The Middle East Continues...

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
How by foul? If memory serves the massive influx of jewish people were paying far in excess of fair market value for lands purchased at the time. Not quite the 24 dollars in beads and trinkets offered the tribes of Manhattan.

The object of the Zionist movement was to create a 'Jewish State' in control of their own affairs. This little fact in itself displaces the local population from controlling its own affairs - and also hints at some sort of institutional discrimination...

Ahad Ha'am's words way back in 1891 ("Truth from Eretz Israel") seem crystal clear in their prophecies...

"it is hard to find tillable land that is not already tilled", and moreover,

From abroad we are accustomed to believing that the Arabs are all desert savages, like donkeys, who neither see nor understand what goes on around them. But this is a big mistake... The Arabs, and especially those in the cities, understand our deeds and our desires in Eretz Israel, but they keep quiet and pretend not to understand, since they do not see our present activities as a threat to their future... However, if the time comes when the life of our people in Eretz Israel develops to the point of encroaching upon the native population, they will not easily yield their place.

Not to mention the creation of organisations such as Irgun, Haganah, and Lehi (AKA the Stern Gang ) who felt sufficiently strongly about having their own state that they would kill those that got in their way - including Arabs, the British and even UN ambassadors trying to sort things out...!

In the final analysis, the creation of the Jewish State of Israel was by definition a violent wresting of land from its rightful occupiers in a racially discriminatory manner by outsiders.

Would you sit idly by while strangers from overseas seek to subvert your freedoms by sheer weight of numbers? I doubt it.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by MOBIUS


I would suggest the problems had already started before 1948...

they were far more managable prior to that point. The 1948 war resulted in the huge palestinian refugee problem.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


Help me with this because I agree Israel does need to pull back to mandated borders. Why do you beleive this will help bring about peace in light of teh response that occurred laterly. Israel pulls out of gaza, enemies response is to make it a terrorist raingin ground with incursions. Israel pulls military presence out of southern Lebanon in 2000 with the expectation that UN resolutions would hold sway only to find it emboldened Hezb and led to further attacks.

How does Israel pull back to mandated borders wihtout it giving fuel to Hezb. and others misguided sense of victory that leads to further misery?

That is my question as well.

I read an article yesterday though that indicates that this "war" was provoked on ANYTHING other than Israel's terms. The view was that Israel's response was entirely predictable and was in fact predicted by the combatants in Southern Lebanon.

According to this columnist, Israel faced the terrible choice of sitting still while the rockets rained in or attacking when the enemy combatants have INTENTIONALLY sited themselves closely within the civilian population

[Flubber]

Originally posted by MOBIUS


Strangely enough, despite apparently targeting civilians hizbullah have actually killed more IDF than civilians (Israel's confirmed death toll so far in three weeks of asymmetric conflict is 58 soldiers and 34 civilians. The Times, today)

Whereas Israel has apparently killed over 900 civilians, at least a third of which are children - indeed if you believe Israel's account of hizb killed by its forces (around 300. Probably inflated for face saving/propaganda reasons), it is killing roughly one child for every hizb killed.

If you believe Lebanese sources the ratio is about 3 children for every hizb.

This means that Israel has killed ten times as many children as hizb has killed civilians, and thirty times as many civilians...

I put it to you. Who are the real terrorists? Or at least the terrorists most effective at killing civilians?

Strawman argument really.

Its impossible to make such a comparison between a modern very powerful military force that is attacking and on the offensive against an enemy that is entrenced and entwined among a civilian population.

Do you blame the party that fires from inside a schoolhouse or the party that turns said schoolhouse to rubble?

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Help me with this because I agree Israel does need to pull back to mandated borders. Why do you beleive this will help bring about peace in light of teh response that occurred laterly. Israel pulls out of gaza, enemies response is to make it a terrorist raingin ground with incursions. Israel pulls military presence out of southern Lebanon in 2000 with the expectation that UN resolutions would hold sway only to find it emboldened Hezb and led to further attacks.

Because you are only looking at specific actions.

For example, at the same time Israel pulled out of its illegal occupation of Gaza, it was carrying out illegal assassinations (often with dire consequences for innocent civilians!) and busily erecting its infamous wall dividing Palestinian communities and farmers from their land. Also it remains in the West Bank.

Hence Israel's enemies still have their justification for continuing the resistance...

How does Israel pull back to mandated borders wihtout it giving fuel to Hezb. and others misguided sense of victory that leads to further misery?

Well if Israel pulls out of South Lebanon (including the Shebaa Farms), hezb ceases to have its raison d'etre and should in theory lay down its arms. In theory.

But the point is if you take away a person's reason for being angry, usually they would far rather just get on with their lives peacefully.

The bottom line is that Israel is in contravention of loads of UN resolutions every day - how then should it expect the opposition to abide by resolutions affecting them?

Israel needs to return to its borders and concentrate on supporting the strengthening of the Palestinian Authority and the Lebanon Government so that they can look after their own internal affairs. I always did find it a bit rich that Israel would expect the PA to keep a lid on Hamas et al, while at the same time bombing the PA's police stations and security apparatus...

It's not like Fatah and Hamas see eye to eye after all, but when Fatah was in power they were never going to risk going after Hamas on an equal footing and risk a civil war - same with Lebanon and hezb...

The irony is that now these states have become democracies, all Israel has done is get Hamas elected because of their draconian 'tactics'. How well will Hezb do in the next elections I wonder...?

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Geronimo


they were far more managable prior to that point. The 1948 war resulted in the huge palestinian refugee problem.

As a direct result of zionism's stated aims of creating a Jewish state on previously Arab land!

What would you do if you were suddenly threatened with being made a second class citizen because foreigners were taking over your country?

