Is Israel in the Right?

[Guest]

How are we going to solve the problems in the Middle East when we can't even get this blasted thread to die?

Well quit posting to it!

 

[Friedrich N]

It's probably been said, but I don't have the energy to read through all the replies:

Do you call that a simple question?

Yes, it's a simple question. I'm not responsible for the complexity of the answer. Well, okay, I was responsible for the choice of answers, too, but not the complexity.

 

[Pure]

whatever the intention, the question didn't tend to generate light, only heat.

those who say 'right' seem to think 'end of discussion' and 'whatever happens to Lebanese is richly deserved.' the ole' US 'god on our side' syndrome.

whether the action genuinely contributes to the safety and longterm security of Israel and peace in the region is the main question.

for the US, the question should be, is Israel helping advance the US goal of making and keeping friends/allies in the Islamic world, weakening dictatorships and strengthening the moderate forces.

 

[cantdog]

What on earth makes you imagine that the US goal is making and keeping friends/allies in the Islamic world, weakening dictatorships and strengthening the moderate forces?

 

[Pure]

i should have added 'stated' US goals, or US goals [ftsoa].

however, even considering possibly true US goals: hegemony in the Middle East and a secure supply of oil in states governed by lackeys,

one might still fault the present policy. wouldn't you agree?

 

[cantdog]

Clearly Dr. Rice is not negotiating. Syria's plans to control Lebanon are in abeyance, but until the invasion and bombings, the Syria question had polarized Lebanese politics into a state of deadlock. Hizb'Allah is not negotiating. Israel isn't. Hamas is willing to, they say, but that's very easy to say, since Israel wouldn't give them a civil word on a bet. Israel is arming and training Kurds in northern Iraq, and we support that as well, destabilizing as it is, because we always support whatever Israel does without reflection. In Iraq we continue to cripple hospitals and raid mosques during services. In the UN we veto every constructive idea.

No, I'll concede I don't see a wise policy in the whole mess, whatever their goals are, any of them, unless all they want is more carnage, more resentment and hatred, or a chance to blood their troops. They are succeeding at those things. Officers are building their resumes and becoming promoted, too. Political parties are scoring points at home by appearing resolute. Maybe that's the most important thing?

 

[Liar]

Yes, it's a simple question. I'm not responsible for the complexity of the answer. Well, okay, I was responsible for the choice of answers, too, but not the complexity.

Short does not equal simple. And the most stringent answer to the question would be:

Yes. And at the same time no. But yes. And still; no. On the other hand yes. But no. Or yes. Or maybe...no. What was the question again?

 

[hunting_tiger]

No, I'll concede I don't see a wise policy in the whole mess, whatever their goals are, any of them, unless all they want is more carnage, more resentment and hatred, or a chance to blood their troops.

Couldn't the main reason be that Israel isn't interested in peace and harmony in the region.

Wouldn't Israel be more or less forced to go back to the old borderline that was valid before 1967 if Hamaz, Hizbollah and other groups were disarmed and all neighbours acknowledged Israels right to excist as a state ?

 

[cantdog]

Go hide again, Friedrich; you don't have a stake in this, you said.

John Bolton vetoed a U.N. resolution condemning the slaughter of four U.N. observers in the south. While so many Americans choose to continue their sleep-walk through history, the rest of the world gets what is going on. The United States will pay a political price for this, and the bill will be presented to my children and my grandchildren. That's my stake in this.

Tiger, I was trying to list some things I saw happening which were the result of the policies, to see if any of them were helpful to the countries involved. But you have a point. A negotiated, uncoerced settlement would likely set them back to the '67 borders. It would likely give the displaced and occupied rightful inhabitants of the region a state. They'd hate that.

 

[Pure]

how things are proceeding

as bush is al qaeda biggest asset, it appears ohlmert & co are hizbullah's

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0728/p06s01-wome.html

(even Lebanon's Christians now massively support hizbullah).

 

[cantdog]

A poll recently released by the Beirut Center for Research and Information.
87% of Lebanese support Hezbullah's fight with Israel.

Christians and Sunni Mulsims there, who in the past tended not to support Hezbollah in any way, now think that the Hezbollah resistance of Israeli aggression was completely legitimate.


The poll concludes that 80 percent of Christians supported Hezbollah, along with 80 percent of the Druze and 89 percent of the Sunnis.


The same poll found that 8 percent of Lebanese feel that the U.S. supports them.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

A poll recently released by the Beirut Center for Research and Information.
87% of Lebanese support Hezbullah's fight with Israel.

Christians and Sunni Mulsims there, who in the past tended not to support Hezbollah in any way, now think that the Hezbollah resistance of Israeli aggression was completely legitimate.


The poll concludes that 80 percent of Christians supported Hezbollah, along with 80 percent of the Druze and 89 percent of the Sunnis.


The same poll found that 8 percent of Lebanese feel that the U.S. supports them.

Gee, I wonder if they would be that supportive if they knew what led up to the Israeli incurrsion and attacks on the Hezbollah? Real nice to be able to take a poll of people who have been kept in the dark about what's going on prior to the incurrsion into their country.

Let's see how could the poll question have been stated.

The Israeli's have invaded Lebanon, they are killing Lebanese woman and children along with Hezbollah fighters, who are defending the defenseless Lebanese civilians, do you feel the Hezbollah are right to do that and do you support them in their cause?

