This Isael thing really angers me because of the hyprocrisy involved. If Al Queda had offices in Mexico City or Ottawa and Osama'em were lauching rocket attacks from inside the Canadian or Mexican borders to say Nigara Falls, Detroit (wait Detriot is already bombed out) Seattle, San Diego, or Brownsville, TX. Those to capitals would've had the 101st Airbourne running through their streets. To say that the Israelis are wrong, harsh, or being overly aggressive is nothing more than raw anti-semetism. No other country in the world has to live like that, nor would it's population tolerate, so why do the Israelis constantly have to put up with this bullsh*t?

That's easy ..... anti-Semitism. Not the virulent kind that fueled the Nazi savages or the more genteel kind that kept Jews out of the Ivy League for generations. It's a relatively new strain that blames the Israelis for the problems in the Middle East as if the Arabs were completely innocent and the West had had no role in creating Israel and dispossessing the Palestinians. The really fascinating consequence of all this is how it has been driving Jewish-Americans into the Republican Party as the Democrats - especially those on the Left - continue to villify Israel. I think that American Jews are as patriotic as any other group of Americans but, having gone through the Holocaust, they will "never again" be without a place they can go when their own countries turn on them.

By the way, I'm an occassional Catholic.

I always was kind of neutral on this. I believe everybody as some wrongs and some rights in this conflict. Both Israelis and Palestinians have done condemnable things. And both have rightful and wrongful claims on the land they are fighting over.
However, with the election of the Hammas government and it's radical anti-Israeli stance, and the renewed terrorist attacks of the Hesbollah, I have to admit that the Israeli are justified to attack as they have.
Will it have the desired effect ? That is another story. Too early to tell in my opinion...
The "kidnapped soldier" pretext to unleash hell, however, is probably what gives the impression of a disproportionate reaction and is possibly the "weakest link" of the strategy.
I'm not totally sure about the anti-semitisn thing though (in the sense that it doesn't explain everything). Maybe there is also a sort of "rooting for the underdog" effect that as helped the Palestinians' international image to the detriment of the Israelis for the past 25 years.
I feel that is over.

Anti-Semitism is one cause - and an important one - however, there is also blatant moral equivocation taking place that sees the Palestinian / Muslim terrorism as a legitimate and rational response to Israeli "aggression."

I am a Jew, but an American Jew who has no problem in criticizing Israel when it does something wrong. That said, it's important to remember what Israel is and its neighbors are not. Israel is a bulwark of civilization in a land of dictatorships and basketcase failed states. To say that a government run by Hamas - an organization that routinely employees teenage schoolgirls with cemtex vests to do its dirty work - is on equal moral footing is absurd.

(We're talking about the same Hamas and PA that went into Gaza after it was surrendered to them and dismantled the irrigation pipes so they could use them to build wildly innacurate and ineffective rockets.)

It's fascinating to me that even the Arab governments are turning their backs - in public, anyway - on Hizbullah and Hamas. They'd rather at least lend tacit approval to the actions of Jews and Crusaders than appear to be allies of the region's greatest threats, Syria and Iran.

As to turning Jews into Republicans, I think that's a very astute observation. My dearest friend is a Jewish lesbian who lives in Brooklyn. In the history of her family, not one person has ever voted for a Republican even for the office of dogcatcher. In 2004 she voted for Bush over Kerry because she believed Kerry would abandon Iraq and abandon Israel. In Israel, they see no contradiction between being a lefty and being a hawk. That's purely an aberration of American and European politics.

Extremely illuminating. Very interesting, intelligent and pertinent argumentation.
(Also, I realize I am using the French spelling for Hizbullah and Hamas, sorry for that).

Israel is definitely entitled to fight back. But in my opinion, they are doing so recklessly and could possibly make things even worse for themselves by making even more civilians (which are suffering the brunt of the operations) align to the terrorist cause. It's too sensitive an issue to just go bombing the hell out of everything in sight, there's something about the whole process that makes me seem like they don't care about possible consequences.

