the problem with that is that hezbollah's military strength is stronger than the lebanese army, and hezbollah is also a significant partner (1/6 to 1/5 of the current seats in the parliament are held by hezbollah). so if siniora comes out strongly against hezbollah he risks the collapse of the fledgling democratic government in lebanon and likely then an all-out invasion by israel which would result in many more lebanese deaths. so for the stability of his position as well as the lives of many more innocents he can't do that.

Plenty hear have stated a desire to wipe out Iran by nukes. How is that any different?

They did warn the civilians to leave. I'm not sure taking out the infrastructure is the best move, either, but it's clear that Hezbollah is led from Syria and Iran, so physical and communication channels should be removed.

Yes, countries and territories come and go. It is ultimately irrelevant that the whole area, not just Israel, was Jewish before the Romans came in.

But Jews have maintained a continuous presence. They weren't always the majority, but they were there.

By the time the 1948 resolution took place, there were already 500,000 Jews living there.

They were willing to live with the Arabs in peace, but the rest of the Arab world asked those Arabs to leave while the extermination took place.

Why is it that it's acceptible (even desirable for a couple of people here - not you) that groups exist completely dedicated to the destruction of an entire race of people?

If countries and territories come and go, by your logic, then why is it not okay for the Jews to have their country recognized, even after 58 years? Or is it only okay if the Jews go, not if they come? There seems to be a double-standard in the international community when it comes to Jews.

Not only all out invasion by Isreal, but also Syria coming in to pick up the pieces, after it was kicked out last year. Don't believe for a SECOND that Hezbollah doesn't want a collapse of the Lebanese government. Siniora (and his party) is pro-US and anti-Syria, exactly the opposite of Hezbollah.

DaddyTorgo. Hey, thanks for the analysis. Not sure I agree that this excuses Siniora from not mentioning it but I can see his point of view.

yep. i should have mentioned that too.

It's not. ;)

You know, I'm not so sure the pigmentation of the average Lebanese is really that much darker than that of your average Israeli. I'm not sure why Noop feels like he has to play the brown person race card here, but it's totally irrelevant to the situation.

If anything, Noop ought to side with Israel here. They're clearly the minority in the region, and have suffered for their race in an equally, if not more, brutal manner, and more recently to boot.

But maybe it's just color blindness...

I forgot the [sarcasm] tags.

Just saw this, pertains to our discussion on Siniora.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13853565/

Pertinent text is

Trying to defuse the crisis, Lebanon’s prime minister indicated he might send his army to take control of southern Lebanon from Hezbollah guerrillas — a move that might risk civil war.

I am sorry if my post to Jon made you think I was talking about Israel. Believe race has nothing to do with my non-support of Israel's actions.

a civil war that the government would lose. the lebanese military does not have the capability to fight hezbollah, let alone the mindset necessary. hell, probably a good portion of the lebanese military either actively or tacitly supports hezbollah either physically or financially.

Yeah, I might be misuderstanding your meaning then.

May have been a little bit of a strong statement. As for nukes, I never want to see the day of nukes being used.

Personally, if it was proven that terrorists were bringing supplies into Iraq through Kuwaiti ports and the Kuwaiti government was unable or unwilling to hinder it, I would not see a problem with using force to stop it only if (a big if given our intel lately) we had intelligence to confirm it.

Hezbollah uses the highway, airport, and seaport to bring in supplies and weapons. The Israelis, which has the best intel group in the world, have intelligence to prove this. The Lebanonese military is either uncapable or unwilling to take control of those targets. To defeat an enemy, you have to cut off their "blood supply." Under the Geneva Convention, those are military targets.

You may disagree with the level of force being applied. You may even think that the retaliation was illegal. I don't have a problem with that. I don't like anymore than you do. However, the Jewish military is conducting their operations in accordance with international law.

The Israeli military, you mean? Israel is 16% muslim...

If they are citizens of the country, aren't they Israeli?

They are Israeli.

His quibble is that duckman called the IDF "the Jewish military." as opposed to "the Israeli military" or the "Israeli Defense Force."

Oh ok. Didn't catch that.

I agree that it was an escalation and I'm not really sure what Israel could do, other than what they're doing, to respond. Perhaps their response could have been more moderate, but I can see the tactical importance of shutting down the airport, sea ports, and roads. For one, it makes it more difficult to get the soldiers out of Lebanon and two, it makes it more difficult for Hezbollah to get reinforcements. Although with the obvious pre-planning that went into the kidnapping, I'd be surprised if the soldiers were still in Lebanon anyway.

So what happens now? Is the goal of all that oppose Israel to get them to leave? Or is it to actually kill every Israeli? What is Israel's goal? Is it to be recognized as a country and left alone to live in peace? If that's the case, then how can such two such polar opposite aims be reconciled?

I'm curious if anyone here has any great ideas on how to achieve peace?

As an odd trivial aside, here's a little tidbit that kind of relates to the semantic turn here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Arab
Arab citizens of Israel are Arabs who are citizens of the State of Israel. Israeli Arabs are full citizens of the State of Israel, with equal protection under the law, and full rights of due process ... The majority of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel are exempt from military service. ... in practice, only a small percentage of Israeli Arabs served in the military.

note: The phrases "Palestinian Arab citizens" and "Arab citizens of Israel" are used synonymously in the Wiki article

Interesting page. I clicked on the Arab-Israeli War. This was interesting on that page:

After the United Nations partitioned the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine into two states, Jewish and Arab, the Arabs refused to accept it and the armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq, supported by others, attacked the newly established State of Israel. It was the first in a series of open wars in the Arab-Israeli conflict. As a result, the region was divided between Israel, Egypt and Transjordan.


Of course, I went on to read about the Ottoman Empire through clicking on the British Mandate of Palestine. Very interesting overview on the Ottoman Empire (did not know much about it).

this movie was made in 1994 and the main enemy was Islamic Terrorists who wanted to create a jihad in america because we "kill their women and children, and rain fire from far away like cowards."

Way ahead of its time, I think.

Bah.


1985


1986

Chuck was kicking terrorist ass 20 years ago.

Lee Marvin looks like he'd rather be somewhere else.

HAHA SERIOUSLY!

You keep saying 'terrorists' 'terrorists' 'terrorists'. Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't this recent confrontation touched off by the kidnapping of uniformed Isreali soldiers? There's been a low scale war between Hezbollah and Isreal for 25 years. Every day they look at each other across the border and think of ways to kill each other.

Israel has a right to defend themselves. But that doesn't mean that they can't do it stupidly. Of course the Anti-Israeli forces are the aggressors, Israelis are the ones that have the territory being fought over. And you can't look at a 3-1 kill ratio and with a straight face make the claim that Israel has been turning the other cheeck. Both sides are filled with over the top rhetoric

Jesus, on FoxNews the host just said it was obvious that this is a proxy war between the US and Iran. Insanity.

