World War 3

If Israel needs to invade a radical and violent part of its neighbouring country to rescue its citizens and soldiers then so be it. if they will not give up the soldiers any other way.

Agreed -- but do they need to target civilians and civilian infrastructure in order to rescue their people and protect their citizens?  I think it's clear that the Israelis here are motivated at least in part by a desire not only to defend but also to punish.

If Israel needs to invade a radical and violent part of its neighbouring country to rescue its citizens

Um I think they've moved on to phase II - level the whole of Lebanon and everything in it....

Um I think they've moved on to phase II - level the whole of Lebanon and everything in it....

Completely misguided.

Lebanon is threatening to move against Israel if they do not halt, even though Israel is setting up humane stations for the civilians of the war in which the UN will help supervise and manage.

even though Israel is setting up humane stations for the civilians of the war in which the UN will help supervise and manage.

That's easy enough for them if they can guarantee that no civilians make it to the stations.

It would be easier for Israel to not harm civillians if Hezbollah didnt deliberetly put its rocket launching posts in the middle of crowded civillian locas.
Hezbollah understand the propaganda value of dead innconcents frustratingly well.
An enraged and sickened
Cinlef

It would be easier for Israel to not harm civillians if Hezbollah didnt deliberetly put its rocket launching posts in the middle of crowded civillian locas.

Same thing in the Gulf War.  Saddam put his anti aircraft positions on top of hospitals and schools.

Hezbollah understand the propaganda value of dead innconcents frustratingly well.

I was in the car listening to the news, and the reports from one of the "unconfirmable sources" was that one of the "weapons stockpiles" Isreal attacked was a unfinished mosque.  

The fist thing I thought was, isn't that convienient, stupid propaganda.

It would be easier for Israel to not harm civillians if Hezbollah didnt deliberetly put its rocket launching posts in the middle of crowded civillian locas.

Are you saying that Hezbollah has been, since before the initial Israeli attack, launching rockets at Israel from positions within Beirut itself?  I was not aware of this.

Believe me, I understand that terrorists use civilians and UN offices as shields.  I don't think that in general that justifies ploughing through those shields.

Before this all began, I was happily holding Israelis to higher standards than their neighbors... I'm not sure that I can do that anymore.

the

If Israel released prisoners in exchange for soldies doesn't that send the message if you have a demand for the Israeli government kidnap people and you get results?WHich would certainly lead to more kidnappings.
The Israeli government (like all govs in the world) primarily responsability is to proctect ITS CITIZENS. This responsability takes precadence over minimizing civilian casualties among citizens of other countries. Thus they are taking whatever actions they feel appropriate to safequard their citizens.Whether these actions ARE most likely to safequard their citizens is no doubt open to debate. However giving into Hezbollahs demands isnt an option because it will merely lead to more kidnapping and rocket attacks.
An enraged
Cinlef

maybe...

If Israel released prisoners in exchange for soldies doesn't that send the message if you have a demand for the Israeli government kidnap people and you get results?WHich would certainly lead to more kidnappings.

It would... but holding the prisoners sends the message that Israel can arrest anybody they feel like and hold them indefinitely with impunity.

I'm not saying I agree that that's what Israel is doing -- I'm just saying that this isn't a good refutation of Dionysios' argument.

The Israeli government (like all govs in the world) primarily responsability is to proctect ITS CITIZENS. This responsability takes precadence over minimizing civilian casualties among citizens of other countries. Thus they are taking whatever actions they feel appropriate to safequard their citizens.

Maybe Hizbollah is taking whatever actions it deems necessary for protecting what they consider the people under their protection?

I think that if we want to figure out who's in the right in this conflict (if anybody can be said to be so) it would be futile to focus on these sort of "symmetric" wrongs committed by the two sides.

Quote from: "Cinlef"

If Israel released prisoners in exchange for soldies doesn't that send the message if you have a demand for the Israeli government kidnap people and you get results?WHich would certainly lead to more kidnappings.

It would... but holding the prisoners sends the message that Israel can arrest anybody they feel like and hold them indefinitely with impunity.