I'm actually more concerned with the global repercussions of this conflict than the Iraq war.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: El Mamerro,

I hear what you are saying, and I partly agree. My heart goes to the innocent victims (on both sides though). True, the human aspect is extremely volatile.
But it seems the situation had gotten so intolerable that something had to be done. Something big !
Whichever way it sways, it is bringing a whole new dynamic to the events in the region and will have an important impact.
Let us just hope Einstein was not right when he said : 'Every step appears to be
the unavoidable consequence of the preceding one, and in the end there beckons more and more clearly general annihilation'
Because if he was right, we just took a big step right there.

I'm not just saying that in terms of the human aspect, I mean, yeah that's terrible, but I'm even more worried for Israel itself. It seems more and more the casualties lean heavier on the civilian side instead of militants and that's just not good for A) getting the Lebanese people to understand what Israel is trying to do and maybe help bringing down Hezbollah, and B) obtain support from other countries.

Terrorism and acts of provocation are in part designed specifically for that, to elicit a response so passionate and unrestrained that the collateral damage will round up even more moral support from those who were unwilling to agree with the militants before. I want to se Israel eliminate Hezbollah without planting seeds for the next generation of militants. That kid whose family got killed by a haphazardly guided bomb is going to be harboring a lot of hate down the line. Now I understand that these things are sometimes inevitable, our own war in Iraq has seen several instances of these, but overall they truly are accidents. The way Israel is piling up the civilian casualties doesn't seem very accidental, but rather matter-of-fact. I just can't fully stand behind that line of thought.

Me neither, and I truly would have hoped that they would have found some other solution. There was already enough hate in the region to go around for many generations.
But that is the road they chose... And it will bring change, for better or worse.

Israel should fight back. No question about it. We have to put ourselves in their shoes.

I certainly understand the need to minimize civilian casualties. But let's remember three things. 1) It's the civilian casualties that get reported. No one is showing the (probably) scores, if not hundreds, of dead Hizbullah militants. 2) Hizbullah, Hamas, et al purposely hide among the civilian population in order to stay Israel's hand in retaliation and generate precisely the sort of civilian casualties that make good photo ops on the front page of the New York Times, Le Figaro, etc. 3) Israel, like the U.S., takes great pains to minimize civilian casualties. They are not bombing indiscriminately. Rather, the targets are carefully chosen based on real intel. Let's just hope the intel is right.

What's striking about this conflict is that it's enormously clarifying. It's as if Israel wants to remind the Arab world that it's capable of more than mincing diplomacy and more three-party negotiations. Further, even the Arab world and the Lebanese in particular seem to understand that blame for this lies at Hizbullah's door, not Israel's. While they may decry Israel's response as excessive and arrogant and cruel, they know that it was not Israel that broke the self-imposed stalemate.

There's a great blog - I think it's Lebanesebloggers.com - the writers of which, while they are certainly no friends of Israel, understand that Hisbullah has acted foolishly and are now responsible for the utter hell raining down on their country.

The Israelis are allowed to fight back.
I see it on all sorts of networks, websites & newspapers. Don't you?

The recent Israeli response to Hamas & Hezbollah attacks is one of many strategies attempted.

This strategy is one that states "You will pay heavily & immediately no matter where you hide"


As for the neighbourhood that the middle east is:

Some governments ignore, tolerate, tacitly approve or overtly support some paramilitary organizations.

Other governments outlaw, pursue, capture and eliminate paramilitary organizations on their territories.

My wife worked in the nonjudaic studies of a Jewish Orthodox school for seven years in the Chicago area. I myself have always been amazed on how Isreal has "turned the other cheek" in all the past aggressions against them. They seem to be a country that goes to great lenghts to avoid civilian casualties and even if they were going to start a military action they would warn whom ever they were about to attack.
I'm just surprised that they waited for so long until they unleashed their military on Palastine and even then I think they are using some control.

But then again this is just my opinion coming from a Luthern

quote:

Originally posted by Scottological:
It's the civilian casualties that get reported. No one is showing the (probably) scores, if not hundreds, of dead Hizbullah militants.

Not so.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...AR2006071800730.html

Two Hezbollah guerrillas.