"We must expel Arabs and take their places."
-- David Ben Gurion, 1937

"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population."
-- David Ben-Gurion, May 1948

"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!"
-- Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.

The noble Israelis had the same rhetoric back when they were driving out the Palestinians. Of course, now that they have what they want, they are just victims.

Wow, dude, you're really out there. The Galilee quote is usually attributed to someone else, but it's generally assumed to be made up.

There was no active war between Israel and Hezbollah. If so, there would have been fighting over the last few years. Even much of the Arab world isn't trying to justify the attack and kidnapping.

There would be no "overreaction" if the terrorists weren't sending rockets daily at civilian areas of Israel. If that's not terrorism, then terrorism doesn't exist.

The Israelis have been quite restrained. If they weren't, far more people would be dead. They have the superior weaponry. If the weapons available were reversed, Israel would be gone in a minute.

Since I've been open about my background, could you give me a little of yours. Are you Syrian? Iraqi? I'm just curious. You seem very biased on this issue. I know I have a bias as well, but I've tried to provide as accurate a depiction of the history in the region as possible along with my opinion that Israel's response is completely justified.

Maybe he's a muslim.

I went through and tried to research each quote. If that one is incorrect, here is another one:

"What is necessary is cruel and strong reactions. We need precision in time, place, and casualties. If we know the family, we must strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise, the reaction is inefficient. At the place of action, there is no need to distinguish between guilty and innocent."

There have been attacks between Hezbollah and Isreal back and forth since the former's inception. Israeli troops occupied southern Lebanon as late as 2000. Operation Grapes of Wrath was in 1996. Here is a CNN story from this Feb about Hezbollah and Israel trading rocket attacks:

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/me...rael.violence/

Do you have a source that says that rockets were being sent in daily to Israeli civilian centers from Hezbollah? The CNN story I linked to above seems to imply that rocket attacks from Hezbollah, while not completely uncommon, are notable, and the one it does describe is attacking an IDF outpost. In fact, most of the recent attacks than I am seeing have been against military installations.

Yes it would be. But since they do have the superior military, the Arabs are 'gone' from Israel. Israel has what it wants. If they wanted more, they would take more. It's not like Israel has some kind of grand benevolance any more than any other country.

I'm an American, my father's family goes back to the 1700's. You keep saying I am 'out there', and 'biased', but my feelings on the issue are parallel to those of most of the world, save for the United States. As in most conflicts, there is equal blame to go around. Your history of events is a decidedly pro-Israeli one. I am not going to condone attackes by Hezbollah/Hamas on civilians, but I'm not going to condone them by Israel either. You continually refer to them as 'terrorists' because they attack civilians, yet ignore that the Israelis have killed three times as many civilians as them.

I don't condone all of the actions by Hamas or Hezbollah, but I understand. It is fact that a number of people were forced through circumstances to leave their homeland. If the UN voted to make NH a Muslim theocratic state, you'd probably be pissed and either leave or want to fight to get your home back. If the world then funded and equipped the new Muslim Republic of New Hampshire with a top flight military...well, you'd have limited options. You either fight a guerrilla war or give up your home. Ask the various state militias out west what they would do.

It's a cycle of violence, it's like a barfight. One guy says something, the other guy says something back, one of them pushes the other, one of them grabs the other, one of them punches, etc. In the end it's both of their faults. It's not like the Palestinians are pissed just because the Israelis are Jewish, they weren't going around pre-WWII and searching out Jews to kill around the world. You have to recognize the powerful psychological impact of having your home taken away from you, the same impact that created the Zionism movement in the first place.

I wonder when "why do you hate America?" will make an appearance.

yabanci. I'm not sure where you are coming from. I thought Solecismic and Mr. Bigglesworth were having a fascinating, respectful exchange.

Can you express your pov a little better?

Solecismic. My comment about "countries and territories come and go" was specific (sorry if it wasn't clear) to arguments pro-Israeli folks make about "we were here first", implying that they have every right to be owners of the land. I don't think that is a valid argument, there are multitudes of historical examples where this type of "fact" is null and void. May not be fair but that's the way it is.

I did not mean that statement to imply that Israel does not have a right to exist or to be recognized.

Right or wrong, the powers that be at the UN allowed the State of Israel to be created back in the 40's. That is what legitimizes Israel, not the historical claim.

It helps to know where someone is coming from. Yabanci's taking that question out of context.

Mr. B., much of the world remains heavily anti-Semitic. The UN continues to focus on Israel, but ignore the violence that starts the cycle.

It helps to know why you're on the Arab side of this. This is about the creation of the state of Israel in the first place, then the subsequent refusal to allow people in who left back in 1948.

What is it about 1948 that troubles you? The Arabs declared war because they opposed the two-state solution, yet the Jews had been there continuously for thousands of years, and actively immigrating there for more than 50. Do you dispute that? Because there is no Muslim theocracy in New Hampshire and never has been.

There's no history here, no call for one, no situation where that would be even remotely appropriate. And if there were, I'd certainly leave and try and make the best of my life and not spend the rest of my life attacking Muslims women and children.

Muslims were welcome in Israel. In fact, today, they still make up 14% of the population, and have full citizenship rights. They're super-citizens in many ways, in that most aren't required to serve in the military, as Jewish citizens are.

In 1948, when the Arab nations attacked, most Muslims left voluntarily, at the request of the attacking nations. Their choice. The Israelis, in many cases, begged them to stay. Do you dispute this?

No one seems to care about the hundreds of thousands of Jews displaced by that war who had been living peacefully elsewhere in the Middle East. That's because Israel took them in.

The Palestinian refugees weren't all taken in. At least half, probably much more, weren't. They suffer not because Israel won't take them back, but because the Arabs want them to suffer as an excuse for attacking Israel. That's the crux of this problem. They now number at least four million. Israel couldn't possibly take them in even if it wanted to. Do you dispute this?

Hamas was the group sending daily rockets, from Gaza, into Israel. They pledge to do the same from Judea if Israel leaves that land as well. Why? Because they want the conflict to continue. You see, the bottom line here is that Hamas and Hezbollah and all the terrorist groups don't give a damn about land. It's all about removing the Jews from the Middle East. That's all they care about, that's all they've ever cared about.

The more Israel "disengages" - their term for leaving the occupied areas - the more they're emboldened. While the rest of the world congratulates Israel for taking the huge step of leaving Gaza, Hamas stepped up their attacks.

The violence will end the second these terrorist groups stop the attacks. I can't see how any one can look at history and think Israel is targetting civilians. All the civilian deaths are in response to direct attacks. Why so many? Because the damned terrorists want just that.

