start to love their children more than they hate the jews". Israel is the only democracy surrounded by a sea of unilateral, fundamentalist Islamists/Monarchists. Does anybody dispute this statement? Does anybody actually believe Israel WANTS to be at war???? That they want their sons and daughters to die in war??? If you do, you need psychological help and quickly. I'm jewish and i have two teenage boys. If we lived in Israel, the oldest would be in the IDF right now. What parent wants their child to die for something as stupid as this? Every day when I hear more young Israelis and arabs are getting killed, I die a little bit myself. I cant belive that arabic parents dont feel the same way. Respect each other, leave each other alone, (mlitarilarly at least) and be done with it. Forgot to mention one truly ironic and tragic fact. Iran, the primary backer of Hizbollah and all these other arabic 'radical' groups, are NOT EVEN ARABIC. They are persian/aryan. Where are all the arabs helping broker some type of peace, or try to help Lebanon and Syria rid their countries of terrorist groups? Complete Silence. Very sad. Last edited by Mobo123; 07-28-2006 at 09:54 PM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost

07-29-2006, 07:37 AM	#233 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	mobo: you should watch this film for starters: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...23714384920696 then maybe we could start to have a conversation about this massacre in lebanon. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

07-29-2006, 09:30 AM	#234 (permalink)
Mobo123 Insane	roachboy, i must ask. Are you jewish? Because if you arent, you dont, and absolutely cannot, understand how jews feel about war and how important Israel's survival is to the deepest part of the soul of every single jew. I watched the video. Interesting. I found it upsetting to witness the misery the lebanese are going through. I also agree that two wrongs dont make a right. However, all the videos in the world cannot describe and understand the jewish psyche and what it is to be jewish. Unless you are one, you can never understand what it feels like and what it is to be jewish to understand how jews truly believe that war is truly abhorrent. Dont you believe that the killing of civilians is a sin and a crime? I agree it is. However, when these groups hide among the civilians, what choice is there but to go where the militants and the arms caches are? Hezbollah is an extremely cynical and hypocritical group. They claim Israel is purposely murdering innocents. Israel has dropped thousands and thousands of leaflets begging the innocents to leave. Unfortunately, there is no place for these people to go. Jews also know, implicitly, that the entire world hates the jews. Just look through history. From the inquisition in spain, to the pogroms throughout Europe, to the holocaust, the 1948 fight for independance, the six day war, etc etc etc. We know that and accept that. Why do you think Israel ignores the UN? Every single resolution that is submitted re" the middle east condemms Israel. So what else is new? But most important, non-jews can never understand how important it is to be jewish and live free, free in our own country, free from attacks, free from being kicked around, free from pogroms, from being persecuted, murdered and massacred for 5,000 years. Israel, just like the US, will lash out like the most violent beast there is to protect it's very survival. and that's what this is about. Survival. It's not about conquest, lebensraum or any other political bullshit term. It's survival. Period. The arabs dont give a shit about their own people. If they did, their 'army's' woudnt hide among women and children for their own protection. I dont believe that you can ever fully appreciate that. No criticism of you. It's just that you've never lost family in the holocaust. I have. My entire family consists on one cousin living in Tel Aviv plus my parents and one brother. That's it. Everybody else was murdered in the camps. A very cruel irony of this fact is that when i went for my physical exam. My doctor asked questions about family history (diabetes, etc etc). So I asked my mother. She said she didnt know because none of our family lived long enough to develop any of those diseases. Once you understand that, then maybe, you could understand why Israel is doing what it is doing. Last, the final tradegy is that there will be no winners after this episode winds down. The arabs will continue to hate the jews as fierce as ever. The world will continue to despise Israel despite whatever false words they utter in support of Israel. Did you happen to catch the german PM, Merkel, come out in support of Israel? That made me laugh because at the same time, a neo-nazi group in Bavaria is parading around, supporting the arabs while claiming that Israel is the new hitler. That was amusing in a very sick sense. So, this war will solve nothing, will prove nothing and will benefit nobody. It's a total clusterfuck. Last edited by Mobo123; 07-29-2006 at 10:05 AM..

07-29-2006, 02:00 PM	#236 (permalink)
Nirvana Crazy	willravel, all I said was that life, whether it is one or one million, is important. so what is the point of weighing death tolls on imaginary scales if even one life is important. the rest of the post seems irrelevant.

