Israel vs Lebanon: Deliberate Targetting of UN Positions, Red Cross?

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There is some difference. The Jews were moving into their own homeland. The Palestinians were moving from their own homeland into lands occupied by people more similar and agreeable than the current rulers of their land. The comparison is a bit flawed.

There's about as much ground to prove that hypothetical claim as to blame Palestinians for their own fate, yeah.

They have also formed various unofficial groups with various unofficial ties since time immemorial. Think how the state of Israel formed in 1948. Also think about Folke Bernadotte, for instance. It's not just the Palestinians who are fans of urban guerilla.

 

Yes, but in the past 20 years they've had nothing but terrorist attacks against their country. I remember my classics teacher giving me a simple phrase "Don't poke the bear." in other words it's not exactly the wisest path of action to continue to irritate a very powerful opponent, especially one that is being supplied by the most technologically advanced country in the world - the USA.

Israel has done what any country should do in its situation. Defend itself. If attacks are coming from one direction you throw all your force in that direction till the attacks stop. Simple yet effective.

 

Really effective, the attacks has simply ceased...

 

But Israel is bombarding civilian convoys. Nobody can say killing civilians is war. They ( Israel and USA) think Middle East is theirs and they can do whatever they want. The kidnapped soldier and Hezbollah aren't the real reasons of that war. After September 11, Bush mentioned "a new crusade" and it is the real reason.

 

of course it is, you people seem to think that in war the enemy is the guys with the guns. its not, the people are the blood supply of an enemy, they pay their taxes, run the businesses, work in the factories which produce guns and trade products...
to bring down an enemy you need to cut off all of their resources, destroy their infrastructure and kill its people..
it is the ONLY tactic ever been proven to work in war.

 

Thats not really a valid argument, considering the last time it was under jewish rule was approximately 132CE

Could be better if the suggestion of the lebanse prime-minister + 2 serving hezbollah mnisters was lisstened to.(given above)
Occupied lebanse land consists of 10km square

 

If the victims are Westerners and Christians, it is terrorism and barbarism; but if the victims are Easterners and Muslims, it is a war tactic. This has a name: double standard

 

10 square kilometers can be a serious enough issue for war. To the best of my knowledge, the farms are actually Syrian, not Lebanese. There is also the matter of prisoners within Israel, which I am not so familiar with. However, if these people are to be prisoners, it makes relatively little difference where they are imprisoned in. Sure, they may be freed in some years - but if their crimes did not merit death in the first place, both 12 and 15 years (for example) in jail is nothing to laugh at. And if there are people imprisoned as minors, as some Palestinians allege, that shouldn't be allowed in the first place.

Shoshino, I hope that you were just trolling, and didn't mean what you said. If you think the only way to win war is genocide and annihilation, I can't agree with that. And that is basically what your last sentence amounts to. First of all, no war has ever produced such complete devastation, as far as I know - certainly none that lasted less than years. What you advocate is actually not just completely inhumane, but next to impossible: to destroy a state and people so completely has not been possible in any limited time frame. Even limited attempts to do so have failed. The Nazis tried something like it in Russia, the Japanese in China. The USSR tried it in Afghanistan. The USA tried it, on a slightly more limited scale, in Vietnam. They all failed. You can defeat, and kill, many, but if the survivors are that embittered, you will soon face more resistance. One of the reasons Hezbollah was created in the 1980's is to resist the Israeli intervention. So afterwards you just have more bloodshed. I suppose the Israeli army is too worried because of its numerical inferiority to respond in any other way but in full force. Just bait it a little - and they escalate it out of every proportion.

And if you can not destroy an enemy, it is better not to humiliate them too deeply and allow them to recover. Cases in point - Germany after WWI and WWII. If the Israeli leave Lebanon as it is now, even if every Hezbollah member is killed, there will be enough people willing to take arms and risk their lives to recreate it. If every Lebanese is killed, there will be enough Arabs willing to make them martyrs. If there was no other way but every Arab to be killed... You know, then it would be better to kill every Jew instead. How are their lives any more valuable?

[ July 30, 2006, 21:11: Message edited by: The Shaman ]

 

The point is, why there was no alternative exactly? The Israeli choose to make way for the jewish refugees and embrace them into their society. The arabs choose to keep the arab refugees in camps, so they could put further pressure on the state of Israel.