They purposely launch their attacks close to civilian population centers in hopes that if the IDF does target them, a couple of children go with them. The group on the beach who was killed last month was less than 1/4 mile from the site where the latest unprovoked rocket had been launched.

I'm having a lot of trouble understanding why people in America support Hamas in any way. Their actions have cause so much suffering on both sides.

I agree Hamas/Hezbollah are chickens**t when they attack from civilian areas and when they attack civilian targets. It is true that Israeli attacks cause civilian casulties but Hamas/Hezbollah starts off with that intent.

They are in a low-intensity war and I do believe military targets/leadership are fair game. I believe the attacks and kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers were within bounds, just like targeted assasinations/attacks on the Hamas/Hezbollah.

• You know, I don't recall a mention of the "terrorist organization PLO/Fatah". Has Hamas strangely legitimized the PLO/Fatah as the moderate force?

• Also, after sleeping on it, I want to take back my statement about making a distinction on Gaza civilians vs Lebanese civilians. Gaza civilians (that do not actively support/participate with Hamas) should be sympathized with. Sorry.

There's really nothing more to be said about Israel's intentions beyond this.

Here's something interesting which I thought about today.

If Israel just attacks Gaza (Palestine), Lebanon and maybe Syria, they really don't solve the problem which is Iran. However, if this escalates enough to involve Iran, then you will see U.S. involvement. I'm wondering if Bush /wants/ to goad Iran into war because then he has a reason to get involved.

Israel may step up it's operations in Gaza if the Hamas wants Israel to. But that is nothing new.

Attacking Syria doesn't mean much unless you mean by way of marching an occupying force into Syria, which has never happened. Not sure of the benefit there to begin with, but if you know what the benefit would be, I'd be interested to learn about it.

But regardless, if Iran does get invovled, what exactly does that mean? Declare war on Israel? What does that do? The only way Iran can attack Israel is through their terror group already located in Southern Lebanon--Hezbollah. If Iran can wage war against Israel in a way they aren't already doing so, I'd like to learn about that too.

I am not sure that anybody "wants" to go to war with Iran, I think that most people (including the President) feel that it is inevitable and the military would be crazy not to prepare for it.

If a war with Iran does not start as a result of the current problems, it will probably kick off when Israel bombs Iran's nuclear facilities.

i heard in an interview today the leader of Hezbollah, saying that Israel was attacking them from the northern Occupied territory of Palestine.

I think that that goes back to the crux of the problem. Even if israel stops, whatever, gives them chunks of land here and there, that they (the Palestinians, Lebanese, and basically surrounding arabs who agree with the anti-zionist doctrine) will ALWAYS view the jews as occupiers of their lands (which is the whole of israel).....

They can cry foul over over-reaction, cry foul over settlements in "their" lands, cry foul over a border fence...but in my mind they are all strawmen, because in actuality, no matter what, they will continue to attack the Jews that are in Israel because they want every last man, woman, and child gone from "their" land of Palestine.

So in essence the actual solutions to the long term problems are few. Jews leave, Jews put up humongous fence and deal with constant attacks (hoping that at some point one of the surrounding arab countries who lean to the extreme dont lob a nuke their way), or Arabs finally agree to let the Jews have some land too.

Some commentator was saying unless there is a ceasefire (unlikely), Israel will have to move into Southern Lebanon to stop the rocket attacks. Thats my vote, give the civilians a last, clear warning to leave Southern Lebanaon, tell Hezbollah to fight like men or run like girls, and then go in and take out their grunts ...

Flasch186. My take is majority of regular, non-militant population around Israel want peace under the assumption something 'fair' (devil in the details) can be negotiated. Peace has essentially been established with Jordan and Eygpt. It's taking care of the militants/radicals that is the problem.

Dutch. I agree picking a fight with Syria is worthless. Syria is fairly secular which means (to me) Assad is a man of reason. Negotiate back the Golan Heights, bribe/threaten and I believe peace can be achieved with Syria. Iran is a different matter.

Ryan S. Bush announced Iran as part of the axis of evil in 2002. He has probably been working towards toppling that regime since then but was distracted for a longer time than anticipated on Iraq. He has 2 more years to create a legacy and I can see some hawks in the White House wanting to pick a fight. They just need clear evidence of Iranian involvement in the current crises.

Edited and rephrased. Anyone know any news articles about recent US military troop/naval movements around the Persian Gulf area?

...however, because of the militants tactic, which has not been stopped by the non-militant population, of being interspersed within the general population, the two can not be seperated. The militants, not only are amongst the general population, they actually run their organization throughout the same buildings, neighborhoods, and cities. If the "people" wont keep the militants from becoming their local government then I dont see an alternative other than warning the people over time, then warning the people to get out, and then punishing the militants when they act like an army (kidnapping, throwing missiles, spewing rhetoric based on their doctrine of hate, etc.)

What other alternative is there?

Hamas and Hezbollah have run amok amongst the territories in question and their Long term goal is the dissolution of Israel. Keeping in mind, that Israel's long term goal is NOT the keeping of land from the palestinians or Arabs, but to have a two state solution....what is wrong with that other than the fact that it doesnt agree with the idea of driving the Jews from the land, all of the land?

No one likes to see civilians die, but like Jim said....the minute the militants stop attacking the jews and sit down to draw lines of states, the fighting will stop outright.

Interesting article that mentions about the IDF reserve infantry division moved to border.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...ticle/ShowFull

I haven't called for the destruction of Israel. I haven't called Hezbollah innocents caught in the web of Israeli treachery. I think saying I am on the Arab side when my view is that both sides are at some fault is an incorrect characterization.

Ok, then what if the UN decreed California or Texas an Hispanic state? Many people would be pissed. Just because a group has been immigrating there for years wouldn't take away your right to be pissed that a body that you had no respresentation in decides that your home is now a theocratic state of another religion.

The problem here is the asymmetry between the two sides. Isreal has what they want, what they started out for with the Zionism movement. That makes it easy for them to say that they just want peace. It's like Saddam invading Kuwait before the first Gulf War. He had Kuwait, then wanted peace. By your logic, we would be the aggressors because Iraq would stop fighting as soon as we did. That's ludicrous.

Israel is also a much better equipped military that can do things like surgical strikes. Hamas and Hezbollah have shown a willingness to go after military targets if they can. They also attack civilians, because it is one of the only options available to them. If they had a modern tank and air force, I'm sure they would love to attack Israel head on. That doesn't mean that I support civilian attacks, but faced with the odds that they are, I understand, and it's been that way for centuries.

Because there hasn't been a working peace in the middle east for over 50 years now, you can make the case that both sides' tactics have not been all that great. I lot of pro-Israeli people talk about 'taking the gloves off', implying that the problem is that not enough force is being employed. The problem is that that theory can never be disproven. No matter what happens, they can just say that not enough force was used. The failure of the use of more force to create peace is not seen as the failure of the force doctrine, but rather as evidence that not enough force has been used. Matthew Yglesias talked about something similar to this recently, the Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics.

