The New Catastrophe in Gaza

And you are leaving out the fact that those non-jewish Arabs are not allowed to serve in government and don't get equal representation in court.

There are certainly many Palestinians who feel that way but there are a lot of reasons for that. Israel forced many of them to leave, and most of the Palestinians who died at the hands of Israel were not terrorists. The Palestinians feel like they are the victims of Israeli terrorism. Israel will have to own that if they want peace.

 

same thing in the US if i moved to the US i wouldnt be able to serve in government for many years and if ive read correctly in the past, in some stated foreigners have not been entitled to a court appointed lawyer.

you ever stop to think that maybe israel doesnt want peace anymore then the arabs do? its a different world out there. as was said earlier in the thread isralie people go about their lives everyday without fearing terrorism anymore then a car accident. so it makes you wonder if israel gives a damn whether the attacks stop or not after all, theres plenty more recruits for their army out there, and arab attacks make a good excuse to blow up a load of arabs.

well, thats natural, how many civillians have the coalition killed in iraq, probably more then saddam ever killed in his life. but its the way of humanity - "you touch me and i'll break your nose" ever heared the saying "dont try it, i'll hit you back 10 times as hard"?

 

The palestinians in question aren't foreigners. They've lived there all their lives. Israel's hand was eventually forced and they have finally (after a lot of UN pressure) given them some limited capacity for government service, but they have by no means an equal footing. One of the main complaints palestinians have now is that the legal system also treats them differently. In Israel, one of the best ways to lose your case is to be a Palestinian or hire a Palestinian lawyer. The inequity is substantial enough that complaints about it that even the UN has complained about it. I'm sure that it'll get ironed out eventually, but the memory of the mistreatment will last a long time adn the damage it has wrought will not go away overnight. It doesn't help Israel's case that the steps they've taken to grant Palestinians more equal footing have not been made willingly, either. In many cases, they were dragged kicking and screaming by the UN, something of which the Palestinians both inside and outside of Israel are most certainly aware.

I bring all this up because I constantly hear the criticism that diplomacy keeps failing. The bottom line, here, is that Palestine has legitimate grievances against Israel. Israel has some legitimate grievances against Palestine, too, but fails to consider that its actions in retaliation to individual Palestinian terrorists or terror cells are actually turning Palestine into the perfect breeding ground for terrorism in much the same way as we are now doing with Iraq. Violence only begets violence where terrorism is concerned. We have never violently solved terrorism (unless genocide counts as "solving" it)and never will.

[ July 19, 2006, 12:03: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

"well, thats natural, how many civillians have the coalition killed in iraq, probably more then saddam ever killed in his life. but its the way of humanity - "you touch me and i'll break your nose" ever heared the saying "dont try it, i'll hit you back 10 times as hard"?"

I must disagree. This is certainly a policy of "overreaction" that Israel adopts, but when it includes people that are in no way related to the perpetrators of a crime, this is not only unfair; this is terrorism of the highest degree. In a way, you hold an entire peoples hostage, as the Israeli artillery and air force can attack with a virtual impunity. Germany had a policy like that in WWII, killing entire villages in retribution for its administrators killed by allied commandos, and this policy was among those condemned as a war crime. What Israel is doing differs in terms of proportion only. Where do we draw the line? 10 civilians for a killed soldier? 100? 500?

As long as Israel practices such policies, and there are living Palestinians, there will be those willing to take up arms. And as long as it ruins an entire state for the sake of several soldiers kidnapped by a fringe group, bandit gang, or what have you, every Arab country will view it as a threat.

Before the 1970's, Lebanon was one of the most prosperous countries in the Near East, a financial center, and a tourist attraction. While it was far from a perfect democracy, overall it managed to contain what would eventually prove a very explosive mixture: the two Islamic groups and a large Maronite Christian minority. Lebanon could, with a lot of effort, become a symbol for reconciliation. Sure, a lot of that effort should come from Lebanon itself, but all of its neighbors must participate as well. IMO, the first thing that needs to happen is that the country be returned to normalcy, if not prosperity. People who have something to lose are not so eager to die, after all. Unfortunately, Israel intentionally targets power plants, fuel stores, and even factories - the basis of the economic recovery and reconstruction. This is, put mildly, neither wise nor humane. How are we, much less the Lebanese, supposed to believe that this is only against Hezbollah, when no more than 5% of all Lebanese casualties are members of the group, and when the war impacts so brutally the entire economy of the nation? Hezbollah doesn't need shops or farms to survive; it is the peaceful people who can't earn money by crime or violence that do.

Edit: and if anyone could please explain why Israel would bomb barracks of the Lebanese army (not Hezbollah), the same army it wanted to patrol the border between the two countries, I'd be very grateful.

[ July 19, 2006, 14:28: Message edited by: The Shaman ]

 

for arab militants (I wouldn't say arabs, but militants, specifically hamas and hizbullah, are driving the arab side of this episode), the ultimate goal is the destruction of israel. for israelis (except for a minority), the only thing that could potentially be gained from war is a slightly larger portion of the west bank, due to a unilateral rather than bilateral re-drawing of boundaries, and perhaps the establishment of an uninhabited buffer zone to the north. remember: that 1) even israeli hawks expect to withdraw from most of the west bank, and 2) both attacks, by hamas and hizbullah, happened across UN recognized borders.