[atawa]

Originally posted by Geronimo
You didn't specify gaza earlier. You simply suggested that the site was off limits to hamas members which it is not.

Hamas members usualy come from either Gaza or the west bank.

The value to the jews was in the site more than the building. The buildings are mourned but the site remained the only location of divinely mandated significance.

I fully agree that people of any religion should have acces to the temple mount, but off course not in the mosque itself.

Also if westerners got pissed off in some nasty ww3 and built a big honking cathedral on the ruins of the destroyed Kaaba it would never become appropriate to bar muslims from completing the hajj no matter how many centuries the crime would recede into the past.

This has been normal practice at least since christianity spread throughout western europe. Early churches were often build on celtic/germanic religious sites.

It is impossible to remove the significance of a religious site simply by putting a building dedicated to a competing religion on the site.

The main reason these buildings are constructed, showing the people whose god is boss.

[germanos]

When asked about criticism from European capitals of Israeli military operations that have led to a heavy civilian toll, Olmert said: "Where do they get the right to preach to Israel?

"European countries attacked Kosovo and killed 10,000 civilians. 10,000! And none of these countries had to suffer before that from a single rocket.

The figure of 10.000 is new to me.

Apparently even the Milosevic goverment didn't make such exegerated claims.

http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/02/nato207.htm

Olmert

[Flubber]

Originally posted by MOBIUS



Well if Israel pulls out of South Lebanon (including the Shebaa Farms), hezb ceases to have its raison d'etre and should in theory lay down its arms. In theory.

But the point is if you take away a person's reason for being angry, usually they would far rather just get on with their lives peacefully.

Hmm-- you do realize that many people find the mere existence of Israel as a "reason to be angry"

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Flubber



That is my question as well.

I read an article yesterday though that indicates that this "war" was provoked on ANYTHING other than Israel's terms. The view was that Israel's response was entirely predictable and was in fact predicted by the combatants in Southern Lebanon.

According to this columnist, Israel faced the terrible choice of sitting still while the rockets rained in or attacking when the enemy combatants have INTENTIONALLY sited themselves closely within the civilian population

I suggest you recheck the sequence of events...

Hezb kidnapped the soldiers and fired some rockets probably for a number of reasons. My favoured two would be support for the beleaguered Palestinians after they kidnapped a soldier after a series of dubious Israel assassination strikes went wrong killing upwards of a couple of dozen civilians in several separate incidents. Or to derail the summit where Iran's nuclear situation was to be discussed (complete success).

What you have to put into perspective was that this incident was similar to many since the creation of hezb. The difference is that hezb did not start raining down massive numbers of rockets on Israel until after Israel bagan bombing the crap out of Lebanese civilian targets (airports, roads, bridges etc etc...).

Israel escalated this into the FUBAR it is now by its totally disproportionate response! Why didn't they just take out a few limited hezb targets that they were 100% certain of hitting or something more measured like that instead?

Just like Israel blamed the civilians for being killed in Qana, Israel brought the massive rocket barrage on itself!

As for intentional siting within civilian populations - what about the number of highly publicised successful raids by commandos in recent days? Unless that is just Israeli propaganda...

[Kuciwalker]

This has been normal practice at least since christianity spread throughout western europe. Early churches were often build on celtic/germanic religious sites.

Do churches kick out people who believe in those religions?

[atawa]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

This has been normal practice at least since christianity spread throughout western europe. Early churches were often build on celtic/germanic religious sites.

Do churches kick out people who believe in those religions?

They would if those people practiced their religion on church grounds

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by Lonestar
The difference being, of course, is that the Dr. Pepper company didn't fire rockets into Northern Mexico from Texas, Mexico retaliated, and the then the United States went whing to the UN when they couldn't countrol their country.

No, but the companies occupying the WTC and the Pentagon helped prop up nasty dictatorships around the world for fun and profit, which means that a lot of people died and or were tortored.

If you justify the slaughter of Lebanese civilians for their inability to disarm Hizbollah, then you justify the slaghter of Americans for their faliure to stop their government from propping up dicatorships, etc.

Wow, I must have missed the part where I posted "I cheefully support the slaughter of Lebanese civilians". I believe what I said was along the lines of "every legitimate target in Lebanon is fair game". Israel is at war with the country of Lebanon, because Lebanon will not make the effort to control their own country. Therefore, Bridges, Powerplants, etc become fair game.

Israel follows the "effects based operations" docrtine(like the UNited States) of war, where picking out specific targets maximises the effect on the opposition's warmaking abilities. The intent is to bring Lebanon to it's knees (or at least have it go "you know what? knock yourself out. retaliate against the guys firing missiles willy-nilly into civilian cities) with a minimal of civilian casulties, not to inflict the most possible.

That there are going to inevitably be civilian casualties because Hezbollah follow's Mao's dictum about disappearing into a sea of fish seems to go over your head.

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Flubber
Strawman argument really.

Its impossible to make such a comparison between a modern very powerful military force that is attacking and on the offensive against an enemy that is entrenced and entwined among a civilian population.

Not really. One is a terrorist organisation that is killing more soldiers than it is killing civilians - the other is supposedly acting in righteous self-defence despite killing a vastly disproportionate amount of civilians to combatants. Even the US isn't so profligate with innocent life!

Do you blame the party that fires from inside a schoolhouse or the party that turns said schoolhouse to rubble?

Both. Obviously.

But recently Israel is demonstrating what it should have been doing all along - see my last post.

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Flubber


Hmm-- you do realize that many people find the mere existence of Israel as a "reason to be angry"

Yes, but if you take away as many of those reasons as possible - you are left with a small minority of extremists whose effectiveness would be severely limited...