I'm not saying I agree that that's what Israel is doing -- I'm just saying that this isn't a good refutation of Dionysios' argument.
.

But Hezbollah oculd have excercised other options to free the prisoners like say attacking the prisons.
An irate
Cinlef

But Hezbollah oculd have excercised other options to free the prisoners like say attacking the prisons.

I'm not sure where you're going with that, but it's clear that Hizbollah is not the sort of organization that can pull of something like that on its own, and it knows it.  That's why terrorist organizations employ terrorism -- because they know they are too weak to employ conventional violence.

My point is that Hezbollah doesnt want to free the prisoners its wants to destroy Israel. THats why it engeneere a scenario where it gets to loudly demand the prisoners be freed knowing full well the Israelis wont free them thus gaining valuable propaganda points and anti-Semitism in the region and carry on unprovoked attacks while lloking like noble defenders of the oppressed. As an added bonus it gets the fledgling Lebanese democracy destroyed before it had a chance to become idenpendent of Hezbollahs Syrian backers. The Israelis may even invade thus allowing Hezbollah to continue to justify its existence on the pretence its resisting Israeli occupation (which was getting questioned since Israel had pulled out of Lebanon 6 years ago) thus stopping too many poeple for realizing its little more than a frontman/5th column for Syria/Iran.
If it really was filled with patriotic freedom fighters rather than abduct soldier it would have attacked the prisons it claims to want to liberate with its considerable military resources (missles troops etc)
An enraged
Cinlef

My point is that Hezbollah doesnt want to free the prisoners its wants to destroy Israel.

That's a good point.  I don't think that the fact that they didn't attack the prisons is evidence that that's they're goal, however.

Good evidence is more along the lines of explicit proclamations of their desire to destroy Israel.

THats why it engeneere a scenario where it gets to loudly demand the prisoners be freed knowing full well the Israelis wont free them thus gaining valuable propaganda points and anti-Semitism in the region and carry on unprovoked attacks while lloking like noble defenders of the oppressed.

Politics is sickening, isn't it.

If it really was filled with patriotic freedom fighters rather than abduct soldier it would have attacked the prisons it claims to want to liberate with its considerable military resources (missles troops etc)

Maybe.  I highly doubt it -- America would immediately come to the Israeli's aid if Hizbollah invaded in force.

Well it depends alot of the prisons themselves but a commando raid might be able to free a large number of prisoners. As well as many ither possible actions
An enraged
Cinlef

the

The basis of the violence is the prisoners held by both sides.

Certainly that's the currently convenient excuse for violence... I think it's far from being the basis though.

Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac and Ishmael.
Had Abraham kept it in his pants, perhaps there'd be world peace today.


/facetiousness

the

The ONLY REASON Hizzbolah kidnapped the single digit number of people it has now is because ISRAEL FIRST KIDNAPPED THOUSANDS OF PALESTINIANS.

I agree with your recommendation that we ought not be one-sided in our use of prisoner-taking as justification for violence.

On the other hand, the quoted statement simply false.  The fact of the matter is that Lebanon and Israel are fighting over land claims, and that Hizbollah's goal is to push Israel as far back as possible.  They have taken and will continue to take whatever action they deem necessary to achieve that goal.

Kidnapping Israelis is just one way they think they can achieve that.  I think they don't really care about the prisoners, and just want an excuse to bring Syria and hopefully Iran in to back up their push into disputed territories.

Quote from: "Cinlef"

If Israel released prisoners in exchange for soldies doesn't that send the message if you have a demand for the Israeli government kidnap people and you get results?WHich would certainly lead to more kidnappings.

Blatant one sided racism.  Why is this racist not banned?

  The ONLY REASON Hizzbolah kidnapped the single digit number of people it has now is because ISRAEL FIRST KIDNAPPED THOUSANDS OF PALESTINIANS.  