??? here you would be comparing the lancet study, which 1) covers everyone who potentially died in the conflict, regardless of which side, and 2) makes assumptions on people who might have died had they had better medical care by not being in a war zone. but hey, why not add in the half a million children that supposedly died due to the sanctions before the invasion as well. that will really get the body count up. and if you used these methods for saddam, you'd be way over 2 million, not only including massacres of kurds, shia, non-complient sunnis, marsh arabs, etc, but also the lancet figures as well (he was there too, so wasn't he responsible), all the deaths from the Iran-Iraq war (over 1.5 million right there), etc...

if the point is that iraq has been a bungled misadventure with tragic results, I would fully agree, but that statement seemed a bit over the top...

 

If Israel has no interest in more territory what about all the settlements? What about water, water is important and a lot of the warrior in the region comes from the area around the westbank. Israel arent too keen on letting go of that.

 

...i guess Freud was right.

 

well, I meant territory outside of 1967 borders plus whatever they can get away with in the west bank. I seriously doubt Israel has any interest in resettling Gaza and occupying southern lebanon. while this still seems to me a gross over-reaction by the israelis, they can at least say this time they are defending internationally recognized borders, not occupied territory...

 

Hmm, I just heard today on the news that supporting Hezbollah in Australia is illegal (some Lebanese-Australians brought a Hezbollah flag to a rally - apparently they can get jailed for 25 years (that's basically Australia's highest sentence) for doing that). I love freedom of speech...

I would support them a lot more whole-heartedly if they stopped randomly firing rockets into Israeli cities - but then, I can also see how fully justified doing that must seem to them.

(Edit: Hmm, I think I'm being too light on Hezbollah here. I do think that they should disarm and all that at some point in time (right now it obviously isn't going to happen, and I'm not even sure that it should - they have the right to defend themselves), and they do carry out actions which I in no way support. So yeah - they suck. They just suck significantly less than Israel)

I wonder when Israel is going to do something effective against Hezbollah. Yes - they've been bombing the country for nearly a week now - but I really doubt they've done anything more than help them with a recruitment drive. When are they going to send in ground troops - which is what they need to send in to actually achieve anything (and seriously send in ground troops - not those little cross-border raids they did today).

Any why hasn't Lebanon declared war? I don't quite understand how you can have your country bombed for 6 days and not be at war - especially when some of the targets are your military. Is there some advantage in enduring this? It seems a bit ... weak, to say the least - and their attempts at diplomacy and cease-fires have already been slapped down by the US. Why aren't they retaliating?

[ July 20, 2006, 13:24: Message edited by: Aikanaro ]

 

umm, because (according to fifa rankings or whatever) israel has the fourth or fifth most powerful army in the world. that's a bit of a deterant. and while I doubt any lebanese is happy with israel tearing up their country, there's also a sense that hizbullah is severely problematic, forming a quasi-government in the south, supporting syrian meddling in lebanese affairs, and acting on it's own without government sanction.

 

Former Man of the Year Newt Gingrich writes:

Nice moral judgement from the man that discusses divorce terms with his wife while she recovering from cancer and an operation in hospital.

 

Because the 1983 israeli-lebaneze peace treaty was abrogated in 1984, therefore technically Israel and Lebanon have been in a state of war since 1982.

 

I would guess at least one of the major objectives of Israel's bombing campaign is to severely reduce Hezbollah's military capacity; then one could folow with some peace agreement which will require that Hezbollah is fully disarmed, and hope that the Lebanese government/army (or some international peace force) can do it right this time.

How sucessful will they be... I do not know.

 

Unlikely, really, since the Lebanese army was hit about as hard as the Hezbollah groups... I just hope the Israeli come to reason. I really wonder... isn't there one newspaper there that does not support the offensive? Because if there is, we don't hear about it.

 

What I was trying to say is that by bombing them first, Israel might try to weaken Hezbollah's power enough that the Lebanon government will actually be able to take care of them afterwards. Note that I am giving the Lebanese govt. the benefit of the doubt, and assume that they were not able to follow UN resolution 1559 and disarm Hezbollah, rather that they were unwilling to.

(and really, I think most lebanese would love it to be able to get rid of Syria-backed Hezbollah. Nobody should like having such a powerful paramilitary group in their country).

 

Bombing Lebanese military installations and infrastructure doesnt exactly give me the idea of Israel's attempt to somehow empower Lebanon in such a way that it can dismantle the Hizbollah. Nor do hundreds of dead civilians.
Personally I smell scorched earth. But then I dont see anything resembling sanity in the near east often enough to expect constructive efforts. Yah, I am strange like that.

 

Has U.N. resolution ever been worth the paper it was written on?

I keep wondering what Israel's strategy is. They know that Hezbollah is their mortal enemy and that it is fronted by Syria and Iran. The only way to stop them would be to stop Syria and Iran. However, I don't think they have the horses to take them both on, nor do I think they have the will.