MrBigglesworth. I do share some of your opinions but not the above. Hamas and Hezbollah can easily avoid attacking civilian targets (ex. pizza parlors and civilian buses). I would have greater respect for their cause if they limited themselves to military targets.

• Plenty of Israeli checkpoints around.
• If you can sneak into Israel and do a suicide bombing in a civilian bus, you can just as easily 'try' to do a suicide bombing at military vehicels/posts/barracks.
• Etc. Plenty of military targets, they choose to attack civilians. No honor in that.

1. Bush did not create Iran as part of the Axis of Evil. He just reminded us of that fact.

2. Bush has not been working on toppling the Iranian government unless Diplomacy and Toppling are synonomous these days.

3. What evidence are you using to suggest Bush/Bush Admin is picking a fight with Iran?

BTW - There already is clear evidence of Iranian involvement. Hezbollah is owned and operated by it's chief financier - Iran.

You're wording looks like an effort to directly blame the Bush Administration for the current crisis involving Israel and the Hezbollah.

I agree with you, but I think the crux of the problem is that H/H could attack military targets all the time, but they will never have a military victory. I think that if you look at history, every time that it has been beneficial to attack civilians, it has been done. A show on the history channel the other day about the military in the Bible said that it was possible that the Egyptians were chasing Moses because the latter had sacked a town on the way to Canaan. So while you can't support such attacks, I think that you can at least understand why they are being done.

Okay, not going to argue meaningless semantics here, lets agree to disagree here. If you want that point, please take it, lets move on to more substantial discussion points.

I did not mean to imply the Bush Admin was causing this crises. I am saying it would not surprise me if hawks in the Bush Admin wanted to make use of this current crises to pick a fight with Iran.

I've heard Hezbollah was owned by Syria and/or Iran. I suspect that it is not as clear cut as this. Sure there are influences, but does Hezbollah take their marching orders from Syria, Iran or purue their own interests with some influence from the other two. Probably the 3rd option.

Now, if it could be proven that there were some Iranian 'elites' that shot the missle that hit the Israeli ship ... that would be pretty clear cut act of war.

wiki, fwiw:

Hezbollah - Founded with the aid of Iran and funded by it, it follows the distinctly Shiite Islamist ideology developed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

The organization views an Islamic republic, on the Iranian model, as the ideal and eventual form of state. However, as their conception of an Islamic republic requires the consent of the people, and since Lebanon remains a religiously and ideologically heterogeneous society, their political platform revolves around more mundane issues. According to their published political platform in 2003, Hezbollah claims to favor the introduction of an Islamic government in Lebanon by peaceful democratic means.

Hezbollah supports the destruction of the state of Israel[62] and co-operates with other militant Islamic organizations such as Hamas in order to promote this goal.

Hezbollah has been labeled a terrorist organization by the United States [63] the United Kingdom [64], the Netherlands[65], Canada [66][67], Israel and Australia [68]; the U.S. Department of State also accuses Hezbollah of killing up to 300 American citizens (over 230 of whom were U.S Marines in Lebanon). Hezbollah, however, has always denied any involvement in those attacks.[citations?]

The United Nations has called for the disbanding of Hezbollah's military wing in UN Security Council Resolution 1559.

The demographics of Israel and their implications on Israeli society and politics have always fascinated me. I think that it is a bit of a misconcepcion to automatically label Israel "the Jewish state", when it is a bit more complicated than that. In truth, I think the Israelis struggle as to whether it is more important to be a "Jewish homeland" or a western-style liberal democracy, or if one can truly be both without sacrificing either.

The 1,000,000 or so Arab citizens of Israel who decided to stay post-1948 are not going anywhere. Many of them stayed because Israel is their home, and probably had the attitude that "rulers come and go, but this is where I live", a good number probably also stayed suspecting that they would be better off in a western-style democracy.

In any event, the size of the Arab minority is such that if Israel were truly to emulate a western-style liberal democracy, Israel would move towards a definition of its society as a multi-ethnic, secular society. And this is not just an arab issue, as Jews in Israel are not homogeneous: they come from different regions of the world, with different cultural traditions, and different interpretations and practices of Judaism. The inter-ethnic and secular-religious tensions among the Jewish citizenry of Israel are real.

It does seem that Israeli social policy in the past decade have pushed towards the secular and multi-cultural. The Israeli government has made great strides in promoting multiculturalism via its affirmative-action and quota programs, especially for its citizens of Arab descent. I think that paying attention to redressing the problem of discrimination now will pay dividends for Israel in the future, especially if Arabs in neighboring countries will eventually see that Arabs in Israel are just as better off if not more, and have more rights and influence than they do in their own countries. Israel can certainly be a model in the region for what a multi-ethnic liberal democracy could look like.

Dutch. Thanks for the info from wiki. I found additional info on CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/...lah/index.html

I don't think either is conclusive whether Hezbollah reports to Syria, Iran or a little of both.

Does anyone else know?

I think it's less "reports to" and more "is supported by," and the answer is 'both.'

Hezbollah is Shia and linked to Iran (which is Shia), Hamas is Sunni and linked to Syria (which is Sunni).

That's probably closest. It's probably akin to saying the USA is responsible for Israel since we supply them with all their military equipment. It's not directly true, but it's close enough.

And like that relationship, we may not always agree with how Israel handles itself, but we understand. Same with Iran and Hezbollah.

Of course, the major difference is the USA and Israel just want the Arabs to leave Israel alone, not so for Iran and Hezbollah which won't quit unless they can secure the land that is owned by Israel.

They won't be able to have much of a chance to do that until they get those nukes.

Though Hezbollah hasn't really been the suicide bomb types though (or really much bombing aside from rockets into North Isreal from time to time). They haven't really shown any want to "secure the land that is owned by Isreal" aside from Sheeba Farms area. I have a suspicion that sometimes Iran uses Hezbollah to deflect attention from what Iran is doing.

Saying Iran:Hezbollah::US:Isreal is completely off the mark.

Isrealis just bombed the Palestinian foreign ministry in Gaza. What's the point of that? Isn't that widening the war? EDIT: They had already bombed that building last week.

Here are some fun facts about Hezbollah, with major attacks recorded as well. Kinda helps put their activities in perspective.

http://www.tkb.org/Group.jsp?groupID=3101

But the pre-Israel state was never "govern" by an Arab nation after the collaspe of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. The land was governed by Britian, as the British Mandate of Palestine before the UN took it to create two states.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...e_of_Palestine

I've always hated this argument because it doesn't exactly reflect what sat in that land before the Israel-Palestine arrangement of the two states. People make it seem like the Arabs were in control and were the sole occupiants of the land.

:rolleyes:

To be fair, Israel responded to a Hamas kidnapping of an Israeli soldier before the Hezbollah kidnappings. So there is a point.

1. Calling Israel a theocratic state, at least compared to the theocratic states the terrorists are trying to form, is very inaccurate.

2. Your analogy might work for Texas circa 1820, but it does not work today at all (California was acquired through treaty with the Mexicans). The US has been a sovereign nation for a long time now with an elected government, borders and a national identity. Palestine had none of that in 1948.

Two groups with equal claim, land equally divided. Seems fair to me. Only one of the two groups decided it wanted all the land.


The Israelis never invaded Palestine. That's ludicrous. Just where are you getting your information?

The Zionist movement was born out of desperation, not the desire to conquer the world. This kind of talk reminds me of the whole Jews control Hollywood, Jews control the banks, Jews control the media fantasies.


To me, that's what's known as cowardace. Let's say my neighbor annoys me for some reason. I'd like to beat him up, but he's twice my size. So I beat up his four-year-old daughter instead. Then I hide when he gets angry and starts looking for me.

Also, this is not a resistence. Hamas and Hezbollah are not noble figures looking for freedom. They are terrorists bent on destruction of a race of people. Read their charters if you don't believe me.

The fundamental difference between the terrorists and the Israelis is that one seeks the destruction of the other and places that above the creation of a sovereign state of its own, or even above life itself. And the other just wants to be left alone in peace.

The desire for peace is what makes Israel morally correct and the terrorists morally reprehensible.


A lot of pro-Israeli people don't talk that way. Sharon tried different tactics, the Israelis have even enacted some pretty remarkable attempts at letting peace break out, like the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.

But what did Hamas do? They took their rocket launchers into Gaza and used the opportunity to shell civilians in southern Israel. Why? Because they will not stop until Israel is destroyed.

Again, morally reprehensible, indefensible behavior from the terrorists. How do you defend that? When Israel finally makes a move that should signal to even the most hard-line critic that Israel wants peace above anything else, the terrorists see that as a sign of weakness and use the opportunity to increase the violence.

Even if you reject every Israeli claim to its own land (and their claims are as strong as the Arabs'), after 60 years you have to realize that sometimes you don't get your way and peace is better than violence. Egypt gets it. Jordan gets it. Lebanon gets it, even though their government is too weak to do much about it. Even hard-liners like Saudi Arabia get it.

Why can't you get it? Do you really want another Islamofascist state in the world? You seem to be a big left-wing supporter. Sharia really shouldn't be your type of thing. Women are property, people are killed for minor offenses.

Anyhow, I'm going to take a time out on this item for at least a couple of days. We're just going in circles here, and your arguments are getting increasingly ludicrous. No way to argue, really, with someone who sees the creation of Israel as similar to the UN going in tomorrow and turning Texas over to Mexican immigrant groups. That's just displaying a remarkable lack of attention toward history.

Okay, as per the O'Reilly Factor, the Iranians supply Hezbollah with arms/dollars and the Syrians facilitate it (ex. allow arms to be moved through Syria into Lebanon). Sounds as if the Iranians are the bigger bad guys.

Solecismic. FWIW, I think you are unfairly jumping to conclusions here. I did not get this from MrBigglesworth entries.

If you look at the Ottoman Empire as the analog to the US, and CA as the analog to Palestine, it becomes clearer. The Palestinian region had local governments under the Ottomans, and almost as soon as the British took over is when the strife started, well before 1948. One area that my analogy doesn't work is that at the time of the partition, only 10% of Palestinians were Jewish, while a much larger percentage of Californians are hispanic.

"Equal claim"? The Israelis began the Zionism movement with the expressed purpose of taking control of Israel by moving Jews there from all over the world. So when they get a bunch of people there and claim it, it doesn't equal the claim of people that can trace it back as their homeland for generation and generation and hundreds and hundreds of years. Such as here in the United States, we didn't have the same claim to the Indians' land that they did, but sometimes might makes right. And the Israelis had the geopolitical might on their side.

I don't think you understand my point, either that or you are intent on attacking a straw man. My point is that one side in the conflict has everything they want, while the other side does not. So of course the side that has everything they want desires peace. It's obvious that they do, because they already have everything they want. War serves no purpose for them.

I made two analogies, and you attacked them for not being EXACTLY right, and mocked my entire argument on the based on those analogies not being exactly right...and then make this analogy about neighbors. But I'll refrain from saying you don't merit discussion with because your analogy doesn't take into account the lack of options that H/H have in real life.

Think about that for a second from a militaristic POV. How many katyusha (sp?) rockets would it take to 'destroy' Israel, as you claim is their goal for their rocket attacks? I think a quick answer would be, 'a lot'. How many rockets do they have? I would say, 'not that many'. So that's obviously not their goal. What they are doing is responding to Israeli attacks in the only ways that they can. I can tell you right now that Israel has killed more people than Hamas and Hezbollah put together in the past couple of days. And the historical trend is 3-1.

Those countries don't really have much of a stake in getting rid of Israel at this point. The Palestinians whose homes were in Israel, however, do have a big stake in it, so they continue fighting. The Lebanese who remember the Israeli invasions and occupations of just a couple of years ago also have hard feelings. Not saying that their view is right, but I understand why they would want to fight longer than, say Egypt.


Odd that you call my arguments increasingly ludicrous when you want to make a strawman out them to refute them. But I digress.

I'm not a left wing supporter, I just know how terrible the Bush administration has been for the country and the world. Just because I think the Palestinians have a legitimate gripe doesn't mean I want to create an Islamofascist state (some of which, btw, are our biggest allies). That would be another strawman. I'm not saying I have a solution to the problem either, I'm just saying that I can see both sides. I don't know why you see that as an extreme position, as in terms of world opinion you would be the extreme one. I can understand your need to take time off, it seems you are much more emotionally involved in this than I am.

their stated goals vs. their ability to accomplish them doesnt make them NOT their goals....give 'em a nuke and what do you think they'll use it for?

They WANT the destruction of Israel. Israel wants peace. You admit that, so when the extremists resort to kidnapping, attacking civilians, etc. the civilized world, does NOT have to say "that is okay". I dont care if you want to empathize with their plight, but anyone can have a plight, I can make one up right now...it doesnt mean you have to agree with it.

The entire world including the Zionists want Palestinians to have their own land TOO. To me and th civilized world that is quite the compromise....the other side doesnt want it though.

Jim stated it best, the minute they stop attacking Israel ALL conflict will stop in the region (until Iran gets a nuke - but thats for another thread).

EDIT to add: You can take all the history stuff, both sides and throw it in the trash because if they continue to stand on their own history books than there will never be peace. You have to deal with the here and now and the future....a 2 state solution, and a recognition of Israel as having a right to be free from bombs (and vice versa).

I think that is taking the views of extremist Palestinians and moderate Israelis. There are a majority of Palestinians that would accept a 2 state solution. The destruction of Israel was never a must have for any peace talks between Israel and Palestine, not Oslo and not Camp David. Under the 'road map for peace', neither side has fulfilled it's obligations. It is not a one-sided thing being held up by Palestinians.

Islamofascist states are our biggest allies? Name one. Please read the history of the British Mandate of Palestine and the history of the Ottoman Empire. Jewish settlers were migrating to the Palestine region back in the Ottoman times.

But sadly, it's the current Palestinian goverment that wants to wipe out Israel. Camp David was under a different leader. In the end, they hold the nukes. Plus, wasn't the current regime elected in?

Saudi Arabia.



The Ottomans restricted Jewish settling in Palestine during their rule. At the time of WWI, only 55k Jews were in Palestine in a population of over 500k. I don't see how them migrating their gives them a bigger right to the land than the people that lived there for hundreds of years.

Hamas' platform is the same as that of the PLO. They softened their stance on Israel when creating their platform. Logic tells me that therefore they thought that more people would vote for them if they were less militant on the Israel issue.

I try to avoid these threads because they get so caught up in irrelevant and increasingly obscure historical debates and useless moralizing. But from a pragmatic perspective this is why this situation doesn't get solved. The mythical "other side". There is a segment of Palestinians that doesn't want peace. Perhaps not surprisingly they are most prevalent among the Palestinians who have left the country to places like Syria. But based on consistent polling results, a significant majority of Palestinians to want peace. The Israelis continually allow themselves to be manipulated by those who don't.

Hamas extremist Khaled Meshaal sits in Syria and watches while elected Hamas officials near an agreement with Fatah to officially recognize Israel and while a Palestinian Prime Minister emerges from Hamas who would write a column for the Washington Post asking not for the destruction of Israel, but for the 1967 borders, the right of return, and East Jerusalem. Well, Meshaal thinks, I know what to do about this. Let's just poke at the hornet's nest and we can forget all this peace talk. Israel will target the general Palestinian population for reprisals, and everything will be back to normal, with public support back in the extremists' corner. Israel is a predictable tool to these guys.

There will be peace in Israel and Palestine when Israel realizes there is no monolithic other side. There is no coherent state of Palestine. No one has established or at present has the capability to establish, a monopoly on force in Palestine. There are many independent voices and actors in Palestine. The idea that there is a coherent other side leads them to attribute the actions of someone like Meshaal to the entire people, and gives any extremist faction a veto over the peace process. So long as they have that veto, they will exercise it. Israel would not allow the most extreme Israeli settler groups to derail their plans. They knew that to capitulate to those folks would mean no progress could ever occur. Why they don't apply the same logic to Palestinians is difficult to fathom. Isrealis need to understand that while a majority in Israel controls a government that does have a monopoly on force, the same is not true in Palestine (nor will it be while they continue to strangle the country).

When Israel decides to proceed with a peace process while letting YAMAM and Mossad pursue terrorists rather than employing the IDF to shell towns and blow up bridges and power plants, we will see and end to the deadlock. There will be remnants in Palestine who still want to fight, but they will be far more easily dealt with once the majority has a real road to peace in clear view. A path to peace that depends on 100% support from the outset has always been and will continue to be a non-starter.

Ten percent is still a presence. They also had a presence in the rest of the Middle East, and were driven into Israel. Those other presences should count in any general claim, as far as analyzing whether they could co-exist among the Arabs.

The Jews also settled land thought uninhabitable.

The Arabs chose not to co-exist in Israel. And the Palestinian refugees paid the price for choosing to go with those who wished to exterminate the Jews. And the price they paid is trusting people who continue to use them as political pawns 60 years later.

You're cherry picking every excuse possible to deny the Jews any right to any of the land. Ancient history counts for nothing, ten percent of pre-Mandate counts for nothing, UN resolutions count for nothing, unless they happen to be resolutions against Israel, a presence in the Middle East but not in Palestine counts for nothing.

Basically, if everyone had to follow the rules you've set up for the Jews, no one would have claim to any land, anywhere. Ever. Except the terrorists and maybe Adam and Eve, if they existed, but not if they vacationed anywhere for any length of time.


What a incredibly bizarre statement. War causes so much suffering. There had better be a very good reason for it (and yes, Bush acted recklessly in attacking Iraq, we agree on that).

Israel is a crowded country, one always in desperate need of water. They do not have everything they want. It's a tiny country the size of New Jersey in the midst of the vast Middle East. I'm sure they would want more land if they could have it. They have suffered incredibly over generations.

You underestimate the need for peace. This is such a vital need for all humankind. Without it, we are nothing.

The Arabs don't need that little piece of land. The terrorists just want to kill the Jews. And it's sad that people like you excuse that, can't see beyond their rhetoric.


I do need to take a time out from this item, just because I think I'm wasting time with you because you're the one who seems very emotional. We keep rehashing the same subjects. Okay, we can agree to disagree. It would help if you would tell me if you had a cultural connection to the Arabs, but I understand your desire to keep that private.

I've laid out the extensive historic claim the Jews have to this land, and you dismiss every piece of it entirely, making bizarre comparisons to a Muslim takeover of New Hampshire. You excuse terrorists for targetting women and children, saying they have no other option.

Well, I have an option for them: give up violence. They'd be amazed what they could accomplish without it.

Overall, great post. I do have a few things I want to add and quibble with ;) And if you look at the conditions in the refugee camps they are abominable. To get an idea of how much surrounding countries actually care about the Palestinians welfare rather than as a propaganda tool take a look inside these. From hxxp://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001140.html "The hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in Lebanon are not allowed to live anywhere outside the camps. Until last year the Lebanese Army searched entering vehicles and confiscated all building materials. Last year I interviewed Mohammed Afif, who sits on Hezbollah's Political Bureau. I haven't mentioned this until now because he has almost nothing to say but Hezbollah cliches. But he did say one interesting thing. He said I should visit Sabra and Chatilla and see how Palestinians in Lebanon live. I told him I already had, that it was clear Palestinians are treated worse by Lebanese than they are by Israelis. He was stunned that I dared say that to him. But he quickly composed himself and said "Yes, you are right. I am sorry about that." It's also worth noting that Hezbollah can't even enter the camps, let alone the Lebanese Army.Agreed on the second part. The first part varies widely depending on when and what exact wording is used in the question.That helps explain the current Hamas/Palestinian situation. A couple other useful things to know is that Meshaal isn't aligned with the Hamas in power in Palestine and they had little to do with the initial kidnapping. In fact, Egypt spearheaded a deal to turn over the captured soldier in exchange for a cease-fire which was "scuttled at the last minute by elements in Syria." That's a main part of the reason why, posturing aside, Isreal really hasn't laid the hammer down in Palestine (at least yet.) And why, for once, most Arab governments didn't come out denouncing Israel from the beginning. Oh, just for the record, in case anyone thinks Fatah is anything but a slightly better disguised Hamas, don't forget thet al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades were formed by Fatah in response to Hamas' growing popularity.

Then you also have the Hizb'allah/Lebanon situation. Everyone knows that Hizb'allah gets its money, weapons and some training from the Iranians, often conveyed through Syria, but it's not that simple. A couple examples might help illustrate the relationship. After 9/11 the Iranian mullahs called the leaders of Hizb'allah to Tehran and asked if they were behind the attack. This means that Hizb'allah often operates independently of Iran to the point of possibly carrying out huge operations, but when called they will come explain themselves. There are also plenty of reports of Imad Mughniyeh (one of the world's most wanted men, fingered as the architect of the Beirut bombings - US Embassy and Marine barracks, among other deeds) flying to meet in January in Damascus with Hassan Nasrallah (the military leader of Hizb'allah) and possibly Basher Assad. What is most damning about the reports are that they say Mughniyeh flew from Tehran - with President Ahmadi'nejad on his jet. There is also the matter of tens of thousands of Iranian tourists visiting Lebanon this year alone. Undoubtedly members of the Pasdaran were among them, and some of the rumors have placed IRGC agents behind most of the Katyusha attacks. Another interesting note is that Hizb'allah's leadership reportedly did not authorize the Haifa attacks before they happened. One funny note is that in al-Zarqawi's last tape before his unfortunate demise he accused Hizb'allah of being Israeli agents.

It's also important to consider that in this case, almost all the violence has at least been arranged by groups operating outside Palestinian territory. There won't be peace as long as countries around Israel can support the "Palestinian resistance" with impunity. And I put Palestinian resistance in quotes there because in this case it's not what the Palestinians want, but it sure works to get the vox populi in other countries focusing their attention on the Zionists rather than their own corrupt governments. And now, IMO, Iran is making their play to be seen as the leader of that resistance as part of their grand strategy to become the leader of the Muslim world.

I think my position has been clear for awhile on this topic, but I'll reiterate it - this is due to outside actors (mainly Syria and Iran) and unless Israel is willing to ignore outside condemnation and continue on to at least Damascus this particular operation is a mistake because right now they're mostly hitting areas in Beirut/northern Lebanon that are about as pro-Israel as you'll find in the ME. Overall, I'm really hoping Iran overplays its hand and we're forced into a war with them. One that they have been building towards since the Embassy takeover and one that will only be worse for us and the countries around Iraq the longer we wait to engage our enemy. Or you can just have fun once Iran has nuclear weapons and keeps pulling shit like this against Israel.

I don't mind MrB making, albiet inane, analogies of California or Texas too much, cause I've said similar things in recent days.

Imagine some group in Tiajuana or Ciudad Juarez started lobbing rockets into San Diego or El Paso, and the Mexican government failed to do anything to stop it. I wonder how many folks that blame Israel for this mess would criticise the American response?

I'm not sure what you think I am trying to argue, there must be a communication breakdown somewhere. I'm not sure what my rule is for the Jews, but having 10% of the population and it being a high water mark of the past 2000 or so years is not a high bar to reach. From what I gather, you are saying that since they have 10% of the population, most of which immigrated over the past 40 years, that that gives them a bigger claim to the land than a people that have been there for thousands of years and have 90% of the population. I don't understand that. I can see giving historical weight to the Jews' claim since they had it 4000 years ago or something, but saying that that isn't enough to outweigh the Palestinian claim doesn't equate to Adam and Eve being the only people to ever lay claim to land. Can someone help me out and tell me if I am missing something?

There are some terrorists that just want to kill Jews. But aren't there some Arabs that just want to go back to their homeland, much like the Jews and Zionism? Isn't it possible that the latter is the vast majority? You imply that every Palestinian is a terrorist. We have a defined history of Arab peace overtures that do not include the destruction of Israel. For every argument that you make that they are disengenuous, one could make an argument that the Israelis are disengenuous.

I'm not really emotional at all, except with your insistance that I tell you if I have an Arab connection when I have already told you that I have not. (to recap: I am a caucasian American and my father's family can be traced back to the 1700's in this country. I have a closer connection to Judaism than any Arabs. I really don't even know if I know a single Arab, but I love latkes.)

Didn't the first Israeli strikes into Lebanon occur before the rocket strikes from Hezbollah?

Yup. Shortly after Hezbollah murdered, I believe, four Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid and kidnapped two others.

The rocket strikes are just "poking the hornet's nest," as somebody else put it. They had very little to do with inciting the Israeli response, but they sure as hell are keeping it going.

My post was mainly on the political aspect - I'll add my two cents on the actual military operation the Israelis appear to be performing in Lebanon now. The short answer is I think it's stupid and counter-productive. If they had just bombed the south and kept to hezbollah-controlled areas of the country/Beirut, they possibly could have weakened Hizb'allah to the point where the Lebanese Army could have kept them in check, with the tacit approval of most Lebanese. Instead it seems they are shutting down every exit route from the country. There is no doubt in my mind they are going to destroy Hizb'allah, but with it will go the country of Lebanon that had just broken free from Syrian dominance last year and was starting to rebuild. And unlike the US in Iraq, Israel isn't gonna stick around to help rebuild the country. Maybe this is in preparation for an attack on Damascus, maybe it's ensuring the removal of the threat of Hizb'allah from the northern border in case they attack Iran in the future. Or maybe it's just having no trust in the Lebanese government to do any real action against Hizb'allah. But it's gonna force the Lebanese to back Hizb'allah instead of potentially driving a wedge between them and the rest of the country.

The rocket strikes from Lebanon into Israel have occurred multiple times a week if not on a daily basis for the past couple of years. It is just that they only recently increased the range they have been able to target. I understand that the volume, not frequency, of the attacks has been steadilly growing. i.e. still sending rockets on a daily basis, just now they are sending more of them.

Can you send me a link detailing the daily rocket attacks by Hezbollah into Lebanon? I asked Solecismic earlier, but the request was ignored. I can't find anything that says that was the case, in fact these articles:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,175947,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,176426,00.html

...from last November imply that rocket attacks from Hezbollah are rare.

They were fairly rare. Threats were commonplace, but it was rare for Hizb'allah to actually fire rockets, at least far into Israel. They've claimed to have the ability to hit Haifa for a year or so I think (since Iran gave them longer-range missiles) but they never really used the Katyushas before. (EDIT - I think they may have fired a warning shot of sorts past Haifa into the ocean, but I don't recall exactly.) Then there is the 801 (Syrian-made) that hit the Israeli ship and rumors of additional more powerful weapons that they will be bringing out soon, courtesy of Iran.