07-29-2006, 06:11 PM	#237 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	mobo... what happened to the jews is no excuse to what they are doing in lebanon. i feel that your post was there only to make us feel sorry for the past victimisation ofthe jews and how they deserve better and how they are 'hated by the rest of the world'. this is exactly what this whole conflict is about, trying to gain sympathy from the worlds media about who is the biggest victim in this whole thing. it happens in the jewish and arab media. period. you are just doing the same withouty being subjective. i could tell you that as a lebanese muslim how we went through hell in the civil war, how muslims have been treated unfairly all over the world..but i dont. lets just stick to the current facts, cos what hitler did 60 years ago is irrelevant in what is happening now. the only connection now is that the victim has become the oppressor. oh yeah...just for your info..the spanish inquisition was targeted at jewish AND muslims there. lets not forget that the moors were driven from spain by queen isabella, in which the jews and muslims lived in relative harmony in a golden age of knowledge for both. so lets not victimise the jews. one other thing... there is no 'army' fighting the jews (or hiding in civilian areas). just a bunch of rag tag hezbollah fighters. the lebanese army has reletively stayed on the sidelines in the conflict so far. __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

07-29-2006, 11:13 PM	#238 (permalink)
Mobo123 Insane	dlishsguy, i agree with you on the certain facts you raised. The inquisition was indeed persecuted aganst ANY non-catholic religion. That obviously includes muslims. I cant even speculate how many muslims were burned at the stake because they refused to renounce their solemm right to practice their religion of their own choosing. But regarding my statement: My point is not to simply re-hash history and make people feel sorry for the jews. First and last, nobody is ever going to feel sorry for the jews. The German PM's word's carry as much weight as a fart in the wind. (sorry for the crude analogy). I obviously missed that which you read, which stated that Israel has the right to run roughshod through Lebanon because of the horrible historical treatment of the jews. My point is simply this: Survival. Period. End of story. Israel is surrounded by a sea of enemies. Thankfully, they have peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. As cruel as it seems and IS, Israel will do what they feel they must to survive in a world that wishes Israel doesnt exist. and since we are sticking to current facts, remember, Israel didnt start this conflict. There wouldnt be a war had Hezbollah not kidnapped those soldiers, whom they still havent repatriated. Had the soldiers not have been kidnapped, Israel would just be going through their normal daily routines. There would be an occasional rocket or three every day fired into Israel, just like every single country on this planet expects to happen daily in their own country; There would continue to be suicide bombers in pizza parlors and bars, shreddng and killing innocent civilians, just like every single country in the world expects to happen in their own country and so forth and so forth. My point is that Israel isnt just a regular, everyday country. It is, for lack of a different or more apt term, chosento suffer these atrocities. and why? 5000 years of hatred, jealousy, extremism, sectarianisms, fundamentalism, and 'ism' after 'ism' you can think of. Israel is going *anywhere, and that's what drives the extremists crazy. The average arab person just wants to live, feed their kids and lead a normal life. But, as i said before, they have let their countries be hijacked by these 'organisations' that seek to destroy not just Israel but their own country. When, by god, or Allah, will they realise that? If you could think of a way to negotiate a lasting and REAL* peace between Israel and all it's neighbors, including that maniac in Iran, I will personally nominate you for the Nobel Peace Prize. On a side note, you, being muslim and me, jewish, both must laugh at these christian fundamentalists who support Israel to the end of the world. Does anybody actually believe fundamentalist christians give a damm about the jews? Not for a second. Their rationale is that by keeping the jews in charge of Jerusalem, Muslims wont come in and bar Christians from visiting the birthplace of jesus. F.C's are scared to death that if Muslims take over control of Jersulem, they will stand by their pledge that ONLY muslims will be allowed in. That's the sole and only reason F.C's support Israel. It's certainly not out of love or care for the jews. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX This is a post I found from a member of a different board I am part of. He is lebanese christian and has an interesting perspective. I wont try to correct his english because he makes his points perfectly. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ok lemme try to break this down to you.. because noone here really knows whats going on in lebanon cause non of u lived or live their... well at least non that are speaking so.. anyway, lebanon IS capable of taking out hizballah.sure, hizbalah are very strong now, just as they were 20 years ago. now, what i mean by are capable is this Lebanon has its own militias. Many of them, but there is only 1 extremely powerful militia. its called the uwait. i was part of the uwait 20 years ago, and we faught against hizbllah and themuslim population to keep our country. the uwait is extremely strong, it consists of 32 groups of 150-250 men. All of us who are in the uwait.. some call it mgaweer are skilled with almost every weapon, and we get our weapons from america now 20 years ago we had to fight of the muslim population and we suceeded, we ended the war pretty much, driving them to the south and west.. Now we can do it again, the uwait is still a very strong militia, but its all behind the lebanese president, and other people in power. See they dont want to fight off hizballah, they are the only reason that they are in power and they want to stay that way.. they are also scared for their life, because if they give the militia the go, yhe will be killed so the bottom line is.. lebanon is capable of getting hizballah out, but dont want them out........ at least the people in power XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX He also said this about the relationship between the lebanese christians and muslims: --------------------------------------------------------------------- yes they have hated each other... heck the land is split into sections for eample, if any christian was to go to dahye he would be killed. and if any muslim would go to deir el qamar he would also be killed.. but most other parts muslims and chrisitan leave together peacfully, like in beirut. most arab muslims and chrisitians have always hated each other, and always will, but that doesnt mean the whole country should suffer for hizballah mistake.. My opinion? Lebanon is a total clusterfuck. The christians hate the muslims, the muslims hate the christians and everybody hates the jews. Last edited by Mobo123; 07-30-2006 at 12:19 AM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost