SD on 17/7/2006 at 16:44
Quote Posted by Azal
Hizbullah holds 23 seats in the Lebanese parliament and is effectively the only government that exists in southern Lebanon.
So, when Hizbullah attacks Israeli soil, is not Israel justified in viewing it as an attack by Lebanon?
The Lebanese government can't be held responsible for attacks by the Hezbollah militia. What are you going to have the Lebanese do - outlaw Hezbollah? They couldn't do that any more than the British could outlaw Sinn Fein. And I fail to see how the civilian victims of Israel's indiscriminate bombing have any more influence over Hezbollah than the government does.
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Saly for the civillians of the sovereign nation that did the attacking, their "leaders" have a penchant for hiding near innocents when they fire rockets indiscrimately over the border. So when the sovereign nation being attacked responds, sometimes they get killed.
What does Israel hope to achieve from this military action though? They occupied South Lebanon for two decades and didn't manage to defeat Hezbollah, and that's not about to change any time soon.
Hezbollah will be rubbing their hands with glee that Israel has over-reacted in such a predictable fashion, and the extremist faction in Israel will be delighted too. The last thing these people want is peace.
SD on 17/7/2006 at 16:58
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
a.) Yes I'm aware of that, and I'm sure you're aware that the members of the Zionist movement had no problem peacefully assimilating the natives of "Palestine" into the nation currently known as Israel.
Oh, how very big of them. No doubt we should have allowed Germany to peacefully assimilate the Polish into their empire in 1939, ho ho.
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While Israel is a Jewish state (the only one of its kind, in case anyone wasn't aware of that), there are not and have never been restrictions on people of other ethnicities or religious backgrounds living there.
You don't think that the Law of Return, for example, constitutes discrimination against non-Jewish members of Israel, then, given that the inevitable result of this is to dilute the proportion of non-Jews in Israel?
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b.) There has never been a country called Palestine, and the current people who call themselves Palestinians are refugees from Egypt and Jordan.
Even if that were the case, you don't seem to have a problem with the fact that the people calling themselves Israelis are refugees from Germany, Poland, Russia, Africa and Asia. I find your double standard alarming.
Jason Moyer on 17/7/2006 at 21:20
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
Oh, how very big of them. No doubt we should have allowed Germany to peacefully assimilate the Polish into their empire in 1939, ho ho.
You don't think that the Law of Return, for example, constitutes discrimination against non-Jewish members of Israel, then, given that the inevitable result of this is to dilute the proportion of non-Jews in Israel?
Even if that were the case, you don't seem to have a problem with the fact that the people calling themselves Israelis are refugees from Germany, Poland, Russia, Africa and Asia. I find your double standard alarming.
If Israel were somehow persecuting non-Jews or massacring them then I think the comparisons to Germany circa 1939 would be valid. Israel didn't even attempt to displace the native population of Palestine, instead working together with the natives and assimilating them into their nation. Most of the non-Jews living in Palestine at the time of the Zionist movement seemed happy to have Europeans moving in and giving them jobs and food and places to live. The outrage against Israel's existence always was and continues to be centered in the areas surrounding Palestine, rather than coming from within.
I don't really see the difference between Israel existing and any other free nation existing other than several Arab nations in the region wanting to destroy Israel and being unable to. If I were Israel I wouldn't even think about negotiating with any organization whose stated purpose is the destruction of Israel, as is the case with the current Palestinian regime.
Renegen on 17/7/2006 at 21:41
Yeah well that hate comes from somewhere, such as all the past wars Isreal initiated. Or go a couple hundred years back.
What bugs me is that this is a WORLD issue, the creation of Isreal was a strategic failure, and no one is taking responsibility for it, or trying to fix this. Just letting them fight until they're all dead and one side assimilates the other.
Martek on 17/7/2006 at 21:54
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
Because Israel has the means to annihilate them.
If "means to annihilate" is the measuring criteria, then the problem I have with that logic is that it is also logical then for countries such as NK and Iran (and whomever else) to feel the need to have nukes in order to make the above (in their own respective world situations; not necessarily due to Israel - to state the obvious) less likely; as well as get them on the "means to annihilate" side of the equation from the other side.
IOW it is a very faulty logic IMO.
Martek
jprobs on 18/7/2006 at 15:27
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
And I fail to see how the civilian victims of Israel's indiscriminate bombing have any more influence over Hezbollah than the government does.
"Indiscriminate bombing" is when bombs are dropped without regard to targets. Indiscriminate bombing was the Germans bombing London and paris, the allied bombimg of Berlin, and the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagisaki. I highly doubt Israel is wasting million dollar laser-guided smart bombs on retirement homes and pre-schools. There will be, however, collateral damage.
On the other hand, Hezbollah is indisciminately targeting civilian populations lobbing rockets with no apparent target except for a heavily populated area.
What the Israeli military considers legitimate and what we percieve as leitimate probably vary to some degree. Israeli intelligence more than likely know every square inch of Lebabon and have been monitoring Hezbollahs movements for quite some time and are specifically targeting them.
I am just merely pointing out your misuse of the word "indiscriminate".
I do agree, however, that enough is enough. Isreal needs to back down a little and go after the rocket launch sites and leave Beirut alone for a bit. The end result of Isreal pulverizing Beirut might be the end, if not too late already, of the fragile democracy that is thier neighbor.
SubJeff on 18/7/2006 at 19:19
Quote Posted by Renegen
Yeah well that hate comes from somewhere, such as all the past wars Isreal initiated.
Explain please.
thefonz on 18/7/2006 at 20:24
To be fair, Israel have been forced into this position. Ever since they were created they have suffered nothing but total shite from their neighbours; and what else were they supposed to do? Bend over to the rest?
All they needed was an excuse to flex their muscles; first it was with teh Palestinians and now it's Lebanon's turn to face the rabbit striking out.
Personally I'm just waiting for one of the evacuation convoy's/transports from Canada or France or any of the other nations to get hit by a "stray" rocket from either side. That's all it's gonna take and then we're really in trouble since it willl spread.
It all rests with Syria and what they decide to do.
Jason Moyer on 18/7/2006 at 20:49
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Explain please.
Well, Israel should realize that their control of regional politics through the international banking conspiracy is going to cause some harsh feelings among the locals. Sure, maybe they don't actually hate Arabs or have any official policies calling for the destruction of all non-Jews, but ffs - they're JEWISH, of course people are going to attack them, they should definitely take the blame for their history of military conflicts.
TheGreatGodPan on 19/7/2006 at 00:00
Considering some of the ways in which Gaza & the West Bank have it (
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_07_16-2006_07_22.shtml#1153141591) better than Egypt and Jordan, ceding the territories to those countries would actually something of a collective punishment for the inhabitants of the territories throughout the years.
I'd hesitate before saying that the actions of Hizbullah are the responsibility of the Lebanese government. Lebanese politics are pretty fractured and have been so for some time. That's why when the shit hits the fan harder than "Balkanization" it's sometimes called "Lebanonizaton".
If anyone was interested in ongoing saga of my neighbors, they're about three miles away from the violence and hoping to get out soon, last I heard.