Either way, it's pretty obvious the cross-border operation by Hizb'allah was what sparked the current Israeli response, and now rocket attacks are happening dozens of times a day. So I'm not sure what your point is here.

Just read something that asked the question, where is the United States in all of this? I can't remember a world crisis in the past 20 years where the US has been so marginalized and irrelevant. Some may say that is a good thing, some a bad thing.

I heard it on an NPR report several months ago, and at the time found a number of references to the attacks online. I've heard multiple accounts since then, including details of how the Hezbollah(sp?) millitants show up like clock work to launch their 5 pm rockets, and then quickly depart before Israel can retalliate. It was actually quite surreal. Now all I come up with are recent events. What Bishop says is true about the attacks only striking Haifa within the last few days.

I do have a quibble with that, many Arabs did chose to stay in Israel after 1948. 20% of the population is Muslim or Christian.

As I alluded to earlier, Israel is one of the most, if not the most, multicultural states in the region. This is not just taking into account of the religious makeup, but also the inter-ethnic and demoninational differences of those Israeli citizens who practice Judaism. And of course waves of immigration from the former Soviet Union and Africa, as well as Asians and other Africans via the guest worker program, are continually changing the ethnic makeup of the country. Israeli society has shifted towards more multicultural policies, in response...

INTERMISSION, TIME-OUT etc.


As the originator of this thread, I feel obligated to point out that my initial posting requested not getting into who is right/wrong etc.

Reality is that this thread has evolved into a slugfest of right/wrong opinions.

Don't think I can rein it back in, but I request, at the very least, to keep this thread civil and respectful of the other's opinion.

Interesting twist. UN Peace force being considered.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5186474.stm

The article also mentions there is a 2000 man UN monitoring mission already on the border of Lebanon/Israel ... haven't heard reports from them.

It would be nice to see the next 2 economic powers step up to the plate. A contingent of UN Indian and Chinese troops would be regarded as 'neutral' in the Middle East.

India has a long record of participation in UN peacekeeping missions, in keeping with its involvement with the non-aligned movement. China has also been much more active in this arena in the past 15 years.

doesnt matter....israel isnt trying to attack the people (although lots of collateral damage isnt wanted, i hope) theyre attacking those with the power, the real power.

The militants are the one's with the weapons and the israeli gov't. cannot negotiate with "the people" so that is EXACTLY why Israel is in Lebanon now. You might say, in a round about way, giving an "opportunity" for the people to gain control of their land from the militants "similar to the situation NOW in Iraq". If the people wont stop the militias, then Israel has no choice but to "help them". It IS a one sided thing being held up by the extremists (and there are likely extremists israelis too - but they are far fewer and with less juice than those in gaza and lebanon).

you are mistaken if you think it is equal on both sides. IF the H/H stopped firing rockets today, and pulled back, and said that they are disarming today, and let the hostages go....the fighting would stop immediately and they could start working on their own borders for Palestine. Emotion aside, hatred aside that is the solution.....if they cant stop the groups that view Jews as vermin and want to kill them all, then the "power is not with the people" in those countries and Israel DOES have the right to defend itself as disproportionate as it may seem or else the Jihad can continue forever.

It actually is quite simple if they drop the history and hatred....which is the only way to sit across the table from your "enemy" and truly negotiate for peace when one side hasn't decimated the other. The Israelis with the power aren't out to wipe the palestinians off the map nor the arabs....the Arabs with the power (within the borders and in nieghboring countries, do want to wipe israel off the map....its a different starting point entirely.

Online news sites are reporting Israeli ground troops are moving in. Don't think the "last, clear warning to leave" was given though ... should have been, not as if military surprise would have been lost by giving it another 24-48 hours. Well worth the benefit of the "moral high ground" with the inevitable civilian casulties.

the've been dropping flyers EVERY day warning people to leave.

Would you happen to know what the flyers say? Be interested in knowing.

There is a difference between 'go away, we're bombing' vs 'go away, we're coming in'.

actualy, CNN reporter read one over the air and I dont remember the exact wording but it was 'Has Hezbollah helped you? you can now see that they have not. They are liars' Then it has a picture of the Hezbollah leader's head on a snake's body. So that was the one they read.

He said that he had also read some that warned people to go north but that is not the one he read on air.

dang, benjamin netanyahu is a fiery guy.....he just spoke to the kinneset and, man, he sounded a lot like the leaders of the extremists on the other side. I hope he never gets to be leader of Israel.

More civilian deaths, on both sides. Bravo. Taking out Hezbollah is one thing - destroying all of Beirut and any Lebanese infrastructure is ridiculous.

If Israel did end up fighting Syria and Iran would the US be drawn in? If the US gets drawn in, would China and Russia come in on the other side?

How much of this is Iran’s fault? Did they prod Hezbollah to attack Israel and kidnap the soldiers specifically to draw the attention during the G8 conference away from them and their nuclear ambitions? Or is that too much of a conspiracy theory to hold water? It seems like international crisis keep popping up to keep the world leaders from really focusing on Iran. North Korea launches missiles, Hamas kidnaps a soldier, and Hezbollah kills some soldiers and kidnaps two more. Is all of this somehow intertwined?

Did some more digging this morning, and found the NPR story I heard earlier this year. It was actually referring to daily rocket attacks from Gaza. So perhaps my most recent reinforcement of the attacks from Lebanon was mistaken. The original story, and the follow up describing the millitants showing up for their daily rocket attack were definately in reference to Lebanon. One of the distinctions between the attacks on Haifa and those described in the stories I heard is that Haifa is a densely populated area, whereas the shorter range rockets were landing in acres of farmland.

Well, I've done some digging too, and I can't believe that Hezbollah have been firing rockets in daily into Israel until I see some kind of non-biased confirmation of it. You are right that recent results keep popping up in the searches, and that may be what is screwing up the search, but even when I put in "-2006" I get nothing.

Israel can take on Syria by themselves, and Iran has no way of projecting force into Israel (can't go through Turkey or Iraq) so a hot war with them, with over 100k US soldiers right across their border, is dumb. Israel would have to be the aggressor against Iran, the only thing Iran could do is give weapons to Hezbollah. Israel is already seen by much of the world as the aggressor against Lebanon.

Things would have to get really bad for the US to get involved. You can see from our weak responses so far that there is a lack of foreign policy and leadership in the White House, and our military is so bogged down in Iraq that it would be tough coordinating a response.

This is one of the most fascinating stories I've seen on this issue. Really takes the wind out of the sails of those who reflexively criticize Israel at every turn.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/wo...in&oref=slogin

Heehee. :)