In the dark Lebanoness civilian: Yes.

Any poll is dependant on the question asked and how it is stated. Polls mean what the poll taker wants them to mean.

 

[cloudy]

Gee, I wonder if they would be that supportive if they knew what led up to the Israeli incurrsion and attacks on the Hezbollah? Real nice to be able to take a poll of people who have been kept in the dark about what's going on prior to the incurrsion into their country.

Let's see how could the poll question have been stated.

The Israeli's have invaded Lebanon, they are killing Lebanese woman and children along with Hezbollah fighters, who are defending the defenseless Lebanese civilians, do you feel the Hezbollah are right to do that and do you support them in their cause?

In the dark Lebanoness civilian: Yes.

Any poll is dependant on the question asked and how it is stated. Polls mean what the poll taker wants them to mean.

And any source that doesn't agree with your agenda is false.

Ah, okay. Got it.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

And any source that doesn't agree with your agenda is false.

Ah, okay. Got it.

And anyones opinion that doesn't agree with yours is...now let me get this right here...an asshole, a bigot and doesn't know what he's talking about.

I got two words for you sister...fuck off!

 

[cloudy]

And anyones opinion that doesn't agree with yours is...now let me get this right here...an asshole, a bigot and doesn't know what he's talking about.

I got two words for you sister...fuck off!

No thank you, I have a man. But I appreciate the offer.

(you started it, hon....after making the comment you did, I don't see how you can still play like you're all offended when you get called a bigot)

 

[Zeb_Carter]

No thank you, I have a man. But I appreciate the offer.

(you started it, hon....after making the comment you did, I don't see how you can still play like you're all offended when you get called a bigot)

It takes one to know one. And how many men have you gone through to get where you are today?

 

[cloudy]

It takes one to know one. And how many men have you gone through to get where you are today?

you're reaching now, hon, and only making yourself look worse.

Keep it up.

 

[Guest]

you're reaching now, hon, and only making yourself look worse.

Keep it up.

Quit quoting him, darling. Please.

 

[cloudy]

Quit quoting him, darling. Please.

done.

(he's on ignore now anyway)

 

[Guest]

done.

(he's on ignore now anyway)

Laughing -

Well, he was for me, until you started quoting him!!!

 

[Zeb_Carter]

done.

(he's on ignore now anyway)

Thank god, I thought she would never leave!

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

This one's for Pure:

Charles Krauthammer

Hezbollah targets civilians, but Israel gets blame

W hat other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?

What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities -- every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians -- and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?

Hearing the world pass judgment on the Israel-Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral universe. With a few significant exceptions (the leadership of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and a very few others), the world -- governments, the media, U.N. bureaucrats -- has completely lost its moral bearings.

The word magically inverts victim into aggressor is "disproportionate," as in the universally decried "disproportionate Israeli response."

When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel "proportionate" attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a cinder, and turned the Japanese home islands to rubble and ruin.

Disproportionate? No. When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right -- legal and moral -- to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again.

Complaints show perversity

The perversity of today's international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides.

In perhaps the most blatant terror campaign from the air since the London blitz, Hezbollah is raining rockets on Israeli cities and villages. These rockets are packed with ball bearings that can penetrate automobiles and shred human flesh. They are meant to kill and maim. And they do.

But it is a dual campaign. Israeli innocents must die for Israel to be terrorized. But Lebanese innocents must also die for Israel to be demonized, which is why Hezbollah hides its fighters, its rockets, its launchers, its entire infrastructure among civilians. Creating human shields is a war crime.

On Wednesday, CNN cameras showed destruction in Tyre. What does Israel have against Tyre and its inhabitants? Nothing. But the long-range Hezbollah rockets that have been raining terror on Haifa are based in Tyre. What is Israel to do? Leave untouched the launch sites?

Israel's response to Hezbollah has been to use the most precise weaponry and targeting it can. It has no interest, no desire to kill Lebanese civilians. In the bitter fight against Hezbollah in south Lebanon, it has repeatedly dropped leaflets, issued warnings, sent messages by radio and even phone text to Lebanese villagers to evacuate so they would not be harmed.

Israel knows these warnings give the Hezbollah fighters time to escape and regroup. The advance notification as to where the next attack is coming has allowed Hezbollah to set up elaborate ambushes. The result? Unexpectedly high Israeli casualties. Israeli soldiers die so Lebanese civilians will not, and who does the international community condemn for disregarding civilian life?

Charles Krauthammer writes for the Washington Post.

 

[Pure]

to RA,

off the pulpit, back to the facts:

what is the goal of the Israeli military?

how well are the present actions getting Israel to that goal? facts, evidence.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

off the pulpit, back to the facts:

what is the goal of the Israeli military?

how well are the present actions getting Israel to that goal? facts, evidence.

Facts, evidence? If someone hits you in the face do you stop to think about your goals and the facts and evidence are? I don't, I hit back as hard as I can. If my opponent still insists on hitting me I continue hitting until he stops or can no longer hit me.

There in lies the goal: To stop them from hitting me!

 

[Pure]

i guess, if we're at sandbox analogies, they haven't stopped 'hitting'

given the present evidence, when do you expect this?

(btw if he's hitting your army which is in his country, does he have to stop that also?

when do you expect that?)