They're both getting a pretty s#itty record, but you'd imagine that with the superior technology of Israeli weapons the ratio would differ greatly. I agree with you on everything else, though of course I'm still having doubts about Israel's efforts to minimize casualties.

I'm going to suggest that Israel is not asking for permission to fight. They didn't go to the UN or anyone else and ask to defend themselves.
And I don't think they need to. They have tried to solve issues with their neighboring enemies diplomatically. They've given up a lot of territory. And yet Hezbollah and Hamas still continue to press their luck. Personally, I don't think those two factions are looking for an amicable or peaceful resolution. They want Israel gone. It's really that simple.

What I find interesting is how this conflict has served to clearly define who is on what side and how. For me, I think that will help us to sell this war, which I think we're gonna have to do sooner or later.

Just to be clear, the article said that 227 are dead but did not specify how these 227 broke down between civilians and Hizbullah militants except to say that "among the dead" were two Hisbullah fighters and a host of army officers and foreigners.

Sadly, the civilian casualties seem to be mounting, and that's an unfortunate and tragic thing. One also suspects that many more have died in areas thoroughly controlled by Hizbullah to the south and in that fetid little mountainous pocket near Syria.

Bombs and missles are powerful things and the militants hide among civilians. Let's all hope this ends quickly but decisively.

Time for a hard-ass stance here. Let the civilians in Lebanon die. The civilians in Israel are subject to homocide-bombers all the time. If the general populace of Lebanon want to support Hezbollah, then let them die like Hezbollah. Simple as that. Show me one, just one, predominately Islamic nation that affords simple liberties and equal rights to all. Muslims as a whole want non-Muslims to be killed. You say no? Then why don't your "compassionate" and "understanding" populace rise up en masse and do away with these theocracies and monarchies? They lack the balls of the American founding fathers? I thought so. Let the heathens die. The time of supporting murderers without consequence should be at an end.

quote:

Originally posted by PFSGoldenEagle:
Time for a hard-ass stance here. Let the civilians in Lebanon die. The civilians in Israel are subject to homocide-bombers all the time. If the general populace of Lebanon want to support Hezbollah, then let them die like Hezbollah. Simple as that.

I get your drift. Your anger is understandable. However, 8 Canadians died in the bombings, and a host from non-Muslim countrys, and a lot of children too. I'm not sure they qualify as Hezbollah supporters.

quote:

Show me one, just one, predominately Islamic nation that affords simple liberties and equal rights to all.

Turkey as a strong tradition of secularism and democracy as state policy.

quote:

Muslims as a whole want non-Muslims to be killed.

That's like saying non-Muslims as a whole want Muslims to be killed. It is silly...

quote:

You say no? Then why don't your "compassionate" and "understanding" populace rise up en masse and do away with these theocracies and monarchies? They lack the balls of the American founding fathers? I thought so. Let the heathens die. The time of supporting murderers without consequence should be at an end.

That shows a slight lack of understanding of the history of Arab nations and Muslim civilization. A very complex question that has nothing to do with balls. You surely know Arabs had the knowledge of complex mathematics and astronomy while we where still wallowing in the mud and ignorance of the Dark Ages. You write in Arab yourself everytime you write down a number...

quote:

Originally posted by El Mamerro:
Terrorism and acts of provocation are in part designed specifically for that, to elicit a response so passionate and unrestrained that the collateral damage will round up even more moral support from those who were unwilling to agree with the militants before.

El Mamerro, Flashman, et. al.,

This could be read "Leftist acts of provocation are in part designed specifically for that, to elicit a response so passionate and unrestrained from conservatives that the collateral damage will round up even more moral support from those who were unwilling to agree with the leftists before."

By the way, this probably will be my last post on this website. I was making a point in the "play the music and shutup" thread, and as suspected, my post was held for "trigger words" until Admin could review them. Sounds like censorship to me, not free speech. Flashman, I will miss you the most. I have enjoyed sparring with you because you are a strong lefty and a da*mned good wordsmith.

Probably adios for me. I'm sure I will not pass the magazines "free speech" test.

FirstRecon

?

Not sure how exactly you reached that conclusion.