I fail to see any diference here. Both groups were moving from what was their original homeland into, as you say, lands occupied by people more similar and agreeable to them. I am pretty sure that for the israeli living in Jordan, Jordan was their homeland as much as was Israel for the arabs living there.

 

"Arab" isn't a simple ethnicity. For over 2 millennia the Middle East has had an influx of differing groups of people settle the land. To expect the Arabs to all be brethren would be like expecting Catholic French to except Catholic Italians into France if they where kicked out of Italy for some reason. The Quran tells Muslims they must help other Muslims, just like the Bible tells Christians to help other Christians, but a Palastinian Muslim is not the same as a Jordanian Muslim and not all Palastinians are Muslims for that matter. Christian Palastinians are treated like any other Arab by the Jews, but the Muslim Arabs don't consider Christian Arabs their own.

Also no one wants to simply leave their homeland if they were basically forced out. The Arab Jews fled to Israel seeking shelter, the Arab Muslims on the other hand did not want to leave Israel, they still consider "Palastine" to be their homeland.

 

i never said genocide, i just said targeting its people, thats how world war 2 ended in both the pacific and european fronts.

 

The thing is, in those cases the government felt responsible for the plight of the people, and capitulated in order to spare them greater suffering (at least in the case of Japan, I think Germany went to the end). In Lebanon, I don't think Hezbollah cares very much about the suffering of the civilians; on the contrary, they regard every civilian death as more ammunition for their propaganda machine.

This is the problem with what's happening in Lebanon right now. Is all well and good to say let's go in and destroy Hezbollah, but if you have to kill 10 civilians for one terrorist, I kind of doubt you'll come out ahead.

well, they left it, willingly or not (and one could make a good case that is was willingly), and 40 years later its kind of pointless to hope for a return to Israel. To say nothing of the fact that probably by now the majority of the people in camps were born outside of Israel proper. One can emphasize with the plight of the refugees, but how long is going to take till they give up on their grievances and start a new life?

 

Yes, US tried nuclear weapons on the people of a nearly surrendered country. It was a humiliating thing for humanity, but now it is off topic. Kill a dozen of people and you are a terrorist, kill thousands of people and you are an applier of a war tactic and a hero for ending a war.

Hezbollah cares more than Israel about civilians,that's sure.

 

how is it humilating? thats life, human nature, you have to choose if your friend will die or 2 strangers.. i know i would choose the 2 strangers. when i was a soldier, i was paid and bound by pride and loyalty to protect the people of this country, britain.. everyone else be damned, if i could end a war resulting in a million civillians dieing in the warzone as opposed to 1000 british troops, the million civvies would meet their maker

whats humiliating right now is the fact that they could steam roller lebanon and palestine but dont because they know that the meddeling international community who make themselves feel gratified by complaining about humanrights attrocities abroad while their own countries are in decline would bitch and moan like some sad 10 yearold trying to have a period.

 

@Shoshino: So, if somebody kills every British people one day, you won't have the right to say anything as far as you think in this way. And if you think the lives of 1000 British troops are more valuable than a million civilians; somebody other can say a random person is more valuable than all of your country and will destroy it.

You can easily say such things when you think you are strong, but nobody can remain strong forever; so try to think how would you feel when strongers are killing you for small profits. You say the jungle rules are the correct ones and strongs can do everything to weak ones. But uncontrolled power will ruin its user, like Hitler.

 

Yet how did the Allies defeat Hitler? Israel wants these attacks on its country to stop, they haven't, so they're moving in with force to put a stop to them _for good_. If this country cared about its own damn civilians they'd stop having ties to the terrorist organisations that are attacking Israel. Israel has a duty to its own people, to protect them.

That's how the world is. There's "us" and there's "them". If these countries cared about their own people they'd give in to the demands because they're obviously in a war they're never going to win.

Much like how you wouldn't hit somebody larger than you are then cry foul when they thump you back, harder than you hit them, a small, weak country should not take stabs at a stronger one.

 

Too much hate, it doesn't matter who's right anymore. Blinded with fury, there is no logic or reason, they'll keep going at each other till one side is completely obliterated. It never stops.

 

How'd that work out back in '82?

Oh, that's right...

 

Hezbollah and the Likkid (sp?) Party only want one solution to this conflict and that is the complete and utter annihilation of the otherside. Peace is the last thing they want, because if peace was achieved how would they achieve their goals? This is basically like a war between demons and devils with a lot of innocents caught on the battlefield.