  WE COULD EQUALLY CLAIM THAT RELEASING ISRAELI PRISONERS IN EXCHANGE FOR PALESTINIANS SENDS THE MESSAGE IF YOU HAVE A DEMAND FOR THE HIZZBOLAH THEN JUST KIDNAP PALESTINIANS AND YOU GET THE RESULT?  How is israel any different (other than the fact you are racist and condone murder)?

  Letting them go in correlation with Hizzbolah's release of israeli prisoners is fair.  It applies to both sides.  

HOW ELSE WILL THE VIOLENCE END?

THE ONLY CAUSE OF ALL THE VIOLENCE ON BOTH SIDES IS RACIST ONE SIDED MENTALITIES LIKE THAT OF CINLEF'S PREVAILING IN ISRAEL AND THE US GOVERNMENT.

- Dionysios

In a shocking twist I actually understand Dionysios point. First off I'd like to mention I never said I approve of Israels impriosning thousands of Palestinians. My point is twofold. The first is it is Hezbollah that upset the status quo (the status quo was far from ideal i know but bear with me a moment) because it was and is in a weaker position than Israel. As long as it is in a weaker position than Israel it is in hezbollahs interest to upset the status quo as much as posibble to even out their relative stregths. If Israel gives in to Hezbollah demands Hezbollah will realize that kidnapping Israeli soldiers is an effective status quo upsetting method and use if as often as posible. As for you sugestion that both sides simultaneously release all prisoners that is greatly to the benefit of Hezbollah as Hezbollah has 2 hosages and is demanding the release of many times that number of prisoners inexchange (which would oddly enought to appear to make Hezbolah rascist as that implies two Jewish soldiers are worth more than hundreds of Palesiainians).
I wont deny the cause of violence is one-sided mindsets but you forgot to mention Heabollahs one sided and publically stated goal (the destruction of Israel). Isn't your attitude at least as one sided as my own since you neglected to mention that (which is the proximate cause of the current conflict)?
An completly anti-Israel attitude is just as prejudiced stupid and and racist as a completly pro Israeli attitude
An enraged
Cinlef

the

the

At some point, I see Turkey becoming for however briefly a very powerful force in the future.  I imagine the possibility that secularized muslim Turkey could emerge from a world war as the dominant muslim country in the world.  I believe the forces of modernity would greatly desire to see Turkey rather than religious Iran as the most powerful muslim country.

  The greatest jewish false messiah of the modern age was "shabbetai tzvi" who had jewish adherents from throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Near East in the 1660's.  He lost many followers after forced conversion to islam by the Turkish Sultan.  However, his followers in Europe converted to catholicism bu continued to follow his teachiongs secretly.  There were known after the leader of tzvi's Polish followers, Jacob Frank and were called Frankists.  In Ottoman muslim lands, they were called Donmeh.  This information is available from most jewish history sources.  

  I later discovered from Greek scholars on Turkish history who knew nothing of these details of jewish history that a small clique in Turkey controls all the top posts in the military, government, media, and corporate finance.  And this small and most powerful of all groups in Turkey is called the Donmeh.  Kemal Ataturk was one of their number.  And the chief division in Turkish politics these days is between traditional muslims and the secular Kemalists who have generally had control of the military and the upper hand if not the majority.  

  Turkey is the state of israel's closest muslim ally.  Syria and Greece are politically enemies of the Turks (unless you are talking about the tyrannical pro-american junts of 1967-1974).  Actually, Iran is vying with the US for Turkish favor.  

  The founder of the Hellenic resistance to Ottoman occupation of Greece in the 1700's which  led to the Greek War of Independence in the 1820's was a monk named Cosmas of Aetolia.  He prophesied that after the Greeks had acheived Independence, Turkey would be great again, greater than ever before - even when they were at the gates of Vienna in the late 1600's.  They will attmept to devour Greece and in Greece's hour of darkness, Russia with an alliance of six other countries will invade Turkey.  This will be an excessively bloody world war between Russia and Turkey in which Turkey will cease to exist from the face of the earth forever.  The prophecy of Cosmas Aetolos is that turkish people will be divided into three parts:

1) a third of the turks will convert to the Orthodox Church
2) a third of the turks will die
3) a third of the turks will return to the lands of central asia from whence they originally migrated

  Greece will reacquire Constantinople and all of Sia Minor all the way to Iran will become Greek thus reviving the ancient Byzantine Empire.  There will be an Orthodox Christian  king born in Cyprus over this Empire named King John.  After his benign reign, every ruler will be progressively worse and worse until a certain Jewish king arises in Jerusalem who will allegedly set eveything aright.

  Nasser of Egpyt (Soviet backed), the most popular muslim leader of the twentieth century ran the Greeks and other europeans out of Egyot in the 1960's, but he was still not a murderer like Kemal Ataturk who butchered the Greeks in 1922.  Nasser simply made life more difficult for non-muslims (except for Coptics) as well as for muslims he viewed as extremists like the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.    This was possibly connected to Nasser's friendship with Eisenhower.  (His pro-american successor Sadat did persecute Coptics and was hated by his own countrymen.  No wonder Sadat was assasinated)

  Assad of Syria, on the other hand, was far more tolerant than his counterpart in Egypt.  There is a huge non-muslim minority in Syria as the government of Assad never made life difficult for Syria's minorities the way that Nasser did.  Not surprisingly, america maligned the relatively more tolerant Assad.

  After the Mossad, the most horrible assasination network in the Near East was the SAVAK of Iran, which was created by the Mossad and the CIA in the mid-1950's after the americans reinstalled a puppet government in Iran after Mossadegh's brief ousting of foreign colonialist oil companies in 1953.  The Iranian king was a puppet of the west.  The SAVAK, which had murdered Robert Kennedy among other things, was abolished by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 after the Shah was overthrown.  

  As for HAMAS, I believe Arafat and his Fatah had long sice become the kind of Palestinians that israelis prefer to deal with.  I doubt HAMAS would have been allowed to win elections, if Mahmoud Abbas was not the Palestinian president.  He is a traitor and israel's ace in the hole.  He is clearly for disarming every Palestinian while he has no problem with israelis owning guns.  He has done nothing to protest the israeli bombings of Gaza or Lebanon.  He is clearly Arafat's successor, and perhaps worse.  With friends like him, who needs enemies?

  The Russians and the Chinese nominally support the Iranian president.  Earlier this year he sent Bush an as yet unanswered letter which contained proposals to work through the current melee of problems with an eye towards avoiding the breakout of war.  It was an effort to maintain peace, and it also gave his Russian and Chinese supporters something to work with.  Among other things in the letter, he had stated that in his most controversial statement that the state of israel should be removed from the map, he said in the letter to Bush that he did NOT mean that jews should be annihilated, but that the state of israel should be relocated to europe or america as it is a settler state created and dominated by european jews, a foreign force of occupation that does not have the right to the land of Palestine which belongs to the natives of Palestine.

  I have read that Putin has a different view of the situation than Bush does which is not surprising as Bush's view is to blame Hizzobolah as the cause of all the problems as an answer to israeli mass murders of palestinians in Gaza as well as Palestinians and Lebanese to the north.  The israelis are the ones doing the killing.  The israelis initiated the current round of killing.  Hizzbolah are the only ones brave enough to stand up to the israeli murderers.  The Hizzbolah are heroes who should be recognized and rewarded.  The Hizzbolah have a established a museum of israeli (and israeli surrogate SLA) in south Lebanon which is very good to visit and a testimony to israeli cruelty.  The record of this cruelty is recorded by British 'Independent' columnist Robert Fisk in his book 'Pity the Nation.'  Fisk is the most senior European columnist in the entire near east and has been based in Lebanon since the 1970's.  "pity the Nation' is a first hand account of the israeli-Lebanese war.

  The Bush position is one sided in favor of the israelis who have both initiated the killing and killed by far the most people.  As the israelis are always the cause of the killing and have EARNED countless numbers of enemies, the Iranian president's solution is the only one I can imagine that would bring peace by simply eliminating the cause of the problem.

- Dionysios

this smells like you pulled it from a pro-muslim extreamist website.

Oh wait, you did. Paraphrasing into your own words 4tw.

I'll spare you the embarassment of posting the link. Next time be more careful.

Quote from: "Erasmus"

Quote from: "Dionysios"

The ONLY REASON Hizzbolah kidnapped the single digit number of people it has now is because ISRAEL FIRST KIDNAPPED THOUSANDS OF PALESTINIANS.

On the other hand, the quoted statement simply false.  The fact of the matter is that Lebanon and Israel are fighting over land claims, and that Hizbollah's goal is to push Israel as far back as possible.  They have taken and will continue to take whatever action they deem necessary to achieve that goal.

Kidnapping Israelis is just one way they think they can achieve that.  I think they don't really care about the prisoners, and just want an excuse to bring Syria and hopefully Iran in to back up their push into disputed territories.

You are wrong as the quoted statement about israel continually holding large amounts of Palestinian political prisoners is indeed the reason for the CURRENT conflict.  That is what many Palestinian representatives as well as the Syrian Ambassador to the US have said on CNN.
HOW do you know otherwise other than your anti-islamic prejudice?

- Dionysios

One person's "terrorist guilty of killing or planning to kill people" is another's "political prisoner" I guess. And wasn't it the palestinians that moved in on Israel after it's founding, not the other way around?

Quote from: "jitterbug"

I don't walk around with a gun because I don't make it a habit to put myself in situations where I'm going to need one. America (and too many Americans) greatly underestimate the power of diplomacy and reason.

I completely agree. I live in the south where, just like Texas, everyone has a gun. i see no reason for this.

you can also say this on a larger scale by replacing guns with bombs.

i just don't see why anyone would mess with Israel. it has a large military power and powerful allies. it looks like with all that has happened in this portion of the world, some ppl might eventually clue in to the fact that we are tired of seeing things blow up. (unless of coarse we are doing it.)

the world is no longer a place that the sword rules all the time. you can't just kill your wife cause she disobeys and you can't kill other ppl cause they do not share your beliefs. Capturing soldiers and civilians alike, and bombing buildings are only going to draw attention to yourself long enough for a larger power to come destroy you. then you are back to living in caves with a few less family members.

you don't have to like the person next to you. you only have to tolerate the fact they believe something different than you.

while you are @ it you might want to start letting women vote and drive cars. you know treat EVERYONE equal. that is a different discussion though.

I'm sorry I missed this, but I almost take offense to this.

That is a sweeping generalization, sir, and I'd appreciate you not do it again.  I am from Texas.

OMg, thea real reason is that they tryed to deport Mel Gibson to Palestine and they wouldnt take him so he jumped the wall and started givin the Jews shit

If Israel gives in to Hezbollah demands Hezbollah will realize that kidnapping Israeli soldiers is an effective status quo upsetting method and use if as often as posible.

Don't you think that at this stage, Kidnapping Israeli soldiers has already been proven to be an effective way to disrupt the status quo? Don't you think that they've already benefitted from having done it? So what happens in response isn't really going to affect their decision a whole lot (unless they get completely wiped off the face of the Earth of course) in my opinion (only).
I understand your point about not setting a precedent for next time, but it seems to have already been set. Now (in my opinion) it's time to start looking at what will bring a halt to the immediate violence, so that diplomacy can commence.

I found it interesting to hear on the news (ABC - our equivelant of BBC; one of the less "influenced" news broadcasters) that they suspect Israel to launch their largest offensive yet in the coming days, before America tells them to stop.... Does this mean that America has already said "We will tell you to stop next week"? IF so, doesnt this mean they see what's happening and have judged it to be appropriate? Does this include bombing the UN outpost in Lebanon despite repeated calls to Israel to cease bombing that area? http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1697018.htm

I'm not launching an anti-america campaign in an unrelated thread, just saw this on the news, and wondered what you guys thought of it.

I'm finding this thread extremely interseting - a much better source of views from both sides than the media, who are either obviously pro-Israeli, or just as obviously anti-America and it's allies.
Thankyou all for the intelligent views you have been posting